my philosophy for this force is to maximise my attack dice. Forget rerolls etc, I want more attack dice, period!

Mauler, marksmanship 20

Backstabber 16

Dark Curse 16

Academy 12

Academy 12

Academy 12

Academy 12

Dark Curse is my bait-fighter

Looks very solid. With Ties, its always better to have more.

Most lists take Vader, but I feel that the Tie Swarm might actually be even more effective.

I like Dark Curse just because his ability is so good and hes not that much more expensive than an academy pilot, well worth taking.

Mauler Mithel is great with Marksmanship

Backstabber is always great.

I really like Night Beast as well. He's mini Vader.

After facing an opponent with 8 ties and getting absolutely smoked, I am starting to think that quantity is better than quality generally speaking (for both rebel and empire lists).

Swarm, Swarm, Then Swarm again. Looks solid.- Sean

PS when interceptors come online, That list will get even better.

I've been debating with myself for some time over the "Academy Pilot Swarm" methodology.

By my estimation, you can't necessarily look at your squad as the sum of its total attack dice. Each ship you add to your squad adds that many more defense dice to your opponent's effective defense pool, since (barring some of the special abilities of named pilots), there's no way to combine Academy pilot's efforts to create a more powerful attack.

On the other hand, having more disparate attacks lowers the effective power of Focus tokens for defense, as they can only be used against a single attack roll. There's little benefit to be gained from having multiple Focus tokens in a swarm, as a single Focus token is just as effective on a single attack of 4 dice as two tokens are on two attacks of 2 dice.

The real benefit of the Swarm, then, must come from using Range 1 to generate much more in the way of bonus attack dice. This is a largest benefit I can imagine from a Swarm tactic. However, Academy pilots cannot go head-to-head with X-wings (and I really am only considering Imperial vs. Rebel here; Imp vs. Imp would be an even match if both were Swarm), so the ideal situation would be to use your superior numbers to slip a few of your TIEs behind the enemy.

But then I get to thinking….there are all these nice named TIE pilots that have awesome abilities specifically for that exact situation (Backstabber, Mauler Mithel, etc.), and they don't cost that much more.

And then I get to thinking about Batman, and I'm mostly done at that point.

I realized that I didn't actually say anything about your squad. I was just thinking out loud while drinking my morning coffee.

I like the mix of named pilots with Academy pilots. One thing you might try is dropping Marksmanship and upgrading one of the Academy pilots to Night Beast. That free Focus is boss. Though I definitely see the benefit of Marksmanship on Mauler when he finally gets in range for that 4 die attack.

I'm currently working on a very similar squad that is all 6 named TIE pilots with Marksmanship on Mauler.

Tawnos said:

While that is true, it's also worth noting that each attack die added has a slight advantage over each added defense die. Not quite as effective for Imperial mirror matches though.

That is entirely true. Because of the "crit" result, attack dice have a slight advantage over defense. Unfortunately, you only get 3/5 of that advantage against X-wings, 5/8 against Y-wings. Still, the advantage is there.

I'm going to try to set up a game or two this evening against some co-workers. I'm curious to try a couple different TIE-heavy squads. One is the aforementioned 6 named TIE pilot squad. I'm curious to see how well pairing up Backstabber and Howlrunner as wingmen and splitting them off from the main pack will work. Try to slip them in behind the enemy and have Howlrunner spot for Backstabber.

I'm also looking at a Vader + 4 TIE setup, with Vader having Marksmanship and Cluster Missiles. He'd serve as a Y-wing buster, effectively. And, of course….there's nothing wrong with Vader on his own, either.

So, Bully….have you played your squad yet? I'm interested to hear how it shakes out.

It might be because I don't own 7 or 8 ties, but I quite like a pair of TIE/a with concussion missiles alongside two academy pilots and two obsidian pilots. I find that having the two concussion missiles usually let me knock out an X-Wing on the first pass, and then from there I just whittle down their numbers.

I'm intending to try out the 7 TIEs when I get them though

I like that you have up to 7 attacks per round (14 attack dice… with a chance for extra dice from abilities or when at range 1, and some rerolling/changing).

I especially like that you have 21 hull, which will get you close to the number of hull/shields a 100 point Rebel squad will likely have (and if they have many more than you it's because they have a lot of Y-Wings which are easier to hit with TIEs). R2-D2 changes that a bit, of course, but I'm starting to think avoiding R2-D2 until the end (or when it is your only shot) is a sound strategy that will work with your squad, too.

And, since this has so many ships that move first, you could try to set things up so they collide with you and lose their actions (and change who they can attack).

Plus, since they will only have 4 attacks, it will be hard for Rebels get everyone. And, you can try to set it up so they have to target different ships. I'm going to give something like this a try, thought I, too, like "Night Beast" and may swap him for one off your other unique ties. Love Daveydavedave's idea that he is really a mini Vader. For example, I might do Howlrunner with Marksmanship and Night beast rather than Mauler and Dark Curse. That gives you a chance at a lot more rerolls and at least one tie with a better chance at defense (night beast).

I really like the TIE Swarm. I fought against one with my son last night with a 60pt swarm list and from a well executed but poorly timed trap he tried against my 2 Xs, he proved to me that the swarm of just Academy pilots can be beautifully effective. Getting those cross fires at range 1 is extraordinarily effective. Add in lots of evasion actions and the TIEs are dangerous little bastages. Had his trap worked, I probably would have been down to one heavily damaged fighter at the end of turn 2.

-DavicusPrime

This past Sunday I played a swarm of 4 Academy Pilots and 4 Obsidian Squadron Pilots. It worked like a charm. Most were damaged at the end, but I didn't even lose one…

Baphomet69 said:

There's the key. The rebs must get KILLS quickly to survive a swarm. Lots of damage spread around does not help you at all. Once the swarm is reduced by a couple ships, it is much more manageable. The trick is surviving the full weight of the swarm long enough to get those kills. And Xs don't have the same damage avoidance capabilities that TIEs have.

-DavicusPrime