Playing CIS Squadron Heavy

I don't see very many CIS heavy squad lists. You see plenty of vulture droid screens, not unexpected as I think you can make a strong argument that vultures are the best air superiority fighter point for point in the game. However, I rarely see a CIS list with a large complement of squadrons. Why is this and are heavy squad builds just not in the cards for the CIS let's take a deeper look.

First up a fundamental principle of taking a lot of points in fighters is that they have to pull their weight which means being effective against both ships and squadrons. As we look at the CIS squads from high cost to low cost we have the vulture droid great against ships but pretty bad against ships with 5 essentially blank sides even if one face does produce 2 damage it is far from reliable the hyena bomber is not great against squadrons but pretty solid against ships producing 1.5 damage on average, but with both dice being red can lead to a fickle roll from time to time, and PDICs and evades can be outright mean to these guys.

Hyenas after PDICs forces them to re-roll a double hit

Next up is the tri fighter while I do think the vulture is the best point for point air superiority fighter in the game I think you can make an argument that tri fighters are point for point the best multi-roll fighter in the game. With a black anti-ship counter 2 and what is almost always 1 red 3 blue anti squadron you do what you do well, but a vulture will be more consistent in the air superiority role with its black dice. Last up is the belbullab and lets just be honest it just straight-up bad for its point cost it's fine at anti-squad, but because vultures have swarm I think you can argue they are better at almost half the cost and relay 1 does not provide enough utility and can at times conflicts with its other ability screen.

So first off I think first off with the belbullab being as bad as it is it (Grievous excluded) gives the CIS really only 3 viable types of squadrons This can make it hard to build a flexible squad ball, and is one of the reasons I think heavy Squad CIS is less common. I don’t think this is impossible to overcome though it just plays into a different strategy of having an Air superiority group and an a bombing group something like this:

• 6 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (48)

• 4 x Hyena Droid Bomber Squadron (44)

= 92 Points

You could also opt for the more expensive but more versatile option by changing the vultures out for tris or even just a few vulture droids for tris. In addition, you could swap around a few things and upgrade some generics to aces.

• 3 x Vulture Droid Fighter Squadron (24)

• Phlac-Arphocc Prototypes (19)

• DIS-T81 (17)

• DFS-311 (18)

• DBS-404 (17)

• 3 x Hyena Droid Bomber Squadron (33)

= 128 Points

Total Points: 128

I think the gozanti has made these types of squad balls much more doable for the CIS.

I also think that DFS-311 is a bit underutilized I think DFS lets you split your bomber and air superiority wing so your air superiority wing can tie up squads and then your bombers can use their speed to hit ships. DFS can force your opponent to send at least 2 squadrons after your bombers if they want to tie them up and that means your air superiority wing will have an advantage.

I also think having a pretty cheap squad 2 ships in the gozanti makes these types of squad balls much more doable for the CIS. However, I think one important thing to mention is Bomber Command Center. While I dont think BCC is 100% necessary with Heynas they are the squadron that wants it the most now that X-wings have Hera. The cheapest way the CIS has to get BCC is 55 points which is not a small investment comparatively: Rebels: 26, Empire: 31, GAR: 46. I don’t think GAR bombers suffer from its relatively high cost because they ether dont really need re-rolls or can get them some other way Nevoota Bee, same goes for both Empire (Slone, MMJ tie defender Darth Vader) and Rebels (Toryn far for blue dice, black die more reliable then red) The CIS is the one faction currently left on in the cold on this one.

Long story short I think that while not impossible to build a CIS squad heavy list they are at a disadvantage due to the exorbitantly high costs for squadron re-rolls and a lack of squadron variety also plays a factor. I do think it is workable particularly with the new CIS gozanti to be a cheap squad pusher. How have you used CIS heavy squad lists? What have been your most successful CIS squad haevy lists? Until next time have a great week!