Wittman79 wrote:I was using back stabber as a lone flanker to make most of his ability with good success but every opponent took out the bomber first and left the rest until bomber was gone
That's because the bomber is the obvious big threat. You've got 10 points of missiles on it, and those are your clear biggest guns. And the bomber is also an easy target to take out, with only 2 agility, no evade action, and no defensive focus (since you're using your actions for target locks to launch missiles). Very often you're going to have 5 points wasted simply because the bomber dies before it can fire its second missile. Meanwhile the rest of your list doesn't have any clear purpose: you've got numbers, but not enough for a real swarm, and you've got some elite pilots, but not properly upgraded to do their job as elite pilots. So you're in the awkward middle ground where you don't have the
raw HP to survive but you also don't have the skills to make up for low
HP. End result: you lose ships too quickly, and soon you're left with a couple academy pilots facing something much nastier.
There are three basic directions you can go with your list:
1) Bomber spam. Bombers work best when there are several of them to provide a legitimate alpha strike and avoid offering an easy target. Take the special character bomber that gives a re-roll, and 2-3 bombers (+1 other ship if you take two) with cluster missiles (remember that the re-roll works on both missile attacks) and seismic charges. Hopefully you do some nice damage in the first pass, then you drop your bombs as you pass each other and add some extra damage. Your end-game is treating the bombers as academy pilots (the 6
HP balances out the loss of defense dice) and finishing off whatever survives the missiles.
2) Swarm. 7x academy pilots + Howlrunner. Massive amounts of
HP, enough red dice to eventually wear down a target, and Howlrunner giving everyone in the swarm a mini target lock. This is a top-tier tournament list and doesn't really have any major weaknesses. The main difficulty with it is maneuvering well without hurting yourself with collisions.
3) Elite TIEs. Take three of the following (usually with stealth devices): Soontir Fel with push the limit, Turr Phennir with
PTL, Vader with engine upgrade and appropriate skill (and maybe even a missile), Rhymer with
PTL and advanced torps (5 hits at range 2
hurts), any of the new ships in the Imperial Aces expansion once it comes out. Alternatively, take 4x sabre squadron (soon to be royal guard) interceptors with
PTL for better numbers at the cost of all the elite skills. The idea with this list is that you have ridiculous maneuverability to dodge firing arcs entirely, and tons of green dice + defensive abilities to keep you alive against the few ships that can shoot back. It's a very skill-demanding list that can be brutally unforgiving if you screw up, since you don't have the
HP or numbers to survive if you get a ship into a vulnerable position. And of course turret ships will make you cry. On the other hand, when you fly this list well you can finish a match without ever taking a single hit.
Iron Warriors