Hey guys,

So I'm bored in my kitchen, waiting for my lunch to burn, and I realize the empire's getting a kick to the viability that's so good it's almost painful

from an awesome wave 7, which still only seems to be palp aces and crack swarm, we're already promised a fantastic selection of FOs (which are already here ), bombers and defenders

but that doesn't mean we can forget the upcoming TAPs (which, if nothing else, is giving us the almighty inquisitor) and, perhaps even more exciting, Guidance _____

While we don't know what Guidance _________ does yet, we do know it'll work only with missiles and torpedoes. We (or at least, I) hope it provides a persistent focus buff for the damage rolls of ordnance weapons, which I believe will be enough to make certain things immediately viable

my speculation, at least given the existence of Long Range Scanners, is that it'll provide an easy buff but cost some points (2 should do). Some eagle-eyed forumites have also noticed that it seems to say something about primary weapons (speculating that there is a restriction on the card that won't let you take Guidance ________ if you have a primary weapon of 3 or above)

Now optimism is a dangerous thing, since reality so seldom coincides with it, but if Guidance Chips turns out to be persistent focus mods for ordnance and costs 2 points (restricted to PW of 3 or lower), then the empire should start rejoicing all the more

why? Because Tie Punishers have just been made super viable

unlike the bomber, which my proxies have informed me will be stupid legit with Long Range Scanners + homing missiles, the Punisher can take Fire Control System and use it to abuse the living hell out of Cluster Missiles.

Imagine this: for 31 points (cutlass, FCS, clusters, assumed 2 points for GC) you got one 3-dice attack with focus buffs from GC + a 3-dice attacks with full mods (thanks to Target-lock from FCS)

imagine what a pair of those will do to a TLT Y-wing

and imagine Redline, who would not only get to fully modify both cluster missiles, but also fire fully-modified better-than-HLC-shots with Plasma torpedoes + his ability

imagine what Wave 8 will look like when we already have

Viable Tie Fighters (Howlie, Wampa, Blacksquadron w/Crackshot)

Viable Tie/FOs (Juke + Relay, Zeta & Omega Leaders, Epsilon Leader utility; Epsilon Ace Filler)

Viable Tie Bombers (Long Range Scanners + Homing Missiles + Seismics + Extra; the possibility of tracers)

Viable Tie Defenders (both titles, new Glaive Squadron Pilot)

Viable Tie Interceptors (At least Soonts; Carnor)

Viable Tie Phantoms (At least Whisper)

Viable Tie Advance (imo at least generics + Strum + Juno w/ACs and Juke for the epts, Ace Vader with Advanced Targeting)

Viable Lambdas (Vader; das emperor)

and then add the possibilities of viable TAPs (Inquisitor, possibility of Tie/v1 + Juke) and a viable Tie Punisher (Redline + Generics; Deathrain doing his own thing)

looks like there's no better time to

(although someone should execute the artist that used the adjective "vigilant" instead of the noun "vigilance")

I thought they were guidence chimps.

Meanwhile in the Rebellion:

Poe, Corran, TLTs and Tumbleweeds.

I thought they were guidence chimps.

those are special issue only

Meanwhile in the Rebellion:

Poe, Corran, TLTs and Tumbleweeds.

and Ghost, but who's counting ?

well, Ghost until the GC Cluster Missile Punishers come after it

If you can't equip it to ships with firepower 3 or higher, than it isn't the ordance fix we need. That will still leave ordance not worth taking on many ships.

If you can't equip it to ships with firepower 3 or higher, than it isn't the ordance fix we need. That will still leave ordance not worth taking on many ships.

sad thing is ordnance will never be worth taking on many ships, especially the ships that already have such powerful offensive capability on their own

for example, you're almost never going to see missiles on fat han or Super Dash or even just one shot on an X-wing, so **** it. Paying points for a single shot with marginally better offense is almost never worth it, so I can understand why FFG wouldn't bother

so what would that leave us with? Well, just every ship that it's worth taking ordnance on apart from Nera

there's also the ghost with the preported (unverified) rear-arc that can fire torpedoes, but that ship won't need GC

apart from being able to turn itself into a bomber with Sabine + extra munitions, it can get full mods with a Ezra (crew) + FCS combo and then use Hera to completely open its dial. Bam, full torp mods (if you ever find a reason to use them when you already have a four dice primary)

as for poor Nera, it may be a case of FFG fearing to break her. With Deadeye and FCS and a hypothetical GC that grants focus mods, Nera can set-up fully modified 360 torpedoes that don't require target-locks to fire

YT missile slots, that's not just fluff, that's the pancakes rubbing it in the face of the other ships that they upgrade slots they don't even need.

How rude!

I want to know what Dual Upgrades are and how the Mist Hunter will be able to equip a cannon.

if I had to guess, dual upgrades = "Mist hunter can equip cannon because Mist hunter said so"

"must" traditionally trumps everything else in miniature games

I want to know what Dual Upgrades are and how the Mist Hunter will be able to equip a cannon.

Dual Upgrades will probably require you to use one upgrade to get another.

As an example, the Mist Hunter title gives you the Barrel Roll action for 0 points. However, to use this title, the ship has to equip a Tractor Beam in its Cannon slot.

Do we know what kind of upgrade GC is? I was under the impression that it was for the new Tech slot, though I really haven't been following it closely.

new tech would be dumb, considering the ships it come with cannot equip tech and half the ships that can equip tech can't even equip ordnance

it's almost 100% confirmed modification, given the upgrade slots on the TAPs

Now hold on a minute, Dash is about to get an entirely green dial. Forget about lists composed entirely of generics that don't have turrets. You think a bomber of all ships can deal with that ****?

new tech would be dumb, considering the ships it come with cannot equip tech and half the ships that can equip tech can't even equip ordnance

it's almost 100% confirmed modification, given the upgrade slots on the TAPs

And here I was completely forgetting what expansion the card came with. Glad to hear its a modification. Hopefully it will end up being an interesting counterpart to Long Range Scanners.

Now hold on a minute, Dash is about to get an entirely green dial. Forget about lists composed entirely of generics that don't have turrets. You think a bomber of all ships can deal with that ****?

Dash with a green dial is some weakass **** that can't even beat r3-a2

KK > Kanan, any day. Dash's mobility makes him, but his dice mods are what make him scary

what can bombers do about it? Well, bombers will have long range scanners and range 2-3 homing missiles. Fire 3 of those and win the game, basically.

new tech would be dumb, considering the ships it come with cannot equip tech and half the ships that can equip tech can't even equip ordnance

it's almost 100% confirmed modification, given the upgrade slots on the TAPs

And here I was completely forgetting what expansion the card came with. Glad to hear its a modification. Hopefully it will end up being an interesting counterpart to Long Range Scanners.

it's going to be fun, I hope

Rainbow Dash is waaaay more fun than standard Super Dash. I call shenanigans on that focus token being the be all end all.

call shenanigans all you want, it ain't turning your focus to relevant results

You get to de-stress with faster manuevers, lessening the need to do 1 green banks and boost and barrel roll every turn. You can now do 3 hard green every turn, do one boost/BR, and then just focus.

Or you can do fast green manuevers and still boost and barrel roll. It doesn't matter if you can't modify if you're getting unreturnable shots on things. And then, once you've put yourself in a spot where your enemy's ships literrally cannot get to you even if they knew what your dial was during the planning phase, you focus and TL something and one shot it.

You have to understand that when I complain about Super Dash, KK's free focus isn't what I'm complaining about. It's his pre-nerf phantom hypermobility. Kanan Jarrus is a straight buff to that.

If you can't equip it to ships with firepower 3 or higher, than it isn't the ordance fix we need. That will still leave ordance not worth taking on many ships.

2) It's be really easy to make ordnance stupid powerful, which is why I appreciate FFG edging towards bringing it into the meta one small step at a time.

3) If you buff ordnance enough to make it worth its points on, say, a B-Wing then it'd almost certainly be CRAZY OVERPOWERED on, say, a Z-95.

4) Not every ship and every upgrade can or should be on the cutting edge of the competitive meta.

One is not an argument. I can easily counter with why not make ordance worth taking on ships that can equip them.

Your other arguments are predicated on ordance becoming op. People generally are just asking that it becomes worth the points.

Glory to the Empire! As basically an empire-only player, this is an exciting time.

Just tried out Omega Leader tonight, and gotta say, I think I'm in love. Juke + Comms is stupid good, basically making whatever you have target locked roll with a -1 evade.

I think people are not giving Kallus Whisper enough credit. Proxied him tonight. Having Kallus target a ship with higher PS than Whisper meant I was pretty consistently getting 2 - 3 evades with an evade token, even on only two dice. This, I think, is going to be a sleeper hit.