I've been playing quite a bit with 5 TIE strikers, and liking them, and I definitely think they have an interesting style of play. The thing is, they're not really unique - there are now Six (ish) ships which can field a 5-ship "heavy swarm", which I think is worth poking people for thoughts on tactics - principally deployment, manoeuvring and target priority. FTS Gecko, I know, has a lot of experience with a heavy swarm.
Everyone's seen 'swarms' - the TIE fighter swarm, and to a lesser extent A-wings, TIE/fos and now quadjumpers and (soon) light scyks. The problem is, that layered damage mitigation has now reached the point in game that some ships can tank 2-dice primary attacks in essentially whatever quantity you care to throw them. Push The Limit, Attani Mindlink and TIE/x7 means multiple defensive tokens, and no vulnerability to blocking. Lone Wolf and Autothrusters cant be exhausted by multiple successive attacks. Range 1 bonuses aren't enough to make up for Fenn Rau's abilities and Concord Dawn Protector, and above all too many pilots can reliably one-shot a TIE fighter or equivalent before it ever gets to fire, or to blow away 'linchpin' units like jonus, howlrunner, blount or serissu before the rest of the swarm can benefit from their ability.
This isn't a "woe is me" thread; it's a "what do we do about it?".
The thing is, there has in recent-ish waves been quite a few options for a heavy swarm - one which has enough ships to still feel 'swarmy' but enough staying power and firepower to actually scare the big ships and aces that dominate the game.
It's kind of a follow-on to the "4 b-wings and a Z-95" that was at one point the last hurrah of sparsely equipped generic pilots - but this time, with the z-95 upped to a ship dangerous in its own right.
For the sake of definitions, the key requirements for a heavy swarm are:
~ Enough toughness not to be one-shotted easily. 4 hit points with 3 green dice, or 5 with less. There are enough ways to blank out green dice now (juke, zuckuss, etc), along with 'extra attacks' via Dengar, Quickdraw, etc that 3-hull ships tend to pop far too easily unless they're hidden behind a massive wall of green dice and tokens - easy to generate for Soontir Fel, but beyond the reach of a generic pilot. 4+hits are still doable, but usually either require range 1 flying into the teeth of a heavy swarm (meaning risking blocking and multiple range 1 shots back) or using expendable ordnance. As long as it's normally taking two lr more attacks for a kill, it's tough enough.
~ Five ships on the board. Generally, three attacks are needed to put serious hurt down - assuming one ship doesn't have a shot, and one gets killed before he shoots, five is still sufficient to hurt someone. Equally, five ships can lay down enough arcs to get multiple shots on anyone within a general area - vital for actually getting through to boost/barrel roll aces. Four ships is still nice, but the moment someone dies or doesn't get a shot, you tend to have no numerical advantage over much more capable ace lists. Blocking - the classic trick of a generic list - is a problem for the same reason; you can't afford to voluntarily give up 1/4 of your firepower.
~ A 3-dice attack. This is pretty critical, because, as noted, with only 2-dice attacks, some ships (lone wolf dengar, autothruster protectorates/interceptors, etc) can shrug off the fire of your entire squad with little trouble.
~ No 'linchpin' unit that constrains you to a tight formation or whose death can badly impact the squad's capability. Flying in close quarters is a god idea, but you need to be able to spread out to cover possible moves by manouvrable aces.
Notably, the 'heavy swarm' is at the moment limited to Scum & Villainy and The Empire only; the Rebels lack a 20-point 3-dice ship that can be fielded in numbers (the closest they have, the attack shuttle, is a unique only - annoying, because if there was a PS1, 17 point generic below Zeb, it'd actually be a pretty capable ship, able to pack in 5 ships with three dice primary attacks and either dorsal turrets or some non-unique crew like recon specialist). Alternatively something akin to the Chaardan Refit would pull the T-65 X-wing nicely into this bracket and draw some real clear water between generic T-65s and T-70s (at the moment, you're limited to four of either, and it's hard to get round the T-70's extra shield and much better dial - the Baby Blues essentially being a Rebel "superheavy swarm").
The options are:
SCUM
Cartel Spacer - "Heavy Scyk", Mangler Cannon x 5
Probably the best on paper.
Prior to the update to the Heavy Scyk title, these ships were glass cannons, but that extra hit point elevates them to a serious heavy swarmer. 4 hit points - including a shield - plus agility 3 gives you a nice balance between the durability of the khiraxz and the agility of the alpha squadron pilot. It's also the hardest hitting - whilst a Mangler Cannon packs no more firepower than a protectorate or striker's primary weapon, the automatic hit-to-critical modification, when stacked on several attacks, can make a serious mess of high hull, low agility ships (like the Ghost or Dauntless). Against high agility aces, ignoring the range 3 defensive bonus can be just as nasty. Definitely a ship to keep at long range where you get a range defense bonus and your opponent doesn't - compared to range 1 where the relatively anaemic primary weapon doesn't give you any meaningful bonus.
Cartel Marauder x 5
Sorry. I mean "Five. Cartel. Marauders." The most successful 'heavy swarm' - making top 40 in last year's UK systems open and netting a couple of store championships that I'm aware of. The Marauder has a nice balance of toughness (having 5 hit points - the most of any heavy swarmer to date), with speed 1 turns and variable speed K-turns (useful in a jouster). It is the only heavy swarmer with no ability to reposition, but then using boost or barrel roll is not ideal when you have limited action economy and lack the pilot skill to use them reactively - a bad shot with a focus token is generally as good as a good shot without one. Using toughness over token-hungry green dice to survive, relatively tolerant of not getting actions, with a good close-quarter dial and with a "proper" primary weapon capable of four dice at range 1, these ships thrive up close.
Zealous Recruit x 5
A better dial than the Cartel Marauder - but not massively so; a green hard turn is nice but generics shouldn't be stressed all that often. Gains the speed 3 turn and speed 5 straight (good) but loses the speed 1 bank (bad), and trades a speed 5 k-turn for speed 2 talon rolls (nice but not all great). Trading a shield for agility 3 is probably a net loss without the space for autothrusters or the concord dawn protector title. For elite pilots like Fenn Rau or Old Teroch (or even four Concord Dawn Aces with Fearlessness and Concord Dawn Protector) I can see the advantage of the protectorate, but for generics I don't really see what the Zealous Recruit does that either the Cartel Marauder or Cartel Spacer wouldn't have done better. It probably has potential as a blocker - the talon roll, boost and barrel roll making it more able to get in annoying places than the Khiraxz or scyk, and it's the fastest, able to break formation and "sprint" in at speed 5 + boost. It does also suffer from PS1 - not that thats a bad thing in a blocker.
IMPERIAL
Alpha Squadron Pilot - Autothrusters x 5
Theoretically the first of this breed - very fragile (only three hit points, which means they come apart like tissue paper against direct fire) but at least they are very tolerant of shots at long range or turrets - at range 3 they are pretty hard to hit, being able to reliably dodge 2 hits without needing tokens. Keeping them at range 3 will take some fancy flying as unlike the Scyk or Kiraxz, they lack speed 1 banks, but if it can be done they should be pretty nasty. They're also pretty tolerant of the Twin Laser Turret - not a trivial thing to note - although at PS1 they do have the issue of being shot first by PS2 turrets.
Scarif Defender - Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame x 5
PS3 gives you an edge over most generics (even letting you match lothal rebels), and crucially pushes you out of the lower bracket for Prwdator. A striker with Adaptive Ailerons has the speed to keep up with boosting/barrel rolling/fleeing large ships without losing the focus tokens they need to achieve anything once they catch their prey. It has its weaknesses - primarily at long range, where Lightweight Frame won't provide a bonus - it really wants to be at range 2, where you can easily get multiple 3-dice shots without giving away range 1 shots that can destroy a striker before it shoots back. Its minimum effective speed 3 is a problem - you really need to spread out rocks as if they were a large base ship, because a tight-packed obstacle field is just as bad for numerous, large-turning-circle strikers, but the ship is shockingly manoeuvrable once you get your head around the way it works. The ability to pick between koiogran turns and signor's loops plus adaptive ailerons to allow a 'turn around' manoeuvre anywhere within a 180' arc makes them very flexible.
Scimitar Squadron Pilot - Unguided Rockets, Lightweight Frame x 5
The heaviest heavy swarmer -six hit point behind three green dice is no laughing matter (from raw numbers it almost resembles TIE Defenders!) but the rocket bomber is more impressive on paper than in reality. Those three green dice will be unmodified most of the time, because using focus defensively turns a three dice focused attack into a two dice unmodified one. Being dependant on that focus to shoot leaves you unable to exploit barrel roll and your red moves to full effect, whilst unguided rockets won't let you use a target lock, so the staple of "acquire a lock for future turns" is probably a waste. Still, it's five 3-dice attacks at range 3 with no range defence bonus for your opponent (making up for lightweight frame not helping when you get defensive bonuses yourself),and killing a TIE bomber is not easy - even a perfect shot from Talonbane Cobra or Fenn Rau needs blank green dice and a lucky critical to pull it off.
Heavy Swarms can definitely work - 15 attack dice is quite terrifying in the opening pass, and leaving even decimators on fire in short order is a nasty shock for most opponents.
Note that you nothing stops you mixing ship types - a Cartel Spacer/Marauder mix might do rather well, a tougher 'front line' and some cannons to fire from longer range. The two have pretty comparable dials, so flying them in formation is pretty easy. A Zealous Recruit blocker is not a bad element to consider, too.
Pairing up Interceptors, Strikers, and Bombers, by comparison, leads to harder flying, and they probably don't gain the same benefit (because the preferred range for strikers and interceptors is purely about their defence, not their attack), and they don't share the same pilot skill value, locking you into a specific movement and shooting order (bad for collisions and stuff like rebel captive). Nevertheless, an "anvil" of a bomber, and a mix of "able to outfly manouvrable ships" strikers with "tolerant of turret shots" interceptors could work well
Deployment:
Obviously a three-and-two "w-shaped" or "m-shaped" box and jousting is simple enough, (especially since everyone but the striker has the speed 1 turn allowing it to move around in a nice tight block), but whilst 5 3-dice attacks can eat most things alive, it's easy enough to outfly, and I'm still not convinced you'll win a straight joust against things like 3 x TIE/x7 defenders.
A line of 5 abreast gives you a bit more flexibility to flank (in practice this is more likely to be a group of 3 and a group of 2 (as there will almost inevitably have to be an obstacle to move around when trying to field 5 ships abreast.
Tmore you mix up the three types for each faction, the more so a plan seems required - with 100 point squads and lower pilot skill, you'll be on the short end of the stick in obstacle placement and movement order, so having a plan for the opening turns seems key.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Experiences?
