I fancied with Tie Bombers long before the announcement of wave 3. I'm a fan of the Bombers since I first saw them in Episode V ... flew them in the TIE Fighter computer games and now we got these fantastic models in X-Wing. I thought the bombers must get something special ... like universal use of weapon upgrade slots (3 slots which could be used by torps, missiles or bombs) or a fast reload system ... or just many upgrade slots and a discount on weapon upgrade point cost .... Well now we got them and they have plenty of weapon upgrade slots - but besides that they got no special.

I analyzed point cost and I noticed that the bomb upgrade slot comes for free (the 5 available weapon upgrade slots cost 4 points) - besides that there are no advantages in point costs.

Captain Jonus' ability costs 1 point - thats fair!

Major Rhymers ability costs 5 points ..... 5 points??

Even Wedges' ability is only 1 point! Vaders ability is only 1 point!

WTF makes Major Rhymers' so expensive??

For 4 points I would expect something like 'When attacking with secondary weapons, add 1 hit to the result' or even 'When attacking with secondary weapons, don't discard them afterwards'

But what do we get? a lousy +/- 1 range. If at least HE could get weapon upgrades cheaper ... but no.

What do you think? Do you use Major Rhymer even if he is extremely overpriced?

I don't think we know for sure right now how things are costed. Most upgrade slots don't cost a thing that we've been able to tell so far. Some ships have certain ones and others don't . They also have a pretty favorable dial. Why the bombers suddenly broke that mold I'm not sure. My bet would be they didn't want to see Rhymer, Jonus, and X bomber swarms just dominate the first engagement round of every battle. If they were costed by PS alone:

Rhymer 22 + PTL+ APT + 4pt missile= 35

Jonus 20 + seismic= 22

Scimitar + missile x 2= 40

Would still leave you with 3pts to upgrade further or put another bomb out. That's a **** scary alpha followed by bomb drops and APT that I doubt many lists could recover from.

Rhymer at 26 is a tough sell for me. The above load out is pretty much what you would want on him and it costs 39 right now. If you want to do APT he's probably the best way and cheapest way to do it. There was a list with him making a lot of noise a month or so before worlds.

Major Rhymer is incredibly devastating with Advanced Proton Torpedoes, because he can make them Range 2. And the ability to fire most of the other missiles and torpedoes at all ranges is incredibly potent. Pair him with Captain Jonus and you've got some rather impressive fireworks. So yes, I think it's worth it in many cases. Not all, granted, but he's pretty capable.

And that extra point of piloting skill does do some serious good against certain lists. Moving after super mobile Ibtisam is quite valuable, and if you have initiative, faster than Turr Phennir is quite potent for a ship with barrel roll.

Would I like him a couple points cheaper? Yes. But I'm perfectly content to put him in lists and I've had great success with him.

I don't run Rhymer simply because he begs for more secondary weapons than I want to put on a solitary ship. If there's ever an opportunity to give him an Autoblaster, I'll play him daily.

I have not played with a bomber ever I think...

I don't run Rhymer simply because he begs for more secondary weapons than I want to put on a solitary ship. If there's ever an opportunity to give him an Autoblaster, I'll play him daily.

That's so true!

If Rhymer had a special version of a TIE Bomber with a cannon upgrade slot instead of a bomb slot! This would be awesome! (imagine the Tie Bomber model with a big cannon instead of the bomb dropper device below the "ammo tube")

I've repeatedly suggested they have some kind of high capacity missile launcher which could effectively act much like a cannon slot. I'm not sure what it should cost but if you had an "unlimited" missile supply that only required a TL to use it could compare to a cannon system.

I've repeatedly suggested they have some kind of high capacity missile launcher which could effectively act much like a cannon slot. I'm not sure what it should cost but if you had an "unlimited" missile supply that only required a TL to use it could compare to a cannon system.

Maybe have a missile that only shoots for 3 dice at range 1-2 that costs 2 and grants you an additional missile slot?

Rhymer is the most expensive pilot in the game at +4 points, sadly. His ability really seems to work best with APT + PtL, which costs 35 points.

Unfortunately, Jonas has almost zero synergy here. APT with Focus + TL + 2 free rerolls from Jonus has a 99.5911% chance of landing 5 hits. However, APT with Focus + TL already has a 98.4375% chance of landing 5 hits.

So rerolls really don't help. If you are using Rhymer with APT + PtL, then points on Jonus are wasted. You might as well use Rhymer as a lone wolf alpha strike mixed in with any other squad.

If you are using Jonus to get +rerolls, then you are best off with him supporting cannons, or bombers with anything other than APT. I made a MATLAB script to calculate all these probabilities, I should get around to signing up on Team Covenant and posting the graphs there. Summary though, Concussion Missiles start to look pretty good with Jonus (which should be fairly obvious).


0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits
0.3906 99.609 90.625 59.375 18.75 Concussion Missiles: TL only (basic attack): 2.6836 avg
0 100 99.609 94.922 73.83 Concussion Missiles: TL + Focus: 3.6836 avg
0.0244 99.975 98.14 87.59 52.34 Concussion Missiles: TL + Jonus: 3.3806 avg
0 100 99.975 99.536 92.285 Concussion Missiles: TL + Focus + Jonus: 3.918 avg

There are a few different strategies that you can go with to build a squad around this. One is to get as many missiles away in the first round as possible. The baseline for this would look something like:

4 bombers with missiles, 96 points
Jonus + Push the Limit + Homing Missile or Assault Missile (30)
Gamma + Concussion Missile (22) x3

You should get 3 or 4 hits from your 3 Gammas, plus Jonus' missile. You're looking at an average of about 14 hits with Homing Missile on Jonus. You'll want to spend those last points to lose initiative so you move last vs PS4 ships, so probably 2x seismic charges.

Another option is to try and stack target locks and focus in order to get those 4 hits more guaranteed, but you'll have to drop down to 3 ships to do it. Best case scenario, that's 12 hits compressed into 3 attacks vs 14 hits spread across 4 attacks.

If you really want to stack Focus+TL then you need some combination of Jendon, or named missile carriers that can take PtL. You can get squad leader on Jonus, but then he absolutely needs a TL from Jendon, so it really doesn't help much.

Summary: I would personally take the 4 ships with 4 attacks any day.

I've had very good luck with Rhymer and secondary weapons. Granted he is very expensive, but he's tougher than any other TIE and his ability is surprisingly potent. If I know that my opponent is going to be playing a Falcon or B-wing then I'll definitely put him out there. Often times I just plan on losing him but having him deliver that payload to cripple or kill a couple of ships early in the game.

I think Rhymer's cost is partly to adjust the cost of his missiles/torpedoes. There are no missiles/torpedoes that have a range of 1-3. Sure, his ability isn't necessarily worth the cost on all the options currently available. Adding Range 1 to many of the missiles/torpedoes isn't that great, especially the Assault Missiles (if hilarious and unexpected). Range 3 Cluster Missiles and Range 2 Advanced Torpedoes are nasty though. And who knows what future missiles/torpedoes will bring.

Sometimes, Jonus' synergy is "I want a bomber with an EPT slot that's cheaper than Rhymer".
Simply because you're ignoring his pilot ability to use them like that doesn't mean that he's not the right choice.

I am not sure I can speak to worth it or not, But Rhymer is really good. He is my TIE Bomber of choice if I am only going to run 1. Higher skill is more useful in a bomber than in other ships. Being able to pick your target locks after other ships have moved is so great. And high skill makes using bombs way easier. I don't think his ability is the only reason he costs what he does, his skill is a factor too. (I will admit I would have prefered a skill above 7)

His ability is really actually very good, the range restrictions on secondary weapons can make them hard to use. Especially Advanced Torpedoes. If I had to guess his high cost comes from how good being able to shoot Advanced Torpedoes at range 2 is. Those things are nasty.

I will agree with others that say they don't use him. He can be amazing, but with all his ordinance he can get super expensive. He just becomes too much of a target.

I much prefer Jonus with a couple of no-names. Jonus himself doesn't usually cary any ordinace, it makes who to shoot at a much harder decision for my opponent.

He'd be worth it if you could load him up with PTL and APT in a Howlrunner + 4 academies swarm. Sadly, 1 point short.

The best use I could think with him loaded with PTL and APT in a High PS squad, maybe PS5+. Mainly a predatory squad to beat out those PS4 squads. APT and one or two extra ships shooting means you WILL destroy one ship before it fires, if you alpha at Range 1/2, that is.

Besides that, I don't find him worth it in many lists with the current available missiles and torpedos. You should fly him yourself a few times though, see how it fairs. The best upside is the high PS means you have a great chance of NOT dying without shooting an ordinance. I know those Scims run into that problem, and OCCASIONALLY a Gamma.

imo he is overcosted and not worth the points investment. To make him worth playing u have to put secondary weapons on him. thats too much invested in one ship for my tastes.

For 23 points Rhymer would be fine.

Since his ability works only good with ATP and clusters.

Rhymers ability is quite usefull - its not useless like Maarek Stele. Rhymer is just too expensive - AND the upgrades which are neccessary to make Rhymer useful are pretty expensive

Hence puttin a single APT on Rhymer means that this single shot costs 10 points. (4 points for Rhymers ability and 6 for the APT). Now you want to guarantee that this investment finally works out, with a PTL upgrade - now you are at 13 points for a single shot. Now you want to divide the fix costs by adding a second shot: + 1 APT = 19 points for 2 shots, this would be 9,5 points for a single shot. Now you are at 41 points - and you want to add a bit more protection so at least Rhymer could fire his 2 APT before he dies. Add a Shield Upgrade and you are at 45 points! Halleluja! This is almost Han Solo point-wise, but with only 7 hp. What a mess.

Maybe have a missile that only shoots for 3 dice at range 1-2 that costs 2 and grants you an additional missile slot?

Perhaps a modification upgrade? Something like "Autoloaders" - either a discard, or an action (if it's low cost) or automatic (if pretty expensive) - with a text along the lines of "do not discard weapon upgrades after use."

How about this upgrade card. It would fix Rhymer somewhat.

He would still be too expensive after upgrades imho.

Even with the aforementioned PTL + APT loadout he has a big red "shoot me down" sign on him.

If you can provide support for rhymer In the form of squad leader you could give him one APT and keep his cost to 32pts which i like because its bellow rhe magic tournament number of 33pts.

Perhaps a two approach squad

Rhymer + APT

howlrunner + sql

Academy x4

See a few different was you could fly this but I think i might be worried if i saw it coming at me

If you can provide support for rhymer In the form of squad leader you could give him one APT and keep his cost to 32pts which i like because its bellow rhe magic tournament number of 33pts.

Perhaps a two approach squad

Rhymer + APT

howlrunner + sql

Academy x4

See a few different was you could fly this but I think i might be worried if i saw it coming at me

Woudn't it be just better to take a Gamma pilot instead? You'll save 8 points. And you could have something like this:

Howlrunner

Mauler Mithel w/ SqL

Black Squadron w/ Draw their Fire

Gamma Squadron w/ APT

2x Academy TIE

Howlrunner keeps her action for self defense, Black Squad plays bodyguard for bomber & heroes, Mauler hangs back a range band supporting bomber until the torp is off, then swoops into the furball.

I proposed the squad mainly because we were discussing Rhymer's role.

But whether the points are worth it is debateable but he brings two things to the table a gamma doesnt, a PS of 7 simply for firing earlier and the range increase

As far as the squad above I do intend to test that but with a scimitar not gamma and wirh SqL on howl and swarm tactics on mithel

Yeah I know ... and its probably the best example of Rhymers usage. Sadly.

If you have Rhymer + APT + PTL he is at 35 points and he actually can operate on its own - without the need to fly in formation with Tie Fighters or Tie Advances. He could try to flank the enemy and to waste one of them. But then ... you could get as well as 3 Academy Tie Fighter for almost the same points. Is a Rhymer + APT + PTL worth 3 Tie Fighters?

If Rhymer would be 23 points, at least the combo Rhymer + APT + PTL would be at 32 points (below the magic 33 points)

so he would be of some use...

Maybe in fun games Rhymer could be fun ... if you have fun in losing a game. But in tournaments ... no way, Rhymer. Sorry, you are just too expensive. Make way for Jonus.

I feel Jonus with two or three bombers is superior simply because of the damage output potential. Besides, once you get off that APT you are done with him. I've tried working him into a list, but at the end of the day I'd rather just have three Ties or a Bounty Hunter even.