by ScottieATF
8 TIEs can be played very poorly and still dominate any Reb build, all they have to do is stay together and swarm.
This is outright hyperbole and none of us have the play experience with/against that certain build to come close to making that statement.
Is a TiE swarm easier to play? Sure, more bodies, more shots, more forgiveness of mistakes. But to make that claim is a bit absurd.
As Rogue13 stated he hasn't even heard anecdotal evidence of anyone beating an 8 TiE swarm, but that doesn't mean to much. As he also stated that likely, at least in part, to not enough people playing the 8 TiE swarm. If it is in fact an "easier" build to play (and I think we all agree on that to some degree) then it stands to reason that in limiting testing it would come out ahead often. As you are not only dealing with limited reps but newer players overall.
The Rebs can't trade ship for ship, if they haven't taken down at least 3 TIEs by the time they lose their first ship, the Reb player is in a terrible position to win, if they haven't taken down 5 TIEs by the time they lose their 2nd ship the best they can hope for is a draw if they haven't already lost by the 33 pts rule.
You are correct in that the Rebels have to attrition faster then the Imps, that's a given when going up against someone with more numbers. But you are exaggerating the rate they have to do it in.
If someone finds the answer to consistently beating TIE swarms, he or she will probably handily win the World Championships I'd guess.
For starters, we aren't going to get any significant tournaments in before Wave 2 so what's "good" now isn't necessarily what will be good moving forward.
And also while an 8 TiE build may be advantaged against the Rebels, I wouldn't bet on it against a more elite 6 TiE/Adv build in the mirror match. From the Imp vs Imp matches I've seen base TiEs have a hard time dealing any damage against 3 agility targets, so the number stacking doesn't work as well. An Imp player with Mauler/Backstabber/Howlrunner/Vader/Adv +Missiles can score a kill or two.
That same elite build might not have a good match-up against the Rebels so it really becomes a luck of the draw type situation. I can say now at my LGS if we ran a tournament I doubt anyone would bring the 8 TiE swarm (not for lack of TiEs) because we just have more Imp players then Rebels.