How viable would a 3 tie advanced build be?

It would go something like this

Vader with concusion missiles and swarm tactics

Maarek wtih cluster missiles and swarm tactics

Generic advance pilot with cluster missiles

First off, you have all three ships at pilot skill nine, and you're a few points under 100, so you're almost guranteed to have initiative. In the first combat round, you've got vader with a focused concusion missile and then two cluster missiles before the other side can do anything. Assuing you've got two tie advanced left, against three generic x-wings at that point, I feel like the tie advanced defintely have the advantage. They take can take evade, and are more maneuvrable, and you'll have either maarek or vader left for the end game. The problem is how they'd fare against the 8-tie swarm. the concsion missiles still are going to probably take out a tie, the cluster missiles will take out one between them (two if you're lucky), and then you're probably going to have 5 or 6 ties fire on one of your ships. Second round you're going to have two advance and if lucky one damaged advanced against 6 ties with equal ship stats and manevurability. Thoughts and comments?

pianoplayer3991 said:

I feel like you've correctly identified the problem of dealing with larger Imperial lists. But I think you're underestimating the Rebels: after launching their missiles, the TIE Advanced have substantially less firepower than an X-wing. Your evasion means both sides deal the same average damage, but the Rebel weapons have more variance--a lucky Rebel shot is better than a lucky Imperial shot.

The emerging metagame is coming down in favor of a moderate number of moderately-priced ships, rather than taking lots of cheap ships or a few very expensive ships. (At least locally, 4-ship Rebel lists are more consistently successful than 3-ship ones, and 6-ship Imperial lists are beating 7- and 8-ship swarms.)

I like the idea of a list with Vader and Stele, but I'm not sure that the third TIE Advanced is as efficient a use of points as two TIE Fighters would be. You would get more maneuverability out of the TIE Fighters, but less durability and you wouldn't have the extra missiles.