Let’s boil the OP OP down to this:

7 hours ago, Astech said:

I love the GUNBOAT as much as the next X-Wing fan.

NO. NO YOU DON’T. Not when that fan is me. ALL GLORY TO GUNBOAT!!!!!

ahem, anyway...

6 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Nu Squadron Pilot (18)
Flechette Torpedoes (2)
Long-Range Scanners (0)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Unguided Rockets (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)

Alpha Squadron Pilot (18)
Autothrusters (2)

Imperial Trainee (17)
Lightweight Frame (2)
Adaptive Ailerons (0)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Different strokes for different folks

Yes. This is what I want to see more of.

GUNBOAT and TIE Bomber compliment each other. One doesn’t displace the other. They are both very versatile and have multiple builds.

if you want a dedicated but efficiently priced munitions carrier then here’s your options:

Gamma Vet with Plasma, EM, Deadeye, Chimps. 25 pts. 2 rounds of blowing up the stuffs. If something isn’t at least hurting after two plasmas and the other 75 points of your list are just sitting there...well...

Rho with Deadeye, Plasma, Chimps for same price. Sure you get to fire aa much as you want but it’s only every other round without the title. I would say it’s fairly equivalent in this build.

thats just one comparison. And of course GUNBOAT can’t Bomb. That’s ok, because you can’t Pew Pew with bombs.

8 hours ago, Astech said:

I love the GUNBOAT as much as the next X-Wing fan. It's bringing cool new mechanics to the table, in a frame that doesn't immediately yell "OP!" when thinking of builds. It does, however, have some serious power creep going on.

A Scimitar Squadron TIE Bomber is 16 points, and 18 with the auto include Extra munitions. Given the low flexibility of the dial, it's hard to get off more than 2 sets of munitions before being killed. It has 6 hull behind AGi 2, which isn't actually that bad, but prone to crits.

A Nu Squadron GUNBOAT is 18 points, has 7 total hull behind 2 agility - putting it into Integrated Astromech T-70 durability range. It has the SLAM and Reload actions, 2 of the best in the game, with the ability to fire weaponry after slamming. It has a better dial, upgrade bar (sans bombs, which the Bomber sadly never uses), access to EPTs and more appropriately costed pilots.

If you wanted to field a squadron of 4 Imperial ships, the Gunboat is now a clear winner, even with ordnance lists. The generic bomber pilots have been totally outclassed (there's literally nothing they can do that a GUNBOAT can't do better, and at nearly the same price). The Reload and SLAM actins keep the Gunboat in the fight for far longer than the Bomber, and the increased durability, combined with ac-dodging capability means that they're going to last a long time in comparison.

It makes me sad that in order make new ships good (and not necessarily even great) FFG has to relegate older ships to the scrapheap.

Since the OP's comparison used a bomber I just want to say that they too can be stupid efficient swarmers for 20 points with LWF and Unguided (in the right scenario)

3 attack and 3 agility (in most cases) backed by six health is far superior to the tie interceptor which is two points cheaper but has three less health and is superior to the Gunboat at 18 with a 2 point upgrade in terms of raw efficiency,

its dial is another issue but that offsets the stupid efficiency in most cases of the LWF Unguided bomber. I ran a couple of these to great effect as fillers but the dial hurts them so terribly...

i (almost) completely agree with the OP but I just wanted to put this out there

@Astech

so what do you want?

Clearly the Gunboat should be viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

Clearly the TIE bomber is not viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

so how do you bring these together?

19 minutes ago, Quadjumper King said:

Since the OP's comparison used a bomber I just want to say that they too can be stupid efficient swarmers for 20 points with LWF and Unguided (in the right scenario)

3 attack and 3 agility (in most cases) backed by six health is far superior to the tie interceptor which is two points cheaper but has three less health and is superior to the Gunboat at 18 with a 2 point upgrade in terms of raw efficiency,

its dial is another issue but that offsets the stupid efficiency in most cases of the LWF Unguided bomber. I ran a couple of these to great effect as fillers but the dial hurts them so terribly...

They're a pretty fantastic filler, and I would imagine that in Epic play they'd be a real terror. The trouble is that TIE strikers do the job better, and for a point less. They have 2 less hull, but a real 3-die primary and far, far better maneuverability. After that the Kihaxz takes the spot of most efficient 20 point jouster.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

so what do you want?

Clearly the Gunboat should be viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

Clearly the TIE bomber is not viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

so how do you bring these together?

The solution is rather obvious. Powercreep is almost inevitable in a game like this, so FFG needs to start doing fix packs (preferably yearly) that bring older ships up to scratch with the post-JM5K power level of the game. It'd take an insignificant amount of money to include, say, an X-wing fix card in every ship of wave 12, and even less to slip one into an aces pack.

I'm not saying that the gunboat should be at the Bomber's level, but exactly the opposite.

11 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Clearly the TIE bomber is not viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

Disagree. The Bomber can absolutely hold it's own. I've done it regularly. The meta is jammed with 1 agility, two ship lists. Nothing could be better for them to target. It's the likes of Fenn and Soontir that they struggle with.

2 minutes ago, Astech said:

I'm not saying that the gunboat should be at the Bomber's level, but exactly the opposite.

Then why don‘t you simply say so?

your posts are saying the Gunboat is too good - which depends on the comparison. For current meta ‚too good’ is most likely just wrong.

instead you wanted to say the the Bomber - as so many other ships - needs a revamp and that the gunboat is fine.

Those are different.

19 minutes ago, NakedDex said:

Disagree. The Bomber can absolutely hold it's own. I've done it regularly. The meta is jammed with 1 agility, two ship lists. Nothing could be better for them to target. It's the likes of Fenn and Soontir that they struggle with.

What's good against high health, 1 agility, 2 ship lists is Ion control, followed by Tractor beams, followed by stress. Tactician shuttles are okay at stress, but simply can't do the others. Asajj alone could plausibly take on 4 Unguided rocket bombers. Nym could solo 5 of them, as could Corran. These are not uncommon ships to encounter.

17 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Then why don‘t you simply say so?

your posts are saying the Gunboat is too good - which depends on the comparison. For current meta ‚too good’ is most likely just wrong.

instead you wanted to say the the Bomber - as so many other ships - needs a revamp and that the gunboat is fine.

Those are different.

I never said the gunboat was too good. I said it was too good in comparison to the TIE Bomber, which fulfils a very similar primary role.

I'm not convinced. As far as I see it, the TIE Bomber and Gunboat are entirely different beasts.

The TIE Bomber can be loaded up with an useful payload for a relatively low cost, without having to rely on a series of gimmicks to leverage the best performance out of it. It's cheap and straightforward to fly, and throw Lightweight Frame on there and it's pretty resilient as well.

Now, the Gunboat can be loaded up for a low cost, but you're not going to get the best out of it that way. Really you're going to need to take advantage of it's unique titles and SLAM to see it reach it's full potential. Even then, it's going to take a lot of practice and experimentation to get the best out of it.

It is essentially the difference between Y-Wings and K-Wings, just without the benefit of a turret slot. One's a cheap, spammable ship, the other works at it's best when it's loaded for bear.

Guys. Xwing is not really about the low ps generics. Think of it this way: people dont use low ps tie bombers. Maybe as a shuttle.

So, if the low ps gunboats see moderate play, that is not true power creep, but fair up to date pricing.

If you compare the aces, instead, you will see that deathfire (efficient bomb plus alpha strike), tomax bren (high ps alpha with crack shot or jank build), rhymer (jank snap stresser) and jonus (epic support) are not even in the same niche as the gunboat, so they will not be replaced by it.

Plus: bombers have the 5k and barrel roll. Both are awesome.

36 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

I'm not convinced. As far as I see it, the TIE Bomber and Gunboat are entirely different beasts.

The TIE Bomber can be loaded up with an useful payload for a relatively low cost, without having to rely on a series of gimmicks to leverage the best performance out of it. It's cheap and straightforward to fly, and throw Lightweight Frame on there and it's pretty resilient as well.

Now, the Gunboat can be loaded up for a low cost, but you're not going to get the best out of it that way. Really you're going to need to take advantage of it's unique titles and SLAM to see it reach it's full potential. Even then, it's going to take a lot of practice and experimentation to get the best out of it.

It is essentially the difference between Y-Wings and K-Wings, just without the benefit of a turret slot. One's a cheap, spammable ship, the other works at it's best when it's loaded for bear.

A 20 point bomber will beat a 20 point GUNBOAT, but at the 25 point mark the GUNBOAT is clearly a superior ship. On that note, 4 GUNBOAT generics could handily beat 5 bombers. A K-wing also operates extremely well at 33 points - there was a whole, brief, phase of them. They've only been phased out because Miranda is even better.

29 minutes ago, MaxPower said:

Guys. Xwing is not really about the low ps generics. Think of it this way: people dont use low ps tie bombers. Maybe as a shuttle.

So, if the low ps gunboats see moderate play, that is not true power creep, but fair up to date pricing.

If you compare the aces, instead, you will see that deathfire (efficient bomb plus alpha strike), tomax bren (high ps alpha with crack shot or jank build), rhymer (jank snap stresser) and jonus (epic support) are not even in the same niche as the gunboat, so they will not be replaced by it.

Plus: bombers have the 5k and barrel roll. Both are awesome.

Except for the TIE swarms of waves 1-2, B-wings of wave 3, TIe swarms of wave 6, K-wings of wave 7, Contracted Scouts and Lothal Rebels of wave 8, Upsilon and TIE Striker of wave 10, Scurrg and TIE aggressor of wave 11, and soon to be among them the Kihraxz and Starviper. All meta-dominating in their own way.

Jonus and Rhymer simply don't work in 100/6 (although they're acceptable in Epic). Deathfire is worse in every way than both Miranda and Nym, and Tomax is soon going to be obsolete with Major Vynder taking his place at PS9

The 5k and barrel rolls are useful, but they pale in comparison to the versatility of SLAM.

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

@Astech

so what do you want?

Clearly the Gunboat should be viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

Clearly the TIE bomber is not viable to be put on tables against the good lists.

so how do you bring these together?

Clearly FFG needs to make an Imperial Bombers box with fixes for TIE Bombers and TIE Punishers!

2 hours ago, Astech said:

Deathfire is worse in every way than both Miranda and Nym,

Cheaper, for sure, starting at 21 pts for EM,Ion/seismic and up to 24 for Proton Bomb. But clusters and conners are choice, maneuver right in front of a higher PS ship and lay an egg that they have to move through. Let the rest of the list finish them off.

Power creep is always going on, just ask the ol' X-wing but there have been buffs to older ships, see TIE Defenders hahaha.

There are a couple of things the Bomber still has going for it:

-unique pilots: Tomex Bren and Major Rhymer can do what no one else can. And Captain Jonus would actually not be a bad crew mate for these new Gunboats as between linked batteries and Jonus they are basically getting fullly modified dice always.

-TIE specific upgrades: currently they can get the incredible lightweight frame, TIE engine upgrade, and be docked on the Gozanti for epic close range surprise bombing fun.

-TIE Shuttle, if you haven't tried turning Tomex into a super ace with Kallus/Rebel Captive/Kylo Ren you haven't lived. Not to mention running cheap generics with snap shot and operations specialist gets pretty crazy pretty fast. And Vader crew makes a fun anti-ace

-The actual dropping of Bombs. Which currently the Star Wing cannot do and is in the Bombers namesake.

So can we see them as different roles and welcome out Star Wing brother to the game? We need to get back to asking for X-Wing and punisher fixes! Haha

5 hours ago, NakedDex said:

Disagree. The Bomber can absolutely hold it's own. I've done it regularly. The meta is jammed with 1 agility, two ship lists. Nothing could be better for them to target. It's the likes of Fenn and Soontir that they struggle with.

Which is exactly how it should be, lore-wise.

The weakness isn't the bomber, it's not having a mission profile when building a list.

The PS2 Gunboat actually looks fairly priced next to the Scimitar, if not a tad over costed, thanks to the requirement of the titles to actually put armaments on the dang ship (and the desire to run Adv SLAM). If you want to run anything besides a torpedo, you are required to spend additional pts, which makes up for the cost savings of no Extra Munitions.

Also, the named pilots pay 1 pt per Pilot Skill and 3(!!!) pts for their pilot abilities. That is a high cost for an ability. Consider that Miranda and Fenn Rau pay the same 1 pt per PS and 0 pts for their pilot abilities.

It doesn't look like power creep to me. In fact, it looks like Anti-Imperial Bias again, in that the Gunboat is probably FAIRLY costed, and other faction options (Scum mostly) are for some reason consistently undercosted.

4 hours ago, Astech said:

Deathfire is worse in every way than both Miranda and Nym

no ****?

Deathfire fully loaded is CHEAPER than both ships without any upgrades. He is a measly 25 points with unguided, extras, conner nets and LRS, or 27 if you want LWF.

not sure what you're expecting out of the bomber. It is the TIE fighter of all bombers, the bare essentials at a very economical cost.

The gunboat is not economical at all. By the time you fully enable SLAM or the XG-1 title for linked batteries, you've hit the realm of 32 points. It's a nifty, precision craft that costs a lot of points for how durable it is (not)

basically, they don't overlap at all apart from the single arguable case of burst damage. Between the deadeye gamma vet with missiles, em and G-chips VS. the Rho with Crackshot HLCs and linked batteries (and LRS), I'd take a list of Rhos over Vets with a thing any day.

10 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Bomber REALLY need some help. like REALLY.

And punishers need even more help.

Imo though, the gunboat and the bomber will play a little differently. But generally the bomber could use more efficiency. Problems are not the build options, its that the ship generally isn't useful to use.

My point exactly, Bombers and TIE Punishers were and still are crap. So having something that is better then those is not power creep. It is displacement, but given how weak current Imperial bombers are they are not that hard to displace.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

no ****?

Deathfire fully loaded is CHEAPER than both ships without any upgrades. He is a measly 25 points with unguided, extras, conner nets and LRS, or 27 if you want LWF.

not sure what you're expecting out of the bomber. It is the TIE fighter of all bombers, the bare essentials at a very economical cost.

The gunboat is not economical at all. By the time you fully enable SLAM or the XG-1 title for linked batteries, you've hit the realm of 32 points. It's a nifty, precision craft that costs a lot of points for how durable it is (not)

basically, they don't overlap at all apart from the single arguable case of burst damage. Between the deadeye gamma vet with missiles, em and G-chips VS. the Rho with Crackshot HLCs and linked batteries (and LRS), I'd take a list of Rhos over Vets with a thing any day.

Why would you use LRS with UGR? Just for range 1 shots or K turns?

LWF just seems better.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Why would you use LRS with UGR? Just for range 1 shots or K turns?

LWF just seems better.

Lrs is free, so of course lwf is better

But 2 points is 2 points, so it isn't always a done deal

9 hours ago, phild0 said:

The PS2 Gunboat actually looks fairly priced next to the Scimitar, if not a tad over costed, thanks to the requirement of the titles to actually put armaments on the dang ship (and the desire to run Adv SLAM). If you want to run anything besides a torpedo, you are required to spend additional pts, which makes up for the cost savings of no Extra Munitions.

Also, the named pilots pay 1 pt per Pilot Skill and 3(!!!) pts for their pilot abilities. That is a high cost for an ability. Consider that Miranda and Fenn Rau pay the same 1 pt per PS and 0 pts for their pilot abilities.

It doesn't look like power creep to me. In fact, it looks like Anti-Imperial Bias again, in that the Gunboat is probably FAIRLY costed, and other faction options (Scum mostly) are for some reason consistently undercosted.

It's semi-fair. It certainly has better jousting, arc-dodging and end game potential if the cap is 25 points. Miranda and Fenn are both significantly above the power curve, mostly due to Fenn's low cost and Miranda's TLT synergy.

7 hours ago, Marinealver said:

My point exactly, Bombers and TIE Punishers were and still are crap. So having something that is better then those is not power creep. It is displacement, but given how weak current Imperial bombers are they are not that hard to displace.

When they were released they were fair - 6 bombers was a decent swarm (or 5 and howlrunner). They were just slightly eclipsed by the standard swarms of the time. If FFG released a few good titles for the Bomber and Punisher all would be well, as the Gunboat has its own niche. It's just sad to see that even within the Imperial faction their own ships are eclipsing older ones at their specific tasks.

9 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

no ****?

Deathfire fully loaded is CHEAPER than both ships without any upgrades. He is a measly 25 points with unguided, extras, conner nets and LRS, or 27 if you want LWF.

not sure what you're expecting out of the bomber. It is the TIE fighter of all bombers, the bare essentials at a very economical cost.

The gunboat is not economical at all. By the time you fully enable SLAM or the XG-1 title for linked batteries, you've hit the realm of 32 points. It's a nifty, precision craft that costs a lot of points for how durable it is (not)

basically, they don't overlap at all apart from the single arguable case of burst damage. Between the deadeye gamma vet with missiles, em and G-chips VS. the Rho with Crackshot HLCs and linked batteries (and LRS), I'd take a list of Rhos over Vets with a thing any day.

And perhaps 50% of the time he dies before dropping a single bomb... He needs to get behind or directly beside a ship to do his thing, and that's near-impossible for a fragile Bomber.

The Bomber isn't the 'bare essentials', as the bare essentials includes either Deadeye or high PS on ordnance to work well. It can't effectively act as a bomber because of the lousy dial, and as a shuttle it's... average.

The gunboat is incredibly cheap for what it offers. I'll agree that the top tables will see them loaded up to make the most of their niche, but within the realm of 25 points you've got a lot of options:

1. For 22 points you can get a Nu with OS-1 and Unguided rockets. That's possibly the best jousting efficiency in the game (outside of biggs), with arc-dodging and blocking capabilities that rival every ship out there. You could run 4 of them and a TIE, or add Advanced SLAM for outstanding power.
2. 25 points gets a Nu with OS-1, Unguided, Plasmas and guidance chips for 25. You might not get off the plasmas every game, but when they do it'd make a splash.
3. A 20 point filler Nu can give you a Jamming or tractor control piece worth envying. Especially with Nym and Miranda out and bout.
4. Major Vynder with VI, Unguided, OS-1 and Advanced Slam is 33 points. That's one of the best arc-dodgers in the game right there, with durability to rival Nym and maneuverability above that of both Fenn and Soontir.

The gunboat is not a very pricy ship - its aces are about comparable to solid Tomax builds, and its generics have fantastic options, both as supports and 4 ship list fodder.

30 minutes ago, Astech said:

...

When they were released they were fair - 6 bombers was a decent swarm (or 5 and howlrunner). They were just slightly eclipsed by the standard swarms of the time. If FFG released a few good titles for the Bomber and Punisher all would be well, as the Gunboat has its own niche. It's just sad to see that even within the Imperial faction their own ships are eclipsing older ones at their specific tasks.

...

fair

Sorry I've been around since Wave 3 and there wasn't a time when Bombers were any good. Twice the hull goes down super fast with only 2 agility and with 0% shield coverage every crit gimps Bombers into even easier prey. I have had my bombers down to 1 agility and 1 firepower, trust me I have tried to make them work. They were dependent on torpedoes and missiles to make up for the lack of firepower and it just made them too expensive. Not to mention Rhymer which got jipped by FFG pricing (he should have been 3 points cheaper).

As for the punisher when it came out it performed as well as I expected and that was horrible. The Punisher never addressed all the problems the TIE bombers had as an missile/torpedo delivery system. The only ship that did addressed that issue was the Jumpmaster and then it was so good it got nerfed. So if you wanted to play Bombers you had to go to Scum.

TIE Bombers and TIE Punishers were never good to begin with they weren't even fair. Now you may consider them fair but thing is there is just already so many better options out there and here comes another one which just puts TIE bombers and TIE Punishers further at the bottom of the pile even if they did got pulled from the trash can. If you want to play a game where TIE Bombers are good Armada is such a game where they had to be nerfed.

On 21/10/2017 at 3:42 AM, Astech said:

OS-1 isn't an auto-include. ****, you could use the Assault Configuration on a torpboat with a Flechette cannon for when it's slamming. The point is that even without titles, the Assault gunboat is the better ordinance carrier. It has more health, more munitions, a better dial and easier EPT access.

More health - agreed and having shields is a big deal

More munitions - technically the Gunboat has unlimited ordnance but to reload on the Gunboat it takes a precious action and to reload after a SLAM you need Advanced SLAM. It’s a bit of a faff compared to EM. In a standard game I’d say an EM Bomber and reloading Gunboat are pretty even (in fact a Scimitar with EM is 18 points the same as a basic Nu).

Better dial - debatable. Gunboat has no K-turn and one less green manoeuvre but has less red manoeuvres. SLAM makes it more manoeuvrable. But without a title it can’t fire anything after a SLAM and without Advanced SLAM you have no action for dice modification or reload. This bumps the price up.

Easier EPT access - can’t agree. Gamma Squadron Vet is 2 points cheaper than Rho Squadron Vet and is PS5.

So what does it all mean... The Gunboat offers an higher costed but better quality alternative to the Bomber for missiles and torpedos. There’s room for both.

5 minutes ago, Sasajak said:

More health - agreed and having shields is a big deal

More munitions - technically the Gunboat has unlimited ordnance but to reload on the Gunboat it takes a precious action and to reload after a SLAM you need Advanced SLAM. It’s a bit of a faff compared to EM. In a standard game I’d say an EM Bomber and reloading Gunboat are pretty even (in fact a Scimitar with EM is 18 points the same as a basic Nu).

Better dial - debatable. Gunboat has no K-turn and one less green manoeuvre but has less red manoeuvres. SLAM makes it more manoeuvrable. But without a title it can’t fire anything after a SLAM and without Advanced SLAM you have no action for dice modification or reload. This bumps the price up.

Easier EPT access - can’t agree. Gamma Squadron Vet is 2 points cheaper than Rho Squadron Vet and is PS5.

So what does it all mean... The Gunboat offers an higher costed but better quality alternative to the Bomber for missiles and torpedos. There’s room for both.

Extra munitions i good only if you're taking more than 2 shots, and that's very unlikely for a Bomber. As such, it's only there to give you a slightly cheaper pair of missiles. The thing about the GUNBOAT is that you can fit 2 pieces of munition on it for 25 points, so you still get your 2 shots, and you then have aa superior frame after that with a good chance of getting more shots.

As for the dial, the extra green is pretty irrelevant - this isn't a PTL ship and stress-dealing isn't big since Asajj went out of style. The 5K makes the bomber useless for a turn, whereas Slamming lets you be either a super-blocker or turn around just as effectively, and in more flexible ways, without stress.

Again, Bombers need extra munitions to be good, and the fact that the Gamma is PS 5 ties its EPT to deadeye to ensure its effectiveness. The Gunboat acescan get more mileage out of EPTs due to the stronger frame. If I had to choose between 3 gamma squad vets with Homing missiles and 3 HLC Rhos I'd go the Rhos.

Panicking about an unreleased ship breaking all the things; that never gets old

:/