In recent months we have seen a sharp rise in Imperial fighter wings built around scatter aces and the ubiquitous Steele and Vader, (Jendon optional but not a bad choice.) Before Sloane, these types of air superiority fighter wings would quickly win the squadron fight but struggle to make meaningful contributions to the capital ship fight afterward. Sloane effectively buffs these previously one dimensional squadrons into formidable multi-role threats.

What we now contend with is a deadly anti-fighter wing that can earn its keep against ships as well and can no longer be ignored as it might have been in the past. Any competitive and well rounded armada list needs to have a way to address this threat in the face of the new Quasar expansion and the rise of Sloane as popular new admiral.

Note: I am not suggesting Sloane is OP. I think it is a great add to the Imperial side,

So now, what we all came to hear about. How do we beat a lot of scatter aces?

I have heard this topic discussed many times and the answers given are usually, heavy flak, anti-fighter wings of your own, or ignore them and try and win by killing the carriers. Most people advocate 2 dice flak ships and squadrons with 4 dice anti squadron armaments. I am not convinced that this is optimal against the current scatter ace heavy meta. A single flak barrage will always get scattered, and unless multiple ships have large 2 dice flak potentials, the big "flak boat," will have minimal effect on the situation since its shot will get scattered and the weaker shots will be allowed to pass. At this point you might as well not have a dedicated "flak boat."

As the title suggests, what I am proposing as an anti-scatter tactic is the Method of One. Every time you attack an ace you are looking to do at least one damage, but there is very little point in trying to get more than that since it will be scattered or braced, and the aces we are concerned with only have 3 HP anyway. This Method of One should influence your list building choices, Torryn Far is an obvious add for the Rebels since she increases the odds of your normal since blue die flak shots finding their mark. To kill any 3 HP scatter ace you have to hit them with 5 packets of 1 damage within the span of a single turn to kill them. You may get lucky and kill them faster with accuracy results but that is just an added bonus. When considering this, you may be interested in things like Jamming Fields in your fleet since they mitigate a single die from each attack. This may allow your squadrons to live long enough to shoot, and yes you are sad that the enemy gets an obstruction too, but again, you are only looking for 1 damage every shot so it is ok, even a 3 dice shot, obstructed down to a 2 dice shot has a 75% chance of yielding the 1 damage we need, not counting Torryn Far if you have her.

With this in mind, A-Wings start to look better as anti-scatter options than x-wings since the counter shot is yet another opportunity to inflict that 1 damage hit. Gallent Haven, Jan Orrs, and the Jamming Field help to mitigate their weaker HP and Torryn Far makes them very reliable on the attack and with counter shots when trying to get the 1 damage across.

Ruthless Stratigist and Ten Numb are ways of generating un-blockable damage which factor heavily into burning down 3 HP aces . Use it if you can fit it in the list.

Treat the enemy fighter swarm like you would a ship and fly your ships in such a way that in order to get at your fighters or bomb your important ships they must enter overlapping fields of flak, don't leave your fighters to do all the work on their own, they need help and the big guys can go a long way toward stacking on those 1 damage hits to chip away at aces. Gunnery Teams keep you from having to choose between hitting ships and hitting squads with flak... One of the best uses of a Flotilla is as a flak ship, they are highly effective for the points cost. Would you buy a 18 point squadron that gets to shoot one black die at every ship around it? I would...

Finally, list building and navigation aside, lets talk activation tactics. When facing a scatter swarm like this, they will most likely get the jump on you, they are fast and you have no reason to extend your fighters outside of the nice flak death zone you have been setting up, so you will probably end up letting them alpha your squadrons or a ship. That is ok. They won't kill everything in one pass. Best to let them chew on a ship and hide your fighters in range to counter. When you counter remember the Method of One. Send in the lower dice attacks first, trying to apply that 1 hit without wasting your heavy hitters. For example, send in your A-wings to first chip away at your target, then hit them with that ship's flak, 3 a-wings and a flak should easily get you 3 hits for 1 damage each, you are daring the ace to burn up the scatter token. By holding your X-wings or YT-2400's or other 4 dice ships/ ships that will benefit from flight controllers back you put heat on the ace and make them want to allow the single hits through for fear of being one, shotted by a strong attack later in the round.

As aces start to use their scatters react accordingly and send in the big hitters now that you are through the scatter. The ideal situation is one where you get 1 damage through with the first attack and then follow up with a bigger attack which could kill the ace with an accuracy and 3 hits. Note likely but it can happen.

Last note, commit to the flak, don't flak with only one ship, you are not going to do much, flak with 2+ ships to really start to stack on the Method of One. Your squadrons should not fight without the support of their capital ships, you will lose, specially with generic squadrons...

Lol, beat @Ginkapo to writing the article on this. Kudos.

2 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Lol, beat @Ginkapo to writing the article on this. Kudos.

That was my thought when I read the title. I have written quite a lot on it before though.

In this light, Toryn Ywings, Toryn hwks and Tie bombers have a much better perspective in the squadron fight than most seem to persieve.

I will also add that in this context, combat flotillas have added value.

My recent Experience is having Double dice flak isnt really worth It, unless its a leading shot-Double Blue. If youre Lucky and roll 2 hits, its Just gonna get braced or worse: Scattered.

As for imps: Warlord with h9 is potent, Just as well as mauler. Sadly, there is no imp version Toryn Farr to make your attacks more consistant.

Also, Demo can be a great multi-purpose ship, built from glad2 with kallus, sensor team(enables to finish off a scatter ace or a flotilla)/oe, et, apt. Can flak the same squads twice, jummy. Not a cheap build, but can adopt to all situations which is crucial in the current state of the game un my opinion.

Edit: Kallus could go on warlord, adding a red die against uniques, which is turned into a Double hit, but probably gets braced/scattered. But a leading shots is almost always there to reroll the added die.

10 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

or worse: Scattered.

That's why its important to overlap with AA fire.

Once a turn is a waste.

But if you can do it 2... 3.. or even 1 decent and follow it up with a Squadron or two... That scatter dies and the Squadron soon afterwards...

If you can't plink 'em for 1 reliably over and over... Just do what you can to guarantee 3 decent 2+ hit attacks in a single turn.

They'll be dead or dying either way.

I wanna try fielding captain Thrawn Brannigan with 13 Tie Bombers and a Quasar 2 with Ruthless Strategists!

Throw wave after wave of cheap 5hp bombers at them until they reach their defense token limit and shut down.

Here you go @Ardaedhel , my article on the subject...

I obviously wrote this with an eye toward a Rebel counter since the Imps can just take the same stuff themselves. That being said, it might benefit imps more to look at double dice flak to insure the 1 damage plink goes off reliably. They in deed do not have a Torryn Far equivalent. The flak demo idea has worked well for me in the past. the combination of a flak demo and an ISD flak puts out enough damage to expend the scatters before the squadrons go in. I think much of winning a squad war is determined more by ship positioning and baiting the enemy into your kill box then people like to admit. All the upgrades and combos in the world are nice in theory, but flak is a basic tool that every fleet has to some extent, it must be leveraged properly and a list need to build to enhance those strengths if they plan to rely on flak as an AA answer/supplement to fighters.

I thin Flotillas are often relegated to the old "run and relay," mission when they can contribute to a squad war a lot if you are willing to commit them and are careful with positioning. From a rebel stand point, Bright Hope is a rock star against these Ace Swarms. They may eat your scatter with Sloane, but have a hard time damaging you, and hopefully if they are bombing your 20 point ship they eat a round of flak from it and get pounced on by your other ships flak and your squadron counter punch. A flotilla going in alone is a waste and will get killed, but a flotilla tucked in with the rest of your fleet is often overlooked in the face of so many other more pressing threats.

I want to echo the ideas about Tie Bombers and Y-Wings, ships that are tough enough on their own to withstand a significant beating, and are good at putting on 1 damage vs a squadron. They also represent a credible threat to your opponent forcing them to engage them or risk those bombers getting loose on their ships.

The simple take away from the article I was trying to get across is this. Commit to flak with multiple ships, fly your ships to set up a safe zone you squadrons have a distinct advantage in, and when committing your squadrons to a dogfight, send in the low dice ships first to soak up the scatters. These are all things most fleets can do, some not so well as others, but at least we have a starting point to begin constructing lists that can stand against a scatter swarm.

46 minutes ago, duck_bird said:

Throw wave after wave of cheap 5hp bombers at them until they reach their defense token limit and shut down.

There was a local who brought three (four?) AFMK2 with Ruthless Strategists and 13 Y-Wings to the one regional I went to. Good times.

Bump as it has come to my attention that not enough people have been reading this.

On 11/3/2017 at 2:49 AM, Space_Cowboy17 said:

A-Wings start to look better as anti-scatter options than x-wings since the counter shot is yet another opportunity to inflict that 1 damage hit. Gallent Haven, Jan Orrs, and the Jamming Field

Personally, I don't like the A-Wing-Jamming Field combination. You lose 33% of your offensive power, and a further 50% off your counter attacks.

I prefer Jamming Fields with a light screen of X-wings, or oddly enough Z-Headhunters. Z's because they are fragile, and that obstructed attack is often the difference between 3 damage and 2. Plus they don't lose too much offensively as with their 2x re-rolls they roll 4 dice (instead of 5), usually still with misses, thus re-rolls are nearly as good as an extra attack.

51 minutes ago, Divad said:

Personally, I don't like the A-Wing-Jamming Field combination. You lose 33% of your offensive power, and a further 50% off your counter attacks.

I prefer Jamming Fields with a light screen of X-wings, or oddly enough Z-Headhunters. Z's because they are fragile, and that obstructed attack is often the difference between 3 damage and 2. Plus they don't lose too much offensively as with their 2x re-rolls they roll 4 dice (instead of 5), usually still with misses, thus re-rolls are nearly as good as an extra attack.

Talking in percent suggests you dont understand the concept behind the power of ONE. As long as you reach the threshold of 1 damage, its meaningless how much more damage you do.

Toryn counter 2 = 87% of 1 dmg I think
Toryn counter 1 = 75% of 1 dmg I think

so jamming fields does 12% reduction to 1 dmg chance.

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

Talking in percent suggests you dont understand the concept behind the power of ONE. As long as you reach the threshold of 1 damage, its meaningless how much more damage you do.

Toryn counter 2 = 87% of 1 dmg I think
Toryn counter 1 = 75% of 1 dmg I think

so jamming fields does 12% reduction to 1 dmg chance.

You're correct since Toryn allows only a single reroll.

Toryn counter 2 = 87.5% of at least 1 damage (50% double hit, 37.5% single hit)

Toryn counter 1 = 75% of 1 damage

Percent decrease is 16.667%, repeating of course. [Original - New] / Original * 100

15 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

As long as you reach the threshold of 1 damage, its meaningless how much more damage you do.

That is all well and good if your are against scatter heroes, of which I am aware that this thread is about.

However when list building, you do not know for certain if that will be the case. Hence I'd avoid A-Wings with Jamming Fields (except Sharra) or you'll be hurting your own squadrons against many other enemy squadron archetypes. Imagine for example your poor A-Wings inside the Jamming field trying to blink away damage from a Biggs escort ball, one at a time. Now you may in this case fly the flotilla away from your A-wings, but then you need to invest in other tech to still allow it to squad command from longer range. Plus I presume Toryn would be on the Jamming Flotilla, so you'd lose her if you did fly it away.

Lastly Mauler and Soontir have a great time inside Jamming fields, as they do auto damage and their survivability goes up.

Would much rather have 2 dice countering than one in jamming field simply for the fact that you can acc the scatter along with that hit.

I'm almost through an entire bottle of Wayne Gretzky merlot, but this power of one idea may be getting a little over blown... Death by a thousand cuts is just as good as death by one or two giant whoppers...

As for overlapping fields of flak: this is all well and good, but your average opponent will see the danger and avoid it by singling out targets which allow them to keeps squads out of heavy flak.

4 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

this power of one idea may be getting a little over blown... Death by a thousand cuts is just as good as death by one or two giant whoppers...

Agree. Both are valid approaches, though I do think you want to go hard into one direction or the other, as a rule of thumb.

6 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

Wayne Gretzky merlot

Dafuq?

14 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Dafuq?

I'm in Edmonton hot off a tourney win! I'm not not going to finish this bottle while channeling the great one! It's what he would have wanted!