• Scimitar Squadron Pilot - XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, Cruise Missiles, Long Range Scanners x 5

probably not that great a plan, but just wanted to give it a try.

Plus the ability to lock onto someone on turn one means I have the option of placing "K","A","B","OO","M" next to their most important ship in target locks... (not exactly subtle mind games but very satisfying)

On a possibly more useful note, I was thinking that slotting a couple of these ships into a more conventional swarm might work too:

• Scimitar Squadron Pilot - XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, Cruise Missiles, Long Range Scanners x 2
• Academy Pilot x5

That's a 7-ship TIE fighter swarm - the same as you'd get with Howlrunner - but with two rather more intimidating ships in there. A Speed 4 move-to-contact means your opponent absolutely must kill them before they launch cruise missiles, but you have the alternate option of slow rolling in and firing tracers from range 3; with focus/target lock, there's a decent chance of hitting between two of them and that will both replace their locks (if they used them) and pass an all-up target lock to the TIE fighters. Killing one is fairly easy, but killing both before either can fire is rather harder. Plus, TIE bombers have a nice speed 5 K-turn - enough to get a good launch speed for putting a cruise missile into someone's backside, so they still can't be ignored.

Maybe 4 gamma vets with Adrenaline Rush, LRS, EM and Cruise Missiles. Lets you pull your 5K and fire off a second round immediately.

The problem is that if you're prepared to use your target lock on the initial volley, getting it back is annoyingly hard. Range 1-2 is big .

If you don't.....that's kind of a waste of a 4-5 dice shot.

The idea is that even Gamma Veterans aren't going to shoot first against most opponents, and that (probably) means at least one guy explodes with both missiles still in the tubes.

One third option:

• Scimitar Squadron Pilot - Long Range Scanners, Cruise Missiles x 4
• Academy Pilot x 2

Stripping off the XX-23s generates the 4 points I need to turn 1 bomber into 2 TIE fighters - giving me a couple of PS1 blockers, and giving me genuine swarm-level numbers (6 ships) to try and carry the day once the missiles are expended.

The Academy Pilots can fly in front, and (theoretically) stop an opponent boosting into range 1 to avoid the missile salvo (two of them about three-quarters-of-a-base-apart so no-one can fit between them provides a decent width 'barricade').

I would opt for XX-23 tracers and Guidance Chips to maximize damage (Maybe LRS on one of the bombers with the idea of him shooting tracers in the initial encounter)

I would also either go with plasma torpedoes all the way or do a mix of cruise missiles and plasma torpedoes. So it may end up being something like this:

I flew Deathrain alongside 3 scimitars with Cruise Missiles, EM, and LRS the other night and now i want to run a full Cruise Missile squadron.

5x Scimitars with Cruise and LRS seems like a good place to start, but I might drop one of them and have a couple of Academy Pilots as blockers.

I Support this just for the

'K' 'A' 'B' 'OO' 'M' in target locks.

Missiles or not, i believe there's a lot of creative thinking to be had for imperials for 4+ ship builds beyond the standard mixes as you're showing, another example:

TIE/sf Fighter: · "Quickdraw" (29)
· Swarm Leader (3)
Fire Control System (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)
Special Ops Training (0)
Primed Thrusters (1)
TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Lightweight Frame (2)
TIE Shuttle (0)
Fleet Officer (3)
Operations Specialist (3)
TIE Fighter: Academy Pilot (12)
TIE Fighter: Academy Pilot (12)
TIE/fo Fighter: Epsilon Squadron Pilot (15)
-- TOTAL ------- 100p. --

44 minutes ago, thebrettski said:

Missiles or not, i believe there's a lot of creative thinking to be had for imperials for 4+ ship builds beyond the standard mixes as you're showing, another example:

TIE/sf Fighter: · "Quickdraw" (29)
· Swarm Leader (3)
Fire Control System (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)
Special Ops Training (0)
Primed Thrusters (1)
TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Lightweight Frame (2)
TIE Shuttle (0)
Fleet Officer (3)
Operations Specialist (3)
TIE Fighter: Academy Pilot (12)
TIE Fighter: Academy Pilot (12)
TIE/fo Fighter: Epsilon Squadron Pilot (15)
-- TOTAL ------- 100p. --

Nice one, however I think that if you're running Operations Specialist you'll benefit a lot from Wampa (as you can deal damage using his ability and still miss the attack triggering OpSpec).

And his PS is high enough to still use the focus on the scimitars.

14 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Plus the ability to lock onto someone on turn one means I have the option of placing "K","A","B","OO","M" next to their most important ship in target locks... (not exactly subtle mind games but very satisfying)

Definitely bonus points for the KABOOM

RoV

10 hours ago, PT106 said:

Nice one, however I think that if you're running Operations Specialist you'll benefit a lot from Wampa (as you can deal damage using his ability and still miss the attack triggering OpSpec).

Operations Specialist works really well (unsurprisingly) with Snap Shot, too. You can field up to 5 Black Squadron Pilots with Snap Shot and a TIE Shuttle with Operations Specialist, or else cut down a couple to upgrade a couple to named pilots or improve the shuttle a bit (you can have snaptac rhymer and three named snapties, for example).

I do like the plan of K-A-B-OO-M, but as @Vandenberg said, a couple of blockers may help keep people out of your blind spot. So B-L-A-M, B-A-N-G (or some less.....diplomatic 4-letter words) may be a better plan.