In light of the recent Tie Advance fix and Tie Pilots excellent thread on the x-wing, I got to thinking about the Tie Bomber. Along with many other players, I'm rather fond of this ship; it's cheap and durable, has a great upgrade bar allowing variation, and flies just how you'd expect a bomber to. There was an excellent thread a month or two back on tie bomber tactics that went into the tie bombers dial and went into the benefits of its two best moves (ie. the 3 hard turn and 5-k). Does anyone know the thread I'm talking about, I like to link it here.

When flying this ship it feels very similar to flying a defender, another under appreciated ship; but the bomber sees almost no table time.

As a disclaimer, I would say that I'm pretty firmly in the camp which thinks that every ship in the game doesn't need a buff, but I would love to see bombers flying around, launching missiles/torps much more, as they were intended to!

Now, the first thing that springs to mind is the ordnance buffs that get talked about on here on a regular basis. I'm not sure they need a buff, but rather the bomber pilots need to be able to use ordnance better than any other ship. Fluff wise, let's say the bombers got the best targeting computer out there. Sable Gryphons use of prox mines on bombers is great, but they still lack secondary weapon abilities.

Going through the pilots, first we've got Major Rhymer. He's pretty **** expensive and pays 5 points for his ability, which then needs another 3 points minimum for each use of said ability. A shame to see one of the nicest abilities (not to mention sweet artwork) never see any use. At 30+ points, the Major becomes a centrepiece of a list for one or two shots.

Next up, we've got Jonus. A nice ability and not too bad of a price to pay for it. But still not used to deliver any secondaries that often.

The generics are in theory the best carriers for ordnance due to their lowish cost, which allows you to stick on 2 secondaries whilst still keeping the cost between 20-25. But there is a fatal flaw with these guys.. and thats the PS level. At Ps 2 and 4 it can be really hard to grab those necessary target locks on the juicy targets that you had in mind when spending all those points. Save for Assault Missiles, you don't really pack a secondary with an Academy Pilot in mind!

There are 2 upgrade cards that would be the perfect fit for these guys, but they cannot take them. Adrenaline Rush and Deadeye; These cards are great ideas but they don't really fit anywhere, apart from maybe AR on defenders and Deadeye on Nera (see Theorist's recent post on Team Covenant for some great thoughts on good cards with no good options.)

If these two cards existed as bomber only mods I think that it would give the bomber a fitting place in the game, as the only ship which can reliably use ordnance.

How would this help them out? Deadeye is pretty straightforward as you could slow roll your bomber towards the enemy taking focus as your action. You could then have the option of using the focus for defence or save it to launch your payload at a high Ps target. AR would have a couple of uses: first it would allow you to take a red and still gain a target lock (if you do a 5-k then you are most likely going to be in range to pick up the TL) and secondly it would allow you to cause a bit more havoc with any prox. mines you might be carrying. Launching a mine seven moves forward from where you start the round is mighty useful.

Looking through the list of secondaries, I can't see any that might become overpowered with this buff, save for the homing missiles. Rolling with Jonus, you would now be able to easily launch a 4 dice focused attack with 2 re-rolls and no evade token for the defender. Pretty **** good, but at the cost of 6 points for one attack, plus the cost of taking Jonus so not crazy overpowered. You might take a squad that looks something like this:

Captain Jonus (25)

+Determination +Seismic Charges

Scimitar Squad (25pts)(x3)

+Homing Missiles +Prox Mine +Deadeye

Each bombers got a couple of tricks up its sleeves and once the first missiles are out it becomes easier and easier to avoid them.

Another card which this would affect would be Fleet Officer. Equipped with Deadeye, a lowly Scimitar could now flip past the enemy and launch a missile/torpedo of his choice using a focus token from FO, better yet you could do this with 2 bombers at a time.

There's a few other nice things that you could do with this such as simply using the AR to take a hard 2 for navigating through the rocks a bit better, which is fair enough if you're only using the bomber without a payload, and flying with Howlrunner.

I'll leave it at that as it's getting a bit long... But I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this idea and more than that, if anyone would like to play-test this with me on vassal I'd be able to see what it's like in practice.

Thanks for reading and a Happy New Year to everyone in this great community!

Deadeye would really help the generics. They need a way to fire off their ordance after the higher pilot skill ships move into range band three.

I also love my bombers and use them fairly often, however, my group plays mainly for fun so non competitive lists are often on the table and in general for 100 point battles the Bomber is perhaps outclassed by many others. Lets face it should bombers be mixing it up with dedicated fighters expecting to win.

However when it comes to epic they are awesome. Yesterday was a 6 player 400pt a side epic battle and the bombers were awesome as they should be. My friend took 4 bombers and ST321 shuttle. This doom laden formation ran into the corvette screened by Howlrunner and her mini swarm. Much hilarity and firing of missiles and torpedoes ensued with no bomber losses.

The issue is almost entirely a problem with ordnance. The TIE Bomber would be the best ordnance carrier in the game if an Errata update or Modification made Missiles & Torpedoes viable.

But if we're just talking about a Fix for the Bomber, I think a System Upgrade title is the obvious solution. While I'd prefer Accuracy Corrector on 2 Attack ships be restricted to the Advanced, I think it could work as long as the title costs 2 points, making 4 AC Scimitars the limit in a 100 point match.

Fire Control System: Slow roll, take a primary shot at r3, gain a TL. Next turn, focus and fire your ordnance, gain a TL for your next strike.

Advanced Sensors: Drop your Proximity mine, when ever you want, like just before you K-Turn.

I feel the bombers are where they need to be right now. They don't see much use in the 100 point dogfight but when you play epic they really shine in taking out the huge ships which is what they would be doing thematically anyway.

I mean, if you don't play epic a lot you do really underestimate what three bombers (Jonus and two others) loosing re-rolling missiles at a zero evade ship can really do. Your fighters focus the "threats" such as the Interceptor or Phantom, just like you always do but when your 120 point + ship is suddenly crippled or worse, destroyed utterly, you feel the pain. Worse if you are playing the Hoth missions and that avalanche just hit your transport.

As an example, Jonus and two bombers armed with Assault Missiles and 2 x Advanced Torps will ruin your day quite quickly. Especially if backed up by 10 TIE fighters, Colonel Jendon with Fleet Officer, ST title and a weapons engineer and Vessery with a HLC. Yeah, try stopping that boat load of hurt.

Then again you also have the B-wing which were not supposed to be good at taking out other ships but are one of the best brawlers in the game.

Torpedoes and missiles fall short when comparing them against turrets and cannons. The point paid for a one shot weapons with either a slight firepower increase or a gimmick is not enough when you got an upgrade that can do just about the same thing but for multiple times. If you shoot a HLC cannon twice it already paid for itself when comparing them to proton torpedoes.

Also there is the actions spent and the order in which they can be used. Captian Jonus which is probably the best bomber pilot ability works better with Defenders or Fire-sprays with cannons instead of loading him out with munitions. Still higher pilot skill makes munitions better because you can close in to target range and shoot before they have a chance to fire. If the pilot skill is lower you have to wait until they are within range and it is easier for your opponent to move the ship you are target locking out of arc or range of the upgrade. Still the problem is that higher pilot skill is expensive so if you have higher skilled pilots you end up with fewer pilots and that means less firepower and less hit points.

To re-balance munitions against the turrets cannons you almost need a errata similar to the rule change that gave a slight buff to the autoblaster. However making a change like that must be handled with extreme care as it could have a serious impact on the balance of the game. A balance that some say is way too fragile (for whatever reason).

I agree that the Bomber needs help and that the point to start would be to make ordnance viable via a general ordnance fix.

Should that be asked too much from FFG, i would suggest the bomber getting a unique modification like this:

Heavy loadout

Modification. Tie Bomber only.

0 points

Missiles, Torpedoes and Bombs you equip cost -2 Squad points, to a minimum of 1 point.

As long as you have any Missiles, Torpedoes or Bombs equipped, you can not use your Barrel Roll action.

This encourages to play more ordnance and to fully load your Bomber, while asking a small sacrifice of it because it grants a huge discount of maximum 10 points. This would just be if they would not fix ordnance as a whole however!

I know people will now scream OP, but honestly a bomber can throw out one ordnance per turn, still pays for it, will still be quite vulnerable to crits and much easier to kill than a Phantom that throws out 4 AD per turn minimum, no matter what! It would however force the enemy to deal with it, it becomes a threat that when ignored, will bite you just like many other ships do.

If you think that it's still too much, just grant the discount for the two most expensive filled slots, or just say that on top of no barrel roll, any hard turn is a red maneuver while still packing ordnance.

I have sugested an idea for a few upgrade cards that are Tie Bomber only.

[Missile Upgrade] Tie Bomber Only Limited 0 points

Torpedo Loadout.

Whenever you make an attack with a [torpedo] secondary weapon that requires you to discard that card you may discard this card instead.

[Torpedo Upgrade] Tie Bomber Only Limited 1 point

Missile Loadout.

Whenever you make an attack with a [missile] secondary weapon that requires you to discard that card you may discard this card instead.

So what the cards do is that they clone a missile or torpedo card for free (or 1 point for missiles). You could use it to say load up on 3 flechete torpedoes for only 4 points or to say have a selection like a concussion missile and a proton rocket so that the first attack doesn't leave one of your range bands uncovered.

It is limited so that you can not quadruple a munition card like having 4 cluster missiles (although that would be funny). But you could say load up on 2 cluster missiles and 2 proton torpedoes for only 9 points where the old way of 2x cluster misses and 2x proton torpedoes would be 16 points on a bomber.

The only issue which could be fixed with an FAQ would be how this upgrade would work with munitions failsafe.

According to what Alex Davy said in the World commentary there's something in the works for the TIE bomber.

According to what Alex Davy said in the World commentary there's something in the works for the TIE bomber.

I know, good thing! Sadly suggests that we won't see a general ordnance fix!

when you play epic they really shine in taking out the huge ships which is what they would be doing thematically anyway.

I find oddly that TIE fighters and TIE interceptors are better at hurting huges than TIE bombers are.

In light of the recent Tie Advance fix and Tie Pilots excellent thread on the x-wing, I got to thinking about the Tie Bomber. Along with many other players, I'm rather fond of this ship; it's cheap and durable, has a great upgrade bar allowing variation, and flies just how you'd expect a bomber to. There was an excellent thread a month or two back on tie bomber tactics that went into the tie bombers dial and went into the benefits of its two best moves (ie. the 3 hard turn and 5-k). Does anyone know the thread I'm talking about, I like to link it here.

When flying this ship it feels very similar to flying a defender, another under appreciated ship; but the bomber sees almost no table time.

As a disclaimer, I would say that I'm pretty firmly in the camp which thinks that every ship in the game doesn't need a buff, but I would love to see bombers flying around, launching missiles/torps much more, as they were intended to!

Now, the first thing that springs to mind is the ordnance buffs that get talked about on here on a regular basis. I'm not sure they need a buff, but rather the bomber pilots need to be able to use ordnance better than any other ship. Fluff wise, let's say the bombers got the best targeting computer out there. Sable Gryphons use of prox mines on bombers is great, but they still lack secondary weapon abilities.

Going through the pilots, first we've got Major Rhymer. He's pretty **** expensive and pays 5 points for his ability, which then needs another 3 points minimum for each use of said ability. A shame to see one of the nicest abilities (not to mention sweet artwork) never see any use. At 30+ points, the Major becomes a centrepiece of a list for one or two shots.

Next up, we've got Jonus. A nice ability and not too bad of a price to pay for it. But still not used to deliver any secondaries that often.

The generics are in theory the best carriers for ordnance due to their lowish cost, which allows you to stick on 2 secondaries whilst still keeping the cost between 20-25. But there is a fatal flaw with these guys.. and thats the PS level. At Ps 2 and 4 it can be really hard to grab those necessary target locks on the juicy targets that you had in mind when spending all those points. Save for Assault Missiles, you don't really pack a secondary with an Academy Pilot in mind!

There are 2 upgrade cards that would be the perfect fit for these guys, but they cannot take them. Adrenaline Rush and Deadeye; These cards are great ideas but they don't really fit anywhere, apart from maybe AR on defenders and Deadeye on Nera (see Theorist's recent post on Team Covenant for some great thoughts on good cards with no good options.)

If these two cards existed as bomber only mods I think that it would give the bomber a fitting place in the game, as the only ship which can reliably use ordnance.

How would this help them out? Deadeye is pretty straightforward as you could slow roll your bomber towards the enemy taking focus as your action. You could then have the option of using the focus for defence or save it to launch your payload at a high Ps target. AR would have a couple of uses: first it would allow you to take a red and still gain a target lock (if you do a 5-k then you are most likely going to be in range to pick up the TL) and secondly it would allow you to cause a bit more havoc with any prox. mines you might be carrying. Launching a mine seven moves forward from where you start the round is mighty useful.

Looking through the list of secondaries, I can't see any that might become overpowered with this buff, save for the homing missiles. Rolling with Jonus, you would now be able to easily launch a 4 dice focused attack with 2 re-rolls and no evade token for the defender. Pretty **** good, but at the cost of 6 points for one attack, plus the cost of taking Jonus so not crazy overpowered. You might take a squad that looks something like this:

Captain Jonus (25)

+Determination +Seismic Charges

Scimitar Squad (25pts)(x3)

+Homing Missiles +Prox Mine +Deadeye

Each bombers got a couple of tricks up its sleeves and once the first missiles are out it becomes easier and easier to avoid them.

Another card which this would affect would be Fleet Officer. Equipped with Deadeye, a lowly Scimitar could now flip past the enemy and launch a missile/torpedo of his choice using a focus token from FO, better yet you could do this with 2 bombers at a time.

There's a few other nice things that you could do with this such as simply using the AR to take a hard 2 for navigating through the rocks a bit better, which is fair enough if you're only using the bomber without a payload, and flying with Howlrunner.

I'll leave it at that as it's getting a bit long... But I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this idea and more than that, if anyone would like to play-test this with me on vassal I'd be able to see what it's like in practice.

Thanks for reading and a Happy New Year to everyone in this great community!

You have some pretty sound ideas on improving the bomber. I really hope someone at FFG is looking at this

I feel the bombers are where they need to be right now. They don't see much use in the 100 point dogfight but when you play epic they really shine in taking out the huge ships which is what they would be doing thematically anyway.

I mean, if you don't play epic a lot you do really underestimate what three bombers (Jonus and two others) loosing re-rolling missiles at a zero evade ship can really do. Your fighters focus the "threats" such as the Interceptor or Phantom, just like you always do but when your 120 point + ship is suddenly crippled or worse, destroyed utterly, you feel the pain. Worse if you are playing the Hoth missions and that avalanche just hit your transport.

As an example, Jonus and two bombers armed with Assault Missiles and 2 x Advanced Torps will ruin your day quite quickly. Especially if backed up by 10 TIE fighters, Colonel Jendon with Fleet Officer, ST title and a weapons engineer and Vessery with a HLC. Yeah, try stopping that boat load of hurt.

Have you ever played epic? Bombers with torpedos even suck in epic ^^

Mainly because the epic ships move when all others have moved.

So you need to plan to attack the epic ships from behind - for obvious reasons.

But in the end its easier to waste your ordnance on the fighter screen then on the epic vessel

The Tie Bombers stats are fine.

Rhymer is overcosted by 3 points.

Something like Deadeye would be a grrreat help

See this thread:

It has lots of great idea's about ordinance, they will help the Tie Bomber.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/130291-ordnance-again/

not sure i agree with you tie pilot, unless you are talking defenders with HLC. I think if bombers could TL at range 5, or get free target locks ala FCS that would help. honestly I would give them a range 5 target lock and built in munitiions failure, and at least a 1 point discount on munitions.

but to echo a notion others have.... it's the payload, not the bomber that is the principle problem.

A PS 5 or 6 generic with an EPT would make a difference as well.

Other thoughts. a Black squadron pilot with squad leader can be helpful.

I'd like to see an upgrade for the tie bomber and bwing that gave them a reload action. That allows them to reload torpedoes and/or missiles. Allowing them to fire it every other turn.