Per the new FAQ:

Target locks acquired using R4 Agromech’s ability may be used during that attack.

If a ship equipped with R4 Agromech is attacking with a secondary weapon that requires the ship to spend a focus token (such as a Blaster Turret or any weapon used with Deadeye), that ship cannot acquire a target lock on the defender because the enemy ship becomes the defender after the cost for the attack is paid. See "Timing Chart for Performing an Attack" on page 6.

You may spend 1 focus token to change all focus results to hit results only once during the "Modify Attack" dice step. See "Spending Tokens" on page 5

This seems to kill the uniqueness of Contracted Scouts as alpha strike platforms. They're still good, but now they're a lot closer to TIE Bombers, Y-Wings, etc...

nothing but good news.

I called this months back. simplest errata fix without changing anything on any card.

Sad to see them sacrificing Blaster Turret for a debatable nerf. Oh, well...

good riddance

...and there was dancing in the streets...

Sucks because I enjoyed that reliability, but maybe I'll be able to field more conners without such abject matchup fear

And bumpmasters ofc

Danger Zone K-wings giving 2 stress with TLT is also dead

Sad to see them sacrificing Blaster Turret for a debatable nerf. Oh, well...

Meh, blaster turret basically wasnt used anyway since wave 6. The focus to fire is too harsh

Danger Zone K-wings giving 2 stress with TLT is also dead

This is incredibly sad.

Just add a Recon Specialist crew. You still spend 1 focus for deadeye, have a 2nd during the attack for R4 Agromech, and Guidance chips to change a final die.

True, this limits players to 2 of them in a build (36 points each) but it gives you enough points to add a 3rd decent ship.....

Also, the VCX can now do two attacks with the TLT at the end of the round if it has the phantom docked

So, with the deadeye scout nerfed, what do we see in terms of meta change? What is good against Palp aces that was getting scared out by scouts? Maybe some stresshog again? I think it still works the way it used to.

Just add a Recon Specialist crew. You still spend 1 focus for deadeye, have a 2nd during the attack for R4 Agromech, and Guidance chips to change a final die.

True, this limits players to 2 of them in a build (36 points each) but it gives you enough points to add a 3rd decent ship.....

I understand TLT Y-Wings are pretty annoying... ;-)

Danger Zone K-wings giving 2 stress with TLT is also dead

This is incredibly sad.

It really isn't

Without torp scouts, you'll get VASTLY more mileage out of bomb Ks

ASLAM Conner Ks and Miranda with seismic/thermal basically lost its only horrible matchup.

Sad to see them sacrificing Blaster Turret for a debatable nerf. Oh, well...

Meh, blaster turret basically wasnt used anyway since wave 6. The focus to fire is too harsh

Sounding the least of a jerk as possible, speak for yourself.

And because it was too harsh, R4 Agro made it bearable. Now, it's not even an option anymore and completely killing a card for, again, a debatable nerf is a bad design choice. But I can see that being happily ignored by most of the community.

Danger Zone K-wings giving 2 stress with TLT is also dead

This is incredibly sad.

It really isn't

Without torp scouts, you'll get VASTLY more mileage out of bomb Ks

ASLAM Conner Ks and Miranda with seismic/thermal basically lost its only horrible matchup.

But if you wanted to play tactician kwings and just bought enough kwings this week to make the stupid build... and now it doesn't work... it makes me sad. I dont care about munition kwings, i wanted tactician k wings.

also the attack shuttle with tactician was a great platform that is now gone too.

Deadeye still works with the Overclocked R4, although that comes with the stress price.

RIP Danger zone Ks, R4 Agro Uboats.

Hello more dominant Palp Aces, Triple Overclocked Agro Uboats.

One of the happiest days in my life

Deadeye still works with the Overclocked R4, although that comes with the stress price.

With chips, Proton Torpedos are still expecting 4 hits, you're just opening yourself up to bad luck a bit compared to the R4 version. R4 wasn't what made them hit hard, it was what made them reliable. I think it's still quite a strong list.

Maybe the biggest difference in the list will be the end game. If players shift from R4 Agro to OCR4, their defense will go up, but their offense will be awful once the tubes are empty. There won't be any more almost always Focus/TL shots coming from that 2-dice primary, so their late game damage will suffer. That's probably a bigger part of the nerf than the loss of alpha strike damage, and it puts the Scout more firmly into a supporting ship role, where it can alpha with Proton Torps and then turn into a blocker for a mixed squad.

RIP Danger zone Ks, R4 Agro Uboats.

Hello more dominant Palp Aces, Triple Overclocked Agro Uboats.

You mean less dominant Palp Aces right? Aces are huge right now because they could survive the wolf packs that were murdering everything else, now other lists stand a slightly better chance, including lists strong against aces.

RIP Danger zone Ks, R4 Agro Uboats.

Hello more dominant Palp Aces, Triple Overclocked Agro Uboats.

I'm much more optimistic. One of the reasons that Palp Aces became so popular is that a lot of the strong counters to it could not survive vs the U-boats. Now that U-boats are taken down a notch, more counters to aces will be seen and overall variety will be up. There will still be a lot of both U-boats and aces, but I expect things to better.

This news is making me dust off Oicunn, slapp Vader, Gunner, and Rebel Captive on him and go ace hunting.

Blaster Kavil needs a new buddy now.

...I hope Palpaces are ready for TLT Gunner HWKs. Dodge both shots, I get 2 more shots.