As a new player, there are alot of differnet upgrades to consider, and are only going to get more. However there a couple of Turbolaser cards that look very underwhelming;

H9 Turbolasers. 8 pts. Costly, and with an effect that costs a hit/crit, I just don't see these being very good. Perhapse their best use is on back/red dice heavy ships that can't reliably roll an accuracy, and that roll alot of dice so the loss of a hit is comparetively weaker. Still other options are often better. Notably dissapointing to me are that they a terrible on the ship in their artwork and are paired with in the lore (CR90). These lack massive dice pools and thus the loss of a hit will hurt, and the gain of accuracy isn't of much benifit for the low damage attack.

Heavy Turbolaser Turrents. Sure these things are to counter brace, but most ships only have 1 brace which is easily removed by an accuracy, (or intel officers). Neb Bs are harder to stop from bracing, but probably will only spend the one defense token anyway, thus are not affected by them. It would seem that the X17 are the superior choice. Again these look to be best on a ship that rolls alot of dice and really want to stop the brace being used, maybe with SW-7 for further hits and ignoring accuracy results entirely.

To a lesser extent Enhanced Armament is a poor choice also. At 10pts it is expensive. Sure you gain a dice, but the other turbolasers may actually increase expected damage more then this for cheaper.

Any thoughts on these upgrades? Any particular ships they are good on or upgrades the combo with?

H9 was a really useful tool with wave 1. Right now, it don't find a place in my fleet (even when I still in mind the h9-warlord combo).

HTT are good. I think the problem is how people understand it. It could have a similar effect than xi-7 and anyone could use it to focus one hull. Problem: xi7 do it from 3 damages, HTT do it from 4 and the results are the same (when what we want is dealing damage ignoring shields and redirections) until 10 damages (always considering the MC80. Of course, the consequences are not the same cause HTT could do the same than xi7 OR less on the defending hull zone but literally crushing the shields all around. And here is when the HTT makes me think on other uses rather than an xi7 imperial version. As imperial I have ACM and they make a lot of pain when the defender has hulls without shields or just 1. HTT could make a ship really vulnerable from other attacks or at least almost the same than xi7. The question of the ships that have only one brace is useless when all of them have ECM. The really problem with HTT is that they only have sense on the ISD as you notice. The only thing I don't like about HTT is the the enemy choose and it usually don't help me. I think xi7 is better but HTT is better than any other turbolaser when we talk about a ship without evade of course.

And enhance armament... well for me (as imperial) it sucks but I see rebel scum using it. I see less xx-9 flying around.

If Heavy Turbos worked like XI7s, they'd be a bit better. Or, more accurately, if XI7s worked like Heavys, then they'd be a bit fairer

HTTs have a nice combo with Overload Pulse. When your ship has OL Pulse the enemy know that all their tokens will be exhausted so tend to use them all anyway before the blue crit takes effect. By putting HTTs on the same ship it discourages this especially from a large volley such as an ISD-II or VSD-II.

HTTs and SW7 Ion Cannons can have a nice combination if from a large volley. You don't need as many accuracies with HTTs so unused accuracies can make even more damage.

I still prefer XI7s especially against smaller ships.

Well if an opponent was going to brace an Even number of dmg anyway changing a hit to an accuracy with H9 isnt such a bad idea in order for them to burn that ECM

I agree on the H9s, they dont seem to fit in the present fleet lists I build or encounter. For a niche upgrade they are rather costly, and compete for a great uprade slot.

On HTTs however I have to disagree, I see them a lot on heavy hitters and think they have earned their place.

EA is kind of a bummer, 10 pts for an additional red die (cause that is what you are getting most of the time..) seems pricey, and like H9s it competes for a great slot. Now from a fluff perspective I dont really understand why type of TLs should compete with quantity of TLs, but thats another talk..

XX-9, rarely seen. The effect feels rather lackluster to me, again competes for a great slot.

The real "problem" in my eyes is the dominance of Xi7s/HTTs. No other TL upgrade comes close to touching them effectwise.

Now I have more time I made some numbers... maybe someone already did it.

*If the defender choose to just brace.

The damage is needed in order to deal a damage card. High Shields refers to the hull with more shield by default. About medium and low I bet you get it. NA means there are only two differents shields values and have always the same numbers than high shields. I didn't consider the chance of accuracies so the defender ALWAYS brace (unless CR90 and MC30, you know). We can find some funny things from this.

First of all: HTT need less damage but as long as the defender choose, it usually do the same that XI7. Only 7 instances benefit HTT and only 7 do the same with benefit XI7. The others are indifferent (in order to deal 1 damage card). Other thins: XI7 get some from shooting specific hulls of the same ship. While HTT face the same shields when shooting side hulls (cause the defender could redirect to the front anyway), XI7 face less shields (the defender always redirect 1 damage so the amount of shields of the adyacent hull doesn't matter). Just look how change the damage needed when shooting the ISD on different hulls. More: the smaller ship suffer more from XI7. Of course it is not a size question rather than a defense token question. Nebulon have no redirect so HTT and XI7 are stupid but HTT still working cause the evade token. Evade token is a hard thing to put on numbers but we can imagine that if the Neb take 7 damage on the front, the evade could reduce it by 2 (no more) so XI7 make 3 (no damage card) and HTT make 4 (damage card). Against a Raider they will work similar. On the other hand, MC30 and CR90 with no brace token make HTT totally useless but the XI7 are so sweet shooting this.

If we put the accuracy on play, of course XI7 are much better. The accuracy doesn't have a lot of sense with HTT. XI7 are like permanent accuracies on redirection tokens so with another accuracy, the defender is lost but we have ECM too. As long as ECM are in play the number of XI7 are above. The best thing about HTT (I think) is that they don't care about enemy ECM.

Now let's put all together. HTT benefit from large amount of damage (vs XI7), don't benefit from accuracies, don't care about ECM, don't benefit from shooting specific hull (at least not as XI7 do). XI7 don't improve their performace dealing more damage, make a good use of accuracies, and ECM are a problem. I think it is pretty clear that XI7 are a anti-imperial tool (better than a rebel since mirror matches are possible) as long as only ISD-II could carry ECM and the HTT are anti-rebel.

Anyway, these are my thoughts.

EDIT: sorry, it copy really well when I was wrinting but when I finished... ****! It is unreadable. I will try the long way.

Turbolaser Defending Ship Damage needed to deal 1 DC Dice needed (red)

High Shields Medium Shields Low Shields

HTT MC80 9*/10 NA 7*/9 10 to 14

XI7 11 NA 9 12 to 15

HTT ISD 9 7*/9 5*/7 7 to 12

XI7 11 9 7 10 to 15

HTT Mark 9 7*/9 5*/7 7 to 12

XI7 11 9 7 10 to 15

HTT VSD 7*/8 NA 3*/6 4 to 11

XI7 9 NA 5 7 to 12

HTT MC30 7 NA 6 8 to 10

XI7 5 NA 4 6 to 7

HTT GSD 7 5*/7 3*/5 4 to 10

XI7 9 7 5 7 to 12

HTT Nebulon 7 3 5 4 to 10

XI7 7 3 5 4 to 10

HTT CR90 5 NA 4 6 to 7

XI7 4 NA 3 4 to 6

HTT Raider 5 5 5 7

XI7 5 5 5 7

Now let's put all together. HTT benefit from large amount of damage (vs XI7), don't benefit from accuracies, don't care about ECM, don't benefit from shooting specific hull (at least not as XI7 do). XI7 don't improve their performace dealing more damage, make a good use of accuracies, and ECM are a problem. I think it is pretty clear that XI7 are a anti-imperial tool (better than a rebel since mirror matches are possible) as long as only ISD-II could carry ECM and the HTT are anti-rebel.

While I do love HTT, and use them often on ISDs (especially the 1 version), I think the last sentence quoted is questionable: if on one hand it's true that nearly every rebel ship can equip ECM, only a few of them actually do that, and those would generally be guppies and Mc 80s. Plus, there are entire rebel fleets made of only mc30 and cr 90 and against those, as you said, HTT are useless.

On the other hand, ALL imperial ships have brace, so some use for HTT can always be found.

I think I read somewhere, maybe on Biggs blog, that some calculation was made according to whom HTT start providing more benefits than x17 above 5 damage done, assuming the defending ship has brace to spend. I generally stick to that.

Now let's put all together. HTT benefit from large amount of damage (vs XI7), don't benefit from accuracies, don't care about ECM, don't benefit from shooting specific hull (at least not as XI7 do). XI7 don't improve their performace dealing more damage, make a good use of accuracies, and ECM are a problem. I think it is pretty clear that XI7 are a anti-imperial tool (better than a rebel since mirror matches are possible) as long as only ISD-II could carry ECM and the HTT are anti-rebel.

While I do love HTT, and use them often on ISDs (especially the 1 version), I think the last sentence quoted is questionable: if on one hand it's true that nearly every rebel ship can equip ECM, only a few of them actually do that, and those would generally be guppies and Mc 80s. Plus, there are entire rebel fleets made of only mc30 and cr 90 and against those, as you said, HTT are useless.

On the other hand, ALL imperial ships have brace, so some use for HTT can always be found.

I think I read somewhere, maybe on Biggs blog, that some calculation was made according to whom HTT start providing more benefits than x17 above 5 damage done, assuming the defending ship has brace to spend. I generally stick to that.

Well, I did it from an assumption of rebel ships taking ECM. Of course, if they not, the will have the same problems that the imperial ships have. As long as a ship have more dice, less maneuverability, less accuracies (or using SW7) and is facing a more maneuverable ship (that usually gives you its better hull), with ECM (and brace, obviously), HTT is more usefull. The first ship looks imperial, and the second looks rebel. And if you don't have a big dice pool, but can offset it shooting rear arcs and spending accuracies to cancel brace token, XI7 are the best. Even the more "rebel-like" imperial ships can't take turbolasers so... All MC30/CR90 list makes HTT useless. There is no doubt.

The question of damage and benefits of XI7 and HTT is a bit hard. If we think just in damage and assume that the defender will spend brace and redirect. XI7 look for dealing the damage on the defending hull, i think it is obvious. XI7 works from 3 damage. 3 brace 2 redirect 1 and take 1 on the defending hull zone. The problem cames when we think that HTT works the same way. Thats is not stupid at all. XI7 restrict the redirect token. HTT penalize the use of other tokens AND brace. It could be another way to penalize the redirect token (what XI7 do). Even when you just need 4 (not 5) damage in order to make the HTT text usefull (4 brace to 3 and redirect more damage than just bracing), the XI7 is better in this use. With 4 damage, the defender hull zone takes 3 while with HTT is takin from 2 to 0. That is the reason I started to think that using HTT like XI7 is stupid unless you can make 10 damage (taking MC80 as the defender) and there is another use to HTT. Right now I only can think on it combinated with ships with ACM or against ships with ECM.

Anyway, HTT make more damage around than XI7. I think HTT or XI7 is a really complex question with a lot of issues to consider.

I'll actually jump out to defend H9s here. I do think they are overpriced, maybe about 6 points would be right. But they are also a niche upgrade, so some ships find them about as useful as TRCs on a MC80 or Star Destroyer.

Imperials will find H9s are better used on VSD I and ISD I variants, where your natural chance of rolling an accuracy is fairly low. In addition to the H9/Warlord combo, they can be combined with Screed to the same effect as a sensor team while still keeping the weapons team slot open for the all important gunners team or ordinance experts. Due to its expense, I wouldn't go out of my way to run them, but if you were running Screed anyways, then it adds some versatility to his effects on your larger ships.

The best place to put them however is on the Rebels MC30 Torp. Frigate. My favorite build in the game is to put expanded launchers and H9s on them, giving you a small ship with 5 dice to throw from 3 of your firing arcs with a guaranteed accuracy without relying on another ship. I'm seriously considering getting another MC30 just so I can run 3 of these.

I made a quick spreadsheet to summarise what we said. The assumption is that the defender is basically an MC 80 (4 shields on 3 hull zones, brace and redirect token), but I think the conclusions are applicable more generally than that with just a few small adjustments to the numbers. Of course this isn't to say that HTT or x 17 is plain better, because there are a number of factors - and strategical ones too - that cannot be accounted in such a small spreadsheet.

Edit: whoops. No pasting from excel. Have the Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8A09BinMqvlWWtMZEhwNXRwQUE/view?usp=sharing

So basically what emerges is that the X17 ensures a greater precision in terms of hull zone hit comparing to HTT (surprise surprise!), but that in terms of overall damage done to the target ship the HTT is superior to the X17 provided the starting damage to be braced and redirected is equal or greater than 4. Also, the higher the damage you do, the higher the return on investment on HTT in respect to x17.

Xx9 can be nasty with donanna and the right obj cards

With the HTTs, you guys should really do the calculations on hull zones with no shields. XI7 is to burn shields down on a specific hull zone, HTT is to keep damage on the hull when shooting at a hull zone with no shields. Regardless of the amount of damage scored by the hits, HTTs will do one more damage over XI7 assuming the enemy has ECM and can Brace.

Works best on a carrier build large ships (and I think on an ISD compared to a mc80 due to more dice on the bigger hull zone).

H9 I never see because I think it is really expensive and people don't really value accuracies that high. Ironically enough, I've had good results with them on CR90s to hit the redirects when the opponent would have a shield zone depleted after popping a CF order. CR90s don't care much about being Braced on 4 dice, due to dropping 1 to an acc and still dealing 2 damage post Brace. If the enemy is unable to redirect and starts taking these small pecks to the hull, it's pretty good !

But the new upgrade cardss for the Turbo slot kind of steal the show in my meta. I can't remember when I haven't faced a list without TRCs.

H9s are my go-to when I need accuracy. Typically I'm configuring other things, but I know they are there when I need it. H9s are I think the most universal upgrade that provides accuracy and the cheapest cost: one hit/crit can get converted to an accuracy for free. Sure it's -1 damage, but it's only -1 damage.

The other source of accuracy is Sensor Teams. To use, you must remove another dice, but you can set any other dice to accuracy. It has its ups and downs, but I'd rather convert one die to an accuracy than be forced to remove one die to convert another. You also have to exhaust the Sensor Teams, so you can only use it once. I'd take Sensor teams over H9s only if I needed something else in the turbolaser slots and I have a large dice pool (like on a VSD-I with XI7s and Expanded launchers, or slaved turrets).

Intel officers I think are usually selected over the accuracy generators on the presumption they do the same thing and can bypass ECMs. However like Sensor teams they are an exhaust, but H9s are never exhausted when they are used.

HTTs force brace to be the only token to be used on the defense. XI7s de-power redirects. I think most don't take this one because they'd rather not force a player to use brace at all.

XX-9s are the turbolasers I see the least of, but someday I'd like to try them on an MC30 kitted out to deliver lots of damage at close range.

Indeed, part of the Cost of Sensor Teams is its compatibility with other Turbolaser Upgrades... Yes, it costs you a dice, but it Guarantees an Acc, and if you're throwing a bunch of dice in the first place, that -1 damage can balloon up to SO MUCH MORE if its the Brace that's ACC'd out...

If I'm throwing a Small handful of dice, of which only some have potential ACCS (IE, Victory-I), I'll consider H9. That acc makes the black die better.

In one way, An Assault Frigate with Sensor and Turbolaser Reroutes guarantees a minimum of 2 Damage with an ACC'd defense Token.

Also just relialised that H9 are somewhat effective against fighter aces. You can turn a crit that would otherwise miss into an accuracy to block the scatter.

Also just relialised that H9 are somewhat effective against fighter aces. You can turn a crit that would otherwise miss into an accuracy to block the scatter.

That's true, but it won't help much unless you're a 2-blue-dice flak ship.

H9s are best on ships with blue dice, which is paradoxical given we associate turbolasers with red dice. Effectively they say "hey, you're rolling at least one blue dice, right? Because if so, I can guarantee you an accuracy result NO MATTER WHAT." Red dice are a bit less reliable in that regard due to the possibility of blanks and the deep emotional turmoil of converting a double-hit dice into an accuracy rendering a total of half the dice sides either unusable (the 2 blanks, the 1 accuracy) or unappealing (the 1 double-hit side). I find they seem most appealing on MC30 Torpedo Frigates, as you can then count on the blue dice locking down a brace and the black dice (+ordnance upgrade) to up the damage, but they become very expensive outfitted that way.

The problem is the effect is extremely expensive for 8 points. How H9s are 8 points and XI7s are 6 I will never understand. Those points costs should've been swapped.

On review of the above, and further thinking, I can see how HTTs are actually very good on certain ships. In fact they perform a similar role to X17 in focusing down shields from a hull zone, with the advangate of being almost entirely unreliant on accuracy.

Consider your ship has 6 hits and the target has brace and redirect

HTT

The target can brace for 3 damage on the target hullzone, redirect for 6 damage spread out, or both for 5 damage spread out

X17

The target can brace for 3 damage to the hullzone, redirect for 5 damage to the hullzone and 1 spread, or both for 2 damage to the hullzone and 1 spread

In both cases damage is comparable with 1 defense token spent, with HTT vastly superior with 2 tokens spent. Both are also effective against Contain, but in different ways, X17 to punch through shields, and HHT to outright stop it being spent.

Not unreasonably some ships can get 8+ hits, for which the difference between X17 and HHT becomes more pronounced.

In summary;

X17 needs to stop the brace for maximum effectiveness, and need to maintain their focus on the one hullzone. X17 do NOT provide bonus damage, but rather focus hullzones down. Combo well with other X17, crits and accuracy.

HTT tend to either spread heavy damage, indirectly doing bonus damage in the process (making brace worse) or prevent the use of redirect, evade and contain tokens being spent. Unfortunately the opponent gets to choose which. Does not rely on accuracy and combos with SW-7/Warlord/Rerolls to maximise hits. HTT and overload pulse is also interesting.

XX9's mix well with Dodonna and the Precision Strike objective I've a fleet list i'm trying for a store championship that is making use of this on 2 of the ships

Ive used H9s and gunnery teams on a Vic1. It especially helps when the black dice are in range. But agree, not using H9s much at the moment.

HTTs I think are the choice for going after ECM ships, because with the one 6 point upgrade you basically can ignore ECMs and don't care if you don't get any accuracies.

But for their heavy hitters most people are going Intel Officer plus Xi7.