Greetings All,
We have another episode of the Admirals ready to be transmitted. Its an excited episode as we talk about our thoughts on the best generic squad in the game. We also go on about Wave 11 X-Wing following the armada talk. Next episode we look forward to talking about Wave VI and our State of Armada topic.
http://www.thearmchairadventurers.com/therecordings/2017/4/13/armchair-admirals-episode-10
So what are your thoughts on the best generic squad in the game?
Oh it's a podcast....got a text transcript for those who are deaf?
I'll type an article here for you sir. Should have it up in a couple of days.
Thank you very much!
Hard to say what the best all-comers is, because there are a few things going into considering squarons. Also, best doing what? all around?
From an Imperial perspective the TIE Defender is probably the best all-round fighter. It has the best dice pool when attacking aces and generics, it is fast and has good hull to last in sustained combat, and at 16 points its affordable. Maarek Stele is an incredible ace. The one area it has to compromise is on Bombing... it can't do 2 damage like the X-Wings can, but the tradeoff is reliability out of the blue die having more results and the bomber keyword. Without Escort, it can't be a priority target. Without Heavy it can pin targets and destroy them.
For the Rebels this might be the B-Wing. It's a heavy compromise on speed, but it's got decent hitting power for a bomber and the best battery dice on a generic carrying the Bomber keyword. Lacking heavy, it can pin down and destroy enemy fighters. It has enough hull to stay around in the fight and take a couple of hits from other fighters (like the TIE/D). Farlander is ok, Ten Numb has a huge target on his forehead. The only area the B-Wing doesn't do well is in the attack role of chasing things.
I said my comments in a previous thread, but the tl;dr is Awings without support and X wings with support for Rebels
The answer is the interceptor, right?
2 hours ago, FourDogsInaHorseSuit said:The answer is the interceptor, right?
Once Sloan comes out, yes
6 hours ago, FourDogsInaHorseSuit said:The answer is the interceptor, right?
TIE interceptors are the best fighter for killing other fighters. They're cheap, and in the Empire you can inflate their firepower by two dice (Howlrunner, Flight Controllers) easily. Rolling that many blue dice, with Swarm, lets them keep rolling for accuracy and hits to lock down defense tokens on Aces. Counter 2 against the aces attacking them is also the best outside of Shara Bay's scary Counter 3. Speed 5 also lets them go wherever they want to. Any of the TIE Interceptors are great at destroying fighters, better IMO than any of the A-Wings except maybe Shara.
Dealing with capital ships hurts their scores, because these things go down to repeated ship sneezes and can't do much against capital ships. Sloane at least opens up a reason for these fighters to stay around after they've busted enemy fighter cover, but don't expect them to make miracles. They're still hull 3, and there's plenty of starships out there with two AA or single black dice.
Depends on the role and how you define it, I include cost effectiveness in my assessments.
Rebels:
general purpose: Awing ( most cost effective fighter in the game, does a bit of everything, 4 hull, speed five)
anti ship: B wing (most cost effective bomber dice)
anti fighter: Ewing ( not the most cost effective anti fighter from a pure dice point of view........but good hull, good speed added to four AA dice and snipe makes it king)
Imp:
General purpose: tie phantom ( four AA and two anti ship dice, linked to speed and hull of 4 with cloak make it very GP)
Anti ship:tie bomber
anti fighter: tie interceptor ( most cost effective total AA dice roles, including counter and swarm, with speed 5)
I think I'd go for the Tie-fighter as the best generic fighter in the game, as its cheap and does everything well enough to warrant its point cost. 10 squadrons cost 80 points and do similar damage to ships as the front arc of a similarly priced VSD-II, not to mention they are decent vs other squadrons.
Rather futile question, as different fighters serve different roles.
To answer a different question, if I was to build a list with a single type of fighter, then I'd say A-Wing is the most useful. Speed 5, decent anti-fighter capabilities, black anti-ship and relatively cheap.
How does the YT-2400, as a generic, not make the top 3? What doesn't it do for you?
4 hours ago, Madaghmire said:How does the YT-2400, as a generic, not make the top 3? What doesn't it do for you?
The YT-2400 would be the 4th ship on my list of the best generics. It's an amazing ship that I would say serves a tremendous role. Heck I own and use six of them. I think personally they and the fire spray both are tremendous. It's tough cutting ships down to just three but I do know what you are saying.
Rebels: a-wings or x wings
Imperial: tie defenders or tie advanced.
Here's their list:
Andrew
1. TIE Fighter
2. TIE Defender
3. Z-95
Chuck
1. Z-95
2. TIE Defender
3. A-Wing
Regionals usage (generic pilots)
1. X-Wing
2. VCX-100
3. TIE Fighter
4. TIE Advanced
5. A-Wing/TIE Defender
7. Lambda Shuttle/Z-95
9. HWK/JM5k
Zero taken: TIE Phantom, whisper taken once
They identified their bias as being towards cheap disposable squadrons that allow them to ignore fighters and are not interested in dealing ship damage with their squadrons, not exactly the definition of an all-purpose fighter.
The Regionals data was interesting, the VCX is definitely interesting at #2, most likely due to the fact that any list that wants them needs 2 for Yavaris/Transports, and Strategic is just icing.
Ah, interesting. Well, they did say generic fighter and not fighter-bomber XD
On 4/16/2017 at 4:06 AM, Tvboy said:
They identified their bias as being towards cheap disposable squadrons that allow them to ignore fighters and are not interested in dealing ship damage with their squadrons, not exactly the definition of an all-purpose fighter.
The Regionals data was interesting, the VCX is definitely interesting at #2, most likely due to the fact that any list that wants them needs 2 for Yavaris/Transports, and Strategic is just icing.
Andrew here,
Like Tvboy said I'm into disposable fighters and not much into bombers. Firesprays and YT-2400s are great fighters-bombers but I like quantity over quality. There it's something about seeing a ton of tie fighters on the table that makes me smile. Anyways thanks for listening