So ever since this game started the swarm has been a staple competitive list. Every tourny i have been to 75% of imperial players have been 6+ tie squads.

Now i understand that's how the tie fighters work. And sure you have options to play if you don't want to play the tie swarm, but those options don't have the win % the swarm does. 3-4 named tie pilots and med. ships don't have the survivability the swarm does.

So i ask this, (even more so since the rebel swarm will soon be upon us) what would be the pilot or upgrade that would make the swarm be a less appealing squad to build? FFG has tried putting out missiles, bombs and APL to help with this but these options are not super effective to the swarm. At least not enough to make people think twice about running it competitively.

my anti swarm suggestions:

Named pilot ability: increase ( name )'s agility by 1 for each rang 1-3 firing arc currently on him (default Agi. 0)

Named pilot ability: every time an attack lands a hit on ( name) he may perform 1 free action

System Upgrade : Communications sabotage : (requires: target lock) Spend a target lock to remove 1 token from the targeted ship and assign 1 stress token to each enemy ship at range 1 of your target. (perform this at the beginning of the combat phase, flip this card face down after using)

Missile: N.O.V.A. missile: (4 atk dice, range 3) (requires target lock) spend the target lock to use this attack. After this shot has been fired the enemy ship and all ships at range 1-2 of the target loose 1 attack and 1 evade (both to a min of 0) till the end of this turn.

i think killing off the swarm with swarm killer upgrades isnt needed. its not that dominant and can be beaten after all. B-Wings with advanced sensors are actually pretty good against a swarm especially in the hands of a skilled player. Ion cannon turrets are also very effective so running even a single HWK-290 or Y-Wing with an ion cannon turret helps as well.

the new Z-95 Headhunter is very cheap and can carry a single missile so u could use a few of them for as cheap as 17pts with an Assault Missile to help battle swarms if u really wanted to.

Definitely Assault Missiles. On a basic TIE Bomber (PS2) it still relatively cheap (21pts).

If you're looking for a Mirror Anti-Swarm build there's this:

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The best counter to swarms is putting enough ships on the table to last when the swarm kills a few of them. B-Wings, with high health, are designed to withstand swarm attacks and dish out enough to crunch those pesky TIE Fighters. Biggs with other X-Wings can help draw fire away from your other, better pilots for them to kill some swarm ships.

The important thing is to keep doing damage to them and keep mitigating damage to you. Assault missiles help this way by making the TIEs easier to kill, not necessarily knocking them out of the game. For example any TIE hit by an assautl missile now needs at least one hit to go through from wedge to kill. And with Autoblasters and Ten numb on the table now there are options to push hits through in spite of the TIE Fighter's excellent evasion capability.

3 Bombers with Seismics, spend leftover points on funsies.

"Come at us bros!"

A salvo of Assault Missile?

Indeed. Bombs or Assault Missiles are death to swarms. Especially since rebels can pack some nice cheap missile boats (A-wings and - even cheaper - Headhunters) can force the TIEs to disperse or die.

To kill swarms you should get upgrades or skills that gives defence-bonus more than once.

Ibitsam, Luke or Sensor jammer will help.

Luke will turn many eyes into evade from a tie swarm (up to 8)

Ibisam might reroll up to 8 defence dice

Sensor Jammer will either force a focus on the swarm or make them lose attacks (that cannot be rerolled with backstabber)

Other than that, use bombs or assault misslies

Definitely Assault Missiles. On a basic TIE Bomber (PS2) it still relatively cheap (21pts).

If you're looking for a Mirror Anti-Swarm build there's this:

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Howlrunner (20)

TIE Fighter (18), Swarm Tactics (2)

Major Rhymer (33)

TIE Bomber (26), Assault Missiles (5), Swarm Tactics (2)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (21)

TIE Bomber (16), Assault Missiles (5)

Obsidian Squadron Pilot (13) x2

Total:100pts

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You've got a pseudo swarm (5 Ties) and with SwarmTac you should be able to pull off a decent Alpha strike with your AM's.

Something you need to remember the Empire is vast and has thousands of millions of worlds to draw troops from (or clone). they rely on numbers and overwhelming firepower (Star Destroyers, SSD's, Death Stars) for victory. Sure they can win with fewer ships and loses.. but not everyone is Thrawn with their forces.

With so two bombers already, there is no reason not to have Jonus in your squad. Give up the fighters all together, put in a Jonus, and fill the rest with Scimitars with as much ordinance as you can afford.

Alpha strike FTW.

So ever since this game started the swarm has been a staple competitive list. Every tourny i have been to 75% of imperial players have been 6+ tie squads.

Now i understand that's how the tie fighters work. And sure you have options to play if you don't want to play the tie swarm, but those options don't have the win % the swarm does. 3-4 named tie pilots and med. ships don't have the survivability the swarm does.

I disagree with your assessment of 3 or 4 quality ships against a swarm. The only time I have ever lost to a swarm is when I've attempted to match the Empire ship for ship as a Rebel player.

Here is my anti-swarm build: (good against any fleet really)

Jan w\ Ion Turret - this gives your other ships an extra attack die and her ion cannon sets up one enemy ship for an easy R1 kill next round.

Ten Numb w\ Adv. Sensors + Marksmanship - This gives you a mobile tank that is constantly rolling crits that cannot be canceled by defense die.

Biggs w\ R2-D2 and Shield Upgrade - This keeps the fire off Jan and makes it very hard for the swarm to target a single ship in your fleet. He is also another natural 3 attack and the extra shield with R2-D2 makes him very hard to kill.

I'd say, he is probably referring to the large number of squads that swarms generally have an advantage over, which is likely more than other squads, especially when jousting.

The obvious answer is, the death to swarms is engaging in a fashion to prevent focus fire, while still being able to focus fire yourself. This is easier against a swarm because they have to spread out a bit more than a 4 ship rebel squad will.

Advanced Sensors have also provided a great means to combat action denial. Too bad the 1 agility ofbthe B Wings lets swarms eat them up! And obviously, just 1 assault missile can really hurt a swarm, more so than other squads with more HP.

I don't think any additional upgrades should be added to combat swarms, as there are many things put in place already, they justbdont work 100% of the time, as many would like, that would be no fun for swarm players!

Imo, any tourney with a large number of swarms will end up with too many modified wins, as swarm vs swarm fights are hard to win outright. This means that just 1 or 2 rebel squads will generally push to the top with a few Full wins. I'd say, rebels have the advantage JUST for this reason, not the imp swarms.

The best tactic against a swarm is another swarm.

With Wave 4 coming out, Proton Bombs will be more popular than ever. Proton Bombs (and their younger cousin Seismic Charges) are excellent against swarms. See also: Assault Missiles.

I fly TIE Swarms almost exclusively in tournaments, and I will tell you the hardest squads I have had to deal with are:

• Other TIE Swarms
• BBBAA (three Blue Squadron B-Wings and two Prototype A-Wings)
• Triple Firesprays

I judge a squad's toughness based on whether or not I think it can beat me more than 50% of the time, and those three can definitely do it in the right hands.

Gamma, or higher PS bomber, or higher PS Firespray with Proton Bombs. Oh, the carnage.....

Swarms can handle a squad heavy on ordinance, if they see what is coming at them and plan accordingly. Squads with lots of ordinance tend to be alpha strike heavy, so if you can lure the ordinance out and take minimum casualties up front, the rest of the game should go the swarm's way. As a swarm pilot I'm much more threatened by five bombers and Howlrunner than I am four bombers with ordinance, even when Jonus is around. SO MUCH HULL to chew through...

You're just afraid of your next HiLo Tourney matchup Maybe you'll see it differently after!

Headhunters and the new missiles make swarm pretty risky after wave 4 drops. New bombs are going to push gamma squads into competetiveness, Rebels can now take 14pt ion pulse Bandit squad or 17pt assault missile version and both of those really mess up swarms. Bwings will continue to be a tough match up.

I think the 7-8 tie swarm had already moved to 6-7 ties and it feels like it might settle at 6 now with a bigger buddy around. That is until they release the tie droid at 10pts... now that the Rebels can overwhelm the swarm I fully expect a cheaper swarm option for the Imperials.

Swarm is still a thing... swarm will still be a thing after wave 4... swarm will always be a thing... the power of the swarm isn't just in thier number... it is also in the number of swarms.

I fly TIE Swarms almost exclusively in tournaments, and I will tell you the hardest squads I have had to deal with are:

• Other TIE Swarms
• BBBAA (three Blue Squadron B-Wings and two Prototype A-Wings)
• Triple Firesprays

I judge a squad's toughness based on whether or not I think it can beat me more than 50% of the time, and those three can definitely do it in the right hands.

Interesting data points. That's about what I would expect from my armchair MathWing analysis. Come wave 4 I would expect to see the occasional PS1 A-wing "fillers" get replaced by Z-95's. There will be a lot of variants - Rebel swarm is probably going to get a lot of tournament attention as people experiment with it.

So ever since this game started the swarm has been a staple competitive list. Every tourny i have been to 75% of imperial players have been 6+ tie squads. Now i understand that's how the tie fighters work. And sure you have options to play if you don't want to play the tie swarm, but those options don't have the win % the swarm does. 3-4 named tie pilots and med. ships don't have the survivability the swarm does. So i ask this, (even more so since the rebel swarm will soon be upon us) what would be the pilot or upgrade that would make the swarm be a less appealing squad to build? FFG has tried putting out missiles, bombs and APL to help with this but these options are not super effective to the swarm. At least not enough to make people think twice about running it competitively. my anti swarm suggestions: Named pilot ability: increase ( name )'s agility by 1 for each rang 1-3 firing arc currently on him (default Agi. 0) Named pilot ability: every time an attack lands a hit on ( name) he may perform 1 free action System Upgrade : Communications sabotage : (requires: target lock) Spend a target lock to remove 1 token from the targeted ship and assign 1 stress token to each enemy ship at range 1 of your target. (perform this at the beginning of the combat phase, flip this card face down after using) Missile: N.O.V.A. missile: (4 atk dice, range 3) (requires target lock) spend the target lock to use this attack. After this shot has been fired the enemy ship and all ships at range 1-2 of the target loose 1 attack and 1 evade (both to a min of 0) till the end of this turn.

I beat several swarm lists this weekend with my three amigos list.

If you're worried about beating swarms, there are plenty of suggestions above.

I would add: don't fight on your opponent's terms. This goes for any game, but it can exploit many of the weaknesses of TIE swarms. Place asteroids and maneuver in such a way as to draw your opponent into a knife-fight, rather than a joust. Focus your fire on the ships most dangerous to you on any given turn, but try to avoid committing to a pursuit of one ship over several turns, as that makes you predictable. Simply maneuver so that every ship you can control can reliably fire at at least one enemy ship every turn, using your higher individual firepower to cripple or destroy each enemy ship in turn.

If you're worried about swarms as part of the metagame...you're looking at a feature and seeing a problem.

I've played a lot of other miniature wargames where "deathstar"-type units (small, elite formations, often led by unique heroes) are inordinately powerful, and when facing standard forces can reliably eliminate many times their own point value (or equivalent). One of the virtues of this game, in my mind, is that the heroes are powerful (and rightly so), but generic pilots can hold their own in almost every circumstance.

It's also a feature of the setting, the primary Imperial tactic for starfighter combat throughout much of the Galactic Civil War is to overwhelm the enemy with large squadrons of high-performance but fragile starfighters. Actually, it's part of the reason we're all so stumped over what Imperial large ships will come out, as Imperial Navy philosophy was to essentially "min-max" its forces. A single Star Destroyer with six TIE squadrons, while an equivalent Rebel Alliance task force would be a frigate or cruiser accompanied by a mix of corvettes, gunships, and transports, with two or three starfighter squadrons. The iconic Imperial starships are all too big for the game, but the well-known Rebel vessels are not.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see people post the only way to beat a swarm is with another swarm. My fewer, special skilled, and higher SP fleets have YET to loose to a swarm of low level pilots. JOKER TWO is right on when he stated "don't fight on your opponent's terms."

...some a-wings with assault missiles coult actually 1-shot a tie swarm

...some a-wings with assault missiles coult actually 1-shot a tie swarm

Myself and a few others have stated that Green w\ Deadeye and an Assault missile is a cheap way to get rid of a swarm. If you have the extra points, giving Green a Stealth Device makes her **** near impossible to hit at range 2 or 3!

Video?
No, wait - that kills the radio star.