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Weapons Engineer (3 points)

You may maintain 2 target locks (only 1 per enemy ship).

When you acquire a target lock, you may lock onto 2 different ships.

Target locks are a great action. And free actions are the best kinds of actions. This 3 point upgrade is essentially a free TL action. And yet... it almost never sees play. I've never heard anyone say anything _bad_ about it. I've simply never heard much talk about it at all.

Why isn't it being taken more often? It seems like it should combo really well with Fire Control System- but I haven't really heard about people doing that, either. Why not? (If the B-Wing/E2 mod added an extra hull, would we see this combo more often?)

Lets have some fun this Friday Thursday by doing a bit of theory crafting around this card. What kinds of combinations would make it a bargain at 3 points? Even if it doesn't exist, lets think about what designs might be added to make it Weapons Engineer a fantastic card.

Well one reason is probably that it gives you a free action if you split your fire!

It would be much better if it allowed two TL on the same target. As it is it costs as much as K4 who needs a green maneuver. But K4 allows you to get the free action and do something else.

Weapons Engineer only gives you a hypothetical extra action which is worthless until you change targets and use it.

Of course what I just said is different if you use the TL for another effect, like M9G8 and others.

It's really useful with M9-G8.

Tried Weapons Enginer with M9-G8 on Rebel Rau supporting Wes and Poe. It was actually pretty fun. You can start off with both wingmen TLed for a mini-predator effect and then switch one to an enemy ship to mess with their rolls.

Bump the Phantom 2 to AP-5, and you can do this combo for 21 points, allowing for some reasonably beefy wingmen.

It works well on Dengar.

Its thursday......

But if pairs really well with Synced Turret on the Ghost and FCS
Also Major Stridan FCS, Weapons Engineer and Targeting Syncrhonizer gives two ships a free TL each turn. Just expensive for what it does.

Basically it's not used much because most ships can only shoot one target at a time and don't have any benefit for just having something locked.

5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Well one reason is probably that it gives you a free action if you split your fire!

It would be much better if it allowed two TL on the same target. As it is it costs as much as K4 who needs a green maneuver. But K4 allows you to get the free action and do something else.

Weapons Engineer only gives you a hypothetical extra action which is worthless until you change targets and use it.

Of course what I just said is different if you use the TL for another effect, like M9G8 and others.

When you take a target lock, you largely telegraph which ship you are going after. If you have a heavy jouster like a ghost with FCS it's very handy to be able to take two locks.

1) It doesn't give away the obvious clue which ship you are probably going after next.

2) If you are in close with a couple other ships, you lock two different ones after the attack with FCS and can make better targeting decisions on your next round of combat.

3) That forces your opponent to think about which ship is more important and keep them away from you.

4) If you lock two ships on your first round of combat, kill one of them on the 2nd, on your third you already have a lock on the ship you haven't attacked yet. You can focus that round and have a highly accurate attack.

It does add a lot more economy and allows you to make better targeting priority while messing with your opponents engagements.

I used it on a Stridan shuttle 2 weeks ago in our B-team tournament. The Upsilon isn't that maneuverable, having a backup TL on a second target is useful.

It was clutch when I traded R1 shot with Zuckuss and TL his Genesis red too. I stopped so his Zuckuss bumped into Stridan and couldn't shoot and I wasted his Genesis Red in a single shot (R1, using pattern analyzer to add a Hux focus to my pile of tokens). I then acquired the 2nd TL on Dalan to plan for the chase.

For full shenanigans, I needed Weapons Engineer, Pattern Analyzer and FCS, but it was awesome. 2 Hux'ed focuses on a TLT also helped really hurt a Soontir in another match.

Maybe not the most competitive list, but it was decent.

I've tried it on support ships (even ships with Targeting Synch) and never could make it as effective as I thought it would be. The issue is that you need two ships in range to split those TLs, it can't be two TLs on the same ship (ala Redline, that would be awesome), and the 2 ship meta means that once you clear one ship off the board, your 3 point crew is useless. There are better 3 point options out there, competitively.

I really like Weapons Engineer with M9-G8 on AP-5. Give Predator to two of your other ships or put locks on enemy ships to make them miss more.

I think it comes in really handy when you have a target on the line of getting taken out by an earlier acting pilot in the turn. You have a lock to finish the ship off or a lock to move on to the next target.

It should probably be only 2 points. At 3 points its in the realm of getting expensive for crew and that crew slot is pretty dang valuable. There are a lot of really good 2 point crew that it has to compete with. In certain builds its very good, but kind of generically its no where near as good as say tactician.

Trying to fill out a list that contains:

Shara Bey + Weapons Engineer, Another ship (ARC-170 or Sheathipede) with M9-G8 (and possibly Bodhi Rook.) This could be a really janky, albeit fun list, provided you can fill the rest of it out with something worthwhile.

17 minutes ago, viedit said:

It does add a lot more economy and allows you to make better targeting priority while messing with your opponents engagements.

I don‘t disagree on the effects you described. I often sacrifice some mods myself to play mindgames with LRS, meaning I definitely have seen and appreciate how well it can work.

Where I do disagree is the opportunity cost. 3 points and a crew slot is too high a price for a bit convenience and mindgames.

Latts Razzi and a missile Z swarm

I use Weapons Engineer when I fly Norra. It’s good to have those extra TLs after you destroy a ship and it’s goid for those other ships that can use your target lock.

Shara with M9-G8 and weapons engineer is solid gold.

I ran her, Dutch, and Esege at SOS 2017 in Seattle. One of the most insane squads but a **** of a lot of fun.

M9-G8 the other 2 on turn 1, then switch if necessary with Dutch's ability. Use it on defense against higher PS, then offensively to fire torps on the same turn!

I have a Weapons Engineer glued to my Impetuous Raider for epic games. You just can’t beat that.

Really, to sum up / repeat what everyone else has said, Weapons Engineer by itself just isn’t very good. There are better crew options for less points. However, when you combo Weapons Engineer with the right cards, then it really starts to shine.

Weapons Engineer and Han Solo are forever present on my CR90.

34 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I don‘t disagree on the effects you described. I often sacrifice some mods myself to play mindgames with LRS, meaning I definitely have seen and appreciate how well it can work.

Where I do disagree is the opportunity cost. 3 points and a crew slot is too high a price for a bit convenience and mindgames.

I would only play it on a Ghost with FCS as the TL is already a free action and now you are getting two. Plus the Ghost has that juicy 5 dice range 1 primary and having a TL on that big gun is imperative. It also is very effective on a ghost with autoblaster when you have aces wanting to try and get into that range 1 bubble. If you can keep a lock on 2 of them, you are a lot scarier.

With Recon Specialist, you can usually use both focus in the same turn. With Weapons Engineer, you generally can't (most likely use is one target slips your arc, but the other can't/doesn't, but there are a few exceptions). Not that it's bad --it's quite handy to get TLs on different ships--but spending 3 points on an upgrade when you'll only rarely gain benefit from both target locks is a hard ask. Points are tight in this game of ours, and that Weapons Engineer could have been Maul or Ezra or Kyle or Kanan or C-3PO or or or, which generally will be of use every turn.

That said, there are certainly some situations where WE gets really strong. Most notably, M9-G8. There's a fellow here where I've been playing for the past month who has been running M9 and WE on AP-5, along with a generic Wookiee with C-3PO, mostly-naked Bodhi Rook (mmmmmm), and Intensity Jake. He's been doing pretty well with it over the weeks (winning with points at time). Because M9-G8 is really strong with multiple locks.

Inspired by this, I've been trying out some FAA/HSCP Fenn along with a M9-WE ARC and a 3rd ship (tried Wullffwarro and will try Poe this evening, and perhaps another Wullff).

Thread here:

Good in a list with Vessery. Maybe on a Reaper?

Put it on the CR-90, pair him up with Han Solo <crew> and that is the place for that upgrade.

Imperial Raider + Weapons Engineer + Ordnance Tubes + Harpoon Missiles x 3 + Gunnery Team / Ordnance Experts (depending on points).

When attacking out the rear firing arcs, don't spend the target lock on the first harpoon shot. Spend it only on the 2nd shot.