Man, I had a long reply written out earlier, but either the board or my  connection became unresponsive and I couldn't recover it. 

Anyway, Vorpal hit a lot of what I was going to say about the Swarm and asteroids anyway, but one thing- when you talk about asteroids on the board edge, you don't literally mean that, right? You know the rules for placing asteroids, right? Because in the context of this thread and what we've been discussing, it makes something of a difference. Secondly, and I apologize if this comes aross as condescending or whatever- it's not my intent, but you know how Actions and tokens work, right? I'm probably reading way too far into your posts, but the way you posed your Actions on TIEs question kinda made me wonder if you and your friends aren't using a single token throughout the duration of a round rather than discarding it after use. 

As for your Actions on TIEs question, I don't know- it's purely contextual. If I feel like I have enough guns focused on a target to get through the shields, I'll Focus with everyone present. If I don't, I usually just hedge my bets and Evade although in light of Vorpal Sword's post, it would appear I need to rethink that strategy. 

Making a TIE Swarm that uses Howlrunner spread out is one of the best ways to neuter/ nullify it. I've meant to write a post about this on my blog, but one of the best strategies for making this happen has been to split a 4-ship list into two 2-ship groups, with one ship more forward than the other, set them pointing towards the center of the play area at about 30 degree angles on deployment. If you've dropped a few asteroids so that not only does the Imperial player have to choose between which group of ships they're going to go after, they also have to worry about splitting up their force even a second time, that's usually enough to make things get interesting for them- collisions, Pilot Rank gaffes, etc. 

Many times when I do that 2 group deal, I'll have Luke with Swarm Tactics in front of a Rookie within Range 1 to benefit on one side of the table, and a couple of Red Squadron X-Wings on the other with various upgrades and droids to taste. I like this setup because if he comes after Luke, he's got to contend with two PR8 X-Wings with two PR4 Red Squadron X-Wings coming in from at least the flank, and quite possibly the rear depending on how quickly he advances. On the off chance he goes after the Red Squadron X-Wings first, well, it's just vice versa. I really prefer the Red Squadron X-Wings to Rookies as the folks around here use Academy and Obsidians in their TIE swarms quite a bit. 

If playing a setup like this still doesn't work, try giving Luke R2-F2 and have him activate the droid's ability as an Action until the rest of the squadron have cleaned out a few TIEs. He works well as a kite in this manner too. Bonus points if you can fit in Garven Dreis to give him a Focus too, but far from necessary in my experience. I'd sooner spend the points on R2-D2 for the trailing Rookie, but again, that's probably more just my playstyle than actual tactical advice. 

If you dig using Wedge more than Luke, I'd suggest giving R2-F2 a try on him sometime. Wedge's ability conveys an attack bonus anyway, so it shouldn't completely neuter him if he uses his Action for something besides Target Locking or Focusing. I think R2-F2 works best on Luke for obvious reasons, but he really has the potential to help out anybody who isn't just completely screwed by giving up an Action. 

I almost always include 1 Y wing in a list, and thats just because Dutch is so awesome he is hard to pass up on.  I find I tend to use between 1 and 3 Ys per list, partially because I'm a fan of them, and partially because I find them to be really, really good with the Ion turret against most opponents.  Keep in mind that outside of range 1, it takes 4 Ties to kill 1 Y wing, and thats if they roll nothing but hits and you don't roll a single evade.  At range 3 with asteroids in the way, its very hard for Ties to land hits on a Y-Wing.  

Recently, when I've been setting up my asteroids, I aim for a center table deployment.  Sometimes, my opponent will cooperate, and place their asteroids in the center, but if they are playing a swarm, i tend to find that the asteroids end well away from the center of the table.  My first asteroid goes center of the table about a 5 movement and a 4 movement away from my opponent's deployment zone.  My second and 3rd asteroids are placed 1 away from the first closer to my side of the table, making a triangle from my first asteroid.  This gives mea  pretty safe area to advance behind the asteroids.  If my opponent picks a side, I deploy to keep the asteroids between us.  If he deploys dead center, I deploy straight across from him.  The goal is to advance toward the asteroids enough that the first pass puts them between your opponent and you. You're flying Y-Wings (with R2D2 and R5-D8 in my typical lists) so you can afford to take an asteroid hit most of the time after the first pass with enemy ships.  Hopefully the asteroid field will break up enemy formations, and sometimes you'll get lucky with the ion shots (I've had Horton Ionize a tie, which had to float into an astroid and ended up taking a critical hit).

Once the first pass is over, I survey the field.  Its not uncommon for me to pull a 3 or 4 maneuver to continue to open the range between myself and my opponent or just fly straight with my R2D2 Y-Wing to recover a shield.  Either way, i want to not be too predictable - i can shoot 360 and my opponent cant, so as long as I don't stick somewhere that is going to get me shot by multiple ships at range 1 I'm good.  What tends to happen as the game progresses is you start pulling apart formations by ionizing ships and can scatter opposing ships even more when you make a 3 bank when he was expecting you to take a 1 the other direction.  As you ionize enemy ships or isolate them getting them to chase you, you're killing them with your cleanup ship(s).

The cleanup ships are the ships you use mid to late game to hunt down ionized ships -  a Rookie X-wing is probably the best choice, but a gold squadron works if you can line up a range 1 shot with the primaries.  I've also had decent luck using Horton as the cleanup ship because he doesn't need much support - if he is shooting at range 2, you can either focus and have a pretty good chance at 2 hits or fire a torp and finish the ship. I try to keep the cleanup ship out of the fight early in the game by deploying at the very back of my deployment zone and moving slowly.  Depending how the first wave progresses I can burst past the asteroids with a high speed move if I am worried about the cleanup ship getting ganged up on, or I can pick on an ionized ship that is coasting from the first wave.

Even if you don't shoot at an ionzied ship with directional fire, its out of the game for at least 2 turns - one from the ion coast, and then another while it turns around to get back into the combat.  If they don't K turn, it can be a third turn before they are shooting at something again.  

Cid_MCDP said:

Yes i know the rules for asteroids and tokens. You deploy them the minimum distance from right or left board edge in a line, that is what i meant not that you put them just on the edge without respecting the distance. As for the tokens i don't know what xou mean really…

To your splitting rebels up tactic, well i would still clump up and plain kill one flank after the other. It might work if the imperial player falls for it.

The red squadron is a different issue. It makes sense against an obsidian squadron swarm, but not if it us Howl/mithel with swarm tactics. Or just plain Academies. In the former you have 4 Ties that go before your Reds anyway. In the latter the Academies go after your rookies anyway. So i don't know if it's worh the points.

I dont have my cards here, R2-F2 is the one with +agility as an action right? Well i like it on Biggs, but makes sense on Luke too. But for Luke i prefer R2-D2 since with my playstyle he gets more use out of him and does not lose offensive power.

Also if you manage to ionize a ship it is not really hindered for more than a turn except you hit a stressed enemy of course. A Tie Fighter can just outturn you and that is all. If you make hard turns, go ahead man a stressed Y-Wing has even less damage potential than ordinary. The Ion Turret can throw an enemy out of formation too, but in a swarm one 12 point Tie does not matter much. Its fun of course that you can sometimes make enemies run off board or crash, that is for sure.

ForceM said:

Y Wing and a Tie fighter are roughly head to head at Range 2.  Tie gets Ionized and is forced to move 1 forward.  The Y-Wing runs with a 4 forward, getting out of the Ties front arc.  The Y-wing and Tie fighter are back to back.  If the Tie isn't ionzied again, it can A) make a K turn, gaining a stress and maybe being at range 3 of the Y, or B) turn in any direction, still not have the Y Wing in any arc.  The Tie is ineffective for at least 2 turns.

Y-Wings with R2 units are solid because you can pull those red maneuvers while still being able to choose from many options to clear the stress token.  A pair of Y Wings can keep 4 ships effectively out of the fight as long as you're doing well stacking target locks and focus onto the Y's with Ion Cannons.  

I've been working with this list, on and off - its 4 ships instead of the 3 I've been running lately, and I think it would be better with an A wing instead of the 3rd Y, but its fun to play.

Dutch w/ Ion & R2D2
Garven
Gold Squadron w/ Ion & R2
Gold Squadron

The Gold without upgrades is the cleanup crew, closing into range 1 of ionized ships to light them up with 3 attack, preferably outside of the inoized ship's arc.  

ScottieATF said:

We simply have no reliable data…

This is all well and good, but the chance to hit a tie even with the ion cannon is not huge against an evading 3 agility ship. While his chance is better to hit you with 2 attack dice against one evade die even without any action. If you fail to ion him he has no problem keeping up. And more importantly you are not fighting on a 1v1 base here. The second Tie your enemy gets for the same cost as your Y-Wing with Ion turret shoots you all the way with impunity. 

You also don't disrupt 4 Ties there, you have only 2 ion cannons in your list. But your chances are pretty good to actually hit a target with Dutch and Garven handing out buffs.

ForceM said: