My friend wanted to test out a 100 point list with 4 Y-Wings with Ion Guns, and two of them having Proton torpedos. Sort of a Flying Fortress strategy

I took 8 Tie Fighters (Academy, with a few points to have one of them be a higher iniative one as the flight leader)

The Game was a Slaughter! 

The Tie Fighters closed in using focus to aid in either hits or dodges, and in the end the Y-wings were wiped out with only taking 1 Tie Fighter with them. The low firepower of the Y-Wing vs the high manuevering of the Ties proved to be something that the Y-wing force could not overcome.

I think the Y-Wing list would have done better agaisnt Tie-Advance or Character point heavy imps, but when it comes down to it the points spent on the Ion and the torpedo really got diminished since they were spent going after 12 point swarm ships, and the while the Y-wing is a tank having 6-8 ties open fire on one would take it out, where the ties while using focus could avoid the damage and pick off the bombers.

I'm going to play the 8 Tie Fighters against more list, but this battle really made both of us realize the 4 Y-Wings is not a good tournament build because the Tie Swarm really takes it out.

Has anyone else had any interesting results with a 4 Y-Wing list (or a 8 Tie Fighter list) in a 100 point game?

Haven't done a game like that, but Y wing is not a good fighter. The X-wing is a far superior fighter, the Y-wing however is GREAT for utility, the ion canon is really deadly and can be game changing, personally I like running only one.

Harleequin said:

agreed, so far I'm running one to disable key ships so my Xwings can finish the target off.

It seems that the most powerful Imperial list is the 8 tie swarm.  I think the only counter is to take 4 ships (2-3 of them being X-Wing scrubs, the other being a named x-wing or decent Y-Wing build). 

Based on my experience so far, I think 2 Y-Wings is 1 too many.

Daveydavedave said:

Yerp.. after more and more games with Y-wings and Ion cannons Im starting to think their not worth the points. The X-wings may not have a 360 degree field of fire but they are more maneuverable, more survivable and can fire 3 dice out to range 3 (while doing more than 1 damage). The 1 straight is kinda cool but it's usually whacking some TIE fighter that's almost half the points of the Ion cannon firing ship..

Yes I'm pretty Impressed with the 8 Tie Fighter List.

I played tonight and my 8 Ties were against a Wedge X-wing and 3 other X-wings.

It was a good battle, but after 6 rounds and a few too many collisions for my preference, in the end 3 Tie Fighters flew home. My oponent agreed that the fire power of the Tie's is pretty impressive.

 RE: OP I would have been very surprised if it had come out different.

The real key to Rebels defeating the 8 Tie swarm is to split your forces and it forces the Ties to either also split and diminish their power significantly or stay as a group and allow your second force to hammer on their flank while the original targets zoom of and K-Turn.  Once the Rebs can get the ball rolling killing off Ties it is hard for the Imps to recover.

PS I really hate this double backspace problem.

R5Don4 said:

Yeah, what's up with that? So annoying!

The TIEs may be weaker, but with that many more shots it's easy to see where these results are coming from.

And the backspace thing is very annoying. As far as I can tell so far it seems to be just Chrome users. Unless you've seen differently? But perhaps a useful tip: As long as you keep it to the single, initial paragraph it doesn't seem to happen, and if you backspace by highlighting the chunk in question first it doesn't seem to happen either. Or just type it all as one paragraph and go back and add the paragraph breaks.

I've been trying to find a good counter to the 8 tie swarm, with no luck. This weekend I'm going to try a Biggs/Luke/Wedge combo, but I have my doubts. I tried 2 Y's and 2 X's before, but the ywings just get beat up with their lack of maneuvering and low attack/defense. I tried ion cannons once, and it's a nice trick, once.

Not that any of you don't already know this, but the power behind  the 8 tie swarm is a hit from Academy Pilot counts the same as a hit from Darth Vader. More ties means more shots means more hits. Xwings can only take 5 hits, regardless of who is either flying them or firing against them.  (and yes I know about R2D2, etc, but my point is the same). That's the way the game is structured. I'm guessing we'll see lots of 8 TIE swarms at the FFG Championships, so I'm trying to find a good counter, other than a mirror squad.

hothie said:

try this heavily modified version of one of my better performing builds for rebels:

original build:

Luke + R2D2 + swarm tactics

rookie Xwing

rookie Xwing

Gold Ywing + ion cannon + R2 astromech

ver A:

Luke + R2F2

rookie Xwing + R2 astromech

rookie Xwing + R2 astromech

rookie Xwing + R2D2

with ver A, permanently keep luke on R2F2, no other actions until you have him down to at least 4 TIEs. with 3 evade dice and a free "half focus", he should only be taking hits from range 1 and maybe a couple from range 2, unless you are very unlucky. R2 astromech is to help you recover very quickly from the U-turns, because you will be using them quite a lot, and the fast maneuverability will force your opponent to either go for the other 2 targets or take a longer time to go around chasing you. Use plenty of 2nd or 3rd-gear turns, those movements are very hard to catch, in the sense that your opponent need to guess correctly whether you are going left or right, and if he does a U-turn he will completely miss you or catch you at range 3. The last guy with R2D2, keep him alive as long as possible, he is your end game. i've realized that the moment it's down to 2 TIEs vs 1 any Xwing with a R2D2 slapped on, it's a very very uphill battle for the TIEs, and if it's 1 TIE vs 1 Xwing with R2D2, it's pretty much a confirmed win for the R2D2.

ver B:

Luke + R2F2

rookie Xwing 

rookie Xwing + R2D2

gold Ywing + ion cannon

with ver B, this build is meant for less experienced 8 TIEs players. Again, keep Luke permanently on R2F2, and keep the R2D2 guy alive as he is your end game. Y-wing is to act as a big bait, BUT instead of throwing it in the middle of the map as per Ywing "standard operating procedure", keep him as far behind from the battle as possible, and use him as a TIE magnet before he eventually kicks the bucket, because most players are conditioned  with the "ion cannons, Ywing imba, MUST KILL!!!" mentality and will generally go for it first.

Biggs is no use after the 1st flyby because of the high amount of fire he will draw. Same for wedge, he WILL die on your 3rd turn regardless, so his extra attack isn't worth it. I've tried spamming proton torpedoes, but they are very unreliable, either resulting in a total miss or a single hit KO. too random to depend upon. Playing imperials vs imperials has shon me that 2 atk dice against 3-4 evade dice is mostly going to result in total misses, so Luke there will buy you a lot of time and can pretty much fly through 8 TIEs attacking him with maybe only 1-3 point of damage, provided none of them range 1 you. Aim to take down TIEs 1 by 1, the 8 TIE formation will hit extremely hard initially, but once they start losing fighters, you can see the firepower pretty much drop exponentially. The only issue you will have is pretty much how to survive that long. Once you have him down to about 4-5 fighters, you should start to see the weakness of the 8 TIE builds. Focus often (for evading), and use target locks and spend them the moment you manage to catch any at range 1

 great article. Thanks.

 Yes, yes, yes! I, too, have come up with this strategy, and it really seems like a winner, no matter the opposition. I'm glad to hear that the strategy is validated by another.

 I don't think Y-wings are bad ships, but I think of them as a support fighter.  Y-wings mixed with X-wings gives the Rebels a synergy that the Imperial doesn't have.  TIE advanced are pretty much just better TIEs (without the hard 1 turn.  My TIE advanced piloits miss that).

As for the 8 TIE list I think the best counter is to do basically the same thing with the Rebels.  Take lots o Rookie Pilots. They have a skill of 2, so they are still better than Academy pilots.  Keep your named pilots and upgrades to a minimum.  Maybe an Ion turret for a y-wing or maybe a swarm tactics for your more skilled pilot.

The only way to get 8 TIEs is to practice restraint and forgo really cool pilots like Vader and Mareek and possibly even Howel Runner.  If you want to match that with the Rebels I think you may have to do the same thing.  That probably means no Wedge, no Luke.  Unfortunatly I don't know what "good" pilots I would take.  I don't really love any of the medium point value pilots (except for Dutch, I love him)

 There has to be a way to defeat the swarm. I can't imagine going to tournaments months from now and seeing that every respectable squad is composed entirely of generic pilots. I guess it could happen, but you would think that the named pilots would have some way to combat the superior numbers.

Parakitor said:

assume a 3 ship variant with Biggs init. send the other 2 straight into the firefight, with a Biggs lagging behind but still at range 1 to your other ships, and have him with R2F2 or R2D2 or pretty much whatever you want. Aim to barge through the middle of the swarm. Biggs should be absorbing hits at range 3-2 if done correctly. Afterwards, DO NOT reverse 4, instead all ships do forward 4. Then forward 4 again. THEN do your reverse, OR do a forward 1 if they are too near to you. Hit the brakes, they will fly right by. Concentrate fire on whichever TIE happens to be within firing range of at least 2 of your ships. Ion cannons often. if someone is low on him, try to remove him from the firefight asap, or get him to take out something before dying. Your main problem would be losing 1 ship during the first major exchange, but that problem should be covered by Biggs already. Torpedo often too.

Assume a 4 ship variant, just rush him with whatever you got, again minimum 2 ships to a TIE. 

If you have Ywings with ion cannons, get them to stick to the sides as far as possible, it makes it that much harder for the TIE to get you because 1 entire side is denied for them to attack from. And if they are not careful and get ionized, they could easily ring out.

else try 4 Gold Y-wings w/o ion cannons, give them 7 proton torpedoes, just fire off everything, pray to whatever deity you like, and hope all the torpedoes OHKOs the TIEs, then you are now down to 4 Ywings vs 1 TIE