I like Deathrain because now I don't have to find the nearest board edge to kill myself.

Cutlass (21)

FCS (2)

Cluster (4)

Concussion (4)

EM (2)

(33)

For 33 points I wonder whether this is better or worse then a Bounty Hunter ...

21pts

still have to pay for system upgrades

less tough than a B-wing

what do you mean, less tough than a b-wing?

it has the same shields and 1 more hull. with the same agility.

the b-wing has twice as many red maneuvers and no inherent boost ability for arc dodging

I think you are mistaken

You must be thinking of the Y-Wing. The B-Wing has 5 Shields to the Punisher's 3. The 6 Hull of the Punisher is going to be a magnet for crits.

If you run a Cutlass with AC and bombs, you can basically ignore almost every crit in the deck.

Blinded Pilot or Weapon Malfunction? AC guarentees you two hit results.

Munitions Failure? Bombs aren't secondary weapons.

Damaged Engine? Half your turns are already red.

Injured Pilot or Damaged Cockpit? You're already a PS2 generic. Damaged Cockpit just makes you a PS0 blocker with Boost.

Minor Hull Breach, Minor Explosion, Direct Hit and Structural Damage are the only ones that really matter. Damaged Sensor Array also hurts for losing Boost, but the AC offsets the loss of focus/TL actions.

21pts

still have to pay for system upgrades

less tough than a B-wing

what do you mean, less tough than a b-wing?

it has the same shields and 1 more hull. with the same agility.

the b-wing has twice as many red maneuvers and no inherent boost ability for arc dodging

I think you are mistaken

You must be thinking of the Y-Wing. The B-Wing has 5 Shields to the Punisher's 3. The 6 Hull of the Punisher is going to be a magnet for crits.

If you run a Cutlass with AC and bombs, you can basically ignore almost every crit in the deck.

Blinded Pilot or Weapon Malfunction? AC guarentees you two hit results.

Munitions Failure? Bombs aren't secondary weapons.

Damaged Engine? Half your turns are already red.

Injured Pilot or Damaged Cockpit? You're already a PS2 generic. Damaged Cockpit just makes you a PS0 blocker with Boost.

Minor Hull Breach, Minor Explosion, Direct Hit and Structural Damage are the only ones that really matter. Damaged Sensor Array also hurts for losing Boost, but the AC offsets the loss of focus/TL actions.

If you run a Cutlass with AC and Bombs you are quite a bit more expensive than a B-Wing so the comparison stops being relevant. The price will vary depending on the bombs you take the Cutlass is going to be around 30 points.

The 4 crits you say matter make up over a third of the crit deck. I don't know that the extra vulnerability to crits makes the Punisher significantly less durable than B-Wings but it certainly isn't more durable.

Real talk: Does Deathrain still clip his own cluster mines when he throws them? Or is the barrel roll enough he can turn away from it?

Real talk: Does Deathrain still clip his own cluster mines when he throws them? Or is the barrel roll enough he can turn away from it?

Judging from the picture the templates for the cluster mines each look roughly about the size of a small base so I used those as stand-ins. With the barrel-roll Deathrain looks like he should get clear on anything but a one forward. He may still get clear with the one forward but we'll need the actual templates to tell for sure.

Real talk: Does Deathrain still clip his own cluster mines when he throws them? Or is the barrel roll enough he can turn away from it?

Judging from the picture the templates for the cluster mines each look roughly about the size of a small base so I used those as stand-ins. With the barrel-roll Deathrain looks like he should get clear on anything but a one forward. He may still get clear with the one forward but we'll need the actual templates to tell for sure.

In the above I was assuming that you would be turning away from the mines. I checked what it would take to turn through the mines as well. I think we're going to need the real templates to tell for sure but both a 2 and 3 bank might make it due to the rounded edges of the real templates.

There is a chance that a 3 turn might make it but I doubt that it will.

The two turn and the 1 bank should definitely hit it.

Remember their round, so I'm going to assume"no".

We've only had the one image with the templates in-scale with the bases; the one in which Deathrain demonstrates Clusters vs a Large Base ship.
Pretty sure we can use that image to determine the rest of it...

I see generic punishers as only really being capable as missile launching platforms, specifically for concussion and cluster. It gives you solid attacks at all range bands, and FCS takes care of the TL issue. I think they will be great when paired with some nasty aces, like Vader, Soontir, or Whisper. Do you target the punisher and let the ace get into the end game unharmed, or kill the ace and take a beating in the process?

Consider a build like this:

Cutlass (21)

FCS (2)

Cluster (4)

Concussion (4)

EM (2)

(33)

Add in 34 point Soontir, and 33 point vader (ATC, Pred)

The punisher does this job way better than the defender or the advanced, IMO.

It doesn't have the FCS but you get about the same thing for 8 points less with a Bomber:

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)

Extra Munitions (2)

Plasma Torpedoes (3)

Cluster Missiles (4)

Total: 25

Ok - it's only 7 points less, I just realized that I used Plasma Torps instead of Concussion Missiles.

That FCS makes a huge difference, though. Turn 1 shoot primaries to establish a lock. Turn 2 Focus for boosted missile shots. Homing missiles, concussions, clusters, they'll all do close to max damage, without support. You can even pull reds or boost and keep the missiles flowing.

That is what I was thinking. If you're not going to put a lot of effort into making ordnance work in your list (passing actions/tokens) then the cutlass with FCS does a great job at being an independent missile platform.

If you are paying the points for action economy for your missiles, or you just want a cheap source of bombs, te bomber is the ship for the job.

Similarly, if you want a fighter that will stand up through extended dogfights, the advanced and the defender will not disappoint.

All said, I love the options that imperial players have now. There are a ton of ships to choose from in the mid 20 to 30 point range that are perfectly viable now.

.img

This maneuver shall forever be known as the Royal Peregrine or more colloquially:

^ or , FALCON SMASH!!!

It would still be nice to have an Imperial ship with a turret upgrade slot. Is there one in the game world?

It would still be nice to have an Imperial ship with a turret upgrade slot. Is there one in the game world?

The Tie Aggressor.

It wouldn't be a 360 turret though, it'd look a little like thehounds tooth arc only reversed with the turret giving a 180 rear.

It wouldn't be a 360 turret though, it'd look a little like thehounds tooth arc only reversed with the turret giving a 180 rear.

Why shouldn't it have a 360° arc for the turret?

On the aggressor the turret only faces rear covering ~180-190 degrees (rather than the 90 degrees of a standard gun), it's not so much a turret as it is a rear gun. In SWG, it was only really an issue when you were behind or to the side of it. Given the setup, calling it a rear arc starfighter would be an injustice to the ship so... 180 rear arc (so flat lines across) 90 degree front arc.

Look at the K-Wing closely. The upper turret is the upgrade turret, as you can see at the artwork of the Twin Laser Turret Upgrade.

Could you shoot at your 6 without blasting your own engines off? Answer: No.

Does the K-Wing have a 180° restriction for the turret upgrade? Answer: No. Reason: Because.

Should the Tie Aggressor have arc restrictions for the turret upgrade? Answer: No. Reason: Because of the same reasons.

the K can shoot 360 because the game is supposed to be simulating a 3d environment even though it technically takes place in 2d (no height to worry about), which I think may have been inspired by WW2 low flying bombers and their only real defense against fighters (apart from escorting fighters)

I have no clue what the aggressor does

but, if you want a "reason," you just need to cite the golden rule

gameplay >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> fluff

of course that's just the argument for a 2ndary turret slot with a primary armament (ala y-wing). we really don't need more pwts

the K can shoot 360 because the game is supposed to be simulating a 3d environment even though it technically takes place in 2d (no height to worry about)

I have no clue what the aggressor does

but, if you want a "reason," you just need to cite the golden rule

gameplay >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> fluff

Right. And thats the reason why the Empire should get access to a small based ship with turret upgrade and no fire arc restrictions for the turret upgrade.

And the best of all: FFG don't even had to invent one. It is right there. Waiting to be printed.

That's a fair argument. But doesn't that lower turret ball give a 360 degree, factoring an uneven combat plane? (that is, at least in this case to say that it could shoot a fighter flying at 12-11 low, but not high/even - just like a Y-wing can fire 360 at any ship 12-11 high.

I don't recall the aggressor's turret ever firing past around the ~180 line. Granted, for the sake of the 60 odd degrees missing from the front you may as well call it a day and call it a turret.

Yes. In SWG this was made for balancing reasons obviously. So you can't shoot with primary and turret at the same target in front of you.

If you could make a turret attack in addition to the primary, a restriction to the back arc would be cool as well.

So kinda similar to the Y-Wing title but with the turret fixed to the back arc.

This would even encourage a different style of play. Now you want to be right between enemy ships to be effective and tight formations would prevent this ...

I think this could be interesting.

That would be the ideal. I guess largely I always felt this ship was a front/rear gunner ship compared to the Y-wing where you only had the top and level plane but could fire 360, the difference was that the rear gun didn't have a rear arc. It's position on the ship model itself though makes it look like it should be very much a rear weapon.

SWG Balanced in a different direction than how you would think though by letting a 2nd player gun. I vaguely recall that it was a droidbrain doing the shooting, looking at the model again there isn't much room for a gunner.