The attacking power of the new interceptors makes them a desirable upgrade for at least half your tie fighter team imo.

How many would you play and what would your 100pt wave2 imperial squad look like?

Im thinking 2 minimum more likely 3 ineterceptors will appear in alot of imperial builds.

Alpha Squadron Pilot at 18 points is 6 pts dearer than Academy Pilot .

Avenger Squadron Pilot is 20pts (Pilot skill 3) and

Sabre Squadron Pilot is 21pts (Pilots skill 4) is the same cost as a rebel rookie pilot

Name pilots are:

Fels Wrath (pilot skill 5) for 23pts

Turr Phennir (Pilot skill 7, has one elite pilot skill slot, free boost or barrel roll after attacking) for 25pts

Soontir Fel (Pilot skill 9, has one elite pilot skill slot, gets focus for free when he gets stressed) for 27 points

I'd most likely take 100, divide that by the cheapest TIE/in (in this case, 18), then play around with the remaining points, eg. upgrade pilots, include stuff, change ships etc. for now, the way i play requires a lot of similiar ships at the exact same pilot skill number, so this is one of the easiest way to ensure that.

I've been thinking 3 TIE Inerceptors and 3 TIE Fighters (including Howlrunner) with some upgrades, as that will give you an extra attack dice over a 7 TIE swarm (albeit with one less attack… which seems like a fair trade).

I don't think there's any one answer. I have a 5-ship build with two Interceptors and three TIE/ln, a 6-ship build with 2 Interceptors and 4 TIE/ln and another one at 3/3, and a couple of 4-ship and 5-ship all-Interceptor builds.

I do wonder if an all-Interceptor build at 4 ships will be durable enough, but at 5 you're stuck with fairly low-skilled pilots. It'll take some testing to let it shake out, but probably not until February. (c:

El_Tonio said:

lol Ive been thinking this aswell. thought about a sheild or something for howlrunner

Vorpal Sword said:

As far as the durability of 4 ints, play around with push the limit on fel, and use the actions SPECIFICALLY for boost AND barrel roll to ensure getting out of firing arcs and into people's blind spots at range 1. Push the limit will be the most powerful card in wave 2 im thinking and show up in MANY builds, but as cute as it is for the standard "lemme focus and target lock with my big guy" it is especially ridiculous on interceptors because being able to boost and barrel roll feels like it just breaks the game lol. Put a couple ships down roughly facing each other right around range 1-2 from each other then play with the movement templates and it becomes pretty apparent. Add in the wide vareity of manuevers Interceptors can get away with and it becomes even harder to line up good shots on them. Its easy to survive if you're the only one doing the shooting

Also the OP forgot to mention something about the saber sqauds. They have an elite pilot upgrade meaning they can do this as well for 24 pts. It's a lil trickier with them than it is with fel, cause you haven't seen everyone's moves yet, but get them 1 on 1 with a rookie x-wing or something and they will make it look foolish…..these pilots are the most under the radar ones in wave 2.

Lastly, throw phenir in there with vet instincts and consider building for initiative so he shoots ahead of even other 9s, then dances outta poor wedge's firing arc.

Fel's wrath just sucks tho, dunno what to tell you lol. They can't ALL be that ridiculous.

I've been thinking 2, primarily Fel with Elusiveness, Phennir with Push the Limit, and I'm toying around with what to do with the other 44 pts. One list has Dark Curse with Stealth Device and 2 Academy Pilots, the other list has a Firespray. I should be able to do some playing this weekend and on the first, so we'll see what works better with my playing style.

I've been trying to make the Black Squadron Pilot with Draw Their Fire work as a bodyguard. Haven't gotten it to work though.

I'm toying with two interceptors and two TIE Advanced………

Id say 3 interceptors max, even then u r reducing ur overall squad options, esp if u take a name interceptor pilot. I hav a hunch that 2 is best but time and testng wil dcide.

You van easilymget 2 named and 2 basic all with ship upgrades and elites on the named

Darth Lupine said:

I personally love the idea of Fel's Wrath, especially when you are opposing Wedge. Sometimes I find that I lose a TIE before it gets a shot off, reducing it's damage output. This at least negates it until the end of the combat phase. I suppose it's more of an insurance policy.

I've been playing around with this too, currently in wave 1 I like

Darth Vader

-Cluster Missiles

Howlrunner

Mauler Mithil

Dark Curse

Backstabber

The list maintains a pilot level of 6 or higher so only the most elite pilots shoot first, so I typically have first shot and numbers on my side. Darth Vader acts alone while Dark Curse and Backstabber act as a unit and Howlrunner and Mauler also act a a unit. But for wave 2 my first shot at changing is this

Turr Phennir

2x Saber Squadron Pilot

-Vet Instincts

Backstabber

Black Squadron Pilot

-Vet Instincts

Still maintains high pilot level 6 or higher, Turr Phennir will act alone, with the Saber Squadron pilots and Black Sqaudron/Backstabber acting as 2 seperate units. another idea was to have Fel team up with Phennir as wingmen since both of them can take multiple Boost/Barrell Roll actions per round (Fel with PtL of course) ans fly circles around other ships.

Vorpal Sword said:

2 storm squadron pilots with concussion missiles, Thurr with push the limit and a saber squadron pilot. I believe this is over by 4 points tough, so not sure… And dropping the missiles on an advanced defeats the whole point of taking them.

then again me and my bud have been going to 120 in which case I can add night beast to the mix.

i wouldnt play any less than 5 imperials ships unless i was going with 2 tie advanced and two interceptors, even then running 4 ships seems risky against rebels, and other tie swarms for that matter.

Ive been running 2 lists that run 4 ships, ive yet to lose with my 4 tie int list and my 2 tie 2 adv list has only lost once and that was more due to me playing like a ***

deviant-dj said:

what upgrades do u use?

is vader one of the advanced ties? or do u run 2 storm squadron pilots (23pts each)

What about making regular TIEs into pseudo-Interceptors? How about this:

Turr Phennir with Push the Limit (this combo will be a staple in my Imperial squads from now on. I've used it very effectively every time I've run it. It's beautiful when I can attack, then duck out of the way and not get attacked back.

Mauler Mithel with Engine Upgrade

Backstabber with Engine Upgrade

Dark Curse with Stealth (another beautiful combo. Hasn't taken a hit yet.)

Academy Pilot

Essentially, giving Boost to Mauler and Backstabber give them the maneuverability of the Interceptor, and their abilities give them the extra dice. So you're effectively getting Interceptors for cheaper, with higher Pilot skills. Yes, I know, the extra dice are in the given situations, but still. And the maneuvers are a little different, but not by much. Thoughts?

And as an added plus, I can actually field this squad now without using proxies, as I have 1 Interceptor.

hothie said:

nice synergy hothie. i like dark curse + stealth. very sneaky. the high squad point cost of the intercepters in comparison to tie fighters (even the name ones) makes it hard to field a team with more than 2 intercepters thats good enough eh? Turr = the new Vader.

The_Brown_Bomber said:

Yeah, this gives the feel of interceptors at a reduced cost, which leaves points available for an Academy Pilot. And it's difficult to compare Turr and Vader because the ships are so very different (shields, maneuverablilty, upgrades, stats), but I can say having Push the Limit on Turr is absolutely wonderful, at least for my play style.

Hothie, nice roster!

Fel with PTL is superb, same with Dark Curse using a Stealth field. Been toying around with those two aswell.

But I've found another hard named empire pilot who is hard to kill.

• Turr Phennir w/Daredevil

You don't have to fly at the enemy with him, instead trying to always get to the side of the enemy ships, then executing his daredevil action to bring him into the enemy side, where he can shoot at him, but not getting shot back. And as you fire at him you can then move again, either out of the way or preapare to follow the previous target to finish him of.
But you really need to be good with the turns here.
Using Darth Vader with squad tactics, means that he can first make his move, do the daredevil action, then getting a free action from darth, he can perfom a barrel or a boost, and after attacking, do a barrel or a boost again, but need to choose carefully on what he cooses first, as they are free actions and you can't do 2 of the same free action in the same turn. Insane maneuvering.. I love it already!

• Scoontir Fel w/PTL
• Turr Phennir w/Daredevil
• Dark Curse w/Stealth
• Saber Squadron pilot w/veteran
• Total: 99p

Gives you an edge against other 100 rosters and can manouver the hell out of almost everything.

Keep in mind Daredevil will give you a stress token, as it is a red maneuver. Therefore, if Turr uses that during the activation phase, he won't be able to take his free boost/barrel roll after attacking, because he will have a stress token, thus preventing him from taking those free actions. This is why I'm not a fan of Daredevil on Turr.

Instead, I prefer Push the Limit. During the activation phase, use any of his listed actions as necessary, then after attacking, either Boost or Barrel roll. Then activate Push the limit to use another action as necessary. My preference is to barrel roll, the boost out of my opponent's firing arc, thus I will attack him but he cannot attack back. You will then receive a stress token. Next round execute a green maneuver, of which the TIE Interceptor has plenty, rinse, and repeat.

hothie said:

So I played this today against Ziggy, and it worked really well. He took Turr out quickly, but even so, this squad still had enough firepower to take out his Turr, Howlrunner, and Krass, only losing the Academy Pilot to a well-placed proximity mine. It was a fun game, which we knew it would be right off because we loaded the asteroids in the middle of the board. He had a Firespray, so I knew maneuvering through the field would be difficult, and it proved to be. He probably should have relied on his auxiliary firing arc more while getting into clear areas to fire and maneuver. Oh, and Stealthed Dark Curse still hasn't taken a hit yet in 3 games. I like this squad. I boosted a few times with Backstabber and Mauler, which helped, and had a lot of fun barrel rolling into and out of firing arcs.