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It seems to me that, unless I'm taking a character, my squadrons just die mercilessly.

I had a lot of good luck today, though, trying out a TIE advanced, Soontir Fel, Howlrunner, and Mauler Mithel.

Mauler = auto damage
Advanced - you have to shoot it.
Soontir fel - if you don't shoot him, take a damage.
Howlrunner - extra dice, of course, but I think the fact that she has the scatter ability makes her worth it.

I'd almost like to try to find the points for Darth Vader instead of the advanced, but he only has brace for impact.

 Spellbound wrote:
It seems to me that, unless I'm taking a character, my squadrons just die mercilessly.

I had a lot of good luck today, though, trying out a TIE advanced, Soontir Fel, Howlrunner, and Mauler Mithel.

Mauler = auto damage
Advanced - you have to shoot it.
Soontir fel - if you don't shoot him, take a damage.
Howlrunner - extra dice, of course, but I think the fact that she has the scatter ability makes her worth it.

I'd almost like to try to find the points for Darth Vader instead of the advanced, but he only has brace for impact.

I'm pretty sure this is for armada...

In which case, yes. Empire fighter squadrons die rather quickly. They're also pretty cheap, too, which is why you can (and should) field a lot of them.

See, the way things generally work out between the factions is that Empire Ships > Rebel Ships, and Empire Fighters < Rebel Fighters. So, basically, your fighters are a stop gap against the Rebel Fighters; they're there to make sure the Rebel Fighters don't deal that little bit of extra damage on top of the damage coming in from the Rebel Ships, keeping your Star Destroyers safe while they give the lighter rebel ships a pounding. Generally.

Ace Squadrons are, generally, there to provide some kind of tactical bonus. Mauler provides a way to deal a single immediate damage to a few Rebel Squadrons that are clustered together (like a set of B-WIngs and/or Y-Wings with their escort X-Wings), and can force an opponent to spread his fighters out a little more if they take damage from other squadrons. Howlrunner is there to sit behind four TIE or TIE Interceptor Squadrons and provide extra dice (possibly on top of Flight Controllers). Fel is there as a way to help protect specific squadrons of higher tactical advantage, like bombers or other Ace Squadrons. Vader is there to kill important stuff. You can combo any of these for real good effect (like you did up there, though Vader/Fel is awesome). However, be warned that, unless you have 400 pt games, bringing all Ace Squadrons means you have less fighters overall, and your ships are that much more vulnerable (especially if you really need that Glad-II to grab that objective while that Vic-II pounds that Assault Frigate).

(P.S. TIE Advanced Squadrons can be used on their own, but they make really good escorts for Bombers/Rhymer. Try it sometime.)

Howlrunner is good but her benefit is very much tied to the number of other squadrons nearby - so she tends to work well leading a pack of generic TIE fighters or Interceptors. She's very good at the back of a screen, whilst Mithel is better being sent out with a squadron token to whomp something before it reaches you.

Don't fall in love with the scatter token, by the way. A disconcerting proportion of the incoming fire squadrons have to deal with is blue dice.....which are laden with accuracy results....which stop you spending defence tokens.