Hi All… long time lurker, first-time poster.

Got a question about Advanced Gunnery, specifically taking it to be first player:

Is it always suicidal for a big ship-based fleet?

Every time in my admittedly limited experience (run in a real-world meta of two, with a handful of tournaments attended) I’ve been offered it, I’ve always declined – as it would inevitably be attached to something like an ISD and I have visions of my pretty flying Christmas trees being one-shotted (rounded?)

Problem is, the other two options invariably revolve around token-based nonsense - fire-lanes, sensor net etc - that my fighter-free build is unable to negate. I really like my fleet (MC80 Home One, Quad Turbo Liberty and a 2/3x transport activation store) and believed it is a genuinely good build – at the very least an enjoyable alternative to the current MSU / Sloane builds predominating in the current store meta.

So… If I lose a bid, should I be brave and face the chance of seeing at least one of my mighty whales one-shotted for the potential of being able to capitalise on first player and do enough to claim the double value of the AG ship, or do I re-jig to try to shoe-horn some strategic fighters into the mix and avoid the red objective?

----

Oh, and some context for those with the patience to read on… Got botty-spanked at a store champs at the weekend by stupidly picking firelanes – forgetting that strategic plonks of the tokens actually onto my ships mean player two gets the points, not first player… led to a thoroughly undeserved salt overdose for my perfectly decent opponent. (Deffo not my finest hour).

53 minutes ago, Rearadmiralsdoitinspace said:

Hi All… long time lurker, first-time poster.

Got a question about Advanced Gunnery, specifically taking it to be first player:

Is it always suicidal for a big ship-based fleet?

Every time in my admittedly limited experience (run in a real-world meta of two, with a handful of tournaments attended) I’ve been offered it, I’ve always declined – as it would inevitably be attached to something like an ISD and I have visions of my pretty flying Christmas trees being one-shotted (rounded?)

Problem is, the other two options invariably revolve around token-based nonsense - fire-lanes, sensor net etc - that my fighter-free build is unable to negate. I really like my fleet (MC80 Home One, Quad Turbo Liberty and a 2/3x transport activation store) and believed it is a genuinely good build – at the very least an enjoyable alternative to the current MSU / Sloane builds predominating in the current store meta.

So… If I lose a bid, should I be brave and face the chance of seeing at least one of my mighty whales one-shotted for the potential of being able to capitalise on first player and do enough to claim the double value of the AG ship, or do I re-jig to try to shoe-horn some strategic fighters into the mix and avoid the red objective?

----

Oh, and some context for those with the patience to read on… Got botty-spanked at a store champs at the weekend by stupidly picking firelanes – forgetting that strategic plonks of the tokens actually onto my ships mean player two gets the points, not first player… led to a thoroughly undeserved salt overdose for my perfectly decent opponent. (Deffo not my finest hour).

Don't forget that, as first player, one of your ships gets to take advanced gunnery too, just with some tighter restrictions.

It works wonders on the home One variant of the MC80, functioning as a gunnery teams substitute as well as allowing a double tap into a single ship as long as you can see two hull zones

With just 2 combat ships, though, I'd recommend the Defiance title instead of Home One. The extra black dice is excellent, and it can even be used as a blue dice to trigger Leading Shots.

If you take advanced gunnery, the best thing to do is make your opponent pay for it. If you destroy their isd, then you get double points for it too. And that's in your favor, because it only functions off of base points, and your ships are cheaper than an isd.

The last thing to point out is that a ship with gunnery teams should not be made the advanced gunnery ship, because gunnery reasons prevents you from using advanced gunnery (the "cannot target the same ship twice"in gunnery teams overrides the advanced gunnery ability).

I have built a fleet before that loves the opportunity to be player one, and pick Advanced Gunnery.

You need activation advantage though, without it I'd probably think pretty seriously about picking something else. Having the activation advantage however allows you to position your big hitter at the end of one round, to go first next round. You can fire (with an ISD) both shots from your front arc, you just have to target 2 different hull sections.

If you can kill player 2's objective ship without taking a meaningful double shot, it's worth a lot of points. I take it with my MC30's all the time: a well executed double-tap from a MC30 side arc is tremendously powerful, and will kill or cripple most ships in the game.

Thanks and hmmm... deffo see the point about activation advantage. (In my fleet's case, i'm hoping that three GR75s is enough, and if not the two christmass trees should be able to one-shot anything small-base that comes into range round 2 to get adv by turn 3.)

Think the bigger question I'm asking to those who might have run similar is how much of a gamble is it if you're running just two combat-capable ships (and no squads). If you can pull off a kill on large-base objective ship for the loss of a single non-obj ship one of your own by focusing on it rnd 2 and 3, then all good... if not, then surely it's all all over by the end of round four. If people with far more experience than me have found it 50/50 proposition, then I'm guessing it's back to the drawing board.

(oh and @Onidsen - while I love Defiance, I love the guaranteed double accuracy from Home One / Quad TLs even more!)

1 hour ago, Onidsen said:

It works wonders on the home One variant of the MC80, functioning as a gunnery teams substitute as well as allowing a double tap into a single ship as long as you can see two hull zones

I don't follow this argument entirely. Isn't the restriction on first player in Advanced Gunnery exactly that the first play cannot attack the same target twice? Perhaps I'm just tired and spewing nonsense - OP goes first, picks Advanced Gunnery and is 'allowed to double tap' the same ship if two hull zones are in sight?

20 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

I don't follow this argument entirely. Isn't the restriction on first player in Advanced Gunnery exactly that the first play cannot attack the same target twice? Perhaps I'm just tired and spewing nonsense - OP goes first, picks Advanced Gunnery and is 'allowed to double tap' the same ship if two hull zones are in sight?

Yes. It is better than gunnery team, provided you can get two hull zones, but still not as easy as 2nd players advanced gunnery.

42 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

I don't follow this argument entirely. Isn't the restriction on first player in Advanced Gunnery exactly that the first play cannot attack the same target twice? Perhaps I'm just tired and spewing nonsense - OP goes first, picks Advanced Gunnery and is 'allowed to double tap' the same ship if two hull zones are in sight?

The restriction for first player is that you cannot target the same hull zone --not ship --more than once each round. So if you can get a shot at both the target's front and left hull zone, out your front arc, for example, you may take shots at both hull zones from your front arc.

God, yes, I see it now. Guess I just am tired and overworked, since I cannot read at all. Thanks for spending time clarifying something as trivial as this.

10 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

God, yes, I see it now. Guess I just am tired and overworked, since I cannot read at all. Thanks for spending time clarifying something as trivial as this.

No worries, my dude: this is a very common one to miss at first blush.

I've always put this in fleets as a 'no one will ever pick this' objective - and likewise never picked it.

However, like you I recently had 3 first player choices (I usually go second) and faced with token objectives and strategic squads I did nearly pick this as first player.

As other s have suggested, you can still get two shots on the same target and more crucially you get double points for killing the enemy objective ship - which could be an extra 120pts.

Think I might try this sometime!

Go big or go home! I took AG once as First player. Demolisher was my objective ship. Double side arcing First activation on MC80 home one into it's front and side just makes it melt after last shotting it the previous round. Imagine 12 OE black dice with 2 Skreed dice that your opponent cannot counter. That was fun.

I've picked Advanced Gunnery once as 1st player vs Ginkapo at the London Regionals. He was Running Salvation, Yavaris, Pelta, GR75 and fighters/bombers. It was the least scary objective compared to Hyperspace assault and Superior positions when I was running a MC80A/2 TRC90/2G R75 list. He put it on Salvation but I was able to run away from Salvation with the combat ships and all salvation did all game was double shoot at 2 different flotillas without any accuracies so burnt the 2 scatters without killing anything.

Against rebels, even as first player you should be able to hit two separate hull zones if you are coming in sort of from the front. I had an AF2 shot out at long range by a first player advanced gunnery once.

If you have something like an ISD closing on you it may be difficult to get the two shots on different arcs.

Vae had an engine teching Madine MC80!

Which introduces my point nicely. If you pick this as first player you need to be able to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.

Which isnt much different to usual. You can always put the objective on a flotilla if you want.