How?

It doesn't stop them finding it near-impossible to damage anything, nor being trivially killed.

Main, not only. If you care to look you‘ll see that I already talked about the damage output.

The claim that they „don‘t damage anything“ keeps being repeated but ignores two things:

1. Swarms had that problem in a meta dominated by high agility ships. But the average agility is very low, currently. That means swarms can do quite some damage, they just die too fast. And the player is disproportionately punished for that by MoV
2. Strikers and missile swarms. They deal a lot of damage. Even GhostFenn is possible for 5 Strikers.

Now „they don‘t damage anything“ is not the same as „they don‘t do enough damage“, and that is certainly true. Swarms need to do more because their damage output is faster reduced than other lists. But the huge amount of agi0-2 ships means they have potential.

No, (one of) the (many) problem(s) is that there are many, many lists they literally cannot damage, even low agility ships. Fenn/Ghost they struggle because Kanan, Sensor Jammer, Fenn's ability, Hotshot blocks 4 or 5 shots from doing much, Miranda (and Poe, and Corran) they struggle because regen removes what little they can do; wookiees, reinforce; Rey outjousts them hilariously; Asajj tanks them, you need 3 hits to do anything meaningful to Poe, etc etc etc etc. About the only meta ship that they DON'T struggle to put damage onto is Nym, and they struggle to get shots on him at all. And that's discounting the propensity to get at least one TIE PS killed before it can fire by many if not most meta lists, in many cases Howlrunner, which kills the damage output of the list even more than most.

I'm talking about OG TIE/ln swarms, here. Alphathrusters and Strikers are mildly better off, I'll give you.

People assert that 2-die attacks are more or less worthless because they *are* more or less worthless.

They just need a little lift up to compete the new level. something like the below would help them and plays into the "they move" and "they swarm"

Modification; "Synced Fire" Cost 1. "You cannot Equip this card if your Primary attack value is higher than 2 and you have the System Slot."

"When performing a primary weapon attack, choose 1 friendly ship that also has Synced Fire Equipped & has the defender inside their firing arcs at Range 1-3. If that ship hasn't already fired this round it may receive a weapons disabled token. You may roll additional Attack Dice equal to the printed value of that ship, to a maximum of 4 additional dice. you may treat their blue target lock token as your own"

and something to give s some movies;

Nimble Fighter (You cannot Equip this card if your Agility value is 2 or less and you have the Torpedo Slot) You may equip up to 2 different Title upgrades. 0 PTS

Immediately After executing a 3-, 4-, or 5-speed, you must execute a free barrel roll action if able.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

No, (one of) the (many) problem(s) is that there are many, many lists they literally cannot damage, even low agility ships.

Have you actually tried?

They do not deal enough damage fast enough and they die too fast for their output. But even your examples show why „literally cannot damage“ is just wrong.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Fenn/Ghost they struggle because Kanan, Sensor Jammer, Fenn's ability, Hotshot blocks 4 or 5 shots from doing much,

Again, have you tried? Kanan is not even played, so that‘s a disingenuous example. Fenn+Hotshot block one ship each, which will now do 0-1 damage. The other 3-6 shoot later and can spend their focus, meaning they will deal 1-2 damage each, or 2-3 for strikers. That‘s half a Ghost per turn. Yes it works, yes I have tried. Have you?

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Miranda (and Poe, and Corran) they struggle because regen removes what little they can do

Regen removes one attack. That‘s exactly what I‘m talking about. This „common knowledge“ is repeated without understanding. The regen is functionally identical to an evade token. One. Against 5-8 attacks. With one agility for Miranda. She melts pretty fast. Or would, but the output is not high enough. That‘s not the same as „literall cannot damage“, by far not. The swarm dies too fast and does not deal the proportionately correct amount of damage. But it does damage Miranda.

Corran is behind high agility, which I explicitly addressed as problematic, so again a disingenuous example.

Poe is a special case due to his pilot ability, which gives him an evade on each attack and makes it similar to a reinforce, which swarms have of course lots of problems with.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Rey outjousts them hilariously

Again because her ability gives her functionally a reinforce with the reroll on every attack. But that aside she outjousts them because the swarm dies too fast without having dealt enough damage. Her minus the ability is the same as Han, and we both know that Han does not stand a chance.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Asajj tanks them

Asajj tanks everyone for two turns, that has nothing to do with swarms...

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

etc etc etc etc

Curious about those. You have covered most ships with defensive abilities that are not once per turn, and those are naturally extremely strong against swarms. (Edit: to save you some work: Jess Pava and Ezra in the sheathipede have the same defensive advantage. That puts the ships up to Auzitucks and Poe, Rey, Jess and Ezra. Which is not a problem, having 4(8) pilots that have inherent advantages against swarms. Out or pretty many)

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Alphathrusters and Strikers are mildly better off, I'll give you.

And I wonder why that is. Oh right, because they have a slightly higher damage output.

I like the idea of a zero cost title that can give the defender a condition if the attacker misses.

Condition, reduce agility by one, to a minimum of zero.

Pinning Fire perhaps.

Swarms a weak but should not be throwing 16 dice attacks. And definitely not perma-reducing agility aswell as potentialally two damage each. That's crazy talk.

Thematically I'm thinking yes you dodged this ties shot but have less space to dodge in for the next shot, so soontir few might dodge four or even five ties shots at range three but eventually one of them will hit him and for only one or two at best damage, so yes soontir could die from a tie swarm but if he can arc dodge and survive the *Alpha* strike he has a good chance of cleaning up.

I guess light Scyks have higher PS and critical proof first Health.

Z95's are rocking thread tracers. So tie/ln only?

Lots of good points in this thread. I do want to throw out the idea that Tie Fighters don't have to fly in formation. Flying them in an actual swarm is sometimes much better.

Agree on comments about how blocking isn't as useful in some situations, but it still is far from useless. It can be very useful vs some. You can cause some lists headaches when you cause them all to bump.

Bombs hurt Tie Fighters bad.

The power creep in red dice hurt Ties, as well.

2 attack dice ships that can cause a bump and fire at R1 aren't so weak (with 3 dice).

It also doesn't help that Reinforce is in the game. 4 wookies could beat an 8 Tie swarm handily in my opinion, simply because of reinforce. Tie attacks are just not accurate enough, even at range 1! Usually they only get one hit on a target per fighter. Two if you are lucky!

Many more solid points coming up. And a lot seem keyed into how easy it is to blast away several fragile TIEs each turn. I also think the respawninf TIEs is excellent but not sure how that would work gameplay/thematic wise. So how about for a flip, an EPT that says:

"Survival Instinct"

Imperial Only

Equip this only if you have 3 or less hull.

The first time you would be destroyed, you may discard this card to cancel all remaining damage, discard all damage cards and assign 2 face down damage cards to your ship.

You may still equip an additional EPT.

Gives the TIEs a way to survive being blasted so easily with a second life.

Another thing that might be fun is if TIEs had some sort of "distracting" capabilities to reflect their being too many and all over the place, letting them pick you off more easily. Basically, swarm tactics (NOT the card, I mean actual tactics)

In gameplay, it'd be nice if a TIE in b2b with the defender gave attacking TIEs (not just fighters) accuracy corrector

Get around sensor jammers and stuff, rewards good flying with more than just bad dice, lets you keep modifiers for defense, doesn't shoehorn fighters into swarm only and doesn't overpower other TIE types (TIEpes)

Doesn't do much re high agility, but two hits are generally a LOT better than just 2 red dice

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Another thing that might be fun is if TIEs had some sort of "distracting" capabilities to reflect their being too many and all over the place, letting them pick you off more easily. Basically, swarm tactics (NOT the card, I mean actual tactics)

Let the swarm reallocate enemy target lock tokens at the start of the combat phase like Manaroo.

I think as mentioned there are several overlapping issues.

1. TIE fighters as a whole are pretty bad.
2. Swarms as a whole (TIEs, Scyks, Z-95s) are pretty bad against many lists
3. There's a **** of a lot out there that really hurt swarms. Harpoons may have been the nail in the coffin (seriously, what were they thinking?).

There are a number of ways to solve this problem but few that are appealing. The easiest fix might be a new TIE along the lines of Serissu or Howlrunner that gives a significant reason to run a swarm, or yet another "swarm" EPT given that Swarm Leader and Squad Leader didn't do the job. A title would be a straightforward way to give all TIEs or TIE/fos a boost in particular (although it occurs to me that there could be a cross faction 12-point-or-less title that might work? Or just 3 titles?). Not sure how you put TIEs on the map through errata. Errata-ing points values is something FFG seems loathe to do and I can understand that.

Swarms aren't that far from being viable. I've run them a bit and I've had some wins at local events with them. Howlrunner and a bomber with OpSpec + Intel can give them teeth. I think it wouldn't take much to make them viable and I think it would be very very easy to make them overpowered or at least rock-paper-scissory. For example, the suggestion that for each one that fires, reduce the defenders agility by 1. That would be pretty crazy I think you could take out vader in one round even if you assume 1 TIE is killed and the first 3 don't hit. Likewise I'm not sure about 8 dice laser beams of death. TIEs should be a death by a thousand cuts not turn into Voltron. You already have Swarm Leader.

Seems to me that actually defence is where swarms need help. 2 dice ain't much but there are offensive options. OpSpec, Howl, Hux, etc. There's only really Serissu for defence. I think if Imperials could take Serissu swarms could be more viable?

actually, you can simplify the above problems

1. TIE Fighters can't really hack it (apart from the SF, maybe Omega L but all these red dice means she burns down fast)

2. Harpoons and such

swarms not being great is a product of problem #1, not a problem in itself. Fix the TIE, you fix the swarm

Not entirely sure about that. A single TIE as a blocker can be valuable, for example, without necessarily being worth 12 points of pew-pew. I think a single Quadjumper is more valuable with some heavy hitters than a swarm of Quadjumpers. I think ships can be worth their points without being spammable. Put another way, I think a good swarm ship needs to work as a swarm and some ships are definitely more iconic as swarms, chief of those being, of course, the TIE fighter.

I'm not disagreeing that if you fix the TIE you'll see more of the ship and if the raw un-upgraded cost is low enough you'll see swarms of it. But I think you can still promote swarm play with certain upgrades in the same way that harpoons disincentivises swarm play.

11 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Have you actually tried?

They do not deal enough damage fast enough and they die too fast for their output. But even your examples show why „literally cannot damage“ is just wrong.

Again, have you tried? Kanan is not even played, so that‘s a disingenuous example. Fenn+Hotshot block one ship each, which will now do 0-1 damage. The other 3-6 shoot later and can spend their focus, meaning they will deal 1-2 damage each, or 2-3 for strikers. That‘s half a Ghost per turn. Yes it works, yes I have tried. Have you?

Regen removes one attack. That‘s exactly what I‘m talking about. This „common knowledge“ is repeated without understanding. The regen is functionally identical to an evade token. One. Against 5-8 attacks. With one agility for Miranda. She melts pretty fast. Or would, but the output is not high enough. That‘s not the same as „literall cannot damage“, by far not. The swarm dies too fast and does not deal the proportionately correct amount of damage. But it does damage Miranda.

Corran is behind high agility, which I explicitly addressed as problematic, so again a disingenuous example.

Poe is a special case due to his pilot ability, which gives him an evade on each attack and makes it similar to a reinforce, which swarms have of course lots of problems with.

Again because her ability gives her functionally a reinforce with the reroll on every attack. But that aside she outjousts them because the swarm dies too fast without having dealt enough damage. Her minus the ability is the same as Han, and we both know that Han does not stand a chance.

Asajj tanks everyone for two turns, that has nothing to do with swarms...

Curious about those. You have covered most ships with defensive abilities that are not once per turn, and those are naturally extremely strong against swarms. (Edit: to save you some work: Jess Pava and Ezra in the sheathipede have the same defensive advantage. That puts the ships up to Auzitucks and Poe, Rey, Jess and Ezra. Which is not a problem, having 4(8) pilots that have inherent advantages against swarms. Out or pretty many)

And I wonder why that is. Oh right, because they have a slightly higher damage output.

Why do you think a re-roll is as strong as adding a result?

Nothing to do with Tie Fighters, but I feel the solution to Tie Intercepters has been known for half a dozen waves now:

Aturi Cluster Elite

Tie Intercepter only Title (Does not stack with royal guard) 0 points

At the start of activation, you may perform a free focus action.

6 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Why do you think a re-roll is as strong as adding a result?

Could you maybe quote the part you are referencing?

19 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Could you maybe quote the part you are referencing?

sorry, misread some stuff... Ignore this

Here are some suggestions for buffing the swarm (no doubt achieved through a title)

1. A ship can use a focus token from any (with a range restriction) ship in the swarm
2. Bumping into another ship of the swarm doesn't lose an action

Maybe just one of these, maybe both, maybe in combination with something else.

On 17.4.2018 at 3:53 PM, ficklegreendice said:

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)

Granted, but this is rather easily fixed. It is possible to stipulate that only the combined primary weapon value of TiEs legally able to shoot can contribute to this attack, which can not be modified. Maybe regulate the maximum amount of dice thrown this way as well (8?).

This is great for large swarms, allows for situations where you would rather not use it (CC against low-agi ships) and specifically doesn't combo most problematic effects.

Really like the swarm unmodified group barrage ability and really fits their mechanics well. Would it be a new rule or title or more similar to the doctrine idea?

The strategy/doctrine/tactics is another great angle and if implemented correctly could lead up lots of fixes for different ship swarms. And help us get away from the current two ship fortress lists. But is it too fundamental of a game Shift? I mean they added conditions so could be a next step.

Another idea is to give them an ability similar to Tel's called "survival instinct" where they can discard that card to essentially survive with one Hull left.

Double

Said it before and i'll say it again, this legitimately works:

TIE/In - Title: -2 points
"When the number of damage cards assigned to you equals or exceeds your hull value, you are not destroyed until the end of the round."

10 TIE Fighters on the board is silly fun
At range 2, I failed to kill a Wookie Gunship, with 20 dice + focus. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. HOWEVER, I consistently removed a Ghost in the first engagement. Every time. Without fail.

I then lost to:
Dash/Poe (Twice)
Double Phantom (Once)
Quad TLT (Scum - Twice)

I am willing to admit that the loses COULD, maybe, potentially be down to me not having flown a TIE Swarm in a few months.

Maybe.

(Maybe it was the dice)