I've only seen them used once against me in a Store Championship.

Guy had my Panic Attack (all AG1) list dead to rights, clustered together, and with two ships facing the same asteroid and certain to beach themselves if forced into a 1-straight.

He rolled all blanks.

It was a textbook example of why ordnance was terrible.

Given ion torpedos do the full damage, putting them on hardpoints on a CR90, raider or gozer sounds nasty. Really nasty.

Standard ordnance issues apply to Ion Torpedoes: Cost effectiveness, need for a target lock, bad action economy, range limitations, limited uses.

I thought about featuring Ion torpedoes in a list based on using control elements to deliver a powerful Proton Rocket attack, but I eventually decided it was too situational and generally ineffective. That was pre-extended munitions, but I think my conclusion is still basically right.

Epic may be an interesting exception, although I think assault missiles would probably be the better choice in most cases.

Huge ships hate, _hate_ being ionized. The fact that you can do a ton of damage to a huge ship, and also give it an ion token- and also ionize any of it's range 1 support ships is super happy fun times bonus.

Even if you can make ordnance more reliable by using things like Horton, Cracken, FCS, the boost+tl droid or whatnot, you still have to make a lot of compromise just to make that one attack work. As a new-ish player I've only used an ordnance card once, in like three months of playing, only to find that the risks of not focusing outweight using the conner net in most situations.

Epic ships just remove one Energy. They don't drift forward.

@Hondo: Not necessarily true. You can do synergy combos that work not just with Ordnance. Also, you can get more than one shot via Extra Munitions.

I'll also say that if you can get a decent combo (without sacrificing too much) than you can really do a massive alpha strike that does make it worth it. If you are able to kill a key enemy ship in one turn due to ordnance, than it's worth it. With Ion Torp, you have the chance to do more than just kill one ship, though.

Just on Slave-1 along with my Ion Cannon, Ion Pulse Missiles, Ion Bombs, and Ion Projectors.

Epic ships just remove one Energy. They don't drift forward.

Sure. But without upgrades, a Huge ship moving slowly gets, what? 3 energy per turn. And for each Ion token a Huge ship has when it reveals its dial, it gets 1 fewer energy. 1 ion token means that a Huge ship goes from firing 3* guns in 2 turns to firing 2 guns in 2 turns. That's from a single Ion token on a single turn. Get hit again that turn and you get 2 fewer energy on the next turn.

The good news is that ionization effects end after 1 turn, so if an opponent sticks 3 or 4 (or 10) tokens on you, it kinda has the perverse effect of totally opening the Huge ship dial- there's equal downside for every manuver. And all the tokens go away no matter the amount of energy leached.

* Quad laser cannons only cost 1 energy to fire, but they also cost 1 energy to reroll if you don't hit. So you should definitely plan on then costing 2 energy per turn. All other hardpoint guns cost 2 energy to fire at all.

As a follow up: if you can get Blount +Ion missile into firing range on turn A, you're going to be very well set up for an Ion Torpedo attack (from another ship) on that Huge ship on turn B. On turn C, that Huge ship won't really have the energy fire its guns or do the needed repairs. If you can get any ship with an Advanced Proton Torpedo + a focus token into range 1 of that thing, you're guaranteed at least 2 damage* on the Huge ships- even if you roll all blanks.

Fun fact: if you leave that 1 hull-from-crippled Huge ship alone long enough, it _will_ repair back to full health on both section eventually. Treat Huge ships the same way you would treat Coran Horn.

*assuming the Huge ship reinforces the section you're attacking, thus mitigating 1 damage. Also assuming the Huge ship isn't the Bright Hope.

Yes....Ion weapons are great in Epic. I do agree with that. I just didn't want anyone to get confused.

Just made a list with Drea that I'd like to try. Not sure when I'll get the chance, though.

As a follow up: if you can get Blount +Ion missile into firing range on turn A, you're going to be very well set up for an Ion Torpedo attack (from another ship) on that Huge ship on turn B. On turn C, that Huge ship won't really have the energy fire its guns or do the needed repairs. If you can get any ship with an Advanced Proton Torpedo + a focus token into range 1 of that thing, you're guaranteed at least 2 damage* on the Huge ships- even if you roll all blanks.

Fun fact: if you leave that 1 hull-from-crippled Huge ship alone long enough, it _will_ repair back to full health on both section eventually. Treat Huge ships the same way you would treat Coran Horn.

*assuming the Huge ship reinforces the section you're attacking, thus mitigating 1 damage. Also assuming the Huge ship isn't the Bright Hope.

Also assuming the repair droid is there, right?

Also assuming the repair droid is there, right?

You mean the card I have stapled to my Huge ships?

Ruthlessness would be fun to use in conjunction with Ion Torpedoes. Wait, maybe that's why they have Captain Oicunn, Ion Torpedoes and Ruthlessness all in the same expansion pack! He'd probably want to fly beside Jonus to make it effective. There really aren't many other ships that can do this. I think Major Rhymer is the only other decent choice, but one would not want to take advantage of his ability while using Ion Torpedoes.

I was thinking about using them with my 87 point Corran Poe build but I stopped flying it before I tried it. The idea is to use torps instead of the arguably useless Z.

Do you still actually believe that? Worlds pretty much proved you wrong there. The Prototype in Nathans build was gamewinning, as was Pauls use of the Bandit in his build. Is that why you stopped playing it?

I was thinking about using them with my 87 point Corran Poe build but I stopped flying it before I tried it. The idea is to use torps instead of the arguably useless Z.

Do you still actually believe that? Worlds pretty much proved you wrong there. The Prototype in Nathans build was gamewinning, as was Pauls use of the Bandit in his build. Is that why you stopped playing it?

1.) Maybe. I honestly think torps in the list are on par with the extra ship. I'd have to play it more.

2.) I stopped playing it because I felt like playing 6x Crackshot lists.

3.) I haven't watched most of the last match. The stream kind of blowed this year with all the stream stuttering and no mics on the table or anything so it got very easy to lose track of which ships were attacking which with no audio declarations and even the announcers lost track sometimes.

Use it all the time, it absolutely wrecks atst's. Occasionally as them imperial I can land it on an a wing or t-47 but you need it as the rebels. Oh wait you're talking about x wing and not battlefront. No, ordinance still doesn't have much use aside from the occasional procket and homing missile.

I am in Battlefront.........

Does anyone have any thoughts on how you'd use them in a Rebel list?

It was mentioned that Corran might be a good shout but that's even more points on him!

Other than Corran it's got to be Y-Wings....right?

THE main torpedo-masters are Horton salm, Redline and Drea Rental with smiley-droid.

all have re-rolls on the attack.

but hey, there are better torpedoes out there!

THE main torpedo-masters are Horton salm, Redline and Drea Rental with smiley-droid.

all have re-rolls on the attack.

but hey, there are better torpedoes out there!

Of course but I want to give them a go, purely for something different.

Don't forget Miranda. She can buff the number of dice thrown.

Don't forget Miranda. She can buff the number of dice thrown.

But without outside help she's nowhere near the "we can re-roll" brazzerhood of ordnance

well, you can give her a focus from outside source, but she's not getting re-rolls of any kind.

she's THE user for adv protons, yes, but all the rest are beneath the curve, because of no EPT for re-rolls.

Han might work, but it would require TWO focuses from outside source, and I don't know if "once per opportunity" caps the use of Esege with Recon spec

Horton it is then!

Now to work out if I'm going to spend any more on him by giving him a turret, think I need to.

Of course you do! Horton without a turret is a one hit wonder. He gets silly expensive but with that awful maneuver grid he needs to be able to shoot out of arc.