I use 'em in Dodonna lists when I want to run one hammerhead, with the Garel's Honour title and boarding engineers. 55 points for the ship isn't bad, and the amount of painful faceup damage you can inflict with such a tiny ship is quite heartwarming.

9 minutes ago, D503 said:

I use 'em in Dodonna lists when I want to run one hammerhead, with the Garel's Honour title and boarding engineers. 55 points for the ship isn't bad, and the amount of painful faceup damage you can inflict with such a tiny ship is quite heartwarming.

Just wondering, but wouldn't you prefer using the APT upgrade, to really up the Dodonna hijinx? Just seems it would be cheaper and nastier to Crit for a face up card fishing trip, followed by ramming for anotherDodonna fishing trip, followed by those silly little Boarders.

12 hours ago, D503 said:

I use 'em in Dodonna lists when I want to run one hammerhead, with the Garel's Honour title and boarding engineers. 55 points for the ship isn't bad, and the amount of painful faceup damage you can inflict with such a tiny ship is quite heartwarming.

That sounds fun! Dodonna is one of my favorite commanders. 55 points doesn't sound too bad either.

14 hours ago, coastcityo said:

Just wondering, but wouldn't you prefer using the APT upgrade, to really up the Dodonna hijinx? Just seems it would be cheaper and nastier to Crit for a face up card fishing trip, followed by ramming for anotherDodonna fishing trip, followed by those silly little Boarders.

Hammerheads only getting the one black die naturally makes it a bit tough, would be my guess. I'm not really sold on Expanded Launchers on a Hammerhead, though, but it might be better than APTs. Maybe. External Racks for the win there.

3 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Hammerheads only getting the one black die naturally makes it a bit tough, would be my guess. I'm not really sold on Expanded Launchers on a Hammerhead, though, but it might be better than APTs. Maybe. External Racks for the win there.

Tried that, but Garel's honour is usually ramming for several turns. Try it, it works. You're right about APT though. They need ordnance experts as well to pull off properly, and at that point its only a couple more points for the look on your opponents face when your hammerhead can roll 6 dice, 4 of them black.

Yeah, it's so hard to justify EL now... what the **** was FFG thinking when they gave it a 13 points cost. Have they played their game? How often do you get multiple front arc shots from close range? From side arcs, maybe, with MC30s that's often doable... but unless you constantly ram, you can't get more than 1 or 2 front arc shot and it's so hard to justify EL now.

Upgrade should have cost 8 points max.

edit: I sound a bit more salty than I actually am. I do wonder though, when will we get an errata pack??? The game needs to open up more.

51 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

Yeah, it's so hard to justify EL now... what the **** was FFG thinking when they gave it a 13 points cost. Have they played their game? How often do you get multiple front arc shots from close range? From side arcs, maybe, with MC30s that's often doable... but unless you constantly ram, you can't get more than 1 or 2 front arc shot and it's so hard to justify EL now.

A lot of the early upgrades feel this way.

EL is clearly overpriced, With Rapid Reload , Enhanced Armament , & Spinal Armament as comparison adding 2 dice should cost 8-10... With RR making the conceit that range restrictions on black die make it less valuable an upgrade. Sure it's 2 die coming out the same side, but since you need another expensive upgrade Gunnery Team to make that worthwhile, the cost should be a push.

5 minutes ago, Ranger Prime said:

EL is clearly overpriced, With Rapid Reload , Enhanced Armament , & Spinal Armament as comparison adding 2 dice should cost 8-10... With RR making the conceit that range restrictions on black die make it less valuable an upgrade. Sure it's 2 die coming out the same side, but since you need another expensive upgrade Gunnery Team to make that worthwhile, the cost should be a push.

There are no other upgrades in the game that add two dice to the same arc. Rapid Reload and Spinal Armament aren't valid comparisons because getting use from both side arcs in one turn is rather tricky and in most cases is impossible.

It is overpriced in most cases, though, but I don't think the comparison holds up.

In the end the cost is what it is, so in trying to make it work, I see the cost / offensive upgrade of Expanded Launchers as bumping up a given ship a whole class, so it makes sense to look to the littlest ship the Hammerhead . So after you put EL on a Hammerhead with Gunnery Team to maximize it, your left with a 56 point ship double shooting 5 die from a side. This puts it offensively on par or better with Rebel's heaviest hitting little ships like Nebulons or MC-30s , while still being cheaper.... the only trade off being weaker shields. No small trade off admittedly, given your shooting mostly black dice, putting you in close and even more subject to damage.

So you need to throw a few in with a list that is going to improve their survivability, maybe Leia as Commander so you can repair a damage each round to boost their low engineering. I like throwing in a Liberty , it powerful enough on it's own if they all get wasted, but with the engineering points to give away & keep the Hammerheads alive with the right cards. Plus with them all being devastating front shooters, you can charge in like a wall of death.

However you want to do it, 3 Hammerheads together loaded this way with Task Force Organa coordinating some re-rolls, can easily throw out some 30 dice at a select target for about the price of a fully loaded ISD . Not saying it's the best list in the world, but a fun excuse to build a list centered on utilizing a card most people say is useless. Plus I smile thinking of people running away from Hammerheads rather fighting a Liberty head on.

10 minutes ago, Ranger Prime said:

In the end the cost is what it is, so in trying to make it work, I see the cost / offensive upgrade of Expanded Launchers as bumping up a given ship a whole class, so it makes sense to look to the littlest ship the Hammerhead . So after you put EL on a Hammerhead with Gunnery Team to maximize it, your left with a 56 point ship double shooting 5 die from a side. This puts it offensively on par or better with Rebel's heaviest hitting little ships like Nebulons or MC-30s , while still being cheaper.... the only trade off being weaker shields. No small trade off admittedly, given your shooting mostly black dice, putting you in close and even more subject to damage.

So you need to throw a few in with a list that is going to improve their survivability, maybe Leia as Commander so you can repair a damage each round to boost their low engineering. I like throwing in a Liberty , it powerful enough on it's own if they all get wasted, but with the engineering points to give away & keep the Hammerheads alive with the right cards. Plus with them all being devastating front shooters, you can charge in like a wall of death.

However you want to do it, 3 Hammerheads together loaded this way with Task Force Organa coordinating some re-rolls, can easily throw out some 30 dice at a select target for about the price of a fully loaded ISD . Not saying it's the best list in the world, but a fun excuse to build a list centered on utilizing a card most people say is useless. Plus I smile thinking of people running away from Hammerheads rather fighting a Liberty head on.

My group does a lot of experimenting with list. I kinda want to try this just for the fun of chasing stuff down with my Hammerheads.

4 hours ago, Ranger Prime said:

In the end the cost is what it is, so in trying to make it work, I see the cost / offensive upgrade of Expanded Launchers as bumping up a given ship a whole class, so it makes sense to look to the littlest ship the Hammerhead . So after you put EL on a Hammerhead with Gunnery Team to maximize it, your left with a 56 point ship double shooting 5 die from a side. This puts it offensively on par or better with Rebel's heaviest hitting little ships like Nebulons or MC-30s , while still being cheaper.... the only trade off being weaker shields. No small trade off admittedly, given your shooting mostly black dice, putting you in close and even more subject to damage.

For what it's worth I have a lot of experience with Raiders, which are better able to position targets in a better front arc than the Hammerhead and even then I don't think I'd ever recommend going for Gunnery Teams, even with Expanded Launchers. Getting two targets at close range of the front arc happens some games, no doubt about it, but it's rare. Giving up Ordnance Experts for that seems non-ideal.

Ordnance Experts is is usually an automatic include with black shooting ships for me as well, but in trying optimize for the Hammerheads , You can give each Task Force Organa for great synergy & get those re-rolls. It's also why I like using a Liberty as my Support/Flag ship, then you have a whole fleet front arcing at speed 3 to make flying formation to line up those double shots real easy.

The Raider is also a good candidate for Expanded Launchers for Imperials, but for only a little more you can put it on it's originator the Gladiator to round out one of people's favorite pound for pound scrappers. I have one of those with a pair of Expanded Launcher ed Victorys in my Close Quarters Combat List, with is another useful ship to put EL on. But in short, Expanded Launchers is still usable, haha.

EL are fine. The lack of ordnance on the ISD is what sucks.

2 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

EL are fine. The lack of ordnance on the ISD is what sucks.

Wave 7 give me Palpatine and a new ISD that has 4 red/4black and ordnance upgrade.