The fact that largely only those 2 ships use ordnance frequently however, provides aj indication of what's needed for ordnance to be considered worthwile by people:

- Ability to fire ordnance with ease at your chosen target (achieved by having high PS, which allows them to Target Lock after almost everyone else had moved).

-Ability to stack dice mods. Both can get Focus+TL (or equivalent), chips and add their own pilot ability (plus Zuckuss and 4LOM in case of Bossk).

U-boats were able to meet both criteria and were considered worthwhile. Bombers are not, so most people don't consider them worthwhile.

This is what I have been trying to say but everyone is all focused on the dice modification of homing missiles they forgot about the vector of what if your red target lock token is outside your firing arc? I guess trying to explain multi-variable vectors is difficult when one is used to calculations in only one dimension. And one dimension is easier to make comparisons but it is often an incomplete picture.

I understand that Deadeye is great because you don't have to pick who your target is going to be until you fire at them. I understand that that is better than having to pick a target and keep them in your firing arc. What I'm saying is not being able to do that does not make ordnance a terrible option.

It does make ordnance worse though, as it's a clear limitation.

I will agree that not having Deadeye does make ordnance not as good. I will counter that U-boats with Deadeye were SO good that it was nerfed. This has only been done with the Tie Phantom before. So, being not as good as something that was nerfed for being too good doesn't really equate to being bad.

Most people seem to think it makes ordnance bad (or rather inflexible) enough that it's not really competitive, and there aren't exactly too many ordnance lists doing well to disprove them.

OK...this gets to me in a way that is frustrating. Ordnance isn't really being used. Is this because it really ins't competitive or because people just haven't tried it out a lot? The easiest thing is to simply say that it isn't good enough. There are cases, though, with other things not being considered good enough and then doing remarkably well. Biophysical with the Tie Defenders is case in point. Everyone said they were terrible and they never placed high. BioP took them to some big events and did incredibly well with them. When you start looking at the SC before Imperial Vets you start to see examples of people doing really well with Tie Defenders. What is the case here? Some people like to point out that Biophysical is the outlier and just "special" because he made them work. I talked to him and I know he practiced and practiced and practiced with those ships until he was quite good with them. The idea being that any good player that puts the time in can get good with them. So...were they really needing to be "fixed"? OK...maybe a little, but maybe they just weren't as bad as people thought they were. Maybe groupthink defined them as "bad" and the few tests with good players didn't have good results. So, no further testing was attempted. It could be the same situation with Ordnance, which has had a bad rap from tournament players for years. When you don't really see them in tournaments, is it because they really are bad? Or maybe few have bothered to try to learn them?

Personally, I've flown Tie Bombers a lot and I am quite pleased with them overall. I've often wondered if I lived closer to larger events and could actually participate in these greater tournaments would I have made a bigger impact in the tournament meta. It's a moot point now as I just don't care for tournaments.

Having to pre-select your target and then keep it in arc and proper range is hard. Not impossible, but it adds a strong element of difficulty to the list. The reward is that you get a 4 dice attack, with TL (possibly also Focus if no Barrel Roll was needed), where the opponent can't use his evade token (assuming a Bomber with LRS and Homing Missile).

Now consider an x7 Defender. If you manage to speed into range 1 of your opponent you get the same 4 dice with a Focus (but without the can't use Evade perk, although you do get an Evade for yourself).

Even discounting the difference in the ships themselves (the Defender is far superior past the initial pass), the Bomber has a much harder time setting up its attack and only provides a slightly better outcome for it.

This is IMO the issue currently with Ordnance Bombers: they're too hard to set-up for not enough pay-off compared to other competitive ships.

Hmmm.....it is not so easy for a Tie Defender to get from beyond R3 to within R1 in one turn on a decent Tie Bomber player. I've learned from playing Tie Bombers that the approach is EVERYTHING. If you play them well, you get good with understanding approaches. If you have an experienced Tie Bomber player that is facing off vs. Tie Defenders, it is not easy to really do that. Now, I'm not saying impossible, but it's not easy.

There is discussion on getting someone in your firing arc within R 2-3 and having that TL. Using LRS helps greatly in the approach to ensure you get a shot (but hinders after that). Overall, though, if you understand the approach, the Tie Bomber has a lot of tools to be where you want to be on the approach, especially using LRS to get a TL early. You can use your action for Barrel Rolls to adjust your placement. The Tie Bomber can go from speed 1-4 straight and even has the 1 bank. Combine that with a BR and you can end up in a lot of different spaces. Even going 1 and BR backwards can net you with not much forward movement. Half a base?

Lastly, you talk about the reward for getting things right with the Tie Bomber on the approach....or more accurately, the lack thereof. I highly disagree with you on this aspect. This is especially true the more Tie Bombers that you have. If you can line up on the same target, you can smash that ship with a massive alpha strike. I think the reward for getting it right is high. It's higher than the Tie Defender's reward. I'd argue that the reward for getting 4 Tie Bombers with Homing Missiles locked onto one target at prime range is higher than almost anything in the game.

I will agree that not having Deadeye does make ordnance not as good. I will counter that U-boats with Deadeye were SO good that it was nerfed. This has only been done with the Tie Phantom before. So, being not as good as something that was nerfed for being too good doesn't really equate to being bad.

hat is actually incorrect. There is almost 0 factual evidence that Jumpmasters were too good ('too good' = they were winning/making the cut more than any other list that existed in the same time period). Jumpmasters were nerfed because an entire faction (Rebels) had no answer to their play-style (highly accurate and reliable alpha strikes).

OK...this gets to me in a way that is frustrating. Ordnance isn't really being used. Is this because it really ins't competitive or because people just haven't tried it out a lot? The easiest thing is to simply say that it isn't good enough. There are cases, though, with other things not being considered good enough and then doing remarkably well. Biophysical with the Tie Defenders is case in point. Everyone said they were terrible and they never placed high. BioP took them to some big events and did incredibly well with them. When you start looking at the SC before Imperial Vets you start to see examples of people doing really well with Tie Defenders. What is the case here? Some people like to point out that Biophysical is the outlier and just "special" because he made them work. I talked to him and I know he practiced and practiced and practiced with those ships until he was quite good with them. The idea being that any good player that puts the time in can get good with them. So...were they really needing to be "fixed"? OK...maybe a little, but maybe they just weren't as bad as people thought they were. Maybe groupthink defined them as "bad" and the few tests with good players didn't have good results. So, no further testing was attempted. It could be the same situation with Ordnance, which has had a bad rap from tournament players for years. When you don't really see them in tournaments, is it because they really are bad? Or maybe few have bothered to try to learn them?

Personally, I've flown Tie Bombers a lot and I am quite pleased with them overall. I've often wondered if I lived closer to larger events and could actually participate in these greater tournaments would I have made a bigger impact in the tournament meta. It's a moot point now as I just don't care for tournaments.

For the average tournament player I think it's a simple matter of using your time effectively. IMO very few ships are so bad you can't do well with them if you practice enough. However, you can invest let's say 100 hours to be good with a slightly sub-par list, or you can invest the same 100 hours to be great with an already good ship. The answer is likely obvious if your goal is winning.

Hmmm.....it is not so easy for a Tie Defender to get from beyond R3 to within R1 in one turn on a decent Tie Bomber player. I've learned from playing Tie Bombers that the approach is EVERYTHING. If you play them well, you get good with understanding approaches. If you have an experienced Tie Bomber player that is facing off vs. Tie Defenders, it is not easy to really do that. Now, I'm not saying impossible, but it's not easy.

There is discussion on getting someone in your firing arc within R 2-3 and having that TL. Using LRS helps greatly in the approach to ensure you get a shot (but hinders after that). Overall, though, if you understand the approach, the Tie Bomber has a lot of tools to be where you want to be on the approach, especially using LRS to get a TL early. You can use your action for Barrel Rolls to adjust your placement. The Tie Bomber can go from speed 1-4 straight and even has the 1 bank. Combine that with a BR and you can end up in a lot of different spaces. Even going 1 and BR backwards can net you with not much forward movement. Half a base?

Lastly, you talk about the reward for getting things right with the Tie Bomber on the approach....or more accurately, the lack thereof. I highly disagree with you on this aspect. This is especially true the more Tie Bombers that you have. If you can line up on the same target, you can smash that ship with a massive alpha strike. I think the reward for getting it right is high. It's higher than the Tie Defender's reward. I'd argue that the reward for getting 4 Tie Bombers with Homing Missiles locked onto one target at prime range is higher than almost anything in the game.

I wasn't talking about Defenders vs. Bombers as a matchup, but rather Defenders vs. Bombers as list alternatives. To me it seems there's a lot more that can go wrong if your plan is 'get this guy, and only this guy I have a TL on at range 2-3 in arc' than if your plan is 'get some guy at range 1 in arc'.

Of course, if you manage to get 4 bombers on a target at the same time the reward is great, but it's not much greater than getting 4 3-dice ships on target at range 1, and both require you to seriously outplay your opponent. What exactly does a 4-dice Homing missile bring you more than a 4-dice primary attack, beyond denying the Evade token ?

Full disclosure: I'm now drunk.

I will agree that not having Deadeye does make ordnance not as good. I will counter that U-boats with Deadeye were SO good that it was nerfed. This has only been done with the Tie Phantom before. So, being not as good as something that was nerfed for being too good doesn't really equate to being bad.

hat is actually incorrect. There is almost 0 factual evidence that Jumpmasters were too good ('too good' = they were winning/making the cut more than any other list that existed in the same time period). Jumpmasters were nerfed because an entire faction (Rebels) had no answer to their play-style (highly accurate and reliable alpha strikes).

OK....it's not that Jumpmasters were too good. It's just that one of 3 factions in the game had absolutely no answer for them? Is that what I'm hearing? Seriously? So...it's not that Jumpmasters were not OP, but it was that one faction just had zero ability to defeat it unless they got lucky?

For the average tournament player I think it's a simple matter of using your time effectively. IMO very few ships are so bad you can't do well with them if you practice enough. However, you can invest let's say 100 hours to be good with a slightly sub-par list, or you can invest the same 100 hours to be great with an already good ship. The answer is likely obvious if your goal is winning.

I'll start by saying it doesn't even have to be 100 hours, but let's just roll with that number for giggles. OK....so it's not that things are so low powered that they aren't good with practice. It's that they aren't powerful enough that you can't win a game without much practice at all? Is that what I'm hearing? So, we have to dumb down the game because people don't want to spend time practicing to win? Is that what I'm hearing?

OK...I've heard interviews with Paul Heaver and I've heard how much he says he practices. 100 hours is about 100 games (or a little less). I know he does more than that. I'm thinking that with 20 hours practice you can be hella better.

I wasn't talking about Defenders vs. Bombers as a matchup, but rather Defenders vs. Bombers as list alternatives. To me it seems there's a lot more that can go wrong if your plan is 'get this guy, and only this guy I have a TL on at range 2-3 in arc' than if your plan is 'get some guy at range 1 in arc'.

Of course, if you manage to get 4 bombers on a target at the same time the reward is great, but it's not much greater than getting 4 3-dice ships on target at range 1, and both require you to seriously outplay your opponent. What exactly does a 4-dice Homing missile bring you more than a 4-dice primary attack, beyond denying the Evade token ?

So.....you are equating getting 4 Tie Bombers in range 2-3 the same target with TL compared to getting 4 ships with 3 attack die into R1 of the same target? Are you being serious? I mean...maybe you are. To me...having flown Tie Bombers for at least 20 hours....I can say it's a lot easier to do the former than the later. I mean...is that what you are saying? It seems absurd to compare the two.

Maybe I've just flown the Tie Bomber enough to get it. People say it has a bad dial. I just don't see it. I've heard people on the forums say that if you are used to PTL that you have a hard time with Tie Bombers. I'm not used to PTL. Maybe that's it? I just don't see them as a bad ship and I don't understand how so many people do. Are they Interceptors? No. Do they need to be? No. They are cheaper than Interceptors and they can dish out more damage than Interceptors. They are just different.

I'll flat out say that I am fine if you don't agree with me. That's OK. I might be a little egotistical to say I feel like I am a decent enough player to have a good feel for the game. I think if there were people who are good and who took the time that they would see that Tie Bombers are viable. It doesn't even need to be 100 hours, but they would be pretty darn good if they did spend that long!

I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I really am not and I apologize if I am coming across that way. I just don't understand.

OK....it's not that Jumpmasters were too good. It's just that one of 3 factions in the game had absolutely no answer for them? Is that what I'm hearing? Seriously? So...it's not that Jumpmasters were not OP, but it was that one faction just had zero ability to defeat it unless they got lucky?

Before Jumpmasters, Imperials had Palp Aces and TIE Swarm as top competitive lists, and Rebels largely had regen.

Then Jumpmasters dropped and killed off Rebel Regen completely (unsurprisingly, regen is worthless vs. alpha strikes).

While Rebels did have some answers to Jumpmasters, none of them were also good vs. Palp Aces, and this is what killed Rebels competitively during that time.

Empire was doing fine. Jumpmasters were balanced (probably even a bit at a disadvantage in my exprience) vs. both Palp Aces and TIE Swarms.

I'll start by saying it doesn't even have to be 100 hours, but let's just roll with that number for giggles. OK....so it's not that things are so low powered that they aren't good with practice. It's that they aren't powerful enough that you can't win a game without much practice at all? Is that what I'm hearing? So, we have to dumb down the game because people don't want to spend time practicing to win? Is that what I'm hearing?

OK...I've heard interviews with Paul Heaver and I've heard how much he says he practices. 100 hours is about 100 games (or a little less). I know he does more than that. I'm thinking that with 20 hours practice you can be hella better.

100 hours was just an arbitrary number. I have no clue how much an average tournament player practices.

My point is that, if you have a fixed amount of time to practice, you will usually get better results if you go with tried-and-true lists/ships/idea and then tweak them to your advantage rather than try to break completely new ground.

So.....you are equating getting 4 Tie Bombers in range 2-3 the same target with TL compared to getting 4 ships with 3 attack die into R1 of the same target? Are you being serious? I mean...maybe you are. To me...having flown Tie Bombers for at least 20 hours....I can say it's a lot easier to do the former than the later. I mean...is that what you are saying? It seems absurd to compare the two.

Building your asteroid field in a good way and picking your target smartly (and NOT on the first turn, thats just awefull play with LRS, always use that action to barrel roll tightly to your corner-asteroid to make k-turns awkward for your opponent and slow down your approach if nessecary) makes it very possible to have your target in arc. Thats something you learn in about 4 games.