Also that it's super annoying that you can't get LRS and ASLAM on the same ship. It's real downer.

ASLAM is the issue actually. It's a point tax to use SLAM properly, and I'm not sure it's worth paying.

Eh, if Jess has Selflessness you just nuke her instead. she gets an extra die versus an extra evade per attack, and one extra evade on top, but she has a lot less HP.

7 hours ago, AlexW said:

They can also be turned into a liability. I maneuvered my Harpooned ship to a position that forced an opponent into three bad choices with his one hull Vader (stay in R1 of it and get a shot, flee and be out of the game for awhile, or move out of R1 but take a four dice shot). Meanwhile I moved my own QD, who had shields remaining, into R1of my own harpooned ship in hopes of getting a double shot on his Rho. Long story short, Vader ended up dead by his squad's harpoon and QD got the two shots, effectively ending the game.

This has never been an issue for me with Harpoons. The one time someone tried to do this to me I shot them anyway. Unless I somehow ended up in a situation as you described where I had a 1 health ace at range 1 of the Harpooned ship (in which case it's completely my fault for being in that situation to begin with), I will gladly take the splash damage on my own ships for that +1 dmg under shields. Self-damage from Harpoons has been such a non-issue for me since I started playing with it. The benefits far outweight the possible downside.

7 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Lieutenant Wasabi!

but yeah, he will give you SLAM gimmicks galore. If not, you're still making use of the gunboat's double cannon gimmick as it is the only ship that can link its cannon in the game

another good feature of the HLC boat is that you won't need that many shots. Between LRS and crackshot (on Rhos), you're getting a rather ridiculous amount of damage out in just one round of concentrated fire. You could actually and very easily one-round an auzzy (except in the one case where it's Low and people figure out to put Selflessness on Jess, but if all she has is DTF then the wookie is kinda ******)

I preordered triple boats, so I'm definitely running triple HLC with Wasabi at the helm but he can easily be subbed out for x7 crackshot Vessery (who loves him some LRS)

though I must admit, the thought of ion pulse missiles OS-1s also fills me with wicked joy

Oh i preordered 3 too lol. Thought about 4 but eh....i think 4 gunboats is heavily limited in the more gimicky area rather than actually deadly. It easily can be ridiculous but more tricked out trio would be more consistent imo.

Even if its not practical though, i am going to do the ion-missile thing for sure. I am also going to just spam seismic torps...because i can...and remove all 6 obstacles with a single 2pt card lol

with the exception of xwings, bwings, awings, and scyks, imperials are the only faction i seem to always buy multiples of a ship for lol. Though i wish i didnt get 3 SFs...that was dumb...2 is fine 3 is too pricy

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Being able to fire a missile after SLAMing with OS-1 is nice and all, but the Reload mechanic (especially combined with the Target Lock requirement for OS-1 and most ordnance) seems... clunky... at best.

It IS clunky! I've flown different gunboat builds on VASSAL I think 9 times now. I've talked to about a half dozen different players about their experiences. Some of them believe the Harpoon build is superior and they've come up with ways to make it work effectively. So don't get me wrong, the Harpoon build works. But the difficulty is that you have to take specific upgrades and build your list AROUND making it work. The HLC gunboat plops on the table and as long as you get something in arc, it blows ***** up.

Here's the key difference in my mind:

---Missile Gunboat: the burden of error is on the controlling player. If you fly well and manage to control the ranges, everything goes to plan and you deal out horrendous damage. Make one mistake or your opponent outguesses you, and your gunboats are stuck in an awkward position for a variety of reasons (needing to switch locks, needing to split forces in order to execute all of your slams due to ship positioning, obstacles, board edge, etc or whatever).

---HLC Gunboat: the burden of error is on the opponent. If they screw up, they are taking horrendous damage. So they have to be super careful about how they approach you, and you can use that to your advantage...

I'll give one anecdotal example:

I had a VASSAL league game earlier this week where I had 2 HLC Rhos + Fel. My opponent had Thweek, Scout & Harpoon N'dru. I deployed in such a way that scout would have a hard time approaching me due to the rocks. N'dru went directly across from me. First turn of shooting, N'dru puts one Rho down to 1 hull (bad dice for me although I got better dice later), but then N'dru's wiped off the board. Next turn, scout tries to dodge my arcs, but is barely in range of both HLCs. Fel meanwhile scares off Thweek to protect my 1 hull Rho. End of that turn's shooting, Scout is down to 1 hull....it was a terrible spot for my opponent to be in! And there's no way Harpoon Rho's could've pulled off something like that. Instead, they'd have to slam away, reload, re-aquire lock, etc.

1 hour ago, Vineheart01 said:

my main issue with HLC on gunboats is it doesnt play into either of the gunboat's SLAM gimicks, which it clearly has to abuse because of its lack of turnaround moves.

You'd get 1 maybe2 depending on how fast people dive your face HLC shots off before you'd have to corkscrew off to turn around AND get a turn without someone diving your face again to get the HLC off.

I thought SLAM gimmicks was where its at when I first saw the gunboat preview, but let me assure you, its not. SLAM is certainly useful, but more for controlling range than for shooting after slamming (which honestly, you won't be able to do very often).

Its true you won't get to shoot lots with their HLCs, but here's the beauty of it: HLC Rho with crackshot only needs to shoot twice to be TOTALLY worth its 32 points! You are easily dealing 5-8 damage with those two shots...

And if you take two of them, there's NO WAY you are losing both of them that quick, but even if you did, chances are those two ships will STILL account for 12-15 damage before they go! There's not very many ships in this game that can punch that hard...

Hmmmmm..... I think I'm starting to be won over by the HLC argument.

In the build I'm working on I have room for a 30 point Gunboat. The missile version would be: Rho, PTL, Harpoons, Chips, OS1

So if I did a 30 point HLC carrier, I am thinking:

Nu, XG1, HLC, Linked.... that leaves me at 28 points. Do I put Advanced SLAM on there or stick with Long Range Scanners?

Also, the thing that I keeps me hesitating on going with the HLC is the fact that I can't shoot after I SLAM. You DEFINITLY wants Linked.... but you can't shoot after SLAMing. How big of a deal is that? And how big of a deal is PS2 versus PS4? Probably not a big one.

Thanks.

48 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

my main issue with HLC on gunboats is it doesnt play into either of the gunboat's SLAM gimicks, which it clearly has to abuse because of its lack of turnaround moves.

You'd get 1 maybe2 depending on how fast people dive your face HLC shots off before you'd have to corkscrew off to turn around AND get a turn without someone diving your face again to get the HLC off. I obviously havnt tried it since i dont play vassal but i dont see you turning around with enough space to move forward again and not have someone in R1 without burning 2-3 turns to zip to the other side of the board first. Gunboats are fast but not THAT fast, any other fast ship could tail it fast enough to stop that 1fwd after the SLAM turns from being R2-3.

Wasabi ....er i mean Karsabi on the other hand could totally get it off.

Fully willing to be proven wrong as i love being able to spam HLCs, but imo the only ship that can actually spam them is the Scyk (which goes pop too easy to bother and as a result NEEDS to use evade actions so no mods)

Imagine a valuable ship was on a flank, and you really didn't want it getting shot at. 1 or 2 Gunboats opposite such a ship would attract a lot of attention, because nobody wants continual HLCs pounding into them while they chase something else down. Now imagine that first ship also packed an HLC.

These things are very much flankers. They either open up a flank by concentrating attention, or they act as a flanker while another ship gets the attention.

Finally, the double turn SLAM is not a K-turn. Many times you won't have that shot anyway, so a disengage/engage cycle is, I think, your best bet.

17 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

Hmmmmm..... I think I'm starting to be won over by the HLC argument.

In the build I'm working on I have room for a 30 point Gunboat. The missile version would be: Rho, PTL, Harpoons, Chips, OS1

So if I did a 30 point HLC carrier, I am thinking:

Nu, XG1, HLC, Linked.... that leaves me at 28 points. Do I put Advanced SLAM on there or stick with Long Range Scanners?

Also, the thing that I keeps me hesitating on going with the HLC is the fact that I can't shoot after I SLAM. You DEFINITLY wants Linked.... but you can't shoot after SLAMing. How big of a deal is that? And how big of a deal is PS2 versus PS4? Probably not a big one.

Thanks.

LRS Rho Trick shot, for a 5 die HLC through rocks.

8 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

LRS Rho Trick shot, for a 5 die HLC through rocks.

But no linked batteries? Can't do that, sorry!

1 minute ago, Boba Rick said:

But no linked batteries? Can't do that, sorry!

Excuse me... my math was off.

Rho Squadron Veteran (21)
Trick Shot (0)
Heavy Laser Cannon (7)
Linked Battery (2)
Long-Range Scanners (0)
XG-1 Assault Configuration (1)

Total: 31

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Just now, Rakaydos said:

Excuse me... my math was off.

Rho Squadron Veteran (21)
Trick Shot (0)
Heavy Laser Cannon (7)
Linked Battery (2)
Long-Range Scanners (0)
XG-1 Assault Configuration (1)

Total: 31

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Been there! So close and yet so far!

I can definitely see the cannon argument. The action economy needed to reload and/or Slam while maintaining target locks, focus or needing cards like Guidance Chips makes the cannon a lot more desirable.

I really want to like Ion Pulse Missile Boats but you can’t easily jank away and hard turn Slam back to have a follow up Ion Pulse Missile, and even if you could you need to reload as well.

Still Ive been considering something like the following;

11 hours ago, DodgingArcs said:

I can definitely see the cannon argument. The action economy needed to reload and/or Slam while maintaining target locks, focus or needing cards like Guidance Chips makes the cannon a lot more desirable.

I really want to like Ion Pulse Missile Boats but you can’t easily jank away and hard turn Slam back to have a follow up Ion Pulse Missile, and even if you could you need to reload as well.

Still Ive been considering something like the following;

Rho Squadron Veteran — Alpha-class Star Wing	21
Expertise	4
Harpoon Missiles	4
XX-23 S-Thread Tracers	1
Guidance Chips	0
Os-1 Arsenal Loadout	2
Ship Total: 32
Rho Squadron Veteran — Alpha-class Star Wing	21
Expertise	4
Harpoon Missiles	4
XX-23 S-Thread Tracers	1
Guidance Chips	0
Os-1 Arsenal Loadout	2
Ship Total: 32
Rho Squadron Veteran — Alpha-class Star Wing	21
Expertise	4
Harpoon Missiles	4
XX-23 S-Thread Tracers	1
Guidance Chips	0
Os-1 Arsenal Loadout	2
Ship Total: 32
With this you can cycle your fire through your ships. Yes you won’t ever deliver 3 Harpoons on the first turn but you can Thread, Harpoon, Harpoon. Then 1 Harpoon can Reload while the other Threads and the one that shot Threads can Harpoon. Assuming you don’t need to Slam (in which case you are probably Slamming all away), then you can hopefully keep up a strong Salvo of Fire by only reloading 1 Star Wing a turn. Additionally, depending on Targets you might not need to reapply target locks with a Thread on the second turn.

It works, however for this load out 4 gunboats is a better proposition. Once Proton torpedo is thrown into a mix to trigger harpoons, damage potential spikes for this kind of list.

On 11/16/2017 at 10:05 AM, blade_mercurial said:

Here's the thing though: we're NOT theory-crafting here. Biophysical's conclusion (and I mostly agree with it) is based on ACTUAL game play using the Gunboat. And we have decided, based on dozens of games (across a few of us all playing different builds) that the Cannon Gunboat is just better competitively speaking.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not suggesting people shouldn't decide for themselves when they get their hands on the actual release. Go nuts and try a bunch of stuff out! Just keep in mind that we're ALREADY been there and done that thanks to VASSAL, and Bio has decided to give everyone a 'heads up' on what his conclusions are. They are his opinions based on his experiences, and I'm sure others will have different opinions (and different experiences too).

My prediction is that when the Gunboat hits actual tables and gets tournament play, there will be all kinds of builds and people will try a ton of different stuff. After the dust settles though, you will see this as the most competitive (and therefore most popular) gunboat build:

Rho w/ crackshot, XG-1, HLC, linked battery & LRS.

Not saying other builds won't be good too. Just that this is the one that is the most efficient and the easiest to use. And also, it slots super easy into a TON of imperial lists! So for those reasons, its gonna see some successes and become popular.

But really, I have to give FFG credit on this ship (and believe me, I don't have a very high opinion of our designer's abilities...). But not only is the Gunboat a ton of fun to fly, its actually quite good and I have no doubt it will see lots of tournament play.

On 11/16/2017 at 11:19 AM, blade_mercurial said:

I've flown different gunboat builds on VASSAL I think 9 times now. I've talked to about a half dozen different players about their experiences. Some of them believe the Harpoon build is superior and they've come up with ways to make it work effectively. So don't get me wrong, the Harpoon build works. But the difficulty is that you have to take specific upgrades and build your list AROUND making it work. The HLC gunboat plops on the table and as long as you get something in arc, it blows ***** up.

I have yet to fly gunboats myself, but this is what the math is predicting. Harpoon boats need to burn their EPT on deadeye to be on the same footing as HLC gunboats, i.e. just point and shoot. Low PS jousters like this are fundamentally just point and shoots -- good players will find ways to maximize their approach angles, and certain ships (B-wings, Skurgg) can reposition to help this along, but at the end of the day it comes down to just getting the other guy in arc and rolling dice. As long as you can get the target in arc reliably (sorry Lambda), jousting efficiency reigns supreme and is still the best predictor of this archetype's success. In this regard, HLC is better than harpoon. Harpoon missiles themselves are insane, but their overall average damage can't keep up with the HLC due to the lower firing duty cycle. Reloading is a great option to have, but if you're relying on it in the middle of a heated battle (which the early engagement almost always is), then spending all those points on low PS jousters and then not shooting with them => you probably lose. Plus, deadeye boats can't spend their focus on defense, which matters quite a bit for AGI 2 -- again, lowering their jousting efficiency, which is not what you want out of any ship, let alone a jouster whose only real trick is "smash you in the face with lots of dice".

This isn't to say that harpoon boats can't win and aren't dangerous when lining up opposite them -- but in the meta-game sense, on the whole, I don't expect them to be as good as the HLC boats, just based on the raw numbers.

The FFG Devs did a pretty good job here, but I am concerned that it is still quantifiable power creep, even if it is milder than we have seen in waves past. It basically matches the jousting efficiency of a lambda shuttle... and can turn easily and also has SLAM. Dee Yun @Mynock Delta made an astute passing comment on a recent Mynock podcast, essentially that he "doesn't even know what the power curve is anymore". I think the gunboat is another example of the developers nudging up the game's overall power curve.

If there's jousting efficiency creep, having it in a small base, forward arc only, low PS ship with no K-turn at all is a little refreshing, right?

What, is it more efficient than an x7?

11 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

What, is it more efficient than an x7?

Generics yes, Vessery / Ryad no. Generics are "only" in the 97% - 99% range re: wave 3 power curve. Vessery and Ryad are both around 107% (although Vess's EPT is still free!). All numbers use an overly simplistic assumption that x7 triggers on 75% of turns you're getting shot at. Also, x7 Defenders get a white K, so, there's that!

Edit / PS: the efficiency style is obviously very different between HLC gunboats and TIE/x7s. TIE/x7s are super tanky, gunboats are on a survival clock and are skewed towards being glass cannons, comparativly speaking.

6 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

Generics yes, Vessery / Ryad no. Generics are "only" in the 97% - 99% range re: wave 3 power curve. Vessery and Ryad are both around 107% (although Vess's EPT is still free!). All numbers use an overly simplistic assumption that x7 triggers on 75% of turns you're getting shot at. Also, x7 Defenders get a white K, so, there's that!

What happens when you give Vess juke as an EPT?

5 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

What happens when you give Vess juke as an EPT?

[edited]

Depends how often you still have the evade token. If you have it 75% of the time then it's around 111%, assuming the targets have generic-ish type action economies for defense.

All Vessery numbers obviously depend how often he's getting a target lock as well. The #'s here and above assumed a 50% trigger rate, so your mileage may vary.

14 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

Edit / PS: the efficiency style is obviously very different between HLC gunboats and TIE/x7s. TIE/x7s are super tanky, gunboats are on a survival clock and are skewed towards being glass cannons, comparativly speaking.

I wonder if I can ask you to calculate the jousting efficiency of harpoon/chips/tracers boat? (assumptions: out of 4 boats one doesn't do damage but fires tracers, 3 other boats are firing harpoon/harpoon/proton, the cycle can repeat every round)?

It's in the queue, I will have to do that eventually once I rebalance TIE Bombers, K-wings, TIE Punishers, etc, for Community Mod. ETA is December or January though - working on rebalancing everything else first. It turns out that rebalancing 12 waves of content in one wave's time, in your spare time, using more rigor than the original designers, is a somewhat optimistic goal.

This is all kinda hilarious, considering how many people were saying the Gunboat would probably be DOA.

Which ends up being better will ultimately come down to meta + playstyle/wingmen. The HLC variety is of course the better jouster, but jousting is also the only thing it does well. Time will tell.

People scream everything is DOA.

The only ship in the past few waves that was truely 100% DOA was the godforsaken uwing. Everything else atleast has a niche use, heck the uwing straight up got replaced by the wookieship in its job.

Also i dont remember seeing any DOA Gunboat posts after the full spoiler of it, just the initial announcement. Because the initial announcement was terrible considering almost the entirety of this thing's power is in the (at the time) unspoiled cards and pilots/costs.

Gunboat is probably the only thing in that wave that looks devastating imo. Stressipede will be relegated to yet another stress attacker that does virtually no damage unless it gets lucky and i will be shocked to see kimo-therapies not go poof in 1 round of attacks (as they are giving off the vibe they cant maneuver very well and have bad agility)

Nah, the G1A is dead as a doornail and always has been, too.

What they really should do is say that Ships by default may equip 2 mods instead of 1 by default. Vaksai and Royal Guard TIE both allowing for a 3rd.