Hi forums.

Assuming opponents are equal skill, which list do you think has the advantage in the below matchup?

List 1:

List 2:

Ties. Because imps rek and Rebels watchers eat paste.

With TIE fighters backed by Iden, the right call on Homing Missiles seems to be to take your chances on the actual attack rather than eat the damage. Letting them sit on the lock and get to double mod their range 1 shot next turn seems like a mistake. So you chose the "I don't believe you" option until you whiff your defense roll, pop Iden and then take the 1 damage going forward unless it's the kill shot on a ship and then you force the roll and hope for the best.

I like the A-Wing swarm's flexibility of movement here, but using the Homing Missiles on the initial exchange will be tricky if they are First Player. The TIE Swarm has a much more predictable approach but they also get to defensively focus while maintaining offense.

I'd say TIE Swarm 60 vs A-Wings 40?

35 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Hi forums.

Assuming opponents are equal skill, which list do you think has the advantage in the below matchup?

List 1:

"Howlrunner" — TIE Fighter	40
Elusive	3
Ship Total: 43
Iden Versio — TIE Fighter	40
Ship Total: 40
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	23
Ship Total: 23
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	23
Ship Total: 23
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	23
Ship Total: 23
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	23
Ship Total: 23
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	23
Ship Total: 23

List 2:

Phoenix Squadron Pilot — A-Wing	30
Homing Missiles	3
Ship Total: 33
Phoenix Squadron Pilot — A-Wing	30
Homing Missiles	3
Ship Total: 33
Phoenix Squadron Pilot — A-Wing	30
Homing Missiles	3
Ship Total: 33
Phoenix Squadron Pilot — A-Wing	30
Homing Missiles	3
Ship Total: 33
Phoenix Squadron Pilot — A-Wing	30
Homing Missiles	3
Ship Total: 33
Phoenix Squadron Pilot — A-Wing	30
Homing Missiles	3
Ship Total: 33

Amendment to the list, Iden should probably have a Talent, either Predator, Crack Shot, Marksmanship, or Composure, so your Imperial list is 199-200 points. A-Wings have the bid, a skilled player probably gives the bid away so that the A-Wings can arc dodge. The fact that the A-Wings can arc dodge gives them an edge; they also don't need to fly in a block. So "same skill" doesn't quite work - the squads fly very differently.

I think the A-Wings have the edge. More flexibility, each one is an independent platform and has more durability than a TIE Fighter. They each are nearly guaranteed to land 2 hits if they get their missiles off. They can simply focus fire Howlrunner while the TIEs just shoot at what they can as a big block.

This is interesting!

• Both lists are at 198, and both Phoenixes and Academies are IN1.
  • As immediate sidenote, the imperial player should ditch something (elusive?) to gain initiative advantage.

I will assume that the rebel player won and gave initiative to the imperial player. He moves first and the rebel player can acquire TLs for the missiles. The two main questions are:

1. How many A-wings will die before they can return fire?
2. How many TIEs will evaporate with these Homing missiles that are left?

Scenario 1: The ships end up at range 3 of each other. The rebel player range-controlled well and got all his 6 ships in a broad diamond at range 1 of each other. Similarly the imperial player has all ships in a 2x4 block with Howl in the middle.

• Imperial Attack:
  • Imperial player focuses with all ships except Howl who takes an evade.
  • The expected damage of 2+howl vs 4 is 0.393
  • The expected damage of 2+focus vs 4 is 0.588
  • Using the alpha strike calculator, the 7 ships will deal 3.921 damage and destroy exactly one A-wing. ( source ; add 0.588 because it maxes at 6 attacks). Each attacker has basically a 50/50 chance of keeping the focus.
• Rebel Return Fire:
  • There is one crucial decision: who to target? Go for Iden, try Howlrunner despite elusive+evade, or shoot a TIE who spent the focus on offense?
  • 5 Homing missiles with 4+lock vs 3 deal 9.53 damage. However , it is not that simple!
    • 1 Attack is negated entirely by Iden! That brings us down to 7.63 damage or 4 missiles
    • The TIEs can opt to take 1 damage instead! That still kills a TIE with the 4 remaining missiles, but it gets even better:
      • The imperial player should choose to roll for damage as long as Iden remains active! A normal TIE has, after all, a 36% chance to suffer 0 or 1 damage. Only when he would suffer more he has to negate it and then take 1 for the following missiles.
      • This might just be enough to survive! He has to evade two, but it is possible to do so even if unlikely at 1.6%...
  • This brings us back to the targeting priority. Howlrunner should be dead, even with elusive and an evade token, right? But Howl has a 77% chance to suffer 0 or 1 damage and hence can use Iden in the one crucial moment that is now much rarer! So evading just two missiles (at a chance of 11%), cancelling a third with Iden and suffering 2 damage for the last two missiles means Howl will survive for another round of shots. From that I would say that shooting Howlrunner is a trap with much less success than initially expected!
  • Shooting Iden or an Academy does matter a bit. The rebel can move after Academies and has simultaneous fire, so Iden looks like the clear choice.

TL;DR: Imperial player will destroy one A-Wing, rebel player will destroy Iden. After that it comes down to blocking+actions, which would favor rebels - except for Howlrunner who should NOT be targeted in the initial combat round.

Edit: My verdict is Rebels 40:60 Empire if the rebels win on initiative

If the ties win initiative they win. If the A’s win initiative they have a 40:60 shot.

16 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

• Rebel Return Fire:
  • There is one crucial decision: who to target? Go for Iden, try Howlrunner despite elusive+evade, or shoot a TIE who spent the focus on offense?  
  • 5 Homing missiles with 4+lock vs 3 deal 9.  53 dam  age. However , it is not that simple!
    • 1 Attack is negated entirely by Iden! That bring  s us down to 7.63 damage or 4 missiles
    • The TIEs can opt to take 1 da  mage instead! That still kills a TIE with the 4 remaining missiles, but it gets even better:
      • The imperial player should choose to roll for damage  as long as Iden remains active! A normal TIE has, after all, a 36% chance to suffer 0 or 1 damage. Only when he would suffer more he has to negate it and then take 1 for the following missiles.
      • This might just be enough to survive! He has to evade two, but it is possible to do so even if unlikely at 1.6%...
  • This brings us back to the targeting priority. Howlrunner should be dead, even with elusive and an evade token, right? But Howl has a 77% chance to suffer 0 or 1 damage and hence can use Iden in the one crucial moment that is now mu  ch rarer! So evading just two missiles (at a chance of 11%), cancelling a third with Iden and suffering 2 damage for the last two missiles means Howl will survive for another round of shots. From that I would say that shooting Howlrunner is a trap with much less success than initially expected!
  • Shooting Iden or an Academy does matter a bit. The rebel can move after Academies and has simu  ltaneous fire, so Iden looks like the clear choice.

The lock requirement really messes with the Rebel player here since there are so many individual targets and the highest priority targets are those that move after the A-Wings, so will probably not be eligible targets for their locks on the initial engagement. Even if they give up and target Academies, they still have to decide how to allocate their locks and with Iden throwing a wrench in the works they are really likely to misjudge how many locks they need to put on each TIE in order to kill it without wasting locks. Then there is the issue of not having focus to modify their defense dice.

19 minutes ago, Transmogrifier said:

The lock requirement really messes with the Rebel player here since there are so many individual targets and the highest priority targets are those that move after the A-Wings, so will probably not be eligible targets for their locks on the initial engagement. Even if they give up and target Academies, they still have to decide how to allocate their locks and with Iden throwing a wrench in the works they are really likely to misjudge how many locks they need to put on each TIE in order to kill it without wasting locks. Then there is the issue of not having focus to modify their defense dice.

Good catch with the lock!

In that case and if a lock on Iden is not possible (which should be the case if both play well!) focusing an Academy seems more reasonable to me. It will at least burn Iden‘s charge.

It does also add a second problem that if the A-wings are locking to fire missiles, they're not focusing. Which makes little difference in their ability to modify attack dice (although obviously it enables homing missiles for the 3rd die) but it does mean that they're on unmodified green dice for defence, which is a very bad thing in front of a TIE swarm. I suspect the TIEs have it.

Honestly, if I was trying to field an A-wing swarm, I'd look to drop to 5 ships, change homing missiles for Proton Rockets, and consider throwing in Arvel or Jake. With Vectored Thrusters, A-wings are pretty good at lining up rocket shots, especially with their ace's abilities.

Those two lists are perfectly balanced. I don't see any relevant advantage in one. On paper it is a 50/50 to me, skills are needed to win.