I would like to see the crits count as a hit. But thats what makes it fun, you never know whats gonna come up.

I'd like to see the Crits count as a Crit! After all, if you can take acriticla hit flying through a debris field then why notfroman explosive device?

2 dice is still only two dice, and even with crits it would still only average at one damage per template touched.

I saw a k-wing moving perpendicular to the Falcon drop a cluster bomb in front it. Falcon ran through all three bombs and was finished off. It was awesome.

Keep in mind: they only cost an action to deploy. An action should not do more damage than an outright attack.

That and the fact they are 4 points to even have. Paying 4 points for a "bomb" that takes an action AND can black its rolls just seems bad. Especially when compared to things like Seismic Charge, Ion or even Proton Bombs which are a simple reveal drop and guaranteed effect.

Really thinking about it, could all ordance having at least 1 guaranteed effect, whether that be damage or somthing like Ion or a stress bomb, make ordance really worth its points?

Comparing mines to bombs is like comparing missiles and torpedoes or turrets and cannons. Sure in this case they both take the same upgrade slot so the ship carrying them doesn't matter but for the most part however they act differently enough to require a better comparison. It is not the seismic charge or proton bomb that makes the cluster mine look weak in comparison it is the proximity mine and the conner net that shows how poor the cluster mine is.

The good news however is detonation effect is not written on the card itself but instead in a rules supplement. So an errata to change the way cluster mines detonate can be an easy pen and ink change from FFG. So an FAQ that changes the rule to

roll 2 dice for each token and suffer 1 damage for each <hit> and <focus>

will go a long way to make cluster mines better, and will be easy for FFG to make and less impactful than the cloaking nerf. As of now Proxy mines kick the #$%& out of cluster mines and they cost 1 point less. What's up with that FFG.

Whenever I use Proximity Mines, I end up rolling hit, focus, blank. Against a normal ship, that's okay. Against a dumb fat turret it's underwhelming.

Bombs as a whole will be better now that Fat Turrets are gone. Not only does the damage that bombs/mines do matter less when you have 13 health, they also matter less when you're flying the most mobile type of ship in the game. Super Dash is simply immune to bombs, large ship barrel roll guarantees it. Turrets in general can just avoid them and still get a shot.

Now that they're gone from the meta, bomb lists might actually be good.

... now that Fat Turrets are gone. Not only does the damage that bombs/mines do matter less when you have 13 health, they also matter less when you're flying the most mobile type of ship in the game. Super Dash is simply immune to bombs, large ship barrel roll guarantees it. Turrets in general can just avoid them and still get a shot.

Now that they're gone from the meta, bomb lists might actually be good.

I wouldn't call Fat Turrets gone. The Phantom nerf didn't entirely remove Whisper from the meta. Sure whisper now takes a back seat compared to Soontir but it took the decloaking nerf + autothruster buff to get Soontir up there. Turrets will still have their place as arc dodgers still wreck anything that depends on a firing arc and a single TLT won't stop an arc dodger. People will have to build a list around TLTs and I would say large PWT ships will probably be able to do enough damage to take out half the TLTs before they go down to half SHP.

It's sad really. Clusters just look so cool! The first bomb or mine that I don't really see much of a use for, except perhaps deathrain...

How about this? The bomber lays the first cluster on the 1-template as usual, but the following two mines can be laid as they see fit, as long as they conjoin.

Wouldn't make them any more damaging, but would open up a whole lot of tactical opportunities...

No because although it might spread out the area of coverage it will also spread out the damage. Right now with clustermine detonation the way it is you would want all 3 mines to go off. If only one or two of them went off then it did no good.

The only way for cluster mines to be effective is the detonation needs to be rewritten.

screw underwhelming they plain SUCK!, when the punisher came out i was so keen on using Deathrain with 2 Clustermines +extra munitions, the day after they came out i bought 2 punishers and could find anyone to borrow 2 more templates so i took my buddies conner nets instead, and wow did the Clusters suck but the Conners ruled. get this i managed to land a perfect hit on Leebo with all 3 templates touching the base only to see a roll of crit,crit,crit,blank,blank,blank.

2 weeks later i play a guy using Emon with Clustermines and Extra munitions, he used the mines to block off a side approach to his flank from my Cobra commander, Cobra took 1 damage and went on to destroy Emon because i just flew right through them having learned how bad they suck.

Sorry but Proxy and conner all the way, pity they look so cool.

I'm a fan of them for the deterrent factor. Potential of 6 damage is enough to give anyone pause and help you control the geography of the battle field.

I can't count how many times I've used them and rolled a "crit", which is completely useless.

Simply making a "crit" result in a "hit" with them would be enough to make them worthwhile.

They can be great. They can be awesome awful. Such is the nature of dice-based games. As several have noted, much of the mine advantage comes from the psychological placement of them and the chance that damage may happen. Sure they're not all that great as an opening salvo when a fully-shielded B-Wing assault is coming. However, a few turns later when those B-Wings are limping along with no shields, and a few damage cards, they'll be much less likely to plow through them.

Tonight we did a Rebel mirror match, and my opponent's Seismic Charge hit all three of my ships at once, on the same turn as the Proton Bomb I dropped resulted in great crits on two separate B-Wings. The Cluster Mine dropped in the middle of the asteroid field made the third B-Wing go right around it and took it out of play for two turns.

It gets more fun with the Emperor around. Want a guaranteed hit, if there's nothing else major going on that turn? You've got it! Again, often just the threat of this can make a player hesitate. And that may be all you need.

Then Emperor only effects your rolls, Cluster and Proximity mine rolls are rolled by the owner of the ship going through the token not the owner of said token

Fun little anecdotal evidence game: I had Deathrain drop two full stacks of Clusters on a Firespray.

One damage.

Twelve dice.

One damage.

Yep, I lost that one.

What madness is this?

Ran a K-Wing Warden at a recent event, Extra munitioned Proximity and Cluster mines and Advance SLAM and Bombadier. Not going to lie, it was a hefty build.

The amount of things a low PS pilot can hurt/kill with an action is amazing. The Highlight was definitely taking out a cloaked PS 9 Phantom with a beautiful 2-Turn SLAM 2-Turn Mine Drop, hit it with two of the three templates and the Phantom went BOOM!

This is definitely no something I would expect every time, but I am still loving the pants off of Clusters.

Cards are made for different reasons and some suit different people/play styles.

Cluster Mines are a variance play that best suit gamblers. Sometimes they roll blanks, sometimes they over-perform.

They are not consistently reliable, so they're probably not going to be a tournament staple upgrade card. That doesn't stop them from being a well designed card for casual players who want to roll the dice and see what they get.

I'g getting 2-3 hits normally if I can drop them on people. That's pretty good for out of combat damage potential. I have had no problem getting them where I want, not only that but I use them to close of areas quite well. Not sure why everyone is hating on them, if you made rolled criticals into damage, you now made cluster mines much better than proximity mines, why would you ever take proximity mines then? Again, I am so happy the majority on the forums have no say in how this game is designed.

Clusters have two things going for them: max damage and area. The latter gets overlooked more than it should, I think, considering how much larger a space a cluster set takes up then a prox mine. Whether or not that's worth the extra point . . . maybe? Hard to say at this point.

Some really basic math.

Prox mine

Avg dmg: 1.5

Min: 0

Max: 3

Cluster (hit with 3 tokens)

Avg dmg: 2.25

Min: 0

Max: 6

Cluster (hit with 2 tokens)

Avg dmg: 1.5

Min: 0

Max: 4

Cluster (hit with 1 tokens)

Avg dmg: 0.75

Min: 0

Max: 2

If you compare a cluster token (not the deployment of 3) to a prox mine token, it does half the damage. You're more likely to hit with a cluster token as you have *around* 3 times the area, but you'll do less damage.

2 cluster mine tokens do about as much as a prox mine token, so the next question is, if/how much harder is it to hit an enemy ship with 2 cluster mines vs 1 prox mine. I think intuitively it's easier to get your opponent to hit 1 token than it is to hit 2 tokens, at least vs a small base ship, so prox mine wins that one.

Large base ships are exactly 4 times larger than a small base ship, so should be *around* 4 times easier to hit. Again, I think intuitively probably around 3 times easier to hit, as deploying mines requires you to deploy it on the ship or on the maneuver template, and the template is the same for both.

The short version is, Prox mine definitely is the better choice vs small base ships, Cluster is probably the better choice vs Large base ships, but not enough to make you want to take them over prox mines. I think pilots that give you more flexibility and accuracy (Deathrain, Emon) probably shift the whole equation from [prox is better] to [they're about the same].

Does "They are about the same" account for the card cost?

Does "They are about the same" account for the card cost?

No, one does better area denial, the other a better brute force attack. The cost is due to the control and possible higher damage potential. Not sure why people aren't understanding this... I have had proximities do nothing as well. It happens.

Does "They are about the same" account for the card cost?

No, one does better area denial, the other a better brute force attack. The cost is due to the control and possible higher damage potential. Not sure why people aren't understanding this... I have had proximities do nothing as well. It happens.

I think people understand very well that it has a higher damage potential. It's much harder to get within striking distance of that damage potential, given it's spread out over 3 separate tokens.

That's not to say the upgrade is over-costed, I don't think it is, but I also don't think that the combination of the way the games progress and my own skill as a pilot will get the full 4 points out of the upgrade, unless I can lean on a Deathrain like ability.

I never mentioned anything about formation flying, as I don't see it all that often. I think there is value in dropping a cluster in front of a 4 ship formation and force them to break up, but I also think the more canny opponents will realise that 1 cluster token is only 50% more damaging than an asteroid, and you still get your action if you hit it. Situationally, it might just be better to hit the 3 tokens with 3 separate ships, or even hit 3 tokens with an already damaged ship to clear the way for the rest of your squad.

Does "They are about the same" account for the card cost?

No, one does better area denial, the other a better brute force attack. The cost is due to the control and possible higher damage potential. Not sure why people aren't understanding this... I have had proximities do nothing as well. It happens.

I think people understand very well that it has a higher damage potential. It's much harder to get within striking distance of that damage potential, given it's spread out over 3 separate tokens.

That's not to say the upgrade is over-costed, I don't think it is, but I also don't think that the combination of the way the games progress and my own skill as a pilot will get the full 4 points out of the upgrade, unless I can lean on a Deathrain like ability.

I never mentioned anything about formation flying, as I don't see it all that often. I think there is value in dropping a cluster in front of a 4 ship formation and force them to break up, but I also think the more canny opponents will realise that 1 cluster token is only 50% more damaging than an asteroid, and you still get your action if you hit it. Situationally, it might just be better to hit the 3 tokens with 3 separate ships, or even hit 3 tokens with an already damaged ship to clear the way for the rest of your squad.

Proximity mines can do more than 3 damage with critical hit effects but i think we all know that a 2nd damage on a crit is a rare occurrence even with stuff like Major Hull Breach and Major Explosion.

I don't think people are seeing the beauty of a low PS bomber setting up a run so that a ship that has already selected its maneuvers will hit every single bomb. It's completely believable about the skill not being there to make up the cost. The upgrade is fine though. People are asking, though, that for 1 point it becomes an uber nuke compared to proximity mine. It isn't, nor was it meant to be. That one point is buying you a higher damage ceiling outside of combat.

Proximity mines can do more than 3 damage with critical hit effects but i think we all know that a 2nd damage on a crit is a rare occurrence even with stuff like Major Hull Breach and Major Explosion.

Oh, if we are going with the best possible circumstances, the cluster mine will get you 6 damage, which is still better than 3 possible crits. I mean if we are comparing high ends for both. Also that 6 damage is 6 damage regardless of shields where proximity mines crits are rendered useless against shields back down to its max of 3.

Edit: And actually I think the likelyhood that you will score 3 crits from a proximity mine is less likely than getting 6 hits from all cluster mines tokens.

Having one-shotted Whisper, Soontir and even Vader with Cluster Mines I wouldn't call them bad per se, they are a random (bad-bad! says the tourney goers!) factor with incredible potential - to perform - both horribly and amazingly.

I do use 1-2 from time to time, but I never base my entire strategy or list around Cluster Mines.

They are simply there to introduce a psychological element.