Well between Bombs, Harpoons, huge PS-Alpha Strikes, Saturation Salvo and the plethora of other things that kill weaker cheaper ships, is there anything that can bring back the beautiful simple TIE Swarm that legends say once rules the skies?

Simplest thematic fix is to have a straight cost reduction of -2, allows one to bring 10 basic fighters and you'll still lose against pretty much everything but allows you to at least have two extra ships, howlrunner, or upgrades like Swarm leader for your swarm.

Commander-Style characters like Hux that boost up multiple small ships with things like evade/focus/target lock tokens.

0 point modification that allows a TIE to take one less damage from non-primary weapon attacks to a minimum of 1 damage.

But this is just me spitballing. Perhaps TIE swarms should no longer exist and have no place in today's game? All I know is I miss them and love flying them and would really like to see them become a thing again. Seeing the X-wing returning to form gives me hope, but how exactly these fragile ships get brought up to standard I'm currently at a loss. Thoughts?

I would love to see swarms of TIE Fighters and Interceptors become a thing again. As a new player, I've only heard of such things in story and song of legend, and have never seen one myself.

My favorite is still the swarm fire mechanic, where a whole bunch of TIEs at range 1 of each other can combine their attacks, ignoring range bonuses and modifiers.

So for example, if I catch you in the arcs of four TIE Fighters, and they're all at range 1 of each other, I can make a single unmodified 8-dice attack against you.

Pretty sure we had a topic just like this not too long ago

I’m trying to work up the courage(?) to go get Scyks 6-8 and run a swarm of them.

36 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

My favorite is still the swarm fire mechanic, where a whole bunch of TIEs at range 1 of each other can combine their attacks, ignoring range bonuses and modifiers.

So for example, if I catch you in the arcs of four TIE Fighters, and they're all at range 1 of each other, I can make a single unmodified 8-dice attack against you.

Yes this sounds awesome! Great idea, and I would love to see something like that playtested.

3 minutes ago, Innese said:

I’m trying to work up the courage(?) to go get Scyks 6-8 and run a swarm of them.

That's actually a pretty strong swarm, I flew 8 TIE Academy Pilots against 8 Scyks and got destroyed, they are actually a potent swarm.

39 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

I would love to see swarms of TIE Fighters and Interceptors become a thing again. As a new player, I've only heard of such things in story and song of legend, and have never seen one myself.

Same here, but some say it was the most beautiful of all things to behold. Others said it was a thing to fear and hate. Sadly though the power of the great bombs and harpoons have kept the swarm at bay. But if someone could unleash that power once more.... hahaha

12 minutes ago, Innese said:

I’m trying to work up the courage(?) to go get Scyks 6-8 and run a swarm of them.

Run the PS 5 guys with light Syck and Determination (and then stack all pilot crits on the top of your deck)

I will be flying Darth Vader and 5 TIEs tomorrow night. Probably going to get destroyed but it will still be fun.

16 hours ago, Kieransi said:

My favorite is still the swarm fire mechanic, where a whole bunch of TIEs at range 1 of each other can combine their attacks, ignoring range bonuses and modifiers.

So for example, if I catch you in the arcs of four TIE Fighters, and they're all at range 1 of each other, I can make a single unmodified 8-dice attack against you.

How is this not a mechanic already???

16 minutes ago, DampfGecko said:

How is this not a mechanic already???

It is in warmachine/hordes

In xwing, though, it'd be pretty broken in the right circumstances (crackshot optics Omega Ace flinging 4-6 crits)

Especially as bumped TIEs would contribute dice

Basically more red dice (beyond 3 total) is generally a bad idea. We've all already seen what red dice creep does to the game

Also, all fixes focusing on swarms stifle list building creativity. A good fix would make any number of TIEs viable, from full on swarm to just a flanking Backstabber

There is no need to artificially limit list building and forgo some much needed variety. Armada got this right by giving TIEs "swarm", which gives them an offensive reroll a against enemies engaged by another friendly squadron (regardless of what friendly squadron it is)

Which is why all 3 agility TIE fighters should get free outmanuever (sorry Quickdraw, but you're good enough as is)

Just now, ficklegreendice said:

In xwing, though, it'd be pretty broken in the right circumstances (crackshot optics Omega Ace flinging 4-6 crits)

Would anyone complain about this? Omega Ace is now only just barely playable!

1 minute ago, AngryAlbatross said:

Would anyone complain about this? Omega Ace is now only just barely playable!

If something is broken it is worth complaining about regardless of where it came from

So the answer is "yeah, pretty obviously"

The POINT of a fix is to bring things up to par, not to make new broken **** that then needs an errata (poor x7)

Well, there are plenty of problems with swarms:

1) basically, every list in the game right now should 1-shot at least 1 tie per round, so you're on a timer that runs out fast.

2) once you are reduced to 2-3 ties miranda just runs, laughing and regening.

3) imperial aces will boost/roll out of range 1 and at range 2+ they can shrug off your attacks.

4) you cant get through reinforce

5) harpoons will ruin your day

6) even worse: a standard 36 point qickdraw or inquisitor will just lift so much more weight than 3 academy ties.

7) Lets face it: in numbers, academy ties are overcosted. A lot of people have suggested they should get a point reduction when fielding several.

8) bomblets ruin their day

9) assaj laughs at ties for 2 rounds, picking 2 off before getting damaged, then flies circles at range 3. Ties just cant reliably keep up with fast ships.

10) dash just murders them.

11) any alphastrike list (lets say vader quickdraw inquisitor) will kill 2-3 at range 2-3 and then 1 more during the second round of firing. Even if you kill one of them: good luck fighting 2 high ps ships with 3-4 ties.

12) 3 crackshot defenders: same game.

as @MaxPower pointed out, the standard Tie is far overcosted for what it does.

My hope is that FFG brings out some squadron mechanics sometime soon to encourage us to run multiples of the same ships. Maybe something giving boost and free evades to Ties could help. Or as @MajorJuggler has suggested, free hits when attacking with multiple ships on the same target.

19 minutes ago, MaxPower said:

Well, there are plenty of problems with swarms:

1) basically, every list in the game right now should 1-shot at least 1 tie per round, so you're on a timer that runs out fast.

2) once you are reduced to 2-3 ties miranda just runs, laughing and regening.

3) imperial aces will boost/roll out of range 1 and at range 2+ they can shrug off your attacks.

4) you cant get through reinforce

5) harpoons will ruin your day

6) even worse: a standard 36 point qickdraw or inquisitor will just lift so much more weight than 3 academy ties.

7) Lets face it: in numbers, academy ties are overcosted. A lot of people have suggested they should get a point reduction when fielding several.

8) bomblets ruin their day

9) assaj laughs at ties for 2 rounds, picking 2 off before getting damaged, then flies circles at range 3. Ties just cant reliably keep up with fast ships.

10) dash just murders them.

11) any alphastrike list (lets say vader quickdraw inquisitor) will kill 2-3 at range 2-3 and then 1 more during the second round of firing. Even if you kill one of them: good luck fighting 2 high ps ships with 3-4 ties.

12) 3 crackshot defenders: same game.

Not to mention Glittercrack brobots which pop ties left right and centre, most things with Gunner, Palp RAC, even modern Dengar builds outjoust them, as well as TLTs and bombs ruining them, especially TSIM.

Even if the top dozen or so lists dropped out of the meta, TIE swarms would struggle.

You can also think about swarms from the other side: How would the game have to look if swarms were viable and even good?

Let's say a swarm has 5+ ships, rather 6+

• They traditionally have low HP and high agility, meaning there is high variability. Still, 3green behind 4HP means they will die after 3-4 TLT attacks on average. Worst case is 2 of course.
  • Several lists attack with 2 TLTs per turn, so you will lose a ship at least every other turn
  • Other turrets are similar - e.g. range1 Rey takes 2 turns to snuff out 4HP behind 3 green, range 2
• They traditionally have a weak attack and low PS
  • low PS means they can block and prevent actions
    • sadly that does not matter that much anymore because of all these passive mods
  • weak attack is the real problem
• They traditionally are arc-bound

These 5-8 ships need to do as much damage over time as other lists. But every second turn they lose a ship and an attack, meaning the initial burst needs to be much higher.

Losing damage output over time in our hyper-defensive meta (sensor jammer, C3PO, reinforce, regen, Jyn+Jan, token stacks, timewalk Asajj, mod denial) means that 2 attack dice definitely don't cut it anymore.
Even worse, they rely on their arcs and that means you might miss out on shots. Your turreted target does not. The damage output needs to compensate for that, too.
And then the AoE damage has to be factored in. Bombs and Harpoons mean that flying in formation and thus ensuring simultaneous shots on the same target is suicide. Splitting up the swarm however puts the burden of execution onto the swarm player, and the damage output should probably compensate for that, too.

Thus, a list with 5-8 ships needs enough damage output to initially overwhelm a ship and (lowPS) burst it away or to very low health, even if a ship can't shoot.

Or we could make a super defensive swarm with lots of damage mitigation. Think FSR but more and worse.

TIE Strikers are the closest you can get at the moment. 5 are currently possible, and they are 3/3/4/0 with a decent dial. A 6th Striker might be enough to make it viable, but then we're talking about a 120pt list by today's costing.

17 hours ago, Kieransi said:

My favorite is still the swarm fire mechanic, where a whole bunch of TIEs at range 1 of each other can combine their attacks, ignoring range bonuses and modifiers.

So for example, if I catch you in the arcs of four TIE Fighters, and they're all at range 1 of each other, I can make a single unmodified 8-dice attack against you.

I really like this idea. Make it a title or something.

Also, give a point reduction of 3 for every ship you have of the same name. Must have minimum of 4 ships.

I still don't understand why people would want to push swarm mechanics

You want to improve the individual TIE, unless you enjoy only having a single viable module for ships. Personally, I find that to be incredibly dull and a waste of a ship's potential

Besides, TIEs shouldn't need swarms to be effective. Sure, cannon fodder mooks are as expendable as they get, but Inferno Squad and Black Squad (particularly Vader, Stabber, Mauler) have all operated just fine without having to rely on numerical superiority

You also have to consider the poor FO,vwhich is costed less for swarming and more for flanking. It needs some love too, as even Omega L doesn't last too long out there anymore

SF not so much, it's quite alright. Limiting fixes to 3+ agility (inverse lwf) will do the trick

1 hour ago, AngryAlbatross said:

My hope is that FFG brings out some squadron mechanics sometime soon to encourage us to run multiples of the same ships.

@DagobahDave , the people need you.

FGD, the way the swarm ability was presented, it sounded like it would be a mass attack with no pilot abilies or dice modification. So no Omega dude stuff. I would imagine that it would also shoot at PS 0, which sounds cool, to be honest. It would definitely make them relevant vs reinforce with 4 Ties expecting to roll 4 hits, one of which is a crit. They could become demons at range 3 (no extra green for their target), but that would be true to my experience from the original Xwing comp game, where jousting a few Ties from distance was a guaranteed death...

well that's one point, but it's not the second overarching problem

any kind of swarm ability will completely pidgeon hole all TIE fighters into only being run with a large quantity of other TIEs

While TIEs being run would be great, fixing them to ONLY be run in swarms is both lame and lazy. They should be viable in just about any quantity for whatever role they can be expected to fill (lone blocker, flanker, mini-swarm or full on swarm)

I'd like to see something along the lines of a "Battle Doctrine" global upgrade that provides situational bonuses to promote certain styles of play, similar to the Task Force and Fleet titles in Armada.

How about this.

1pt Tie fighter title.

"After performing a primary weapon attack reduce the agility of the target ship by 1 for the rest of the combat phase."

It might be to strong, but it would make any quantity of ties in a fleet valuable.