Let's face it: the true place for these beasts is in epic. I believe about 3 of these lobbing proton bombs will be the shape of things to come. You'd still have about 200 points for fighters any a sabine carrier.

And it would look sexy.

Bear in mind that these deploy after epics, so they can really melt those corvettes.

What do you think? Will this be strong? Op? Npe?

Discuss!

I think it could definitely be fun, but I don't know how effective Proton Bombs are against Epic ships. I do think that these things are going to wreck enemy fleets though! In my experience, Cruise Missile alpha strikes are way better than bombs in Epic, and I'm not sure launching the bombs makes them that much better, because you'll still be getting shot. I'm definitely looking forward to these things though, and I think you're right that Epic will be the best place for them, because an optimal build for them will probably end up costing like 50 points.

I assume you mean with Trajectory Simulator? Because even then I don't see them being that great.

We have an epic league going on right now. For this season, we made a custom rule that each player must field at least one epic ship... and my gut feeling is that at least one player will try the combo that you mentionned. Will it work? I can honestly say that I have no idea.

Crits can really hurt a huge ship and we are talking 3 crits for the first round before the Huge ship even fires. That being said, the return fire should destroy one of those bombers and our Corvettes and Raiders have been heavily favoring harpoons these days, so the Rebel fleet would suffer back in turn if it flew in formation. Those 2 dice attacks are also severly limited against a reinforce token. A player could also end up fielding 100 points of bombers while an opponent might simply favor a 40-50 point transport.

So yeah, I have no idea how this will end up.

I could see running 3 of them like this:

Use Hyperwave Comm Scanner to set up at PS 12 across from either the opponent's Epic ship or formation, then get to lobbing those Proton Bombs.

7 minutes ago, Innese said:

I could see running 3 of them like this:

Crimson Squadron Pilot — B/SF-17 Bomber	25
Trajectory Simulator	1
Proton Bombs	5
Ordnance Silos	2
Hyperwave Comm Scanner	1
Crossfire Formation	2
Ship Total: 36

Use Hyperwave Comm Scanner to set up at PS 12 across from either the opponent's Epic ship or formation, then get to lobbing those Proton Bombs.

That is exactly the build i had in mind, possibly without the crossfire formation depending on whether you have the points.

I don't know.... Even 1 of them for 33 points (proton/trajectory/silo) could deal 4 crits before the shooting phase even begins. That is pretty good for a large turret with 12 hp! And they almost HAVE to focus fire it, to prevent it from doing it again.

We have no Resistance Epic/Huge ship yet, so Crossfire formation will not trigger from the opponent attacking the Huge ship which the BSF17s accompany.

Well it depends on what is being played in Epic, for huge ships no doubt the new bombers and trajectory simulators will be tearing them up. For large starfighter attack wings, if the board is crowded enough you might be able to net a few. AoE tends to do better with more ships on the ground.

1 minute ago, Managarmr said:

We have no Resistance Epic/Huge ship yet, so Crossfire formation will not trigger from the opponent attacking the Huge ship which the BSF17s accompany.

Could be the missing SKU? Okay probably not but I don't think Epic should stop at 2 huge ships per primary faction.

Why not 200 points of bombers and 4 baby blues escorting?

1 hour ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Why not 200 points of bombers and 4 baby blues escorting?

Because you need epic ships. I know that isn’t a hard rule, but defeats the purpose in my opinion.

15 hours ago, ModernPenguin said:

I don't know.... Even 1 of them for 33 points (proton/trajectory/silo) could deal 4 crits before the shooting phase even begins. That is pretty good for a large turret with 12 hp! And they almost HAVE to focus fire it, to prevent it from doing it again.

Agreed. Even the threat of of those bombs will force the opponents movements. If those movements can be turned into kill lanes...

A-wings or Zeds carrying Assualt Missles, then mop up with a trio of X-wings and covering fire from the corvette.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

We have no Resistance Epic/Huge ship yet, so Crossfire formation will not trigger from the opponent attacking the Huge ship which the BSF17s accompany.

1. It wouldn't anyway; it adds bonuses when the '17s are defending, not other ships.
2. A huge ship has no way to make use of a defensive focus result anyway (I lie; maybe a flight instructor)

2 hours ago, Ccwebb said:

Agreed. Even the threat of of those bombs will force the opponents movements. If those movements can be turned into kill lanes...

A-wings or Zeds carrying Assualt Missles, then mop up with a trio of X-wings and covering fire from the corvette.

And on that thought, I think it would be worth it to bring 2x Proton silo B/SFs.
You could threaten to one shot a ton of ships with just 66 points, before they even get to shoot. Bye bye Z-95s, A-wings, even B-wings and X-wings with ordinance would be afraid of 2 crits. Pretty much anything would.

Sigh, if I had the money :-D I will probably settle for one of these crazies, but god they look great.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

1. It wouldn't anyway; it adds bonuses when the '17s are defending, not other ships.
2. A huge ship has no way to make use of a defensive focus result anyway (I lie; maybe a flight instructor)

Ok. Sloppily formulated by me.

Titled BSF17 gets attacked,

-has company of a BSF17 at range 1-2 of the attacker, thus gets a def focus.

-has company of a T70 , gets def focus.

-has company of a CR90/GR75 no def focus

-has company of hypothetical Resistance Huge, gets def focus.

In the latter case aggressively defending the Huge by throwing the BSF17 into enemy fire pays more due to enhanced survival probability for the BSF17.

7 hours ago, Managarmr said:

We have no Resistance Epic/Huge ship yet, so Crossfire formation will not trigger from the opponent attacking the Huge ship which the BSF17s accompany.

Pretty sure the other BSFs will trigger the title.

3 hours ago, ModernPenguin said:

And on that thought, I think it would be worth it to bring 2x Proton silo B/SFs.
You could threaten to one shot a ton of ships with just 66 points, before they even get to shoot. Bye bye Z-95s, A-wings, even B-wings and X-wings with ordinance would be afraid of 2 crits. Pretty much anything would.

Sigh, if I had the money :-D I will probably settle for one of these crazies, but god they look great.