Wave 3 Preview- TIE Bomber

As a few of y'all pointed out to me via email, FFG has posted another preview of Wave 3 stuff, this time mainly focusing on the B-Wing and TIE Bomber. Personally, I was kinda stoked they finally chose to open up about the Bomber as we'd really not had a whole lot of info regarding it up to this point. 

As I've basically had nothing to talk about since like, oh, May-ish, and I gotta get another article written after this, I'm just going to talk about the Bomber today.  As is the case with most Imperial starfighters, we've got two common pilots and two named pilots. 

So if you were wondering, the cheapest dedicated missile boat in the game so far comes in at 16 points for the base model. 6 Hull is pretty solid, but as I've discussed on here before, sticking a critical on a ship is a good way to negate at least some of its effectiveness, and TIE Bombers will be no different in that regard. Longtime readers will have heard this one before, but taking stuff to help you inflict criticals, be that a Secondary Weapon System like Proton Torpedoes, or pilots who are more likely to do a crit like Maarek aren't all that effective for their points against small ships- it's the big ships with all those hull points where those guys earn their keep. Well, the Bomber is going to fall into that category too because while it's a little ship, it has a lot of hull and no shields, so if you know your opponent is going to be fielding a few, you should bring some crit infliction just like you would if you knew he was going to be rocking a big base ship. 

Playing as one of the common TIE Bombers, and likely firing pretty late in the combat phase, I think the idea would be to finish off somebody who was already dinged for their shields earlier in the round. Seems relatively obvious, I know, but I don't see many people roll torpedoes or missiles on low PS ships anymore. Back in Wave 1? Sure- you'd see folks roll Rookies with PTs, but now? Maybe that's just my own meta and experiences, but being as how the Bomber can't really be one-shotted with that high hull value and your opponent isn't likely to spend that first round having multiple ships fire on a relatively low cost ship like a Bomber, they are going to be pretty likely to get at least one round of their own warheads out of the tubes before anything particularly bad happens to them. Might not be a strategy you can rely on long term, but I'd bet you could catch a few people with their pants down the first month or so Wave 3 hits the bricks. 

So the age old question- missiles or torpedoes? I think it depends on what the rest of your list looks like. If you don't have a lot of ability to inflict crits, throw torps on your bombers, and missiles if you're just needing to score a lot of hits. How many I think is also very contextual to the rest of your list. As I've mentioned before, I cut my teeth in miniatures gaming with a Space Marine 40k army, but I really came into my own as a Guard player which means I'm loathe to load down one of these ships with a ton of missiles and/ or torpedoes. That said, once those warheads are away, you're not going to accomplish a whole lot with 2 Attack and 2 Defend, so a case can definitely made for telling me to go take a flying leap with that line of thinking. Not having seen the maneuver dials for the TIE Bomber I can't say that with 100% certainty, but I'm still comfortable making the statement as I'd guess the Bomber has a wheel somewhere between an X-Wing and a Y-Wing, likely trending more towards the Y. My advice? Take one set of warheads for sure, then if you've got 4 or 5 points left to burn after picking the rest of your ships, throw another set on some lucky pilot. 

The named pilots for the Bombers are Major Rhymer and Captain Jonus. 

His name is Jonus.... he's carryin' the wheel

Awright, so 22 points for a PS 6 Bomber with one hell of a special ability. Sounds great to me. Once again- if you haven't already realized, like I said over on BoLS last week, the TIE Bomber is going to be the sell out ship of Wave 3, y'all. Remember how tough it was to get an Interceptor back in April? The Bomber's gonna be the same way. 

One apparent application is to stick him with a ton of other Bombers and watch the hits roll in. TIE Swarm players gotta be lickin' their chops over this guy because he's more or less Howlrunner for Secondary Weapon Systems and then some. That said, if you've got the points to fly Trelix or Kath Scarlet along side this dude? Boy oh boy, somebody's in for a hurtin'. Oh, did I mention he can also take an Elite Pilot Skill? Jonus gonna be carryin' more than just the wheel in a lot of Imperial lists. Believe 'dat. 

The other named pilot guy is sure to become my favorite X-Wing Miniatures pilot bar none. Yeah, maybe even in front of Turd Ferguson. 

In case you hadn't picked up on it before following the links in my posts, I dig a lot of different kinds of music, but like most folks, there's some music I dig more than others. One of those I dig more than others is anything by Public Enemy. The fact that this dude is named Major Rhymer and Chuck D has often described himself as the Hard Rhymer, expect to hear two things from me when I roll the Major- 

1) A whole lotta whiteboy doing Public Enemy lines, 

2) The various and sundry other nicknames for Chuck D, eg., "Ok, the rhyme animal, the young cannibal, D, public enemy number one is going to attack Green Squadron Pilot..."

Opportunities for rappin' aside, D ain't a bad ship. At 26 points he's not exactly cheap, but his card text virtually assures the ability of using any Secondary at any range. Sure, you're not going to get an extra die if you get into Range 1, but you do get to fire torps or what have you, which is of course, generally not the case.

This is one time I'd break my rule of not putting a bunch of points into a single ship- if you're looking for something to change up that small quantity, elite pilot Imperial list you've been messing around with during Wave 2 and are slightly bored with, I think the Hard Rhymer would be fun to sub in. Deck him out with some warheads of your choosing, stick an Elite Pilot Skill on there (Marksmanship could be fun, for sure) if you're feelin' froggy and you've got the points and force your opponent to make that hard choice- do I try to go after Turr Phennir, Vader, or MistaChuck? Trelix, Backstabber, Mauler Mithel, or the guy who's blowin' up the 90's but started tickin' in '86? You catchin' my drift? 

So for the TL;DR crowd who wandered over here from BoLS and have no appreciation for my flow, TIE Bomber good- buy one. Actually buy several. 

And remember folks, TL;DR really only works on messageboards- you clicked on the article, knucklehead. It ain't like I've got super-important, earth-shattering information you need to know before the apocalypse hits or I hid some amazing nugget of truth you just can't live without in the last line or whatever. You think it's too long? Stop readin' it, dipshit. Ain't nobody keepin' you from hittin' the back button. 

Common Ships- Imperial Firespray-31

This post regarding Common Ships is part of a series of articles that fall under listbuilding. I'll be discussing the "generic" or non-unique pilots and their ships and strategies. For the rest of the listbuilding articles, click the List Building Resources tab at the top or simply click here.

Imperial Firespray-31 (33)
Common Pilots: Bounty Hunter
Attack: 3
Evade: 2
Hull: 6
Shields: 4
Stock Actions: Focus, Target Lock, Evade
Breakdown: I don't know how many of y'all keep up on the X-Wing Miniatures Tournament scene, but for all the props that Krassis Trelix and Kath Scarlet get on the internets, there's a lot of love out there for Bounty Hunters- especially multiple Bounty Hunters.

And with good reason. The stats on a stock Firespray-31 are kinda like a beefier X-Wing, what with the 3 Attack and 2 Evade. Sure, the dial is more restrictive, but of course, there's that much more shields and hull to go around to help balance out. It's not a cheap ship, but comparatively, it's pretty accurately costed as well.

Looking past the basic stats, we see Bounty Hunters have a Pilot Skill of 3. That's not horrible. It's nothing to write home about, but at least it's not dead effin' last. They've also got the three most predictably triggerable (yeah, it's a word, what?) and generally handy Actions available as well- Focus, Target Lock, and Evade. If you dig on the idea of Barrel Rolling a Firespray, you're out of luck with Bounty Hunters as they don't have an Elite Pilot Skill upgrade slot, and therefore no access to Expert Handling, however the Boost Action is accessible through the Engine Upgrade Modification. Speaking of Modifications, Stealth Device and Shield Upgrade are both solid picks as usual. As to which one is more solid, it depends on the role you're going to give your Bounty Hunter. If you want him to get up close, fighting at Range 1-2, then I'd opt for Shield Upgrade. If you plan on floating him around the backfield, roll Stealth Device.

In addition to Modifications, you'll note there are several other types of upgrades available to a Bounty Hunter- the funky raygun symbol, the bomb symbol, a single Crew Member icon, and Missiles.

Funky raygun of course nets you the Heavy Laser Cannon or Ion Cannon. Bomb symbol gets you Prox Mines or Seismic Charges, Missiles get you, uh, Missiles, and the Crew Member gets you Mercenary Copilot, Gunner, or Weapons Engineer. I've talked about all of that stuff before, as well as the guns and crew that match up well. Click on the links if you're curious about how it all works out- this article would be forever longer if I actually write them all out again.

Now me personally, I think that Kath and Trelix are both so awesome, and really not that much more expensive that I think running Bounty Hunters you don't want to go too overboard on upgrades. Simply put, for 3 more points you've got Trelix and for 5 more you've got Kath and I think you'd be hard-pressed trying to justify points for anything but the most basic and cheap upgrades over just springing for one of those two. Frankly, they make better use of most of the upgrades and Secondary Weapon Systems than the common Bounty Hunter does.

That said, Bounty Hunter still has it's uses. If you check out the FFG News article called, "The Circle is Now Complete", you'll see that 2 of the top 4 placing lists in FFG HQ's own Regional were lists that featured multiple Bounty Hunters. You'll also see that Doug Kinney is a Blackhawks fan, but I digress. Props though for wearing the opposing sweater on Minnesota Wild home turf, bud especially since those teams were facing each other in the first round of hte playoffs which were very much going on when the FFG HQ Regionals went down. As one of the handful of Kings fans who has braved the perilous journey to Scottrade Center many, many times in the past, I can sympathize.

Why does multiple Bounty Hunters work well? Simply put, it's a lot of hull and shields to eat up. Secondly, of the weapon options and mods they do have, you can produce some very different functioning builds. Note Hothie's use of Seismic Charges in his list, while Pichelmeyer simply runs three vanilla Bounty Hunters. Now, I've not read any accounts of those late rounds of the Regionals, but sporting Seismic Charges, I'm guessing Doug played those guys as closer-quarters fighters and Pichelmeyer just played his at varying distances, and that my friends, is what a Bounty Hunter gets you: flexibility. With the HLC being such a great weapon, but one that can only be used at longer range, both Trelix and Kath kind of get relegated to backfield duty almost by default because that's the situation that's going to maximize their card text abilities. Bounty Hunter has no such ability, so you can fly him around wherever and not feel like you're cutting yourself off at the knees or paying points for stuff you didn't use to the best potential.

Also, don't disregard running a bunch of ships at the same Pilot Skill. In most miniatures games, you, and by you I mean the controlling player, usually get to decide who shoots at what and in what order. X-Wing? Not the case. At least not by default. High Pilot Skill guys shoot first, low Pilot Skill guys shoot last. Depending on how well you maneuver, this can be no big deal at all, or it can force you into having to play stats in your head about where to maneuver because Ship A may not quite have the punch to take out an enemy ship, so Ship B has to move to support, but maybe Ship B actually has to fire first because of PS, gets lucky and blasts the target out of the sky. Now Ship A has no target and spends his Shooting phase refilling his personal vaporizer, trying to recover his faith in a higher power after hearing that Angelina Jolie has opted for a double mastectomy, or checking his Twitter.

Having all your ships at the same Pilot Skill lets you pick not only what order to fire in, but also can help to overcome bad maneuvers. I've suggested beginner players use a list with all ships at the same Pilot Skill on here before, well, if you can put up with maybe having a lower Pilot Skill, it does provide the more experienced player some options they don't normally have access to as well. Admittedly, it may not be a 100% legit game changer, but against two similarly skilled players, it can make a difference. Give it a try sometime when you're bored with your current list.

And yes, while I still don't subscribe to a blocking meta philosophy for building a list around, moving those big ol' Firespray bases around at Pilot Skill 3 can definitely lead to some tricky situations late game for your opponent when losing your Perform Action step is about as much fun as subjecting yourself to trephination or engaging in home dentistry.

Common Ships- Imperial TIE Interceptor

This post regarding Common Ships is part of a series of articles that fall under listbuilding. I'll be discussing the "generic" or non-unique pilots and their ships and strategies. For the rest of the listbuilding articles, click the List Building Resources tab at the top or simply click here.

Imperial TIE Interceptor (18/ 20/ 21)
Common Pilots: Alpha, Avenger, Saber
Attack: 3
Evade: 3
Hull: 3
Shields: 0
Stock Actions: Focus, Barrel Roll, Boost, Evade
Breakdown: The Interceptor was the ship a lot of Imperial players were waiting on during Wave 1. I talked a little bit about how the TIE Advanced is a bit in-between a standard TIE and an Interceptor and that I felt a lot of Imperial players didn't really see the point in the Advanced other than as a whip for Vader.

Whether or not you buy that- kind of a moot point, but you can't deny the Interceptor was perhaps the most eagerly anticipated ship of Wave 2 from anybody favoring the gear over the firebird. And with good reason- great maneuver dial, 3 Attack, 3 Defend, and four stock Actions standard. There's a lot to fall in love with.

Like the standard TIE, the Interceptor is available in three common flavors, the Alpha, Avenger, and Saber, at Pilot Skills 1, 3, and 4, respectively. Also like the standard TIE, the PS4 version has an available Elite Pilot Skill upgrade slot. 

Because of this available Elite Pilot Skill, there are good tailoring options available depending on the in-game role you have in mind for this very capable starfighter. As it has so many stock Actions and a forgiving movement dial in that there are 7 green maneuvers to choose from, I think one needs to look long and hard at Push The Limit on any Saber they don't already have bigger plans for, and maybe even ones they do. Other commonly selected Elite Pilot Skills would be stuff like Marksmanship or Elusiveness, and to a lesser extent, a few somewhat contextual or role-specific Skills like say Expose, Daredevil, or Swarm Tactics (to act as a relay for another pilot with a higher Pilot Skill and Swarm Tactics as well). This isn't to say the rest of the EPS are worthless, those are just the Skills I see referenced most when playing or reading people's Regionals and/ or Tournament lists online.

Past that, none of the Interceptors can stock any Crew or Secondary Weapon Systems, so you're really only looking at Modifications for further enhancement.

I see a lot of people online dramatically reversing their opinion of Stealth Device these days- it's gone from nearly OP pre-Wave 2 to decidedly underwhelming. I've talked about my rule of thumb for when to pick Shield Upgrade and when to pick Stealth Device and the reasons why, but to sum up in a TL;DR version, ships with shields (usually Rebels) should take Shield Upgrade, ships with good Defense (usually Imperial) should take Stealth Device. There's a bit more to it than that, but really it boils down to how well you maneuver. If you're comfortable with the idea of Barrel Rolling and Boosting your way out of your enemy's firing arcs and have the skill to do it, I'd strongly lean towards Stealth Device as it's more likely to help you get away clean from a maneuvering mistake or two. If that's not really your style and you find yourself spending your Actions on Focus or Evade with your Interceptors, I'd suggest you take Shield Upgrade instead. 

People call the Interceptor a glass cannon and they're not incorrect. I don't know about you, but when I was playing the most 40k, it was 4th edition and the Eldar were the dictionary definition of glass cannon. The Interceptor's very much the same way- it's got a great Attack value, but not a ton of hit points (Hull + Shield) to keep it on the table. You need to be effective at maneuvering to really get the points out of an Interceptor- especially moving type Actions like Boost and Barrel Roll. I know some people look at a Saber and cringe that it costs the same as a Rookie X-Wing because "the stats on the Rookie are so much better." Take full advantage of all those green maneuvers and the available K-Turn at two different values, then put those Attack dice to work once you've finally sprung your tarp. I mean, trap. You'll change your mind about them not being worth the points, I promise.

(BTW- sorry for unintentionally revealing a goatse on here. I thought the "No hotlinking" rickrolls went out in 2004. My bad y'all. Here's what I'd originally had in mind-

Irony of course being the site that was so offended I'd hotlinked their image apparently didn't even make it themselves according to the fog in the upper-left there.

In an attempt to atone for the heinous crime perpetrated earlier, here's another pic I found when doing a Google Image Search on "It's a tarp."

Classic

... aaaaaand parenthetical complete)

There is something of a learning curve to using Interceptors, but the good news is if you were solid at flying TIE Fighters, the transition to effective use of Interceptors is pretty quick and painless. If you're a Rebel player going to an Imperial Interceptor-centric list, you'll probably rack up a few L's before you get it together. It's a very different mindset flying most any Rebel list compared to an Interceptor list. Going back to 40k, it's the difference between playing a Space Marine list and an Eldar list. Sure- there are people who can play both of those armies, but they don't use the same in-game playstyle. It's not like going from Space Marines to Chaos Space Marines, you know what I mean? Where you can basically use the same tactics with different models. Don't let it frustrate you, just realize going into it that it'll probably happen and you'll have to work a little bit to get an Interceptor list going in the right direction on the table.

Common Ships- Imperial TIE Advanced

This post regarding Common Ships is part of a series of articles that fall under listbuilding. I'll be discussing the "generic" or non-unique pilots and their ships and strategies. For the rest of the listbuilding articles, click the List Building Resources tab at the top or simply click here.

TIE Advanced (21/ 23)
Common Pilots: Tempest, Storm
Attack: 2
Evade: 3
Hull: 3
Shields: 2
Stock Actions: Barrel Roll, Target Lock, Focus, Evade
Breakdown: The TIE Advanced didn't get a ton of love in Wave 1. For the most part, if you weren't using it as Vader, you probably weren't using it. I find that line of thinking still fairly pervasive post-Wave 2, but is it justified?

Well, sorta.

The tough thing about the Advanced is it's basically a slightly heartier TIE Fighter with better staying power and a slightly crappier movement dial. It's unfortunate that there's no objective-based missions in X-Wing, because that's where I think a TIE Advanced would shine. They're fairly difficult to kill, but as they don't possess the offensive output of an Interceptor and Imperial players are used to having to work with not having shields, the Advanced gets left on the shelf many times.

Talking specifically about the common variants, you can get a Tempest for 21 points that clocks in at Pilot Skill 2 while the Storm will set you back 23 points and net you PS4. Sound familiar? It should- it's basically Rookie and Red Squadron all over again, just with the Attack and Agility values reversed.

There's no common Advanced with access to Elite Pilot Skills, so any tailoring is going to come from Missile loadouts and Modifications. I've written listbuilding articles about all of the Missiles if you need specifics, but for me, I think that for general use Concussion Missiles work well on any Advanced, but as I've pointed out before, Cluster Missiles are a solid choice against 1 Agility targets too. If you have a pretty good idea that your opponent is going to roll a Falcon, maybe consider the Evade-defeating properties of the Homing Missile, and while it's usually thought of as being an anti-Imperial weapon, there are so many Biggs + somebody lists out there, that I think Assault Missiles do at times have a place, even in an Imperial list.

In regard to Modifications, as usual, it depends largely on the role you have in mind for the ship in-game. I say on here in a few places that your Modification should ideally build upon what you've already got going for you. In general, that translates to Rebels taking the Shield Upgrade and the Imperials taking Stealth Device. Your mileage may vary, but I still think that's a decent rule of thumb. With the Advanced though, being as how it possesses both, it's a more difficult decision. For me, I usually take the Stealth Device, but then I use my common Advanced as more of a Missile Delivery system, so you may not find that as useful if you have another role in mind for your TIE Advanced. As always, if you live and die by your Boost Action, then consider Engine Upgrade, but be honest with yourself and if you're not great at utilizing it (this is the part where I raise my own hand, tentatively, looking around an imaginary classroom), don't waste your points. As with Elite Pilot Skills on the TIE Fighter, keep in mind that any points you spend here could also be spent upgrading one of these guys to a named version. Maybe that's significant, maybe it isn't- it depends on your playstyle and if your game or campaign has some sort of restriction on unique pilots.

Again, I think post-Wave 2, Critical infliction is much more important than it was in Wave 1. Missiles aren't quite the slam dunk the Torpedoes are when it comes to scoring crits, but rolling more dice while trying to do so is always a good idea, so if you've been having trouble downing YT-1300s or Firesprays, maybe give one of these common TIE Advanced a day in court with a load of Missiles and see how it goes.

UPDATE: In the comments, Misha Psuedonym brought up an excellent point I'd not considered regarding the TIE Advanced; namely that it possesses a Target Lock Action and is the only Imperial starfighter currently (yeah- I know, the Bomber will have it; that's why I said currently) that has that option. 

At a glance, this may not seem particularly noteworthy, but as the Advanced still only has an Attack 2 Primary, being able to Target Lock that shot really does make a difference in it's hit results. As a mainly Rebel player, I kind of take Target Locks for granted, but if you're a TIE Swarm disciple, it's unlikely you're used to having the option available to you, and of course, if you can manage to couple that TL up with a Focus token, both of those shots are virtually assured of hitting their target.

Common Ships- Imperial TIE Fighter

This post regarding Common Ships is part of a series of articles that fall under listbuilding. I'll be discussing the "generic" or non-unique pilots and their ships and strategies. For the rest of the listbuilding articles, click the List Building Resources tab at the top or simply click here.

TIE Fighter (12/ 13/ 14)
Common Pilots: Academy, Obsidian, Black Squadron
Attack: 2
Evade: 3
Hull: 3
Shields: 0
Stock Actions: Barrel Roll, Evade, Focus
Breakdown: Ah, the ubiquitous TIE Fighter. Alone, the stats aren't much to get excited over, but 1) He's rarely alone, and 2) don't forget he has a movement dial that's pretty effin' brilliant. Don't let yourself get caught up in the X-Wing version of math-hammer here where you look only at stats and probabilities in a vacuum. Also start thinking more "Death by 1,000 cuts" rather than "Death by one huge chop" and you'll start to see the potential of the plain jane TIE Fighter.

There are three types, and as you'd expect, the only differences between them are their points and Pilot Skill, save for the Black which also gets a shiny Elite Pilot Skill, should you choose to take advantage of the option. Aside from that, it's slim pickings on the upgrades and whatnots- Modifications are the only thing available as they don't have missile or torpedo tubes, room for Crew Members, or the ability to stock Secondary Weapon Systems.

Academy Pilot is Pilot Skill 1, but as noted above, will only set you back 12 points. Obsidian, arguably the least popular of the Common TIEs, clocks in at Pilot Skill 3 for 13 points, and Black Squadron will run you 14 points for PS 4.

If you've played the game much at all, you've undoubtedly at least heard of the infamous TIE Swarm that was quite popular during Wave 1. It's pretty much what it sounds like- usually 5-7 TIEs, a couple of them unique, the rest common, sometimes with Vader, sometimes not.

The cons of a TIE Swarm are pretty straightforward- it's difficult to maneuver that many ships in a semi-coherent way, let alone a formation. It can be done, of course, but it's not the easiest thing in the world. As many TIE Swarms relied on Howlrunner, and subsequently had to stay within Range 1 of her to take advantage of her ability, they not only had to fly in formation, but also had to try and run interference for her, lest she get blasted out of the firmament.

The pros helped make that job a little easier. Running that many ships meant it wasn't quite the end of the world if a couple of them overlapped and somebody lost their Action- especially if that somebody was just some random, common TIE that your opponent was unlikely to fire upon anyway in favor of higher priority targets. Additionally, if your opponent's ideas of strategic deployment and maneuvering involved plopping all his bases down in a pile in the middle of his deployment zone and pushing them forward at max speed, it wasn't out of the question to use some of those low-Pilot Skill common TIEs to cause him to lose his Perform Action step as well.

Me personally, I think the key to running TIEs is to simply do whatever you can to get as many of them firing on the same target as possible. It's probably not unlike how you used Guard Infantry platoons if you played Guard in 40k or knew someone who did. You wouldn't have three Guard platoons fire on three separate targets (well, not if you wanted to win, anyway)- you had all three of them fire on the same target until it was dead. This same strategy can be applied not only to the TIEs Attack, but even to their maneuver selection. Points-wise, you should have one and a half to two TIEs for each enemy ship- send one TIE long, but keep the other one short, or send one Turning right, but have the second ship simply bank right. Hedge your bets. Sure, you can always K-Turn, but if you can get to where at least one of those two TIEs is firing with a Focus token because he didn't have to K-Turn, it'll help make those 2 Attack dice just a little more effective. Use the buddy system, even if you don't have a traditional TIE swarm list; any Rebel ship is going to down a TIE on it's own, but if you have a pair of them, it's much tougher to get them both. Pair your ships up, have them go after the same target both in maneuvering and in Attacking, and you'll have great success.

As mentioned previously, the Black Squadron Pilot can select an Elite Pilot Skill. So what's a good match for a common TIE? Well, as I do sometimes, I think the answer lies as much in what doesn't make sense as to what does. Expert Handling likely isn't all that helpful on a common TIE because you probably aren't going to be TL'ed all that often (at least not as often as a more high-profile TIE or other Imperial ship), Squad Leader isn't all that effective on a PS 4 ship, and the same goes for Swarm Tactics although keep in mind while Swarm Tactics on a PS 4 ship by itself is nothing to write home about, it is worth noting that ST can "chain" or relay a higher Pilot Skill from another Swarm Tactics. Click on the Swarm Tactics link and you'll see what I'm talking about. Marksmanship seems kinda expensive for a 2 Attack ship, but I could see making a case for it to try and inflict a crit on a big ship, and Determination is always a possibility as it's only a point and you have no shields. As for the Wave 2 stuff, I'm not nuts about Draw Their Fire, though some folks are, Veteran Instincts is another one of those "Probably not the smartest thing you've done all day, but unlikely to be the stupidest" kind of options, Deadeye is pointless, and I'm not crazy about Daredevil as you're either likely to hurt yourself or you're paying for Daredevil as well as Engine Upgrade when you've already got a free Barrel Roll at your disposal. I could see a case being made for either Elusiveness or Push The Limit either one, but I think the thing that'd really catch folks off guard would be Expose. Dig this- for one, you've already got 3 Evade dice to begin with, for two, if you've got a better pilot floating around like Mithel, Howlrunner, Vader, Turd Ferguson, etc., you've now left your opponent with a tough decision- go after those named guys or put up with the damage from a 3 Attack TIE Fighter that only costs 17 points. I know, I know, for that much you could have Mithel or Howlrunner. Well, what if you already have Mithel and Howlrunner in your list already? Don't immediately dismiss the notion is all I'm saying.

EDIT: Darth Flages points out in the comments something that I should have mentioned here but didn't- Swarm Tactics can be used to relay other instances of Swarm Tactics. I talked about this in the actual Swarm Tactics article, but really could have done a better job pointing it out here. I've edited the above paragraph to reflect.

Regarding Mods, I don't know- again I think Barrel Roll is contextually similar enough to Boost to discount Engine Upgrade, but I could see either Stealth Device or Shield Upgrade working for a common TIE. I'm not 100% sold on the idea of the points to buy one of those Mods actually being well-spent mind you, I'm just saying I could see either of those gambits keeping a ship in the game a little longer than it has any business hanging around. Really though, I think leave the Mods at home on these guys- they're not likely to be high priority targets anyway. Run them lean and mean, and use any leftover points to boost up their offensive output somehow instead.