Oh wow, good point! I didn't even think of Cracken shutting down red dice Gozantis.

red dice gozantis + tractor beams. problem solved haha

Except for Assault Frigates, which can't be tractored by Gozantis.

Or MC30s, where the hardest part of driving the ship is the massive f'ing downshift you need when you get into range. Oh no, don't throw me into the briar patch and/or tractor beam that MC30 that's about to go ripping past you after only a single round of shooting.

Tractor beams are far more of a double edged sword than people think.

I can absolutely confirm that good Tractor Beam use can be tricky. The temptation is there to just tractor beam ALL THE THINGS, but this is often beneficial for shorter-ranged ships that joust at you and then want a tight turning radius to make another pass. In general I find Tractor Beams good against ships that want to be moving perpendicular to you (in a Conga Line), ships that want to chase you (as you move away from them), and ships that want to skirmish on the flanks (like CR90s). Results can initially be not-great and you will have the occasional matchup where the Tractor Beams do basically nothing. It's a very feast or famine kind of upgrade.

Also they're 6 really needed points on many ships. They seem to be better in numbers. So 6 points gets you nearly nothing but 24 is the needed number.

Oh wow, good point! I didn't even think of Cracken shutting down red dice Gozantis.

red dice gozantis + tractor beams. problem solved haha

Except for Assault Frigates, which can't be tractored by Gozantis.

Or MC30s, where the hardest part of driving the ship is the massive f'ing downshift you need when you get into range. Oh no, don't throw me into the briar patch and/or tractor beam that MC30 that's about to go ripping past you after only a single round of shooting.

Tractor beams are far more of a double edged sword than people think.

The MC30's speed took a LOT of getting used to. However once you learn tricks like using the inside of the maneuver tool (yes you can do that) at higher speed you will have more flexibility and such with the MC30. It's speed 4 is actually a STRONG speed 4.

I love that so many people are thinking about how to kill these things. You know what you're not doing when you shoot flotillas? Shooting ships that really matter. That's the beauty of these things. You can't afford to ignore that 25 point little bastard with slicer tools, but you have to pass up other threats to do so. Even then, you could end up wasting an entire arc on a scatter. THIS WAVE IS SO AWESOME!

This is why, for me, the question has never been "how do I kill them," but rather "how do I kill them efficiently?" Sure, an ISD front arc will probably pop one... With like 5 damage left over. Sure, a pile of squadrons will get through the scatter eventually... But that's 6-8 points of damage that's not being done to your carriers or battleships.

On the other hand, building the capability to quickly dispatch flotillas into your list means sacrifices elsewhere. Until somebody finds an efficient way to dispatch them that doesn't hamper your list against ships. And squadrons. Which hit like trucks now.

SO GOOD!

This is why, for me, the question has never been "how do I kill them," but rather "how do I kill them efficiently?" Sure, an ISD front arc will probably pop one... With like 5 damage left over. Sure, a pile of squadrons will get through the scatter eventually... But that's 6-8 points of damage that's not being done to your carriers or battleships.

I'd put my money on Raiders for Imperials. Raider-Is in particular can crash-land on a flotilla at the end of one turn and then a mixture of black and blue dice (+Concentrate Fire) should see them off the next for a pretty reasonable points investment. Similarly, CR90Bs for Rebels can manage all right.

I am looking my Intel Officer TRC90's. It will take a could of shots but hitting that scatter or rolling an Accuracy with a red/blue and the IO'ing evade. Force tough decisions and interactions

I'm with Truthiness in that I don't think I want to waste too much of my time shooting them, but I am thinking an MC30 with H9 would be great against any ship, so I thought about including one with that in case I need to do some transport hunting.

I'm with Truthiness in that I don't think I want to waste too much of my time shooting them, but I am thinking an MC30 with H9 would be great against any ship, so I thought about including one with that in case I need to do some transport hunting.

I will note that H9 Turbolasers seem legit on Torpedo MC30s specifically because blue dice will always roll an accuracy, hit, or crit, so they guarantee you get at least one accuracy in your dice pool when using them (and the black dice do the heavier lifting for damage). With standard red dice ships they've always been a harder sell.

Edit: Scout MC30s are not Torpedo MC30s. Fun fact.

I'm with Truthiness in that I don't think I want to waste too much of my time shooting them, but I am thinking an MC30 with H9 would be great against any ship, so I thought about including one with that in case I need to do some transport hunting.

I will note that H9 Turbolasers seem legit on Scout MC30s specifically because blue dice will always roll an accuracy, hit, or crit, so they guarantee you get at least one accuracy in your dice pool when using them (and the black dice do the heavier lifting for damage). With standard red dice ships they've always been a harder sell.

Pretty sure you meant on Torpedo MC30's here. If that's the case, I agree, they're amazing. A guaranteed accuracy on every shot out of a heavy hitter like that is huge, and well worth the opportunity costs you're paying for them (points for IO or points for red dice on a Scout or even the slot for XI7).

To answer the ECM objection I always hear: you only get to ECM up to once a round. Worst case, your opponent has spent approximately the same number of points you did to only partially mitigate your upgrade; and, most importantly, the ships that MC30 needs to be one-shotting (flotillas and corvettes) virtually never feature ECM. So either:

1) it's a small ship and doesn't have ECM, or

2) it's a big ship that might have them, and you should be concentrating simultaneous fire on it anyway, of which ECM will only apply to one shot.

Yep, my bad. This is what happens when you post tired. Long weekend, haha. I'll go fix it.

Yeah, I totally meant torpedo MC30s. Pretty much the only kind I run. Scouts are nice, but for me I like the lower cost of the torps so even after putting upgrades on them they aren't ludicrously expensive.

I have 2 rules questions about GR-75.

Toryn Farr plus Bomber Command allows squadrons like B-wings to reroll both dice correct?

The Bright Hope special rule. " Before you suffer damage" How exactly does that work? Does taking a shield down count as "suffer damage"? If one point of damage is done do I cancel it or does it remove a shield?

I have 2 rules questions about GR-75.

Toryn Farr plus Bomber Command allows squadrons like B-wings to reroll both dice correct?

The Bright Hope special rule. How exactly does that work? When is the point of damage removed? After all damage has been worked out and after shields have been taken down? Or right after the dice roll before any damage is worked out?

I think both of these are answered using the attack steps breakdown and the key word "while" (as defined in the rules reference)

The bright hope thing is pretty straight forward, you remove the damage point at the step where you are figuring out how much damage to apply

I think the first question is for sure a yes.

As for the 2nd, I would assume it would be after the evade token is spent. Suffering damage includes shields.

I should have checked the rules question topics, the Bright Hope question is being addressed there already.

I have 2 rules questions about GR-75.

Toryn Farr plus Bomber Command allows squadrons like B-wings to reroll both dice correct?

The Bright Hope special rule. How exactly does that work? When is the point of damage removed? After all damage has been worked out and after shields have been taken down? Or right after the dice roll before any damage is worked out?

I think both of these are answered using the attack steps breakdown and the key word "while" (as defined in the rules reference)

The bright hope thing is pretty straight forward, you remove the damage point at the step where you are figuring out how much damage to apply

I believe that each "While" effect gets to go off. This is due to how it is worded under Effects and Timing on page 5 of the RRG.

It states "A 'While' effect. . ." which means that they are individual events that stack.

IDK if this has been answered but do we have a release window?

IDK if this has been answered but do we have a release window?

Third quarter I think.

Indeed. Third Quarter was all was stated. The last article also said they were taking Pre-Orders from stores and distributors, which means they're definitely nearing the meat of the production cycle, and things will start shipping Soon...

6-8 weeks shipping and all that once they do hit...

So a couple of Retailers have speculated on a Release at July 27... But that's by no means guaranteed...

Third Quarter is all we've been given so far.

A couple of random thoughts I had just by reading the article and this topic:

1) I think we will see a consistent swing in list building, and not just because of the inclusion of the new ships: reading here, everybody seems to be looking for ways to counter the flottillas, either by sensor teams, h9 turbolasers, ET for ramming and such. I think I saw an h9 once, never ever played a sensor team and I sure wouldn't want to put ET on a corvette right now, so that's something to think about. Also, less x17 = more AP.

2) Looking at the new possibilities, it seems the devs listened to the countless whines on these forums about Demolisher and triple taps, not only by adding a cheap activation which is likely to push squadron based fleets much higher on the activation count but also via the new defense tokens and some of the upgrades, which are a direct counter to the standard clonisher triple taps. Sure, flottillas will be relatively easy to take down once the meta settles, but even then they will have changed fleets (see point 1) and furthermore will provide an extra threat/block/obstruction which will need to be addressed during the games. Personally, I think this is a really elegant way of addressing a problem the player base has repeatedly gone wild about and a way to bring the Demolisher title in line with the other ones via a meta shift. Well played FFG!

3) I think this wave will further restrict the options avalaible to the imperial player, effectively retiring the VSD. Yeah, I know VSDs are like the metal in tenacious D song: one always thinks they're outdated but never really gets rid of them. However, as I already stated in a topic I made some time ago, I don't really think the VSD2 is still a viable ship, and VSD1 was good only because of its ability to command a lot of squadrons for a relatively cheap price and with a lot of hull to chew through as a plus: now it's only a slow, thick, outdated ship. On the rebel side, things look much brighter: Mc30 received the biggest boost of all ships IMO with the addition of the new commander, making them almost invulnerable to most squadrons and, when adding titles, reaching new heights of insane survivability. MC 80 will be relegated to a niche role, even more than today, as will b wings and other slow squadrons, but all in all, I think rebels "won" this wave.

4) No really, try to bring down an MC30 with admonition, AP and the new commander while having no x17 because you were worried about flottilas.

Mc30s win so hard, you can now play competitive lists with TWO.

ALL THE DEATH SHRIMP ON A STICK YOU COULD WAVE A SITH AT.

VSDs I still think are going to get retired. The poor things just are... I dunno what exactly is wrong with them. But somethings wrong.

They're also freaking 1dimensional: best at squadron commanding. And, honestly, this is going to surprise the crap out of some of you here, but not everyone actually likes and cares about squadrons. Some of us actually like... yknow. Big ships. Big. Like my inflated head.

3) I think this wave will further restrict the options avalaible to the imperial player, effectively retiring the VSD. Yeah, I know VSDs are like the metal in tenacious D song: one always thinks they're outdated but never really gets rid of them. However, as I already stated in a topic I made some time ago, I don't really think the VSD2 is still a viable ship, and VSD1 was good only because of its ability to command a lot of squadrons for a relatively cheap price and with a lot of hull to chew through as a plus: now it's only a slow, thick, outdated ship.

Well, the increase in competitive TL options other than x17s will also help the VSD a good bit, though I still think that not granting it the option for a def retrofit was a big mistake and the main reason for the VSDs downfall.

Otherwise I agree with your analysis, good points!

Sadly I realized the Craken to be soon released won't work against squadrons. Half of my hype is now gone.

I am excited that I can move away from the MKII B as a carrier. It always underwhelmed me. Yeah, it is tough, but the damage output is not very high.

The funny thing about mieodomeda's #3 is that a triple VSD list won regionals because of Flight Controllers. So sure, the Gozanti can push squadrons around and have Jammer Fields but Flight Controllers are going to negate mist of that anyways