[Fix Theory] What is wrong with Ordnance (?)

By Babaganoosh, in X-Wing

OK, since you do not want "solutions", only to catalog what players perceive as the "problem" with ordnance, I shall not offer you any of my (proposed) fixes. Instead, I shall put forward some thoughts on what ordnance should and should not be...

1. SHOULD NOT be so powerful (cost effective) that they become the primary weapons of most ships in competitive play- guns should still be the most common weapons. Reason- how much ordnance did we see being used in any Star Wars canon compared to lasers/blasters/whatever "pew-pew" weapon you have?

2. Ordnance SHOULD be effective against the type of target it was designed to be used against and less than optimal against other targets. Heavy ordnance (torps/missiles) should be cost effective against heavy targets... "anti-fighter" weapons should be good against fighter-sized targets but poor vs more heavily armored targets. The game effect should at least imitate the movie effects (which are based, in part, on "real world" stuff).

3. MY CONCERN- any fix to make ordnance cost effective for use in tournament lists will make them over-powered in Epic play (which is where I think they should be most useful*). On the other hand, any fix that makes them cost effective in the Epic format (without being over-powered) will likely not placate those who mostly engage in competitive play as it will not automatically make (insert name of favorite ship/squad here) the most dominant list on the tourney circuit.

* What's Wrong with Epic- I love XWM and, in general, I think the FFG designers have done a great job (with ordnance being an exception) and I love Epic play most of all because Star Wars is... Epic! And the most epic part of Epic is the huge ships. Compared to small fighters and large(er) ships like gunboats and light freighters, huge ships are really tough... or should be. Unfortunately, FFG made huge ships expensive, much more so than their smaller brethren... but no more resistant to damage! In fact, even the mighty Rebel CR-70 Corvette (a purpose-built warship) is quite vulnerable even to lowly TIE Fighters. If they are vulnerable to even such low-powered attacks, where is the need/incentive to take heavier/more expensive ordnance? IMO, huge ships either needed to have a LOT more Hull points OR fighter-class weapons (not ordnance or Cannons, like HLC) need to do less damage. Either way, small ships (with their "small/weak" weapons) are much too effective against huge ships.

the problem with ordinance is that they don't really do any more damage than your regular weapons.

And the fault is with the action economy. A 3 dice primary attack with a target lock average is 2.25 hits. A proton torp attack with a target lock(that you have to spend to shoot it) is 3 hits average. So the difference is less than 1 hit. I am not sure what the ratio is, but a lot of the time you pay 4 points extra and do no better than if you did not have it. There has been some talk about ordinance with TL, Focus, but it has the same problem. A primary attack with TL+focus is still just about as good. The only notable exception is on ships with only 2 primary attack.(y-wing, and bomber). The y-wing is not a good candidate because it has better choices in turrets. And the bomber is not ideal for carrying missiles because it has a base cost of 16, so anything you put on it drastically increases its cost. e.g. :one torp would be 20% of the total ship cost.

So the real problem for me is that they do not do any more damage. I know you said not to put fixes in this thread, but this is just to start the wheels turning. What would you think about a mechanic that said: if your torp hits, add one hit to the result. So if they hit, they actually do a little more than a primary attack.

Edit: I just read the previous post about epic. I think a lot of the tie fighter spam will go away when we get the imperial huge. the problem is not 1 tie fighter, it is 12. So when the raider comes out epic should have at least one huge on each side.

Edited by negative9

the problem with ordinance is that they don't really do any more damage than your regular weapons.

And the fault is with the action economy. A 3 dice primary attack with a target lock average is 2.25 hits. A proton torp attack with a target lock(that you have to spend to shoot it) is 3 hits average. So the difference is less than 1 hit.

Proton Torpedoes average 2.68 hits and crits, actually, not 3. So in absolute terms it's even worse than you thought.

On the other hand, an 85% chance of coming up with a crit is definitely something, and increasing the value of your target lock action from 0.75 extra successes to 1.18 extra successes is worth something, too. But if it only happens once, those effects probably aren't worth more than 1-2 points.

Edited by Vorpal Sword

One advantage ordnance gives you is that you can use it to deal an extra burst of damage at the beginning of the game, which can give you an early advantage that can be hard to overcome. Early damage is better than late damage. If you can put a massive dent into one of your opponents large, 45+ point ships on the first exchange, that can easily give you the advantage you need to pull off a win, even if you end up sacrificing a couple cheap ordnance carriers in the process.

With this in mind, I find the Z-95 is the best ordnance carrier (IMO). It's cheap, it only has a 2 attack dice primary weapon and it's fragile so it won't last long anyway - and these all all good things! As Vorpal Sword mentioned earlier in the thread, you generally want to maximize (average damage per round) x (expected lifespan). He then pointed out that "Increasing damage by a little bit for one round has a pretty small effect on the ship's overall impact."

While this is true for a ship that plans on surviving multiple rounds, a lowly Z-95 has no such ambitions. Potentially doubling the damage it deals in the first round of combat (possibly it's only round of combat) means that, by adding 4-5 points to a 12 point ship, you're potentially doubling it's (average damage per round) x (expected lifespan)!!

It is also the reason I find the TIE Bomber is a poor ordnance carrier. It's multiple slots are useless since, when loading up multiple missiles/torpedoes on a single ship, you rapidly see diminishing returns since you increase the chance that your ship will explode before getting to fire its ordnance. It's too expensive and too durable. When I'm shopping for an ordnance carrier, I want something cheap and fragile. I don't want to pay for all that extra hull when the ship's main purpose is to deliver on round 1 payload.

Yes, there are other ways to use ordnance other than an alpha strike with "disposable" ships. A-Wings are a good example for this, since they have the dial and actions available to stay out of arcs and deliver their payload without getting shot at. Unfortunately Chardaan Refit basically added an extra 2 point cost to ordnance on A-Wings, making it even harder to justify.

This was all to say that, one of the problems with ordnance is that we don't have good ordnance carriers - this is especially true for the empire.

Edited by Klutz

One advantage ordnance gives you is that you can use it to deal an extra burst of damage at the beginning of the game, which can give you an early advantage that can be hard to overcome. Early damage is better than late damage. If you can put a massive dent into one of your opponents large, 45+ point ships on the first exchange, that can easily give you the advantage you need to pull off a win, even if you end up sacrificing a couple cheap ordnance carriers in the process.

With this in mind, I find the Z-95 is the best ordnance carrier (IMO). It's cheap, it only has a 2 attack dice primary weapon and it's fragile so it won't last long anyway - and these all all good things! As Vorpal Sword mentioned earlier in the thread, you generally want to maximize (average damage per round) x (expected lifespan). He then pointed out that "Increasing damage by a little bit for one round has a pretty small effect on the ship's overall impact."

While this is true for a ship that plans on surviving multiple rounds, a lowly Z-95 has no such ambitions. Potentially doubling the damage it deals in the first round of combat (possibly it's only round of combat) means that, by adding 4-5 points to a 12 point ship, you're potentially doubling it's (average damage per round) x (expected lifespan)!!

It is also the reason I find the TIE Bomber is a poor ordnance carrier. It's multiple slots are useless since, when loading up multiple missiles/torpedoes on a single ship, you rapidly see diminishing returns since you increase the chance that your ship will explode before getting to fire its ordnance. It's too expensive and too durable. When I'm shopping for an ordnance carrier, I want something cheap and fragile. I don't want to pay for all that extra hull when the ship's main purpose is to deliver on round 1 payload.

Yes, there are other ways to use ordnance other than an alpha strike with "disposable" ships. A-Wings are a good example for this, since they have the dial and actions available to stay out of arcs and deliver their payload without getting shot at. Unfortunately Chardaan Refit basically added an extra 2 point cost to ordnance on A-Wings, making it even harder to justify.

This was all to say that, one of the problems with ordnance is that we don't have good ordnance carriers - this is especially true for the empire.

The problem with strapping ordnance to an easy to destroy Z-95 is that it makes them more expensive and they've got a decent chance of getting popped before they can fire their ordnance. The TIE Bomber is much more likely to be able to deliver its payload without getting destroyed.

We've got plenty of good ordnance carriers. They just don't get enough value out of their points to be worth bringing, and if you do bring them they usually aren't worth putting ordnance on.

Edited by WWHSD

First off, I agree with everything else that has been said. But there is one other thing that also bugs me.

So after you've gone through the trouble of target locking that squirrelly interceptor, and after you've taken the time to get a focus token and all the dice modifiers you can find, and after you get your shot off, and after your red dice roll hot enough to beat the interceptors 3 green dice + focus + evade, you end up hitting for 1, maybe 2 damage.

Whaaaaaaat?

You just hit a fragile little TIE with a freaking torpedo and it flies away intact?? That doesn't seem right to me. It doesn't feel like how ordinance should work. With lasers it makes sense: you fire a barrage of lasers at your enemy and he dodges 95% of them, well that's okay, you score his hull a bit but he carries on. But a missile seems like it should be more towards the all-or-nothing side of things. If you hit that TIE it should pop like a balloon in a porcupine mosh pit. As soon as that TIE pilot gets the red target lock token placed on him he should be sweating and/or panicking.

So in short, the "fix" I would like to see is for all ordinance to carry a clause along the lines of "if this Attack hits cancel all the defender's dice results." Then, even with the high cost and action requirements it would make things a lot more interesting and fun.

I also like the idea of the all or nothing approach to missiles and torpedoes. Attacking with them should be a high risk/high reward option.

It makes sense that you can try to dodge a barrage of laser shots and one or two slip through. But it's a bit silly to say you dodge 3/4 of a missile because really, you either do dodge it or you don't. That's why missiles are supposed to be destructive. If you don't fully dodge it, the missile delivers all the damage in one single whallop from the warhead.

It would be cool if having a target lock you could launch your missile AND then still be able to make a primary (not secondary) attack. Effectively your Target Lock is the aiming system for the missile/torpedo then all you are doing is launching them. The pilot then shifts to their primary weapon (probably just another button on their flight control stick). To make it even cooler the follow up primary attack doesn't have to be on the target locked ship.

This idea just gives a "double whammy" but I think it would be simple to implement and make the one-off weapon be an added bonus.

Edited by DB Draft

I still don't understand why they need to be discarded.

all the craft that carry them in the game carried several in the fiction, why don't we have a payload?

that may be the easy fix, remove the discard wording from the cards

I'll echo the majority of what is said here, there are too many restrictions in launching at too prohibitive points cost for current ordnance to be effective.

Some additional points.

- I don't think removing the limited nature entirely is the right direction. Given that X-Wing is designed as a Space Fantasy version of WWII dogfights, having an unlimited payload somewhat breaks that feel. On the flip side, having 1 proton torpedo is also a bit silly. Most modern day fighters pack 2-4 copies of whatever ordnance they are equipped with. I'm not specifically advocating each piece of ordnance work for exactly X shots, though, I just don't think either extreme works.

- There needs to be a clearer objective for ordnance. Right now, a lot of it feels like "this does damage", with more restrictions than just shooting at your target. Maybe that is the objective, but if it is, then it's the least efficient/most prohibitive way to deal damage. It's failed that objective. I think if the desire is for Ordnance to be just another damage weapon, then they need to deliver it in different ways, like out of arc, beyond R3, ignoring defenses, fired in addition to normal weaponry, modifying the dice etc. Bombs/Mines are a good example of this, they do damage in activation phase, and ignore defense dice. The defense, is not being where the bombs are. Proton Torpedoes/Concussion missiles give 'free' damage, but not nearly enough for the cost.

I actually don't mind the current system, restrictions and all, but I think the Ordnance power needs to be boosted in some pretty extreme ways (like Proton Torpedoes converting ALL eyes to crits), or the cost needs to be no more than 1 or 2 points, to take into consideration the difficulty in launching and the uncertain nature of the damage.

...

So, why is ordnance bad?

...

  • It's one-shot. How much is the one-time damage boost from ordnance worth?
  • They cost an action to fire (only applies to some ordnance), or require having a token to fire (like proton rockets and homing missiles). This action cost can be prohibitive, especially to low-PS ordnance carriers. In most cases, the need to spend a target lock token just to make the attack also reduces overall damage output.
  • Limited range. Your ability to fire ordnance is limited by range, reducing overall damage output as you lose opportunities to fire.
  • Liability of cost. By making a ship more costly without increasing its durability, that ship becomes a liability in terms of squad durability and determination of victory at the end of the match.

...

Why do YOU think ordnance is bad?

...

Back in the first wave I can see a big thing was the damage race (aka jousting values) so having an upgrade that can pop off a Tie Fighter in a single shot fairly easy was more valuable. Wave 2 introduced 3 things: mobility that allows more arc dodging tactics; big ships, mainly the big ship turret; and cannon upgrades which do not discard after a single attack. Wave 3 introduced the B-wing and with shields reduced the value of critical hits making just generating more hit that much more valuable. Wave 4 sealed the maneuverability gambit and wave 5 sealed the big ship turret strategy. So with the history out of the way lets take a look at the bullet points and compare.

  • It is one shot then again in a different fix ordnance post I compared 2x proton torpedoes to the HLC which came to the conclusion the HLC was better even over the course of two attacks. Munitions failsafe is a fairly cheap insurance policy for making sure your missiles and torpedoes don't get discarded without doing any damage but still if 1 hit was all that you make it may seem like more points down the drain. I think there is more psychology than mathematical statistics behind the 1 shot disadvantage. There has been many times where I lost a ship with still a torpedo on it and there have also been times when I lost a B-wing only able to fire the HLC once. I think when you loose unspent secondary weapons you definitely feel the point loss if you lose a cannon on a destroyed ship well it was going to go down with the ship anyways.

  • At first I said the action economy is what it is lacking but at a closer look I think this demonstrates more of the restrictions of the target lock in comparison with the advantage the target lock gives. If it was merely spending an action that would not be the problem. We have so many ways of generating additional actions with PTL, EI, Pilots like Lando. All of these allow ships to make more than one action which would compensate for having to use an action. The Target Lock become the apparent problem. Now in any table top game where attack results are determine by dice anyone could tell you rerolls is your most powerful ally. Now to prevent target lock from becoming OP it is restricted to a single ship. That ship can easily get out of arc making the target lock worthless.

  • The range restrictions is a necessity because secondary weapons confine no range bonuses. However this does make short range secondary weapons weaker while making long range weapons more beneficial. HLC has the same restrictions as a proton torpedo but it is still the most used secondary weapon.

  • Back to the end of the 1st bullet cost liability is more psychological than mathematical. You can still loose a B-wing at turn 3. Within that turn you could easily fire a proton torpedo or a HLC once. Losing the B-wing with HLC sucks but you feel it more if you loose a B-wing with a proton torpedo even though you loss almost the same number of points. HLC is the most points but in order to make it more cost effective than proton torpedoes you need to fire it at least twice if not 3 times. However back to the second bullet when I compared HLC to a proton torpedo and gave them both TL and focus it all came down to HLC can reroll blanks while proton torpedoes cannot unless you are Horton.

So for my fixes there needs to be something that makes up for the reroll lost when spending the target lock or focus. Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles almost does this which is why I consider them the 2nd best secondary weapon for their slot (flechette torpedoes, and proton rockets take the first and chardaan refit is not a weapon). Still it is not enough. I love Nera's ability with torpedoes and I think it is great. Some say just youse it as the cheapest B-wing with a EPT which I think is a waste of a good pilot ability. Others say use deadeye but that is a waste too because deadeye just allows you to change your target in case you original target moves out of arc. Nera's ability already allows her to attack ships even if they move out of arc.

So fixes have been applied. We have cheaper weapons that cost 2-3 points, we have weapons that require focus instead of the restrictive target lock, and we have weapons that do not spend tokens. However all of this is few and far between. You could make an upgrade that allows you to fire a secondary weapon twice but it will have to be at a lower cost than the original secondary weapon. Make it a 3-4 cost and that upgrade would be worthless. You could make an upgrade that discounts the point cost of secondary weapons but still unless you improve performance that will not fix it.

Now there can be fixes to ordnance in the coming waves. But those fixes have to come in the following form.

  • An upgrade that can reduce cost by a minimum of 2.
  • An upgrade that can duplicate a secondary weapon that does not cost as much as the secondary weapon.
  • A pilot ability or an upgrade that can allow for Target Locks to be used easier for secondary weapons (change your target lock at the start of combat phase).
  • A pilot ability or an upgrade that makes up for the loss of dice modifying tokens (similiar to Horton's or something like change a blank to a hit when attacking with a _ secondary weapon).
  • A Pilot ability or an upgrade that gives secondary weapons more of a punch making their alpha strike worth the point cost. (example: after making an attack with a _ secondary weapon you may make a primary weapon attack on that defender in the end phase).
Edited by Marinealver

While I'm not sure that it would fix ordnance, I think an upgrade like this would make them different and interesting:

Once per round, when you acquire a Target Lock you may immediately, as a free action, make an attack with a secondary weapon that instructs you to discard it after attacking.

The other thing that ordnance has wonky is when you consider the attack value boost compared to the primary gun - for example, my x-wing does a 4 die attack at range 1 - so the range 2 proton torp is really something I could do with an engine upgrade. And it's a one time boost - Proton torps on a Y-wing are better than on the x-wing, because you gain a damage spike that the ship cannot perform without them, at any range.

This leads to two ideas - one, Ordnance has different values on different ships, but the cost is static! We start to see this in other platforms as well - Proton Rockets are superior on an A-wing to the Falcon - Any Ordnance fix is going to skew the value of some ordnance ship combinations more than others.

Second non-Ordnance solutions can often give us nearly the same effect that we get from ordnance! (Consider that X-wing range 2 torpedo, we lose our action to fire it, it's modified by nature of the crit, but our range 1 primary weapon shot can be modified by a target lock instead.

Look at the new and old Ordnance - Flechette Torps are pretty useful and cheap - while the old proton torps are not stellar - Most Ordnance fix meant for the older weapons is going to be really good for newer weapons - So where do you set the power balance? Do you want good proton torpedoes in the game at the cost of absolutely amazing flechette torpedos?

Any scaled fix is going to become fairly complicated - if it's too complicated it won't jibe well with the current system, any simpler fix is probably going to be limited by the better ordnance in the game - which unfortunately is going to leave the mediocre ordnance, mediocre in comparison - people may NEVER be happy.

I'd suggest the simplest fix for ordnance, is to give a set pool of ordnance points - say, 5 points in a 100 point game - where you get that many points that can be used to buy missiles and torpedo's only - effectively giving a 105 point list - (the actual ordnance value could be adjusted) - enough for an assault missile, or a couple flechette torpedos - or a 1 point APT.

I still think it's a matter of making the points invested in ordnance be worth it. With little way to adjust mediocre or bad dice rolling means it's not worth it. Being able to increase the damage average will balance them out without making them too powerful.

Look at the new and old Ordnance - Flechette Torps are pretty useful and cheap - while the old proton torps are not stellar - Most Ordnance fix meant for the older weapons is going to be really good for newer weapons - So where do you set the power balance? Do you want good proton torpedoes in the game at the cost of absolutely amazing flechette torpedos?

Not necessarily - Flechette Torps actively trade off the unreliability of ordnance - they can be a very effective tool for deliberately missing but still dealing stress and using MF to avoid the discard.

Prockets are very effective little buggers, but any proposed fixes around things like enabling TL rerolls wouldn't make any difference to them at all

So, the recent change to the decloaking mechanic kinda opens up a new angle of errata - a rules change. We still can't change cards themselves too much as that causes more confusion, but a simple rule change might do the trick.

Consider this:

"After making an attack with a [missile] or [torpedo] weapon that hits, cancel all of the defenders dice results."

Essentially, this makes munitions do consistent on-target damage if they hit, so dodging the attack outright becomes the name of the game. A proton or concussion missile average 3 hits with their native dice modification, and against many targets that will be 3 actual damage. Low to middling AGI will take a beating, while high agility and ships with evade tokens have a reasonable chance to dodge.

The idea here is to embrace the high risk/high reward aspect of wave 1 munitions and keep them different from cannons and primary attacks in both flavor and mechanics and change up the decision trees around munitions. The existing chain of constraints that make munitions so hard to use will keep this improved potential damage in check. There are a few particular items I want to address though:

Lt. Blout - Vastly more dangerous until he spends his attack, but he is still tied to a Z-95 platform. As he stands, he's not a spectacular performer, so I don't fear him tearing up the meta.

Homing missiles - Keeping the target lock and cancelling evades makes them marginally more accurate, but being able to combo a focus+TL+no evades makes them very deadly. That is, however, 2 turns of actions so again I'm not worried about it.

Ion pulse missiles - Keeping the target lock isn't a big deal since they already self mitigate.

Proton Rockets - A wings have issues justifying these since they are effectively 5pts. With this change, they are very competitive not only on As and TIE/x1s, but also Zs, bombers, and possibly even defenders.

Countermeasures and Expert Handling - Kicking those TLs off is now much more valuable, improving these cards. Neither are particularly amazing, so probably not a big deal.

APTs - Given how hard they are to use and how expensive they are, this might make them worth it. Nera Dantels+APT+/E2+recon does make that 360° bubble of doom, but I don't think it is too out of line given the expense for a single doomsday shot.

Consider this:

"After making an attack with a [missile] or [torpedo] weapon that hits, cancel all of the defenders dice results."

Stellar idea! I fully support it!

(It seems really familiar though, like I've heard somebody else propose it once before, a long time ago... <_< ;) )

Consider this:

"After making an attack with a [missile] or [torpedo] weapon that hits, cancel all of the defenders dice results."

Stellar idea! I fully support it!

(It seems really familiar though, like I've heard somebody else propose it once before, a long time ago... <_< ;) )

You know, I read this thread on my phone at lunch and probably picked up your idea and proceded to think about it this afternoon. :P

Seriously though, I think it's a great idea, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's a simple fix, it's thematic and realistic (more so than nimble lightweight ships taking less damage from missiles/torps than big lumbering ships anyway), it makes ordinance a viable strategy, and as you pointed out, it doesn't lead to any broken/overpowered scenarios, except for maybe in the case of Lt Blount. But even then I don't think you'd start seeing Blount lists dominating the meta. ;)

Let's take another angle too:

What missiles and torps are good, and by how much?

Some argue that Proton Rockets are not worth their points except on Tie Advanced.

Awings take it for 5 points. Defenders gain only 1 additional die.

I personally like it on any high PS ship that can easily gain a TL F. Vessery, Jake, Vader.

Cluster Missile is situationally good against big ships and low agi. Also good on Ndru. 2.5/5 rating, for conditionalness.

Conc Missile is okay, but underwhelming with only focus still.

Flechette Torp -> sees no play. 1/5

Honestly, I don't think there are ANY torps that are worth taking.

I think you should be able to fire torpedoes/missiles in addition to making a normal attack. That would make them a lot more tempting.

I like Hero's idea of canceling all die results if it hits. When I think of Drea Renthal with Proton Torps and R4-B11 and how hard that torpedo can actually hit.. I get goosebumps. For each missile or torp to have that kind of effect would be amazing. It doesn't seem to override existing mechanics too much. I thought it might effect Homing Missiles at first, but they would just have a higher chance of hitting in the first place with their ability (and built in TL).

As for Flechette Torpedoes, I believe they have a place. They are a nice utility torp. You don't want to put them on everything with a torp slot for points purposes, but two points is easy to fit into a list if you are looking for some support mechanics. Maybe you want to support Eaden, or you want to double up your stress with R3-A2. Anyway, the torp is there, it's damage is OK, but the main point of it is for the stress mechanic to give you that control.

In my first tournament ever I ran Hobbie with R3-A2 and a Flechette Torpedo (Yes, I just got the transport). I had positioned my guy for a decent arc with the asteroids that were in the middle of the field and my opponent's soontir fel couldn't arc dodge with the maneuver he had chosen. The previous round we were just at range 3 across the asteroids so I had TL'd on Hobbie. I don't know if my opponent was thinking about Fel's stress, but he did PTL and evaded with a focus, but my Hobbie rolled 3 hits on his torp and I also chose to stress with R3. Two of my damage got through (poor defensive rolls) and now Fel has 3 stress and 1 hull left. My tala finished him off later that round. Maybe my opponent didn't fly him the greatest, but having that capability to double stress a target was awesome. Just having ordinance that is such a utility item is key and for only two points, I'm glad it's an option.

I don't think ordinance should be so powerful that everybody takes it all the time whenever they can. It needs to have a purpose and/or a utility reason to use it.

Going back to the original topic, after seeing all of these ideas and considering how they would be implemented, I think a multiple ordinance firing upgrade or pilot ability would have to fire ordinance at different targets. Such as:

Auto Loader - Modification - 2 points - After you attack with a secondary weapon that instructs you to discard it you may immediately acquire a target lock on a different ship and perform another secondary weapon that instructs you to discard it against that ship. You may not attack again this round.

Basically you get to double fire munitions but at different targets. This lets you spread some fire a little bit. Gives you some utility if you have different types of ordinance (like firing Ion Pulse Missiles at a large ship and flechette torps at a small ship). The cost would be reduced to 1 or you could make it a ship specific title for something like the Bomber for 0 points. The bomber would make the most use of the ordinance.

Lastly, I know TLing is hard on lower PS ships, but that is purposeful with the way pilot skills work in this game. It is MEANT for lower PS ships to have a hard time pulling off ordinance against higher PS ships. But we already have the tools to combat this! Use the upgrades that already exist. Use your squad leader to make this happen. If you are rebel you have an easier time doing this (Cracken with Squad Leader and/or Dutch). You can use Cracken to get a TL after combat has started via his pilot ability and/or use squad leader to get a TL at PS 8. If you give dutch that TL at PS 8 you can have dutch's second TL to another ship at PS 8. Anyway, the point is that we have tools to make this happen. All we need is for ordinance to have that purpose to where we would build around it this way and make the ordinance worth firing off.

I got pretty pissed after the Chardaan Refit fix. FFG pretty much said that the missile slot on all ships is worth 2 points and that's two wasted in nearly all my lists that have ships that can carry them. The bomber really got hosed imo since how stupid is the idea of sending out naked bombers from a utility stand point!

I think the problem can be solved with a low grade missile that suffers from no restrictions that is free so that ships that have the missile slot can actually fully utilize the abilities of the craft. Imagine this, if you will:

Dumbfire Missile [0]

Primary Attack

Attack Value 3

Range: 1-3

The defender is considered one range further away for defense dice purposes.

This would give the two attack dice missile carriers a chance to dish out a three diced attack beyond range 1, and possibly sneak in to get a four attack at close range. It's a primary attack so it doesn't need a TL or a Focus, but it certainly could benefit from it. It's free so it doesn't double dip on A-Wing players and gives Bomber players incentive to field them (since they can carry TWO). The downside would be that firing this from R2 or greater gives your opponent and extra green die, but hey...it's supposed to be an unguided attack.

I think that solves it! ;)

I got pretty pissed after the Chardaan Refit fix. FFG pretty much said that the missile slot on all ships is worth 2 points...

That's not true. The A-wing didn't often use its missile slot, and it also needed to be about 2 points cheaper, and the Chardaan Refit brings those two things together in a way that leaves it able to still take modifications and titles.

That's not even remotely the same as the statement that a missile slot is worth 2 points. Does that mean a naked Scimitar Squadron Pilot should cost 12 points? If Han Solo doesn't take a missile, is he really worth 2 points less? What about Dash Rendar + Outrider + HLC?

Edited by Vorpal Sword

Missiles ignore range modifiers, as do all secondary weapons. Chaardan is also kind of a broken argument. It was primarily a fix to the A's value, not the missile slot, so trying to apply that -2 to other ships doesn't work. A's were primarily overpriced because the designers at the time did not have a good handle on what stats should cost, particularly attack vs agility. The TIE/advanced is the shining example of this.

Also, making new missiles as the fix presents a major problem - to be competitive, they necessarily need to be substantially better than existing missiles. This is power creep and makes it much harder to implement a fix that makes existing ordnance worthwhile.

I do dislike Chaardan in that it basically make all missiles on A's cost 2 more...

I got pretty pissed after the Chardaan Refit fix. FFG pretty much said that the missile slot on all ships is worth 2 points...

That's not true. The A-wing didn't often use its missile slot, and it also needed to be about 2 points cheaper, and the Chardaan Refit brings those two things together in a way that leaves it able to still take modifications and titles.

That's not even remotely the same as the statement that a missile slot is worth 2 points. Does that mean a naked Scimitar Squadron Pilot should cost 12 points? If Han Solo doesn't take a missile, is he really worth 2 points less? What about Dash Rendar + Outrider + HLC?

With ordinance broken, NO ONE uses their missile slot.