I'm thinking the following might be a solid counter as it'll you should be able to survive fire from the resulting 2 scouts:

GRAY SQUADRON

99 points

PILOTS

Gray Squadron Pilot (33) x 3

Y-Wing (20), R2 Astromech (1), Plasma Torpedoes (3), Proton Torpedoes (4), Ion Cannon Turret (5), Guidance Chips (0)

I cannot help but feel that is a bit over-equipped. R2 astromechs are handy if you have the points spare but don't add a huge amount to this list. Plasma + Protorps on one ship costs 7 points. Take one or the other and put extra munitions on (redundancy is nice but points are better).

Ion Cannon turrets are a bit pricey and only really come into play once your ordnance is spent. If you drop the turrets, R2s and go for extra Ordnance, you can save 22 points which is enough for a decently equipped Green Arrow to either block or get around the back of enemy ships.

All valid points; I might look at some tweaking. However I will point out that I've gone 2 for 2 with that list already; once against a Imp Aces (Fel, Whisper, Rudor) build.

The ICTs are really useful because you don't always get all the Ordnance away before the furball tightens up. It also gives ships outside your arc something to think about. In both games with this list, my opponents both commented they hadn't face ICTs in a while and I think it through their battle plan slightly. When facing 3 of them (all in range), even Fel faces a reasonable chance of being ioned (and he was ).

Slightly OT, but did anyone notice the wording of GChips? It states 'Primary Weapon Value of 3 or higher' to convert into Criticals. This means if your crazy enough to run Expose on an Ordnance Carrier with a PWV of 2, you can pop Expose and Modify to a Crit.

Would post it in the 'Odd Combinations' thread but I cannot seem to find it.

Slightly OT, but did anyone notice the wording of GChips? It states 'Primary Weapon Value of 3 or higher' to convert into Criticals. This means if your crazy enough to run Expose on an Ordnance Carrier with a PWV of 2, you can pop Expose and Modify to a Crit.

Would post it in the 'Odd Combinations' thread but I cannot seem to find it.

It is an unforeseen interaction. But if you are going to spend an action to get an extra crit with a secondary weapon you would be better off with:

Marksmanship

Calculation

Or go for Mangler cannon.

Or go for a TIE Advanced and primaries and throw crits with every shot.

I admire he need for Expose to be viable, but the rule still stands, don't expose.

Slightly OT, but did anyone notice the wording of GChips? It states 'Primary Weapon Value of 3 or higher' to convert into Criticals. This means if your crazy enough to run Expose on an Ordnance Carrier with a PWV of 2, you can pop Expose and Modify to a Crit.

Would post it in the 'Odd Combinations' thread but I cannot seem to find it.

It is an unforeseen interaction. But if you are going to spend an action to get an extra crit with a secondary weapon you would be better off with:

Marksmanship

Calculation

Or go for Mangler cannon.

Or go for a TIE Advanced and primaries and throw crits with every shot.

I admire he need for Expose to be viable, but the rule still stands, don't expose.

Can't argue there since Expose is definitely a terrible card. But for a short while it was one of my favorites to use because of its Degree of Difficulty, usually saved it for Out of Arc shots so it has been supplanted by Outmaneuver on most builds.

But with each new Wave I always think to myself how can I continue to find a place for this p.o.s. and upgrade it from a 'Rank F' upgrade to a 'Rank D'

F is for 'fail' and D is for 'dumb donkey'

---

Back to Ordnance and Alpha-strikes, Opportunist + GCs should you have points to spare also holds Potential. It's similar to AT + SD on defense, a straight +1 Dice to potential hit/crit on the lower PS pilots. Or if you're Cheeky an Ace with a Decoy wingmate.

An important consideration of LRS bombers is that if they take fire, they can use their Focus for defense, if needed, and still fire missiles first turn.

I really like LRS bombers for the simple fact that you can make an Ace dance, just by targeting them the first turn. If you have a TL on Soontir and come in slowly with the bomber, I bet you the Soontir player will do everything in their power to not be in it's arc. Meaning you know exactly where to aim your other ships.

What I love is that there are a lot of options out there. Personally, I don't think there will be one Alpha Strike build that is clearly the best. They are all pretty good, and that's great.

Despite what Marinealver says, LRS is pretty good for ensuring you get the TL for a low to mid PS pilot. Depending on the type of lists you play against, your ability to be tricky with the TL's, and your opponents ability to be tricky to keep ships that have TL's on them out of fire all factor in. It is possible to snooker someone with LRS to not having a shot at first. It's also possible for a wily pilot who uses LRS to keep some of your opponent's list out of the game for a few crucial turns and swap your TL's to blast away some of his list easily. It really all depends on the game.

LRS would make Deadeye not needed if you can fly it well. Also, Deadeye wouldn't work well with Homing Missiles. If you use Homing Missiles, you get to re-roll all your dice if you want to, or save the TL for next turn. They also don't get an Evade. If your able to get the game set, you could easily have a Focus as well as a TL with LRS. Homing Missile with Focus is probably the best ordnance shot in the whole game. Hard to beat.

If you go with Gamma Vet for Deadeye, you don't need Homing Missiles. That's one point saved. It does cost 1 pt for Deadeye, though. If you went with Gamma Vet with Homing Concussion Missile, Extra Munitions, and Long Range Scanners, you sit at 25 pts each, which means four of them. Not bad at all. If you go with Gamma Vet and Deadeye, you are forced to go with Plasma Torpedoes and Guidance Chip. This does not have the same averages as using Homing Missile, but you don't have the dancing game to deal with for LRS (who to TL and who to after and will you change your TL at the last minute?).

If you are talking about an Alpha-Off vs. U-boats, then I would think that the Bombers would win. They would get to fire before the U-boats and there are more of them. Even the Gama Vets w/ Plasma. They would do less damage than the Homing Missile version due to worse averages, but they would do enough to really hurt the U-boats.

Slightly OT, but did anyone notice the wording of GChips? It states 'Primary Weapon Value of 3 or higher' to convert into Criticals. This means if your crazy enough to run Expose on an Ordnance Carrier with a PWV of 2, you can pop Expose and Modify to a Crit.

Would post it in the 'Odd Combinations' thread but I cannot seem to find it.

It is an unforeseen interaction. But if you are going to spend an action to get an extra crit with a secondary weapon you would be better off with:

Marksmanship

Calculation

Or go for Mangler cannon.

Or go for a TIE Advanced and primaries and throw crits with every shot.

I admire he need for Expose to be viable, but the rule still stands, don't expose.

Can't argue there since Expose is definitely a terrible card. But for a short while it was one of my favorites to use because of its Degree of Difficulty, usually saved it for Out of Arc shots so it has been supplanted by Outmaneuver on most builds.

But with each new Wave I always think to myself how can I continue to find a place for this p.o.s. and upgrade it from a 'Rank F' upgrade to a 'Rank D'

F is for 'fail' and D is for 'dumb donkey'

---

Back to Ordnance and Alpha-strikes, Opportunist + GCs should you have points to spare also holds Potential. It's similar to AT + SD on defense, a straight +1 Dice to potential hit/crit on the lower PS pilots. Or if you're Cheeky an Ace with a Decoy wingmate.

I'm always on the lookout for Opportunist as well, but I think in this case Crack Shot does the same thing, cheaper, better, but at only one use. Sonce were talking Alpha Strike, once use isn't much of an issue, and in the context of Bombers, 4 points for Opportunist gets you most of the way toward Tomax with unlimited Crack Shot. I could maybe see something with Opportunist in a squad with a couple ships carrying Juke, though.

What I love is that there are a lot of options out there. Personally, I don't think there will be one Alpha Strike build that is clearly the best. They are all pretty good, and that's great.

Despite what Marinealver says, LRS is pretty good for ensuring you get the TL for a low to mid PS pilot. Depending on the type of lists you play against, your ability to be tricky with the TL's, and your opponents ability to be tricky to keep ships that have TL's on them out of fire all factor in. It is possible to snooker someone with LRS to not having a shot at first. It's also possible for a wily pilot who uses LRS to keep some of your opponent's list out of the game for a few crucial turns and swap your TL's to blast away some of his list easily. It really all depends on the game.

LRS would make Deadeye not needed if you can fly it well. Also, Deadeye wouldn't work well with Homing Missiles. If you use Homing Missiles, you get to re-roll all your dice if you want to, or save the TL for next turn. They also don't get an Evade. If your able to get the game set, you could easily have a Focus as well as a TL with LRS. Homing Missile with Focus is probably the best ordnance shot in the whole game. Hard to beat.

If you go with Gamma Vet for Deadeye, you don't need Homing Missiles. That's one point saved. It does cost 1 pt for Deadeye, though. If you went with Gamma Vet with Homing Missile, Extra Munitions, and Long Range Scanners, you sit at 25 pts each, which means four of them. Not bad at all. If you go with Gamma Vet and Deadeye, you are forced to go with Plasma Torpedoes and Guidance Chip. This does not have the same averages as using Homing Missile, but you don't have the dancing game to deal with for LRS (who to TL and who to after and will you change your TL at the last minute?).

If you are talking about an Alpha-Off vs. U-boats, then I would think that the Bombers would win. They would get to fire before the U-boats and there are more of them. Even the Gama Vets w/ Plasma. They would do less damage than the Homing Missile version due to worse averages, but they would do enough to really hurt the U-boats.

I think you mean Concussion Missiles. Homing Missiles are 5 points and push the Gamma Vet over 25 points. Unless you are going to use the EPT, I'd just run regular Gamma's. Going from PS 4 to 5 doesn't mean a whole lot.

LRS really opens up a lot of strategy to the alpha strike. You can really play mind games with your opponent. You can throw all your TLs on to one ship on turn 1, then if they look like they are trying to keep it away, then switch to another target in the following turn. I also think it would be funny to TL four different ships (if they have that many), then right before a combat round, switch to a single target.

One of the best imperial alpha strike right now is:

Howlrunner crackshot

3 black squadron, crackshot

2 omega squadron, crackshot

Hits like a ton of bricks, has the necessary firepower to erase a scout before it fire and some bodies to block aces.

Crackshot is ordnance!

Nope. 2 dice primary with crackshot and focus vs 2 agility with no tokens clocks in at 1.3 expectd damage. Over six attacks expected damage is 7.8 damage, and that's not considering extra agility for range threes. To delete a scout before it fires you need luck, and that doesn't sound like a plan to me.

I'm getting 1.69 expected with howl+focus+crackshot.

So 1.69*5+1.37 = 9.82 expected damages...

You out-PS the scout, so odds of engaging at range 1 are as good as the odds of engaging at range 3.

R4-Agromech makes up for the loss of dice modification tokens by giving you one of the best offensive token and that is the target lock. Before if you did the math 3 dice with a target lock did way better than 4 dice without. So using the target lock to fire torpedoes was a waste of an action. Now using a focus to gain a target lock is better. Sure it was design to make the blaster turret better but that mess is for another story.

Deadeye homing missile covers that. You still have the focus to modify the dice. You then have guidance chips, basically the same effect as firing a plasma torp with an over clocked, and seeing as that is my preferred CS build... This leads to believe a 27 point bomber will see plenty of use, at least in my squads. And if you really wanna be cheeky. Put a PS 2 bomber with fleet officer in there, give focus to the two 27 bombers, have them K-Turn and unload. Add in OL with the fixings to help clean up what ever the missiles left standing.

Deadeye with Homing Missile seems like it would be a good idea if you are bringing along Jonus.

I'm thinking the following might be a solid counter as it'll you should be able to survive fire from the resulting 2 scouts:

GRAY SQUADRON

99 points

PILOTS

Gray Squadron Pilot (33) x 3

Y-Wing (20), R2 Astromech (1), Plasma Torpedoes (3), Proton Torpedoes (4), Ion Cannon Turret (5), Guidance Chips (0)

I cannot help but feel that is a bit over-equipped. R2 astromechs are handy if you have the points spare but don't add a huge amount to this list. Plasma + Protorps on one ship costs 7 points. Take one or the other and put extra munitions on (redundancy is nice but points are better).

Ion Cannon turrets are a bit pricey and only really come into play once your ordnance is spent. If you drop the turrets, R2s and go for extra Ordnance, you can save 22 points which is enough for a decently equipped Green Arrow to either block or get around the back of enemy ships.

Over-equipped for sure: I'd pull the Proton Torpedoes (replaced by Extra Munitions) and astromechs for sure, which leaves you at just 90 points. And although the PS bid is helpful against triple Jumpmasters, it's going to fail you against a lot of other metagame lists. So that's another 6 points potentially wasted, which means you're under-strength by an entire ship.

Slightly OT, but did anyone notice the wording of GChips? It states 'Primary Weapon Value of 3 or higher' to convert into Criticals. This means if your crazy enough to run Expose on an Ordnance Carrier with a PWV of 2, you can pop Expose and Modify to a Crit.

Would post it in the 'Odd Combinations' thread but I cannot seem to find it.

I'm not sure it's worth it, though. Effectively, you're paying 4 points and an action and an Agility penalty to flip a [boom] to [kaboom]. That's a trade that's rarely going to work out in your favor.

...

I think you mean Concussion Missiles. Homing Missiles are 5 points and push the Gamma Vet over 25 points. Unless you are going to use the EPT, I'd just run regular Gamma's. Going from PS 4 to 5 doesn't mean a whole lot.

LRS really opens up a lot of strategy to the alpha strike. You can really play mind games with your opponent. You can throw all your TLs on to one ship on turn 1, then if they look like they are trying to keep it away, then switch to another target in the following turn. I also think it would be funny to TL four different ships (if they have that many), then right before a combat round, switch to a single target.

Yes....I did mean Concussion. Sorry 'bout that.

Yes, there isn't much difference between PS 4-5. So, you can either go with regular Gamma w/ LRS and Homing Missile or Gamma Vet w/ Deadeye and Concussion. Both have their ups and downs.

There are a lot of crazy things you can do with LRS that people don't seem to get. If you are straight forward and boring, you don't switch the TL and end up getting screwed by a clever opponent. If you do switch targets, it's not so bad to have Homing Missile without the Focus. Averages are not quite as good, but you are still hitting hard enough to be worth it. The benefit to it is that the one ship that fled away from the TL is not in the fight and you are only facing off vs. a fraction of the enemy list. If I could do that for the enemy Soontir Fel for a turn or two, it's well worth it.

I think there's a lot of merit to mixing LRS ND chips.

Look at this pair:

Gamma Vet, Crack Shot, Homing Missile, LRS, EM

Gamma Vet, Crack Shot, Homing Missile, GC, EM

Flying together, the LRS bomber locks the nastiest ship before the merge. If the main threat disengages, the LRS bombers can re-lock on something else, or keep the threat locked and use its primary weapon + Crack Shot to support the GC bomber.

Yes.....but you can't have 4 of them in a list, if that was what you wanted to do.

I'm getting 1.69 expected with howl+focus+crackshot.

So 1.69*5+1.37 = 9.82 expected damages...

You out-PS the scout, so odds of engaging at range 1 are as good as the odds of engaging at range 3.

Apologies Icareane, you're absolutely right.