I don’t remember who, but somebody said on the main forum a little while back to share more battle reports, so that’s what I’m going to do! This was just a fun, casual match.

My list:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (25) - TIE Bomber
Deadeye (1), Cruise Missiles (3), Extra Munitions (2), Guidance Chips (0)

Gamma Squadron Veteran (25) - TIE Bomber
Deadeye (1), Cruise Missiles (3), Extra Munitions (2), Guidance Chips (0)

Gamma Squadron Veteran (25) - TIE Bomber
Deadeye (1), Cruise Missiles (3), Extra Munitions (2), Guidance Chips (0)

Gamma Squadron Veteran (25) - TIE Bomber
Deadeye (1), Cruise Missiles (3), Extra Munitions (2), Guidance Chips (0)

My opponent’s list:

•Captain Nym (46) - Scurrg H-6 Bomber
Deadeye (1), Dorsal Turret (3), Extra Munitions (2), Cluster Missiles (4), •Bomblet Generator (3), •Havoc (0), Accuracy Corrector (3), •"Genius" (0)

•Emon Azzameen (53) - Firespray-31
Tractor Beam (1), Cluster Mines (4), •Cad Bane (2), Scavenger Crane (2), •Slave I (0), Ion Projector (2), Extra Munitions (2), Cluster Mines (4)

So we set up the game. I pointed my squad through an opening in the asteroid field, and he set up his ships to go through the field at an angle, attempting to bypass the bombers and drop bombs on them with Emon’s 3-hard. I pointed all the bombers at Emon the second round with a 3-bank, and unleashed a focused, guidance-chipped, 16-dice volley into Emon, blasting him right off the board. GG.

So we set it up again. I placed my squad on the left of the board (from my perspective) all in a formation and he set up Nym in the opposite corner, attempting to sneak up behind while Emon pulled them through the asteroid field. I chased Emon, but he flew quickly away and stayed at range 4 of me while dropping bombs. My option sealed off by cluster mines, I turned around and jousted Nym. He also tried very hard to avoid me and prevent me from firing missiles. By round four, not a single bomber had hit a bomb (even though they were ducking and weaving through a mine-laden asteroid field), and not a single missile had been fired. My squad split up to avoid a mine - two went through the asteroids and two along the board edge. Eventually, I hit Nym with two 5-dice Cruise Missiles from the asteroid squad (which even with the focus rolled terribly and only got one damage past the shields) and then target locked him so that I could do the 5 k-turn and fire missiles at him still. Nym got roasted by one of the other returning bombers as well, but the mines in the asteroids had finally hit a bomber, which got hit by Emon, allowing him to recharge a cluster bomb. By the end of it all, Emon had created a bunker of five sets of cluster mines for himself! It was to be his undoing however. I navigated the fourth bomber in the opposite direction around the board, sneaking him through the mines and hitting Emon with a five-dice Cruise missile. A defensive whiff let a critical hit through, crippling his maneuverability. In an attempt to avoid hitting his own mines, Emon ran into the other two bombers face-on, taking another Cruise Missile. Emon killed another bomber, but not the one with my one remaining Cruise Missile. I managed to wipe him out before he could use that sixth cluster mine.

Although both squads are definitely “fly casual” kind of squads, we showed that through fancy flying, bombs are now much more avoidable, and ordnance is now king.

Fly casual? I reckon you could get some decent mileage out of that list in a competitive environment now.

4 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Fly casual? I reckon you could get some decent mileage out of that list in a competitive environment now.

True! I think it’s a lot better list than many people would think. I do remember when the “rank all the TIE Bomber pilots” poll happened a couple weeks ago, the Gamma Squadron Veteran rated pretty low (which isn’t a good sign since the ship itself is rarely seen competitively). I think the problem is that you really need that 16-20 dice alpha strike to finish off half the opposing fleet, which is tricky to line up once they see it coming (and was why my second game took so much longer - it went way over 75 minutes). The other problem is that a lot of high-PS fleets tend to kill at least one bomber before it gets a chance to even fire, leaving you many, many squadpoints behind - a problem I like to call “punisher-itis”!

I think you could look at using a targeting synchronizer on a tie s/f and dropping deadeye as well as some PS off the bombers for points elsewhere. FCS would give you a combat phase choice of who to lock and use missiles on.