So on and on we all ramble about the ineffectiveness of ordinance. Deadeye and munitions failsafe exist to help in that area but neither are useful after torpedoes are away-so it's even more points spent on an already inefficient weapon.

Sometimes we'll look at Airen Cracken or Lando or Squad Leader to get extra actions so we can fire effectively. But again, you're spending points on synergies to make one thing happen and when it does, those synergies are less important.

But it occurred to me today that the K-4 droid is a great delivery system. It isn't an action, so you can still spend your action to focus and deliver a very reliable punch. It still offers a reliable action economy after the munitions are spent too.

I've also recently become obsessed with firesprays in general and it works excellently on them.

Frankly, all of the named pilots have better things to do than waste their time dabbling with missiles and torps but a mando merc is a clean slate. He's got no pilot ability encouraging to spend his points to go down one path or another.

So here's what I came up with:

44: Mandolorian Mercenary w/ K4 droid, Calculation, Slave 1, Ion Torps

14: Binayre Pilot w/ Feedback array (x4)

Total: 100

I went with Ion torpedo's because they're kind of a jack all trades. If I'm facing a swarm, they better scatter. If I'm facing big ships, 4 dice with calculation hits like an HLC and stings like a mangler. If I'm facing arc-dodgers, feedbacks and and auxiliary can limit their movements.

Anyway, I can't be the only person thinking of this use for K4 droid. Anyone else have ideas?

actually never thought of it. but good idea. i wish it was an assault missile for some wonderful damage though.

also, ive been really disappointed with ion torpedoes damage due to it eating up the TL for firing, if it was TL F 4dice, itd be much better.

Yeah the exact ordinance doesn't particularly matter. I landed on ions because the list as a whole can zzap arc-dodgers, ion swarms, and pound big ships.

You could easily swap it out for concussions for a near-perfect hit percentage or protons for a double crit thrashing. Use the extra point for dampeners or even munition failsafes if the dice gods douse you with excrament.

I was thinking along exactly the same lines yesterday funnily enough.

I was thinking Predator for rerolls on top of K4 so I could even bump and miss my perform action step but still get a modified missile or torp away provided I take a green maneuver.

Yeah I looked at Predator too (starring Danny Glover) but it just had too much overlap with K4 to feel right to me. Red dice re-rolls atop red dice-rerolls. It does open the dial up a bit but that's 6 points on re-rolls. I dunno. It's great for the turn when you're nuking but after...?

Unfortunately, the problem now is that you start to wonder why you're running the torpedo and not a cannon. The cannon can be used multiple times, doesn't consume the Target Lock to fire, and will be comparable in cost if not cheaper.

Honestly, any ordnance with the "spend your target lock" clause is beyond saving. It doesn't matter how easy you make it to get that Target Lock; not being able to use it on your attack dice is crippling

I totally agree Dr4co. I'm not an ordnance fan by any stretch. Don't think I've included it since my buddy demoed the game for me back when it was first released.

This isn't so much a "hey, look how great ordnance is!" thread so much as "hey, it's not so bad if you do this.. "

There are approximately a million threads on how to fix it, but I wanted to figure out a way to make it useable with what we have available. Most other avenues have already been explored but the K4 hasn't been mentioned in this conversation that I've seen. I wanted to create that dialogue.

Yeah I looked at Predator too (starring Danny Glover) but it just had too much overlap with K4 to feel right to me. Red dice re-rolls atop red dice-rerolls. It does open the dial up a bit but that's 6 points on re-rolls. I dunno. It's great for the turn when you're nuking but after...?

I know what you mean - kind of like putting pred on Han - then again if you're running this on a PS5 mando there will be plenty of occasions where you won't be able to acquire a TL on a higher PS ship, you might only need a 1-2 dice reroll, or you might want to change your target priority after you have gained the TL. So Pred offers some flexibility that a TL doesn't

K4 is a great crew card but it's situational I doubt you'll ever get a game where you do nothing but greens.

As for torps even with TL and focus its a one shot but a cannon keeps earning its points back turn after turn, I'd go HLC with k4 on Kath that way your doing four attacks front and back which is just awesome.

K4 is a great crew card but it's situational I doubt you'll ever get a game where you do nothing but greens.

As for torps even with TL and focus its a one shot but a cannon keeps earning its points back turn after turn, I'd go HLC with k4 on Kath that way your doing four attacks front and back which is just awesome.

Actually it's not too hard to do - but you really want to be running EH or EU on top to mitigate the maneuvering restrictions.

in terms of whether a cannon is a better choice overall, I'll refer you to what the OP said:

This isn't so much a "hey, look how great ordnance is!" thread so much as "hey, it's not so bad if you do this.. "

Unfortunately, the problem now is that you start to wonder why you're running the torpedo and not a cannon. The cannon can be used multiple times, doesn't consume the Target Lock to fire, and will be comparable in cost if not cheaper.

Honestly, any ordnance with the "spend your target lock" clause is beyond saving. It doesn't matter how easy you make it to get that Target Lock; not being able to use it on your attack dice is crippling

A caveat:

I've been running Concussion Missile on Vader, and thus far it's been more or less worth it (even sunk the extra point i had kicking around for the Failsafe in case of a total whiff).

The double action means you'll be able to convert your eyeballs, and the missile's ability to change a blank face into a hit straight-up is almost as good as the re-rolls you're missing.

(Granted, it's a bit of a special case)

K4 is a great crew card but it's situational I doubt you'll ever get a game where you do nothing but greens.

As for torps even with TL and focus its a one shot but a cannon keeps earning its points back turn after turn, I'd go HLC with k4 on Kath that way your doing four attacks front and back which is just awesome.

Have you tried K4? It's great! Sure you can't use it every turn but I use it a lot of the turns. I've been flying mandolorian with expert handling and K4 pretty regularly and I'm constantly satisfied with it.

While I like k-4 and it would assist in firing ordnance no doubt, I doubt that it makes ordnance "worth it".

Particularly when you spend your ordnance with a TL, even if you added a focus, enabled from k-4, you are replacing a cannon or primary attack that would have had TL + focus. I think your list posted at the top would be more successful if you took 2 points from elsewhere and put HLC on that same mercenary instead of the ion torpedoes. Or put those points into Kath Scarlet. Or virtually anything else that can pay off its points better than a single shot from ordnance.

Fundamentally, the single shot you get from a piece of ordnance currently is almost always priced higher than what the [additional] damage results may be, before even considering the added difficulty of range/action issues. I think a counterexample would be the range 1 proton rockets, where 3 points is a great deal for how much it can change damage potential, even for just a single attack, but still is rare to see competitively due to how few ships it is suited for and the difficulty of getting the perfect opportunity to use them.

I've also recently become obsessed with firesprays in general and it works excellently on them.

Frankly, all of the named pilots have better things to do than waste their time dabbling with missiles and torps but a mando merc is a clean slate. He's got no pilot ability encouraging to spend his points to go down one path or another.

Have you thought about Boba Fett and Cluster Missiles? They only fire at R1-2 and his ability kicks in for enemy at R1. Each enemy lets you re-roll one die...per missile. If you happen to have 3 enemy in R1 when you fire, you can roll 3 dice twice, and re-roll them all if you want. Most likely you will only have 1 or 2 enemy at R1 and only get to rer-roll 1-2 dice....only.

Unfortunately, the problem now is that you start to wonder why you're running the torpedo and not a cannon. The cannon can be used multiple times, doesn't consume the Target Lock to fire, and will be comparable in cost if not cheaper.

Honestly, any ordnance with the "spend your target lock" clause is beyond saving. It doesn't matter how easy you make it to get that Target Lock; not being able to use it on your attack dice is crippling

A caveat:

I've been running Concussion Missile on Vader, and thus far it's been more or less worth it (even sunk the extra point i had kicking around for the Failsafe in case of a total whiff).

The double action means you'll be able to convert your eyeballs, and the missile's ability to change a blank face into a hit straight-up is almost as good as the re-rolls you're missing.

(Granted, it's a bit of a special case)

It's worth noting that Vader can bring neither a cannon nor K4 Security droid. Ordinance also feels better on Vader than other ships because of Vader's natural 2 actions.

The only ship that can bring ordinance and the K4 droid is the scum Firepsray. You'll be paying at least 7 points for the crew and the missile, so you're better off just bringing an HLC that doesn't go away after the first attack. Even though you get to keep K4, only triggering off of green moves means you're going to get limited use out of that upgrade on a Firespray without an Engine Upgrade.

If I wanted to make Ordinance good on a Firespray, I'd go with Deadeye and Recon Spec on a Mandal Merc with Concussion Missiles and maybe Adv Proton Torps, although then your pushing into 50 points.

The biggest problem with Ordinance is that they are one-use only, You are sinking 3+ points into a single attack that could completely whiff. Then you have to put more points in to make them more reliable, and you realize your spending 5+ points on a single attack that isn't much better then your normal attack.

Yes, but Boba w/ Cluster Missiles has the decent possibility of doing 6 damage in a turn for only 4 pts.

I think warheads on a Firespray are one of the more acceptable uses of Ordnance. You end up fighting from the back arc, or at range 1 a lot, so HLC is less of a pure win. A single missile or torp is something you can use on an opening round of fire to get some front loaded damage, or to spike damage on a high AGI target that would be tough to damage at long range. It would save you 3 points over an HLC with some overlap in capability, or leaving the cannon option free for a control cannon (for whatever you decide that's worth). I guess I'm not prepared to say Proton Torpedo + Ion Cannon is not strictly worse than HLC on a Firespray. It's just not a ship that's firing its cannon every turn like a B-wing, TIE Defender, or IG2000.

I think warheads on a Firespray are one of the more acceptable uses of Ordnance. You end up fighting from the back arc, or at range 1 a lot, so HLC is less of a pure win. A single missile or torp is something you can use on an opening round of fire to get some front loaded damage, or to spike damage on a high AGI target that would be tough to damage at long range. It would save you 3 points over an HLC with some overlap in capability, or leaving the cannon option free for a control cannon (for whatever you decide that's worth). I guess I'm not prepared to say Proton Torpedo + Ion Cannon is not strictly worse than HLC on a Firespray. It's just not a ship that's firing its cannon every turn like a B-wing, TIE Defender, or IG2000.

Great point here - I run Recon on Boba quite a lot so the double focus and rerolls would work great with a cluster missile for a nice opening 1-2 punch.

Deadeye + R4 Agromech = ordinance with free Target Lock for your Y-Wings.

Or at least for Kavil.

I recently toyed around with the idea of Guri with Deadeye and an Advanced Proton Torp. Get a lock at range that you don't spend, then close in. Get to range one of your target, take a focus action, and her ability lets her gain a second focus token.

Then you fire with Deadeye, re-roll with TL if needed (though with APT...), use your second Focus to modify all the eyes to hits.

Really, thinking about it, the TL isn't super needed as the odds of rolling four or five blanks is pretty tiny. Nice insurance if you can manage it.

Still, that becomes seven points for one attack. Then again, it's an attack that will almost certainly lay on some solid damage. Or maybe it's a PTL Soontir Fel with a Stealth Device and you still whiff, or deal one measly damage. The more I hear of the idea to change it to "you take all damage unless completely evaded" the more I like it.

At least a lot of the missiles have some utility/situational usefulness... but why on earth would I ever give a Concussion missile to a Firespray when I can give it a Mangler instead? Under what situation does one actually add a missile or torpedo slot to the Scyk with the title?

I will say that I like the idea of a Deadeye Y with dual Flechettes as a possible hard counter to PTL shenanigans. "What's that, Baron Fel? You have an Evade and two Foci? Grey Squadron Pilot with EPT droid don't give a crap! Double stress now, bwahahahaha! Good luck evading anything next turn!"

Deadeye + R4 Agromech = ordinance with free Target Lock for your Y-Wings.

The problem being there's a total of four Ys that can take Deadeye, three of which have to use their Astromech slot to do so, and the fourth's ability doesn't synergize at all with ordinance (though I guess you could give Kavil some cheap, 2-3 range torps if he's using ABT. But if you're using ABT, you probably want Unhinged and not Agromech...

Still, I love toying with a single Grey Squadron Pilot with Deadeye riding alongside Dutch for a similar effect. Grab a focus with your action, then have Dutch pass you a TL much later in the movement phase to whoever you'll ultimately shoot at.

I realized after I posted that elite slots on Y-Wings were rarer than hen's teeth. Hence the edit. I then tried to do exactly what you suggested with Dutch and Horton, but then got lazy and distracted by a shiny object.

I totally agree Dr4co. I'm not an ordnance fan by any stretch. Don't think I've included it since my buddy demoed the game for me back when it was first released.

This isn't so much a "hey, look how great ordnance is!" thread so much as "hey, it's not so bad if you do this.. "

There are approximately a million threads on how to fix it, but I wanted to figure out a way to make it useable with what we have available. Most other avenues have already been explored but the K4 hasn't been mentioned in this conversation that I've seen. I wanted to create that dialogue.

There are a lot of things that are "not so bad" but in the competitive scene where everything has been min/maxed out through statistics ordnance falls short. So people won't play it. Sure there are some competitive lists out there (such as Buzzsaw shuttles) but they don't live up to World's winning Fat Han and World's contending Whisper ACD.

Same thing for many games that have a popular competitive scene. Players see what wins and copy that exact style. Hearthstone is a great example. Priest has a good combination with lightwell and inner fire. But someone found out that Zoo Warlock and Face hunter were better so you see all of those in play. New stuff comes out and MechMage is now the all the Rage for all those that climbed the Ladder to rank 1. The Lightwell is still stronger than most other thematic, gimmick or home-brewed decks out ther. But it is not as good as the current meta leaders.