I'm for the first time really disliking a new card and thinking it's a bad idea. So please convince me that it's not the case and the sky isn't falling.
First I'll talk through the thought experiment, and then I'll explain why I dislike the new card. Also I copied most from the Vaksai thread, so you might read that twice now.

Vader/Inquisitor/QD at PS10/10/9 . Vader has 97% for 4 hits, Inqui has 74% (and 94% for 3 or 4 hits) and QD is at 90% for 4 hits, so they will all hit against most lists. QD has ASTS, so his chances for a crit are quite good at 1.44 expected crits and 92%. But even without that we're looking at 10-12 hits. Chances to blow out one ship are quite high, especially if QD scores a crit which deals the facedown from the previous two.

Against FSR2/stage4 with Jess+Selflessness, Lowhhrick+DTF. Also I assume here that Jess gets 2 evades on every shot. The 4 hits on Inquisitor only happens at 74%, so I'm a bit too generous here. But then again Jess won't roll all evades. The other oversimplification might be that QD gets a crit, but 92% seems high enough...

• Target Jess, give her ASTS from QD
• Vader rolls 4 hits, gets in 2 hits, 1 can be tanked by the reinforce. So 1 hit + condition. HP: 3/2
• Inqui rolls 4 hits, gets in 2 hits + condition. HP: 3/0
• QD gets in 1 hits and a crit. Lowhhrick draws the crit, but it still triggers harpooned. Jess can use IA. Rex at 1/0 HP. Biggs at 3/0. Jess at 1/0. Lowhhrick at 6/0.

But if Jess does not have 2 evades on every shot, then she dies, and Rex dies, and Biggs is on 2 HP. After the first round of shots. I just want to reiterate that every other 4 ship list flying in formation is probably off worse.
If Jess survives that last shot with 1HP and an already used astromech, then she can't try to roll to remove the condition. Because doing so will destroy her and Rex with a 50% chance. Once the 3 HP of biggs are gone (which should be easy enough), Jess can be shot. Which kills her. Which deals a damage to Rex and Lowhhrick, which kills Rex too. Or Jess breaks formation and she dies even faster.

The list can one-shot 3/4 of the current broken-ness.
That's pretty good IMO.

Second part, why I dislike it. Strongly.

I like Aces and Swarms. Both archetypes have become very rare anyways, but they were still playable. Nym basically banned out aces for now.

This upgrade will be the last nail in the coffin of swarms. The question is obviously why when we already have other splash damage cards.

My reasoning is simple: Harpoon Missiles are too good against normal lists. The 4 points for 4 attack dice plus very likely at least one more damage is solid. Compare that to Cruise Missiles. These allow 5 dice attacks, but that's hard to set up. In fact I've read again and again that you often have to use them after a 3speed maneuver for just 4 dice. That was also my own experience so far. Cruise missiles are 1 point cheaper, but much harder to use.

That means lists using them can compete with other lists. But for the odd chance that they encounter another list that likes to stay within range 1 of each other (so every Biggs list for example. Maybe not so odd?) they will be vastly better than any other missile or torpedo.

So I claim that Harpoons will be the new go-to missiles. And that means swarms become literally unplayable for as long as Harpoon Missiles are to be expected.

Yea I can't imagine Swarm players are too excited for this.

Ill ask my usual question though...should we panic now or panic later? Lets panic later.

Having just started to play and really enjoy Rage/AS/Jan Keyan, the more I read the card the more all I see printed is: "Go home B-Wing ".

... Yeah.

I'm fairly certain that Guns for Hire is the end of (competitive) X-Wing for me until 2.0. It's not just the ridiculously overpowered ships and upgrades, it's the ridiculous complexity of them (Harpoon Missiles is just surreal), and it's the way the developers seem caught in an out-of-control oscillation, snapping back and forth between overpowered combo to overpowered combo, everything getting worse and worse.

Call it my vote of no confidence.

14 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Lets panic later.

That's a good idea, and I'm usually the same. But this is the first time I'm actually a bit down.

Of course I'm assuming that you can assign two condition cards to a single ship. But then again it's the first non-unique condition, so who knows how it works?

1 minute ago, Jeff Wilder said:

... Yeah.

I'm fairly certain that Guns for Hire is the end of (competitive) X-Wing for me until 2.0. It's not just the ridiculously overpowered ships and upgrades, it's the ridiculous complexity of them (Harpoon Missiles is just surreal), and it's the way the developers seem caught in an out-of-control oscillation, snapping back and forth between overpowered combo to overpowered combo, everything getting worse and worse.

Call it my vote of no confidence.

I would never have thought that Harpoon Missile might be the most consequential piece in Guns for Hire... The pack is full of very good cards but they all let me play my A-wings. Harpoon missiles might end their pitiful lifes.

17 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I would never have thought that Harpoon Missile might be the most consequential piece in Guns for Hire... The pack is full of very good cards but they all let me play my A-wings. Harpoon missiles might end their pitiful lifes.

Do your Awings HAVE to fly in formation? I thought the only reason imperials flew in formation was because Howlrunner. If you arnt bringing Biggs, why are your ships so close together?

I'm not sure why they continue to add strong new ordnance to the game. Whether it's Fenn's permanent Proton Rockets or the horror of triple scouts, it should be really clear by now that alpha strikes are preeeeetty unhealthy for the game. So, you know. Stop creating more tools with which to perform alpha strikes.

4 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Do your Awings HAVE to fly in formation? I thought the only reason imperials flew in formation was because Howlrunner. If you arnt bringing Biggs, why are your ships so close together?

Mostly because flying in finger four or finger five is one of the things I like most in this game. So no, I don't have to.

But then again Snapshot triggers at range 1, and so one blocking and the other shooting a snapshot necessarily means that at least two always are within range 1. Also trying to get more than one snapshot on the same target mostly means that they will be within range 1. So yes, I do have to.

I'm confused. There shouldn't be a hard counter to the consensus most OP list?

2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I'm confused. There shouldn't be a hard counter to the consensus most OP list?

The problem is that the hard counter to the OP list kills less OP lists too. Like Fat Turrets in the era of OP Phantoms.

2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I'm confused. There shouldn't be a hard counter to the consensus most OP list?

I believe the worry is for the other lists that aren't OP that are caught in the crossfire.

5 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I'm confused. There shouldn't be a hard counter to the consensus most OP list?

No, there shouldn't be. Nerfing Biggs would be a way better approach for the game than simply adding more and more powercreep.

The second reason was mentioned by the others - too much collateral damage.

2 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

The problem is that the hard counter to the OP list kills less OP lists too. Like Fat Turrets in the era of OP Phantoms.

Other than creating missiles that can only hurt Biggs by name, there's very little developers can do to create counters that don't happen to affect other lists too.

They made tactician limited after the YV-666 came out because multiple tacticians on that big arc was nuts!

Did the lambda shuttle need that nerf?! No.

These things happen in an ever expanding game. It is literally impossible to avoid.

2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Other than creating missiles that can only hurt Biggs by name, there's very little developers can do to create counters that don't happen to affect other lists too.

Oh please. The community came up with around 1001 ways to nerf Biggs. You're implying that it had to be a missile.

3 minutes ago, Sekac said:

These things happen in an ever expanding game. It is literally impossible to avoid.

That's true. And these ever expanding games always vanish at some point and stop expanding. That's about as helpful a comment as yours. Both are true, both are bad from a player perspective.

The Star Wars dogfighting game slowly eliminated swarms and jousters over the past waves. And this month marks their definitive end. I already explained how Harpoon Missiles are different from previous problems for swarms. Surely you can understand that essentially banning one of the first archetypes - which wasn't viable anyway - as collateral damage simply because FFG won't fix Biggs after 5 years of being a problem provokes a negative feeling?

So the correct course of action is to eliminate a different archetype (Biggs +3 friends) that's existed since wave 1 by nerfing Biggs so badly that he no longer needs a counter?

I'd rather see the game expand than lazily just smashing anything that's too good.

1 minute ago, Sekac said:

So the correct course of action is to eliminate a different archetype (Biggs +3 friends) that's existed since wave 1 by nerfing Biggs so badly that he no longer needs a counter?

Not only is it disingenuous to call that an archetype on the same fundamental level as 'swarms', but yes, yes absolutely. Biggs being the way he is now causes many more problems.

But then again you do miss the point, entirely: whether or not Biggs needs a counter or nerf is not the question and just derailing.

But is Harpoon missiles the right way? Absolutely not.

1 hour ago, Sekac said:

Other than creating missiles that can only hurt Biggs by name, there's very little developers can do to create counters that don't happen to affect other lists too.

They made tactician limited after the YV-666 came out because multiple tacticians on that big arc was nuts!

Did the lambda shuttle need that nerf?! No.

These things happen in an ever expanding game. It is literally impossible to avoid.

nerf biggs, no need for supermissiles. there, avoided

It seems to splash more than assault missile or ruthlessness. After all if there is a weakness to damage sponge is that they all have to stay within range 1 so hit them with harpoons and proton bombs.

1.5 years ago we all wanted better Ordnance.

Harpoon is better Ordnance. Cruise Missile is better Ordnance.

Why so much complaining?

2 hours ago, Sekac said:

I'm confused. There shouldn't be a hard counter to the consensus most OP list?

The problem is that it kills lesser lists as well.

11 minutes ago, phild0 said:

1.5 years ago we all wanted better Ordnance.

Harpoon is better Ordnance. Cruise Missile is better Ordnance.

Why so much complaining?

I think it's because the dice in xwing that determine if you hit with an attack also determine the damage (the same roll more specifically). It seems incredibly difficult to design an upgrade that is supposed to do a heavy amount of damage that does not also risk skewing the game state too much early, or is so difficult to set up that it isn't worth the points.

The middle ground, if it exists, isn't the easiest target to hit.

39 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

I think it's because the dice in xwing that determine if you hit with an attack also determine the damage (the same roll more specifically). It seems incredibly difficult to design an upgrade that is supposed to do a heavy amount of damage that does not also risk skewing the game state too much early, or is so difficult to set up that it isn't worth the points.

The middle ground, if it exists, isn't the easiest target to hit.

There's an opinion that I seem to recall that for a long, long time we've wanted dice for attacking, and separate dice for damage. But that's getting into v.2.0 territory.

11 minutes ago, Slugrage said:

There's an opinion that I seem to recall that for a long, long time we've wanted dice for attacking, and separate dice for damage. But that's getting into v.2.0 territory.

I've got a kludge, (like rerolling missed dice after a torpedo hits, THEN applying the proton eye-to-crit) but it really needs to erratta old torpedos, and not just make up new noncanon ones.

Pre-Harpoon, the game is in a rather funny state, where:

The Rebels are presently the ones getting the most out of formation flying, due to Biggs/Lowrick. Imho should be Imperials.

The Scum are presently the ones getting the most out of flying 3+ ships, due to Attanni Mindlink (And have the best Aces). Should also be Imperials.

Sure Imperials have Howlrunner, but..

Post-Harpoon, sure Biggs lists are hit, but Imperial swarms are dead. Imperial Alpha strike might be back with Harpoon, but to me it is unclear how effective they against other non-swarm/range 1 lists. Note the Harpoon damage also hit your own ships if they are a range 1.

I have no problem flying swarms in broken formation. It's actually relatively easy, usually sets you up for better approach vectors. Sad that you lose out howler, but you can still include her for when you don't see one across from you. I actually think swarms can start making a comeback, personally, because they are still more efficient jousters than Biggs and pals. Makes the game harder, but oh well. You now have more options for different things. You might have a hard counter but the counter still needs you to fly to it's step. Do something unexpected and the other player won't be able to capitalize on it as much.

I might just start flying swarms again. Less high agility ships so those two dice actually start sinking in.

This is counter against Fair well list and very bad news for swarm, but so was Assault Missiles and where are those? Aces aren't flying together pretty much never so no effect on them.

I like these new Missiles! Goes well in my Vaksais.