I've seen off and on talk about what my friend and I have been calling the AWACS bomber:

TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)

Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

TIE Shuttle (0)

Fleet Officer (3)

Systems officer (2)

I don't think it's the blessing others are making it out to be. The action certainly synergizes. Green to hand out TL, action: take stress to hand out two focus tokens.

A few problems I see:

-the differing ranges, R1 for SO, 1-2 for FO. This means a bomber has to keep pace with your heavy hitters, never easy, especially as this often puts the AWACS in range of enemy fire.

-after handing out his goodies your AWACS is a sitting duck. No tokens to buff defense or offense, and he's very often in range.

-at 22 points, I don't think he will pay for himself in MOST builds. If you pay more for a higher PS, you are upping the point cost, but leaving yourself more open to blocking, which negates your ability to hand out focus tokens.

Thoughts?

He won't pay for himself, but Tomax Bren with Cool Hand and the support shuttle would be fun.

22 points? Seems cheap enough that it pays for itself just by drawing fire away from more expensive aces

-after handing out his goodies your AWACS is a sitting duck. No tokens to buff defense or offense, and he's very often in range.

Fleet Officer doesn't specify "other friendly ships" so your AWACS can give one to a friend and keep one for himself.

If this ship draws fire from something else more important. That's a good thing.

While it's not going to do much else, if that's all it does well good then.

For a Scimitar pilot I prefer tacticians and a rebel captive, then have another with tactician and Fleet Officer

He won't pay for himself, but Tomax Bren with Cool Hand and the support shuttle would be fun.

Getting together to play this weekend and plan on trying Tomax built like that with Omega Leader and Vessery with Ion.

If Tomax always gives himself a focus he'll have a focus and evade for defense thanks to Cool Hand

Have also thought of running Ysanne instead of systems for the tankiest Bomber ever.

Have also thought of running Ysanne instead of systems for the tankiest Bomber ever.

Tomax, title, Cool Hand, Ysanne, Rebel Captive. "Want to shoot at me? Enjoy the stress and trying to shoot through two evade tokens!"

Have also thought of running Ysanne instead of systems for the tankiest Bomber ever.

Tomax, title, Cool Hand, Ysanne, Rebel Captive. "Want to shoot at me? Enjoy the stress and trying to shoot through two evade tokens!"

In the right squad he'll probably be worth his points if you are good at having him where he needs to be. I think the key for finding the right squad for him will be having ships that can really make use of the extra actions.

This is correct regarding Fleet Officer. It says "Friendly ships" not "Other friendly ships" meaning he can focus himself.

Fleet Officer Tie Shuttle Cool Hand Tomax is my favorite shuttle combo. Always stress, 2 free focus handed out, free evade every round instead of once. Pretty cheap too, comparable to palpmobile. Difference mainly being palpmobile has 0 defense outside raw hp and only helps 1 ship, Tomax shuttle has 2 evade, better movement, free focus, and helps 2 ships.

And i thought about the Ysanne too. Then i remember she's a free action not an assign, so NOPE!

I've seen off and on talk about what my friend and I have been calling the AWACS bomber:

TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)

Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

TIE Shuttle (0)

Fleet Officer (3)

Systems officer (2)

I don't think it's the blessing others are making it out to be. The action certainly synergizes. Green to hand out TL, action: take stress to hand out two focus tokens.

A few problems I see:

-the differing ranges, R1 for SO, 1-2 for FO. This means a bomber has to keep pace with your heavy hitters, never easy, especially as this often puts the AWACS in range of enemy fire.

-after handing out his goodies your AWACS is a sitting duck. No tokens to buff defense or offense, and he's very often in range.

-at 22 points, I don't think he will pay for himself in MOST builds. If you pay more for a higher PS, you are upping the point cost, but leaving yourself more open to blocking, which negates your ability to hand out focus tokens.

Thoughts?

1.) Palpatine is such a broken (support) card. This is just a jankier, less effective version of the Palp Shuttle. The Inquisitor already has focus evade target lock. Having a second focus is nice but not at all worth running an entire 22 point ship for.

2.) 3x Gamma Squadron Veteran, 3x Homing Missiles, 3x Extra Munitions, 3x Deadeye, 3x Guidance Chips, and a Scimitar Squadron with TIE Shuttle and Fleet Officer. That seems good, Imperial U-Boats almost.

Have also thought of running Ysanne instead of systems for the tankiest Bomber ever.

Tomax, title, Cool Hand, Ysanne, Rebel Captive. "Want to shoot at me? Enjoy the stress and trying to shoot through two evade tokens!"

Cool had implies stress, so you couldn't take the evade action from Ysanne.

The trick is expirimental interfacing off Isard to proc cool hand. then just do a green maneuver to clear the interface stress.

The problem lies in what to use Interface on. Fleet officer is out, he'd double stress you. cant be a munition, shuttle title takes them out. Cant be EPT, that's cool hand. Crew only, Action trigeed... Is this a use for Saboteur???

Or just ignore Bren's pilot ability completely and let him help your lower PS ships against high PS aces (I think the 29 point price tag might be too high to keep Bren in a support role).

I've seen off and on talk about what my friend and I have been calling the AWACS bomber:

TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)

Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

TIE Shuttle (0)

Fleet Officer (3)

Systems officer (2)

I don't think it's the blessing others are making it out to be. The action certainly synergizes. Green to hand out TL, action: take stress to hand out two focus tokens.

A few problems I see:

-the differing ranges, R1 for SO, 1-2 for FO. This means a bomber has to keep pace with your heavy hitters, never easy, especially as this often puts the AWACS in range of enemy fire.

-after handing out his goodies your AWACS is a sitting duck. No tokens to buff defense or offense, and he's very often in range.

-at 22 points, I don't think he will pay for himself in MOST builds. If you pay more for a higher PS, you are upping the point cost, but leaving yourself more open to blocking, which negates your ability to hand out focus tokens.

Thoughts?

1.) Palpatine is such a broken (support) card. This is just a jankier, less effective version of the Palp Shuttle. The Inquisitor already has focus evade target lock. Having a second focus is nice but not at all worth running an entire 22 point ship for.

2.) 3x Gamma Squadron Veteran, 3x Homing Missiles, 3x Extra Munitions, 3x Deadeye, 3x Guidance Chips, and a Scimitar Squadron with TIE Shuttle and Fleet Officer. That seems good, Imperial U-Boats almost.

Switch Homing missiles for Concussion missiles - which are basically just as good - and you can put Systems Officer on the TIE Shuttle too

IMO it's a better set of bonuses than Palp gives, but with less flexible triggering and less flexible ability to pass them out, so... it's different. It's more twitchy and requires more tactics than Palp, but it offers potentially bigger benefits, and lets you fit in more ships, so... I dunno, I'm looking forward to it, it's definitely fun, and potentially gives you things like Rexler with focus/focus/evade/TL which is crazy good, or 5-action Inquisitor, but it takes more practice and tactical care.

Palp is the obvious analogy, of course.

I've seen off and on talk about what my friend and I have been calling the AWACS bomber:

TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)

Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

TIE Shuttle (0)

Fleet Officer (3)

Systems officer (2)

I don't think it's the blessing others are making it out to be. The action certainly synergizes. Green to hand out TL, action: take stress to hand out two focus tokens.

A few problems I see:

-the differing ranges, R1 for SO, 1-2 for FO. This means a bomber has to keep pace with your heavy hitters, never easy, especially as this often puts the AWACS in range of enemy fire.

-after handing out his goodies your AWACS is a sitting duck. No tokens to buff defense or offense, and he's very often in range.

-at 22 points, I don't think he will pay for himself in MOST builds. If you pay more for a higher PS, you are upping the point cost, but leaving yourself more open to blocking, which negates your ability to hand out focus tokens.

Thoughts?

1.) Palpatine is such a broken (support) card. This is just a jankier, less effective version of the Palp Shuttle. The Inquisitor already has focus evade target lock. Having a second focus is nice but not at all worth running an entire 22 point ship for.

2.) 3x Gamma Squadron Veteran, 3x Homing Missiles, 3x Extra Munitions, 3x Deadeye, 3x Guidance Chips, and a Scimitar Squadron with TIE Shuttle and Fleet Officer. That seems good, Imperial U-Boats almost.

Switch Homing missiles for Concussion missiles - which are basically just as good - and you can put Systems Officer on the TIE Shuttle too

Homing Missiles stopping Evade tokens can be a big deal. I'm not sure how the math works out but it seems like a focus token + Guidance chips is probably more likely to get 4 hits/crits than Guidance Chilps + a blank to a hit.

IMO it's a better set of bonuses than Palp gives, but with less flexible triggering and less flexible ability to pass them out, so... it's different. It's more twitchy and requires more tactics than Palp, but it offers potentially bigger benefits, and lets you fit in more ships, so... I dunno, I'm looking forward to it, it's definitely fun, and potentially gives you things like Rexler with focus/focus/evade/TL which is crazy good, or 5-action Inquisitor, but it takes more practice and tactical care.

Palp is the obvious analogy, of course.

Palp being able to materialize any result you need from anywhere on the board regardless independent of action or movement is more effective than anything a Fleet and System Officer Bomber can give. A third focus token isn't going to help keep Fel alive anywhere near as well as being able to turn a blank into an evade will. Those bonuses can stop you from taking damage from an asteroid, stop a second face up card from a Major Explosion, or ensure that spending an action actually clears your Weapons Failure crit.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't see running Tomas without crack shot. If cool hand Tomax is isolated, he's dead weight. If crack shot Tomax is isolated, he can still threaten most ships. And frankly, I want my opponent shooting my support ships, because a) If they're my last ship, I'm probably sunk, and b) That means they're not shooting my heavy hitters.

no it's not just you; crackshot is autoinclude

support bren is adorable and all, but he hits as hard as a PS 8 academy pilot (which is to say, like a noodle armed man that's paralyzed from the neck down-either a man with soft woobly arms or a man with noodles gripped in his hands like weapons, your pick)

I really don't get why there's any hype for him just because cool hand gives him an evade. The scimitar squaddie does the same job for 8 points less as a base

as for normal support shuttle, eh. It's a tie fighter for 10 more points regardless of what support it brings. It's certainly no palpatine, and it definitely isn't good ole infinite range, large base blocker, feedback array packing manaroo

We need more Tomax relevant EPT's (hey how bout Youngster too?) other than just crack. I suspect support shuttles will be a thing in epic, some new crew in a new wave might make them better too.

I like Tomax Cool Hand and all, but he really MUST be an ordinance carrier or ya wasted a bunch of points.

If you're spending 29 points on a support ship, why is it not Palpatine? If you're spending 22 points on a support ship why not spend 4 more and get Omega Leader instead?

I may well not be giving bomber shuttles enough credit, but they just seem like really poor value when for 4-9 more points you can get Omega, Palpatine, or Inky.

no it's not just you; crackshot is autoinclude

support bren is adorable and all, but he hits as hard as a PS 8 academy pilot (which is to say, like a noodle armed man that's paralyzed from the neck down-either a man with soft woobly arms or a man with noodles gripped in his hands like weapons, your pick)

I really don't get why there's any hype for him just because cool hand gives him an evade. The scimitar squaddie does the same job for 8 points less as a base

as for normal support shuttle, eh. It's a tie fighter for 10 more points regardless of what support it brings. It's certainly no palpatine, and it definitely isn't good ole infinite range, large base blocker, feedback array packing manaroo

I think Fleet Officer is worse on Bren than it is a Scimatar. Sure, Bren is going to be better able to decide who can best use the tokens since he activates at PS8 but he's also much more likely to not get an action because he gets blocked.

If you're spending 29 points on a support ship, why is it not Palpatine? If you're spending 22 points on a support ship why not spend 4 more and get Omega Leader instead?

I may well not be giving bomber shuttles enough credit, but they just seem like really poor value when for 4-9 more points you can get Omega, Palpatine, or Inky.

It almost sounds like you are saying "Why not just run Palp Aces?".

As someone who as actually proxied this thing: Mauler with a focus, TL, and evade is hilariously awesome. Which is really this ships big claim to fame: giving TLs to Imperial ships that can't normally get them, or really don't want to spend their action TLing. It's fantastic with ATC Advanced that aren't Vader or Alozen.

But more generally, this ship gives out three extra actions a turn, and ones that most Imperial ships love to have. Palpatine sure as hell isn't doing that for you. Also by not taking Palp you can easily fit in three solid ships, or more if you have this support something like a crack swarm.