So on a nyumbe rof occasions I have tried to get some use out of A-wings as a fighter screen. Unfortunately they all die even the aces......Most recently I have been trying 4 vanilla awings and both Aces or 5 and Shara.

So my question to the lightside of the force is how do I use them best piece meal them in all at once etc. Am I going to have to live with the reality that I will bleed 77 points a game or should I switch over to 4 YT-2400s.

Advice guidance etc is all appreciated.

Toryn Farr

Play them like tie fighters they need to hit firsts and need to hit in numbers

Tycho and Shara are the best two squadrons you can take (by themselves) currently in the game. (Valen and Ciena are a close second).

I think Shara, Tycho and 2 more A-Wings are definitely worth the points. Once you start adding more than 2 A-Wings, I think they lose efficiency.

They are good at messing up squad formations, forcing intel into bad situations, etc. They are really meant to die.

55 points for that is amazing.

77 points for that is starting to hurt a little.

You try to use the superior speed to force the shape of the squad combat. People tend to cluster squads up to benefit from escort, so you can use that. The speed 5 helps for you to jump the escorts.

The generic Awings are meant to die, but they give the best return on investment if they can engage the bombers. Shara and Tycho seem to do the best when they engage just two Squadrons each. That usually lets them brace and scatter each turn without discarding tokens. Tycho also follows the squads that intel out.

So so your perfect matchup is the see the other player's Xwings, 1300s, or Advanceds 3-4 abreast in front of a few bombers. You jump Tycho and Shara in and hit the middle escort while engaging two of them each. Your generics jump just past escort range and lock down 1-2 bombers each. You won't probably win the squad fight, but you'll buy 2-3 turns and that should be enough

All fighters on both sides are best when mixed together so you can utilize their strength by overlapping abilities.

The A-Wing are designed to go up against low damage squadrons such as Tie-Bombers. No point in trying to mess with the Tie-Swarm, that is what you have the X and E wings for. An X-Wing will reliably kill a Tie-fighter if backed up with Toryn-Farr. Y-Wings are great to soak up Tie-fighter offensive damage and their two dice will nibble away at them at a decent pace. Y-Wings are great to force the opponent to engage them first, they can usually take a rather great beating. If the opponent does not stop them they can do some significant damage. Then you jump in a mix of X-wing and A-wings. The X-wings are positioned in a way so the opponent must divide their attention among several of them and can't focus fire one at a time.

Step one in any battle is to whittle down the opponents ability to oppose your fighters... so, attack fighters first while tying down the bombers with A-wings but concentrate your fire in enemy fighters not bombers. Once most of their fighter threat is gone those A-wings go after bombers while X-Wings and Y-wings go after enemy ships.

If we are disregarding aces here a good mix of Rebel fighters would be 2 A-Wings, 3 X-Wings and 3 Y-Wings (or 2 B-Wings). I think that is a good rough mix of squadrons for the Rebels. B-Wings are a bit special and require more of a special touch to use effectively.

I rarely use my Intel to allow my bombers to bomb in the first turns unless they have nothing better to do. My Intel are used so I can reposition my fighters into superior position so the enemy must divide their firepower as much as possible, escort and counter squadrons are perfect for this. The A-Wing has great speed so can easily reposition to good spot while the X-Wing should be in a spot so no more than two enemy squadrons can fire at them simultaneously.

You need to activate them before your opponent activates their squads. I've found flotillas or CR90s are good ways to push A-Wings. BH with Toryn might be the best since you get rerolls on your ships too. You need to support your A-Wing with anti-squad fire from your ships, and CR90 with Toryn is probably the cheapest you will get and the most reliable.

I've started a new strategy in dealing with squads, which is to let your opponent alpha strike one of your ships, and then move your squads in. Don't think of 4 A-Wings as throw away points. They are a deterrent. Don't screen your ships but have them follow behind. This will buy you a turn against activated squads. Then next round, your opponent is attacking A-Wings and taking counter 2 and rerolls from Toryn.

Be careful of Rhymer, Yavaris, and Intel. All 3 negate this strategy. You're better off killing the carriers ASAP or focusing all your ships on AA since that will reduce your opponents ability to deal damage.

In my first game Sunday I was able to nail Rhymer and the escort but the rest of the fighter ball killed me and in the end game removed my MC80L. Its working out how to try to prevent this that is my biggest concern.

8 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

You need to activate them before your opponent activates their squads. I've found flotillas or CR90s are good ways to push A-Wings. BH with Toryn might be the best since you get rerolls on your ships too. You need to support your A-Wing with anti-squad fire from your ships, and CR90 with Toryn is probably the cheapest you will get and the most reliable.

I've started a new strategy in dealing with squads, which is to let your opponent alpha strike one of your ships, and then move your squads in. Don't think of 4 A-Wings as throw away points. They are a deterrent. Don't screen your ships but have them follow behind. This will buy you a turn against activated squads. Then next round, your opponent is attacking A-Wings and taking counter 2 and rerolls from Toryn.

Be careful of Rhymer, Yavaris, and Intel. All 3 negate this strategy. You're better off killing the carriers ASAP or focusing all your ships on AA since that will reduce your opponents ability to deal damage.

Yes... there are many strategies for this.

Another is to move say three Y-Wings and an X-Wing escort slightly behind in a wide dispersed formation but tight enough no enemy squadrons can land in between them then have a Jamming field cover them and speared them and threaten the enemy. If their fighters attack your other X-Wings and A-Wings can counterattack. You can, if you are lucky, even move in an Intel and free some of your Y-Wings to attack some ships close by next turn. You can also supply some flak from a Combat Fitted flotilla.

47 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

Yes... there are many strategies for this.

Another is to move say three Y-Wings and an X-Wing escort slightly behind in a wide dispersed formation but tight enough no enemy squadrons can land in between them then have a Jamming field cover them and speared them and threaten the enemy. If their fighters attack your other X-Wings and A-Wings can counterattack. You can, if you are lucky, even move in an Intel and free some of your Y-Wings to attack some ships close by next turn. You can also supply some flak from a Combat Fitted flotilla.

I wouldn't use Y-Wings to attack squads. 3 More points for X-Wings or 1 more for A-Wings. I often find the squadron game being fast and deadly so I value more dice over survivabilty. When you are facing down Tie/D, it's better to lose an A-Wing and throw 5 dice at it than sit with a Y-Wing and throw 2 dice at it.

Even with an X-Wing, you are going to lose your anti-squadron fighter and be left with Y-Wings to fight your opponent which puts you in a bad situation. Intel won't save you until you kill the carrier.

There isn't any synergy between A-Wings and X-Wings. To get the most value, your A-Wings needs to be attacked. You could throw your A-Wings forward, let them get attacked, and then cover them with X-Wings.

CN has a good response.

I'm going to echo his Tycho/Shara comments. Those really have to be the first two A-wings you take, and unless someone is building specifically to avoid counter or is running a Ruthless strategist build or a lot of indirect damage, they'll punch far above their weight. I take a lot of 2x A-wings beyond them, but that's really because points start reaching a premium and that's often all I have left. At that level, the basic A-wing will generally activate, do 3 blue dice worth of damage, and then get 2 counter rolls. Per point of damage, that represents the most point efficient generic rebel squadron in the game. Since they are cheap, you're basically paying for a fairly effective stand. The generic A-wing is also reasonably good anti-ace damage since most of the time you'll just do one damage that he can't brace anyway.

Since A-wing damage tends to get spread out among many opposing squads, you really benefit from having a couple of squadrons that can attack as finishers. YT2400s are very good at this since you and your opponent can activate a set of squads in the ship phase via ship, and then you've got a good picture of the lay of the squadron land during the squadron phase itself. I see a generic squad with 2 hull left--my YT2400 can probably finish that off. You want to be pulling squadron bases off the game board to make it easier in the subsequent turns.

Ship based AS can be a big help in support of your A-wings as well, and is generally utterly critical to your success in the squadron game.

4 stands of A-wings can also make a huge mess of single Intel builds. It takes some practice, but you can generally place them spread out just enough that the enemy Intel can only get at two of them. There's still a danger here of them being able to kill an A-wing, but if you're running a build that is primarily using A-wings, that almost implies a very fast kill-the-carriers strategy. One turn better be all you need.

20 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I wouldn't use Y-Wings to attack squads. 3 More points for X-Wings or 1 more for A-Wings. I often find the squadron game being fast and deadly so I value more dice over survivabilty. When you are facing down Tie/D, it's better to lose an A-Wing and throw 5 dice at it than sit with a Y-Wing and throw 2 dice at it.

Even with an X-Wing, you are going to lose your anti-squadron fighter and be left with Y-Wings to fight your opponent which puts you in a bad situation. Intel won't save you until you kill the carrier.

There isn't any synergy between A-Wings and X-Wings. To get the most value, your A-Wings needs to be attacked. You could throw your A-Wings forward, let them get attacked, and then cover them with X-Wings.

The idea with the Y-wings is forcing the opponent to engage them or they will attack your ships, you want bombers in your fleet and you rather they attack them first rather than your fighters because they can take a few turns or punishment if really necessary... meanwhile your X-wing kill their fighters and then the Y-Wing continue their attack. This means that I dictate when and where the conflict occur and can make sure I have enough flak and anti-fighter force to counterattack with.

This work really well...

The A-Wing synergies very well with the X-wing because they are fast the X-wings are not... this means the A-wings go to the flanks where they usually can tie up a single fighter while the X-wing tie up the bulk of the enemy fighters. The A-Wings then concentrate on enemy bombers. A-wings synergistic in a way that they can fit into cracks where an enemy must divide their shots instead of focusing them if it were only X-wings in similar positions, or you use a B-wing for that.

I have no problem letting my Y-wings trade blows with the enemy for a turn or two if that means I destroy the enemy squadron resistance faster so more of my fighters can bomb the enemy in turn three or four.

This is why I tend to use my Intel ship in turn two or three for re-positioning fighters rather than doing bombing raids. The faster I win the fighter war the faster I will reign supreme on the battlefield. In most campaign scenarios the opponent will just give up and hyperspace out once you beaten their fighter cover. That saves me losses on ship resources as well as gaining the strategic objective.

I had good success running Tycho, Shara, and 2 Ewings in a recent casual tournament. They completely obliterated a Rhymer ball over the course of a game. I found that if you engage fighters with the As and the Es stay at Snipe range, the opponent has to shoot the As and take Counter fire. Then, if your As are really hurt, jump the Es into engagement. They have a pseudo Escort in that the opponent would probably prefer to shoot them instead of Shara. Tycho jumps away. Support them with flak and keep them out of enemy flak range. That's always been a death sentence for my Awing aces.

14 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

The idea with the Y-wings is forcing the opponent to engage them or they will attack your ships, you want bombers in your fleet and you rather they attack them first rather than your fighters because they can take a few turns or punishment if really necessary... meanwhile your X-wing kill their fighters and then the Y-Wing continue their attack. This means that I dictate when and where the conflict occur and can make sure I have enough flak and anti-fighter force to counterattack with.

Y-Wings have Heavy. So your opponent can attack your ships if they want which is my issue with your squad combination. It will be great against the player who is running bombers or no squads, but it won't be effective against a mixed squad force, or a player with dedicated anti-squad which most fleets are designed to deal with anyway.

If you're trying to stop squads from bombing and trying to kill fighters, Y-Wings are not the way to do it unless you support them with FC and Toryn, and even then, any other fighter would be better.

6 minutes ago, Matt Antilles said:

I had good success running Tycho, Shara, and 2 Ewings in a recent casual tournament. They completely obliterated a Rhymer ball over the course of a game. I found that if you engage fighters with the As and the Es stay at Snipe range, the opponent has to shoot the As and take Counter fire. Then, if your As are really hurt, jump the Es into engagement. They have a pseudo Escort in that the opponent would probably prefer to shoot them instead of Shara. Tycho jumps away. Support them with flak and keep them out of enemy flak range. That's always been a death sentence for my Awing aces.

I was thinking about swapping 2 A-wings for 2 YT-2400s though that would drop my bid to 5. E-Wings would make a 7 point bid plus the added benefit of snipe. I do need to do more play testing but I think E-Wings would be useful.

2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Y-Wings have Heavy. So your opponent can attack your ships if they want which is my issue with your squad combination. It will be great against the player who is running bombers or no squads, but it won't be effective against a mixed squad force, or a player with dedicated anti-squad which most fleets are designed to deal with anyway.

If you're trying to stop squads from bombing and trying to kill fighters, Y-Wings are not the way to do it unless you support them with FC and Toryn, and even then, any other fighter would be better.

No... that is NOT how you use them... I put them out aggressively FORCING the opponent to deal with them or THEY will reign supreme bombing their ships...

My aim here is to force enemy fighters to engage them so I can destroy their fighters, that is what that is all about. That is why you have a mixed squadron makeup and it is very important.

My aim is usually to have roughly 1/3 bombers (Y-wings, B-Wings) and 2/3 fighters (X-wings, A-wings) or the Imperial equivalents. If I go with a lighter squadron build I would drop the number of bombers to 20-25% of the force.

I agree with most of what has been said, but I would also like to point out that if you are going up against a lot of enemy fighters a relatively smaller anti-fighter screen can die and still do its job. I usually run a smallish TIE screen and if my opponent brought some fighters of his own then they almost always die, but it is okay because they protect my ships and delay the bombing runs and mess up the fighter formation.

As much as I hate this, try using Avaris to attack with your A-wings twice. Yavaris isn't just good four double bombing runs, but also to white the floor is established dogfights.

Fun! I haven't seen an Anti-squadron Yavaris since wave 2, when everyone thought B-wings were too slow to be effective.

6 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Fun! I haven't seen an Anti-squadron Yavaris since wave 2, when everyone thought B-wings were too slow to be effective.

Dutch+Wedge with Toryn n Yavaris.

2 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Dutch+Wedge with Toryn n Yavaris.

I've seen this with Corran added in from a token and its nasty. Or try Ten Numb

I like running Tycho & Shara backed up by Hera, Dutch, & Wedge. One GR-75 pushes around Tycho & Shara and the Three Amigos rogue-around on their own. This gives me a screen and an anti-squadron force.

My name is Mastershake and I have a confession...I don't like A-Wings. I'm not talking Tycho and Shara, but rather vanilla A-Wings. Despite religiously using squadrons since wave 1, our Yavaris who art in formation, her double tap be done on squadrons as they are on ships, amen, I really don't like vanilla A-Wings.

2 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

My name is Mastershake and I have a confession...I don't like A-Wings. I'm not talking Tycho and Shara, but rather vanilla A-Wings. Despite religiously using squadrons since wave 1, our Yavaris who art in formation, her double tap be done on squadrons as they are on ships, amen, I really don't like vanilla A-Wings.

If they make a flight controllers-enhanced alpha strike, they can do pretty well.

A-wings is the basic rebel screen you will get, they are weak but reliable, best friends when you face a Rhymer, they buy you time as main role, and potentially kill things if you can affor to boost them with Flight Controlers, but you have to be the first hitting, their speed is their best, expoit it.

4 A's + Tycho + Shara is my basic screen when I dont want to mess around the fighter composition in a list too much.

Ive been recently trying out Shara + Tycho + Blount + 3HeadHunters, cheaper. Tycho and Shara can do the Alpha an burn the scatter while HH's get in position to swarm and kill. Those are glass cannons with FC.

The thing with A-Wings is that sometimes they are great, sometimes they are horrible. If the opponent brings mostly bombers and standard TIEs, or Han, Dash and a couple of others, they are great. But if they come across some Defenders, Advanceds, or X-Wings, they are in trouble. SO they either dominate the squadron game or they fail miserably. There is not really an in-between result.