Ships capable of taking these new boarding upgrades:

Rebel:

Assault Frigate mk2 (squad 2-3 / eng 4)

Hammerhead (squad ? / eng ?)

Imperial:

ISD (4/4)

VSD (3/4)

Quasar (4/3)

Raider (1/2)

Boarding Troopers - 3 points, close range, spend defense token equal to squad value

Boarding engineers - 2 points, close range, flip number of facedown damage cards face up equal to engineering value

So, skipping Avenger and Troopers, what is your plan for these?

My first swing at Rebels would be:

AFmk2 B

Boarding Troopers

ECM

TRC

89.

I am less worried about having Intel Officer or X17 as I'm hoping to force bad decisions with spent tokens. Not sure that I'm seeing the light on this one though

EDIT: Maybe with a Sato fleet that is throwing some faster bombers up their. Blow the squad token you banked round one for troopers, flip 3 tokens, hit with something like Norra/Gold/B or whatever makes it, then pump a Black-Black-Blue-Red. If lucky, a 2 black front or rear shot too

The Assault Frigate generally doesn't like it, since ideally it's fighting at Range 3. Which leaves the Hammerhead, I guess, but we know how long CR90s tend to last at close range...

These seem much better suited to the Imp ships, which all want to get up close and personal.

Well, since you disallowed Avenger Troopers, I have no clue!

Edit: In seriousness, I was going to use them on a ISD-I Avenger in my IVV list, so my opponent has the choice of facing Avenger Troopers and a Jonus Ball, or my sniper Vics.

1 minute ago, ianediger said:

Well, since you disallowed Avenger Troopers, I have no clue!

Avenger and Troopers is that low hanging fruit that most people will immediately leap to. I'm looking for something like bringing Devastator as a sort deterrent to people trying to strip tokens.

The aptly-named Raiders seem like the best for a single-use trick. I'm a skeptic of the AFM2 in this role... it has to be built for this purpose, sacrificing its Weapons Team and Offensive Retrofit, and thereby making it awkward at doing anything once the job is done.

Raiders. Its cheap, you can do multiple and even if its forces the opponent to spend one token it is the token I want to be spent so it can be a single brace (or scatter) before the attack from Raider itself

Yeah. Frigates are a stretch. I think VSD is the other that won't get much love with these upgrade cards. I keep seeing Flight controllers and EHB on VSD1s to make them a sort of carrier with some teeth.

Then again, the quasar does exactly that as well, but better and for probably less cost. Especially with two Lambdas for range

I plan on staying as fast and long range away from this as I can. LOL!

I mean the hammerheads can be a fun cleanup crew trailing behind your main forces. But this sure feels like an Imperial game given the effectiveness of Raiders for this kind of thing.

The cleanup crew raiders or hammerheads could be a thing. The way I read the engineers is that you look at the facedown cards, pick one, resolve, repeat. So could you flip the same structural damage card up 3-4 times and add a ton of damage?

21 minutes ago, Nostromoid said:

The aptly-named Raiders seem like the best for a single-use trick. I'm a skeptic of the AFM2 in this role... it has to be built for this purpose, sacrificing its Weapons Team and Offensive Retrofit, and thereby making it awkward at doing anything once the job is done.

Well, I have never used those slots on an AFM2, so I think they're perfect for the role.

18 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Yeah. Frigates are a stretch. I think VSD is the other that won't get much love with these upgrade cards. I keep seeing Flight controllers and EHB on VSD1s to make them a sort of carrier with some teeth.

Then again, the quasar does exactly that as well, but better and for probably less cost. Especially with two Lambdas for range

Why would Vics not want these? VSD-Is like OE, granted, but if Vader is your admiral then you have your reroll, and VSD-Is want to be in close range anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. Even if Vader isn't your admiral, assuming you get some synergy going, such as Sloane-Quaser-Fighters and a couple if Vics, even raw damage is acceptable given that the enemy will be unlikely to have defense tokens to mitigate it with. . .

1 minute ago, Church14 said:

So could you flip the same structural damage card up 3-4 times and add a ton of damage?

That is a matter of debate that may yet reach RLB proportions, given its implications. . Dras has already added it to a list of Wave 6 FAQ questions he appears to be composing.

35 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Avenger and Troopers is that low hanging fruit that most people will immediately leap to. I'm looking for something like bringing Devastator as a sort deterrent to people trying to strip tokens.

Oh good thought. Hadn't made that connection yet but nice.

I think AFmk2 will be a stretch you would almost have to do a Cracken or Mothma Fleet to give it that slight extra survivability

43 minutes ago, NobodyInParticular said:

Well, I have never used those slots on an AFM2, so I think they're perfect for the role.

Why would Vics not want these? VSD-Is like OE, granted, but if Vader is your admiral then you have your reroll, and VSD-Is want to be in close range anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. Even if Vader isn't your admiral, assuming you get some synergy going, such as Sloane-Quaser-Fighters and a couple if Vics, even raw damage is acceptable given that the enemy will be unlikely to have defense tokens to mitigate it with. . .

VSDs seemed to have a nice home as combat carriers. They don't get much love locally as gunboats. I'm curious what you would put in the rest of the VSD besides a Boarding Troopers

Though Screed or Vader for bad roll correction and Sloane for token-fatigue would help

Vader on a ISD-I Devastator with tractor beams. Then board the enemy ship, kill everyone, throttle Antilles, capture Leia and shoot some lifeboats EVEN WITHOUT LIFE SIGNALS.

it should be an assault transport only ability and have nothing to do with ship upgrades.

8 minutes ago, Church14 said:

I think AFmk2 will be a stretch you would almost have to do a Cracken or Mothma Fleet to give it that slight extra survivability

VSDs seemed to have a nice home as combat carriers. They don't get much love locally as gunboats. I'm curious what you would put in the rest of the VSD besides a Boarding Troopers

Though Screed or Vader for bad roll correction and Sloane for token-fatigue would help

With Quasars seeming to promise good and cheap carriers, I think Vics will finally be able to dedicate themselves to being gunships. It'd be a tough choice, but I think that Expanded Launchers would be my first choice for the Vics, to increase their damage potential, especially if they don't have access to rerolls. APT/ACM and Spinals would be another choice, as that adds a die and offers a damage card/two free damage. . .
Basically, given that I intend to be stripping defense tokens from the enemy, and thereby sacrificing my OE slot, I'd want to focus on damage potential by providing more sources that do not require a certain die face (so EL, RR, Spinals, and EA). Out of all those, the front arc is the most powerful, so I'd prefer to boost it, though I definitely see a good argument for boosting the side arcs to have to good arcs.

1 hour ago, NobodyInParticular said:

With Quasars seeming to promise good and cheap carriers, I think Vics will finally be able to dedicate themselves to being gunships. It'd be a tough choice, but I think that Expanded Launchers would be my first choice for the Vics, to increase their damage potential, especially if they don't have access to rerolls. APT/ACM and Spinals would be another choice, as that adds a die and offers a damage card/two free damage. . .
Basically, given that I intend to be stripping defense tokens from the enemy, and thereby sacrificing my OE slot, I'd want to focus on damage potential by providing more sources that do not require a certain die face (so EL, RR, Spinals, and EA). Out of all those, the front arc is the most powerful, so I'd prefer to boost it, though I definitely see a good argument for boosting the side arcs to have to good arcs.

Warlord/H9/ER

What's interesting about the wording is that the ship only has to be in close range, you don't have to have an arc. This means you could put the boarding party on a smaller ship, and hide it in the shadow of a larger one. This forces your opponent to make a difficult decision - shoot the very large ship bearing down on it, or shoot the much smaller ship that's obscured.

Personally, I'll be looking to try these out on a smaller ship in support of a larger one. A Raider II alongside Avenger, for instance, looks like a fun combo.

46 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Warlord/H9/ER

Yeah, but then ER is a one-time use. . .

16 hours ago, pt106 said:

Raiders. Its cheap, you can do multiple and even if its forces the opponent to spend one token it is the token I want to be spent so it can be a single brace (or scatter) before the attack from Raider itself

Yeah I think raider with the ENG based one is an easy one, the only trade off is your ordnance experts.

ISD you lose your gunnery team, which for me is way too much of a compromise. Sure against an Mc80 or another ISD the payoff could be awesome, but most things I shoot with my ISD tend to die automatically as it is. But an ISD1 Avenger and troopers could be a cheap ship killer that works, just very specialised in application.

Initial thought was Boarding will go great with my RLB list but then i noted you can't run both on an AF...might look at building a twin AF version with boarding on one and RLB on the other.

I prefer Boarding troopers to engineers as they can be used earlier, but:

Whale's End: A Paragon with BE doing a proper toilet bowling should eventually close in on targets late game, more damage cards to flip plus AFs have high eng value of 4. Add survival gear like ecm and walex to reach late game.

Victory Blow: A victory I hanging back as rear guard and closing in to finish opponents seems like a solid choice for BE also. Also high eng value of 4. ER for oomph.

I think fleet composition also plays a part in making full use of the boarders, so other moving pieces should also be discussed. For example, diving a Admo w APT in before Paragon w BE, or an Avenger w BT followed up with a Dominator w BE(overkill?).

i think a vsd 1 would get a lot of enjoyment out of this upgrade, possibly go all out and throw dominator on it for an all or nothing strike.

19 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Vader on a ISD-I Devastator with tractor beams. Then board the enemy ship, kill everyone, throttle Antilles, capture Leia and shoot some lifeboats EVEN WITHOUT LIFE SIGNALS.

This was actually going to be my plan. Pair it with an Interdictor using G8 to lock down the enemy for boarding, and Targeting Scramblers to protect against counter attack. Is Vader on Devastator any good in this game? Idk. But it's fun and lets me say "prepare a boarding party" and that's all that matters in the world.