In this segment of Discussion Time, I want to go over Turbolaser upgrades and when and why you use them. The reason behind this is because I want to see where some older cards stand now with the new ones.

The questions:

What Turbolaser upgrades do you prefer?

What Turbolaser upgrades do you find less useful?

Please comment based off what lists you like to use and what you want to use.

I will start.

I personally love XI7 Turbolasers. I am on a 2 ISD kick and they don't leave home without them. They work well on things like the Assault Frigate, MC30c. MC80 and VSD bit other than that they require a significant punch (average 5 damage per attack)

At the least. I prefer XX-9. First two are face up? And now your contain is useless? Yes please.

At the least. I prefer XX-9. First two are face up? And now your contain is useless? Yes please.

For 5? And useless if you aren't dealing at least 2 face to damage? Not by style.

I run XI7, but have been considering dropping them for something else or switching to HTTs.

At the least. I prefer XX-9. First two are face up? And now your contain is useless? Yes please.

How is the Contain useless?

Edit: Nevermind... foggy this morning.

In be4 TRC Corvette hype.

I agree with you, that on larger and harder hitting ships x 17 work wonders. More combos I'd like to experiment include H 9 on mc 30 torpedo frigate in a mon mothma list, to get the home one effect with sweet black dices and HTT + intel officer for maximum messing with enemy defense tokens. Haven't had a chance to try them tho.

mc30c and cr90 - TRCs are wonderful!

ISD, VSD, AFMKII - XI7s are the way to go

neb-b - Slaved Turrets help with that front arc

I never use enhanced armament anymore. It's simply not worth the point cost.

Is anyone using Heavy Turbolasers?

I've found that I've fallen into the habit of having a few specific upgrade cards I take with any given ship, and tend to stick to those (tweaking to fit into a list as needed). Not sure that's necessarily a good thing, as I don't give myself a chance to see how other things might work. Because of that, I would say that I, honestly, use several of the Turbolaser upgrades, depending on the ship they are attached to, and the build.

Slaved Turrets is great on Neb-B's as I prefer to let them sit in a corner, creeping forward and blasting only out of their forward arc anyway.

As we all know by now, Turbolaser Reroute Circuits are great on CR90's. They have the Evade's to spare. They are also useful on AFMII's to really add some punch to an already solid dueler.

XI7's are great on your heavy hitters, like ISD's, and even MC80's. Hit hard, target the Brace first with Accuracy, and force them to eat most of the damage on the target hull zone. Not so useful on lower damage output ships, since you may be perfectly content to redirect only 1 damage from an attack anyway.

HTT's are also solid on the heavy hitters, especially when you are less sure of your Accuracy (ie. no Home One). I really like both this an XI7's a lot. I would say these are the most often used by me, and it's almost a coin toss on which to use in any given game.

I really only use XX-9's in a Dodonna build. Holy crap that's nasty. This will get me to break from my 'normal' upgrades for a given ship, but it's only because it's for a given build.

Enhanced Armament... just too expensive for what it does. This one I don't really ever play.

H9's have their use, I guess, but are not for me.

I'm too rigid aren't I?

So, I've got a very low experience with Wave 2 cards, but here's my take on the few games I've seen played/played against !

XI7 stronger than ever due to being reFAQd for mitigating Advanced Projectors, and now that they can be thrown on ships with a bajillion dice rolling for accuracy.

Turbolaser reroute circuits are amazing for small ship spam with CR90, Nebs and MC30. If I wasn't starting off with Imperials for Wave 2, I'd seriously consider a Mothma small ship spam all armed with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits.

XX-9 I need to try them with a Screed build, on Avenger for instance. I feel that the ISD's dice bucket does them justice.

H9 are still way overpriced for what they do imho, but I could give them another go. But 8 points per ship means you probably want to keep them on a single ship, and funnily enough not on one that throw a ton of red dice (which is more likely to roll the accuracy result). Maybe as a flanking corvette wolf pack after a main attack has exhausted the defense tokens (but still it's 16 points for 2 ships, erg).

Slaved Turrets I've seen used with no surprise on Ackbar kite lists, and they're a solid upgrade.

HTT I haven't seen yet used nor tried, and I've read HERO's very interesting comparison with XI7 Turbos (see here : http://lkhero.blogspot.fr/2015/12/armada-htts-vs-xi7s.html) wherehe concludes that they are less a generalist upgarde as they are when you are specifically looking to inflict big damage all around, and work well as an opener at long range to prevent the opponent from comboing defense tokens to mitigate damage (while XI7 are straight up damage dealers). I can really really see them working well with Intel Officer to actually force the opponent to tank and spread the damage. But needs playtesting and will surely do

Enhanced armament gets justice imho with the ISD. It makes the side arcs almost shoot like a Victory's front arc, and on a Vic 2 as the centerpiece to force flanking I feel it works superbly.

I still run with my Xi-7's paired with an Intel Agent for overall ship use.

I find it to be a very effective combination for shutting down defense tokens.

When I am running 2 ISD's, I like to use XX-9's on the second, with Avenger and an Intel Officer, adding Overload Pulse to the first ISD with the Intel Officer and Xi-7's

The second ISD also gets the SW-7 Ion cannons for turning blue accuracy to hits, both get Gunnery Team and Screed is the Admiral of choice.

I have found this to be a very effective Turbolaser set up.

It varies by ship...

TRC for Corvettes is an obvious choice.

TRC for Salvation on the Nebulon B front is fantastic because you get double impact from flipping to a crit.

X17 for things that are heavy hitters on their own.

EA still has a place in non-Ackbar fleets with gunnery teams.

I would like to add a caveat to the numerous "NebB gets Slaved Turrets" comments, in that I would only consider that Turbolaser for the Support variant, and wouldn't want to lose the AA dice the Escort variant brings (especially Yavaris, if you're inclined to spend extra for a Turbolaser on her).

I do agree wholeheartedly with the XX9 and Dodonna combo.

I still love the X17 with Rebels versus all those double Redirect token Star Destroyers, especially in conjunction with Home One's ability to negate the single Brace token, and believe even a NebB can still find it useful against those bruisers (especially Salvation).

I like the TRC on a NebB (even Sally can benefit from a better chance of the Crit/double not being Evaded) because I don't really expect my NebB to get too much use from its own Evade token.

As you might guess, I have a bit of a NebB fixation.

H-9s would probably be worth it if they let you change any die to an accuracy the way Home One does. Home One is a cheaper upgrade and can buff all of your other ships. I can't see this upgrade ever getting used without a change like this. I am not trying to get rid of my damage I am trying to get rid of my blanks!!!

It depends on how many Dice you are rolling...

Removing one Hit at one point, might save you 2 or 3 Damage to a Brace token, depending on what you're throwing...

True, but in that case probably the only ships I am taking it on are MC30's, Glad IIs, ISD Is and VSD Is. Ie ships that can deal a lot of damage but have a low probability of getting an accuracy. I will take my chances with the VSD II ISD II and MC80 that I will get an accuracy.

>XI7 to push damage for ships that do big damage
>HTTs for control without IO
>TRCs for reliability and damage on double evade ships

I treat XI7's like hot sauce and put it on everything!

I really like the fact that XI7's rip up the advanced projectors upgrade. The only draw back is ECM and brace.

I treat XI7's like hot sauce and put it on everything!

I really like the fact that XI7's rip up the advanced projectors upgrade. The only draw back is ECM and brace.

I just dont see that as a drawback. As long as you are doing more than 5 damage on average before the brace you are pushing damage through.

My turbo laser choice is dictated by the answer to this question - do I want to use a scalpel, or sandpaper?

XI-7s are great scalpels, cutting to the core easily. But they leave shields intact, and other ships without XI-7 and squadrons still have to wear down those shields in other hull zones (unless you can magically get everyone to only shoot one hull zone, all the time). So either my fleet is entirely XI-7's, or I'll go with sandpaper.

Here the other options mesh much better with squadrons. Increasing damage overall can be just as effective as bypassing shields, once all the shields are gone. So make them go away faster...that way squadrons contribute no matter the hull zone they're shooting at.

You know what's kind of strange?

I barely saw mention of XI7 Turbolasers until Wave 2 came about. I think it was with the influx of higher damage rolls through the ISD, Ackbar and Home One that it started making a bigger appearance. That has to be why it started catching on right?

When I FIRST looked at XI7s, I immediately bought 3x Neb-B expansions, and this before Wave 2 hit the shelves. Why wasn't this everyone else's reaction?

You know what's kind of strange?

I barely saw mention of XI7 Turbolasers until Wave 2 came about. I think it was with the influx of higher damage rolls through the ISD, Ackbar and Home One that it started making a bigger appearance. That has to be why it started catching on right?

When I FIRST looked at XI7s, I immediately bought 3x Neb-B expansions, and this before Wave 2 hit the shelves. Why wasn't this everyone else's reaction?

Didn't have the Money for Redundancy.

You know what's kind of strange?

I barely saw mention of XI7 Turbolasers until Wave 2 came about. I think it was with the influx of higher damage rolls through the ISD, Ackbar and Home One that it started making a bigger appearance. That has to be why it started catching on right?

When I FIRST looked at XI7s, I immediately bought 3x Neb-B expansions, and this before Wave 2 hit the shelves. Why wasn't this everyone else's reaction?

Yea I could see that its grown more popular since wave 2. However, I have been running X17's before X17's became the cool thing to do

You know what's kind of strange?

I barely saw mention of XI7 Turbolasers until Wave 2 came about. I think it was with the influx of higher damage rolls through the ISD, Ackbar and Home One that it started making a bigger appearance. That has to be why it started catching on right?

When I FIRST looked at XI7s, I immediately bought 3x Neb-B expansions, and this before Wave 2 hit the shelves. Why wasn't this everyone else's reaction?

Well there was that FAQ ruling that nerfed AP's. I believe that was when XI-7's began multiplying on the tabletop...

You know what's kind of strange?

I barely saw mention of XI7 Turbolasers until Wave 2 came about. I think it was with the influx of higher damage rolls through the ISD, Ackbar and Home One that it started making a bigger appearance. That has to be why it started catching on right?

When I FIRST looked at XI7s, I immediately bought 3x Neb-B expansions, and this before Wave 2 hit the shelves. Why wasn't this everyone else's reaction?

Yea I could see that its grown more popular since wave 2. However, I have been running X17's before X17's became the cool thing to do

I swear no one reads my observations. . .

You know what's kind of strange?

I barely saw mention of XI7 Turbolasers until Wave 2 came about. I think it was with the influx of higher damage rolls through the ISD, Ackbar and Home One that it started making a bigger appearance. That has to be why it started catching on right?

When I FIRST looked at XI7s, I immediately bought 3x Neb-B expansions, and this before Wave 2 hit the shelves. Why wasn't this everyone else's reaction?

Yea I could see that its grown more popular since wave 2. However, I have been running X17's before X17's became the cool thing to do

I swear no one reads my observations. . .

No, I read your observations my man. I'm more interested in why they've only recently caught on.