Getting Good at Swarms and Boxes, Part 1

Introduction

 Hello, and welcome to the Salt Mines X-Wing Podcast blog page! In this article, we would like to discuss a list archetype and method of play that players often shy away from: swarms.

Many people have told us outright that they do not wish to ever fly a swarm, because a swarm is too many things to keep track of, too hard to use, or take too long to play. But swarms, with a few tricks, are in fact very manageable, easy to use, and play rather quick and exciting games.

One big problem with swarms for a lot of folks is the lack of "ace play", dodging arcs using high initiative and reposition actions, which is a source of an adrenaline rush for most players. But nothing ever gets to move last all the time – even Darth Vader with a hundred-point bid could expect a mirror-match (well, if that list were good). Some of the best “aces” in the game in fact don’t usually move dead last, such as Guri, Luke, Boba Fett, Whisper, and soon, Kylo Ren. Without going too far down the rabbit-hole of seeking the ever-elusive definition of an ace, we posit that some things are best thought of as being aces that just move first. It is possible to move first and put yourself in such a position that your opponent’s ship, moving last, cannot extricate themselves from an unfavorable exchange of dice. So, from a certain point of view, a generic A-Wing or TIE Striker is still an ace. We're still reacting to our opponent's moves (it's not just a single player game, even though sometimes the process of forming a killbox seems like one). Keep that thought in mind as we continue.

What is a Swarm?
We won’t bother with the definition of an ace, but we will go ahead with the definition of a swarm. Generally, people consider a swarm to be any list that contains five or more ships. However, four ships can also play in a somewhat swarm-like manner, so we will move on to a different definition, although this definition is a good place from which to start.

There is a common misconception of swarms that is often the first thing people think of when they hear “swarm”. Everyone at some point has likely seen, heard, or played against the Howlrunner TIE Fighter swarm of old, with perhaps tales of the first few months of X-Wing, where large pike squares of TIE Fighters would charge at each other from across the board in a noble and honorable joust. But this is not what a swarm is. In fact, Howlrunner and Jonus swarms are more fitting of the large-base ship archetype, as many smaller ships form up into a large block and are forced to fly together, with essentially one giant arc, that can be readily dodged. Granted there is some nuance to these lists, but they are not true swarms.

Identical generics are also often used as a definition of a swarm. Many generic pilots, with the same build, working together. This ties into the win condition, and is an important aspect of a swarm, but is not essential to a swarm.

Efficiency is also a decent definition of a swarm. Swarms often rely more on their efficiency of firepower than their reposition or control abilities. However, this is not always the case. Many swarms involve lots of reposition elements (see A-Wings and “aces that move first” in the preceding section), or control elements, such as Quadjumpers for example, or the ability to create area denial with potent range-limited weapons like Proton Rockets.

All of these common definitions, although usually correct, are only true because they are analyzing the surface of the swarm, rather than the root cause of these features. Ultimately, the best definition of a swarm is through the box, and the win condition, as discussed below.

Preliminary Analysis – the Win Condition

Before even beginning to talk about the game itself and how it is played, we need to talk about the win condition. Many “ace” lists have a specific win condition of keeping a particular ship alive until the endgame, and other lists also have specific win conditions based on early game, midgame, and endgame.

Swarms generally are less concerned with this sort of definition. They have to make sure that aces cannot arc-dodge them in perpetuity in the endgame, and they have to make sure that more efficient jousting-based squads do not kill too many of them before they can shoot, thus upsetting the damage curve in the early game. But essentially, the swarm’s win condition is to destroy lots of the opponent’s ships in the midgame. Which, if you think about it, is a very basic win condition. Do damage, destroy things, win.

What is important about this though is that in the midgame, swarms do not do damage by jousting in a giant block, nuking things with a salvo of shots, and then slowly wheeling the squadron around. They win using the box.

The box is a term that has arisen as a descriptor for when there are many different ships, all pointed in slightly different directions, encircling a ship’s location and preventing any escape from taking damage. The most important feature of good box play is that the box can continue to shift and move around dynamically, with all of the ships working together to essentially shift the box around the board, perpetually pointed at the opponent’s unfortunate ship. This is the true definition of a swarm.

The other definitions play into this. The swarm needs to be efficient enough that taking away the opponent’s ability to maneuver away from the line of fire actually creates a favorable exchange of dice. Five or more ships also plays into this – as we will demonstrate, less than four ships have a far more difficult time effectively setting up a box. Having more than four allows the swarm to take a hit early on and still build boxes. Identical generics is also important for this as it doesn’t allow the opponent easy target priority and makes any route of attempted escape equally deadly. But as we will demonstrate, the box is the true root of all of these definitions.

Building a Box

To build a box requires some setup and attention to some basic rules. The most important rules of box building are:

Rule #1: Do not fly in a block. Yes, setting up in a grid with a range ruler’s width between your ships looks really cool and mathematically pivots nicely. But unless you have a ship with an ability that helps friendly ships at range 1, why are you all at range 1 of each other? Don’t intentionally make your swarm easier to dodge.

Rule #2: Do not joust things that do more damage than you. This includes lots of ordnance and device-based lists. Trajectory Simulator bombs and high-initiative Proton Torpedoes can make swarms very sad in the early game, and ruin your chances of that midgame victory.

Rule #3: Do not try to build boxes around entire swarms that are more efficient than yours (be able to recognize when your ships are the ace, and when they are the box).

Rule #4: Stick together. Don’t send that lone TIE Fighter over there to take a shot at Boba, even if that’s its best maneuver. Stick to the box you’re building around Guri.

Rule #5: Stagger arcs. This ties into Rule 1 but is a very practical way to look at box formation. We will demonstrate more examples of this.

Other than Rule #1, these rules are not in any particular order. But please please please pay attention to Rule #1. It makes us very sad when people don’t follow that one.

A Quick Example of a Box

This article is already getting a little long, but we’d like to very quickly show a specific example of what we’ve been talking about. Here, we are demonstrating quickly a game between a Z-95 swarm and an Imperial Aces list.

Our list:
Tala Squadron Pilot     25
Shield Upgrade             6
Predator                        2
(x6)

Opponent’s list:
“Whisper”                    52
Juke                               4
Collision Detector         5
Darth Vader                 14

“Duchess”                    42
Predator                        2
Fifth Brother                12

Lieutenant Sai              47
Emperor Palpatine       13
ST-321                          6

Skipping over rock placement in this article, let's imagine we have the following board:

We place our squad in a loose formation at the right side of the mat, our opponent places on the left, trying to flank. This is relatively common for ace lists:

We begin to slowly pivot our squad to face them. This is when we use barrel rolls the most, seen in that leftmost pair of Z-95s:

Our opponent has begun the flank:

Next turn, we start to set up the box:

Our opponent continues the flank, with Duchess bailing out:

A few shots are exchanged here but end up being largely inconsequential. Next turn, we set up the box. There are two possible routes for Whisper to take, either decloak to our right and 1-hard past the rock, or decloak forward and turn in. We set up a box around the first of these options, that can also catch the second one:

Notice that Whisper has chosen the second option. This is still ok though, as we can exchange shots. Whisper 2-hards around, focus-evades, and Duchess and Sai shoot some Z’s from the sides. Sai takes some damage, Whisper is largely unscathed by the pot-shots, losing 1 shield. Next round though, the box is complete. Whisper can only decloak forward, and the swarm is ready for her:

Whisper 1-hards in, as she was looking to have both an arc-dodge and a shot. She can’t barrel roll out of all the arcs, so she focuses for defense. Sai has been blocked, and Duchess continues to attack the Z’s from behind. It is predicted that Whisper dies this round, as does at least one Z:

Note that this is now the midgame, and the Z’s are in a good position for next turn:

Now hopefully you have a good idea of what swarm and box play looks like. Some thought exercises on this example:

If we had set up in a big block, how would this have gone differently?

How might we have approached better? Would Whisper have avoided any of our arcs if we went slower that turn?

How might our opponent have approached better? Was it possible to avoid all these arcs?

Please join us next time for a discussion of swarm listbuilding and different swarm archetypes, and another example of a swarm game.

Article by @Kieransi