Yeah, I'm still trying to do stupid things with the CR90. I haven't liked the gunship overly much as it just bleeds energy, often for little result. Most targets are just too small and evade my turbolasers. I'm trying instead to take one quality long range shot and keep my distance. I'm not sure this is a good approach either, but the theory is if I can hurt key targets before they close to range my fighters should be able to swing the battle.

So.. CR90 artillery (110)

• Sensor Team (4)
• Supercharged Power Cells (3)
• Finn (5)
• Thug Droids (1)
• Luke Skywalker (7, ew)

As artillery spotter we have Jan Ors (36)

• TLT (6)
• Decoy (2)
• Kanan Jarrus (3)

The theory is pick a priority target within the range 4-5 band and smack it at PS8 from the Corvette. I use Decoy so Jan Ors doesn't need to float in too close and has some room to maneuver. Actions are target lock on the fore and reinforce from the aft. If it's maneuverable target, fire just 4 dice at range with intent to miss - then use Luke to fire again. Trigger Jan Ors, hopefully have the target in arc for Finn, utilize the CR90s ability to add a die by spending energy and for the first shot trigger the Power Cells. That's 9 dice with a target lock and one focus to flip - one hit becoming a crit with Thug Droids. I haven't mathed it, but I don't think an average of 5 hits and a crit are too unlikely here. On the plus side, it's likely to sorely bruise a priority target and potentially chase it off to regroup or leave it open to destruction - so potentially removing those points from play early.

Problem - It's freaking expensive! Obviously dumping Luke reduces the cost by a significant margin, but with one gun I'd like to make sure I have opportunity to hit something. If I were to drop Luke the cost is 103 points and I'm still 9 potential dice with a target lock once and 6-7 dice at range beyond that. I could potentially drop Finn as well, losing a potential die if the target is within arc, since that's a risky prospect... Losing both Finn and Luke drops the total cost to 98 points - which gives room for other things, obviously.

Alternatively, instead of Luke one could put Han Solo crew onboard and decide after rolling if there are more focus than blank to just convert those to hits by spending the target lock. Probably neither is the correct course of action and instead put on a turbolaser battery to follow up the first shot.

The Raider is so much more fun to play with...

Well.. it's not that expensive for a Corvette at 110 points! And a single, heavily modified rail gun shot is probably going to be more effective than the energy-demanding multi-shot builds.

22 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Well.. it's not that expensive for a Corvette at 110 points! And a single, heavily modified rail gun shot is probably going to be more effective than the energy-demanding multi-shot builds.

I could, in theory, do it cheaper... but it gets really tricky to pull off. Replace Sensor Team and Luke with Bohdi Rook crew... Knocks 10 points! off the total cost with the ability to still target lock out to range 5 and beyond... but it takes some flying of the lead fighters to make it work.

I think it's fine mate - an upgunned CR-90 with Sensor Team/Weapons Engineer/Han/Single Turbolasers is going to rock in at around 125 points minimum and eats energy for fun. Your build is probably going to hurt low agility ships just as much when you take the mods into account, and do a better job at targeting high agility ships, and you can save energy for recover actions.

Possibly the only other thing I'd consider is finding room for an EM Emitter so you can hide Jan behind it.

Use Esege to make the most of those focuses you roll.

Just now, rubberduck said:

Use Esege to make the most of those focuses you roll.

Nrrrg. As the TO in many events, I really cringe at Esege and the lack of epic FAQ. Page 4 of the huge ship rules notes "Focus, evade and stress tokens do not affect huge ships. When a huge ship receives any of these tokens, immediately remove them and return them to the token supply." That first sentence tosses the whole exchange into question. Yes, Esege can toss over a token, but it doesn't "affect huge ships" so it appears the token is wasted. Rather than open up this mess for debate here, I'll just... avoid it. If I had to rule locally, I'd rule against.

Further, Between Jan Ors, the Corvette and then Esege... wow, that's a lot of points tied down for one shot. Even my crazy ideas have a breaking point.

Just now, LagJanson said:

Nrrrg. As the TO in many events, I really cringe at Esege and the lack of epic FAQ. Page 4 of the huge ship rules notes "Focus, evade and stress tokens do not affect huge ships. When a huge ship receives any of these tokens, immediately remove them and return them to the token supply." That first sentence tosses the whole exchange into question. Yes, Esege can toss over a token, but it doesn't "affect huge ships" so it appears the token is wasted. Rather than open up this mess for debate here, I'll just... avoid it. If I had to rule locally, I'd rule against.

Further, Between Jan Ors, the Corvette and then Esege... wow, that's a lot of points tied down for one shot. Even my crazy ideas have a breaking point.

Ahh but Esege doesn't give his focus to the huge ship. The token remains on Esege until it is spent, and even then is never placed on the huge ship in question. I believe Biggs was addressed to specifically say he couldn't be used to defend a huge ship, so in the absence of the same for Esege, I think we're good there.

2 minutes ago, rubberduck said:

Ahh but Esege doesn't give his focus to the huge ship. The token remains on Esege until it is spent, and even then is never placed on the huge ship in question. I believe Biggs was addressed to specifically say he couldn't be used to defend a huge ship, so in the absence of the same for Esege, I think we're good there.

It wasn't the giving part that was trouble... it was the "focus... tokens do not affect huge ships."

Esege isn't converting the results on behalf of the epic ship. "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking, it may treat your focus tokens as its own." The corvette's focus tokens have no affect, so neither would this one. If Esege stated that "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking, Esege may spend his focus to modify the results" I would be inclined to agree that he works. It might be he is intended to work, but as a TO I need to use what's written.

Frank says you can use Esege's focus tokens for your Huge ship

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187918-huge-ship-rule-turned-on-its-head-cr-90-can-use-eseges-focus/

3 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

It wasn't the giving part that was trouble... it was the "focus... tokens do not affect huge ships."

Esege isn't converting the results on behalf of the epic ship. "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking, it may treat your focus tokens as its own." The corvette's focus tokens have no affect, so neither would this one. If Esege stated that "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking, Esege may spend his focus to modify the results" I would be inclined to agree that he works. It might be he is intended to work, but as a TO I need to use what's written.

From the way the rules are written, it sounds to me like they are talking about tokens being assigned to the huge ship (e.g. garven, or katarn) not Esege. But I agree that we probably could use a huge ship FAQ.

7 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Frank says you can use Esege's focus tokens for your Huge ship

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187918-huge-ship-rule-turned-on-its-head-cr-90-can-use-eseges-focus/

Curse you, Frank! It's a weird ruling, but perhaps their perspective on epic ships changed along the way since the rules were originally written.

Anyway, moving right along past this particular interaction...

Throw on Ordnance Tubes and 3x Harpoon Missiles. No energy required, just TLs. Shoot Harpoon #1, apply condition, shoot Harpoon #2, guarantee a crit from Thug Droids, Harpoon condition goes off and a new Harpoon condition is applied. Repeat for Harpoon #3 (might not be possible if they're not in your rear arc). Then shoot 7 dice primary (+1 from energy, +1 from Jan, +1 from Finn), Thug droids generate another crit. If you have Roark in there, it shoots at PS12. 4 attacks at PS12 with three Harpoons triggering. Absolutely devastates any type of swarm, not to mention doing 3 extra facedown damage to a target.

1 hour ago, defkhan1 said:

Throw on Ordnance Tubes and 3x Harpoon Missiles. No energy required, just TLs. Shoot Harpoon #1, apply condition, shoot Harpoon #2, guarantee a crit from Thug Droids, Harpoon condition goes off and a new Harpoon condition is applied. Repeat for Harpoon #3 (might not be possible if they're not in your rear arc). Then shoot 7 dice primary (+1 from energy, +1 from Jan, +1 from Finn), Thug droids generate another crit. If you have Roark in there, it shoots at PS12. 4 attacks at PS12 with three Harpoons triggering. Absolutely devastates any type of swarm, not to mention doing 3 extra facedown damage to a target.

That's not at all what I'm looking for... I'm not that fond of ordnance tubes on the CR90. Love it on the Raider, it belongs on the Raider... but the CR90's fire arcs are a bit more finicky to deal with in the closer range brackets.

It's the most popular build in tournaments. The CR-90 is a ship that's meant to broadside. At super long range it's got its turret, at medium range it has missiles. Everything is dead by the time it gets to close range.

49 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

It's the most popular build in tournaments. The CR-90 is a ship that's meant to broadside. At super long range it's got its turret, at medium range it has missiles. Everything is dead by the time it gets to close range.

Fair enough. Not at all what I'm going for here though. Besides, I've got my tournament templates, it's the off season, I'm out to do wacky things on the table for a bit.

why Decoy rather than Swarm Tactics (Jan keeps her own PS) or Roark somewhere else in the list?

A railgun-armed CR-90 makes sense. Between Jan, Supercharged Cells, Finn and the corvette's own ability that's one heck of a punch to throw at range 5.

If you're fielding Finn, if you have a crew slot and expect many low-level (PS1-2) generics, by the way, a Flight Instructor might do some decent work.

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

why Decoy rather than Swarm Tactics (Jan keeps her own PS) or Roark somewhere else in the list?

A railgun-armed CR-90 makes sense. Between Jan, Supercharged Cells, Finn and the corvette's own ability that's one heck of a punch to throw at range 5.

If you're fielding Finn, if you have a crew slot and expect many low-level (PS1-2) generics, by the way, a Flight Instructor might do some decent work.

Decoy to keep some distance. I've tried swarm tactics before and some turns with the CR90 are nail biting when Jan is sitting in range one of it.

Huh. Flight instructor... Yeah, I'll have to look at that.