So I'm dipping into the murky world of CIS swarms, and as is my habit I'm taking a slightly different approach to it than the popular meta.

So I've got 2 versions of the swarm that I'm torn between;

Option 1: defensive O-66

O-66 swarm

(19) Trade Federation Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 19

(19) Trade Federation Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 19

(19) Trade Federation Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 19

(19) Trade Federation Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 19

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

(52) 0-66 [Sith Infiltrator]
(5) TA-175
(4) Scimitar
Points: 61

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

Total points: 200

Option 2 - better droids

O-66 swarm 2

(19) Trade Federation Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 19

(19) Trade Federation Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 19

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

(52) 0-66 [Sith Infiltrator]
(5) TA-175
Points: 57

(21) Separatist Drone [Vulture-class Droid Fighter]
Points: 21

Total points: 200

Both seem like fun, but what does the hive-mind think?

i like the idea would dfs-311 be good with 0-66? sounds nice to pass an extra calculate to it for it's ability.

26 minutes ago, The Ironfoot said:

i like the idea would dfs-311 be good with 0-66? sounds nice to pass an extra calculate to it for it's ability.

311 could be good, but is a bit awkward on points to try and fit it in

3 hours ago, Surak said:

Both seem like fun, but what does the hive-mind think?

I like where you are going. 0-66 is underrated.

I dont fly CIS other than a few test games, but been paying attention to the meta A nice list with bunch of vultures and a couple discord missiles made finals at sacramento HST. May do 0-66 and a tractor beam. If you can get that tractor to hit, before all 7 vultures fire...

0-66 (52)
Tractor Beam (2)
TA-175 (5)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

15 hours ago, wurms said:

I like where you are going. 0-66 is underrated.

I dont fly CIS other than a few test games, but been paying attention to the meta A nice list with bunch of vultures and a couple discord missiles made finals at sacramento HST. May do 0-66 and a tractor beam. If you can get that tractor to hit, before all 7 vultures fire...

0-66 (52)
Tractor Beam (2)
TA-175 (5)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

An interesting take on the swarm, I've not had much luck with discords and I'm not going to have chance to practice before the tournament on Sunday so I may save this one for later.

At the moment I'm considering dropping the two skill 1's for DBS-404 with advanced proton torps as I've had a lot of practice with him

On 8/30/2019 at 4:57 AM, Surak said:

An interesting take on the swarm, I've not had much luck with discords and I'm not going to have chance to practice before the tournament on Sunday so I may save this one for later.

At the moment I'm considering dropping the two skill 1's for DBS-404 with advanced proton torps as I've had a lot of practice with him

Funny, while we hashed this list out, tractor beam Dooku with 6 vultures is now in finals at Aussie System Open Series.

1 hour ago, wurms said:

Funny, while we hashed this list out, tractor beam Dooku with 6 vultures is now in finals at Aussie System Open Series.

Interesting, I wonder how much of a difference the extra droid makes Vs a more powerful carrier?

So lunch time.

Ran swarm 2, currently 1-1

Round 1 narrow loss to a 4-of Imperials (Vader, 2 more advanced x1, and a TIE fighter) - purely due to a bad maneuver turn on my part and a very unlucky damaged engine on an already stressed O-66 causing it to leave the table.

Round 2 was a very narrow (200-156) win against X-X-Han rebels (Wedge, Garvin, Han), came down to 3 seperatest drones Vs a shield less Garvin and managed to luck out a win

So finished 2-2,

Game 3 was a 20pt loss to a Imperial triple aces (Ryad, Turr, and the Initiative 5 TIE/LN), and came down to 3 drones not able to kill Ryad (it was a 98pt Ryad)

Game 4 was a rematch against one of my weekly opponents, flying Triple IG (A,C,D) his dice abandoned him and then I managed to block him for enough turns to envelope him with the swarm - won 200-69.

Why do you prefer 0-66 over Dark Courier? I don't think that I3 is that better than I2, but focus action is better than calculate without Networked Calculations.

Also I prefer my drones with Grappling Struts. It's much easier to fly them when you do not have to avoid asteroids. Networked Calculations and Grappling Struts are 2 main reasons why droids are so good.

I don't know if TB Infiltrator is better than title, Impervium Seer. For me it's hard to fly Infiltrator, because he always bump or doesn't have anyone in arc.

13 minutes ago, Boreas Mun said:

Why do you prefer 0-66 over Dark Courier? I don't think that I3 is that better than I2, but focus action is better than calculate without Networked Calculations.

Also I prefer my drones with Grappling Struts. It's much easier to fly them when you do not have to avoid asteroids. Networked Calculations and Grappling Struts are 2 main reasons why droids are so good.

I don't know if TB Infiltrator is better than title, Impervium Seer. For me it's hard to fly Infiltrator, because he always bump or doesn't have anyone in arc.

Hi,

The O-66 is purely due to the Relay I'm using - O-66 can trigger TA-175 because of the native calculate action, so even if they take out the relay carrier I get some benefit.

I have a similar logic on the struts - I actually don't mind if my ships take a little damage, and I want them to be as cheap as possible.

On several occasions over the tournament yesterday I had opponents hesitate on taking a shot on a damaged droid because if it died the resulting bonus tokens would have resulted in double modded shots coming back at them.

On flying the Infiltrator, I've had lots on practice with large bases and never really had an issue with the Scimitar. It's got a very good dial and doesn't have too many issues keeping close enough to the swarm to keep the Relay in action. The trick is to not try and keep it in formation, but rather near the formation.

Hope that helps.

I have been running O-66 with 7 Trade Federation droids all with struts. It has had good success but I need to learn how to better counter aces. I've been toying with dropping 1 vulture to get a couple missiles and a tractor beam on O-66 to help give a little more punch.

15 minutes ago, dunhop said:

I have been running O-66 with 7 Trade Federation droids all with struts. It has had good success but I need to learn how to better counter aces. I've been toying with dropping 1 vulture to get a couple missiles and a tractor beam on O-66 to help give a little more punch.

From the games I've played so far I've only had problems with Defender ace's - Han, Wedge, and the IG's I've faced have been brought down just through sheet weight of fire and width of arc.

The reason I keep a mix of I1 and I3 drones in the squad is mirror-ish matches Vs other swarms, it gives me a little bit of agency to PS-kill something in the opposing swarm if I'm lucky - another point in O-66's favour over the courier.

On 9/2/2019 at 6:35 AM, Surak said:

The O-66 is purely due to the Relay I'm using - O-66 can trigger TA-175 because of the native calculate action, so even if they take out the relay carrier I get some benefit.

The Feethan Autopilot with Soulless One is 10 (TEN!) points cheaper than O-66, is tankier, and also has the native calculate action for use with TA-175. Its pilot skill, small base, and dial also make it much more suited to flying with vultures. I need more convincing that O-66 is viable.

This word of the Dooku + 6 vultures list doing well intrigues me however.

52 minutes ago, Danomight said:

The Feethan Autopilot with Soulless One is 10 (TEN!) points cheaper than O-66, is tankier, and also has the native calculate action for use with TA-175. Its pilot skill, small base, and dial also make it much more suited to flying with vultures. I need more convincing that O-66 is viable.

This word of the Dooku + 6 vultures list doing well intrigues me however.

Its all about that tractor beam. Belbasaurs cant do that. Personally, I go with Dooku with tractor beam if making this squad for myself, but this thread was about 0-66. But that tractor beam essentially gives all your vultures an extra red dice on that tractored ship. Maybe o-66 with dooku crew for the cost of 1 vulture. Dooku crew can give him a more accurate tractor beam gun by calling out a crit and then turning a blank to a crit.

14 minutes ago, wurms said:

Its all about that tractor beam. Belbasaurs cant do that. Personally, I go with Dooku with tractor beam if making this squad for myself, but this thread was about 0-66. But that tractor beam essentially gives all your vultures an extra red dice on that tractored ship. Maybe o-66 with dooku crew for the cost of 1 vulture. Dooku crew can give him a more accurate tractor beam gun by calling out a crit and then turning a blank to a crit.

I think what we are seeing here is there are multiple viable relay carriers, mostly seperated by personal taste

I don't actually use a tractor beam (yet), for me the Infiltrator just fly's so much better alongside the swarm when compared to the Bellbullab. I also find the large base allows the swarm to spread a little more and still use the relay.

If I was going for a cheaper relay carrier, I'd reach for the hyena before the Autopilot.

I'm not sure if TA-175 is even good without Seer. Do you gain much from this additional calculates? You still got many of them.

I'm not even sure if TA-175 makes much difference even with Seer. Maybe against Rebel/Resistance beef? It would be nice to have some data. Sadly, I don't have much opportunity to test it. But from my games Vultures with just Grappling Struts are fine enough. Tractor Beam is the only thing I want to test more with Vulture Swarm, because TB is always good.

7 hours ago, Boreas Mun said:

I'm not sure if TA-175 is even good without Seer. Do you gain much from this additional calculates? You still got many of them.

I'm not even sure if TA-175 makes much difference even with Seer. Maybe against Rebel/Resistance beef? It would be nice to have some data. Sadly, I don't have much opportunity to test it. But from my games Vultures with just Grappling Struts are fine enough. Tractor Beam is the only thing I want to test more with Vulture Swarm, because TB is always good.

So my view on TA-175

Admittedly I've not got the biggest sample size, but some far it's been useful in two ways.

The first is really making my opponent think about their shots, I've had a number of instances where my opponent has actually avoided shooting already damaged drones to prevent me getting tokens on other droids for revenge shots.

The other use I've found is for gaining tokens for either double modded (TL+Calc) shots or after red moves or bumps, to the point that I've actually sacrificed a 1-health Trade Fed drone to a rock to trigger TA-175 on a turn where most of the swarm was either bumping or K-turning so they were still modded.

The other point in TA's favour is the cost - as my other Relay of choice is Kraken

Ok so I'm back with this on the table in a local store tournament, going into lunch 1-1

First game was a loss to CLT Obi, Delta-7 Ani and 2 torrents. Green dice were stone cold and I lost 42-143. Got half of Obi and half a torrent but couldn't finish either off or putting any damage onto the other ships.

Second game was Vs triple Resistance A-wings (Lilo, Tali, Greer) and Cova in the transport. Really bad luck on my opponents side in this one. Greer checked out in the first engagement as the whole swarm caught it at range 3 and bled it to death for no damage in return. The whole swarm was then able to collapse onto Cova and in the same turn Tali flew of the table by the slimmest of margins running from a trio of Vultures. At that point my opponent conceeded and we decided to get an early lunch as he'd put 2 damage into my list.

More after lunch....

Quick round 3 update,

Lost 67-200 Vs a Sinker+Ric+4x Torrents.

Messed up O-66's dial on the second engagement and slammed into my own swarm instead of sitting just behind it (4-straight is not the same as a 1-straight) and that left him at range 1 of the Torrents with predictable results. Simple mistake on my part, I was trying to keep my pace of play up and set the dial as if it was for a Vulture without realising I'd picked the Infiltrator dial up instead - note to self, don't rush yourself.

Ok game 4 done and back home.

Game 4 was another loss Vs a triple Republic list of Y-wing Ani with APT, R2-D2 pilot with Palp and proton bombs, and Plo with CLT. 7 APT that didn't need locks (can't remember the name of the force ability off the top of my head) to fire and that can be reloaded and fired on the same turn thanks to Plo pulling the dis-arm was nasty. Add to that that my Infiltrator spent the first 3 turns on a debris because I completely misjudged my second turn of movement and the game didn't go well (I got all of R2 and half of Ani before I was wiped out).

Going to have a serious think about swapping the relay carrier around, as much as I love O-66 it caused a considerable amount of problems in some of the games today. My current thinking is to get two hyena bombers (specifically 404 and 32c) in the list with a large number of Vultures