Perhaps a 5 TIE Bomber swarm with each having a missile would be better.

That's probably a much better idea, yes. Bombers are not made for working without any ordnance i think.

Well Jonus is if you think about it. Rather have a generic fire over two turns with rerolls than once with rerolls and Jonus without one.

Well at least I'm not the only one thinking of getting an extra Tie-Bomber and using it as a boarding craft. Only one extra not four. I wonder how easy it would be to cut off the bomb chute and targeting sensors???

Other than the one extra for boarding I'm only planning on two each. Just my feel for the game. They are support craft.

I was/am (???) thinking of two Lamda shuttle's. Not for combat play since we only field one large ship per side (house rules). But I think have two for missions would be cool. Non-armed or very lightly armed or disabled etc...

I think you're going to get more out of bare B-Wings than Bare TIE Bombers. B-Wings might not have the agility or dial abilities like an X-Wing, but they can take and dish out tremendous punishment. Wouldn't be surpised if flying against B-Wings depends on how well the empire can out-manuver them. Ion cannons would probably spell death for a B-Wing.

Bombers on the other hand only have their hull count going for them apart from their upgrade slots, and I'm not sure the agility tradeoff is worth the additional HP. After all, Y-Wings are very allergic to enemy fire but TIE Fighters can last an entire game with no damage. Expect TIE Bombers to survive like X-Wings but shoot like A-Wings unless you bring missiles into the fray. The only function of the Bomber is to serve as a cheap secondary weapon shooter. And not too soon either.

I don't think you give B-Wings due credit. I have had games where the entire opposing squad fired two rounds at a solitary Y-Wing with R2-D2 and it lived, and by the end of the game, had 1 hull, 3 shields, still firing off it's ion cannon. 8 hull/shield is a LOT for several Tie Fighters to chew through, and given the increased firepower of B-Wings, more shields, and etc, I think they are going to be around to stay.

I dunno, I've chewed through a 2 YT-1300 list with hardly any casualties flying a 7-ship TIE Swarm. When I look at 1 agility I don't see it shrugging off a lot of firepower that will be coming its way.

But ships with these high amount of hull points can take it. The B-Wing is probably best in this regard because much of those hits will be non-criticals. So, this might not impact B-Wing performance severely except that it's going to take hits and the special effects that come with those hits (like assault missiles and ion cannons).

When I examine the B-Wing I see great HP, superb attack, and target-lock capability. The last two are what make X-Wings so dangerous, but there has to be some kind of drawback to flying B-Wings and I don't think it's just the points cost (which would be a weak excuse if this was the only drawback). My guess is that it has a dial as bad as the Y-Wing's, possibly with no K-Turns. Without any 360 weapons the B-Wing's weakness is going to be when a fighter gets behind it that it can't shake off. Rebel ships can usually perform slower moves than TIE fighters can (and so force collisions from swarming TIEs), but I have the feeling that to successfully fly B-Wings, you need to have something to cover their rear.

Without much to go on, I think the dial will have a lot of red concerning 3 and 4 speed maneuvers (if they can have 4 speed maneuvers at all), but will have copious amounts of 1 speed maneuvers, going so far as to have a 1 straight/bank green, 1 white turn, 2 straight green, 2 white bank, 2 red turn, 3 straight and bank red, speed 3 k-turn. It would thematically make for a very slow fighter, but with good low speed maneuverability.

What ou say makes a lot of sense Norse, I agree that B-Wings will be great without any upgrades, just as plain X-Wings are too.

As i already posted above i agree that it's dial will not be great, but probably not worse than a Y-Wing. My tip would be perhaps with a lot of reds but more options. So it would be more maneuverable but at the cost of stress tokens. Would make a lot of sense fluff-wise too. Maneuverable but difficult to handle. I am pretty sure that a ship with barrel roll will also have a K-Turn possibility too. I hope the only ship without a K-turn will be the shuttle. that would make more sense.

Well at least I'm not the only one thinking of getting an extra Tie-Bomber and using it as a boarding craft. Only one extra not four. I wonder how easy it would be to cut off the bomb chute and targeting sensors???

Other than the one extra for boarding I'm only planning on two each. Just my feel for the game. They are support craft.

For me, it is a matter of proportion too. With the local Targets having the 50% clearance on core sets, I just picked up 4 more, completing my squadron of 12 X-Wings, and 20 TIEs - just 4 short of two squadrons now. Big scenario games, here we come =^,^=

Red-

Now THAT is a deal....esp. when you consider that you pay 40$ for the core...and if you bought the ships separately it's $45....which is a great deal no matter what...

For me, I am sticking with the fluff that I know....playing the most common ships....

That being said, I think I am going to go with just 2 Bwings and 2 TIE bombers....