Yeah it's a real shame that it melts the shield after its regular damage has been dealt rather than before where it would be much better (relatively).

I thought that FFG had learnt that munitions that require you to spend your lock to fire them (rather than just having one aka homing missiles) just don’t cut it, this would have to cost 2 or less to justify thinking about running it, I fear this will just be another wasted opportunity to have some competitive single use ordnance next to the infrequently used Proton Rockets. I imagine this will go into my box of “unused missiles and torpedoes” along with my considerable stack of proton torpedoes and pretty much all other single use munitions.

Fingers crossed that the Advanced Homing Missiles are actually competitively viable.

Well I understand why FFG doesn't want to remove that trait as it would just make the new torpedoes and missile secondary weapons good and no one would ever take the original ones and bring more into the inevitable power creep.

But yeah this upgrade is horrible. Against the fat Hans you will need at least 3 hits. The decimator really only has 4 shields so an HLC can do just as well as a Plasma torpedo. It is only that good against ships with 5 shields or more as it's effect only hits if there are any shield tokens remaining. Since a lot of Imperial ships have no shields and most of scum only has 1 shield this upgrade will be rather useless.

I really do expect a Torpedo fix sometime in next wave. Maybe a Missile fix but that could be asking too much. Some missiles work, most don't in my experience. If torpedoes sand missiles worked well they would turn the meta on its head.

But then again there are only 2 blanks on a dice, so chuck em and hope. If you can live with shooting some blanks Plasma Torp plus Glitterstim on Scum ships is reasonable, e.g. 25 pts for a PS2 Khiraxz.

The Special K is fitted with a Missile/Rocket slot, not a Proton slot.

my fingers are crossed that FFG trolls us with a 5th week of previews on the new rules for missiles and torps, because they obviously know theyre overcosted and decided to make these new ones in the same costing line. Plasmas are not really much better than Conc Missile. And you know THOSE are overcosted.

Therefore, I think there are new ordnance rules inc. And if they're not and I guessed wrong I will be VERY UNHAPPY. Not slightly. Very.

Yeah it's a real shame that it melts the shield after its regular damage has been dealt rather than before where it would be much better (relatively).

I thought that FFG had learnt that munitions that require you to spend your lock to fire them (rather than just having one aka homing missiles) just don’t cut it, this would have to cost 2 or less to justify thinking about running it, I fear this will just be another wasted opportunity to have some competitive single use ordnance next to the infrequently used Proton Rockets. I imagine this will go into my box of “unused missiles and torpedoes” along with my considerable stack of proton torpedoes and pretty much all other single use munitions.

Fingers crossed that the Advanced Homing Missiles are actually competitively viable.

Well I understand why FFG doesn't want to remove that trait as it would just make the new torpedoes and missile secondary weapons good and no one would ever take the original ones and bring more into the inevitable power creep.

But yeah this upgrade is horrible. Against the fat Hans you will need at least 3 hits. The decimator really only has 4 shields so an HLC can do just as well as a Plasma torpedo. It is only that good against ships with 5 shields or more as it's effect only hits if there are any shield tokens remaining. Since a lot of Imperial ships have no shields and most of scum only has 1 shield this upgrade will be rather useless.

I disagree. The beauty with this ordnance is that it fits well into the game as it currently is. For only 3 points, it can give a Gold Squad Pilot something to make any ship on a large base sweat. With only 8 health, an IG will cry if this attack strips an extra shield. How often do you get Fat Han into hull in the first, or even second round of combat? Probably not that often. C3PO, Evade, and other tricks that ship can pull will be used up before this torpedo hits, and when it does hit, I'm sure it will make the Fat Han player cringe.

I really like that they priced this at 3 points. The Proton Torpedo still has native dice modification for one point more. Yes, this torpedo will take work to fire. You will need a focus token and/or Munitions Failsafe to make sure they do their job.

The bottom line? Depending on the list, I would gladly pay 3 points to double the attack value of my Y wing, Bomber, K Wing, or Punisher. It is less appealing on ships with native attack of 3, but any ship with a FCS solves half of the problem with torpedoes instantly. These torpedoes, like every other piece of ordnance, require planning and synergy to work.

For the price of a proton torpedo, you can have a plasma torp and a munition failsafe.

What's that, Han/Corran/Dash? youre going to dodge the unmodified attack completely? Sure, I'll just try again next round. Chance your mind, decided to take 1 hit to blow my weapon? make it 2, because you stiill have shields.

Oh its 3 points not 4? I must have read that wrong. That's priced much more competitively. (Wow, by one point lol. I'm not even sure I believe myself.)

IPMs laugh at these pathetic imitations of ordnance.

Horton Salm might be interested in using these.

Honestly FFG totally missed the ball with making good ordnance for killing large based ships. That relaly should be what theyre for. They made a bunch of things against swarms, and against arc dodgers and nothing really good against large based ships. Its really honestly gosh darn stupid and sad. I am laying on all the butt hurt. bad design is a terrible sin, right next to lust and vanity.

I realise that fat turrets are The Great Satan, but I kind of feel that where ordnance is concerned we should be careful what we wish for. Much as PWTs don't really fit in my personal idealised version of the game in their current form, I think it'd be very easy for X-Wing to become a game of Who Gets Their Ordnance Away First if some of the suggested "fixes" on this forum were implemented.

If I wanted to play a game about finding optimal firing solutions for missiles, I'd dig my (oh Christ is it really) nigh-30-year-old copy of Air Superiority out of the back of the cupboard. That doesn't feel right for Star Wars' WW2-dogfight-inspired combat, though. I agree that missiles and torps could do with being a hair more effective but I totally understand FFG taking a softly-softly approach with regard to improving the performance of ordnance.

tl;dr - I'd rather ordnance be a bit too weak than a bit too strong.

I realise that fat turrets are The Great Satan, but I kind of feel that where ordnance is concerned we should be careful what we wish for. Much as PWTs don't really fit in my personal idealised version of the game in their current form, I think it'd be very easy for X-Wing to become a game of Who Gets Their Ordnance Away First if some of the suggested "fixes" on this forum were implemented.If I wanted to play a game about finding optimal firing solutions for missiles, I'd dig my (oh Christ is it really) nigh-30-year-old copy of Air Superiority out of the back of the cupboard. That doesn't feel right for Star Wars' WW2-dogfight-inspired combat, though. I agree that missiles and torps could do with being a hair more effective but I totally understand FFG taking a softly-softly approach with regard to improving the performance of ordnance.tl;dr - I'd rather ordnance be a bit too weak than a bit too strong.

Actually, I'm in full agreement here. Only in the old games and specific novels were missiles and bombs used as weapons against smaller ships. Thematically, and in most books, munitions were reserved for real big targets like capital ships. I'd much rather have a system where the most common battles take place without munitions and that the few times you see them it's in a well designed synergistic force.

FIX TORPEDOES PLEASE.

They really do need a "Fix".

Torpedoes suck that's a fact.

Munitions in general do, outside of specific builds (Like the Bandits+Cracken squad that took 2nd in the recent Regionals). The exceptions tend to be Flechette Torpedos, Proton Rockets, Ion Pulse Missiles.

Notice that of these weapons, two keep their attack token to modify the attack when firing, and the other one doesn't need to hit at all.

Simply put: I'm quietly hoping this wave of munitions is intended to help get the bomb carriers back in the game - prior to a FAQ-style fix where they change Attack(Target Lock) and Attack(Focus) headers to automatically include modification by the token they require.

So Attack(Focus) gives you a focused attack (spending the token or otherwise), Attack(Target Lock) means the dice are getting rerolled, and Homing Missiles... well, they get a rerolled shot without losing the lock to start with. Handy for letting you follow up with another attack next round.

Buffs Blaster Turrets in the new era of Twin Laser Turrets, too.

This is like the best idea I've ever read in these forums. It would make existing torpedoes to be usable and make Deadeye useful again.

Taking that Focus and possibly shoot some torpedoes to enemy's face while still having that focus effect to modify dice. I like it.

Wouldn't be that hard to implement it either. Simple FAQ fix would do it.

Now FFG, all you have to do is to do some FAQ changes and ordnance is fixed.

I'd much rather have a system where the most common battles take place without munitions and that the few times you see them it's in a well designed synergistic force.

Yeah that's pretty much where I'm coming from, and to be honest it doesn't feel like we're that far away from it. Stuff like the Thunderstruck list (4xTempest, title, AC, Clusters) feels like it could be A Thing. Redline is basically the best ordnance platform we've seen in the game yet. If we can get to the point where ordnance is viable on ships / in lists that are designed around it, I'll be happy. I'm honestly not sure I want Proton Torps to be great on every ship with a Torpedo slot.

Actually, I'm in full agreement here. Only in the old games and specific novels were missiles and bombs used as weapons against smaller ships. Thematically, and in most books, munitions were reserved for real big targets like capital ships. I'd much rather have a system where the most common battles take place without munitions and that the few times you see them it's in a well designed synergistic force.

I realise that fat turrets are The Great Satan, but I kind of feel that where ordnance is concerned we should be careful what we wish for. Much as PWTs don't really fit in my personal idealised version of the game in their current form, I think it'd be very easy for X-Wing to become a game of Who Gets Their Ordnance Away First if some of the suggested "fixes" on this forum were implemented.

I agree. We complain about turrets detracting from the main attractive of this game, dogfighting. But effective ordnance would be even worse.

Torpedoes should be effective against capital ships (Raider, GR-75 and CR-90, in this game). Missiles against the least agile fighters and freighters, that come with lots of hull and lots of shields.

Have you ever played a match with house rules where ordnance doesn't discard focus or target lock tokens, and can be "reloaded" by spending an action? The consequence is that most of the time, it becomes an exchange of torpedoes and missiles, and you only use your laser cannons when your missiles are reloading and don't have the required focus or target lock to shoot them this round.

It is not really a better experience.

FGG could come up with some special rule to encourage equipping them for free. In the same way that a Huge Ship starts the match full with energy, a small or large ship starts the match equipping one Proton Torpedo or Concussion Missile at no cost. Just for fluff. We would see that even in this case, because of the action economy, they would only be shot when there is nothing better to shoot with.

As it stands, plasma torps look like they'd only be useful for Redline with his/her double TL for dice modification.

Unless FFG do something really crazy and unlikely with erratta - i.e. torps punch through shields to directly damage ship hulls down to a minimum value of 1 Hull if any shields remain.

But that would be crazy broken.

Yeah, a couple TIE bombers with 2 of these in an epic game would be good corvette hunters.

I don't really like such specialized cards. They bring a general problem. VS some targets they are viable or maybe in some cases even too strong (generally spoken, not only in case of the plasma torpedoes) whereas vs some squads they are just dead points in your list.

So spending those 3 points on a one time attack is pretty much a bet on your enemy squad. X-Wing already has a lot squad faceoffs where one side has a big advantage and this only adds to the possibility of getting such a game.

I was bored, I had insomnia, I think way too much about X-wing. So I decided to actually look at all of the ships in the game up to wave 7 and see how well plasma torps will do against them, divided into broad categories:

Bad Targets: Tie fighter, Interceptor, Tie Bomber, Starviper, Khiraxz, HWK, Scyk, X-wing

They have no shields or only one shield. They usually have decent agility. You essentially have a 4 dice attack without special modifiers that the other ordinance gives you, but for one point cheaper. Most of these ships are still fairly fragile however, and so taking a range 3 no-extra-green-dice shot could still be a decent use of points if you have no other target. X-wing is here because it doesn't seem to do much worse against this four dice attack versus the others, but it's still not a good place to be for the venerable craft.

High agility targets: A-wing, E-wing, Advanced, Defender, cloaked Phantom

Not great because your opponent will have a lot of agility to eat hits, but four attack dice against such fragile targets is nothing to laugh at either. It stands a decent chance of taking all shields off against all of these ships. One hit against a two shield target will still take both, so really you only need one hit to make your opponent sweat about the state of their Phantom, A-wing, or Advanced. Defenders will hate this weapon if their green dice give up even a bit, which we know they will because they hate Defenders. Could serve as a good one-two punch to take out Corran in one turn, but without followup R2-D2 can negate your attack.

Solid Targets: Y-wing, Z-95, uncloaked Phantom, Tie Punisher

A bit of a catch all for the rest of the small ships that don't have tons of shields. Still a good shot against these relatively low-agility ships; it has a not-impossible chance of blowing up a Phantom or Z-95 in one shot. Should fully strip off the shields of a Y-wing barring horrible rolls on the attacker's part. Punisher goes here since it only has three shields, so is a lot like the Y-wing with a healthy amount of hull to chew through afterwards.

High-agility large ships: Super Falcon, Outrider, Firespray, Aggressor

Now we're getting to the fun stuff. These are targets that have a whole passel of shields and either evade tokens or a decent number of agility dice. If however they take a solid hit from plasma torps they are going to be hurting. All of them barring the Super Falcon have the possibility of losing all of their shields to this one attack. On a ship that will almost undoubtedly make up half their squad points. This possibility can and should terrify your opponent, and you can use this to your advantage for area denial. Just be sure to have a focus token when you fire, because all of these ships have the potential to put up 2-4 evade results.

Shielded low-agility ships: B-wing, K-wing, Shuttle, Decimator, YV-666

It's gonna destroy the B-wing. Five shields with only one agility to stop the shot means B-wings are in serious trouble if they go up against plasma torps. It has a good chance of completely stripping a B-wing's shields. It might be too good against expensive named B-wing pilots. It will be fantastic at taking out B-wing swarms. K-wing is in much the same position as the B-wing, but has one less shield and five hull to eat through afterwards. Still makes a fantastic target for the card it comes with.

The large ships are in much the same straights as the small ones. The shuttle can lose fully half its health to this one attack, perfect for reducing the usability of doom shuttles. The YV-666 will likely lose at least half its starting shields even to a poorly rolled attack, potentially losing almost all of them with good rolls. In comparison to these, losing all starting shields on a Decimator is comparatively tame, but it's a nice way to keep Isard or Kenkirk off for one turn by making sure you don't go over into the hull unless you want to.

Epic ships have no defense against this weapon. Eat up all your opponent's energy on recovery actions instead of firing their weapons and abilities at you.

My conclusions are that people aren't giving this card enough of a fare shake. For three points it has the potential to seriously ruin your opponent's day. You often times only need one good attack to change the course of a game, and boy does this ordinance deliver on that front. It turns even a mediocre one or two hit result into more damage than most weapons do. I think this is what FFG is considering as their answer to fat turrets. It's not without its counters, or ships it just isn't that good against, but it's also the cheapest four dice attack in the game now. It is clearly an opening salvo weapon, and it is going to need to be supported in some way.

It's not bad. The things worth noting:

• It's probably not worth taking too many multiples of the plasma torpedo. If long-range ordnance is to really make a difference, then it needs to help you cripple or punch out ships in the opening pass, but generally, one plasma torpedo per target is probably enough, since once the shields go down, it loses its bonus damage. Since you want to concentrate fire, that probably means you only want one or two in the squad, tops.
• It really has three targets worth mentioning: the VT-49 decimator, the B-wing and the Shuttle. Shuttles aren't prevalent or lethal enough to be worth trying to kill in an alpha strike (although Emperor Palpatine may change this), but B-wings and VT-49s are common enough to justify putting a 3-point upgrade into an empty torpedo slot somewhere. Dedicated bombers are one thing but enough rebel fighters have torp slots that putting a spare torpedo in without having to explicitely buy a ship for the purpose isn't difficult, although admittedly you get more value for money on 2-attack bombers.
• More than anything, I'd suspect that this really punishes squads built on 4 or more B-wings, which turn up as a common list these days as turret-killers.
• The 'big ship' killer item in the preview - as far as I'm concerned - is the Conner Net. Packed onto Scimitar Squadron Pilots, they can really mess up falcons that depend on tokens for defence (I keep seeing Jan Ors/Recon Specialist/Falcon Title YTs near us, for example).

Off topic:

You're not THE Magnus Grendel are you? Dark Heresy PCthat was canonized?(literally added to 40K canon, and probably canonized as in sainted).

Edit: Oh no, wait that was Castus Grendel.

Anyway, since I typically play story mode imps vs rebs, my bombers will be rocking plasmas for epic. Chiefly as counters for B-wings and the Corvette/GR75. For Max effect though these should be on higher PS pilots, cause you want shields stripped before your manglers and heavy lasers get to work.

WOW....a lot of Proton Torpedo hate. I'm surprised.

I do want to point out a flaw in the logic that you are using to dismiss this new weapon. You say that you have to have action of economy to get the most hits out of it, but you are also saying that there aren't that many targets that have high shields to really take advantage of the extra splash damage. I see this as negating each other. This is a weapon you can fire at an X-wing, Z-95, or such without the extra modifier. As long as you get one hit in, you get the extra damage. What's the average of 4 red dice with no modifiers? What's the average evade on 2 dice? 3 dice? You only need to get one through to do the extra damage. That's great!

The idea of using these with Jonus is probably not the best. Concussion Missiles will still do better damage than Plasma Torpedoes. I don't see this as a Tie Bomber weapon. Who is it good for? Rebels. Look at all the Rebel ships with Torpedo slots. So...let's focus on Rebel synergy.

How many ways are there for the Rebels to pass around a Focus token to make things better? Garven Dreis is a good option. Kyle Katarn can dish one out to R3 every turn. What about giving out a free Target Lock? I can think of Dutch really fast. Free actions from Cracken for cheap. What about Squad Leader? PTL? There are a lot more ways to dish out the bonus than with the Imperials. There are a lot more ships that can carry the Plasma Torpedo, as well.

Four red dice for three points is not bad. Even if you forget the whole extra damage thing, it's a weapon you can fire at R3 without giving them a range bonus and does 4 red dice. We have talked about ways to ensure you get modified damage, but even if you fire at shieldless targets, you can still do a lot of damage! You can one shot a Tie Fighter with this thing easier than your main guns at R3. I have taken Flechette Torpedoes for the stress it gives you, but do you know how many times I'm surprised that at the damage it actually does? It still rolls 3 red dice. Four red dice is not bad at all.

I disagree that you need to shoot with a high PS pilot to get your effect out. Everyone loves to point to Fat Han and his stack of tokens. Well, let someone else shoot first, and then fire your Plasma Torpedo. The stack only works on one attack.

Horton Salm is going to love this Torpedo. Give him one and Extra Munitions for 5 pts! You want a way to give him Focus, too? Well, look above. You can give him R2-D6 and PTL. You can use Kyle. You can use Cracken. You can use Dutch. If he gets a Focus as well as re-rolling all blanks, what are his odds for number of hits? It's crazy. At this point, who cares if he blasts all the enemy shields away? He's doing a ton of damage! You want to make it even crazier? Throw Jan Ors into your list with Squad Leader. She can giver her action to Horton so he gets his Focus and she can bump his attack dice up to 5! So....5 dice with a Focus and he can re-roll all blanks?

I can almost see Proton Torpedoes being used more in combonation with Plasma Torpedoes. The Plasma Torp shoots first and blasts the shields. You give your free action to that guy. The Proton Torpedo shoots next. OK...if you roll 1 eyeball, you get to turn it into a crit! Their shields are down. Why not? The Proton Torpedo needs less action economy than the Plasma to do extra damage.

I see this weapon as a boost to the X-wing. I would be happy to take an X-wing w/ Plasma Torpedo vs. B-wing any day. The X-wing can use this weapon and isn't as susceptable to it as the B-wing. Also, I see it as a boost to Y-wings. Overall, this whole K-wing expansion is a boost to Y-wings. New turrets, torpedoes, and bombs!

X-wings are now actually on my mind and I'm in the mood to fly them just to see how "useless" they are these days. Well...at least until I can get my hands on the Tie Advanced.

Is the Plasma Torpedo a total fix for ordnance? No. Is it an improvement vs. what we have already? Hells yes!

Horton Salm is going to love this Torpedo. Give him one and Extra Munitions for 5 pts! You want a way to give him Focus, too? Well, look above. You can give him R2-D6 and PTL.

Horton Hears A Boom.

Horton Hears a Boom

Horton Salm w/ Plasma Torp, EM

Jan Ors w/ Squad Leader, Twin Laser Turret, and Nien Nunb

3 x Z-95's

or 2 Rookie Pilots

Jan can give her free action and boost Horton's attack. Or....she can do the same for any of the Z-95's. Even if you kill off Horton, you start giving Z-95's 3 dice with TL and Focus and you will see damage. Kill one Z? Oh, boost the next. Want to take out Jan first? Well, eat a lot of shots while doing it.

imo, they're still just incredibly underwhelming

if they were unlimited I could see them hitting the table, maybe even protons to a lesser extent

but firing unmodified without some janky support is just begging for the dice to screw you out of 3 points. FFG was on a roll with ordinance that didn't spend the target-lock (ion pulse and prockets, which didn't even need TL!) but sadly it seems torps did not get the memo

you could fly an incredibly janky Deadeye Nera w/Recon, FCS, Plasma and munis for 38 points. Basically, a sh*tty miniature outrider. At that point, though, you might as well go up to Protons for 1 point more, ditch the 4 points of recon, and get similar dice modds for a 3 point discount.