So the other night I played someone at my LFGS who is good but wanted to experiment with bombs. He took Deathrain, Deathfire, and a Bounty Hunter, all loaded to the brim with bombs. I had a somewhat unique group I fly sometime for fun, which is a Fat Dengar with Serissu and N-Dru, and he killed N'Dru (which in my build he is meant to die), but overall I defeated his list pretty easily.

So it got me thinking, can bombs be competitive? I have had great success with K-Wings, specifically a Warden Squadron Pilot with EM, Conner, Seismic, Sabine and Adv. SLAM. Before this build, I had tried Prox Mines instead of Conner, and I've found out a few things:

Mines that depend on RNM suffer from the same problem that pre-fix ordinance does. Too many points for not guaranteed payoff. In the game listed above, he dropped a perfectly placed Prox mine right in front of N'Dru, which should have been his death (he had 1 Hull left). What did I roll? 3 Eyes. No Damage. I also have a game with my K-Wing (which I affectionately call a K-Bomb) which dropped a Prox Mine right on top of my enemy. What did he roll? Two blanks and an Eye. No Damage.

My second thing I've learned is that Bombs do too little damage for what they deliver UNLESS you have Sabine. That's the key. Sabine brings mines/Bombs into competitive range, I think, the only problem is that lists what would use them (I have a Jake Farrell, Poe, K-Bomb list that I love) get eaten alive by U-Boats.

So here's my question/challenge to the community.

1. Are they builds you have made with the likes of Deathrain, Deathfire, Emon, etc, that you have found to be effective and possibly competitive?

2. What would an upgrade card for the Imps and the Scum look like that mirrored Sabine, because I think they both desperately need one.

I've listed some answers to these questions of my own below in the following post.

You seem to have answered your own question: Conner Kwings. They've been doing rather well. (Several of the top table matches at Nova Open really showcase them).

Sabine and K-wings, yes.

Everything else, no unless you have a couple of points left over to add one to a list that does something else.

I had a very good game last week with an ion bomb i tossed on for fun... i may run these when i have the room devastating control element.

1. One build I want to try is Deathrain with EM, Conner, EI. That's 35 points, and let's you boost into position, and then drop a conner. Could be deadly.

2. Ordinance Expert, Imperial Only, 2 Pts, Crew

When a friendly bomb/mine detonates, immediately upon rolling for damage, you may change any Focus results to Hit results.

This would greatly aid the use of Cluster Mines and Prox Mines, but would only aid the Decimator.

I need to think of some more!

With Sabine? Yup

As long as you don't run into 27 hull o torp scouts you can beat anything

Without Sabine? Bombs are support/control

You get LRS conner deathfire with a missile, which is both a control ship AND a hefty punch rolled into one

Don't bother with dice mines; dice suck

Conners and seismic are the way to go, thermals/protons in a pinch

I like the eyes to hits idea. Maybe in the form of a missle upgrade (Bomb Guidance, something like that?).

Had an incomplete game vs triple scouts with my two K-bombers and Blount... (also had plasma torps on the Ks and a tracer on Blount...) I never fired a torpedo, the Z95 was largely decoy and didn't do too much, but we ended with all shields removed off his scouts, and me with a single damage card on all three of my ships.

I think it's possible to beat triple scouts with bombs, with Sabine supporting them, but you really got to out fly your opponent, be where they don't expect you, and generally cause havoc. Odds are though you're going to catch multiple torps to the face and end your chances real quick.

Outside that however, the odds of K-wing bombers coming out on top don't seem too bad to me. Palp can't help defend because I hardly touched the red dice in matches I've played with this list.

When my bombers already have extra munitions then a couple of cheap bombs seem like a steel to me.

Also Bombs have the advantage of sometimes taking (even tournament players) by surprise.

1. One build I want to try is Deathrain with EM, Conner, EI. That's 35 points, and let's you boost into position, and then drop a conner. Could be deadly.

2. Ordinance Expert, Imperial Only, 2 Pts, Crew

When a friendly bomb/mine detonates, immediately upon rolling for damage, you may change any Focus results to Hit results.

This would greatly aid the use of Cluster Mines and Prox Mines, but would only aid the Decimator.

I need to think of some more!

All I can find is the Team.

Do you have a link to the crew?

P.S. Ordinance is a piece of legislation or a law.

Palp aces v bombs is almost unfair

You almost can't lose

1. One build I want to try is Deathrain with EM, Conner, EI. That's 35 points, and let's you boost into position, and then drop a conner. Could be deadly.

2. Ordinance Expert, Imperial Only, 2 Pts, Crew

When a friendly bomb/mine detonates, immediately upon rolling for damage, you may change any Focus results to Hit results.

This would greatly aid the use of Cluster Mines and Prox Mines, but would only aid the Decimator.

I need to think of some more!

All I can find is the Team.

Do you have a link to the crew?

P.S. Ordinance is a piece of legislation or a law.

Ordinance Expert (2 pt crew). Every time your opponent does something that is technically against the rules, assign one focus token to your ship.

1. One build I want to try is Deathrain with EM, Conner, EI. That's 35 points, and let's you boost into position, and then drop a conner. Could be deadly.

2. Ordinance Expert, Imperial Only, 2 Pts, Crew

When a friendly bomb/mine detonates, immediately upon rolling for damage, you may change any Focus results to Hit results.

This would greatly aid the use of Cluster Mines and Prox Mines, but would only aid the Decimator.

I need to think of some more!

All I can find is the Team.

Do you have a link to the crew?

P.S. Ordinance is a piece of legislation or a law.

The Crew I made up, as a possible solution to Imps. Didn't realize there was a Team (never play Epic). Part of my post was wondering if we could come up with Sabine-like cards for the Imps and Scum, just for fun!

Sorry about the misspelling of Ordnance!

Ordinance Expert, 0 pts, Crew

Tells you the laws of the place you are currently in.

Note

Golden rule states clearly upgrade cards trump the base rules

So that crew does nothing

As others have said, Sabine w/ auto damage bombs are competitive. I placed top 8 in Michigan Regionals and Top 16 in 3 other regionals running Miranda (Sabine, TLT, EM, Conners, Seismics, AdvSL) and Kanan. In the process of making this list though, I went through multiple iterations before setting on the well equipped Miranda. The issue I came across was that a Warden w/o a TLT wasn't enough damage, and a Warden w/ a TLT was too expensive for his return.

Yar TLT conner warden is too many points sit between extreme opposites (long range tlt and close,range conners)

Slap on ABT, though, and it performs admirably

Yar TLT conner warden is too many points sit between extreme opposites (long range tlt and close,range conners)

Slap on ABT, though, and it performs admirably

I'm going to agree with fickle here. Autoblaster turrets are perfect for the K-wing bombers. Standard dogfight tactics implode once they get in close.

Though I must profess fondness for YLT Miranda with seismic carrying Sabine

Because unlike conners they're dropped before getting out of dodge and benefit from higher ps

I am crossing my fingers for Imperials and Scum to get a Sabine-like upgrade. The main issue is bombs just don't pack enough punch for the investment without Sabine, so it's really difficult to utilize them effectively without her guaranteed damage. Give something like that to Imperials and Scum, and the Death brothers, Emon and maybe even the genius droid, become a lot more interesting.

I am crossing my fingers for Imperials and Scum to get a Sabine-like upgrade. The main issue is bombs just don't pack enough punch for the investment without Sabine, so it's really difficult to utilize them effectively without her guaranteed damage. Give something like that to Imperials and Scum, and the Death brothers, Emon and maybe even the genius droid, become a lot more interesting.

Well since they aren't in the habit about giving exact copies, I'd be interested to see some sort of modification of the dice-based bombs.

Demolitions Expert - Scum Only, Crew, 2 points. When dice are rolled for your bombs, treat all <eyes> as <booms>.

Explosives Specialist - Imperial Only, Crew, 2 points. You may reroll up to two dice per round if those dice are triggered from Bombs.

Heh, written as is, the Explosives specialist can actually help you live through bombs as well!

In this case I'm disappointed that the TIE Punisher doesn't have a crew slot. We would still need a way to make the Punisher as effective as K-Wings but with Missiles and bombs.

Punisher doesn't need crew, it needs to be cheaper

Ept slot would be nice too

I understand why the K lacks it (though I lament the loss of ps 10 Miranda) but the poor punisherr doesn't need that limitation

Punisher doesn't need crew, it needs to be cheaper

Cheaper is a type of errata that FFG has never done.

Otherwise the best support they have are shuttles.

Punisher doesn't need crew, it needs to be cheaper

Cheaper is a type of errata that FFG has never done.

Otherwise the best support they have are shuttles.

They've never errata'd crew, either.

They have, however, "fixed" for both.

Punisher doesn't need crew, it needs to be cheaper

Cheaper is a type of errata that FFG has never done.

Otherwise the best support they have are shuttles.