The name Agromech is also pretty appropriate.

Agro as in agriculture, not as in aggressive.

Joking? I hope so, but can't tell. Agro is a shorthand obviously referring to aggressive behavior, they would be "agrimechs" otherwise.

R4 units are astromechs and have nothing to do with agriculture. They were designed as a cheap, durable, "every-man's" astromech. Also their in-game rules support an aggressive, efficient, high damage output attack, and they are nestled snuggly in starfighters--not moisture vaporators or space tractors.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Agromech_droid

It is indeed "agro" for agriculture. They had to be adapted for use in starfighters, which is possibly why they appear in the Scum faction rather than Rebels.

Well then. I'll just go ahead and insert my foot into my mouth...

Ew.

Yeah I felt so sure because I literally JUST read about R4s last night in my (now almost 20 year old :s ) copy of Essential Guide to Droids. It never mentions them in any agricultural capacity.

Turns out farmboys destroy planet killing space stations and farm droids kill everything in their path. Beware the farmers.

Guess I'm the only one that thinks 'Skyhawk' would be a more appropriate choice for naming it after an aircraft.

Also, the real-world 'Hog has stellar low-speed maneuverability, a trait I wish the Y-Wing had inherited...

Yeah, what a wonderful ship it would be... a small ship with ALL the 1 and 2s, with nice 1 slight and forward and 2 forward greens. 3 straight, 2 S-loops.

TL, F, BOOST AND BARREL ROLL.

Turret slot

Torpedo/Missile slot

Takes autothrusters cuz it has boost...

wow. Low speed maneverability.

--

Dial:

1: W G G G W

2: W W G W W SL SL

3: N N W N N

TL, F, Boost, Barrel Roll

W = white

G = green

N = none

SL = red S-loops.

PS 4 generic costs 1 more point but has EPT for PTL.

Oh man. Torps not even needed. Btl-A4 title with an ion cannon turret and the R4 Agromech is mean. It puts 3 dice ships DPS to shame and is knocking on the door of Phantom or TIE Advanced + ATC DPS.

Is Ion really that much better than Blaster?

Y-wing = warthog? It's a frikkin bomber!

B-wing = upgunned fighter. so it should be the warthog.

So maybe the y-wing should be the Yhog?

The name Agromech is also pretty appropriate.

Agro as in agriculture, not as in aggressive.

Joking? I hope so, but can't tell. Agro is a shorthand obviously referring to aggressive behavior, they would be "agrimechs" otherwise.

R4 units are astromechs and have nothing to do with agriculture. They were designed as a cheap, durable, "every-man's" astromech. Also their in-game rules support an aggressive, efficient, high damage output attack, and they are nestled snuggly in starfighters--not moisture vaporators or space tractors.

No, it's definitely agro- as in agricultural.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agro-

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/R4-series_agromech_droid

They were designed with civilian use such as landspeeder owners in mind (a landspeeder is pictured on the card), marketed to people who don't have an X-wing parked in their back yard. Does that make sense with the R4s we see elsewhere on the Death Star and as the courier droid in Rebels? Not really, but Agromech is the backstory from the Essential Guide to Droids and where the name comes from.

Thing is, I'm fairly sure Immaterium Press knew that and was making a joke.

Y-wing = warthog? It's a frikkin bomber!

The Y-wing's not a bomber, it's an assault/strike fighter like the B-wing. Games like to make it the Rebel equivalent of the TIE bomber though.

Oh man. Torps not even needed. Btl-A4 title with an ion cannon turret and the R4 Agromech is mean. It puts 3 dice ships DPS to shame and is knocking on the door of Phantom or TIE Advanced + ATC DPS.

Is Ion really that much better than Blaster?

From my perspective, it offers two major advantages for a ship with a relatively poor dial:

(1) You can use it without penalty when you're stressed or blocked.

(2) If you hit with it, you know exactly where your target will land on the following round.

I understand the advantages of it, I was thinking more in terms of damage.

Well, just avoid the autoblaster.

Tried a list last night that included Kavil w/Ion and 2 x Warthogs with Autoblaster Turrets. Though I got shots off, the lack of maneuverability meant that I had a hard time turning around and repositioning to range 1 again for the Autoblaster shots so the double-tap occurred about every-other round. It didn't help that my dice generally failed me -- I rolled 1 hit with Autoblaster in two games, so the "can't cancel hits" value didn't pay off.

Kavil was only OK; I kept forgetting the extra die. Not sure Kavil is worth the extra points over the basic Y. Warthog may be better with Ion -- the longer range will allow more shots as ships close.

I'm not a fan of blaster turret due to consuming a focus, but I may have to try it with the Agromech.

I love the Warthogs. They're in my Scum list, though I didn't leave points for the Agromech upgrade. Even without it, I ended up with target lock pretty much every turn, which made them very unlikely to miss. The Ion cannons were fantastic, because I didn't care so much about their damage output (it was good anyway), but I had Scyks with manglers backing them up, so what I really wanted was to screw my opponent out of using his actions and his dials. They accomplished that mission perfectly, and piled on more damage than I was expecting. Since I only needed one hit to make the ions do their work, generally, my rounds looked like "Fire main gun at range 1, roll 3 dice, spend target lock, reroll some dice, end up with 1-2 uncanceled hits on average. Then roll 3 dice for ion turret, and the enemy now has no focus or evade tokens, and I only need 1 hit, so I generally get at least 1 to ionize him." So I was averaging probably 2-3 damage per warthog per round, with an ion token thrown into the mix.

I think the Warthog is a good name for the Scum Y-wing. It's a very apt comparison. A heavy-hitting ship, with two engines, which looks like a pig, and is dirty and simple and old-school, but gets the job done. Somebody mentioned the Warthog is a heavy fighter, but it's not. It's kind of helpless against fighters IRL. It is a ground attack beast, though it can take out helicopters quite nicely. A heavy fighter would be something like an F-15E strike Eagle.

I understand the advantages of it, I was thinking more in terms of damage.

The way I look at is is that a Blaster Turret you can't fire because you didn't get an action does 100% less damage than an Ion Cannon Turret.

Love this toppic. Y-Wings have always been one of my favorite ships. So much history of them in the Star Wars world

I understand the advantages of it, I was thinking more in terms of damage.

The way I look at is is that a Blaster Turret you can't fire because you didn't get an action does 100% less damage than an Ion Cannon Turret.

I have been finding flying Kavil as a Hog with 2 Hired guns as Hogs, all three with a Proximity Mine, to be very effective. That proximity mine can really discourage fighters from trying to get in behind you.

I know that wisdom is to use Kavil with a usual turret set up, but I have found him to be lethal with Predator and an Unhinged Mech in Hog mode.

The two Hired Guns use an Agromech. All three have Ion Turrets.

While I have no intention of disputing Kenetic's claim to have introduced the nickname here I remember Americans from the local airbase calling Y-Wings Warthogs back in the days of the WEG RPG. Us Brits tended to go with Mossie due to the Y-Wing fulfilling the same Fighter/Bomber role as the de Harveland DH.98 Mosquito (the Mossie was also the plane used in 633 Squadron, the film which inspired the Deathstar Trench Run).

That's so funny, I'm an Englishman living in the US and my Y-wing list is called 633 Squadron after the Mosquito :-)I use the term Hogs in posts mostly, but for me, I think of them as the Mosquito.

Wow, I never thought of the Y-wing as Mossie. That's a great comparison. I just saw a real Mossie yesterday at the EAA Air Venture Museum, along with its Merlins dismantled for viewing. Great plane.

Yeah its an A-10 reference. Tough, mean, and ugly. I might have started the trend (can't remember for sure) so feel free to blame me if you don't like the name. :-)

The Scum version with R4 Agromech is pretty terrifying.

Juggie I love that you referred to a Y-Wing as TERRIFYING!

Oh man. Torps not even needed. Btl-A4 title with an ion cannon turret and the R4 Agromech is mean. It puts 3 dice ships DPS to shame and is knocking on the door of Phantom or TIE Advanced + ATC DPS.

Is Ion really that much better than Blaster?

I have not calculated the exact numbers, but yes. The action economy is WAY better with Ion. Especially against high agility targets, Ion will do just fine. I will eventually get around to calculating it all.

Oh man. Torps not even needed. Btl-A4 title with an ion cannon turret and the R4 Agromech is mean. It puts 3 dice ships DPS to shame and is knocking on the door of Phantom or TIE Advanced + ATC DPS.

Is Ion really that much better than Blaster?

I have not calculated the exact numbers, but yes. The action economy is WAY better with Ion. Especially against high agility targets, Ion will do just fine. I will eventually get around to calculating it all.

Not only is the action economy way better, the versatility is too--especially if you have the points to spring for bombs. I'd rather have a focused primary followed by a TLed ion than an unmodified primary followed by a TLed blaster.

The usual trade-off between damage and ion tokens need not apply.

Oh man. Torps not even needed. Btl-A4 title with an ion cannon turret and the R4 Agromech is mean. It puts 3 dice ships DPS to shame and is knocking on the door of Phantom or TIE Advanced + ATC DPS.

Is Ion really that much better than Blaster?

I have not calculated the exact numbers, but yes. The action economy is WAY better with Ion. Especially against high agility targets, Ion will do just fine. I will eventually get around to calculating it all.

screw action economy, just focus on the fact that you're guaranteed to shoot something in range rather than risk being a limp willy whenever you can't preform your focus action

Not to mention Ion screws jousting efficiency against small ships because, well, if the ion hits it's going to be less of a joust and more of an X-rated feature

I for one like the Warthog nickname though there are without a doubt some other aircraft that would have been equally deserving of the nickname spot. The mosquito has already been mentioned but the Stuka and Sturmovik would also be fitting.

While I have no intention of disputing Kenetic's claim to have introduced the nickname here I remember Americans from the local airbase calling Y-Wings Warthogs back in the days of the WEG RPG. Us Brits tended to go with Mossie due to the Y-Wing fulfilling the same Fighter/Bomber role as the de Harveland DH.98 Mosquito (the Mossie was also the plane used in 633 Squadron, the film which inspired the Deathstar Trench Run).

Frogfoot ... Sturmovik ...

Before the BTL-A4 card I would have said the Y-wing was the Bolton-Paul Defiant of the Rebel Alliance.

Mossie's pretty appropriate actually considering Lucas used films like Dambusters and 633 Squadron as inspiration for Star Wars, right down to copying sequences from 633 Squadron (trench run, anyone?)