It's cheese, I know, but I actually really enjoy having loads of disposable TIE fighters to play with.

It feels like the films. It's challenging to avoid crashes and maximise shots. Barrel-rolling to Rebels' flight paths to deny them actions gives me a perverse pleasure. I like sacrificing a pilot to set up attacks by others.

Basically, I think I may have turned to the dark side.

But will it be too annoying if I play like this at a Kessel Run tournament?

Well, we're both bad then because I'm doing the 8 TIE swarm as well.

I'm running 4 Academy pilots and 4 Obsidian pilots.

Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies and cooler uniforms.

Just hope you don't have to play each other cause you'll run till time limit. Just make sure you have em at 100 pt lvl cause with no ship kills it goes to the highest point lvl then play line up.

Two thoughts:

First, you're not a bad person, but you are setting yourself up for a modified win at best. It's going to be really, really hard to maneuver that many ships efficiently in the given time.

Second, you had better hope you don't go up against a squad with 4 X-wings. I've seen matches run with a "wolfpack" against 7-ship Imperial lists, and they didn't go well for the Empire. The TIEs have more attack dice available on the table, but it appears to be extremely difficult to get them all pointing in the same direction at the same time. (Practice might help, but the people I've seen lose with 7-TIE lists weren't inexperienced.)

Basically, two or three of the X-wings will go before any TIE pilot can in an 8-swarm, and that's going to down a TIE each round. You can survive that, but you're going to need a bit of luck to take down X-wings fast enough to stay ahead on points--and you need to hurry, because your long maneuvering time cuts into the total number of rounds you get.

good luck

Spray and pray, it's the imperial way. If those pesky shields stop you landing a hit, just keep trying

I always find it's down to the dice in the end. Bad rolls can cripple an X-Wing just like a TIE, but yeah good luck.

You will pretty much be moving first and shooting last. This has a few consequences: Barrel Rolls will be considerably less effective, becuse you will not know where you opponants will be. You can count on entire ships being killed before they even get a chance to shoot.

However you can midigate this a few ways. First, if you are good at reading your opponanat, you might be able to predict what he/she is going to do, but I prefer to jut throw evade on every singe TIE. That way your opponant has no good shots.

Other things to consider: Close formation flying with 8 TIEs will get tricky especially since tournament rules will include asteroids. But you can use your numbers to litterally fly-block your oppoanant and force collisions, thus denying them their actions (Hate those nasty Target Locks)

You are going to have difficulties without any of the Empire's offensive boosting abilities. It can be hard to kill things. I actually think this list will have more difficulties against another Imperial List wich you will likely face in the tournament. 8 vs 6 is not that much of a numbers advantage, and your opponant's ships will be better.

In short I think your list is a pretty good, one, it. It might be challenging to play, but I think it will reward skill in the game.

You will pretty much be moving first and shooting last. This has a few consequences: Barrel Rolls will be considerably less effective, becuse you will not know where you opponants will be. You can count on entire ships being killed before they even get a chance to shoot.

However you can midigate this a few ways. First, if you are good at reading your opponanat, you might be able to predict what he/she is going to do, but I prefer to jut throw evade on every singe TIE. That way your opponant has no good shots.

Other things to consider: Close formation flying with 8 TIEs will get tricky especially since tournament rules will include asteroids. But you can use your numbers to litterally fly-block your oppoanant and force collisions, thus denying them their actions (Hate those nasty Target Locks)

You are going to have difficulties without any of the Empire's offensive boosting abilities. It can be hard to kill things. I actually think this list will have more difficulties against another Imperial List wich you will likely face in the tournament. 8 vs 6 is not that much of a numbers advantage, and your opponant's ships will be better.

In short I think your list is a pretty good, one, it. It might be challenging to play, but I think it will reward skill in the game.

Hrathen said:

• 8 TIEs should expect to shoot last.
• Barrel roll is ruled out by the lack of information.
• With asteroids around, movement is going to be difficult.
• The list lacks any offensive boosts except Focus…
• …which it shouldn't use because it really needs to Evade.
• The list will have trouble with mirror matches.

In that case, I'm not sure your argument matches your conclusion! (c;

Vorpal Sword said:

To play a tie swarm of 8 in a tourny, you can only expect to run 3 wide in a tourneemnt, which can be rather hard to to get into a good formaiton unless you know what your doing (Hothie was able to do a 3 line of 2 wide in his worlds, so watch what he dos and try to practice)

You probable will have a tie die before he gets to shoot. Sorry, but thats how it works since you cant afford a team of all high intitive pilots.

barrel roll is a rather hard action to do if you cant judge your opponent correctly, as it could land you in point blank range with a focus or an evade :S I hear deaths call on that tie. On the other hand you can barrel roll and probable crash your opponent for not being able to properly judge a barrel affecting your possible movements.

The whole evade thing might be argueable, however in an empire against the empire the idea behind it is you evade, and at most you can only take 1 damage. Also with only 2 attacks and 3 evades, you should expect to run out of time before many ties die.

I have one guy I play against once in a while and he takes a long time trying to figure out how to move his guys. I could see him manuvering his dials and killing allot of time, leaving just a few rounds to play. If you dont have the game down, and dont know how each guy moves, and cant visualize what you want to do and know imediatly what manuvers to do it with, then a tie swarm is not for you.

so the Moral in the story is hrathen knows what hes talking about, and his points are valid. Maybe debateable, but valid….

Tie swarms are very hard to play, but there is a reason why a 6 team won the worlds. The guy who opperated them, had the skill to control all of them. You dont see allot of tie swarms because that level of control+astroids is the most challenging in the game, and if you lose controll of a single fighter, youve lost a huge advantage as he may be picked off, or may end up messing your entire kiogran turns of 4 or so fighters. I would like to see hothie play an 8 tie team, which I think he could handle but I dont think he could control as easily or as skillfully as he could with 6. Not to mention the best pilot on the imperial force is Darth Vader

Torresse said:

It's like… aside from the interruption, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

I don't actually think it's a bad list, but it's not tournament-friendly for reasons of time and complexity. Also it's easy to make mistakes with it, and I personally prefer something with a little more tolerance for error.

That's interesting because I view 8 TIEs as having a high tolerance of error because if you fly one wrong you still have squad mates to line up the shot. But I guess if you really mess up you could cause a bunch of your ships to lose actions, so I can see your point.

8 Ties, could be a beautiful thing…..Or one hot mess.

First off, thank you Torresse for the kind words. I did practice that opening maneuver for the purpose of flying a 2X3 column through asteroids. As has been said, flying 3-wide through asteroids just doesn't work, which is why I devised a way to fly 2 wide as a column. Ii f I tried to run 8 TIEs I would go 2X2 as 2 wings, rather than try to fit all 8 ships into one area. The points Hrathen makes are valid, and I would have trouble winning with 8 TIEs due to the time constraints and lack of firepower. Maneuvering 8 ships does take a long time and does slow the game down, so don't expect to complete very many rounds before time gets called, especially against Imperial builds. I can almost guarantee that you won't suffer a complete loss, though.

Hmm… I was also thinking of running an avalance of TIE fighters and figured the number of attacks would be a tradeoff for special abilities. Can someone like Howlrunner really make or break a list? Or can the absurd number of attacks carry you through?

The only list my TIE swarm's lost against so far was an asteroid field battle against four Grey squadron Y-wings with ion cannons and even then it was a very near thing. Bear in mind I don't play as I'd like and I haven't tried against an X-Wing swarm attempt.

i was thinking of running backstabber and 7 acadmy pilots.. in 2 formations.. see if they take the bait n if not just tie bang one guy at a time.

I was also thinking of that, but that makes Backstabber your MVP and he'd die first. Also, only HE benefits from the special text of his card.

Howlrunner on the other hand enhances her whole squadron that she flies with, but fielding her means 7 fighters instead of 8. Loosing her would be a big loss to the team too, but if you stack her behind TIEs that will get to shoot then they'll benefit from her ability.

It just seemed like crushing numbers brought me to victory before, but I have doubts because I don't have a lot of experience with the game.