As we saw in 1.0, TIE swarms were powerful in the earlyish days. Over time FFG released more and more powerful upgrades which made PS killing swarms a thing, you could easily kill a few TIES a turn with a beefcake Ace build and still have tokens for defence.

Enter 2.0 and we have seen swarms or lists of 6+ ships placing highly and winning tournaments. Will FFG maintain the sanctity of the generic pilot, or will the delve into the depths of Ace builds and make generics close to useless again?

Will this thread fill with speculation and guesses about an uncertain future?

One could only guess...

And how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

2 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

As we saw in 1.0, TIE swarms were powerful in the earlyish days. Over time FFG released more and more powerful upgrades which made PS killing swarms a thing, you could easily kill a few TIES a turn with a beefcake Ace build and still have tokens for defence.

Enter 2.0 and we have seen swarms or lists of 6+ ships placing highly and winning tournaments. Will FFG maintain the sanctity of the generic pilot, or will the delve into the depths of Ace builds and make generics close to useless again?

I don’t think generics are in nearly as much danger as they were in 1.0. CIS alone is going to thrive on swarms just based in the nature of droids being mostly generic in nature and dirt cheap. Also with the compressed initiative scale it’s more difficult to to really abuse the swinging difference of initiative against a swarm.

Also points, they seem to have a decent baseline for most of the ships certainly a few tweaks here and there would help but nothing glaring. With such a decent starting point generic ships seem to have a solid place in the game.

I hate flying against and with swarms, yet I love them for what they mean thematically to the meta and the challenge they present. This isn't X-Wing Miniature The Game. 😉

It ended a month ago

We'll be fine. Mostly.

What killed "efficiency spam" in 1.0 was the fact that some of the high initiative "Aces" were also the most efficient ships in the game. When Soontir is simultaneously an arc dodger and more efficient than any generic, you've got a problem. Unfortunately, 1.0 had no mechanism to easily fix it.

Enter 2.0 and, whoops, they did it again. Redline (and whisper?) were simply the most efficient ships in the game and could arc-dodge when needed. Difference this time was they could just go up,up,up. When's the last time Redline wrecked your swarm? It could still happen, she's not bad.

Anyway, I am not sweating it. The first points change was enough to give me hope for the future. The developers ain't perfect but it's mostly OK.

Is... is any swarm doing well except Howlrunner TIEs specifically? And Howl/Inferno swarms are mostly I4/5, anyways.

5x RZ-2s does alright, I guess? Although it's got 2x I5 pilots too.

I hate flying more than four ships, so my hat goes off to those that can fly swarms. I was just curious on people’s thoughts on can FFG maintain aces and swarms in the same space. I hope they can, looking forward to see how.

2 hours ago, RunnerAZ said:

And how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

876 licks to the center of a grape tootsie pop.

Gone ain’t gone, coyo.

“Impossible to see, the future is.”

In honesty, I don’t see the efficiency lists disappearing any time soon.

1 hour ago, Mauve Leader said:

876 licks to the center of a grape tootsie pop.

Nah, takes too long. A good bite is much better. That's what I learned from Mr. Owl anyway.

2 hours ago, svelok said:

Is... is any swarm doing well except Howlrunner TIEs specifically? And Howl/Inferno swarms are mostly I4/5, anyways.

5x RZ-2s does alright, I guess? Although it's got 2x I5 pilots too.

8x I1 vultures with energy shells isn’t too shabby in our area.

To rephrase the question:. "How long will FFG keep multiple list types balanced and competitive?"

Hopefully for a very long time!

I want generic spam to be viable.. to be honest it feels more like star wars to me where you have squadrons flying instead of a few named aces with loads of magical abilities etc...

I got pasted by a republic swarm at the weekend. They aren’t going anywhere. I don’t really mind. I’d rather play 6+ than yet another bloody 4 Phantom spam.

I dunno. But I'm really enjoying the diverse low and high generic swarms. Makes the game much more interesting.

Also having varied swarms with different upgrades and abilities is good. Vultures are FUN. Tie Swarm, kinda meh.

Is a tie swarm even that good right now?

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I dunno. But I'm really enjoying the diverse low and high generic swarms. Makes the game much more interesting.

Also having varied swarms with different upgrades and abilities is good. Vultures are FUN. Tie Swarm, kinda meh.

Is a tie swarm even that good right now?

TIE Swarm seems pretty decent at the moment, at least to me. I've been flying a Howlrunner swarm with Iden, Gideon, Seyn and 2 Black Squadron Aces and it's been doing pretty well. I like the difference between that style of swarm, with interlocking abilities, and something like Vulture swarm with just a bunch of dice and ships but not huge synergies between everything.

Seems like those lists can be beaten by aces with good flying or more varied, balanced lists too so I think there's a decent amount of variety at the moment. I also think we've not yet seen the final iteration of the Vulture swarm as the faction is still quite new, and it may change again once the Hyena comes out.

I don't really understand this thread at all. The game has moved pretty conclusively into favouring I5/I6 aces with deep bids. There was a brief period of a few weeks at the start of Hyperspace when people were working the format out and efficiency was cutting through but it pretty rapidly swung towards I5/I6 Resistance/Rebels and High Initiative TIE Swarms and miniswarms.

1 hour ago, TheCeilican said:

I don't really understand this thread at all. The game has moved pretty conclusively into favouring I5/I6 aces with deep bids. There was a brief period of a few weeks at the start of Hyperspace when people were working the format out and efficiency was cutting through but it pretty rapidly swung towards I5/I6 Resistance/Rebels and High Initiative TIE Swarms and miniswarms.

Not all threads are complaints.

Some threads like to ask the world wide community of their experiences and opinions.

There isn’t anything to understand unless you have something to add.

2-ship list wins biggest event ever

"When will the swarm spam stop?!?!?"

8 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Not all threads are complaints.

Some threads like to ask the world wide community of their experiences and opinions.

There isn’t anything to understand unless you have something to add.

I don't think I said it was a complaint.

Ot just reads like a thread titled "when will the sun stop being purple?". It isn't.

2 hours ago, TheCeilican said:

I don't really understand this thread at all. The game has moved pretty conclusively into favouring I5/I6 aces with deep bids. There was a brief period of a few weeks at the start of Hyperspace when people were working the format out and efficiency was cutting through but it pretty rapidly swung towards I5/I6 Resistance/Rebels and High Initiative TIE Swarms and miniswarms.

What tournament results are you seeing? Low-ish initiative generics make cuts all the time, and swarms win tournaments about half of the time.

There is also a huge difference in hyperspace and extended. Hyperspace doesn't have as many anti swarm tools available. As more bomb delivery and aces enter hyperspace you'll see some shifting around.

The hyperspace trial I was in last Saturday was very fun but exhausting because my inferno swarm flew against 2 vulture swarms, a 5 ywing swarm, a trip tie advanced list, 2 jedi 2 torrent mix, and a boba guri list. 3 swarm duels are rough.

I also saw other vulture and tie swarms, as well as a few 5 a-wing lists

Right now I am seeing high low mixes do the best. People who have lists that can block but also dodge in the endgame are doing very well.
Great examples of this are the 5 resistance A's, Rebel beef, the Kylo Double ups build.

If you can outfly the opponent you win. Thats how it should be!