12 hours ago, Ronu said:

For added silliness as somehow Magnus overlooked them are the F/O Ties. Bit tougher more maneuvering options, overall better dials. And you can still get a fari number into some list.

5x Epsilon Pilots: Hull upgrade and PA or 6 with primed thrusters at 96 points

Nastier than it looks, Stress you don't care about honestly. And 5/4 toughness plus if your in a position to shoot without fear of return fire you can Target lock for an action with the initial squad

Omega Squadron x5: 85 pts

options options options here: Snap shot and MK2 Engines? Check. PTL for wonderful action economy? CHECK! Or just simple survival skills with Comm relays.

Not so much overlooked, as they're great ships (was using them last night) but in a small squad you do suffer for only having 2 attack dice.

At the same time, they quantity of upgrades you get over a regular TIE fighter is amazing; those three points are essentially buying you:

• Green Speed 2 Turns and Red Speed 2 Segnor's Loops (probably worth 1 point as the equivalent of an R2 Astromech)
• Target Lock actions (a 2-point Targeting Computer)
• 1 Shield Token (4-point Shield Upgrade)
• Tech Slot (no obvious value, but a 'free slot' is generally worth 0-1 points in a title)

The recommended squad I've had some experience with:

• Epsilon Ace + Comms Relay
• Epsilon Leader + Primed Thrusters
• Epsilon Squadron Pilot x 4

6 is the absolute maximum you can get of TIE/fo fighters, and the extra warm body gives you more of a true swarmy feel - along with the firepower you need. 'Leader' is amazing - being able to segnor the squad and clear all your stress at once makes him incredible value.

I do like these guys - packing in higher PS TIE/fo fighters tends to limit you to 5 ships which is more of an issue in raw numbers and staying power, but with 6 you have enough to feel like a TIE swarm but get the benefit of their massively superior dial and durability.

Other squads I'd recommend:

• Omega Squadron Pilot - Crack Shot, Weapons Guidance x 5
  • A variation on a classic 'crackswarm', with a sort of 'distributed howlrunner' who's not subject to being alpha struck off the board before the generics can fire.
• Omega Squadron Pilot - Snap Shot, Primed Thrusters x 5
  • Making effective use of snap shot requires one of three things:
    • Massed numbers (like a 6-ship TIE Fighter Snap Swarm)
    • A 'gimmick' to hang off the snap shot attack (Juke as per A-wings, or Operations Specialist, or Tactician as per Major Rhymer)
    • The ability to put your arcs in really unexpected places - hence primed thrusters, allowing you to pull a red move and still barrel roll to line up your shot.
• If you want an Ace + 4 wingmen: Omega Leader - A Score To Settle, Comm Relay and 4 x Omega Squadron Pilot - Snap Shot.
  • A Score To Settle in its own way is another really good upgrade for Omega Leader but is 2 points cheaper than Juke. Better for facing high hull, low agility targets whilst Juke is good for engaging the green-dice-and-tokens brigade.
• If you really want to go for TIE/fo All-Stars:
  • Omega Leader - Juke, Comms Relay
  • Zeta Leader - Predator, Comms Relay, Twin Ion Engines MkII
  • Omega Ace - Swarm Leader, Comms Relay
  • Epsilon Ace - Targeting Synchroniser
  • 1 Point Initiative Bit

Here is a little post action battle report. After 8 or 9 games, I've decided I'm liking the Youngster, 2 scimitars, 3 academy pilot setup. Not including extra bumps or overlapping obstacles, which will hopefully be less of an issue with more practice, a typical engagement went like this:

All ships move up and focus. Bombers came from an angle at speed while the 2 groups of TIE came up in a slow moving joust. Bomber's were regularly landing in range 2 or 3, and the fighter groups were either both at range 2-3, or one group was at 3 and the other was a hair outside of that, mostly due to barrel rolls. The bombers shoot their missiles, and the closer group of fighters (youngster and 2 academies) would get their target locks. Begin hail of fire. I would usually be down one of the fighters from the more isolated group before they could shoot, but that was just a loss I would have to accept. The following round, the bombers would move passed the ionized target and use seismic's to clear out asteroids, while the fighters all closed into range 1 with a frightening amount of consistency, rage up, and the (usually 3, Youngster takes a lot of heat right here) survivors would all have range 1 shots with effective double mods. To date, after these initial 2 rounds, I have destroyed: a falcon, a decimator, a k wing, and in one instance a pair of pilots of a 4 ship list (he blanked 2 of his defense rolls, and only a single evade on the last. I think I got 7 hits between all 3 shots after the fact). After that pass, I'd break engagement with long straights on the fighters, bombers would either k turn or slow roll and remove other obstacles and I would reform my swarm formation to tackle any survivors.

I had a lot of trouble with 3 small ship lists, PTL aces and super mobile squads (boost and barrel roll ships, SLAMs), but not nearly as much with bombs as I thought I would have. If I got re-engaged on before I could turn around and clear my stress, I usually lost one or two ships in fairly short order. It really took a good 3 or sometimes 4 rounds to get back into formation stress free and able to line up shots, but I'm hoping a part of that is just my inexperience flying so many ships. With such small groups of ships, avoiding bombs or turning one squad of fighters to turn and re-engage wasn't too hard to maneuver, and I've had an occasion to fly a nearly destroyed fighter through 2 sets of cluster mines, detonating 4 or 5 of the little tokens. He was the hero the empire deserved.

Overall, very fun list. Lost more than I won, but I have a lot of fun memories and will strive to improve. Has a few nuances, and needs a more experienced pilot than I to tell you how to adjust to certain match ups, but I'll be flying this list again. Happy flying!

Sounds good.

I suspect - if there's anything I'd recommend - it's not going 'all in' on rage. You should be able to get double mods with a thread tracer shot (hopefully) and - as you found out - breaking off when towing a pile of stress tokens is hard.

Glad the 'support bomber' works; since I noticed thread tracers work at all ranges I've been thinking that it's a way to make 'howlrunner but your choice of cheaper, tougher, or more capable'.

How much good have you got out of the seismic torps?

6 minutes ago, Jimbawa said:

I've had an occasion to fly a nearly destroyed fighter through 2 sets of cluster mines, detonating 4 or 5 of the little tokens. He was the hero the empire deserved.

A true hero!

13 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

How much good have you got out of the seismic torps?

They've been great for creating maneuvering room after the initial combat, but after that they haven't been very useful. I haven't had a single game where I used all of them and often 2 was about the perfect number, but where those 2 came from was different in every game. It's a safe choice, and you don't really have too many other options on things you could put in with those points, so I think for now they'll stay on my list.

Not going all in on rage would definitely be better. It was in almost every case overkill. I wanted 2 rounds of back to back double modded shots, and that may have been a bit greedy. Stressing out only part of the squad and breaking up the formation to recover wasn't appealing to me, so I went all in and just tried to do the best I could with what was left over. I think having a break between the turns would have been ideal. Get the modded shots on the ionized ship, get behind him and use up any target locks, then next round consider a rage clean up while you're already pointed the direction you want to fly in. This would mean adjusting to trying to get the first combat close enough that I can k turn behind him, or coming in at such an angle that I can do a hard turn and keep him in arc.

I love this thread!

I think the 2 ship meta is ripe for being swarmed over.

Everyone is complaining about 2 red dice, but when your target has 1 or 2 agi, you're going to put some damage on it.

I wonder if the old Black Crack Swarm is a good answer to Nym.

Dengar, I'm not sure about- %#*&$@! revenge shot!

What's collective experience with Nymgar?

16 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

Dengar, I'm not sure about- %#*&$@! revenge shot!

The thing is, with a swarm of 6+ ships, not firing with one ship is acceptable.

Dengar will generally want to put his shot into whoever he's already fired upon, looking to finish them off.

Leave whoever Dengar fired his normal attack for last, and your opponent doesn't know if you're actually going to shoot with them; if you don't, you've traded not firing a 2-dice attack for him not firing a 3-dice attack, which is a net win for you. Plus the irritation of him realising he's ignored all 5 other opportunities to fire.

16 hours ago, Jimbawa said:

This would mean adjusting to trying to get the first combat close enough that I can k turn behind him, or coming in at such an angle that I can do a hard turn and keep him in arc

This. The TIE fighter's party piece is the speed 1 turn, and Youngster's big advantage is the forgiving range 1-3 bubble. Coming in at angles so you can turn to pursue will help.

16 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

I wonder if the old Black Crack Swarm is a good answer to Nym

It's not a bad answer. Agility 1 ships can generally be swiss-cheesed very fast by large swarms, and a crackshot swarm can effectively engage and agility 1 target at range 3, which is normally a problem.