Link: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/7/24/wave-vii-imperials/

/Like FFG moderators, they know why

Issue corrected in the article. Nothing to see here.

Still no mention of the Advanced Homing Missiles.

Looks like I'll be picking one of these up ASAP. I love the idea behind bombs but needed a ship like Deathrain to make them more viable.

Not Doug's mistake, but whomever designed those graphics made an error. The Punisher does a k-turn, then Doug says it performs a green maneuver and then deploys it's bomb forward. The maneuver it performs is a 2 bank, which is white on the Punisher.

Probably supposed to have Twin Ion Engines Mk. 2.

Still no mention of the Advanced Homing Missiles.

I don't think we had the Black Eight Squadron, though.

Yeah black eight squadron should be new

How do the Punishers barrel roll? They don't have that action.

Edit- I'm silly, it's Deathrain's pilot ability.

My impression:

Still gonna use Bombers for ordnance.

Still gonna use TIE Advanced for my Imperial Sensor Shenanigans

Definitely liking its new upgrades
Deathrain is going to be powerful, though.

The dial, with boost, is very interesting indeed.

1 Bank, Forward (all Green)
2 Turn, Bank, Forward (Red, White, and Green respectively)
3 Turn, Bank, Forward (all White)

4 Koiogran (Red)

Strictly worse than the Bomber's dial, but with Boost rather than Barrel-Roll.

Boost is better on low PS ships than Barrel-Roll is, traditionally, and it can also pick up Autothrusters... but I'm still going to run Bombers instead.

Not Doug's mistake, but whomever designed those graphics made an error. The Punisher does a k-turn, then Doug says it performs a green maneuver and then deploys it's bomb forward. The maneuver it performs is a 2 bank, which is white on the Punisher.

Probably supposed to have Twin Ion Engines Mk. 2.

They edited the caption to include it.

Between this and the reinvigoration of the Advanced, the low 20s point cost ships of the Empire are really appealing.

@DraconPyrothayan

I like that it has 1 agility vs 2 agility. For 2 agility to be really worthwhile, you need to take the focus action and use it on defense. This made taking Target Lock painful, as the return fire could knock the ship out quicker than you'd expect. 6 hull 3 shields with 1 agility won't need focus as much, and also won't get blown up without shooting nearly as often, and for that reason, I like the Punisher more as an ordnance carrier.

I also think both FCS and Advanced Sensors will greatly improve ordnance performance. Being able to K Turn with a TL is oneain reason for this. Bombers miss out on entire rounds of ordnance firing when they can't get a TL, which also helps lower their effectiveness with Ordnance. Also, Boost + already having a TL from FCS will be huge for keeping on a target. Bomber sometimes have no choice but to give getting a TL in order to get a shot.

Bomber is cheaper though, and EM means you could fly some ordnance heavy 4 and 5 ship lists to great effect, which will be great.

I still will play both!!

Question, can Deathrain activate Experimental Interface and still use his ability via the interrupt ruling in the FAQ?

Example:

You execute a maneuver. Didn't get as close as you wanted so you can toss out your Cluster Mines. You boost in. Trigger Exp Interface and drop your bomb forwards onto your target. Then, can interrupt EI from resolving to barrel roll as described in the FAQ with Expert Handling? My interpretation is yes, but opinions?

Wow! TIE Mk.II is going to see a lot of use. I wish it was a title, rather than a mod (as I would have like to have paired it with EU on Defenders) but this is a great Mod!

The Punisher and the new Advanced are going to breath life into our poor, underused Defenders!

Yep, Black Eight Sq. is new, 1 down, many to go on the road of full wave 7 + raider spoiler-land for vassal 5.4.0

http://teamcovenant.com/mu0n/2015/07/22/road-to-v5-4-0-spoilers-we-still-need/

The main thing I disagree with is fcs on cutlass.

Imo, Accuracy corrector is the best system upgrade on this ship, especially with clusters. You could go adv sensors if you have 4 bombs, but I still think AccC is better as it boost your attack and is just as effective but more often than fcs. Accuracy corrector imo, is what sets it most apart from bombers, who need jonus for clusters to be good.

I'm really not sold on cluster mines over prox mines. While the example was an ideal scenario vs small ships, Prox Mines will almost always be better vs small ships. Clusters only come out better than Prox mines if all 3 go off - if only 2 cluster mines go off, you have the same avg damage as prox mines but you've paid 1 more for it. Cluster mines are good anti large ship, but in most cases I'd rather counter the low hp, high agi targets out there with prox mine and save the point.

Also, I would never ever use these naked, their efficiency is just so bad. Tempests with accC for the same points are just so much better.

What makes me sad is all the diagrams showcasing the X-wings I never run into

anyway, my thoughts

Punisher Generics (ie, why bother when we got bombers and advance?)

Pricing (naked)

the major major difference between bomber and Punisher is that the bomber is a very efficient jouster (the tie fighter is only slightly moreso, but the main advantage that little bugger has is its beautiful dial). The Punisher is anything but. I don't see that Punisher + Punisher + shuttle + shuttle + bomber doing much of anything, especially not when the Cutlass also happens to be competing with AC Tempest Squadrons.

this issue is largely priced based, with the same 2 red-dice coming in at a 5 point difference or the far superior 2 guaranteed damage to 2 red-dice at a 0 point difference.

I mean, sure, **** yeah +3 shields and **** the loss of green dice, but the points for the innate offense are distressingly low.

Pricing (limited ordnance)

Further complicating the issue is the fact that the Bomber will probably be more cost efficient with minimum ordnance as well, since a Scimitar with a prox mine or conner net is still cheaper than a naked Cutlass

Higher Ordnance

The less major difference between the bomber and the Punisher is boost v roll. Boost is basically a godsend on a facing-dependent ship that can't hard turn well until speed 3 (yeah yeah, red 2s + a much better selection of greens isn't horrible, but it's not good either).

The option for thrusters is neat (anything to control green dice ), but with 1 agility it's only bumping your naked evade from 3/8 to 5/8 (if I remember right) whereas higher agility would have more chance of rolling blanks, and more chance of thrusters kicking in. The main advantage I see here is range 3, because 3 dice w/thrusters will frustrate the **** out of swarms (and if I know anything of 1 agility, high-health ships it's that they hate being pecked to death at range 3)

Primarily, though, boost + FCS lead to me believe the Punisher will be the ideal ordnance bus, but only if loaded enough to where you couldn't just get away with a bomber instead. Enter Redline, master of the Proton Torp. Redline's ability is completely unique to the Punisher, and while Rhymer can approximate its benefit there is no substitute for an self-sufficient ship as opposed to formation-dependent support. The closest you can get to Redline's ability is Vessery, and only if you enable him. Hell, the two might work very well together

But because Redline's ability is unique to him (and seemingly very powerful) I don't see much reason to use any generic when loading a punisher with ordnance.

Deathrain

dude does something no one else in the game can do (and I don't mean something lame like Blount's 'I always hit even when I miss,' I mean this **** is potentially revolutionary)

that alone merits trying him out, since there's no other way to get the same bombing capabilities on any other ship.

Tl;DR: all opinion and conjecture

1. The generics are going to suck (too expensive; Bomber generics beat them out for efficiency and Advance beat them out for raw combat @ the same 21 points)

2. The named characters are going to carry the ship with their unique abilities

I took a different approach with my article than Paul did last week. I wanted to look at each pilot individually and their usefulness. I think the way the meta is now, you have to know well the ships you bring, so that's how I approached writing this article.

Still no mention of the Advanced Homing Missiles.

But the image of it at the end of the article seems to be more revealed than in previous articles, no?

These things aren't going to change the Turretwing 2 ship meta at all once everyone is done trying them out. It's a shame too, they look fun.

Good luck hitting Super Dash with a seismic charge.

These things aren't going to change the Turretwing 2 ship meta at all once everyone is done trying them out. It's a shame too, they look fun.

Good luck hitting Super Dash with a seismic charge.

Deathrain won't have much of a problem with that.

Still no mention of the Advanced Homing Missiles.

But the image of it at the end of the article seems to be more revealed than in previous articles, no?

It's the same spread image as in the first Punisher article.

These things aren't going to change the Turretwing 2 ship meta at all once everyone is done trying them out. It's a shame too, they look fun.

Good luck hitting Super Dash with a seismic charge.

Drop a prox mine here....drop a cluster mine there.... spread them around the board and in asteroid fields. Limit where he can go, and you can start to control dash for other ships to hit. Box trap him, block him onto asteroids (you are taking all rocks when fighting dash right). Beating Dash is about limiting his movement options, cluster, conner's net, and proximity mines will do a nice job since they stay in place.

Question, can Deathrain activate Experimental Interface and still use his ability via the interrupt ruling in the FAQ?

Example:

You execute a maneuver. Didn't get as close as you wanted so you can toss out your Cluster Mines. You boost in. Trigger Exp Interface and drop your bomb forwards onto your target. Then, can interrupt EI from resolving to barrel roll as described in the FAQ with Expert Handling? My interpretation is yes, but opinions?

I'm pretty sure your interpretation is correct, but it will have to be FAQ of course. Of course taking EI means you can't take MKII, and the stress clearing moves on the Punisher are less than ideal.

I kind of like Enhanced Scopes on Deathrain if you are going to be packing mines. Move before anyone and drop a mine on them.