Flock of Vultures?

By Bucknife, in X-Wing

"Unlike many raptors, vultures are relatively social and often feed, fly or roost in large flocks. A group of vultures is called a committee , venue or volt. In flight, a flock of vultures is a kettle, and when the birds are feeding together at a carcass, the group is called a wake."

VOLT:

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KETTLE:

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As a side note discussion...

I feel like Vultures are gonna chase off most other swarms from the tables.

I play Resistance, and I don't feel like 5/6 RZ2 A-wings will do well against 8 vultures with shenanigans, or against 7 Vultures + Ace.

Just my thoughts. Bantering, begin!

1 minute ago, Bucknife said:

I   feel        like Vultures are gonna chase off most other swarms from the tables.

I play Resistance, and I don't feel like 5/6 RZ2 A-wings will do well against 8 vultures with shenanigans, or against 7 Vultures + Ace.

Just my thoughts. Bantering, begin! 

I'm hijacking your bantering and turning it into serious discussion.

Is 5/6 RZ-2s doing well now ? And specifically against swarms? (Nobody has put Resistance on a table against me yet, this is a legitimate question).

Howlswarms seem pretty convincing on paper. Six ship /fo Advanced Optics swarms do, too. Drea Swarms are good, although maybe less good if tugboats and escape crafts get nerfed?

I haven't been playing long enough to have seen a TIE swarm in person, so I've got no clue what swarm mirror games are like. If a block of Vultures encounter a block of Howl TIEs and one player decides not to joust, what happens? The Vultures can efficiently split into two groups, at least, since their Howl-equivalent is distributed networking rather than one centralized support platform.

I think 5 A-Wings is good, as is 4 & a T-70. Need to see if opponents can adapt to how they fly but they've been very strong so far.

Nice. I came to correct you that it isn't a "flock" of vultures.

I think "Kettle" or "Volt" will be most appropriate for during the game.

For after action reports of victory your list should be referred to as a "wake."

In defeat and list-building they obviously need to be referred to as "committee."

"Venue" for a group of vultures doesn't seem right for the context of X-wing and showing off our grammatical aplomb. Perhaps during deployment?

Edited by Frimmel

Isn't Flock of Vultures a band?

And I swarmed

My ships in one big flock

I just swarmed

Across debris and rocks

But couldn't get a shot

Edited by JJ48

The TIEs will always be the superior swarm!

Rz2 a-wings aren’t really a swarm, but 5 of them with cluster missiles and heroic would give a vulture or a howlrunner swarm some trouble.

I think the Vultures won't really swarm as well as it seems. They seem to want to take Grappling Struts and their missile option which gives them basically 3 red, which will make them cost more than a TIE.

Hopefully, cluster missiles will become useful, though, since 7-8 Vultures with Homing Missiles could be kinda scary and cluster missiles would counter that pretty well IMO.

56 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

"... A group of vultures is called a committee... "

I am not a committee!

I hope it doesn't chase other swarms off the table, I'd prefer to see heavy swarm action all over the board :D

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

I am not a committee!

Only read this thread to see if someone made a Leia committee joke.

10/10 not disappointed.

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Isn't Flock of Vultures a band?

And I swarmed

My ships in one big flock

I just swarmed

Across debris and rocks

But couldn't get a shot

I'm so, so disappointed that someone beat me to the Flock of Seagulls joke.

But you did it better than I would have so I can't help but applaud.

I thought it was a Vulture droid because the trade federation prob makes a habit of feeding off the corpses of conquered kingdoms/nations/planets w.e,

though we really only have ep 1 to go on, there...

Or it's a reference to how they can only pretty upon the dead/dying because they're really shite

Got a few movies to reference, there

I mean, if a swarm of vultures become a thing and people don't take to saying before the first shots, "The committee would like a word with you", we have all truly failed.

5 hours ago, svelok said:

Is 5/6 RZ-2s doing well now ? And specifically against swarms? (Nobody has put Resistance on a table against me yet, this is a legitimate question).

**** yeah!

5 hours ago, Bucknife said:

I play Resistance, and I don't feel like 5/6 RZ2 A-wings will do well against 8 vultures with shenanigans, or against 7 Vultures + Ace.

Bring 'em on! I enjoy playing against swarms, even if it feels a bit overwhelming at times.

But the 3 greens can take a beating, and the 2 reds are rather 2 hits! What do the vultures have? 2 reds and 2 greens? A bit of calculate? Pffffft! They fall apart when my Arrows just look at them. Out of the exhaust pipe.

9 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

But the 3 greens can take a beating, and the 2 reds are rather 2 hits! What do the vultures have? 2 reds and 2 greens? A bit of calculate? Pffffft! They fall apart when my Arrows just look at them. Out of the exhaust pipe.

This. The vultures have some nice shenanigans with the grappling struts but ultimately they're 3 hull, 2 agility ships, making them the most fragile ship in the game to date . Killing 2 or more Trade Federation Drones before they get to shoot is not unreasonable at all.

Yes, networked calculation is nice, but since they're dealing in calculate tokens not focus tokens it's still good but probably doesn't give them as much of an advantage as you'd think.

The big question will (inevitably) be points - if you can have a swarm with a decent proportion of them carrying Energy-Shell Charges, you've got a much more imposing proposition because you're doubling down on the swarm's natural strong-point - firepower in the opening pass.

and yes, the Trade Federation being a Trade Federation, I'm down with 'Committee'.