Todays Blog post focuses on the lowly TIE Fighter, finding new ways to use a few of them in a larger list to serve a similar purpose as a single large ship. I also include my take on 2.0's crack-swarm (that's nothing new, really, just my thoughts on an old list.) Let me know what I can improve on!

"Valen helps the squad survive incoming fire, usually by Squad-Leadering an evade onto the most likely target with his own action, then Focusing later on before he attacks."

Doesn't work. If Rudor uses his Squad Leader Coordinate (it is red) he cannot perform another action unless the source permits ignoring the stress limitation. His pilot ability doesn't do that.

10 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

"Valen helps the squad survive incoming fire, usually by Squad-Leadering an evade onto the most likely target with his own action, then Focusing later on before he attacks."

Doesn't work. If Rudor uses his Squad Leader Coordinate (it is red) he cannot perform another action unless the source permits ignoring the stress limitation. His pilot ability doesn't do that.

Good catch. Stupid squad builder with its not showing red actions as red...

Nice article. Rudor is still likely the best coordinator option.. just means early game he gives up his action to make howl tankier.. at least until the opposition gets thinned out.

15 hours ago, Carnor Rex said:

Nice article. Rudor is still likely the best coordinator option..

Unless you've got a plan to use his ability then you might as well save two points and take a black squadron ace.

He does have some use. Use it the other way around: Rudor (and everyone else!) focuses for their native action, then whoever is shot at first (assuming they survive) gets an evade token (either via an evade action if it's rudor himself or a co-ordinate if it's not) before the second and subsequent shots come in.

Yes exactly that. In theory Rudor protects against focused fire.

I used Squad Leader Valen at the System Open in Poland. He makes an excellent complement to Redline against i6 enemies who Redline doesn't manage to lock on the initial approach because he's moving first - when the enemy ship attacks at i6, Valen coordinates a Focus to Redline who therefore gets the lock to fire a fully-modded proton torp when he gets his turn at i5. It's a very good counter to Wedge.

The limited blues on the /ln's dial means that coordinating needs to be done carefully in my experience, not just at every opportunity. If I weren't using Valen with Squad Leader, I would be tempted to use Juke instead, especially alongside Juke Phantoms, for the potential of a Focus+Juke attack to burn away the target's Focus.

PS - with Valen, I usually found it best to use his normal action for Evade instead of Focus. One reason is that it's a more consistent defensive option to protect against a one-hit kill (which is a real threat to a TIE/ln). The other is that if he's going to get both tokens from his ability, it's better to have the defence-only token (Evade) first to spend freely when needed and the one that can aid attack (Focus) after to shoot back with.

So far I haven't considered how my individual ships interact with other, different ships (that set of topics, I'm saving for a potential future series of articles.) However, the Valen/Redline combo is one I hadn't thought about... I might have to try that sometime!