Beatrice Shakespeare Smith is in trouble. She’s always been notorious for the mischief she creates around the Theatre Illuminata, but after an incident involving a cannon, the destruction of several set pieces, and a spectacular fire, she finds herself stuck with two options—make herself useful, or leave the Theatre forever. Bertie isn’t like other members of the Theatre Illuminata. Everyone else has a defined purpose—They are all characters in famous plays, and without them at the Theatre, the plays cannot be enacted. Bertie was a foundling, with no written purpose, and for her, leaving the Theatre means leaving the only home she’s ever known. She decides, then, to give herself a purpose by restaging Shakespeare’s famous Hamlet, setting it in Egypt rather than Denmark. Her efforts begin roughly. Further complicating her problem is a plot surrounding The Complete Works of the Stage, otherwise known as The Book, a magical tome containing every play ever written, and the force that holds the Theatre Illuminata together. Without its influence, the characters are free to leave the Theatre, and one handsome and cunning player (and close friend) wants to escape at any cost, even if it means sending the Theatre into chaos…
Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev is a unique book. While I’ve encountered plenty of novels about the re-written or reinterpreted doings of famous literary characters, I’ve never before read one where the world was set up quite as creatively as this one. The experience of it is a bit disorienting at first—The Theatre Illuminata is not only a theatre populated by famous characters, but a theatre in which the set pieces are more wonderful than even the most imaginative set pieces in our world. Sets change themselves, as if by magic. Underwater scenes literally take place underwater. The sets themselves are also fully functional pieces of setting, rather than the mere suggestion of place that real-world sets tend to be, which means that if a character wants to take a break in a decadent Turkish bath, she only has to pull up the set piece for it, and Ta-Da! Instant luxury. Because of these elements, the Theatre Illuminata easily falls among the more interestingly established worlds in teen fantasy, and is bound to appeal particularly to theatre geeks.
The author herself had years of theatrical experience upon which to build the world in this novel, and it shows in both the details of the plot and the writing style itself. Bertie’s dealings with the various department managers—from props to scenery to wardrobe—read like fictionalized versions of actual experience, as does the energetic chaos surrounding every action requiring the cooperation of cast and crew. In clever keeping with its subject matter, the novel is also presented in both prose and script form. The switches are a little infrequent—the script format is only used early in the novel, despite there being several places later in the novel where it could have appeared—but they serve their purpose, and help to establish the theatrical setting of the story with greater clarity.
Mantchev’s personal love of theatrical literature is also apparent, as she packs a number of detailed theatrical references into the novel, mainly in the form of familiar characters. Said characters are mostly Shakespearean, which is a little bothersome, given that the Theatre is supposed to gather characters from every play ever. (A few characters, one a major character, hail from other plays, but the dominance of the Shakespearean characters makes the non-Shakespeareans feel out of place.) However, the characters are depicted well enough to compensate for this imbalance, especially Hamlet’s Ophelia and A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s fairy quartet, the latter of which, despite being minor characters in Shakespeare’s play, are amusingly written as main characters here, and through their mischief and snark are bound to become reader favorites. In further homage to the Bard, Mantchev also works in some elegant bits of wordplay. While she never goes so far as to write entire scenes in iambic pentameter, she frequently slips in little jewels of almost-poetry, which, combined with the imagination behind the setting, renders the novel an inventive read on several levels.
Unfortunately, the novel does struggle with a small, yet notable set of flaws. Its largest is that it juggles more major conflicts than it should have, and the conflict that it seems to set up as the major one—Bertie’s restaging of Hamlet—ends up falling by the wayside as trouble ensues with The Book. In fact, the Egyptian Hamlet is never actually staged in the novel, and though the play that replaces it is vastly more interesting and relevant to the narrative, the absence of Egyptian Hamlet made the novel feel incomplete. (Though I could be biased, since Hamlet is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and I like seeing neat interpretations of it). It also isn’t clear until the end of the story whether the Theatre Illuminata is a theatre in our world, a theatre in a fictional world, or a universe unto itself, which, though only a minor detail, was nonetheless one that I found annoyingly distracting for the first half of the book.
Still, for its flaws, the novel does have charm. It also has sequels! It’s a trilogy completed by Perchance to Dream and So Silver Bright, so readers who love this first book have more to look forward to!
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Princeless, Volume 1 – Graphic Novel Review
I came across Princeless by Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin at a local comic convention and didn’t have to think twice before picking it up. The cover alone promised all kick-butt girls, dragons, and adventure galore. It did not disappoint.
In Volume 1, when Princess Adrienne comes of age, she’s locked in a dragon-guarded tower because that’s A Thing That Happens to Princesses. Between the boredom of waiting and the dim-witted knights who show up to rescue her, she tires of this quickly. She decides that she’s going to be her own knight and so, with the aid of her dragon pal Sparky, rescues herself and embarks on a quest to free her sisters from their own towers.
A blurb on the front of this book calls it “the story Disney should’ve been telling for the past twenty years.” It’s entirely true. Adrienne is smart; the first few pages show a younger Adrienne tearing apart the plot holes in a traditional fairy tale. She’s also resourceful, and though she admittedly has a lot to learn about adventuring, she’s a capable heroine, well worth admiring.
Granted, she is entirely the “Not the Typical Princess” trope – a trope which, given that nearly every fictional princess these days is “Not the Typical Princess,” is becoming somewhat tired. However, Princeless makes this work by surrounding her with inversions of many other medieval fantasy tropes. Most obviously, despite the European-inspired setting, nearly every character in the main cast is a person of color. Likewise, Adrienne’s prince brother, who would normally be a heroic manly man in this sort of story, is meek and hesitant to inherit the throne, to the point where his father tells him to “stop being a woman.” Instead, his strength is found in his loyalty to his family and, unbeknownst to Adrienne, he plays a small but significant role in the beginning of her adventure.
Even the adventuresome elements are somewhat inverted. While it is all rollicking and fun, Adrienne encounters several practical bumps on her way to saving her sisters, discovering that dragons are hard to ride without saddles, and that it’s hard to fight in jangly armor that isn’t fitted to one’s body type. Though I usually prefer over-the-top adventure, it’s a nice change of pace to read about an adventurer whose problems are more mundane (well, for a person who has a dragon as a friend).
The comic is not without its flaws. However, most of them are minor. For some reason, the quality of the third chapter’s art falters in comparison to the art around it. It’s never off enough to be distracting, though. A bigger problem for me was that there are points where it feels like it’s trying too hard to be a commentary on sexist fantasy tropes. One chapter (also the third, in fact) is blatantly titled “On Sexism in the Armor Industry.” As relevant as the chapter is, I found it hard to believe that the female blacksmith introduced here designed and hand-made a whole line of armor for women without once realizing how impractical battlekinis are for protection—at least until Adrienne points it out. Throw in some stereotypical piggish behavior on the part of nearly every male in the scene, and the chapter reads like it was constructed solely to make a point. Fortunately, though, its actiony bits maintain the rest of the book’s sense of fun. And even with this forced point, it never reads like a preachy political pamphlet. Ultimately it treats its messages with the same sense of fun that it does its adventure.
That said, Princeless is a must-read for those who like to read about heroines with no time for princes. Still, casual readers of fantasy, comics and non, will find much to like in it, too.
Buzz – Graphic Novel Review
If you’re part of that rampant, raving crowd looking for books about illicit underground spelling bees, boy are you in luck!
In Buzz! by Ananth Panagariya and Tessa Stone, Webster just wants to survive his first day of high school. But on the way, he stumbles upon a street brawl of a spelling bee and is quickly flung into a world of spelling battle royales, where spoken letters transform into explosions of force, where champion spellers must go by aliases, lest they be swamped by overzealous fans, and where the secret Spelluminati has darker plans that may involve Webster himself…
Buzz! might be the most fun piece of print material that I’ve read, ever, y’all. It takes talent to take a concept as ridiculous as this and turn it into something more than a B-grade guilty pleasure, and Panagariya and Stone, combined, are that talent.
As one would expect (or at least hope) of a story that is centered on words and wordplay, Panagariya has a blast with all the potential inherent in his topic. Some of his plays are obvious (The main character’s name is Webster. His sister is Merriam.), but the words chosen for the characters to battle-spell are often thematically relevant to the area of the story in which they appear. Beyond that, Panagariya recognizes the basic silliness of his concept, and he runs crazy with it. His story reads like a spelling-bee-turned-Hollywood-action-movie. Webster’s opponents, in particular, become increasingly outlandish in the best way as the story progresses. My favorite was The Cosmonaut, a combat-trained Russian cosmonaut who, through an accident, was left adrift in space with nothing to do but read books and play word games until he was rescued, at which point we’re treated to this delicious description:
“After a while, when he looked into the darkness, the stars themselves seemed to take on the shapes of letters. He was rescued six months later. They said you could see stars in his eyes, carrying messages only for him.”
P-O-E-T-R-Y
Stone’s artwork is a massive delight on its own. I was familiar with Stone’s work prior to this book, having followed her delightful (if incomplete) webcomic Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name. (In fact, I discovered this book when researching what exactly happened to the webcomic.) The exuberance established in Hanna continues here. Energy bursts palpably off of every page, facilitated in no small part by the coloring of the artwork. In a clever color design choice, the art is in black, white, and selective uses of golden-yellow—perhaps a visual pun on the “bee” in “spelling bee?” Relatedly, her illustrations of the bees themselves are giddily wonderful to look at. Letters spring dynamically off the page in the early battles, or are illustrated in ways reflective of their word’s meaning. Later battles are illustrated with fun absurdity matching Panagariya’s writing. Especially adept spellers can manipulate the words they spell to have physical effects on their targets, or speak letters into existence for use as weapons, and Stone has as much fun with this as Panagariya does with his plot.
Granted, for all its goodness, it does take a certain sense of humor to appreciate this book. If you see “spectacular spelling battle royale” and instantly think “omg that is so stupid,” you’re definitely not the audience for it. But if you have just enough curiosity to pick it up and flip through it, that’s all you need. After that, you’ll be H-O-O-K-E-D.
***
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Holo Writing at HonorCon 2015!
H.P. and I recently attended HonorCon 2015, and we had a blast! The convention itself was certainly lower key than DragonCon or AWA, but the halls were packed with readers passionate about military science fiction in general and David Weber’s Honorverse novels in particular.
Not only did we have plenty of fun, but this also marks the first time I participated at a convention as a panelist. Highly successful independent author Chris Kennedy invited me to join two of his panels, the first on the economics of self-publishing and the second on sci-fi world building. I had a great time on both panels, and really appreciate Chris extending the invitation to join him and Ian J. Malone. Even A.G. Riddle crashed one of the panels and offered his insight. Very cool stuff.
Now, you’d think that would be the highlight of the convention for us … but it wasn’t!
For some of you, the fine gentleman in this picture needs no introduction. It was an amazing privilege to be invited onto two HonorCon panels by multiple New York Times bestselling author David Weber!!! Yeah. This actually happened. People told me I was so excited I was shaking like a Pomeranian.
Personally, if I’m going to be a Pomeranian, I like to picture myself like this:
On the first panel, we discussed the creation of strong characters in space opera. As the creator of the greatly beloved character Honor Harrington, David certainly knows a thing or two about creating strong and memorable characters. We also touched on Vanessa Murakuma, who is a personal favorite of mine that first appears in the Starfire novel In Death Ground.
For the second panel, we dove deep into the politics of the Terran Federation in the Starfire universe and how it survived four brutal interstellar wars against alien races, only to fracture at the end in a bloody civil war. Here, David brought his understanding of history to bear with parallels to real events as we discussed some of the pitfalls representative democracies can fall into. To say that he has a keen grasp of history and knows how to apply that knowledge to fiction is to make a monumental understatement.
What else can I say about the experience? David and I have known each other for about a year now. He is probably the most intelligent person I have ever met, but he is very approachable and down to earth at the same time. He and his wife Sharon are amazing people, both of them natural story tellers that are a ton of fun to be around. Years ago, his writing helped inspire my own, and it has been wonderful to hear his stories and to learn from him this past year.
Thank you, David! You’re awesome!
Holo Writing at AWA!*
*Second in a series of VERY BELATED con posts because, again, EDITING. 😛
This past September, Jacob and I decided it was time to branch out from our usual tiny, comfy cons and tackle something a little bigger. So we packed up our bow ties and headed to Anime Weekend Atlanta.
AWA held a lot of firsts for us:
It was our first large con (over 30,000 people)!
It was the first con for Bane of the Dead and Throne of the Dead.
It was the first con for our snazzy new Time Reavers t-shirts.
And it was the first con at which we had a t-shirt stolen, which is a sign of success, I guess?
Despite that bump, it was one of the best cons we’ve ever attended. The Seraphim Revival was a massive hit (because obviously, giant robots at an anime convention).
Also, not to toot our own horn (Oh, who are we kidding? We are totally tooting), but the following exchange happened with a surprising number of people:
“I bought (insert book here) yesterday and read half of it last night. I want all the others!”
Variants included “I started this book at lunch and decided I needed the rest.”
My first thought at all of these was “When do you people find time to read at a con? Are there time turners involved?”
My second was, “WHOA. People really like our books.”
Which is a really lovely feeling to have.
Also lovely? Cosplayers, of course! I didn’t get to snap as many photos as I usually do at cons (because OMG SO BUSY), but awesome costumery was rampant. Here are some of my favorites:
Zeppeli! 😀
KOS-MOS!
Princess Tiana!
Mac and Bloo!
Finally, not a cosplay, but rather the best Dealer’s Room ad that I’ve ever seen:
Needless to say, House Holo is now a little more manly.
Holo Writing at Dragon Con (The Sequel)!*
“We should do the most ridiculous cosplay we can think of.”
This is something that is said frequently in House Holo (mostly by me, with Jacob nodding politely), but rarely comes to fruition. When my sis said that she was joining us for this year’s Dragon Con, however, we knew this was our chance to rock it.
Thus, we bring you Steampunk Kronk, Yzma, and Kuzco from The Emperor’s New Groove.
*Super late because, unfortunately, novels don’t edit themselves.
I chose Kronk to give myself motivation to get buff. Ha.
Kel chose Yzma because she’s basically young Yzma anyway.
Jacob is Kuzco because we found the idea of Jacob with a llama head too good to pass up and he didn’t say no.
Jacob did Kuzco’s dancing expertly in the hotel room but punked out on us at the con, so Kel and I had to make up for him.
We were supposed to have additional steampunked props—an oven backpack for me, a potion gun for Yzma, a Tesla coil for Kuzco because why not?—but ran out of time because if you’re not rushing to finish your cosplays at the last minute before a con, you’re not doing it right. Perhaps next year!
Because sis and I are both Disney nerds, we also tossed together some other Disney cosplays. Kel wanted to be The Hunchback of Notre Dame’s Esmeralda, so I elected to be her goat (or rather, a steampunk-ish version of said goat).
And because no day with my sis is complete without a Little Mermaid reference, she went as SailDress!Ariel, and I recycled bits of Djali to be (steampunk-ish) Scuttle.
Meanwhile, Jacob wandered around as the 11th Doctor pretending to be bewildered by his strange companions.
Event-wise, over the years we’ve found that it’s best to approach Dragon Con with no plan whatsoever. It takes so long to go places and waits for the headlining panels are so long that it’s really more fun to walk and people watch until we get tired, and then just go to whatever event is happening nearby to rest our feet.
The panels that we went to were a blast, though. Granted, this long since the event, I can’t remember specifically what we went to, but I remember that at some point we got to sit in the same room with Jim Butcher, Peter F. Hamilton, John Ringo, Jody Lynn Nye, and a general TON of our favorite authors, so that was cool.
And of course, no con post is complete without a gallery of awesome cosplays, so here are some of our favorites from this year:
This Mad Max: Fury Road cosplay wins everything.
Calvin and Hobbes! 😀
Legion from Mass Effect!
Satine from Moulin Rouge!
Not one, but two Willy Wonkas!
Budget cosplay = EXPERT LEVEL.
A stellar Belle and the Beast!
This poor guy waited the whole con.
And finally, a very in-character Krieg from Borderlands (complete with chatty CL4-PTP)!
The Wizard’s Way – 1st Draft Complete!
artwork by Mandy O’Brien
Hey, everybody! H. P. here! I’ve been largely invisible on this blog for the past age or so. This is partly because I’m a lazy blogger and partly because I do all the marketing, layout, and graphic work for Jacob’s books while he makes the writing magic happen. Mostly, though, it’s because I’ve been devoting every valuable microsecond of my free time to finishing my own first novel, which is…
~ F I N A L L Y F I N I S H E D ~
(The first draft, that is.)
Now, you may be asking, “What is this masterpiece that H. P. has been so reclusively working on?” Well, it comes down to three things:
Monsters.
Murder.
Swashbuckling pug butlers.
Yes, you read that right.
Beyond that, The Wizard’s Way is a story of a young man finding his way in the world. This is challenging for any young person, but it’s especially challenging for one whose way involves keeping giant mechanical flamethrower lions from popping out of him.
Specifically, it comes down to this:
artwork by Mandy O’Brien
J. Chaucey Thatcher has a monster inside him, but this is the least of his worries.
A murderer prowls the Iron City, slaying inventors. An angry mob storms close behind, blaming wizards. Any they find, they burn alive.
Chaucey is an inventor. He is also secretly a wizard, and the only person who can help with this secret was just murdered before his very eyes.
But when it comes to investigating, Chaucey is as dogged as his best friend is dog. With the help of his loyal pug butler, his sparky (almost? maybe?) girlfriend, and a sleuth of rambunctious bears, he has vowed to unravel the mystery of these murders and save the city from the grips of terror.
But the monster inside him burns for escape.
Will he save the Iron City? Or will the monster destroy it first?
artwork by Mandy O’Brien
The TL;DR version? Wizard puberty is the worst.
Now you may be asking, “How soon can I expect to read this redonkulous thing?” Presently, the Jacob half of Holo Writing is giving the book its first hardcore editing pass. Pending a few revisions, we’re aiming for an early 2016 release. (SUMMER 2016 UPDATE: Well, that didn’t happen. But it’s happening soon, so hooray!)
While you wait, however, you can feast your eyes on the above sketches of the cover art, produced by the talented artist linked above! And also here because you are totally not making good use of your Internet life if you skip her page.
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Disciple of the Dead – Released!
Book 3 of the Seraphim Revival is now on sale in in paperback and eBook!
H.P. and I are immensely pleased to announce the release of the third and final book in the Seraphim Revival trilogy. This series has really been a labor of love from start to finish, and we’re very excited to finally have the full trilogy out there.
Fueled by the Soul. Hunted by the Dead.
In an empire ruled by the honored dead, seraphs are the ultimate weapons. Fueled by the pilot’s very soul, these colossal humanoid war machines are unstoppable in battle. Only a few possess the gift to control such craft, and those men and women are prized above all others.
Seth Elexen and a small group of elite pilots have tracked the renegade Veketon to the far side of the galaxy. With only one ship and a single squadron of seraphs, they alone must face the tyrant within the heart of his growing power.
But Veketon is no easy mark. Through perverse sciences, he has been reborn as a pilot of terrifying power, and Quennin S’Kev, a woman Seth abandoned for all the wrong reasons, stands by his side and will defend him to the death.
Now Seth has one final desperate chance at success, but in order to get to Veketon, he must be willing to kill the only woman he has ever loved.
The Seraphim Revival trilogy is complete!
Disciple of the Dead brings everything together for one huge, thrilling conclusion. The stakes are massive, the villains have all the advantages, our heroes are in over their heads, and the nearest help is on the other side of the galaxy.
But something is about to change … something no one expects … something so small and yet so huge at the same time, and it will finally give Seth and the others the fighting chance they so desperately need.
While Disciple of the Dead has all the blistering action found in the earlier books, it is also a very personal story of love and loss. These characters are put through the wringer, and they come out changed, not all of them for the better. If you think you know how the trilogy will end or who will live and who will die, think again, because this book comes packed with shocking twists and world shattering reveals.
Welcome back to the Seraphim Revival. 🙂
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Baker’s Dozen – Book Review
Jacob and I went to LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN this June! (This article is WAY LATE because life.) Anyway, LibertyCon is notable for being more reader- and author-oriented than other conventions in the area…which means that I ended up coming home with approximately 90,000 books to read and likely review.
I am already exhausted just thinking about that. (Since this article is late: still exhausted.)
First on my pile was Baker’s Dozen: 13 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories by Scott W. Baker.
First off, the cover does this book a real disservice. I love its visual pun, but nothing about a carton of a dozen plus one eggs screams sci-fi, and had I not encountered the author at a signing, I’m pretty sure I might never have picked it up.
I’m glad I did, though, because it’s a fun sampler platter of short stories. Baker divides the anthology into Space Opera, Urban Fantasy, Near Future SF, and Zombies. The best stories are found later in the book, but overall it was worth the $8 print cost.
Admittedly, I was a little underwhelmed by several of the early stories. While the point of a short story is, of course, to be short, a lot of the early entries in this anthology feel too short. Either they end just when they feel like they’re getting started, or the end brings a dark, abrupt twist that makes the story feel abbreviated.
Really, though, this complaint stems from the fact that I wanted to see more of each featured world. “Chasers,” a space opera about pilots who race to refuel spaceships, had the potential to be one of my favorites and could have expanded into a great action drama, but succumbed to one of the aforementioned dark, abrupt endings. “Ten Seconds,” a contemporary fantasy about a bullied child who can see ten seconds into the future, was another that, while ending happily, also ended just as I was getting excited to continue it.
When your main complaint about an author’s writing is that you want more of it, though, it’s not a bad thing.
In this anthology, Baker is at his best when he’s writing quirky humor or putting fantastic spins on modern settings. “Faerie Belches,” about a child who, well, hears fairies belch, is a fun read with some interesting twists. (Given the stories’ similarities, I pictured the characters from “Ten Seconds” and “Faerie Belches” belonging to the same universe and kind of hope that the author will turn this into a complete children’s novel.) “Excuse Me,” about a man who travels back in time every time he farts, is amusing for its concept alone, while “ZFL” is a hilarious look at a zombie football game from the perspective of its commentators.
There’s intriguing drama in many of the late stories, too, though, and I think a lot of these could support complete novels as well. “Secondhand Rush” was a particular favorite; it follows a man who performs daring, even foolish stunts, all for the purpose of selling the digitized memory of performing them to disembodied human minds stored in computers, which is straight up cool even before you consider that the man suffers Multiple Sclerosis (and all the conflicts that implies). “Thinking Out Loud” is an intriguing multi-point-of-view look at a psychic experiment being performed on prisoners; “How Quickly We Forget” is a haunting look at the actions of a memory-removal technology company; and “Call Me Z,” while humorous in places, is largely a look at what happens when a zombie fanboy (in a world where zombies can be domesticated) encounters his first zombies.
The contents of Baker’s Dozen may be too short for my taste, but the volume’s best stories and the sheer variety of material included make it worth a try. Recommended!
Throne of the Dead – Released!
Book 2 of the Seraphim Revival is now on sale in in paperback and eBook!
H.P. and I are very happy to announce the release of the second book in the Seraphim Revival trilogy. A ton of hard work has gone into this trilogy, and it is so rewarding to finally put it out there for people to read.
So, this is the “hump” book, right? The book in the middle of the trilogy. Typically, that means it’s the slow one that spends a lot of time building things up for the finale, right? Well, to that I ask … why? Why does the book in the middle of a trilogy have to be the slow, boring one? Answer: It doesn’t!
Throne of the Dead takes the fast-paced giant robot action of the first novel and kicks it up even further. Alliances will splinter. Characters will fall. World-shaking reveals hit fast and hard. In short, things happen in this book.
I wouldn’t have it any other way, and I think you’ll agree with me. 🙂
Coming in a few short months …
The final books is on its way! All seraphs launching 2015!
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Star Wars: Armada – Character TIE Squadron Tactics
Squadrons provide an important supplement to the capital ships of Star Wars: Armada. As of Wave 1, the Imperial Navy has four basic squadrons and five character squadrons to choose from. Today, let’s take a look at what the character TIE squadrons have to offer.
IN SHORT: Tougher and harder hitting than regular TIE squadrons, character squadrons open up an intriguing set of abilities for Imperial commanders.
“HOWLRUNNER” TIE FIGHTER SQUADRON: Howlrunner is a straight up force multiplier. She makes any friendly squadron with the Swarm rule at distance 1 better by granting 1 additional blue die for attacks against enemy squadrons. Also note that this includes the Counter rule TIE Interceptors have, increasing their already ridiculous attack power even more and making opponents think twice before shooting at them.
Because Howlrunner makes everything around her better, she can quickly tip the scales in larger engagements, but that power also her makes her a choice target. Even though TIE Advanced Squadrons do not benefit from her ability, it can often be advantageous to fly one with her TIE swarm to provide some insurance.
Brace and Scatter defense tokens are great, but accuracy results can negate them, and Howlrunner only has 3 hit points. Still, for 16 points, Howlrunner is an excellent investment in lists with large numbers of TIE Fighters and Interceptors.
“MAULER” MITHEL TIE FIGHTER SQUADRON: Mauler is kind of like Howlrunner in reverse. Whereas Howlrunner wants to hang out with a group of friendlies, Mauler wants to get stuck in with clusters of enemy squadrons. His ability grants automatic damage after he moves, inflicting 1 point of damage to any squadron he is engaged with.
Of course, moving into a big group of enemy fighters isn’t always the smartest idea, and Mauler can’t move while he’s engaged. Fortunately, Imperial players have the tools necessary to give Mauler the support he needs.
TIE Advanced really shine in the protection role, sopping up damage that would otherwise pound Mauler to dust. And Admiral Chiraneau on a nearby ship can permit Mauler to move even while engaged, allowing players to get the most out of his automatic damage ability.
Mauler is a high risk / high reward character squadron and needs adequate support to really shine, but there’s no denying he can inflict a lot of damage when used right. Not bad for 15 points.
SOONTIR FEL TIE INTERCEPTOR SQUADRON: It’s bad enough taking damage from TIE Interceptors just for attacking them. Well, Soontir Fel does this and inflicts damage for not attacking him. Seriously, opponents should just get used to taking damage around this guy no matter what they do. Add in the Brace and Scatter defense tokens, and Soontir Fel becomes very frustrating to take down.
TIE Advanced Squadrons can even be used to force the automatic damage. As long as Soontir Fel is engaging that enemy, they will suffer 1 automatic point of damage whenever they attack the TIE Advanced. The only downside here is the TIE Advanced doesn’t share Soontir Fel’s blistering top speed of 5, which could restrict players under some conditions.
TIE Interceptor or TIE Fighter Squadrons also provide a nice bonus to Soontir Fel by triggering his Swarm rule and benefiting from it themselves. This is even more effective for Soontir Fel because of the combination of Counter of defense tokens. Under normal conditions, Soontir Fel will be dishing out plenty of Counter attacks, and having an extra reroll in those attacks is definitely a nice bonus.
Soontir Fel will inflict damage in just about any combat situation, forcing your opponent to make uncomfortable decisions. That’s not a bad ability for 18 points.
DARTH VADER TIE ADVANCED SQUADRON: Vader is all about dishing out and soaking up damage. With the critical symbol counting as regular damage on his attacks and an additional black die in his anti-squadron attack, Vader can inflict a ton of pain. Note, however, that he does not cause critical effects to trigger.
When targeting enemy squadrons, he will easily out-damage even TIE Interceptors, and his anti-ship attack is on par with TIE Bombers, minus the critical effect.
With 5 hit points and 2 Brace tokens, Vader isn’t going down easily. However, his Escort ability, shared with all TIE Advanced, is something of a mixed blessing. While it does mean Vader can be an effective meat shield for someone else, it also means that regular TIE Advanced Squadrons can’t protect him.
At 21 points, Vader is a very hefty investment for a squadron that is designed to be shot at first. However, his resilience and damage output certainly make him a viable alternative to regular TIE Advanced Squadrons.
MAJOR RHYMER TIE BOMBER SQUADRON: Rhymer is an incredible force multiplier for bombers. Any friendly squadron at distance 1 may attack ships at close-medium range. This is a huge boost in range, and the fact that Rhymer dishes it out to anyone near him makes him a flexible addition for Imperial players.
Also note that Rhymer’s ability does not have any restrictions like Howlrunner’s does. His range increase is not restricted to craft like TIE Bombers, though undoubtedly squadrons with the Bomber rule receive the most benefit. After all, swarm of TIE Fighters can do a surprising amount of damage to an enemy capital ship as all those blue dice start to add up, and Rhymer helps get those hits in.
The range increase has other benefits, too. Bombers rely heavily on Squadron commands, particularly against the faster and more maneuverable capital ship types. However, with the wide strike envelope afforded by Rhymer, bombers have a much greater chance to target enemy ships without moving.
Like most character squadrons, Rhymer can take advantage of a TIE Advanced wingman, but in this case, Rhymer helps out the TIE Advanced as well, extending the range of its black die for anti-ship attacks. He also comes stock with 5 hit points and two Brace tokens, making him a tough proposition to take down. Honestly, his only downside is his lackluster anti-squadron attack.
All this for only 16 points? Yes, he really is just that awesome.
POWER DENSITY: Okay, so regular TIEs are great bargains when you look at their stats in a point for point comparison to the stats of character squadrons. Standard TIEs are potent little troublemakers, especially stock TIE Fighters and Bombers. However, there’s a second side to this discussion, and that is Squadron commands.
The big disadvantage for forces that rely heavily on standard squadrons is the need for higher Squadron values and/or more Squadron commands to get the same mileage from his or her TIEs. I like to call this attribute “power density,” and it’s definitely an advantage that swings in favor of characters squadrons.
2 TIE Fighter Squadrons put out more damage than Howlrunner, but then, they also require twice the Squadron value to get the jump on the enemy. That’s the hidden cost at work. Sure, stock TIEs are cheap, but they also require plenty of love from their capital ships to be the best they can be.
LISTS FOR FUN: How about a look at a list heavy with characters squadrons? Let’s take a look at the Admiral Motti’s Flying Aces.
Victory I-class Star Destroyer (73)
– Admiral Motti (24)
– Admiral Chiraneau (10)
– Flight Controllers (6)
Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (62)
Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (62)
Soontir Fel TIE Interceptor Squadron (18)
Darth Vader TIE Advanced Squadron (21)
“Mauler” Mithel TIE Fighter Squadron (15)
TOTAL: 291 points
First, the Victory will be dishing out a generous quantity of squadron commands to support the three character squadrons. Let’s take a look at how that plays out.
Things start off with enemy squadrons taking damage when Mauler shows up (and he can always get that move if needed because Admiral Chiraneau is on board the Victory). Then the enemy takes some more damage when Mauler, Soontir, and Vader unload, and since both Mauler and Soontir have Swarm, they enable each other’s rerolls. Plus Flight Controllers are along for the ride because who doesn’t like TIEs with an extra blue die per attack?
Also, two Gladiators are included, upgraded to Gladiator II’s, for fire support against enemy squadrons as well as general anti-ship destruction. Because while these three aces are awesome, a little help is in order from the capital ships. Then once your opponent finally gets around to attacking your squadrons, Darth soaks up the damage while Soontir inflicts automatic damage on anyone who attacks.
Is it ideal? Probably not, but should be fun, and isn’t that the point? 🙂
SUMMARY: Some bring pure and simply destruction, while other grant huge benefits to nearby friendly squadrons. Either way, there’s no denying that TIE character squadrons are a diverse and powerful group with plenty to offer any Imperial commander.
Check out the complete list of Star Wars: Armada articles here.
Star Wars: Armada – TIE Squadron Tactics
Squadrons provide an important supplement to the capital ships of Star Wars: Armada. As of Wave 1, the Imperial Navy has four basic squadrons and five character squadrons to choose from. Today, let’s take a look at what the standard TIE squadrons have to offer.
IN SHORT: Cheap, fast, and more specialized than Rebel squadrons, TIEs provide a versatile set of cannon fodder to throw at your opponents.
TIE FIGHTERS: At 8 points each, TIE Fighter Squadrons are incredibly affordable and can form effective screening forces with minimal investment. With speed 4, TIE Fighters can easily get the drop on the often slower enemy squadrons. They also pack impressive anti-squadron punch for their points.
3 blue dice allow them to tear through enemy squadrons rapidly, and the Swarm rule only makes this better. With nearby friendly squadrons engaging the enemy, they can reroll a single die. This potent anti-squadron ability can be further supplemented with Howlrunner and/or Flight Controllers for up to 5 blue dice (with a single reroll) per squadron.
And don’t discount TIE Fighters when it comes to engaging enemy ships. True, they only have a single blue die to attack with, but that’s 1 blue die … per 8 points! Attacks like that can add up quickly.
So what’s the downside?
Well, TIE Fighters may put out a ton of anti-squadron damage, but they go down fast. With only 3 hit points, they’re easily focused down during a single round of combat. It also doesn’t help that the Swarm rule and Howlrunner both encourages them to bunch up. Enemy ships with strong anti-squadron batteries should be rightly feared, as they will quickly whittle TIE clusters to dust.
Easy come, easy go.
TIE INTERCEPTORS: At 11 points, TIE Interceptors act like TIE Fighters on steroids. They boast a blistering top speed of 5 and come with anti-squadron armaments of 4 blue dice. Like TIE Fighters, they benefit greatly from Swarm, but also come with Counter.
Thanks to the Counter rule, TIE Interceptors get to fire 2 blue dice at enemy squadrons attacking them, and these counter attacks benefit from both Howlrunner’s ability and Swarm, giving them a potential Counter 3 with a single reroll. Ouch!
TIE Interceptors are a powerful, dedicated anti-squadron force, and their Counter ability can make them highly challenging for bombers like Y-Wings and TIE Bombers to handle. Like TIE Fighters, they also combine extremely well with Flight Controllers. But they are also incredibly frail. In fact, point for point, they are the frailest squadron type in the game as of Wave 1. Swarms of interceptors do not like taking fire from a capital ship’s arc, and it should also be noted that, by the very nature of them having Counter, opponents are more likely to engage TIE Interceptors with capital ships instead of squadrons, when possible.
TIE ADVANCED: Weighing in at a cost of 12 and coming with a hefty 5 hit points, TIE Advanced squadrons are a welcomed bit of durability in the TIE lineup. And a good thing too, because they also come with Escort, forcing opponents to target them first. This combination makes them superb wingmen for named squadrons like Howlrunner or Rhymer.
Their single black anti-ship die and 3 blue anti-squadron dice are respectable, as is their speed value of 4, but TIE Advanced Squadrons are quickly outclassed in damage output by other Imperial offerings. TIE Fighters and Interceptors will shred enemy squadrons, and TIE Bombers can quickly pack on the hurt against enemy ships.
In the end, they’re meat shields. Their best uses are defensive, not offensive, either protecting a critical named squadron or slugging it out with bombers trying to get to a capital ship.
TIE BOMBERS: Featuring a black anti-ship die and the Bomber rule (allowing them to inflict critical hits against enemy ships), the role of TIE Bombers Squadrons is clear. With a cost of only 9 points and speed 4, they’re cheap and surprisingly swift for bombers, a trait that can be exaggerated even more with the Corruptor title on a Victory-class Star Destroyer for even more speed. Throw Rhymer into the mix to allow TIE Bombers to attack at medium range instead of range 1, and suddenly these squadrons can strike targets at considerable distances.
On average, a single TIE Bomber will inflict 1 point of damage against an enemy ship per attack with a 25% chance of a critical effect. This is made even nastier because it’s difficult to use defense tokens against them. Brace can only trigger if the TIE Bombers get a double hit, Evade isn’t going to do anything at range 1 unless Mon Mothma is commanding the Rebel forces, and Redirect can only shift a point or two of damage at a time.
TIE Bombers are utterly devastating when they get into range of enemy capital ships. But there is, of course, a downside. They also come with the Heavy rule, which means they cannot engage enemy squadrons. TIE Bombers may come with a plenty of hit points to absorb attacks, but their effectiveness as a screening force is zero. Secondly, they have the weakest anti-squadron attack in the game: a single black die.
(Capital ships with a single blue die shouldn’t be counted as the weakest because they can strike multiple targets at once.)
LISTS FOR FUN: Want to give a squadron-heavy list a whirl? Try Grand Moff Tarkin’s Flying Circus.
Victory I-class Star Destroyer (73)
– Grand Moff Tarkin (38)
– Flight Controllers (6)
– Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
Victory I-class Star Destroyer (73)
– Corruptor Title (5)
– Admiral Chiraneau (10)
– Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
TIE Fighter Squadrons x 5 (40)
TIE Bomber Squadrons x 5 (45)
TOTAL: 300 points
Okay, it may be 300 points, but it’s easy enough to trim an upgrade or squadron (or even substitute out Tarkin) to price it for an effective initiative bid. The basic idea is that each Victory can activate up to 5 squadrons per round (base 3 + Expanded Hangar Bay + Squadron tokens from Tarkin). And by doing this, they maximize the use of their squadron friendly upgrades.
Flight Controllers can turn those 5 TIE Fighters into squadron mulching machines, spitting out a combined total of 20 blue dice (with up to 5 rerolls). And with the Corruptor title and Admiral Chiraneau, those TIE Bombers are going to be speed 5 normally and can easily escape at speed 3 if they get engaged.
SUMMARY: TIEs, ladies and gentlemen. Fast, hard-hitting, and dirt cheap. Just don’t get too attached to them, because they tend not to last long. 🙂
Check out the complete list of Star Wars: Armada articles here.