Five Ship / Three Attack Dice / Swarms

By Skeether, in X-Wing Squad Lists

With the release of a few newer upgrades, we have the potential for some pretty decent hitting 5 ship swarms. Albeit they'd be pretty expensive to field, they might do well.

The Mighty Scimitars

TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16) x 5

Unguided Rockets (2)

Lightweight Frame (2)

-- TOTAL ------- 100/100p. --

Here we have 5 bombers with Unguided rockets that give them a 3 dice attack as long as they get their focus. Pretty tanky as well having 6 hull behind almost 3 agility the LWF gives them.

The Five K's

Kihraxz Fighter: Cartel Marauder (20) x 5

XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (0)

Guidance Chips (0)

Munitions Failsafe (0)

Vaksai (0)

Black Market Slicer Tools (0)

-- TOTAL ------- 100/100p. --

We could always have 5 Kihraxz in a list, but now with Vaksai we can add a few bells and whistles for free to maybe make this list more of a threat.

Now everyone is packing Thread Tracers to give the entire group a free target lock. Chips helps this hit and if it misses, Munitions Failsafe prevents losing it. Also BMST can be a very effective way to force damage in on stressed targets.

What do you guys think? Fun to play around with at least? What tweaks could be made? I gotta borrow some ships and proxy some cards to see if some new 5 ship swarm might be worth something.

You will find the bombers lack any type of punch or survival without focus tokens and not quite graceful enough to effectively block in close quarters due to a clunky dial. 5 Alpha Intercepters with Auto thrusters tends to survive better. Also heard of Strikers with LWF working there as well.

the Khirzax, will have to see honestly.

This is really fun, trust me-

(100)

•The Inquisitor (32) - TIE Adv. Prototype
Push The Limit (3), XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (1), TIE/v1 (1), Autothrusters (2)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

2 hours ago, Ronu said:

You will find the bombers lack any type of punch or survival without focus tokens and not quite graceful enough to effectively block in close quarters due to a clunky dial. 5 Alpha Intercepters with Auto thrusters tends to survive better. Also heard of Strikers with LWF working there as well.

the Khirzax, will have to see honestly.

Having flown the Unguided Bomber x 5 myself a few times, I can say that while not having the focus does indeed hamper their effectiveness, 6 hull IS a lot, and LWF is amazingly effecient. Plus, there's the small added benefit of denying the R3 defense bonus. I've scored a lot of kills in that range 3 band with this list, usually on the Joust. Blocking isn't paramount in this list, and is mostly opportunist. It may sometimes be necessary against VERY squirrely opponents, but the hull on the bomber usually means flying out and turning around, and then hunting them down.

3 hours ago, Ronu said:

You will find the bombers lack any type of punch or survival without focus tokens and not quite graceful enough to effectively block in close quarters due to a clunky dial. 5 Alpha Intercepters with Auto thrusters tends to survive better. Also heard of Strikers with LWF working there as well.

the Khirzax, will have to see honestly.

So I thought of this a little bit and was wondering if making one a TIE Shuttle with Operations Specialist might mitigate some of that focus loss. The problem with that is then counting on things to miss sometimes and the fact that they shoot so late. With that though they can spend focus on defense and then have one passed to them for the rockets if the shuttle bomber misses or anybody else for that matter.

There's been some sucess with 5x Autothruster Alphas recently, too, and dont forget the Tie Striker.

2 hours ago, wkf04a said:

This is really fun, trust me-

(100)

•The Inquisitor (32) - TIE Adv. Prototype
Push The Limit (3), XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (1), TIE/v1 (1), Autothrusters (2)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Imperial Trainee (17) - TIE Striker
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Aaaaand that's the list I'm trying out next. So cool! I've had success with the Doom Shuttle in place of the Inquisitor, but this looks awesome in a completely new way!

4 hours ago, Drakeheart said:

Having flown the Unguided Bomber x 5 myself a few times, I can say that while not having the focus does indeed hamper their effectiveness, 6 hull IS a lot, and LWF is amazingly effecient. Plus, there's the small added benefit of denying the R3 defense bonus. I've scored a lot of kills in that range 3 band with this list, usually on the Joust. Blocking isn't paramount in this list, and is mostly opportunist. It may sometimes be necessary against VERY squirrely opponents, but the hull on the bomber usually means flying out and turning around, and then hunting them down.

I wonder if a 2-3 or 3-2 mix of bombers and strikers might work nicely - strikers hate range 3, whilst it's a fairly good spot for the bomber, with secondary weapons and a slow straight.

Cartel Spacer — M3-A Interceptor 14
Heavy Laser Cannon 7
"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) 2
Ship Total: 23
Cartel Spacer — M3-A Interceptor 14
Heavy Laser Cannon 7
"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) 2
Ship Total: 23
Cartel Spacer — M3-A Interceptor 14
"Mangler" Cannon 4
"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) 2
Ship Total: 20
Cartel Spacer — M3-A Interceptor 14
Tractor Beam 1
"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) 2
Ship Total: 17
Cartel Spacer — M3-A Interceptor 14
Tractor Beam 1
"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) 2

Ship Total: 17

2 HLC
1 MAngler
2 Tractor

this go perfect, you only need to focus and keep the R3

A simulated 5 ships/6 attacks with 3 dice

Motley Imperial Crew

"Zeta Leader" (20) w/ Wired (1) , Weapons Guidance (2)

"Countdown" (20) w/ Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Sienar Specialist (17) w/ Twin Laser Turret (6)

"Backstabber" (16)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16) w/ Unguided Rockets (2)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Threw the TLT in their for another 3 dice attack. Backstabber flanks, either getting his 3 dice attack or draw the enemy away, so your swarm has an easy job engaging rather than k-turning.