Who else is excited about putting Ties back on the table?

https://dialedin.blog/2018/05/28/the-sloane-swarm/

just a reminder, General Hux won't be available for imperials in 2.0

I've never been that into TIE swarms but with the 2.0 core set I'll have 12 of them so maybe it's time to try again

I believe Hux was used a stand-in here to express possible points for Sloane, not for any other reason.

And as I said on reddit, I'm curious to see how this actually shakes out. Specifically whether there will be enough stress induced beyond what enemies will get from popping TIEs.

35 minutes ago, Effenhoog said:

just a reminder, General Hux won't be available for imperials in 2.0

I've never been that into TIE swarms but with the 2.0 core set I'll have 12 of them so maybe it's time to try again

Yeah, he's just there to as a points place holder.

I did a beta test with a friend , Luke and Porkins vs Iden, Night Beast and Valen Rudor (we use the threat cards) and I more excited for the swarm :

Iden Version was the star of my team, her ability will save you against a nasty shot.

Valen Rudor and his ability give me the luck to do a barell roll and shot my opponent at range 1 or to have better position, really nice to be on the enemy arc again when he arc dodge you !

Night beast is good for turtle tactics.

The new pilot abilities and upgrades are fun, but that’s not what will give TIE swarm their biggest boost. The reason TIE swarms might be viable again is the nerfs to evade, reinforce, primary weapon turrets, and bombs. Two dice attacks will be able to do damage again, and the reduction in splash damage will keep them alive longer.

A sloane swarm sounds fun but the correct counterplay would be to ignore the ties and kill sloane first. Much like you would do with 2 x7 defenders and palpshuttle. The problem with replacing howlrunner with Sloane, is if they go for sloane first you will get no rerolls ever and no benefit for from sloane.

I guess the opponent could stress themselves with linked actions and red maneuvers...

15 minutes ago, TBot said:

A sloane swarm sounds fun but the correct counterplay would be to ignore the ties and kill sloane first. Much like you would do with 2 x7 defenders and palpshuttle. The problem with replacing howlrunner with Sloane, is if they go for sloane first you will get no rerolls ever and no benefit for from sloane.

This is the conclusion I came to. It's a more limited and avoidable re-roll than Howl's. It makes me think that maybe TIE Swarms are the wrong choice. Maybe Strikers or something else with more offense for the points to capitalize on the Biggs effect.

Alternatively, a reinforcing Lambda is a pretty poor target.

I'm thinking linked actions will bring a ton of self stressing ships to the table to allow Sloane to shine.

1 hour ago, NervousSam said:

I'm thinking linked actions will bring a ton of self stressing ships to the table to allow Sloane to shine.

Thats true its kind of a win win if they do or dont use their linked actions

We also don't know if Tactician, Rebel Captive, Flechette Cannon, etc., are in the game. It could be that the Lambda will be able to deal stress out in some other way as well, which could be enough to make it work if you try to pin Sloane instead of attacking TIEs.

7 hours ago, Ixidor said:

We also don't know if Tactician, Rebel Captive, Flechette Cannon, etc., are in the game. It could be that the Lambda will be able to deal stress out in some other way as well, which could be enough to make it work if you try to pin Sloane instead of attacking TIEs.

Indeed. If Rebel Captive is still a thing it's a shoe-in for Sloane's other crew slot, because it leaves you no good target.

Sloane Swarm is definitely one of the first 2.0 lists I want to run. It has caveats but the stress and re-rolls look pretty great, especially against ace lists.

Being able to contribute to the fight when nothing was in arc was always one of the Lambda’s biggest weaknesses, but with Sloane, Coordinate, Jam and a rear-arc it seems like it’ll have more of an impact now.

One request: can we quit calling Tie Formations Tie Swarms? If you fly in formation, you are hardly swarming anything. There is a valid strategy of a mass of Ties NOT in formation that should be called the Tie Swarm. It involves actually swarming around your opponent.

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

One request: can we quit calling Tie Formations Tie Swarms? If you fly in formation, you are hardly swarming anything. There is a valid strategy of a mass of Ties NOT in formation that should be called the Tie Swarm. It involves actually swarming around your opponent.

Interestingly enough, the blog post is talking about breaking the formation up because of Sloane's ability having a significant range, allowing for a wider spread of TIEs and the possibility of "coming from every direction."

11 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

One request: can we quit calling Tie Formations Tie Swarms? If you fly in formation, you are hardly swarming anything. There is a valid strategy of a mass of Ties NOT in formation that should be called the Tie Swarm. It involves actually swarming around your opponent.

Its just been common habit to call any list with 5+ ships a swarm. Its just the common nomenclature. So you'd rather call them formation lists?

As others have mentioned that maybe not the TIE Fighter for the Sloane swarm, but the TIE Striker could be the sweet spot ship. The big advantages of utilizing Sloane that I don't think have been mentioned as much (if at all) is that unlike Howlrunner, your area to gain the Sloane benefit is massively wider and allows your swarm to fan out and attack from multiple angles without losing anything. The Strikers themselves have great movement and positioning capabilities that allow creating a wider net of fire a lot easier and less predictable than a TIE Fighter. Plus ships that rely on Linked actions or even like their red actions might become a bit apprehensive about performing those when it stresses them and gives an entire swarm rerolls.

36 minutes ago, RStan said:

As others have mentioned that maybe not the TIE Fighter for the Sloane swarm, but the TIE Striker could be the sweet spot ship. The big advantages of utilizing Sloane that I don't think have been mentioned as much (if at all) is that unlike Howlrunner, your area to gain the Sloane benefit is massively wider and allows your swarm to fan out and attack from multiple angles without losing anything. The Strikers themselves have great movement and positioning capabilities that allow creating a wider net of fire a lot easier and less predictable than a TIE Fighter. Plus ships that rely on Linked actions or even like their red actions might become a bit apprehensive about performing those when it stresses them and gives an entire swarm rerolls.

Yeah the s-loop on the Striker alone makes it really appealing for this type of play.

Heck, even squints might work okay but you'd probably be done to at most 2-3 of them alongside Sloane (I'm wildly speculating there). I bet we'd prefer aces in that case.

It will also be interesting to see if there's a cheap enough ship that can carry a stress inducer. While I'm hopeful that just the potential of stress giving such a boon will scare a lot of opponents into bad plays but I'd like to be confident that I have another way of adding stress if possible.

1 minute ago, Ixidor said:

It will also be interesting to see if there's a cheap enough ship that can carry a stress inducer. While I'm hopeful that just the potential of stress giving such a boon will scare a lot of opponents into bad plays but I'd like to be confident that I have another way of adding stress if possible.

Well the Death Troopers are a way of dealing out stress. If the TIE Shuttle returns as a configuration for the TIE Bomber, then you could have that follow a Sloane carrier. Obviously if you can have a Rebel Captive as a crew on the Sloane carrier as long as it retains the same or similar stress giving mechanics, then that's easier. A lot of it just depends on how much you're trying to force stress on your opponent vs having enough ships in the actual attacking swarm.

2 hours ago, NervousSam said:

Its just been common habit to call any list with 5+ ships a swarm. Its just the common nomenclature. So you'd rather call them formation lists?

Call them Tie Formations, because that's what they are.

2 hours ago, Ixidor said:

Interestingly enough, the blog post is talking about breaking the formation up because of Sloane's ability having a significant range, allowing for a wider spread of TIEs and the possibility of "coming from every direction."

Yes and I agree. I'm just talking general nomenclature.

4 hours ago, heychadwick said:

One request: can we quit calling Tie Formations Tie Swarms? If you fly in formation, you are hardly swarming anything. There is a valid strategy of a mass of Ties NOT in formation that should be called the Tie Swarm. It involves actually swarming around your opponent.

No. It’s far too late for a change of that magnitude.

However, I would love it if we could get people to stop calling 4 ships a swarm. A proper swarm in x-wing is at least 6+ ships. 4-5 ships is a mini-swarm.

4 hours ago, heychadwick said:

Call them Tie Formations, because that's what they are.

The swarm nomenclature is out of the barn. What if we call them "Formation Swarms" and "Dispersed Swarms"?

51 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

The swarm nomenclature is out of the barn. What if we call them "Formation Swarms" and "Dispersed Swarms"?

Swarms and Shawarma??