3 attack range 1-2

4 energy

Attack: [lock] Spend 1 energy

After this attack, you may perform this attack against a different target at range 0-1 of the defender, ignoring the [lock] requirement.

Now, let's say there are 2 ships in my arc at range 2, flying close to each other.

I fire my cluster missile, spend an energy, then the ability of the missiles kicks in. I can spend another energy to perform this attack again, but against another target. I spend the energy and perform the attack. However, since its the same attack, it has the same ability, so it kicks in again, and now I can attack the original ship again... And repeat.

So in 1 turn, I can perform 4 3 dice attacks. Admittedly, it is limited by the situations... But There is no reason why I couldn't clear a swarm with this, and some lucky dicerolls. right?

They could easily stop that with a 1 Bonus attack per round per ship, but yea, as of this moment nothing really stopping you from chain firing all of your missiles though at the cost of likely 3 unmodified attacks.

The real shenanigans would begin if you could chain the third attack back to the first target (since it's "different" from the target of the second attack). It gets even more fun if you can shoot your own ships: send one in as a blocker, shoot the blocked ship, shoot your own blocker, then chain back to the blocked ship. Add Arvel Crynid or ruthlessness for extra fun. It gets even sillier if you are allowed to shoot yourself (which I doubt) - then arvel could bump someone and double tap them, as long as he's happy to eat one of his own missiles.

Just now, gadwag said:

The real shenanigans would begin if you could chain the third attack back to the first target (since it's "different" from the target of the second attack). It gets even more fun if you can shoot your own ships: send one in as a blocker, shoot the blocked ship, shoot your own blocker, then chain back to the blocked ship. Add Arvel Crynid or ruthlessness for extra fun. It gets even sillier if you are allowed to shoot yourself (which I doubt) - then arvel could bump someone and double tap them, as long as he's happy to eat one of his own missiles.

Man... That is literally what I wrote....

Well, I mean, that is what cluster missiles are, a bunch of explosions packed into one.

I say let's go for it.

10 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Man... That is literally what I wrote....

Yeah I got a bit excited by the prospect of blasting a bunch of ships in a swarm and didn't read your whole post, sorry

58 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

They could easily stop that with a 1 Bonus attack per round per ship, but yea, as of this moment nothing really stopping you from chain firing all of your missiles though at the cost of likely 3 unmodified attacks.

I was thinking about this. It would make sense balance wise, as to make sure no ship gets to attack 3 or more times, but clusters would be so cool if they could be fired 4 times.

Unless there has been some rules update preventing this (probably), I'd say this sounds like a fun thing to do! A bit ridiculous - if it is intentionally like this these will probably be a fairly expensive upgrade, though.

Ah, Cluster Missiles.

I remember flying Cluster Missiles on an A-Wing back in the halycon days of Wave 3. We'd just started playing, fresh-faced and enthusiastic... I pushed the limit to zoom my A-Wing into range 2 of an Academy TIE. Picked up the Target Lock, and grinned.

Then I realised how ineffective 3 unmodified dice can be against 3 agility. The TIE shrugged it off and shot back with focus, stripping my poor A-Wing's shields.

Bossk schenanigans aside, I haven't run Cluster Missiles since.

Good times.

It is possible, that "this Attack" refers to the basic attack stats, not the text part. we'll have to wait and see.

4 hours ago, Animewarsdude said:

They could easily stop that with a 1 Bonus attack per round per ship, but yea, as of this moment nothing really stopping you from chain firing all of your missiles though at the cost of likely 3 unmodified attacks.

I'd be like... 90% sure at this point just from seeing this one card that there will be a limit of one Bonus Attack per round or per phase.

Keywording it like that just seems like an obvious point at which to add a general balance rule.

I bet that the second attack a) doesn’t cost an additional energy as it is the residual missles from the original cluster and b) doesn’t allow you to fire again that turn. If the text is correct in the original post, the wording says to “perform this attack against a different target” not to “perform another attack”.

I would bet there will be a rulebook limitation on “bonus attack” to one occurrence. Additionally, I believe a bonus attack will also stipulate that things like range, arc, etc. still apply in a bonus attack. So the additional attack that the missiles make possible will not be able to target a ship out of range or out of arc.

And, cluster missiles now costs. 10. No 20. No 30. Points to put on any ship.

9 minutes ago, RookiePilot said:

I bet that the second attack a) doesn’t cost an additional energy as it is the residual missles from the original cluster and b) doesn’t allow you to fire again that turn. If the text is correct in the original post, the wording says to “perform this attack against a different target” not to “perform another attack”.

I was wondering about that. So...does one charge mean you get 2 attacks? First, that's cool as more shots. Next, it would stop the stupid chain attacks.

I like that you don't spend the TL to fire, so can adjust dice. Next, if you have FCS you can modify 1 die with each shot...and still have TL for next turn shooting.

Predator would be good for this, too. Imagine Predator and FCS!

Wish we knew what that Salvo card did.

I’m thinking the bonus attack follows everything on the card, including requiring another charge. The wording specifies that you can ignore the lock requirement, so that’s the only spec for the attack that can be ignored. Range, arc, etc. cannot be ignored. Then to get out of the infinite loop, the rulebook limits bonus attack to once per... phase?

I don't see how they could possibly be intending to let one ship fire 4 times in a single combat where all the damage goes through. Even with 3 of them being unmodified. A TLT Ghost with the docked ship technically got 4 attacks sure, but each was limited to 1 damage.

Where did this text come from? Are we sure there isn't an additional "You cannot attack again" ala Gunner line that we just haven't seen?

Otherwise I would assume like others that the core rules will somehow limit it to 2 shots total in a round.

Even if you could chain through a swarm though it probably wouldn't be very good. They're likely to have focuses and 3 unmodified red vs 3 focused green is a recipe for a whiff more often than not. It could be a lot nastier against say some B-Wings though or any other similar ow agility ships.

Pretty sure there’s going to a hard limit to ‘bonus attacks’ that mitigates the need to state ‘you cannot perform any more attacks this round’ verbage .

BUT FFG having to immediately FAQ their own 2.0 fix is both hilarious and sad.

Okay.. seems a bit of reading comprehension problems coupled with wishful thinking going on here.

The first line is:

Attack (Target Lock): Spend 1 (charge).

Notice this little dot. It is a period. It ends a sentence. Spending a charge is like the old discarding a card mechanic.

There is nothing stating you can spend an additional charge to keep attacking.

Much of how this will actually be spelled out in the how to play section/document.

Now I'm not really sure if people are being facetious or are gunuinely not understanding the intent.

Making these snap decisions on how thing work without knowing how the game fully works is folly at best.

1 hour ago, GrimmyV said:

Pretty sure there’s going to a hard limit to ‘bonus attacks’ that mitigates the need to state ‘you cannot perform any more attacks this round’ verbage .

BUT FFG having to immediately FAQ their own 2.0 fix is both hilarious and sad.

Well— we haven’t seen the 2.0 ruleset yet and I think there’s at least even odds on them specifying a hard limit on bonus attacks in there. Otherwise, why include that specific wording in the card text

41 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Okay.. seems a bit of reading comprehension problems coupled with wishful thinking going on here.

The first line is:

Attack (Target Lock): Spend 1 (charge).

Notice this little dot. It is a period. It ends a sentence. Spending a charge is like the old discarding a card mechanic.

There is nothing stating you can spend an additional charge to keep attacking.

Much of how this will actually be spelled out in the how to play section/document.

Now I'm not really sure if people are being facetious or are gunuinely not understanding the intent.

Making these snap decisions on how thing work without knowing how the game fully works is folly at best.

Reading comprehension also depends on reading the whole card's text. In this case, you've completely omitted the second line of text that reads " After this attack, you may perform this attack against a different target at range 0-1 of the defender, ignoring the [lock] requirement." So in reading that text, you perform the attack as indicated by "Attack (target lock): spend 1 (charge), but ignore the target lock requirement on a different target.

The upsides, if you still have a focus, you can use it in this attack, and you can spend a charge to make a second attack if the other player has another ship in range.

The downside, if you don't have a focus still, that second attack can't be modified by you (your target lock is on ship A, so you can't reroll with it) and 3 unmodified dice are nearly useless against decent agility ships. So you could possibly manage to bounce attacks between two ships two times each, using all your missile charges, but having minimal modifiers, were an opponent to let you. Swarms are going to be back, and this is anti-swarm tech, plain and simple.

14 minutes ago, JLank said:

Well— we haven’t seen the 2.0 ruleset yet and I think there’s at least even odds on them specifying a hard limit on bonus attacks in there. Otherwise, why include that specific wording in the card text

1 hour ago, GrimmyV said:

Pretty sure there’s going to a hard limit to ‘bonus attacks’ that mitigates the need to state ‘you cannot perform any more attacks this round’ verbage .

BUT FFG having to immediately FAQ their own 2.0 fix is both hilarious and sad.

The secondary attacks generated from this are so hilariously bad that it's not going to be seen much, if at all. Again , it's anti-swarm tech. The only place I can see it being super useful would be against someone flying two VCX within range 0-1 of each other knowing you were armed with cluster missiles, and were stupid enough to engage in formation like that.

I’m reading “After this attack” as saying after the initial attack action, but not after each salvo. If they wanted to allow all 4 charges to be used, they would probably say “after this attack, spend as many energy from this card to target additional targets.” Or something like that. Just my read.

18 minutes ago, JasonCole said:

Reading comprehension also depends on reading the whole card's text. In this case, you've completely omitted the second line of text that reads " After this attack, you may perform this attack against a different target at range 0-1 of the defender, ignoring the [lock] requirement." So in reading that text, you perform the attack as indicated by "Attack (target lock): spend 1 (charge), but ignore the target lock requirement on a different target.

The upsides, if you still have a focus, you can use it in this attack, and you can spend a charge to make a second attack if the other player has another ship in range.

The downside, if you don't have a focus still, that second attack can't be modified by you (your target lock is on ship A, so you can't reroll with it) and 3 unmodified dice are nearly useless against decent agility ships. So you could possibly manage to bounce attacks between two ships two times each, using all your missile charges, but having minimal modifiers, were an opponent to let you. Swarms are going to be back, and this is anti-swarm tech, plain and simple.

Once again this depends on what is considered the attack by the rules booklet. Is it the card text and the requirements stated there or the number values to the right of the text.

Again you are making the, I believe, incorrect assumption that everything triggers again.

Lets think about the design philisophy of 2.0 and it’s removing a lot of janky items. Let us also remember, as I've stated, that we havent seen the whole rulebook.

The charge mechanic has been described as a way to show mechanics that have limited use.

All ordnance revealed so far has had multiple charges making them more useful than the one shot predecessors.

2.0 was designed to remove many broken mechanics. I don't believe cluster missiles allows this multiple charges.

What you (and a few others) are trying to do is interpret the rules as written, of which we currently do not have access to, to show off a broken mechanic.

I believe this goes against the intent, as well as the whole design philosophy of 2.0. It is also as I've said several times based on incomplete information.

I firmly believe that the first sentence is meant to convey the requirements to actually perform the attack, nothing more. The actual attack is the values to the right of the aforemenntioned text.

It turns out performing multiple unmodified attacks isn’t that great, so it makes sense to me that they would double the number of attacks from the original but split them up between 2 targets. This might be okay on someone like Vader who can pack a lot of passive modifications via FCS, Predator and Force charges.

Its definitely not broken though, especially if they price the missiles accordingly.