The humble PS 1 Academy Pilot. A cheap, reliable and menuverable frame that makes up firepower with numbers.

I started playing the game with a couple of these girls, and they have always carried me when I needed them too.

My question is this, today, with red dice creep and ability shenanigans, is the Academy TIE viable?

9 minutes ago, DarthCognis said:

The humble PS 1 Academy Pilot. A cheap, reliable and menuverable frame that makes up firepower with numbers.

I started playing the game with a couple of these girls, and they have always carried me when I needed them too.

My question is this, today, with red dice creep and ability shenanigans, is the Academy TIE viable?

The Academy pilot is still great at what it has always been great at. A cheap "filler" ship that can be used as good blocker if you can out guess your opponent. Block with one or two, and use your heavy hitter ships to deal out the pain to your action-less(action-light if they have ways of getting tokens without actions) opponent. Blocking is not as great as it used to be due to many abilities that still give you an "action" when you bump(Attani, K4 security droids, several crew options, etc) but a blocked opponent usually cannot boost or barrel roll so the rest of your ships should be able to get them in arc.

The Empire is not viable anymore.

The Academy is still a solid filler ship. I don't think swarms work as well as they used to, but one or two cheap blockers are still a useful addition to most lists.

What most people fail to understand about the Academy is his value as a ship isn't really dependent on his stats. He's a cheap, manoeuvrable base that can be used to deny your opponent manoeuvring options and/or actions. Also despite what most people say, his attack 2 gun will occasionally plink HP off ships especially at R1.

I've been using 2x APs to screen a high PS alphastrike:

44 Quickdraw w/ Expertise, FCS, ConcussionM, Target Synch, LWF, Title.
32 Tomax w/ Crackshot, HomingM, EM, Chips.
24 (2x) Academy.

The academies are there to shield your two missile platforms and ensure they get at least one volley of missiles off. It's doing decently well in our local meta and on vassal. Scum's still a pain, but that's more because they're stupidly OP atm rather than a failing on the list's part. It's still winnable though, you just need to snipe Fenn early on.

14 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

The Empire is not viable anymore.

An absolutely riveting insight. I'm glad we you around to provide such astute analysis.

10 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

The Empire is not viable anymore.

Not true at all. Check store championship results please.

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The academy is no powerhouse, and has given up a lot to the black squadron tie which can take crack shot to help against the otherwise largely untouchable high agility token stackers (some of which can't even be blocked into oblivion). It is still worth the 12 points when fielded and utilized correctly.

So the Academy Pilot has one serious advantage over almost everything else:

It's the cheapest feeder for Swarm Leader.

On top of that, because Swarm Leader doesn't care if the giver shoots, just that it has the target in arc, it can serve as an amazing blocker provided your judgment and piloting are up to it. Oh, the time last week I blocked Darth Vader with an EXCRUCIATINGLY well timed barrel roll, leaving him tokenless and defenseless against a 6-dice attack from Oicunn... amazing.

If you want to use Swarm Leader, I'd start with Academies.

16 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

So the Academy Pilot has one serious advantage over almost everything else:

It's the cheapest feeder for Swarm Leader.

On top of that, because Swarm Leader doesn't care if the giver shoots, just that it has the target in arc, it can serve as an amazing blocker provided your judgment and piloting are up to it. Oh, the time last week I blocked Darth Vader with an EXCRUCIATINGLY well timed barrel roll, leaving him tokenless and defenseless against a 6-dice attack from Oicunn... amazing.

If you want to use Swarm Leader, I'd start with Academies.

Someone posted this list a while ago making use of academies and Swarm Leader. I've been meaning to give it a go:

35 Quickdraw w/ Swarm Leader, Baffle, LWF, Title.
16 Youngster w/ Rage.
48 (4x) Academy.
1 Initiative.

Apparently the SF was FAQ'd to work with youngster's ability. Engage Maximum Jank!

1 hour ago, DarthCognis said:

My question is this, today, with red dice creep and ability shenanigans, is the Academy TIE viable?

I prefer Dark Curse at 16pts instead of an Academy at 12pts.

His PS is at 6, so you can still use him for blocking high PS Aces. Using General Hux with Fanatical Devotion (as I do), you can have a 2 die attack TIE Fighter that pushes 1 point past defenses regularly often. As well, his ability gives him significant defense against a meta that runs a large amount of rerolls and Focus tokens. Hux will give him a Focus for attack and you can use his action to Evade to boost defenses (since FanDev means you won't be using your own Focus on it), so 3 green dice + 1 Evade token + him preventing most attack modifications gives him some staying power; for 16pts he will either eat a significant amount of shots before exploding, or get ignored and block ships to lower their offense and defense while plinking away with FanDev.

Of course, sometimes 4 points is hard to find.

Edit:

Rear Admiral Chiraneau (46)
Predator (3)
General Hux (5)
Inspiring Recruit (1)
Rebel Captive (3)

"Omega Leader" (21)
Juke (2)
Comm Relay (3)

"Dark Curse" (16)

Total: 100

With Rebel Captive, Omega Leader locking down a target, and Dark Curse's defensive ability, there really is no good target, sometimes.

3 hours ago, DarthCognis said:

playing the game with a couple of these girls

"A couple" sums it up. Academy Pilots still have their uses in a mixed list. I find Crack/Snap/Juke Black Squadron TIEs much more potent and even then I back them up with a TIE Shuttle or maybe Howlrunner and Wampa. So I find TIE Fighters in general are in a good place but Academy Pilots are not my go to.

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

If you want to use Swarm Leader, I'd start with Academies.

Green squadron pilot with juke, and maybe VI/Adaptability so they firr before the leader. Always best to use a token twice.

B1ck on the subject : academy pilot is a good filler, but the classic ps1 swarm is totally power creeped away.

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Apparently the SF was FAQ'd to work with youngster's ability. Engage Maximum Jank!

Tie TIE/sf and TIE/fo are both "TIE fighters" - just like a T-65 and T-70 are both X-wings, so yes, that was always going to be the case.

The academy pilot is a good tool. What I'd say you can't do these days is get much mileage with a pure swarm of just them. Black Squadron pilots are a different breed because you can hang snap shot or crack shot off them, but academy pilots are short on tricks.

Enough targets can be functionally immune to 2-dice attacks, no matter how many of the things you have - Block Fenn Rau and pour range 1 shots into him and.....he won't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys. Ditto Scum Boba Fett. Ditto these new wookie things, if tricked out.

Does that make them bad ships? No. Because you're buying them knowing there's stuff you can't use them to deal with. For comparison, 25 points gets you a long range scanner, crack shot gamma squadron veteran with homing missiles. That's an amazing tool for killing the inquisitors and the soontir fels......but an agility 1 or agility zero brick like a Lothal Rebel? They'll barely notice the missile impact, and afterwards you have a 2-dice popgun that can barely turn corners, whilst a similar points worth of TIEs will keep doing that damage turn after turn.

4-ish academy pilots is a nice half-a-squad, especially with Youngster as one of them (because a 4-point surcharge to give every academy pilot the option of rage when they get a range 1 shot isn't actually that bad at all). They'll chop up agility 1 targets like a woodchipper, and can block and trap enemies very effectively. I personally suspect that the Light Scyk title has made the M3-A a touch better (because it trades speed 3 turns for speed 1 green banks, and moving slowly is a nice trick) but it's still a hell of a nice ship.

Just pair them with something that can kill targets that can generate lots of evade results (whether by bombs, ordnance, or aces of your own). As noted, they work extremely well supporting a swarm leader; trading the modification on a TIE's 2-dice attack for an extra dice on a fully modified aces attack is a winning proposition, even without noting that the academy generally shoots last and the ace (hopefully) shoots first.

5 hours ago, DarthCognis said:

The humble PS 1 Academy Pilot. A cheap, reliable and menuverable frame that makes up firepower with numbers.

I started playing the game with a couple of these girls, and they have always carried me when I needed them too.

My question is this, today, with red dice creep and ability shenanigans, is the Academy TIE viable?

Well Whisper and Echo could always use the target practice.

4 hours ago, JJFDVORAK said:

The Academy pilot is still great at what it has always been great at. A cheap "filler" ship that can be used as good blocker if you can out guess your opponent. Block with one or two, and use your heavy hitter ships to deal out the pain to your action-less(action-light if they have ways of getting tokens without actions) opponent. Blocking is not as great as it used to be due to many abilities that still give you an "action" when you bump(Attani, K4 security droids, several crew options, etc) but a blocked opponent usually cannot boost or barrel roll so the rest of your ships should be able to get them in arc.

Actually I think the Z-95 was the better filler ship and Academy pilots were always the swarm ships. And to this day still is. But as you and the OP mentioned with accretion coming into play and many mechanics like blocking and unmodified dice which what swarms relied upon has been cast aside in favor of newer mechanics taken from a more open design space.

For me the Z-95 did best to add the 3rd or even 4th ship to the two-ship turret wave 5 meta, where Swarms were the best against said meta by sheer volume of dice and hit points. The Z-95 served as a good screen but Arc dodgers were not exactly out as were often paired with RAC to take out swarms. But as we have progressed and now each of the factions are starting to get not one but two 12-13 point filler ship the roll of the TIE Fighter has been in question. Sure Academy pilots are still better than Zeta Squadron in terms of jousting efficiency and they are the only 12 point ship available to Imperial players but if you were going to play Swarms you wouldn't be playing Imperials anymore. Just like if you were playing Arc dodgers or Turrets. You would play Scum.

Which goes back to the Scum hate, they have the best swarm option with two 12 point ships, the best arc dodgers with T-rolling protectorates at skill 9, and the best turrets with Jumpmasters, also at skill 9. The three pillars of X-wing meta has fallen on Scum uncontested , where only the shenanigans of Biggs, and unnerfed Palp x7 could challenge them.

They're still what they were - blockers - but they're in a meta where an awful lot of things do 5+ die spike damage, and that amount of hits pops TIE fighters. They just can't stand up to the likes of Fenn, Rey, Norra, Homing Missile Miranda, etc etc etc. Unlike most Imps, they're great against bombs just through sheer weight of numbers, but they pop like soap bubbles to spike damage attacks.

Indeed. I really like TIE/fo for that reason - that extra shield means far more than you think, because whilst a TIE/fo isn't hard to kill, it's refreshingly hard to kill in one hit, and frankly most things go down to two solid hits - the degree of overkill is irrelevant.

A basic TIE fighter is annoyingly easy to put down before it shoots; even with a focus token and a decent roll, you're looking at three hull and two rolled evades.

That was always the problem when trying to engage aces - of six or so ships, a couple wouldn't be in arc and one would get wasted before it shoots, leaving you only half your squad against their assorted tricks.

Quote

they have the best swarm option with two 12 point ships

They have the most options, not the best. They massively outclass rebels for swarmers - rebel Z-95s are good but as 'filler', or using their unique named pilots. The illicit slot is worth much more than the point of pilot skill. The Cartel spacer.....It's now comparable to the TIE/ln, but I question if it's as good. 7 academies and youngster is one hell of a brickbat to the face.

It feels like the better question might be: How do I get value out of the academy tie?

Everyone mentions blocking. Everyone who doesn't mentions how everything else popular right now either ignores it or one shots it. That wasn't always the case.

So block- duh. But what else? Flank and annoy! Yes. Use it to... swarm leader! Good. What else? I think that's the issue. Not much else you can do with that chassis and if there was it probably would be worth a lot more than 12.

A few more cheap to no cost tie only upgrades should do the trick to making the acedemy pilot great again.

13 hours ago, Fuzzywookie said:

The Empire is not viable anymore.

I see your point, but it's not totally true. If you only have to play a few games as in a small local tourney and you run some Rebel like hitters like SF's or the tanky 0 agility RAC and a solid Ace you can make it through the mire of a couple of games every now and again (for seasoned Imperial pilots). The results of store champs prove that out. However, if you want to run Imperials in a larger tournament, that's pretty much a fools errand. Scum is your best bet for a squad that has great red dice, synergy, tokens and survivability...Rebel's aren't a bad option either with their highest end regen ships, but they take real concentration to keep all of the needed actions and processes in mind, which I sadly do not quite have the muster in that realm.

Imps just are the bottom feeders as far as the top tourneys go.....it might swing back some day, Mouse's will or design accident required.