I have found scum alpha strike pretty darn strong in this meta. I don't understand why the aces vassal league hasn't ran with any of the scum alpha combos.

Ndru crack glitter homing works. Talonbane with crack glitter homing works. Bossk with mangler k4 crack works. Hell, 51 point Kath works, hlc glitter crack k4. And last but not least PS3 Zs with homers or concussions and glitter are extremely efficient at burning down ps2 Ys(and obviously Bs).

Talonbane and Ndru reliably hit Soontir. Let me say that again... Soontir takes 1+ point of damage from either of them, reliably. Vader cannot stand up to glitter ordinance, with Palpatine support.

When 4 tlt lists loose a tlt in the first round of shooting they are significantly behind in the match.

When you can remove a Y/B/Vader in the first round of shooting, you win games.

Playing an ordinance build puts the impetus for good flying on your opponent. Essentially, you must be outdone because you have the numbers advantage in attacking. Suhlak, exactly like Wedge, creates a Wedge(Ndru) must die situation.

That's my mad rant. My locals have been watching it on table and having their ears bleed from hearing it over and over the last 3 months.

Yes, I would agree this is underappreciated, but high PS aces being what they are they completely avoid the ordnance being shot at them often. Palpmobil + Aces seems to be the new king. That does leave some room for Conner Nets to shine, though...

IMO munitions will be seen more once the tracers from the tie-prototype are in our greedy hands. at least for a few days/weeks.

personally, I'm not happy with the way most munitions -work-. would love to fly my tie-bombers, but the mechanics for most munitions are just too "restrictive".

It's easier to just don't use them (and therefore, not use those munitions-carrying bombers), but just grab some things with good primary weapons.

IMO, we need new rules from top to bottom concering torps and missiles, and -then- we may see tie-bombers, or y/b-wings carrying something else than turrets/cannons.

I find that the ones that you need to alpha strike such as the high PS aces, generally go like this.

They deploy opposite board edge and put asteroids blocking the middle and fastest route.

Aces spend a lot of time doing hard 1 barrels to effectively stand still whilst you slowly move towards them.

Few turns in, potentially range 4, they hard burn out of there. You don't have any target locks.

You chase shadows, going through rocks, losing formation, maybe you get a range 3 target lock once you activate but then they are long gone and out of arc.

They start to engage and you struggle to get the combos off. The ones with target locks don't have arcs and the ones that took a focus because they were out of range during their activation start getting hit.

As the battle wages on, you eventually get one, maybe two to glitterstim and launch the strike, you spend your target to fire the concussion missiles and manage maybe three hits after all the modifies, Soontir rolls four dice and manages an evade, a focus and two blanks. He spends the evade token for zero damage . . . .

That has been my experience playing with and against the Aces when trying to use an ordinance heavy list, Its nice when people just fly at you or against large base ships that get caught out but against a semi-decent player, you just won't have the shots or the luck to punch through.

Even someone like Dash would systematically remove your headhunters from the board with focus/target locked four dice attacks.

If you go the other way and tool up your aces to counter their aces, then you don't have the numbers to take on swarms. The ordinance platforms don't do enough to remove the other seven ships that are going to be burning you down. Especially if you only have three ships which now have redundant points.

Talonbane/N'dru is great at forcing through those four/five hits on a B wing, but the other three B wings and the Z, or the other three Z and Poe are going to make you regret that decision and once you lose a 35point Talonbane or your 24pt Headhunter, it is VERY hard to make up for.

Yup as @Viktus106 said above, most alpha lists are dependent on a successful joust. The enemy will know that, and refuse to joust with you.

I just alpha strike with Wedge and Jake with Prockets and boosting with Jan Ors depending on who has better shot.

Killed Vader in the first round of shooting and managed to get 1 hit through Soontir's defence dice ruining his Stealth Device.

We could see some low PS ordnance alpha strikes coming soon when Tracer Missiles come out. TL+Focus for everyone.. Missiles away!

Alpha Strike tends to do poorly against arc-dodgers, but it does add urgency to the arc-dodging.

My recommendation? In those match-ups, fly like its a swarm, and loose your ordnance whenever possible.

At the very least, you've shut down Autothrusters: the ship in question is either out of arc entirely, or trying to engage at Range 1 to avoid your missiles.

Swarms are better at Range 1 anyway, so you've either spent points to force a range advantage, or you've spent points to deal damage as intended.

The worst part about this is that, even with the Pic and Gorc fleets, that large ship's boost screws your range benefit, as they can jump from R4 to R1.

Even with that, the most difficult part of Alpha-Strike is still amplified in this match: the first engagement's range control, and maneuver charting.

The other bad match-up is vs Pure Swarms, where your ordnance investment will have much lower payoff. However, these are not terribly common at the moment.

Vs... just about everything else, the various forms of Alpha Strike should be excellent

Yup as @Viktus106 said above, most alpha lists are dependent on a successful joust. The enemy will know that, and refuse to joust with you.

As someone who likes Fel this is what I would do.

It's in battletech

Scum Boba with Cluster Missiles & Glitterstim has won me a lot of games.

Have to revisit this after wave 8 drops. Guidance Chimp, Tracers, and Target Astromech will have a lot to say on the matter.

It's in battletech

still waiting for my AC/20 card I can slap onto my defenders

Glitterstim is a fantastic upgrade for Scum, and I have no doubt that combined with ordnance - in the right Scum builds - it has the potential to simply erase ships from the game in the first round of shooting. Especially when you combine it with some outstanding damage buffing crew, astromechs and pilot abilities.

However, as others have pointed out, alpha strike strategies can be hindered by avoiding the joust. For ordnance, this is compounded by the fact that you (usually) need to obtain a target lock in order to fire your payload, which isn't always possible on the first engagement due to differences in Pilot Skill. A shrewd Soontir/Whisper player will make sure they're only moving into range during their move, not yours, or if that's not possible they'll simply move out of arc altogether.

Ordnance alpha strikes require planning and careful execution, and when the alternatives are turrets, cannons and effective primaries, their cost can be too much.

That said, it's amazing when a missile pays off with a one hit kill. I'm diggin' the concept of N'dru with Crackshot, Glitterstim and Homing Missiles as a surgical tool for removing pesky problems.

waiting for jumpmasters

Wide arc, fully modded torps, no need to fiddle with finnicky locks, large base + roll for blocking...

If soontir is rolling 4 dice against you, you did something wrong.

Latts razzi, weapons engineer and k4 say hello. Nothing but green maneuvers, dropping evade dice like flies.

NEVER ever fire cluster missiles at soontir. That's a bad idea. You want homing missiles. 5 dice, no evade token, and minus one evade from latts. Crackshot removes palpatine from the equation. That's a dead soontir. Talonbane with engine and crackshot can replicate the same thing if he can get to range one.

It's so easy. I've yet to not get soontir with the homing missile. I've seen this list win 3 consecutive games in less than 15 minutes.

I have found scum alpha strike pretty darn strong in this meta. I don't understand why the aces vassal league hasn't ran with any of the scum alpha combos.

Ndru crack glitter homing works. Talonbane with crack glitter homing works. Bossk with mangler k4 crack works. Hell, 51 point Kath works, hlc glitter crack k4. And last but not least PS3 Zs with homers or concussions and glitter are extremely efficient at burning down ps2 Ys(and obviously Bs).

Talonbane and Ndru reliably hit Soontir. Let me say that again... Soontir takes 1+ point of damage from either of them, reliably. Vader cannot stand up to glitter ordinance, with Palpatine support.

When 4 tlt lists loose a tlt in the first round of shooting they are significantly behind in the match.

When you can remove a Y/B/Vader in the first round of shooting, you win games.

Playing an ordinance build puts the impetus for good flying on your opponent. Essentially, you must be outdone because you have the numbers advantage in attacking. Suhlak, exactly like Wedge, creates a Wedge(Ndru) must die situation.

That's my mad rant. My locals have been watching it on table and having their ears bleed from hearing it over and over the last 3 months.

Because Ships like super Corran and Super Whisper and Vader with ATC+Palp already can do a lot of burst damage. Really any ship with at least 3 attack dice and PtL can pound damage into things.

Cannons are just better ordnance. Whisper's primary and Super Corran's double tap are just better cannons.

Yeah, Talonbane or Ndru with those loadouts can do a lot of damage, but they don't also have the obnoxious staying power that other actual ace ships have, like Corran or super Poe. I've flown a Super Nera based around APT's before. What happens is that your opponent will be stupid enough to fly Soontir into range 1 of Nera, you'll fire off a 5/5 hit APT shot, and your opponent will end up taking one damage from it. ******* really? I spent 42 points to get this dumb APT to work and all it's going to do is plink a single damage off a 35 point 3 health ship?!

You guys are missing the point. It's not just spiking your damage.

You also have to drop the defense dice.

Aces don't joust so ordinance doesn't work. Right, so you guys have never seen 4bZ beat aces either. Clearly you guys know better and every soontir, vader, whisper, carnor I've tagged with ordinance is dumb luck and bad play. The aces arguement is so trite, do people not know what Soontir's dial is?

The issue is not that you won't get any shots of, but rather that the aces have the ability to avoid focussed ordnance attacks because of how target locks work and other things. Sure, getting one or two shots of is easy, but it is just as easy for Soontir to evade those. It takes considerably more skill to outmanouver Soontir with low PS ships than it does to evade them with him.

I think Prockets are a better choice for an alpha strike, especially when using a mid-PS pilot. No TL necessary.

The alpha strike meta is here. It's just that it is always tooled to remove 1 y wing before it fires.

The issue is not that you won't get any shots of, but rather that the aces have the ability to avoid focussed ordnance attacks because of how target locks work and other things. Sure, getting one or two shots of is easy, but it is just as easy for Soontir to evade those. It takes considerably more skill to outmanouver Soontir with low PS ships than it does to evade them with him.

When you roll 5 dice and they only roll 2, you only need the one or two shots. It's an ALPHA strike, not a game-long strategy.

And yeah, outmaneuvering arc-Dodgers is simple. i've seen 2 Gold squadron y-wings completely wreck triple interceptors.

The nasty "munitions" alpha strike I'm seeing is Glitterstim+ crackshot+ IGGy' Bs WITH HLCs. They are going to get 4 hits x2 and reduce your evades by 2. You probably take 4-6 and auto take 8 if you have only 1 agility.

8 damage Alpha Stirkes are starting to become really popular and really easy to achieve(above build, N'dru glimmercrack, other glimmercrack, quad TLTs, . It's just going to amp up the PS war again and we were just starting to see that cool down.

Alpha strikes work exceedingly well in some places - but are quite dismal in others. They also have major issues if they fail. the new xx23 s thread trackers will help enable more alpha strikes.

In general - ordnance has had 4 issues. Cost, Reliability, Pilot Skill barrier, and Action Economy. Newer ordnance and extra munitions have easied the cost issue. XX23 help ease action economy. - Toss them on a high P.S. ship, and you solve the P.S. barrier too! Reliability is still kinda - meh... though it's much more weapon dependant than it used to be. (Advanced homing missiles are quite reliable when you fire them at range 2)

There are enough support cards to make alpha strikes work (Jonus, FCS, Fleet officer, rebel action passing, lone wolf... etc...) So now it's really down to who can carry weapons, and how many you bring - and then which lists does ordnance predate on?

Ordnance still has the old P.S. issue - Your fleet of tie bombers can have trouble getting that alpha strike turn lock on your opponents Corran Horn. Additionally a swarm of z's or bombers have to be pointed in the right direction at the right time - something faster, higher p,s, repositional ships can reasonably avoid. So some of the top meta lists now (Bro-bots, Palp's Aces) have some of the right tools to make alpha strikes difficult (not impossible) to accomplish.

Simultaneously - these lists can out clustermissile y'wings and b'wings before they fire - 7 missile Talas is pretty good against quad TLT Y's. Glitterstim Missile Black Sun Soldiers ought to be fairly neat since they can pop on the turn they fire. Against middle of the road squads - (mini'swarms, 3-4 ships, chewie/leebo) you get into situations where it's the dice that determine the game once you fire the alpha strike - if you whiff you come out way behind, if you hit, you come out ahead - and it's that swingy nature of the alpha strike list that makes it not so common in the meta.

If the reliability of ordnance can be further upped somehow, and keep costs down, We'll see them.