I think not having to spend the TL and give Homing a missile a free focus, or extending the range on torpedoes and missiles would fix most issues.
The TL fix is the easiest, as not everyone had a range 4 ruler. But I think range 4 would be the most thematic.
I had suggested that the Homing Missile can get a free Focus to compensate for it's downgrade with the idea that all ships can use the TL. It makes sense as the Missile's guidance system focuses for you and that it really does do a lot of damage.
I think if ordenance could be fixed, you would see a lot less of the big ships (which is good in my opinion).
Or have the homing missile reduce the targets agility by 1. Like Wedge's and Outmaneuvers debuff.
Allowing you to use the TL on all ordnance would pretty much make Jonus completely useless, but I think its a fair tradeoff.
I think that some ordnance should roll relatively few attack dice, but then do a set amoount of damage.
Proton torpedo, range 4, 2 attack dice.
If it hits, it does 6 auto damage
therefore, high agility ships can often avoid it, but if it connects, it automattically destroys anything with lesss than 6 shield and hull combined.
This should have been how ordnance worked from the start. Low chance of hitting fighters, but greater chance against bigger, less agile craft. Of course they would have to be even more expensive then they are now though. But FFG can't make a change this drastic to all ordnance. The not spending the TL to shoot is the simplest and easiest solution to get most ordnance back into the useful category in a 100 point game.
Edited by Jo Jo
Allowing you to use the TL on all ordnance would pretty much make Jonus completely useless, but I think its a fair tradeoff.
Well, Jonus would've been much better if he only worked on himself. As it is now, he mostly works in a list full of Bombers. I do think it's a fair trade off, though. You could even have a list of cheap bombers with even more ordenance.
Jonus can still work in other lists that have secondary weapons, but not ordenance. Him next to a Shuttle with HLC, for example. They could both sit at range and fire.
I think that some ordnance should roll relatively few attack dice, but then do a set amoount of damage.Proton torpedo, range 4, 2 attack dice.If it hits, it does 6 auto damagetherefore, high agility ships can often avoid it, but if it connects, it automattically destroys anything with lesss than 6 shield and hull combined.
I like that quite alot, I wonder if a third dice type would be the way to go with that.
Or maybe a new manuverability action that gives extra dice against missiles only but reduced fire power as a result as you'd be ducking and diving to avoid the missile and be too busy to get a clean shot.
another Idea is extending the range of secondaries to range 4, which would be thematic, and giving them a good role.
Since torps & missiles already have their ranges listed on the upgrade card, I'd like to see an ordinance-specific range ruler -- the ordinance range 3 being longer than standard range 3, and etc. This would fit the story: one advantage Rebel Fighters had over their Imperial counterparts was a longer-range weapon that they could fire off to break up Imp formations before closing to laser cannon range.
Packaging and distributing a new range ruler, however...
If they were to do that, just do something like adding a 2 Straight to the end and call it a day.
I think that some ordnance should roll relatively few attack dice, but then do a set amoount of damage.
Proton torpedo, range 4, 2 attack dice.
If it hits, it does 6 auto damage
therefore, high agility ships can often avoid it, but if it connects, it automattically destroys anything with lesss than 6 shield and hull combined.
I like this, but think we can take it one step further.
Proton Torpedo
Range 2-4
Roll 4 Attack Dice
1-2 uncanceled hits = 3 automatic damage
3-4 uncanceled hits = 6 automatic damage
6 points
I like the idea of a "glancing blow"/"near-miss" with a missile or torpedo weapon that could still one-shot a TIE, but has a chance of demolishing even the stronger ships.
Criticisms/improvements welcome. I'm not a game designer by any means.
I think something that would allow a "reload" of ordnance would be a good fix. Maybe an "Extra Ordnance" modification.
Provided that it (a) doesn't require an action, since then it would still be all but impossible to repeatedly fire the darn things, and (b) isn't so expensive that you go to use it and a torpedo/missile and think "Why am I not just taking something with a HLC instead?".
Could just be as simple as putting a stack of tokens on the ordnance card, as we already do with shield tokens on the ship card.
Say, three tokens on proton torpedo. Each time you 'fire' it, it spends one token, but otherwise operates exactly as it currently does. When the last token is spent, that's the trigger to discard the upgrade.
(I'd really love to see that be different per-craft, then, too. 3 tokens for proton torpedoes on an X-Wing, 4 or 5 tokens on a Y-Wing, but I have no idea how you'd do that without maintaining a separate table, and that's just a pain in the rear. I dunno, maybe some kind of general rule, like, 'during the mission setup, you get ordnance tokens equal to your number of hull points that you can distribute across your torpedo or missile cards as you choose'. Although, done that way, it would be possibly a pretty significant buff to TIE Bombers and also improve the Y-Wing more than the B-Wing...not sure if that's a good or bad side-effect, though...)
I think an upgrade pack that had a range 5 ruler in it and a new Die would work the best as it requires no reprinting.
All ordinance can fire to range 5 (making it thematically fill it's role as a Capital Ship killer - matching it's opponent in terms of range). You'd have to make it so that you can Target Lock to range 5 as well (as it makes no sense having a Target Lock shorter than the primary lethal range of the weapon it controls).
The ordinance die replaces the "regular" red dice when firing ordinance, and has some faces that have 2 hit results instead of a single one. That way you still roll the same amount of dice, but potentially deal more damage with each hit. They already have similar dice in Armada.
The new dice and ruler would be released with further starter kits, and an additional expansions dice/ruler pack would cover existing players. I think it's a simple, elegant solution to the problem.
Edited cause I missed a very important word.
Edited by KylaWhat if ordnance ignored shields?
The death star exhaust port was ray shielded, which is why they used torpedoes.
This would make ordnance feared, TIEs would be unaffected, rebels and expensive imperial ships would hate it, and most importantly, won't invalidate any upgrade to my knowledge. Requires a small paragraph in the FAQ.
What if ordnance ignored shields?
The death star exhaust port was ray shielded, which is why they used torpedoes.
This would make ordnance feared, TIEs would be unaffected, rebels and expensive imperial ships would hate it, and most importantly, won't invalidate any upgrade to my knowledge. Requires a small paragraph in the FAQ.
I really like the thought that went into this post. It seems like a really elegant idea. Would ordnance be too powerful? I don't think it would be any more powerful than other builds, but I think it makes ordnance more worth the gamble. And I love how you pointed out the ray shield quote. It gives it some thematic flare that I just love!
How about this?
Modification: Ordinance Targeting Computer
1 pts.
Once per turn, After breaking a target lock to use an Attack Target Lock card, but before die are rolled. Roll 1 attack die and on a hit you may place the target lock back on the target.
It's keeps Munitions Failure active, because it doesn't work all the time. Hence the trade off
What if ordnance ignored shields?
The death star exhaust port was ray shielded, which is why they used torpedoes.
This would make ordnance feared, TIEs would be unaffected, rebels and expensive imperial ships would hate it, and most importantly, won't invalidate any upgrade to my knowledge. Requires a small paragraph in the FAQ.
The more I think about this the more clever it becomes. It lends to the feel of a attack run against the Epic ships in that they will be firing on your for two range increments until you can counter, but at the same time, your weapons will likely put them down in a run or two (which is very thematic). It would re-balance swarms versus YT's, and play up the need for support craft to eliminate ordinance carrying craft making attack runs.
My only issue with ignoring shields, is it kinda breaks the balance of the game.
You now have a weapon that is more dangerous to a X-Wing or B-Wing then it is a Tie Fighter or Tie interceptor. It kind of breaks the whole balanced by points way the game is designed.
My only issue with ignoring shields, is it kinda breaks the balance of the game.
You now have a weapon that is more dangerous to a X-Wing or B-Wing then it is a Tie Fighter or Tie interceptor. It kind of breaks the whole balanced by points way the game is designed.
A little bit. But generally speaking, the shielded Rebels have more ordnance than the un-shielded Imperials. Sure, it causes some bad match-ups. But I think we already have those. I don't think this rule would make shielded ships disappear from the meta overnight. On the contrary, it would bring back some under-used cards and create a more diverse meta. After all, this rule by itself still leaves ordnance as unpredictable as they are now. You could still completely miss on your attack and end up doing no damage. The variance is still there, but there is potentially more power and a very strong theme as bombers can try to take down heavier ships. Besides, let's say you go in against that Falcon with all three of your torps and you take it down to one hull. Tough luck! You now have to get through the shields before you can finish it off! It's not as powerful as it appears at first glance, but it's still better than what we have now.
A little bit.
A little bit? You now have a 2 point upgrade that can one shot a 25+ point ship. A ship that typically has lower agility because it has shields, and the whole game was balanced around things like that.
Many of the rebel ships that become fragile can also equip C-3P0 or Lando. The stealth upgrade would become more useful as would expert handling, but to counter expert handling deadeye becomes desirable as target locks are not needed.
Should Rhymer take push the limit, predator or deadeye?
Should imperials go for Han in the Falcon, or Ten Numb with torpedoes?
If ordnance becomes deadly more people will take it meanig a new system of cheques and balances/ paper-rock-scissors.
Hell, the TIE advanced and Maarek would become a vialbe missile platform.
Hell, the TIE advanced and Maarek would become a vialbe missile platform.
And so he should 
My knee-jerk reaction is...awwwww yeah!!
Though I suppose it would upset the tournament players, as it would be a MAJOR shakeup. Off the cuff though, I don't necessarily see it being unbalanced. There might be enough hard counters. I'm tempted to try it out as a house rule for a few games!
Poor B-Wing's, though, haha!
Here are some suggestions that don't require reprints.
So maximum improvement would be 1, 2 & 4.
The reason Ordnance doesn't work is because it's all inferior to the capabilities of the HLC.
In the beginning Ordnance for Torps and missiles was the only way to push up to Att4, beyond being in range 1. It was the highest attack possible with a trade-off of being a one-shot and needing a TL. Once Heavy Laser Cannons were in the game you could use that TL to improve your shots, and you didn't have to discard.
So a card category that was problematic to begin with now became obsolete. You saved points by not taking it on X-WIngs, Y-Wings just became ion carriers, and B-Wings never used them (except for Nera, since that's her entire ability).
FFG has tried to fix the problem by making ordnance cheaper but this doesn't help older ordnance which should have been mainstay weapons. At least TIE Advanceds are supposed to get an upgrade to make them good... Proton Torpedoes might just end up sitting in the armory unused while everyone else is taking flichette torpedoes, because at least they do something whether they hit or not, and they're significantly cheaper.
And that is the core of the issue
The solution needs to be such that it doesn't invalidate Homing missiles, since the entire point of that weapon is to permit the Target Lock re-rolls where other ordnance doesn't. What fix can be done that doesn't invalidate that weapon? Auto re-rolls for spent TLs doesn't.
I like the idea of increasing the range of ordnance to 4 and or 5 as that does make sense... that alone would do much to actually make ordnance more useful. Also like the not expending the TL for Ordnance useful as well. AND I really like the new damage dice idea. of course if your not playing an EPIC game its pretty easy to get into range 3 if you got some fast and or big base ships... negating the range 4 or 5 advantage pretty quickly.I think a new ordnance damage dice set is the way to go and also allows FFG to SELL us something that we will NEED to buy..lol
My only issue with ignoring shields, is it kinda breaks the balance of the game.You now have a weapon that is more dangerous to a X-Wing or B-Wing then it is a Tie Fighter or Tie interceptor. It kind of breaks the whole balanced by points way the game is designed.
It is however 100% in line with lore, torpedoes ignore shields it's why a squadron of y-wings can threaten a capital ship, they drop out of hyperspace launch eight torpedoes each then jump out again, the torpedoes travel faster than the cap ship so it takes a massive hit.
It's why they still have starfighters in a universe with such massive star ships.
By contrast there are no star fighters of note in star trek because cap ships shields can stop torpedoes as well as energy attacks.
A little bit.
A little bit? You now have a 2 point upgrade that can one shot a 25+ point ship. A ship that typically has lower agility because it has shields, and the whole game was balanced around things like that.
He's a revised idea of this, what if instead of ordinance just ignoring shields straight, what if only crits ignored shields. Still fully capable of oneshotting a 3hp ship if you get a lucky Direct Hit, but much less likely. Marek Steele is still good, Proton Torpedoes are now great and Marksmanship is now very desirable.
If they fire at range five you should also get +1 agility per range band so at range five a tie soul have six dodge as they'd easily have time to dodge and torpedoes are not really designed to take out fighters, missiles of course would be more agile.