I’ve literally never seen them. I know they are more expensive than regular TIEs and Vulture droids.

But you can fit 5 named in a list, which would surely be fun? They don’t even require flying in the traditional swarm block as there are no R1 requirements like Howl or Iden.

What am I missing?

You highlighted the main reason yourself, actually. They don't have a force multiplier like Howlrunner or the relay droids to give them the firepower they need to suceed. The lack of Iden also makes them much more vulnerable to alpha strikes.

Price is also an issue, but the big problem is that the Tie FO doesn't have any way to up its firepower apart from Hux, who requires a lot of hoop jumping to achieve results that aren't that much more impressive than what Howlrunner could do.

From my observations, the issue is that the TIE/fo is slightly too expensive to swarm, and the aces don't have any standout support abilities or strong attack abilities. It doesn't help that their Initiative values are all over the place.

The traditional TIE swarm works exactly because you've got Howl providing a reroll to everyone in the block, and many of the aces have abilities which are easy to use (Scourge and Mauler are both excellent, and the Inferno pilots also have good tricks available). It doesn't help that the First Order doesn't have a 'cheap' support ship which can provide utility to a /fo block either.

Nevermind

Good ol lack of Howlie

The support FOs are either too short range (Muse; destresses rather than gives mods) or are Mr. Reverse-Ruthless who obviously has a limited number of uses

FOs seem more designed to compliment other FO ships than to stand on their own

Plus they're paying premium over Ln for shield, TL, and dial so they're more "elite" and less "swarm"

- Cost

- No force multiplier (ie: Howl)

- No shared defensive modifier

- Any coordinate platform costs as much as 2 TIE/FO together.

- Improving your coordinate platform with something like Hux costs even more

- Terrible action economy

- Generally poor pilot abilities, save for maybe Scorch (Midnight is bad, fite me)

- Highest Initiative aces are similarly bad

There's more to it, but that should be a sufficient list...

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Its the 2nd best list in Hyperspace and has been since Wave 3 dropped. The only reason you would not be seeing it is your local metas "preferences" for other stuff.

https://meta.listfortress.com/ship_combos?ranking_start=2019-03-20&ranking_end=2019-06-09&large_tournament_multiplier=true&widespread_use_multiplier=true&use_ranking_data=all&tournament_type=&format_id=34&

FO, not Inferno

No one is debating that the TIE/ln swarm is a thing.

24 point TIE /fo lets you run 7 with Advanced Optics. Maybe good? Better than 6, anyways.

The combination of Howl, Iden, 3rd dice (Mauler/Scourge/Wampa/Gideon), and high initiative does a lot for the TIE Swarm.

First Order's Howl equivalent costs 4 points apiece and doesn't work after defense spend or k-turns, no Iden, only 2 3x-dice generators (and one costs stress), and much lower average initiative.

All TIEs are over-costed, because the baseline Imperial TIE pays a Howl tax that gets passed onto all the other TIEs because otherwise you'd have TIE /fo paying exactly one point for shield, dial, and lock, and people being mad about it. Howl is like half the price she needs to be for TIEs to be the right price (if not more!), which is probably untenable, so until all the high init jousty aces get nerfed its a tough point band to live in.

The pilot abilities aren't "bad" they're just either hindered by the chassis (Mr glitterstim only has two red dice, static will never trigger also only two red dice, Null has two red dice; midnight lost comm relay)

Scorch is great, Longshot has a fine ability (3 dice at every range but 2) rivaas is okay, muse is a "bad" but far cheaper Cassian that works on herself etc.

Only issue I guess is non-Scorch could stand to come down in price a bit

15 minutes ago, bydand said:

FO, not Inferno

No one is debating that the TIE/ln swarm is a thing.

Correct. I didnt complete reading school. My bad.

More seriously though, I think some folks have run swarms of TIE/sf, and that has worked at least OK. Double-arcs and a solid-enough defensive statline can go a long way.

To be fair I'm quite glad I don't see Omega "Nope" Leader around quite as often nowadays...

(Although I did enjoy some OL, OA and Kylo action on Fly Casual in the latter says of 1st Edition...)

My dad went 2-4 at the Denver SO with six Fanatical Omegas... that's the only appearance of the swarm I can remember and I don't see any pure /FO swarms in metawing. According to Pink Brain Matter that archetype was flown one other time but I can't find the list. There's been a couple /FO miniswarms paired with Tavson, a generic Upsilon, or Kylo, but no other pure /FO swarms I can see.

It's a very fun squad and my dad did well with it at a couple local events, but in competitive extended it gets annihilated. It would be cool to see how he'd do at a hypertrial with it but I think he got burnt out on the list.

The TIE/FO isn't bad but it isn't good. I'd say all in all it's a very solidly c-tier ship and a swarm of it is a very solidly c-tier list.

Before the points change that broke it (both point and slot changes), I was having a lot of fun with:

Omega Ace + fanatical x3

Null + squad leader

Quickdraw loaded to the gills.

the aces did great work as a non-formation swarm with a passive modifier, QD was QD and Null helped with I7 shenanigans as needed.

Ive thought about some modified versions with what’s left, just never found one that was ideal. Maybe I’ll try again before too long?

Unfortunately, FOs can't go down more than a couple points.

Cadet at 28 points is a TIE paying 5 points for a shield and getting a free lock action and sloops.

That's HUGE.

Optics probably won't go down, but we've also got Passive Sensors incoming.

I wouldn't be surprised if they throw the system slot on there for good measure with a 1-2 point decrease on most pilots.

That would be SCARY.

15 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

Cadet at 28 points is a TIE paying 5 points for a shield and getting a free lock action and sloops.

That's HUGE.

Probably paying more like 7-8 points TBH. Academies are hideously overpriced on their own and their current price factors in Howl and Iden. If Howl and Iden didn't exist academies would be around 20-21 points

5 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

To be fair I'm quite glad I don't see Omega "Nope" Leader around quite as often nowadays...

(Although I did enjoy some OL, OA and Kylo action on Fly Casual in the latter says of 1st Edition...)

Omega lost a ton when she became Midnight. She's I6, but the losses of both Juke and Comm Relay took a lot of the bite out of her.

4 hours ago, Kieransi said:

Probably paying more like 7-8 points TBH. Academies are hideously overpriced on their own and their current price factors in Howl and Iden. If Howl and Iden didn't exist academies would be around 20-21 points

Don't forget the hard blue 2's! They feel overcosted yet somehow priced correctly when looking at the TF, just like all FO ship platforms (except for some specific pilots).

The FO ties are very selfish and the lack of a cheap support or force multiplier just makes them a poor platform. Null, Scorch and Muse are the most popular but still see little play.

FO really seems like it is a faction of about 3-5 pilots. QD is in nearly 2/3rds of lists, Kylo and Tavson in 50% of lists respectively too.

I really hope that wave 5 has a delayed announcement for Resistance and FO (due to Disney keeping spoilers under wraps) and that there is a decent ship being released that doesn't step on the toes of already existing ships (do we really need another interceptor with the new Silencer from the EP9 trailer?).

22 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

Omega lost a ton when she became Midnight. She's I6, but the losses of both Juke and Comm Relay took a lot of the bite out of her.

I personally loved flying Midnight about one meta ago. She feels like what i6 was meant to be - control.

Now we have enough i6 aces that it's really changed, but I like the idea of aces being i5 and then i6 being stuff that can keep the i5s in line. Midnight/Blackout/Tavson was a cool toolbox that had a lot of ways to adapt to different lists, but I'm assuming it's been either outbeefed now or out initiatived with hyperspace Soontir and all the other i6 bloat the game has developed.

Maybe if there'll be Fanatic + Angled Deflector swarms if the mod is costed low.

Bad? Overcoated? No synergy? Weak firepower?

TIE FOs are a little more on the expensive side of 28 points which while taking a 7 ship swarm is possible it just doesn't perform as well as other 7-8 ship swarms of the other factions. Compared to Howlrunner Swarms, Crack swarms, and the new Vulture swarms the TIE FO swarm has less to offer.

The TIE FO is much like the Z-95 Headhunter, while cheap they don't work well as your sole unit in a large amount of numbers. Instead they act better as fillers adding another ship to the list and therefore more firepower and hit points to spread out your MOV.

https://squadbuilder.fantasyflightgames.com/saved-squads/ec5cfbb0-51f1-4bcf-82d3-53a02d45a569

A list I played a long time ago, good but not the best.

My main concern about the First Order is the lack of a "low cost" support ship. Hope to see the Xi-Shuttle or Tie Echelon for this role. First Order have good crew but the cost of the Upsilon is really hard and most pilots useless (Disapointed by Cardinal).

My second concern is the lack of "swarm effect" to help :

- Empire have Sloane, Howlrunner, Del Meeko, Palpatine, Seventh Sister.

- Separatist have Kraken, DFS-081, DFS-311 and the Networked Calculations.

- Republic have Sinker/Jedi/Axe to help.

- Scum have Drea and a lot of good low cost ship (quadjumper, mining guild, z-95, escape shuttle)

- Resistance can't really swarm but the new transport and the a-wing (especially five of them) is really good and give options.

- Rebels : Have a lot of low-cost ships too and good crew to give several options.

First Order ? Teamplay ? We don't !

45 minutes ago, Arkanta974 said:

First Order have good crew

No they don't.

Phasma is overrated, a mild inconvenience at best.

Hux has 4 different hoops to jump through and you end up taking 4 stress for three actions while Sai with title is just as efficient without the stress.

Thanisson has a stupidly small range with such a small effect.

Kylo has been neutered compared to 1.0 and is often just a generic force point.

Snoke only really shines against 2-3 ship lists, so often can be just like Kylo above.