There's been a lot of good discussion about how to get the most out of Ordnance carrying ships given the bevy of new cards that support these ships. This post is less concerned about details of Ordnance ship builds, and more concerned about bigger picture effects on how different archetypes will approach this new challenge. I've outlined a few categories, and the challenges they face in a new Ordnance meta, should it comes to pass.

Arc Dodgers:

Extremely mobile ships (Fel, Jake, Vader with EU, etc.) have some in-built resistance to Ordnance carriers, because their natural maneuverability allows them to avoid the arc of the firing ship, often by dodging into Range 1, where most damaging Ordnance doesn’t work. Arc Dodgers also typically have high PS, so have an easier time avoiding a first engagement Target Lock. Long Range Sensor ordnance builds negate this early advantage, but are easier to avoid by an Arc Dodger once distance is closed. A significant caveat is that there are many different kinds of Ordnance, and there will be some that have a significant effect on almost any kind of ship.

Regenerators:

In general, regenerating ships hate Ordnance, because it allows a disproportionate amount of damage to be dealt in a short time, reducing the number of turns that regeneration activates.

Fat Turrets:

I think Fat Turrets generally don’t care too much about an Ordnance meta. They have the hit points to sustain spike damage, and the maneuverability to avoid some shots. A potential downside for Turrets is if Ordnance carriers become more widespread, and Ion Pulse Missiles get thrown in some squads that have spare Missile Slots. Ion Pulse Missiles can take away the unpredictability of a turret, and make it much easier to focus down.

Low AGI Ships:

These ships are largely indifferent to an Ordnance meta. Like Fat Turrets, they sustain high dice attacks fairly well, and even if a Low AGI jouster is lost a turn early because of Ordnance, its squadmates will be dealing with less remaining firepower overall. The otherwise questionable Ion Torpedo is a potential exception. Many low AGI jousting lists gain benefits from formation flying, and an Ion Torpedo is both dangerous to formations, and can hit a low AGI ship easily.

High AGI Ships:

These ships dislike an increase in Ordnance more than low AGI ships. High AGI ships are strong at resisting low dice attacks, but poor at resisting high dice attacks. This weakness is compounded by the fact that one of the strongest Ordnance choices, Homing Missile, ignores Evade tokens, which are often relied upon to keep multi-action high AGI ships alive.

These are some initial impressions that I get based on my experience with the game, but they’re only broad estimations at this point. I’d love to hear from anyone who has their own ideas, especially if they’ve tried these new cards out by proxy. Thanks for reading.

Good post, I agree completely.

I, for one, welcome our new ordnance carrying overlords.

Even if ordnance doesn't see a renaissance because of EM and Guidance Chimps I still think they make it more viable.

I agree with most of it, though I think low agility ships care a bit more than you at this point. I'm thinking specifically about the TLT Y since it is the dominating ship in the meta right now and at agility one.

Its preferred engagement range is three since it typically gets an extra defense die and its turret denies the defending ship one. However, ordnance doesn't really care about this and there will be comparably pointed ships that will be able to blow it out of the water before it gets multiple turns for those TLTs to work.

Gamma Squadron w/EM+Homing Missiles and either LRS/Guidance Chips creates a very accurate pair of shots for 25 points. Gamma Squadron Vets with Crack Shot are 27 points, but either will do the trick (though two Vets with crack shot are going to almost reliably take down a Agility 1 8 health ship on the initial volley). You can take two of these and still have enough for even more support. With those upgrades at the cost of 7 points, this is arguably comparable in value to an HLC even though it's only two shots. There's still 46-50 points left over for a swarm or ace.

I actually think the Gamma is very close to competing with that ship right now without the two upgrades, but it struggles to get a lock against higher PS ships and that initial shot could benefit from either the focus+TL that LRS or Guidance chips that give that slight uptick in damage.

better to look at it ito of what it does for bombers

bombers, formerly fat tie fighters, now have the potential to threaten everything

I do like the option of a control Bomber, though.

I love options. It makes casual games more fun and it makes competitive play even more so. I doubt ordnance will make up a huge part of most lists but it is one more thing to think about now.

I am glad to see the fix or ordinance

Bombers never see the table, and they can use all the help they can get

Thing about ordinance is though, it's still an added cost to your squad.

You pay X amount of pts to do ____ once maybe twice.

I still don't think it's going to create a huge shift in the meta.

Ships like bombers can still have a hard time delivering their payload before they go poof.

Other ships like bwings, xwing probably still won't use them as there is better upgrades

Yes ordinance will hurt falcons and bwings since they have low agility, but that goes without saying. Stress builds like Panic attack or swarms hurt them as well.

Having a squad of scimitar will still struggle trying to catch fel

I don't think it's going to be a sudden shift in what people fly.

I think if anything the tie shuttle mod will make bombers see more play vs the ordinance fix we are getting

I've already tried a couple of games with 3 scimitar with crew on them and they have preformed very well so far

Just the presence if them on the board alone was enough to effect the games outcome, without really having to worry about getting that sweet spot

Homing missle bombers have less trouble pegging aces than just about every generic in existence outside r3-a2 Ys


Range 3 + actual chance of hurting the prick goes a long way. Also mauls aggressors

"Thing about ordinance is though, it's still an added cost to your squad.
You pay X amount of pts to do ____ once maybe twice.

Just the presence if them on the board alone was enough to effect the games outcome, without really having to worry about getting that sweet spot"

I find this interesting. Question for those who bring and/or face ordnance regularly. Does your opponent knowing you have a torp or missle in the pipe change the way they fly or how they choose to engage? For example, are they rushing to get into R1 instead of risking range for better positioning. If that is the case, then ordnance may be worth at least part of their points even if it doesn't do direct damage.

Thanks for your replies.

Crack shot and bombs have sold me on single use effects. Bombs specifically.

To me bombs are already competitive and given the overlap with EM something I take bombs on would be able to take a torp or missile pretty cheaply.

I'm interested to see how it all pans out.

I like the concept provided missile spam doesn't fully take on. I much prefer blaster fire for fighter to fighter, but it's nice to see value in the special munitions.

I've only tried out the Raider since the upgrades to munitions started piling up and I loved it to be honest.

AlexW, you are 100% correct, and I've looked at Gammas with the build you mentioned above as a TLT counter. I'm not sure why it didn't make my list.

The LRS Homing Missile Bomber (Crack Shot optional) can be something like an Imperial Stresshog. That is a ship that certain enemies just cannot afford to land in front of. It's not quite as decisive as the 'hog, but it can be cheaper, and you can have more than one.

I dunno, a properly modded torpedo attack is pretty darn ugly. I can only imagine that if ordnance got a boost it would surely make my Ties pop harder. Then again you can always flub red dice too... I don't think anyone should be immune to a bad dice roll though. I guess it's a problem with ordnance because you pay so much more for it, but then again if you miss with a cannon or turret, isn't that a waste of X points at that time? I mean you do get to try again next turn for the same points cost, but in reality you still did nothing.

I really like that FFG pays attention, but I would hate to see this game turn into Warmachine with spaceships, where only the hardest hitting alpha strikers have any chance at all.

edit: plus I hate having to wear a black t-shirt when I play that game so...

With ordnance having been high investment, limited shots, and unreliable it seems like we might see torpedoes now that the cost has dropped ( extra munitions) and is more reliable (chips and long range). Which is great. Even epic has removed the limited shots.

I like the concept provided missile spam doesn't fully take on. I much prefer blaster fire for fighter to fighter, but it's nice to see value in the special munitions.

Given the choice I would have preferred a slightly better fix, but limited to avoid missile spam.

Of course there's no reason to suspect that Chimps are the only fix, so maybe we will see something like that in future.

I'd also like to see something that puts missiles back on A-Wings - they were the Rebels primary missile platform after all - Chardaan is great and all but acts as a 3 point surcharge on ordnance.

Maybe some cheap A-Wing only missiles or an Enhanced Missile Bay upgrade that allows you to place an Extra Munitions token on an equipped missile.

I don't think ordnance will be a significant factor in the meta. Every list I face is based around aces that can manipulate what range they're at at will with high PS.

Catching Scum Super Dash or All Green Dial Dash with any arc based ship is going to be a headache let alone trying to do it with a bomber.

I don't think ordnance will be a significant factor in the meta. Every list I face is based around aces that can manipulate what range they're at at will with high PS.

Catching Scum Super Dash or All Green Dial Dash with any arc based ship is going to be a headache let alone trying to do it with a bomber.

You sheepdog him into a corner, then hit him with an Ion Pulse Missile.

I don't think ordnance will be a significant factor in the meta. Every list I face is based around aces that can manipulate what range they're at at will with high PS.

Catching Scum Super Dash or All Green Dial Dash with any arc based ship is going to be a headache let alone trying to do it with a bomber.

I'm sorry if I missed it, but what is the 'All Green Dial Dash'?

I have not tried it all yet by prox and such, but it is very clear to me and other vetterans here that FFG IS FIXING the Boom-stuff for real for real and I like it.

For we vet-wingers it is a kind of deep bonus seeing how the game ebbs and flows over the months and years.

I don't think ordnance will be a significant factor in the meta. Every list I face is based around aces that can manipulate what range they're at at will with high PS.

Catching Scum Super Dash or All Green Dial Dash with any arc based ship is going to be a headache let alone trying to do it with a bomber.

I'm sorry if I missed it, but what is the 'All Green Dial Dash'?

There is a card called, "Kanan Jarrus" that's coming in the Ghost Expansion. It basically turns all of your white maneuvers green and it works on the ship he's on.

I'd like to push this topic in another direction: What does an alpha-strike meta look like?

Because many of us wanted to try ordnance cuz it sucked, we in this area created some very powerful ordnance builds during wave8. Before the large ship MOV fix, the highest quality builds we could muster along with the forums' (Cluster Acc Tie Advanced, Gersun's 6Z) would only give you about a 45% against equal skilled opponents flying arc dodgers. Against largeship pre-nerf, you had maybe a 30%, based on the simple question if whether THEY were good at avoiding you or not.

Our conclusion: These ordnance builds were around the 40% mark, strictly tier 2.

Now with largeship mov fixed and guidance chips, id plant those builds now at a firm 50%.

--

What we did:

We built lists that would deliver the highest punch with relative "pick-off" insurance, within a single turn of combat. Meaning, in one turn, we could fire for max effect.

We practiced hard on using very unmaneuverable ships to get shots off on arc dodgers, playing against lists like Soontir Vader Palp, or IGs.

Against large ships, we employed split formation deployment to increase chances of blocking.

During this time, we got so good at some of these ships, that we could take 4 to 6 unmaneuverable ships through DENSE asteroid fields, swarming/bumping etc, without making more than about 1-2 mistakes over 3 games.

--

Anyway, after a while we started playing some ordnance vs ordnace builds. This is what we worried about: What does an alpha strike meta look like?

It turns out, its pretty "unfun". It usually starts with very quiet jostling for position, PS gets overly importnat, and then BLAM. a bunch of things die and both of you are left flying neutered lists.

Some people have equated it to flying 150 point 3x3 lists: you pick one ship on your opponents team that you dont like, remove it from the game on the first turn, then play a 100 pt game from there.

Due to the high cost of ordnance, most of the ships we flew also didn't have much in the way of repositioning.

It actually became a moderately boring game.

The takeaway is this: The newly buffed ordnance looks to be in a good spot. Powerful, but not overbearing. Too much ordnance is actually not that fun to play around.

I think there's a potential TLT effect in games. If you're not prepared for it, it will cause huge problems for you.

better to look at it ito of what it does for bombers

bombers, formerly fat tie fighters, now have the potential to threaten everything

just to be clear on this:

bombers actually packing rockets and bombs? that's a good thing, right?!

I don't think ordnance will be a significant factor in the meta. Every list I face is based around aces that can manipulate what range they're at at will with high PS.

Catching Scum Super Dash or All Green Dial Dash with any arc based ship is going to be a headache let alone trying to do it with a bomber.

You sheepdog him into a corner, then you create a distraction and then hit him with an Ion Pulse Missile with something heavy and hard. over the head. several times.

all-green-dashes and maybe with regenocorran deserve nothing less

fixed that for you

I agree about the impact of ordnance on TLT Y's. The whole key to dealing with TLT spam right now is dropping one early. This makes that easier.