Meanwhile the Vultures still swarm really well (and a lot of Hyenas got cheaper). No Belbullab means no Sear, but Sear is nowhere near as core to droid swarms as Howlrunner is to TIE swarms. The Sith Infiltrator can still carry a tactical relay (and TA-175 got a price increase but also got a nice timing buff in the rules update*). The droids lost Energy Shell Charges but results have already proved that droids are just as good without them.

*TA-175 now activates after the kill-shot is resolved, not after the ship is removed from play. That makes a big difference in many cases of simultaneous fire.

I want to clarify I'm not trying to complain. But I do enjoy flying swarms and with how high agility stacking got that wasnt really possible the last year of 1.0. Just getting back into the game and I see agility is toned down a lot my first thought is time to play swarms before power creep makes them irrelevant again in a few years! But then every force multiplier I come across is banned. I think I'm gonna mess around with 8 tie/fo ships, and then also scourge and mauler both with ruthless alongside 6 obsidians. If that doesnt work then I'll have to drop to 7 ships with most of them being named. I really wanna do 8 over 7 though.

Edit: ruthless is with 2 academy ties and 4 obsidians. Will have to see if ruthless is worth not having all 6 ties at the same pilot skill.

@Jaysnipesinc have a look at some of the FO and separatist suggestions here http://stayontheleader.blogspot.com/2020/01/jumping-to-hyperspace-bad-guys.html

First order TIEs are in a great spot for swarming right now, and TN-3465 is a solid force multiplier (especially if you have some 3-die ships)

Vultures are still good, and Hyenas are great. If you're after a droid force multiplier, DBS-32C with a tactical relay is a strong piece. DRK-1 probe droids are also excellent.

If you really want 8 ships that doesn't leave you much room (even when howlrunner was popular, most swarms were 6-7 ships), but if you look at 6-7 ships in the first order and separatist factions then you will find plenty of good options.

8 hours ago, gadwag said:

@Jaysnipesinc have a look at some of the FO and separatist suggestions here http://stayontheleader.blogspot.com/2020/01/jumping-to-hyperspace-bad-guys.html

First order TIEs are in a great spot for swarming right now, and TN-3465 is a solid force multiplier (especially if you have some 3-die ships)

Vultures are still good, and Hyenas are great. If you're after a droid force multiplier, DBS-32C with a tactical relay is a strong piece. DRK-1 probe droids are also excellent.

If you really want 8 ships that doesn't leave you much room (even when howlrunner was popular, most swarms were 6-7 ships), but if you look at 6-7 ships in the first order and separatist factions then you will find plenty of good options.

Thanks for the tips! I think I'll prolly end up going to a 7 or even 6 ship list. Going to at least try a couple of 8 ship lists first though and see what happens. And yeah howlrunner with 7 other ties wasnt possible before. 23x7+40 =201. But with the point changes 22x7+46=200! That's the main reason it was my first 8 ship list only to be realize shes banned but I am starting to think Tie/FOs might be the way to go. They barely cost more then a Tie/ln for a much better base ship imo and with all of the tie/ln's support being banned, not a lot of reason to stick with galactic empire.

On 1/15/2020 at 10:33 AM, ClassicalMoser said:

Regarding Howlrunner; I think the game will do well to shift away from her (and Sinker and Drea) a little bit in general. She was always too cheap before for what she brought to the table. Mods are important but for 46 points you might be able to do better for your money. You can get two Obsidian TIEs for that! Learning to fly swarms that aren't in a box is difficult but I expect it will actually pay off.

I never rated Howlrunner much. She always died too soon and forced your Tie Fighters to fly in formation. I found Ties work best when they actually swarm (not formation). Their strength is in forcing the bump.

Howlrunner is my favorite pilot and its quite obvious she's what makes Tie Swarms work. Even with Howlrunner I've had games where my opponent can fly straight into my perfectly setup formation where a Tie Swarm is at its optimal power peak in terms of damage potential and still come out without losing a ship.

And that's fine, in of itself, but what I find baffling is that now, if you're someone that wants to run a Tie Swarm, its like being shown the door. Why would I bother with a Tie Swarm if I can't hope to match that level of damage potential that still in some cases was insufficient to score a good exchange in the early engagement? So now, if you want to fly your Ties in formation, you can only run a strictly inferior version of the Howl swarm.

If you want to want to know what hitting your head against a brick wall feels like, you can certainly try to fly your Tie Swarm out of formation and cross your fingers that the odd focused 2 Red shot that lands against a hopelessly placed Ace adds up. I don't feel a particular urge to answer obvious questions to myself though.

It seems very draconian and silly to me to force variety into the game (even though I was the only person in my local who ever seems to run a Tie Swarm) by just saying you straight up can't take a pilot anymore that effectively defines a list archetype. Fortunately Hyperspace is rarer than extended where I am.