I love me some Warthogs, so I've been curious about Dace's ability to push through an extra damage on a specific target. He does seem expensive though, especially given that he's in a HWK. On the other hand, the Y-Wings he'll be flying with don't exactly have an awesome dial either, so maybe the HWK isn't quite so bad. Anyone have experience with this?

I have two tournaments coming up, one is 100pts and one is 120pts, so here's what I've been thinking:

With 3 ions already going through, couldn't you TLT Dace? Or even one warthog, upping your damage output with those two? Or do you want to ion everything on the board?

honestly, have no idea

main problem is I believe Muk's/Palob's abilities are so stupidly powerful that I can't imagine running any other HWK

Ion Dace running VI with EU and K4.

36 points of hilarity.

Ion is great and Dace puts out double the damage while retaining the all important control. His ability ties him to greens making K4 an obvious choice. His mobility is severely hampered though so Engine and VI lets him get around and with an enemy being predictable and Dace moving late should be able to dictate range and avoid at least some arcs to boost his Survivability.

PWT and any sort of focus fire will melt him fast though and I'm not sure there is much that can be done there. At 36pts I don't think he is good enough to be top tier. Reducing the points just cuts into his survivability further, by time you get down to just an Ion, he is still 28pts and his nuisance value probably doesn't justify that many points.

Yes, a Dace that slim is pretty good. I would say VI would be pretty good for a 9 on your squad. Moldy Crow also is pretty strong (and almost always better than Recon Specialist).

So despite not being sold on him as a list centrepiece, I'm intrigued at the optio s available..

HWK-290: · Dace Bonearm (23)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Engine Upgrade (4)

K4 Security Droid (3)

· Moldy Crow (3)

Firespray-31: Mandalorian Mercenary (35)

Tactician (2)

Z-95 Headhunter: Binayre Pirate (12)

Z-95 Headhunter: Binayre Pirate (12)

Dace Bonearm — HWK-290 23

Veteran Instincts 1

Ion Cannon Turret 5

K4 Security Droid 3

Engine Upgrade 4

Ship Total: 36

Latts Razzi — YV-666 33

Tactician 2

Weapons Engineer 3

Ship Total: 38

Torkil Mux — HWK-290 19

Ion Cannon Turret 5

Greedo 1

Ship Total: 25

Using the idea above, you now have a high PS ion coming in at hopefully -1 agility. Double dmg with Dace, then lay on a bit more dmg and a stress with Latts and hopefully sneak in a Crit Ion with Torkil.

With Torkil present, I might give Dace "wired" instead, so that he can defensive reroll after stressing himself out.

I like Dace as a single ship with an Ion Cannon. I don't like surrounding him with other ions because his ability is only once per round (due to stress) and your damamge output suffers. It also makes target priority simple for your opponent since Dace is relativel easy to focus down. The warthogs have decent damage but aren't too tough to dodge. I feel like you need a scarier threat.

EDIT: But I do like the idea of K4 + Engine Upgrade.