Are people still seeing TIE Bombers getting use any more, or has everyone moved on to Sloane swarms and general Rebel ones? I'm not really seeing any that much any more or hearing about them, and I'm wondering if the Rhymer nerf basically took the archetype off the table. I'm not even seeing Firesprays, either, any more. What are you guys seeing locally?

Bombers still excellent, particularly with bcc... Firesprays are amazing, but harder to acquire irl... Rhymer nerf changes nothing imo and he is still good... You can overcome his NERF via fct, or squall, corrupter, vector. Ie. Lots of options... Meta changes very slowly in armada, probably due to the fact that not very many games get played comparatively speaking than with other games. Thus it takes time for people to discover something good, then perfect it, then discover counters, and perfect those counters, etc etc. The good news is the tools are all there, they always have been, and that's what makes armada such a great game to play!

Just ran Rhymer and 2 bombers tonight with Squall. They did alright and the decrease from Med to short wasn't that noticeable to me.

It is worth noting I mainly fly Rebels and it felt weird not having B-Wings. I still think the bombers are a very cost effective.

I'm running a interesting bomber list with ruthless strategies. I have played two games with it and it has done very well for me so far I have two variations of the list one uses bombers and our favorite smug faced tie pilot as a type of screen that actually works really well and if it clears out my opponents fighters then it gets some bombing in this version has more combat ships, the other version is very similar, but has a heavier empathizes on squadrons and fewer combat ships I'm going to take one of the list to a tournament next week so I don't want to share all the details , but to sum up the Tie bomber is not dead, but in fact I would says has gotten more powerful its just needing to play around and unlock there potential, let me just say this I had 6 squads 5 bombers and Mr. Rudor and took out an entire Sloan tie fighter wing (8 tie fighters 2 aces) and still had 3 bombers left afterward to tack on some damage to ships. Once I finalize what list i'm taking to the tournament and play in it and see how well it dose in that environment I may have more updates. I'v never been a heavy bombing wing player, but I do plan to show the tie bomber still has its place.

The 2nd place at Nordic nationals had Rhymer and one plain bomber I his squadron ball.

My buddy used Gamma in his dual ISD build, but mostly for the hull and grit.

I can not remember the last time I saw a TiE Bomber hit the table. In my local area for Empire it is the more multi-purpose fighters that see the table, or if they are going for anti-fighter fighters they use ones with some hull. On the rebel side it is lots of A-wings, but all of them hit the table now and then.

I think they suffer in the same way as they always have.

You need a minimum of ten of them.

I played a store championship a few months ago, though it was 2 days before the errata was supposed to take effect, so Rieekan, double BCC, and many other things hit the table. I played an opponent who named his list "Ode to the Nerf Herder" because he had double BCC, Rhymer TIE Bomber swarm, and a Demo with Engine techs. He had 5(?) generic TIE Bombers, Rhymer, Jonus, 2 shuttles, Tempest squadron, and a Jumpmaster. That is 8 bombers with 2 BCCs, and a Demo and kitten cruiser on cleanup duty. We played Fighter Ambush, and he was able to down a corvette due to the ambush, though he misplayed it and had BCCs and the Light cruiser out of range. He was able to activate his squadrons due to his Lambda, though.

TIE Bombers will probably not go anywhere. Rhymer was just training wheels with medium range, and now the players will get way more experienced and fight at close range.

If Rebels Bombers can do it, so can you!

38 minutes ago, anonymousguy said:

If Rebels Bombers can do it, so can you!

Nah. I'd rather stick Rebels, but I was asking for a friend. Thanks though!

3 hours ago, geek19 said:

Nah. I'd rather stick Rebels, but I was asking for a friend. Thanks though!

Honestly though, if I could have TIE bombers as a Rebel, I’d take them.... Speed 5 with AFFM for 9 points is worth the reduced hull and anti squadron

9 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Honestly though, if I could have TIE bombers as a Rebel, I’d take them.... Speed 5 with AFFM for 9 points is worth the reduced hull and anti squadron

Imperials will have AFFM soon!

6 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

Imperials will have AFFM soon!

And they will be unfair until Rebels get their Experimentals, too

41 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

And they will be unfair until Rebels get their Experimentals, too

Eh, somewhat unfair. Unless they play Vader, they're at the mercy of however well the red dice roll. Combine that with the fact that you're going to want at least one turbolaser on it along with Gunnery Team and the Fleet Command, and with your commander you're looking at 150ish points for one ship. It has the potential to kill some small ships, yes, but it's also going to be insanely expensive.

48 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Eh, somewhat unfair. Unless they play Vader, they're at the mercy of however well the red dice roll. Combine that with the fact that you're going to want at least one turbolaser on it along with Gunnery Team and the Fleet Command, and with your commander you're looking at 150ish points for one ship. It has the potential to kill some small ships, yes, but it's also going to be insanely expensive.

The deal was always presented as "Rebels have Fleet command, the Imperials have Experimental."

Don't care what Chassis its on. Its unfair until I have the option of taking it.

One of my current builds is TIE Bomber-heavy (a mix of Bombers and Decimators with Ruthless Strategists), and it did perform nicely against several squad-heavy builds, so nope, TIE Bombers a far from being dead

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

The deal was always presented as "Rebels have Fleet command, the Imperials have Experimental."

Don't care what Chassis its on. Its unfair until I have the option of taking it.

Doth mine ears deceive me... Or are the terrorists claiming that it just isn't fair unless they can get highly advanced Imperial technology?

Technology that loyal Imperial taxpayers funded, I might add! I say no sir. If you rebel scum want your own upgrade slot, it will just need to be something appropriate, like Offensive Shortcuts. With things like Substandard Turbolasers, -5 points remove 1 die from your front arc.

54 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Doth mine ears deceive me... Or are the terrorists claiming that it just isn't fair unless they can get highly advanced Imperial technology?

Technology that loyal Imperial taxpayers funded, I might add! I say no sir. If you rebel scum want your own upgrade slot, it will just need to be something appropriate, like Offensive Shortcuts. With things like Substandard Turbolasers, -5 points remove 1 die from your front arc.

Awesome.

Let me also thematically take the fleet command upgrade “win the war” while we’re at it ?

20 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Awesome.

Let me also thematically take the fleet command upgrade “win the war” while we’re at it ?

Nope sorry us Imperials are claiming that one too.

Just now, Megatronrex said:

Nope sorry us Imperials are claiming that one too.

Really, because I'm pretty sure you lose it.

I just said we claim it. Didn't say we earned it.

2 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:

I just said we claim it. Didn't say we earned it.

Aint no difference to me swipin' some Experimentals then, eh?

I'll take them along with the next load of Sentinels while I'm at it.

Just now, Drasnighta said:

Aint no difference to me swipin' some Experimentals then, eh?

I'll take them along with the next load of Sentinels while I'm at it.

In all seriousness I'd like to see the rebels get it. H*** pirates could get hold of grav well generators in the old EU. I have to admit I am a little bit scared that when you guys get it it will come on a cheap ship that can be squeezed into a list between two un-killable death pickles pickles and throw targeting scramblers on them. Then I'll just have to start screaming how the Rebels are OP and start Armada is dead the sky is falling threads.

Back to the OP, though...

Bombers, man, *blech*

Black dice are so **** fickle. Roll a single dice...blank. Re-roll with BCC...blank. Wow, awesome use of 9 pts and all that positioning and activation effort!

I've just gotten so used to TIE Defenders with Sloane. At least, when attacking a ship, they always do something...sometimes not much, but at least something ...

(But man I would love a title along the lines of 'when performing an anti-ship attack, squadrons you activate may spend a single blank result on a black dice as an [accuracy] result'. THEN I'd be running TIE Bombers, again!)

17 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

The deal was always presented as "Rebels have Fleet command, the Imperials have Experimental."

FFG is altering the deal. Pray they don't alter it further.

3 hours ago, xanderf said:

Black dice are so **** fickle. Roll a single dice...blank. Re-roll with BCC...blank. Wow, awesome use of 9 pts and all that positioning and activation effort!

It's the same as Y-wings though, and Rebels are still running those. I imagine some of the difficulty, as was pointed out to me, is that as a Rebel when my X-wings are done mopping up token TIE swarms they can go throw a red dice at a ship. TIE fighters don't really want to do that....

And I don't really think that AFFM is going to be used much with Imps, as while you CAN push fighters/bombers faster, i dont know if you NEED to. I'm glad some people are still using them (as mentioned above). I'll keep talking to my friend and see if I can help him get a list together that actually uses them and all.