Let's say you're bringing Small Fighter Coverage of 50 points of Imperial Squadrons in a 2x Raider 2x Gladiator 2x Gonzanti MSU fleet. Opponent is running the standard Rieekan Yavaris with 130-ish points of squadrons including a Biggs Ball.

So far I've been sticking with 6x TIEs per @Snipafist's advice. The goal is to feed these TIEs into the maw of the fighter ball and stall them from doing damage, usually for turns 2,3,4 or 3,4,5 until I can take out Yavaris and any other carriers. Meanwhile the Raiders should be flinging double blacks into the squadron balls and toggling with Flechettes.

This weekend's games had me wondering: is there better way to run 50 points of Imperial squadrons. For example:

• Statistically, do TIE aces last longer, or does the blue dice of a Biggs Ball nullify their scatter and result in lower overall survivability (since they cost ~2x a standard TIE)?
• Are other ships worth subbing in? Is there a ship with better hull:points ratio that can engage a squadron ball and just soak damage while the Raiders pound away?

I'm all ears!

In my biased opinion, if you're going light on squadrons it's generally best to stick to quantity over quality. I've got nothing against going for more expensive squadrons (aces, Interceptors, Defenders, etc.) but I don't often find the benefit from them really pays off until I'm fielding 6 or more total squadrons, at which point I'm effectively upgrading regular TIE Fighters to more capable equivalents while still maintaining deployment numbers and table coverage. Your mileage may vary, of course, and I'm curious to see what others say.

My buddy tried to use soontir fel (sp) with escorts to engage me and do some damage if I attacked him. He used ig88 to take out my intel. Because of either good flying on his part or bad decisions on my part.. or a combination of the two.. he was able to tie me up and make a mess of my squads.

I do realize this is more than 50 pts.. but it was very effective against my bomber ball

Ciena + Valen is always a solid option at the 30-point mark. At 50, you're probably better off with 3 TIEs + an ace (or maybe just 4 TIEs).

They're always going to die against the Ace Holes, and usually not going to do much but interfere occasionally or force your opponent into mildly annoying positioning decisions... But it's still better than running naked.

Frankly, I wouldn't even mess around with the 50-point mark. I'd go 30 points of Valen/Ciena or maybe 32 points of 4x TIEs, and expect to lose them all every game; or I'd go for a 70 point Howlrunner swarm or escort/Soontir autodamage ball and try to actually kill some stuff. 50 is kind of a dead zone where you're not putting out enough damage to actually kill anything but still giving up a lot of points if you run into a full up squadron list.

Gozanti cruiser, Vector, Agent Kallus, Expanded hangar bays, Jamming field (30 points)

Zertik Strom, Bossk and Saber squadron (50 points)

I have used this 85 point self contained combo as my counter. Yes, they are going to die, but its going to take a while and also has snipe 4 to hit the rebel intel. The main idea is pinning their 135 points down for as long as possible so you can assassinate Riekaan with your ships.

Jamming field seems an odd inclusion here, but as the goal is to tarpit rather than to kill, and there will be more squadrons on their side than yours, I find it works well.

Double black AA on the Gozanti against Aces is also fun.

I just played Rieekan aces tonight with 4 Defenders and won.

It wasnt pretty, and they all bit the dust, but they did what they were there for, which is prevent the ball from attacking my ships for as long as possible. I held them back as long as possible, and fed them one at time over the course of the game into the ball.

Only ship that died was a Gozanti.

Taking mass cheap.squads is good, but IMO you have bring something that generates enough threat that the opponent says, "instead of using intel to bypass these, I really need to kill them."

31 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Frankly, I wouldn't even mess around with the 50-point mark. I'd go 30 points of Valen/Ciena or maybe 32 points of 4x TIEs, and expect to lose them all every game; or I'd go for a 70 point Howlrunner swarm or escort/Soontir autodamage ball and try to actually kill some stuff. 50 is kind of a dead zone where you're not putting out enough damage to actually kill anything but still giving up a lot of points if you run into a full up squadron list.

So far as my build goes, it's important to consider the two Raiders as well (and to a lesser extent, the Gozantis). Without them it would definitely be a rougher matchup but with two Raider-Is w/OE and Flechettes, those 6 TIEs get work done. I can't claim to win every game against heavy squads but it's it definitely wins more than it loses (I'd put it at about 2:1 and it's faced Ace Holes in several events and won). Plus against many other fleets, the 3 extra deployments is golden.

I'm not a big believer in Valen/Ciena. I've tried it and it feels like a poor version of Tycho+Shara. Typically, Ciena gets swarmed and beat down and then next turn Valen is stuck and casually wiped out with little extra difficulty. I feel like at that point I'd rather just go for no squadrons or even 4 TIE Fighters to at least improve table coverage for my minimal investment.

If you're not rolling decent flak support, you probably should look to 60-70 points invested into fighters as an Imperial. The Raiders are in effect a partial investment towards more anti-squad.

27 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I just played Rieekan aces tonight with 4 Defenders and won.

It wasnt pretty, and they all bit the dust, but they did what they were there for, which is prevent the ball from attacking my ships for as long as possible. I held them back as long as possible, and fed them one at time over the course of the game into the ball.

Only ship that died was a Gozanti.

Taking mass cheap.squads is good, but IMO you have bring something that generates enough threat that the opponent says, "instead of using intel to bypass these, I really need to kill them."

Did this include points calculated?

8 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Did this include points calculated?

Don't knkw what this means?

1 hour ago, Ardaedhel said:

Ciena + Valen is always a solid option at the 30-point mark. At 50, you're probably better off with 3 TIEs + an ace (or maybe just 4 TIEs).

They're always going to die against the Ace Holes, and usually not going to do much but interfere occasionally or force your opponent into mildly annoying positioning decisions... But it's still better than running naked.

If you're dealing with lots of Rieekan Ace builds, it's actually rather possible that several high-damage ships (Rieekan MC30s, duplicate high-damage gladiators, etc) are more likely to destroy the critical ships than a mid-sized anti-squadron screen is to really knot up the squadrons.

Also, Calvin & Hobbes makes everything better.

27 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I just played Rieekan aces tonight with 4 Defenders and won.

It wasnt pretty, and they all bit the dust, but they did what they were there for, which is prevent the ball from attacking my ships for as long as possible. I held them back as long as possible, and fed them one at time over the course of the game into the ball.

Only ship that died was a Gozanti.

Taking mass cheap.squads is good, but IMO you have bring something that generates enough threat that the opponent says, "instead of using intel to bypass these, I really need to kill them."

this is pretty much where I'm at in recommending against Rieekan. You need to basically say, "If you try to move past these squadrons and engage my ships, these squadrons will kill your ships." It means you can skip the Intel because you're not forcing the enemy to stop with rules, you're forcing them to stop with strategy.

My starting point is Colonel Jendon, Maarek Steele, and Boba Fett. The three all have a fair bit of HP behind braces, can dish out a TON of damage with Jendon's double attack, and it only requires one Gozanti with Expanded Hangar Bays to push it. If I were to add anything, it'd probably be a Tempest Squadron to Escort Jendon and still contribute to a mini bomber ball. That's a comfortable MFC there.

But all this is Theorymada. Haven't played this weekend except against myself, and I'm not an Armada expert... yet.

4 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Don't knkw what this means?

well. There have been recent reports of players who play their games but only record who got tabled, or they dont play to 6 turns, and some that don't seem to record points scored for whatever crazy reason.

13 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

If you're dealing with lots of Rieekan Ace builds, it's actually rather possible that several high-damage ships (Rieekan MC30s, duplicate high-damage gladiators, etc) are more likely to destroy the critical ships than a mid-sized anti-squadron screen is to really knot up the squadrons.

Also, Calvin & Hobbes makes everything better.

Well, I absolutely agree with you there, which is why my own tournament list is squadronless Mothma MC30's. My recommendation was predicated on the assumption that you actually want to take squadrons.

The context is also Imperials, which I don't see as having a squadronless bomber-defense option comparable to Mothma--or if they do, I don't know what it is.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

Well, I absolutely agree with you there, which is why my own tournament list is squadronless Mothma MC30's. My recommendation was predicated on the assumption that you actually want to take squadrons.

The context is also Imperials, which I don't see as having a squadronless bomber-defense option comparable to Mothma--or if they do, I don't know what it is.

Why do you think I play Devastator?

Just now, thecactusman17 said:

Why do you think I play Devastator?

Because you're some kind of masochist?

Nah, I love Devastator, I just can't ever seem to get a list that I really like built around it.

Am I the only one who read the title and said "135 points is illegal?"

134 is the maximum for 400 point games.

Serious response: You can always go back to Fel's Flying Circus.

TIE Advanced / Zertek / Vader (Season to taste)

Soontir Fel

Dengar

Mauler Mithel

Devastator: Once per game, strip naked and put on woad.

26 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

well. There have been recent reports of players who play their games but only record who got tabled, or they dont play to 6 turns, and some that don't seem to record points scored for whatever crazy reason.

It was a summer tournament game, you can see the score in the thread.

4 minutes ago, BiggsIRL said:

Serious response: You can always go back to Fel's Flying Circus.

TIE Advanced / Zertek / Vader (Season to taste)

Soontir Fel

Dengar

Mauler Mithel

That's... significantly more than 50 points, my dude.

Guess you've got to spend more than 50 then.

1 minute ago, BiggsIRL said:

Guess you've got to spend more than 50 then.

In my opinion ciena ree is amazing at screening and eating up fighter activations, and with the support of raiders is even better I might go as far as to say she might have the best survivability of all aces in the game. In the end it really comes down to are you willing to give up some of your deployments for better fighters. I also don't really like the hold a few ties back as if they have shara bay then she flys in ties them down and when you attack her she has a pretty good chance to kill your ties in one shot with her counter. So I like going with a few high quality fighters, I do see the pros of quantity over quality but again if the fighters get tied down before you can send them in you're out of luck. Tie phantoms can help counter this though I do think that they are a little pricey for what they are but they are probably the best screening fighter in the game as they can always cloak to where you need them and are a bit more durable, but again a little pricey for what you get. In short it depends what you need do you need more deployments if yes take quantity, but know that your ties that your holding back can really get messed up by a single a wing. If you don't really need more activations I highly recommend ciena ree, and whisper that is a 37 point investment already, but with the support of raiders that's a 37 point screen that you will get some milage out of.

One list I had ready but never tried against the Rieekan aces was an ISD supercarrier. Take an ISD-I, inflate with boosted comms and Expanded Hangars, provide one GZ with Comms net to generate a token. Take Chiraneu to let Mithel wave through enemy fighters. Alpha strike using six activations, all with Flight Controllers to try removing as many fighters as possible. Take aces for their defense tokens. 3x Flotillas for Comms nets with Boosted Comms.

One selection of Fighters:

Howlrunner
Mauler Mithel
Saber Sq.
Valen.
Col. Jendon
Dengar
JM5K
Zertik
Black Squadron

Try to combo Saber squadron into Snipe 6 (Howlrunner, Flight Controllers) with re-roll against a principal target. Repeat with Jendon. Use Zertik, then Black Squadron to get in there and buy some turns while your fighters are hopefully mulcking the enemy. Kill Wedge at long range with double-tapped snipe, engage Shara with Valen and leave Black Squad behind to take her temper tantrum.

Fortunately the Empire has some good anti-fighter strategies (it's what they do best). Another angle is taking Vader and Zetrik as base, then throwing in things like Soontir Fel, Cienna, and Maarek Stele. So long as your objective is to score points by killing fighters, then that's what you do and do it well.

However, the list is entirely slanted to winning the fighter game and I don't expect it to do well in general matchup lists. This is very much tailored into killing the Rieekan speedbump list, and part of the reason I never got it to the table is because I knew it was too hyper specialized to be generally competitive. Not enough bombers, the entire anti-capital in these kinds of lists is only the ISD. And it's not configured to receive or deal large amounts of battery damage.

Now, if this were a rebel list, you could buy good fighters that do both AA and bomber attacks. Because that's what Rebels do.