Hello there, forum warriors and dice-lovers!

There was and still is much fuss about Ordnance in X-wing.

FFG has put an enormous amount of work trying to make them even a bit viable, but right now it seems it's a very narrow counter-matchup specific upgrade, each suited for specific task and in too many cases outperformed by more stable attacks.

I once had an idea: use different dice.

Without too much trouble, taking Armada dice to a test game with basic X wings (one of which is a Batman-Wedge)

field-test proved me right

Black dice from Armada™ work perfectly, completely ignore the problem of "****, I need two actions for the TL+Focus attack that would BE better than my 3+Focus primary!"

4\8 hits

2\8 blanks

2\8 hit+crits

managed to make use of all torpedoes.

maybe releasing the "BOMBS AWAY" upgrade pack

with Punisher+Kwing+H6

a new set of torpedoes (and 1 reprint of old ones) and missiles with colour of attack value printed in colour of corresponding dice

Bombs and pilots

And a hefty 4-dice-of-2-colours

with FAQ allowing players to use either the old red dice or the new ones.

WILL fix the ordnance without requiring a ton of upgrade cards all over the place

What's the thought on such idea does Forum have?

Colour? Dice side variations?
Maybe the great Printer God Clerics (also known as Developers) will see the thread

Sounds interesting, not sure what the smoothest means of implementing such a fix officially would be. I think a pack of dice along would be the best option rather than having to buy more potentially redundant ships.

Sounds like it could be a fun house rule to try out. I doubt we'll see a fix as radical a departure as this, particularly given what has been said in interviews about fixing ordnance. Plus where yet to find out what the plucky guidance chimp will do as one of the pieces of the multifaceted ordnance fix from FFG.

I'm keen to hear more about how you found using the experience of Armada black dice as a substitute. Too lethal for the points? About right?

I think if/when FFG do X-Wing 2.0 it will have more than just red and green dice. This will offer up many more options for variation between ships and weapon systems. Ion dice? Ordnance dice? I think a happier balance could be found without going over the top.

nah.

Why should a Torpedo used for attacking Capital ships be super accurate against small ones?

In terms of squad building, I think one simple way to bring a new ordnance die into the game would be as a modification card. For a couple of points, "when attacking with a torpedo or missile, roll black attack dice instead of red attack dice" or whatever. It conflicts with Munitions Failsafe, but works fine with Extra Munitions.

But I'm not very interested in fixing ordnance in such a drastic way. Ordnance can be effective in Epic, so making it a lot more effective in 100pt dogfights has the potential to make it overpowered in other formats. I think small helpful nudges like Extra Munitions, and new pilots that synergize well with ordnance, are what we're going to keep seeing from FFG. A general fix just seems out of reach at this point.

Simple X-wing with Plasma torpedo gets x2 chance to crit compared to normal result, 2 times less likely to get a blank.

Overally very effective. Although some torpedoes do have "eyeball" effects, so they are meant for use with focus results and focus tokens.

I'd even say TOO effective. The dice have (not even considering double results) 6\8 chances of damage.

It's like suddenly every torpedo comes with in-built focus.

(mitigating the problems of single-actions)

Ion dice are a really good idea, you're definitely right about that.

nah.

Why should a Torpedo used for attacking Capital ships be super accurate against small ones?

Why shouldn't torpedo be more effective than a basic blaster attack?
You pay extra to get extra punch.

While right now we have like 2 real torpedo users, all the others require the stars to align in some manner to use ordnance effectively.

just saying, there are ways to make torpedoes viable without breaking the lore.

Making them laser precise and do loads of damage is NOT one of them.

just saying, there are ways to make torpedoes viable without breaking the lore.

Making them laser precise and do loads of damage is NOT one of them.

a torpedo hit must HURT

And yeah, tell Luke torpedoes aren't precice enough to make 90' turns and hit tiny objects.

Lore-wise torpedoes and missiles are more precice than blaster fire.

nah.

Why should a Torpedo used for attacking Capital ships be super accurate against small ones?

See what you are saying. Not sure it would necessarily represent accuracy, but rather brute forcing the same result through larger warhead and guidance. Would only have to be in the ballpark to be 'effective'. Most modern anti-aircraft seeking warheads use similar fragmentation warheads via proximity fuzing to enable accurate detonation.

Having to buy a pack just for the fix dice aside, I'm honestly OK with ordnance tending to fall on the "fun" side of "competitive".

just saying, there are ways to make torpedoes viable without breaking the lore.

Making them laser precise and do loads of damage is NOT one of them.

a torpedo hit must HURT

And yeah, tell Luke torpedoes aren't precice enough to make 90' turns and hit tiny objects.

Lore-wise torpedoes and missiles are more precice than blaster fire.

In terms of squad building, I think one simple way to bring a new ordnance die into the game would be as a modification card. For a couple of points, "when attacking with a torpedo or missile, roll black attack dice instead of red attack dice" or whatever. It conflicts with Munitions Failsafe, but works fine with Extra Munitions.

But I'm not very interested in fixing ordnance in such a drastic way. Ordnance can be effective in Epic, so making it a lot more effective in 100pt dogfights has the potential to make it overpowered in other formats. I think small helpful nudges like Extra Munitions, and new pilots that synergize well with ordnance, are what we're going to keep seeing from FFG. A general fix just seems out of reach at this point.

Pretty much this.

I'm not exactly sure what 'viable ordnance' would be. Viable in terms of jousting value? Viable on specialized ships? Many ordnance fixes come across as solutions looking for a problem.

The fact that more damage roughly equals more accuracy in the game means that bigger weapons will hit small targets more easily. That does not feel like Star Wars. So the extremes of that basic mechanism should be avoided, I think.

I prefer the idea of tweaking the mechanic to adding new components.

Some kind of dumbfire mechanism that lets you make a worthwhile shot a turn earlier would make ordnance a much more compelling proposition.

A Concussion missile fired with a focus has somewhere in the region of a 94% chance of giving you either 3 or 4 hits for your opponent to defend against - not too shabby if you can do it, especially on a 16 point ship.

But you need a TL as well, and that's a minimum of a 2 turn set up for a low-mid ps ship with a missile slot.

Either introduce more cheap ordnance ( a missile would be nice) - that just has the Attack:Focus header like the Proton Rocket. Or an upgrade (a mod possibly?) that allows you to treat attacks with the Attack:Target Lock header as Attack.

Or even both if you limit the latter. A whole swarm of low ps mooks able to ignore the TL requirement might be a little bit too much.

Not digging this idea...

I'm sure FFG will have ordinance fully "fixed" soon enough.

did you test it with an alpha strike - there's a fine line between making ordnance feel strong and be less risky individually, and a bunch of ordnance causing endgame conditions out of the opening salvo.

That's a neat idea. I doubt we ever see it implemented because of the need for another game's dice, but it seems like it would fix it. Lotta weapons however aren't really designed for it. Weapons that change focii like Proton Torps would be confused since there's no eye result.

I think the idea sounds like fun. I ordered up some blank d8's in black and white from https://www.thediceshoponline.com (reasonable shipping, even from the UK to the states) and I'm going to laser engrave some missile dice and some torpedo dice. For the Torpedo Dice, I figured I'll add some double hits (more damage), and for the missiles, I'll remove some blanks in favor of hits (more accurate). Will it be balanced? No idea, but it sounds like fun. I'm thinking:

Torpedo Dice (white): Blank (1x), Eye (3x), Hit (2x), Double Hit (2x)

{eyes can be modified to regular hits, encourages a two turn setup to get the full modified torpedo damage. Double hit faces can be canceled by a single evade, just like crits.}

Missile Dice (black): Blank (1x), Eye (2x), Hit (3x), Crit (2x)

If those prove too strong with the existing ordnance, I may consider a house-rule 1 or 2 pt card to switch your ordnance from regular red dice to the corresponding white/black dice.

Well it is too late to be adding dice. They already changed the core set into 1.5 edition. It is going to be a while before any major changes like that will occur.

As far as possible changes here are some possibilities besides new upgrades and pilot abilities.

• adding range bonuses to cannon and turrets (probably not happen especially when they released the dorsal turret)
• Have discarded upgrades no longer count to MOV when destroyed. (possible collateral buff to R2-D2 in an X-wing)

That's all I can think of now for the pen and ink changes.

Not digging this idea...

I'm sure FFG will have ordinance fully "fixed" soon enough.

guidance chip (chimps?) inc!

to be honest, I feel ordnance has already been fixed for bombers (although by ordnance, I mean Homing Missiles). Full mods on a better than HLC make everyone fear the humble PS scimitar, and I mean

now, to fix ordnance, new dice are simply far too complicated ito logistics

all Guidance Chips need to do is provide free focus --> hits to ordnance attacks at a modest price and Redline becomes terrifying

Ordnance is a limited use upgrade and it needs to be accurate to not be a waste of points, lore be damned and discarded as the 2nd-hand consideration that it is. Gameplay trumps all, else we'd all have jumped ship for whatever star wars merchandise was big back in 2013.

My general feeling is that players spend so many squad points on munitions that they should get _some_ value out of having fired them.

I also feel that ordnance fixes can't be "here are the only 2 pilots who can make good use of them".

Deadeye and the like can't be a good fix, because it's just adding more points on top of the cost of munitions.

I think Weapons Guidance is a good start- you can make all your attacks better. A ship with Weapons Guidance that focues and fires a Torpedo is guaranteed at least one success- and more likely 3 or 4.

I think a zero point mod (or errata...) That said something like "when making an attack against Small or Large ships with [Torpedo] or [missile] weapons that require spending a token, that does not hit, the defender must spend a [focus] or [evade] token, or suffer 1 damage".

I remember when playing the video games that it usually wasn't the missiles that got me. It was usually spending my attention on not getting hit by the missile that let someone get in behind me, that got me. This simulates that by _forcing_ me to actually spend my tokens (attention) on avoiding damage. This then sets up follow-on shots from wingmates.

It also means that no matter how badly the dice screw me as an attacker, I'm going to get _some_ return on my investment- either a token spent (if I'm shooting from a high-PS ship), or actual damage (if I'm shooting from a low PS ship). That's the minimum.

Another thing: it would help ensure accuracy without increasing potential damage. This buffs weapons enough to hurt Soontir, but not in a way that you makes it easy to 1-shot a Z-95.

I think too much ordnance "fix" would not be healthy for the game. In my opinion ordnance-heavy emphasis can lead to rude and weird game progresses

I think this could be easily implemented by automatically making all focus results rolled on discardable ordnance be turned to hits. This makes each red dice 6/8 chance of scoring a hit.

Now, this DOES make some torpedo or missile abilities seem kind of weird now, but, meh. I wanna fire more missiles!!!!!

Hmm... I have an idea:

Roll attack and defence dice as normal, modify dice as normal.

Then if the torpedo/missile hits, cancel all defence dice and the defender suffers the full damage that was rolled on the attack dice.

If it misses then ....You can go about your business. Move along.

My problem with ordnance is the limited ammunition and the restrictions it places on the game design.

If the ordnance has all the same restrictions of a normal attack (arc, dice roll, etc), plus other restrictions (only range 2-3, spends target lock to fire), plus costs squad points, then it needs to be significantly better than a normal attack. The only things you have to play with then are accuracy and damage. But okay, that is something that can be worked into the rules. I don't think that's what they did, but okay, it is what it is. Alpha-strike is a thing.

This creates a secondary problem, though, with the sort of ships that carry ordnance. An X Wing is a 3 dice attack ship, so spending squad points on a 4 dice attack is less efficient than spending the same squad points to give a Z95 (a 2 dice attack ship) a 4 dice attack.

Then, if we're spending points on ordnance, we're going to want as many of the cheapest platforms as we can afford, rather than a smattering through the squad.

So if the only point of ordnance is a better 'jousting' attack, it's either good on cheap ships and not good on everything else, or its good on most things and overpowered on cheap ships.

Now, in defense of FFG, they are making certain type of ordnance do things other than 'be a better attack', with flechette torpedoes, advanced homing missiles, and ion pulse missiles, and they're keeping ordnance more or less about the same power level so any overall fix they include doesn't turn something overpowered, but on the flip side, they still need to do something to the ordnance rules overall so they offer *something* other than just damage.

This maybe coming from out of left field, but how about just giving Missiles and Torpedoes 360 Degree Arc of fire, like a once and done turret...I mean you have a target lock...what's stupid about it being able to fire and forget. This would make Missiles and Torps extremely viable to any ship that could carry them. Who knows...maybe this makes them OP, but it doesn't hurt to try it out as a house rule. There would probably be some Missiles/Torps exceptions...like maybe Cluster Missiles, etc...

Just a thought!

just saying, there are ways to make torpedoes viable without breaking the lore.

Making them laser precise and do loads of damage is NOT one of them.

a torpedo hit must HURT

And yeah, tell Luke torpedoes aren't precice enough to make 90' turns and hit tiny objects.

Lore-wise torpedoes and missiles are more precice than blaster fire.

Yes, it should. It shouldn't however, be more accurate than anything else in the game AND hit like a cement truck filled with the core of a neutron star.

So the most powerful Jedi in the Galaxy made a one in a million shot that had up until this point been set up as 'impossible, even for a computer'. Yes, part of this setup includes literally showing us that a non-jedi doesn't stand a chance at hitting it.

Lore-wise no, they aren't.