3 hours ago, PanchoX1 said:

how do you think Krennic will/can help out the boats? need to do some list building with a reaper and some starwings.

Krennic is primary only, so Gunboats don't care.

Krennic is of little use to Gunboats sadly.

2 minutes ago, Arma Quattro said:

Krennic is of little use to Gunboats sadly.

Even he could not improve the immaculate design of our Gunboats.

20 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Back on the subject of munitions...

That's... interesting. I'm guessing there will be upgrades or abilities with "if your attack hits" or "if you are hit by an attack" effects which might stack with Homers.

Clusters we already knew about; you are limited to one bonus attack per round, so no burning all four charges. I still like this one on the Gunboat though, decent candidate for OS-1 and AdSLAM builds?

And as highlighted elsewhere by @Boom Owl

I'm thinking this will pair pretty well with Ion Cannons on XG-1 or even titleless Gunboats, depending on cost.

Actually clusters might be the best options for a small flight group of two or more ships sticking together.

1 - It does not require the freaky bullseye arc

2 - it can unleash a huge rain of dice onto two targets almost assuring some damage thru

3- it has at least 2 salvos per ship which means 2 turns of fire -- granted that the target lock is kept after the first attack.

4- if it is true that secondary weapons now grant range bonuses...

4 minutes ago, Arma Quattro said:

4- if it is true that secondary weapons now grant range bonuses...

You see that little missile icon by the range band? That icon indicates that the weapon ignores range bonuses.

Just had a friendly game with my son yesterday. I lost (by a whisker), but GUNBOATS were awesome!

Karsabi /w HLC, Wired, ASLAM, XG-1

2 x Rho /w HLC, Crack Shot, XG-1, Linked Battery, Long Range Scanners

https://imgur.com/a/X03UqU6

He played Xizor's Enforcers

Xizor /w Mk II, Virago, Glitterstim, Flechette Torps, AT, FCS, PTL

2 x Black Sun Enforcer, Mk II, AT

Binayre Pirate

As you can guess, I had some trouble keeping up after the StarVipers after the first encounter. But alpha strike took down one of the enforcers nicely.

15 hours ago, punkUser said:

Possibly, but they don't pair particularly well with the OS-1 title. The OS-1 title still requires you to have a lock on any target you are shooting so the bonus attack doesn't work after SLAM (at all), even though the lock requirement is elided for the missile portion.

31 minutes ago, Arma Quattro said:

Actually clusters might be the best options for a small flight group of two or more ships sticking together.

1 - It does not require the freaky bullseye arc

2 - it can unleash a huge rain of dice onto two targets almost assuring some damage thru

3- it has at least 2 salvos per ship which means 2 turns of fire -- granted that the target lock is kept after the first attack.

4- if it is true that secondary weapons now grant range bonuses...

Supposedly missiles and torpedoes don't grant range bonuses, just turrets and cannons.

I agree clusters aren't a bad call for a flight of OS-1s, though - the bonus attack is optional, and if you're not using it you have 4 turns of 3 attack dice fire - which is probably enough to get you through the bulk of a game pretending you've got a 3 dice primary.

Using the salvo-attack-option is....going to be more fiddly. Yes, you can fling unmodified 3-dice attacks all day, but:

• unmodified attacks aren't great, especially since it's traditional prey, 0-agility ships, have reinforce which is good at reducing the sting of multiple attacks.
• You can't tag the same ship with both attacks anymore. Catching 2 ships at range 1 of each other is all well and good, but unless you can lay your hands on a token or other modification, your odds of hitting with your free shot have to be pretty low.

Don't get me wrong. If I see a squadron of B-wings in close formation and I've brought a cluster missile squad, I'm going to go "ahahahahahaha!" and mash the 'fire cluster missiles' option like a cretin. But 80% of the time that option is just a 'nice to have'.

10 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I agree clusters aren't a bad call for a flight of OS-1s, though - the bonus attack is optional, and if you're not using it you have 4 turns of 3 attack dice fire - which is probably enough to get you through the bulk of a game pretending you've got a 3 dice primary.

I don't think they're terrible, but 3 attack dice isn't exactly a high bar It all depends on price of course, but if the goal is to just joust stuff I imagine there will be more efficient ways, i.e. by taking a 3 dice primary ship (that can actually k-turn :P) or taking an ion cannon Nu.

I just don't see any particular synergy with clusters + gunboats, and there's a few things working against them. Thus if clusters on gunboats is any good, clusters are probably at least as good or better on other ships.

1 hour ago, Arma Quattro said:

Krennic is of little use to Gunboats sadly.

This makes me sad. Krennic is so **** quotable.

17 minutes ago, punkUser said:

I just don't see any particular synergy with clusters + gunboats, and there's a few things working against them.

I just mean it's probably the cheapest 3-dice attack for OS-1s they can use whilst SLAM-ing.

• Ion cannons spending the first hit as an ion token is good control but means they won't actually cause damage all that often.
• Ion pulse missiles same, and they and concussion missiles have distinctly fewer shots in the bin.

Just now, FTS Gecko said:

This makes me sad. Krennic is so **** quotable.

Wholeheartedly agreed.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I just mean it's probably the cheapest 3-dice attack for OS-1s they can use whilst SLAM-ing.

• Ion cannons spending the first hit as an ion token is good control but means they won't actually cause damage all that often.
• Ion pulse missiles same, and they and concussion missiles have distinctly fewer shots in the bin.

A lot depends on the relative costs and how easy and cost effective it is to access modifiers from other sources (elite talents, support ships etc).

Prockets have 5 dice at range 1-2 but are Bullseye only, Clusters 3 against (up to) 2 targets at range 1-2, Concussions 3 at 2-3. The only mods as standard are the Target Lock reroll, which you won't get if SLAMing or Reloading.

I can see the range 1-2 missiles working really well with XG-1 and Ion Cannons, ion setting up a close range salvo for the following turn, but again it all depends on price.

3 hours ago, HolySorcerer said:

You see that little missile icon by the range band? That icon indicates that the weapon ignores range bonuses.

/me sad

8 minutes ago, Arma Quattro said:

/me sad

Cannons get range bonuses though.

(so another strike against HLC, and another one for Ion Cannons!)

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

This makes me sad. Krennic is so **** quotable.

We were on the verge of greatness.

We were THIS close.

15 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

We were on the verge of greatness.

We were THIS close.

In fairness, we don't know how much the Heavy Laser Cannon costs.

Yes, it's giving the opponent an extra green die at range 3, and yes (more importantly) it's lost a huge amount of effective coverage (about 4/5ths, I think!).

But, the heavy laser cannon was always expensive for 'normal' use at more than the price of a decent missile plus extra munitions. Now, you won't get anywhere near as many shots with it, but if it's significantly cheaper, multiple gunboats can put down an impressive 'web' of heavy laser arcs.

Just now, Magnus Grendel said:

In fairness, we don't know how much the Heavy Laser Cannon costs.

Yes, it's giving the opponent an extra green die at range 3, and yes (more importantly) it's lost a huge amount of effective coverage (about 4/5ths, I think!).

But, the heavy laser cannon was always expensive for 'normal' use at more than the price of a decent missile plus extra munitions. Now, you won't get anywhere near as many shots with it, but if it's significantly cheaper, a swarm of scyks (for example) can put down an impressive 'web' of heavy laser arcs.

Yep. You know, I really like the Bullseye arc as a mechanic. Cross the streams!

With enough Bullseye ships, you can set up grids of overlapping arcs. And the bigger the target's base, the easier you'll find it to line up shots.

Small base ships like Interceptors are going to be tricky to pin down. Large ships without repositioning like the Ghost will be easy pickings. For a weapon like a Heavy Laser Cannon, this is both thematic and fun. 5 HLC Scyks in 2nd Edition? It's possible.

I'd rather ion the h.e.l.l out of the Ghost, actually. Make them struggle on their way off the mat! ?

1 minute ago, Arma Quattro said:

I'd rather ion the h.e.l.l out of the Ghost, actually. Make them struggle on their way off the mat! ?

Ion, then Procket!

34 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Ion, then Procket!

oh my that sounds wicked. ?

1 hour ago, FTS Gecko said:

With enough Bullseye ships, you can set up grids of overlapping arcs. And the bigger the target's base, the easier you'll find it to line up shots.

Small base ships like Interceptors are going to be tricky to pin down. Large ships without repositioning like the Ghost will be easy pickings. For a weapon like a Heavy Laser Cannon, this is both thematic and fun. 5 HLC Scyks in 2nd Edition? It's possible.

That's exactly what I'd recommend.

I remember when the Killergorilla first came out, and everyone was obsessing about the top ace, "because you need Veteran Instincts and PS10 to line up a bullseye".

A friend of mine who's somewhat of a convert to heavy swarms responded by packing four of the buggers into a squad with R4 Agromechs or Cruise Missiles & LRS. They worked just fine.

I guess the difference is that Kimogila have 3 attack already. Catching a target in the Bullseye arc is a nice bonus.

Scyks (and GUNBOATS) using Bullseye-based weaponry are much more reliant on it, though.

1 hour ago, FTS Gecko said:

Ion, then Procket!

Now this sounds like fun!

have we seen if linked battery made it to 2ndE? I don't think it did. At least not yet.

Haven't seen it yet Pancho but the full contents of the imperial set hasn't yet been revealed.

I am not confident that it will make it into 2.0