Two Words X-Wing Players:

• Swarms are fun to play.
• Swarms are fun to play against.
• Swarms do not play the clock more than ace lists.
• Swarms do not just joust.
• Swarms actually arc dodge without board knowledge.
• Swarms do not just move in block formations.
• Swarms do not all win by stalling.
• Swarms are not “dice wing”.
• Its ok for not-ace lists to be good.
• The best ace lists narrow the meta more than the best swarm lists.
• The best ace lists have less counter play than the best swarm lists.
• 2.0 without Swarms is just 1.0.

6 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

• Swarms are fun to play.
• Swarms are fun to play against.
• Swarms do not play the clock more than ace lists.
• Swarms do not just joust.
• Swarms actually arc dodge without board knowledge.
• Swarms do not just move in block formations.
• Swarms do not all win by stalling.
• Swarms are not “dice wing”.
• Its ok for not-ace lists to be good.
• The best ace lists narrow the meta more than the best swarm lists.
• The best ace lists have less counter play than the best swarm lists.
• 2.0 without Swarms is just 1.0.

Counter-point:

• Aces are fun to play.
• Aces are fun to play against.
• Aces do not play the clock more than swarm lists.
• Aces do not just joust.
• Aces actually arc dodge.
• Aces do not just move in block formations.
• Aces do not all win by stalling.
• Aces are not “dice wing”.
• Its ok for not-swarm lists to be good.
• The best swarm lists narrow the meta more than the best ace lists.
• The best swarm lists have less counter play than the best ace lists.
• 2.0 without Swarms is just 1.0.

• It is not dice variance when you blank out on defense on a single roll after not taking any damage from the previous 3 shots

1 hour ago, 5050Saint said:

Counter-point:

• Aces are fun to play.
• Aces are fun to play against.
• Aces do not play the clock more than swarm lists.
• Aces do not just joust.
• Aces actually arc dodge.
• Aces do not just move in block formations.
• Aces do not all win by stalling.
• Aces are not “dice wing”.
• Its ok for not-swarm lists to be good.
• The best swarm lists narrow the meta more than the best ace lists.
• The best swarm lists have less counter play than the best ace lists.
• 2.0 without Swarms is just 1.0.

Counter counter point:

No u

I basically disagree with all the points in the OP, so I guess that makes this a classic Boom Owl thread.

I like epic more than standard

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)
Total: 500

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Marksmanship (1)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)

Mining Guild Sentry (22)
Total: 500

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

You think you can steal from the mining guild and get away with it?!?!?!?!?!?

2 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

I basically disagree with all the points in the OP, so I guess that makes this a classic Boom Owl thread.

Doesn’t do a good job of seeing how his points are pretty much same and true for the opposite opinion. As others have shown.

it’s like saying: blue is an intense color. The rest are not.
the problem is mostly the second sentence.

Really the only thing I don't like about swarms is decision fatigue. They are tons of fun to play with but after just a couple games making that many choices to get to moving ships can exhaust you mentally.

I hate flying against swarms when I sit across the table from them, but, unlike aces, it’s fun (win or lose) as I’m blowing them up left and right. The only question is if I tip them over that swarm momentum edge or not.....

I'm also okay with aces AS LONG AS it’s not that infernal score-1/2-points-on-one-of-my-ships-then-run lists...

I swear! Those stupid regen Jedi almost broke me.....

citation... needed?

My lovelies

Maybe the real issue with/against swarms is that the game is decided with few critical turns (actually one or two) and the players can't make a comeback if they go bad. You need an average luck and a good positioning or you lose.

I like those "all in" games, but only if I'm the ace player and I can choose that turns, because I think there are a lot of variance in the swarm player's side.

Anyway, I don't think that remove the variance is healthy for the game, so it's fine I guess.

1 hour ago, S4ul0 said:

Maybe the real issue with/against swarms is that the game is decided with few critical turns (actually one or two) and the players can't make a comeback if they go bad. You need an average luck and a good positioning or you lose.

Anyway, I don't think that remove the variance is healthy for the game, so it's fine I guess.

Well, it's true for low health / high agility swarms; but variance tends to affect less the "biffy" swarms (such as TIE bombers, T65s, etc.).

The imo useful classification is

7-8 ships: Swarm

5-6 ships: MiniSwarm

3-4 ships: that's not a swarm

5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

The imo useful classification is

7-8 ships: Swarm

5-6 ships: MiniSwarm

3-4 ships: that's not a swarm

Definitions are kinda individual so everyone’s gonna have their own, but I think defining stuff is fun and we’ve got a perfectly good thread with which to do it so sure, I’ll bite.

personally I wish the community would stop thinking about ship number as it’s not a super useful measure of how a list works. Just like not all two ship lists are two aces, not all higher ship count lists are really swarms.

a swarm, by my definition, is a group of ships, usually small base and/or with only front arcs, that have to work together to catch slippery targets in arc and to punch through enough damage. Swarms generally do not do well in the early game, lacking the “punch” of an alpha strike list, and do poorly in the endgame once the number of arcs they have has been whittled down. Rather, they seek a mid game win condition, which contrary to popular belief has less to do with raw hitpoint/dice efficiency than it does with positional efficiency - the ability to keep guns on target and prevent disengages from fragile alpha-strikey enemy ships.

The bread and butter of the swarm, and the most important aspect of the functioning thereof, is the ever-elusive “killbox” - a widened net of arcs from which escape is rendered impossible due to the opponent overcommitting in their joust. The killbox can fail in many ways, but the most common methods of failure are

- incomplete closure, providing a way of escape

- not enough redundancy of ships, allowing the prey to initiative kill a member of the swarm and escape consequences for jousting (most swarm players fly ships in pairs or wings to prevent this)

- (1) good dice luck and/or (2) high/infinite dice mods for the ace, which I’m going to avoid talking about further because (1) dice are part of the game for anyone, add a lot of fun to the game, and are not, to my knowledge, in fact haunted, and (2) some things in the game basically autowin against most swarms regardless of how poorly they are flown and I’m going to go on tilt if I talk about matchup dependence and listbulding counters anymore

All this being said, most of what a swarm does is pretty much what any list does when moving first, but is especially noticeable as “swarm play” when the ships are moving pseudo-independently, have low health and thus have to use some caution (calling Y-Wings a swarm is kinda iffy in my books), and have little arc coverage/reaction to the opponents moves (passive sensor TIE/SFs and dorsal turret TIE Aggressors probably don’t count as a swarm). Howlrunner and a bunch of TIEs lining up in a block and moving like one giant ship isn’t really a “swarm” by this definition, nor are a lot of vulture droid swarms.

Ultimately you can call whatever you want a swarm but calling all lists with a certain number of ships a swarm is about as shallow as calling all two ship lists double aces. Not all ships that have reposition actions and/or initiative of 5 or above are an ace, unless you want to call basically everything an ace, so that should work for non-ace archetypes too. There’s a lot of archetypes involved in high shipcounts, and block formation jousting wings aren’t really “swarms” imo.

TLDR It’s one of the great shames of this game that players are ok having dozens of different archetype names for various 3-5 ship lists but only have one name for 6+ ship lists.

57 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Well, it's true for low health / high agility swarms; but variance tends to affect less the "biffy" swarms (such as TIE bombers, T65s, etc.).

Yeah, with the January update, you can spam more ships with almost the same offensive output and more health, but although the odds are now better in the generic/swarm player side, the match develops in the same way. Escape/Catch in the box and score enough points before reach the time limit, and I still believe that there are a lot of variance, not only because dice but also with game decisions like when turn towards an enemy or "wait" for a better position.

4 hours ago, S4ul0 said:

there are a lot of variance, not only because dice but also with game decisions like when turn towards an enemy or "wait" for a better position.

Variance is the spread within data numbers. It applies to random events, but not to player decisions.

18 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Variance is the spread within data numbers. It applies to random events, but not to player decisions.

Sorry, I'm not statistician and I haven't Sense so the decisions of my opponents are limited but random at some point.

There are critical decision in a game where you make a bet and hope to take advantage.