When using ordnance, you're limited by target locks instead of energy. Which means ion pulse missiles are almost a "free" attack in that they use no energy and do not spend the lock. Not a primary damage source but a great option for a third hard point if you are already using ordnance.

The same goes for Homing Missiles.

Ordnance Tubes plus 3 x Homing Missile hardpoints on the CR-90? Expensive yes, but compare it to Single Turbolasers...

Homing Missiles are worth it, though. They can do 4 damage to anything. That target doesn't get to use Evade, either. That helps vs. aces. Saves the TL. Works great vs. Epic ships, though, due to the chances of that section living.

One thing about keeping the TL for something....how often will you actually fire at the same target? If it's an Epic, then a lot. If it's a small ship, then maybe not so much. Then again, the smaller ships have a greater chance of you needing to use the TL, anyways. j

What gets me about Ion Pulse is that even though you get to keep the TL....what do you get for it? Not much for the epic scene in my mind. Ion Torpedo controls more ships, which is what I see as being more viable. Also, it does more damage. So, it's good for control AND for doing damage.

Ion Lasers: Do you actually see a lot of large based ships in epic? I don't usually as it's mostly epic or snub nosed. I'd much rather have the ability to crit from the Ion Laser than the ability to Ionize a large ship in one go. Crits against epic ships are....epic.

Turbolasers - These are good vs. a lot of different ships. I've taken down X-wings with them and B-wings die quite fast. Basically anything lower than Agility 3 is a good target. The ability to turn one eyeball into a hit is very good. Red dice are better than green. The range can be quite important in epic. Also great vs. other epic ships. Don't knock the Single Turbo Laser.

I really don't get your love of Ion Missile for epic. To me, it seems one of the worst options. It will ionize one large or small ship in a game that has dozens. It only does one damage. It will just take 2 energy off an epic ship. I'd rather do more damage to their shield than drop their energy levels. When you are in range to use it, they are probably just going to burn through it that turn anyways. Depending on init, they might have already burned through it.

You don't even mention Ion Torpedoes? What's not to love? Does 4 damage, Ionizes, and also hits everything around. The ability to control your enemy is so much greater in epic with this weapon than anything else. Your opponent will surely have swarms of fighters and you can zap many of them in one shot....but still do the 4 damage. This, in my mind, is the BEST weapon to use in epic. It works against everything...with the exception of having to hit a large ship twice. I'm OK with that, though, as it works so well vs. everything else.

Honestly, I have no idea why I missed Ion Torpedoes. They're absolutely stellar and only slightly more expensive. The only reason I didn't mention them is when I sorted my spreadsheet by range bands they ended up at the bottom and I missed them in the copy/paste.

As for the Ion Pulse, I was only comparing it to the Ion Lasers which I don't particularly love either. I see enough large ships to appreciate the option at least, but I should probably try to get some more use out of the Ion Lasers. They might be one of the better choices for the 2 missile/1 laser setup. I'd probably not take either though, relying more on the Ion Torpedoes. Turbolasers are solid, but its hard to keep things at range 3 and 4 greens still kind of sucks to roll against, plus its expensive. That said, it's unique space, and powerful, so I'm sure there's a build for it.

One thing about Ordinance to remember though is that while Ion Pulse and Homing (and Adv Homing, I guess) are free attacks, you are limited to using them on something you have a target lock on still. This means it's somewhat restricted like a TLT or Cluster Missile and you're often going to have to take that free attack against something you plan to attack with another weapon.

Oh, and cost wise, you can essentially disperse the cost of the upgrade (though not the opportunity cost) across the ordinance you take. So if you take 1 missile, its +5, 2 cuts down to 2.5, and 3 goes all the way down to 1.667. The bands on this end up becoming 7-10 for 1 (too expensive, IMO), 4.5-7.5 for 2 (pretty much equal to normal Hardpoints) and 3.667-6.667 (a small discount).

As for the Ion Pulse, I was only comparing it to the Ion Lasers which I don't particularly love either. I see enough large ships to appreciate the option at least, but I should probably try to get some more use out of the Ion Lasers. They might be one of the better choices for the 2 missile/1 laser setup. I'd probably not take either though, relying more on the Ion Torpedoes. Turbolasers are solid, but its hard to keep things at range 3 and 4 greens still kind of sucks to roll against, plus its expensive. That said, it's unique space, and powerful, so I'm sure there's a build for it.

You don't rate the Ion Battery? For one, I like the range 2-4. If you need to target key snub nosed ships, you can do that before they get in range. It doesn't double agility. The best thing for Ion Batteries is anti epic ships. Crits on your enemy will win you the game. Epic critical hits are just brutal. Even if you just get one through. Most of the time your opponent can throw those shields right back up, but dish out a crit and they will most likely be hurting.

Criticals are why Proton Torpedoes are amazing in epic. Well...that and you have a way of modifying eyeballs when all other options modify blanks.

I went for a while with not liking Single Turbo Lasers, but they are pretty good against anything with less than 3 Agility. Not the best vs. Imperial Ties. The range is a bonus as it gives you another way to affect things far off. If you are the CR-90 and are able to fly at a distance to your enemy, these are great vs. other capital ships. If you are the Raider and have one of the ships that wants to boost forward into the fray, it's not the best option.

The main reason I haven't loved the Ion Battery is just the energy cost. I could sometimes get by mixing quads and turbos since they operate and different range bands, but trying any 3 gun setups where 2 of them cost 2 energy per shot just didn't work out. I need to give it more play now that energy isn't quite the bottleneck to damage output it used to be.

Random fun fact that occurred to me when considering costs of things. Tubes + 3 of the top end, 5 point ordinance options comes to the same cost as 1 of each of the hardpoints. Pretty decent deal. Such an exciting card really. So many new combos to try.

What gets me about Ion Pulse is that even though you get to keep the TL....what do you get for it?

Oh, I don't know... might work in combination with Homing Missiles - so on the CR-90, for example, 2 x Homing Missiles, 1 x Ion Pulse Missile and Weapons Engineer.

"Oh hai there Mr Decimator! Eat my Ion Pulse! Eat Homing Missile! And next turn.. you're getting it AGAIN!"

Cripple something, then pound it into space dust.

What gets me about Ion Pulse is that even though you get to keep the TL....what do you get for it?

Oh, I don't know... might work in combination with Homing Missiles - so on the CR-90, for example, 2 x Homing Missiles, 1 x Ion Pulse Missile and Weapons Engineer.

"Oh hai there Mr Decimator! Eat my Ion Pulse! Eat Homing Missile! And next turn.. you're getting it AGAIN!"

Cripple something, then pound it into space dust.

Yes, but that's just one ship you could probably kill faster with 2 Homing Missiles or...anything else, really.

After that one ship is dead, what are you going to use it on?

Oh, and cost wise, you can essentially disperse the cost of the upgrade (though not the opportunity cost) across the ordinance you take. So if you take 1 missile, its +5, 2 cuts down to 2.5, and 3 goes all the way down to 1.667. The bands on this end up becoming 7-10 for 1 (too expensive, IMO), 4.5-7.5 for 2 (pretty much equal to normal Hardpoints) and 3.667-6.667 (a small discount).

This is a good point, and it gets brought up a lot. But isn't it even better than that? If I pay 5 points for Ordnance Tubes, and equip only one Proton Torpedoes, but I fire it 3 times during the match, it's already paid for itself, no? But then, I'm less enthusiastic about Ordnance Tubes than the other modifications. I think my favorite choice is good ol' Proton Torpedoes, and add a Quad Laser Cannon for up close (maybe Cluster Missiles - I haven't decided).

Oh, and cost wise, you can essentially disperse the cost of the upgrade (though not the opportunity cost) across the ordinance you take. So if you take 1 missile, its +5, 2 cuts down to 2.5, and 3 goes all the way down to 1.667. The bands on this end up becoming 7-10 for 1 (too expensive, IMO), 4.5-7.5 for 2 (pretty much equal to normal Hardpoints) and 3.667-6.667 (a small discount).

This is a good point, and it gets brought up a lot. But isn't it even better than that? If I pay 5 points for Ordnance Tubes, and equip only one Proton Torpedoes, but I fire it 3 times during the match, it's already paid for itself, no? But then, I'm less enthusiastic about Ordnance Tubes than the other modifications. I think my favorite choice is good ol' Proton Torpedoes, and add a Quad Laser Cannon for up close (maybe Cluster Missiles - I haven't decided).

Sort of. It's an opportunity cost thing. You're right in that, as a super Extra Munitions it reduces the cost of each shot rather significantly, but one shot secondary weapons aren't available without it. The opportunity cost is against the existing unlimited fire Hardpoints, because those are the option you're discarding to include missiles.

By dividing the cost by the number of munitions taken, I'm comparing a munition to what I can get for a similar number of points spent on hardpoint lasers instead. The idea is to see, if I'm taking this, is it going to total up to more or less than if I spend the points on lasers. For example, if I was planning on taking 3 Hardpoint lasers, but wanted to go cheap, it would cost me 18 points or 6 points per hardpoint. If I wanted to change those all to Proton Torpedoes, it would cost me 5 for the upgrade, and 12 for the torpedoes saving 1 point which I can see if I consider each Torpedo to be 5.667 points.

So, for example, if I wanted 2 quad lasers and a proton torpedo, it would cost me 21 points. Is that torpedo worth it? I could get a turbolaser for a point less or another set of quads for 3 points less. Dividing the upgrade into the cost of the torpedoes just makes it easier to see what its really costing me over the existing options.

Torpedoes that will NOT work

• Advanced Proton Torpedoes: No matter how you look at it this upgrade wiil not do. Sure Hans can trade a target lock for a focus but APT requires you to spend that target lock and... yeah will not help you one bit.

these guys look at the torpedo and make you puke rainbow!

I ran this^^ Esege alongside a CR-90 last weekend in a 400 point Team Epic.

CR90 Corvette (Aft) (57)

CR90 Corvette (40)

Tactician (2)

Quad Laser Cannons (6)

Gunnery Team (4)

Ordnance Tubes (5)

CR90 Corvette (Fore) (74)

CR90 Corvette (50)

Weapons Engineer (3)

Homing Missiles (5)

Homing Missiles (5)

Ordnance Experts (5)

Sensor Team (4)

With the 2 focus from Esege, the blank-die modification from Ordnance Experts and Gunnery Team, and two energy-free 4-dice attacks, things just melted, especially if caught at Range 3, where I could fire the Primary, too. My opponent's Gozanti was at 1 or 2 shields, and he was looking forward to recharging them the next turn. I obliterated it with the 5-dice Primary and two Homing Missiles at Range 3. (Always fire the Primary last, in case you still have a Target Lock left over from the Homing Missiles )

Honestly, it might be more about Esege being able to provide 2 focus every round than the homing missiles. But there was never a single turn when I considered energy when setting my dial. I always had plenty for what I wanted to do. I never had to agonize about whether pumping the Primary to 5-dice or using Gunnery Team was going to prevent me from doing something else.

Maybe next time my opponents will go for Esege sooner, but I kept him carefully on the outside of the battle, with a TLT on him just in case something got brave. He basically a 31-point upgrade for the CR-90, but he's worth every penny.

I may not have been clear. My intention was to say that ship can fill all of its hardpoints with a mix of ordnance and lasers.

Edit:

An inefficient approach: I'd go for Ordnance alone or hardpoints alone, otherwise you're getting less out of your Ordnance Tubes upgrade. A Turbolaser build really wants to go for the Optimized Generators. Provided at least one is a Homing Missile or Ion Pulse Missile you can reliably use all three every turn, as Homing doesn't spend the lock. If you're not going all in on Ordnance I'd say you're better off not wasting your mod slot on Ordnance Tubes.

Proton Torpedoes are good for raw damage, whereas Assault Missles and Ion Torpedoes lay down some deadly AoE: Ion Torpedoes are very good for running over enemy fighters en-masse.

As for the range limitations against other huges, close in. You've still got your very good primary weapon so you're not helpless at range, and once you close in with an enemy huge you'll be able to shred it with the right ordnance. Lay on the crits with Proton Torpedoes, deshield it with Plasma Torpedoes or shut down its guns from energy starvation with Ion Pulse Missiles.

Torpedo boats are, in my experience, nastiest when built for anti fighter duty and carrying at least one AoE weapon: either Assault Missile or Ion Torpedo. You could even go for two and obliterate any enemy ships that dare clump together (and if they don't it's still four dice.) If you're going for three Homing Missiles you might as well just go for turbolasers: ordnance thrives on its secondary effects.

Yes, but that's just one ship you could probably kill faster with 2 Homing Missiles or...anything else, really.

After that one ship is dead, what are you going to use it on?

Enemy Huges. Infinite Ion Pulse Missiles are very bad news for any non-torpedo boat Epic ship.

I may not have been clear. My intention was to say that ship can fill all of its hardpoints with a mix of ordnance and lasers.

Edit:

An inefficient approach: I'd go for Ordnance alone or hardpoints alone, otherwise you're getting less out of your Ordnance Tubes upgrade. A Turbolaser build really wants to go for the Optimized Generators. Provided at least one is a Homing Missile or Ion Pulse Missile you can reliably use all three every turn, as Homing doesn't spend the lock. If you're not going all in on Ordnance I'd say you're better off not wasting your mod slot on Ordnance Tubes.

I disagree with this completely. If you go with a ordnance ship, you don't get enough TL's to be effective. You get the ship's main weapon to fire, but without TL. Then, you only get to fire how many ordnance rounds a turn? OK...let's say you go with Homing and Ion Pulse. You don't get to modify the dice at all (bad), and you have to fire at the same target. Why do you want to shoot at the same target that many times? If it's another big ship, OK....fine, but that means you aren't as effective vs. a lot of small ships. You see a bunch of X-wings come up on your capital ship and you will be torn to shreds if you can't deal with all of them.

I have found that a mix between ordnance and other hard points means you have decent energy to fire a variety of weapons. You can spread your fire around and hit a number of different ships hard. Good against other big ships and good against a screen of small fighters.

I disagree with this completely. If you go with a ordnance ship, you don't get enough TL's to be effective. You get the ship's main weapon to fire, but without TL. Then, you only get to fire how many ordnance rounds a turn? OK...let's say you go with Homing and Ion Pulse. You don't get to modify the dice at all (bad), and you have to fire at the same target. Why do you want to shoot at the same target that many times? If it's another big ship, OK....fine, but that means you aren't as effective vs. a lot of small ships. You see a bunch of X-wings come up on your capital ship and you will be torn to shreds if you can't deal with all of them.

I have found that a mix between ordnance and other hard points means you have decent energy to fire a variety of weapons. You can spread your fire around and hit a number of different ships hard. Good against other big ships and good against a screen of small fighters.

I disagree with this completely. If you go with a ordnance ship, you don't get enough TL's to be effective. You get the ship's main weapon to fire, but without TL.

You get two each round with Weapons Engineer which is all you need. As for firing the the main gun unmodified, I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from here. If you're spending your target lock on modifying your primary then you've only got one target lock for further attacks.

Then, you only get to fire how many ordnance rounds a turn?

All three.

Two at one target and one at another. It's quite uncommon that you'd want to target four separate ships (remember you also have your primary weapon) no matter your build anyway as you generally want to focus targets down rather than spread damage out.

OK...let's say you go with Homing and Ion Pulse

Let's not because that would be daft. Firstly, any ordnance boat I design is going to be using all three tubes. Secondly, it's going to have at least one AoE torpedo, it's probably going to have Proton because huge ship crits hurt, and it's only going to have Ion Pulse over Homing as the third if I'm very confident in the damage capability of the rest of the squad.

You don't get to modify the dice at all (bad), and you have to fire at the same target.

Ordnance often has inbuilt modification or has secondary effects that rely only on a hit. Ordnance Experts is also an option, and that doesn't even have to be on the same Huge.

Why do you want to shoot at the same target that many times?

You mean more than once? Because most ships aren't going to be one-shot by a single missile. If you're in a situation where you have four enemy ships on barely any health to kill and you're hampered by only being able to attack three different targets your problem isn't your build, it's your ineptitude at focus firing.

If it's another big ship, OK....fine, but that means you aren't as effective vs. a lot of small ships.

Even against TIE fighters your chances of a one hit kill aren't great. Furthermore...

You see a bunch of X-wings come up on your capital ship and you will be torn to shreds if you can't deal with all of them.

Ordnance boats specialise at anti-fighter duty because they can take Assault Missiles and Ion Torpedoes.

I have found that a mix between ordnance and other hard points means you have decent energy to fire a variety of weapons. You can spread your fire around and hit a number of different ships hard. Good against other big ships and good against a screen of small fighters.

It's inefficient on price: why pay an extra four points for a Turbolaser when you've already paid for the Ordnance Tubes? All the energy that isn't going into guns can be used elsewhere: regenerating shields, maneuvering more aggressively and powering support abilities.

If I'm paying the price for laser hardpoints, I'm not throwing points away on Ordnance Tubes for only two missiles: it's cheaper to go with lasers alone and then the modification slot is free for Optimized Generators.

Maybe next time my opponents will go for Esege sooner, but I kept him carefully on the outside of the battle, with a TLT on him just in case something got brave. He basically a 31-point upgrade for the CR-90, but he's worth every penny.

Houston, we have a problem

D:

Focus and evade tokens don't affect huge ships

D:

sorry for misleading people

Maybe next time my opponents will go for Esege sooner, but I kept him carefully on the outside of the battle, with a TLT on him just in case something got brave. He basically a 31-point upgrade for the CR-90, but he's worth every penny.

Houston, we have a problem

D:

Focus and evade tokens don't affect huge ships

D:

sorry for misleading people

Usually that's the case, but in an email exchange between one of the designers they said that this combination works.

Edit: Source: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187918-huge-ship-rule-turned-on-its-head-cr-90-can-use-eseges-focus/

Maybe next time my opponents will go for Esege sooner, but I kept him carefully on the outside of the battle, with a TLT on him just in case something got brave. He basically a 31-point upgrade for the CR-90, but he's worth every penny.

Houston, we have a problem

D:

Focus and evade tokens don't affect huge ships

D:

sorry for misleading people

Usually that's the case, but in an email exchange between one of the designers they said that this combination works.

Edit: Source: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187918-huge-ship-rule-turned-on-its-head-cr-90-can-use-eseges-focus/

Correct - you can't assign Focus tokens to a Huge Ship (well, technically you can, but they immediately get removed), but Esege lets you use them as if you had them.

Or at least until they put out a FAQ that counteracts what Frank said in that email.

@Blue Five: Eh, maybe it's not as bad as I think, but I'm still not sold. I haven't tried it yet, though, so maybe I'm wrong. I guess it all depends on your loadout.

Maybe next time my opponents will go for Esege sooner, but I kept him carefully on the outside of the battle, with a TLT on him just in case something got brave. He basically a 31-point upgrade for the CR-90, but he's worth every penny.

Houston, we have a problem

D:

Focus and evade tokens don't affect huge ships

D:

sorry for misleading people

Usually that's the case, but in an email exchange between one of the designers they said that this combination works.

Edit: Source: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187918-huge-ship-rule-turned-on-its-head-cr-90-can-use-eseges-focus/

Correct - you can't assign Focus tokens to a Huge Ship (well, technically you can, but they immediately get removed), but Esege lets you use them as if you had them.

Or at least until they put out a FAQ that counteracts what Frank said in that email.

But Frank might troll us

because you CAN technically spend focus or TL and not get any result at all.

Until they somehow FAQ this and the automated fail protocols it's hard to say it can work per RAW.

because discarding the token is only 50% of the paragraph.

But Frank might troll us

because you CAN technically spend focus or TL and not get any result at all.

Until they somehow FAQ this and the automated fail protocols it's hard to say it can work per RAW.

because discarding the token is only 50% of the paragraph.

The rules say: "Focus, evade, and stress tokens do not affect huge ships. When a huge ship receives any of these tokens, immediately remove them and return them to the token supply."

I agree that the word "affect" is vague enough, that without interpretation, it's unclear what this means.

You can read the second sentence as qualifying the first: i.e., These tokens can't be placed on huge ships. When you try to place such a token on a huge ship, it is immediately discarded.

Or you can read it as separate clauses: i.e., huge ships can't use any of these tokens. And if for some reason they get assigned one, you discard it right away.

Frank's ruling implies the first is intended, not the second. I don't see that Frank's ruling is necessarily in conflict with the RAW. "Affect" might just mean "can't be placed on" - not "can never be used to modify any dice rolled by."

It's possible that Frank is just being an a__hole and saying "sure, spend all the focus you want (snicker, snicker, but it won't doing anything, and I won't say that, because you didn't actually ask that)" but such a response would not be very helpful, and is the least likely interpretation of his response.