A thread earlier about Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator had me looking at it's Wookiepedia page, which says it was equipped with special cannons capable of ignoring shields. Even before you consider the Star Courier's dead cool appearance, a shield ignoring gun is an interesting idea.

What do you think it should be statted and costed at? I'm thinking Firepower 3, "Attack: any BAM or KAPOW! hits inflicted by this weapon are applied directly to the target's hull, ignoring shields." Cost should be in the area of the HLC, maybe even more.

There should be at least one drawback, possibly two. Limited to Range 2, generates a stress when fired, cannot be fired when stressed, attack dice may not be affected by tokens or abilities, something like that.

I've thought about this concept before... it's why Proton Bombs seem so cool.

But such a weapon would have to be balanced quite precociously. When you have one faction whose ships operate primarily unshielded and another faction whose ships are roughly 50% shields, it can become too easy to simply load up on this weapon and effectively obsolete half the game's pieces.

There is probably much more room for design space around a weapon whose crits only ignore shields but, instead of dealing a faceup damage card, they deal normal facedown cards. But it still might be too specific of a hate card.

I thought of this before. Mass Driver cannon, priced highly, cannot crit. 3 Damage. Not sure if range 2 or 3.

Perhaps "Proton cannon" range 3, if you hit cancel all dice resuts and deal a face up damage card.

Ooooo, all good ideas. 'Crits only' penetration is nice and characterful, a better drawback/power limiter than the ones I suggested. The 'cancel all and apply one' is also good because it is a similar mechanic to Ionization. Less mechanics = easier to learn game = better game.

As for the name, The Scimitar was equipped with "Solar Ionization Cannons," a bit of a silly name if you ask me. Also, in the XWM universe Ion weapons do not penetrate shields so I say we toss that one right out, no matter what it's canonicity is - or rather legendary-ness as the Scimitar's exact stats are EU territory. While in other game universes solid-shot rail guns have shield-penetrating capability (rather realistically it turns out) Proton weapons get a shout-out from the very first movie as penetrating shields so I would say Proton Cannon works best for me. Thus:

Proton Cannon: Firepower 3, Range 1-2, Cost 6 pts, "Attack: any KAPOW! hits inflicted by this weapon are applied directly to the target's hull, ignoring shields."

I've thought about this concept before... it's why Proton Bombs seem so cool.

But such a weapon would have to be balanced quite precociously. When you have one faction whose ships operate primarily unshielded and another faction whose ships are roughly 50% shields, it can become too easy to simply load up on this weapon and effectively obsolete half the game's pieces.

There is probably much more room for design space around a weapon whose crits only ignore shields but, instead of dealing a faceup damage card, they deal normal facedown cards. But it still might be too specific of a hate card.

well, considering how people play fortressing and then count on their opponents green dice blanking.... hmm. something tells me that not having shields could lead to lots of problems for one faction. i mean, if you ahve a ton of rerolls so your chances of crit-ing is high, or.. if you have good ships that consistently crit... or you can one shot that factions ships with a crit. hmm.

Hence the range 2, it would be impossible to fire this weapon 'out' of a Jerk Fortress.

But yes, IF you have good ships AND you have tons of re-rolls AND you are lucky enough to roll a lot of crits 'consistently' AND you are at range 2 AND you get lucky enough to get Direct Hits AND your opponent is using nothing but Z-95s and A-Wings then yes it might be overpowerful /eyebrow.

But seriously, do you think the mechanic is broken? Or perhaps it should cost a bit more?

Hence the range 2, it would be impossible to fire this weapon 'out' of a Jerk Fortress

Sorry, I'm being sarcastic.

My point was that shield penetrating damage should be much more common, as there are so many (not OP) really annoying problems Imperials face by not having shields. The penchant for losing to bad luck is higher. The crits are really annoying. For the Tie Bomber especially, this is a big problem with why the ship does not perform well.

So, I don't think it should be highly expensive, or uncommon. Let's have a few more shield penetrating upgrades. I want to see some Rebels die.

That said, it won't help vs Falcon or Outrider that much currently. Not anymore than anything helps.

New Appropriately Fluffy Name for a Shield Penetrating Cannon

Cannon slot

7 points

R 1-2

3 dice

Uncancelled damage dealt by this attack is dealt directly as damage cards.

While were on the topic of cannons how about a "Carbonite Cannon" hit ships must be removed from play and replaces with an asteroid.

<facepalm> <feels silly>

Still, Rithrin's idea of crits-only penetration is the way to go. You don't want a 7-point upgrade to essentially halve the health of every ship in the Rebel Fleet. Sneaking the occasional crit through could work though.

The easiest way to introduce this as a balanced mechanic would be to apply it to one ship as an action. Supercharge weapons or something, that way it denies your action as a cost and prevents crazy combos with existing ships.

Charging up mechanic might be intresting kinda have that with huge ships and energy management but for a small ship it could be something like Action: dont attack this round add a charge token to this card once this card has three tokens it may fire. Kinda would make you want to hold that ship back while it charges but then your got one less ship up front fighting.

I like the idea of letting all ordnance weapons ignore shields. A Proton Torpedo is apparently a small Nuclear Warhead, so it shouldn't be stopped by some crap shield designed to reflect plasma.

I don't think its overpowered at all. Frankly, right now we could use some Rebel defense busting. I'm tired of seeing bad luck crits all over Imperial stuff all the time.

The only Rebel ship that I'd fear for is the A-wing. And even then, it still has 3 defense dice and a plethora of actions.

The problem with weapons that bypass shields are that they can 1-shot SOOOOOO many of the newer ships.

A-Wings, Z-95s, E-Wings, Phantoms.... All 1-shotted by a direct hit face-up. In some of those cases you are looking at a 40+ point ship 1 shotted by a new cannon... I fear it would be unbalanced. There's just too much new stuff with only two hull.

OHKO an ACD phantom without much setup, no mess no fuss

sounds good to me

Shield busting would be ridiculously broken or expensive before it starts smashing through 22 point+ B-wings (1 green die of defense, less than 50% chance of success) with one shot

Unless the drawback is "destroy your ship after firing," it would be hopelessly broken especially with the cannon bearing scum interceptors

I thought of this before. Mass Driver cannon, priced highly, cannot crit. 3 Damage. Not sure if range 2 or 3.

MASS DRIVERS? But there are laws... treaties...

Ooooo, all good ideas. 'Crits only' penetration is nice and characterful, a better drawback/power limiter than the ones I suggested. The 'cancel all and apply one' is also good because it is a similar mechanic to Ionization. Less mechanics = easier to learn game = better game.

As for the name, The Scimitar was equipped with "Solar Ionization Cannons," a bit of a silly name if you ask me. Also, in the XWM universe Ion weapons do not penetrate shields so I say we toss that one right out, no matter what it's canonicity is - or rather legendary-ness as the Scimitar's exact stats are EU territory. While in other game universes solid-shot rail guns have shield-penetrating capability (rather realistically it turns out) Proton weapons get a shout-out from the very first movie as penetrating shields so I would say Proton Cannon works best for me. Thus:

Proton Cannon: Firepower 3, Range 1-2, Cost 6 pts, "Attack: any KAPOW! hits inflicted by this weapon are applied directly to the target's hull, ignoring shields."

IM not sure the stuff you wrote is from legends. No tech book has his ship listed as having weapons other than LASERs. Its ether something new that was accidently put in the wrong section or someone is trolling the wookiepedia staff. JFYI I dont mean you.

I don't think its overpowered at all. Frankly, right now we could use some Rebel defense busting. I'm tired of seeing bad luck crits all over Imperial stuff all the time.

The only Rebel ship that I'd fear for is the A-wing. And even then, it still has 3 defense dice and a plethora of actions.

So you want to make it a staple of the game. And pretty much force out anything that has low hull and low agility. You make bypassing shields common, the X-wing is done for, along with a ton of other ships.

I definitely like the crits-only penetration idea. Hello Ten Numb, Marksmanship, Eatin A Boat...

There are 2 new cannons in the pipe.

FFG just need to spoil the Scyk upgrade cards

Ooooo, all good ideas. 'Crits only' penetration is nice and characterful, a better drawback/power limiter than the ones I suggested. The 'cancel all and apply one' is also good because it is a similar mechanic to Ionization. Less mechanics = easier to learn game = better game.

As for the name, The Scimitar was equipped with "Solar Ionization Cannons," a bit of a silly name if you ask me. Also, in the XWM universe Ion weapons do not penetrate shields so I say we toss that one right out, no matter what it's canonicity is - or rather legendary-ness as the Scimitar's exact stats are EU territory. While in other game universes solid-shot rail guns have shield-penetrating capability (rather realistically it turns out) Proton weapons get a shout-out from the very first movie as penetrating shields so I would say Proton Cannon works best for me. Thus:

Proton Cannon: Firepower 3, Range 1-2, Cost 6 pts, "Attack: any KAPOW! hits inflicted by this weapon are applied directly to the target's hull, ignoring shields."

Proton weapons DO NOT penetrate shields. Mass Drivers do however.

How about make it have partial piercing, so that 1 die will go through the rest hit shields, cancelling dice with shields first so that if you only sneak one hit through their evades it still lands on shields. that way b-wings aren't completely useless against it

I'd go with a Hybrid HCL AutoCannon wording with a touch of Proton.

Range 2-3, Dice 4, Slot Cannon

Cost: 6-8

Attack [Target Lock]:

You may turn 1 'Hit' or 'Focus' to 'Critical' when attacking. Any unsaved Criticals may do facedown damage to the Defender's Hull.

While Defending you may Cancel 'Critical's before 'Hits'

---

Notes:

Target Lock is not required to be spent for the attack. Think Prockets but TL instead.

The wording of the above makes the weapon punishing against low Agility Ships while Average to High Agility ships require to be 'unlucky'