2 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

They're 9 instead of 8 so that you can't get 5 torp Y-Wings in a list. That's my suspicion anyways.

Aha! That would make sense! ?

Torpedos are the heavy hitters, missiles are the budget weapon now.

The only missiles that actually hit hard are bullseye arc'd and have no innate mods. Ptorps are 9 flippin points, almost double most missiles but also +1 die and auto-crit.

All missiles hit hard now. We've moved away from hyper defenses and now anything with 3 dice can be painful

It's so **** refreshing, and proof that 2nd Ed was necessary

To me, missiles were supposed to have been a dog fighting tool and torpedoes were to have been a tool for dealing damage to an objective like a freighter. The TIE Fighter video games back this up with missiles traveling MUCH faster than the torpedoes, but being (sort of) survivable.

What we have for 2.0 is misssiles being these flavorful and cunning weapons that add effects and torpedoes being the nice meat and potatoes weapons that people enjoy using. Proton rockets are a good exception, but seem like they are going to be hard to get off during actual play.

On 8/15/2018 at 10:58 AM, BDrafty said:

To me, missiles were supposed to have been a dog fighting tool and torpedoes were to have been a tool for dealing damage to an objective like a freighter. The TIE Fighter video games back this up with missiles traveling MUCH faster than the torpedoes, but being (sort of) survivable.

What we have for 2.0 is misssiles being these flavorful and cunning weapons that add effects and torpedoes being the nice meat and potatoes weapons that people enjoy using. Proton rockets are a good exception, but seem like they are going to be hard to get off during actual play.

I would like to agree, but most missiles require the same amount of effort to fire as torps, they require getting a lock to use. Even if they didn't want to give all missiles the focus requirement, they could have still kept torps more clunky by requiring the expenditure (with effect) of the lock. I guess I would have just liked to have seen a bit more mechanical difference in how the weapons function. Ion pulse missiles, for example, would have been more usable if they only required a focus, or more interesting if they did pure ion damage, instead they are just an inferior ion torpedo at a discounted price.

Here's hoping for "Advanced" versions of missiles that bring something more interesting to the table.

Idk, apart from Ions I believe missiles are absolutely perfect. They're all incredibly affordable and distinct with their enjoyable gimmicks

Sure, clusters get a bit finnicky, but nothing beats dropping Redline missiles on a miniswarm

Don't forget that most Missiles have more charges. So, more use. Yes, they don't hit as hard, but they fire more often. Quantity has a quality of it's own.

Question on Concussion Missiles, though. Does the extra damage also apply to the original target? It says range 0-1 of target. That could mean the target, too, or just anyone touching or near target. Not used to 2.0 verbiage yet.

13 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Don't forget that most Missiles have more charges. So, more use. Yes, they don't hit as hard, but they fire more often. Quantity has a quality of it's own.

Question on Concussion Missiles, though. Does the extra damage also apply to the original target? It says range 0-1 of target. That could mean the target, too, or just anyone touching or near target. Not used to 2.0 verbiage yet.

Yes, the effect triggers on the target of the attack.

If you're super lucky and score a direct hit with the missile you could trigger that direct hit again when you expose a card.

16 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

After an attack means after the attack is fully resolved, I believe.

On p. 5 of the Rules Ref, the last segment of step 4 is:
“The attack hits if at least one (boom) or (kaboom) result remains uncanceled; otherwise, the attack misses.”

Thus an attack hitting is determined before step 5 Deal Damage.

I would rather the missle can flip damage it inflicts, but I don’t think the timing works out.

31 minutes ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

On p. 5 of the Rules Ref, the last segment of step 4 is:
“The attack hits if at least one (boom) or (kaboom) result remains uncanceled; otherwise, the attack misses.”

Thus an attack hitting is determined before step 5 Deal Damage.

I would rather the missle can flip damage it inflicts, but I don’t think the timing works out.

If true that moves the missile from mediocre to trash tier.

1 hour ago, HolySorcerer said:

If true that moves the missile from mediocre to trash tier.

So, it's a 6pt attack 3 weapon that doesn't give the range 3 bonus. It's actually been the best missile pretty easily in my games.

General Breakdown of missiles in order of usefulness:

1. Concussion Missiles- Most missile carriers are attack 2 base, so an attack 3 weapon for 6pts that has 3 charges and that your opponent doesn't get the range 3 against is pretty excellent. The secondary effect sometimes comes up, but it's not super important to get value out of it. If you survive long enough to empty the magazine of all 3 charges you've just gotten some pretty fantastic value out of this.

2. Cluster Missiles- Not having range band 3 hurts mostly because they only really get max value at range 2. At range 1, you can burn a charge to fire a missile, then burn another charge to shoot something else, but you could've done a 3 dice shot at that range 1 target anyways, so you basically just spent 2 charges to throw a 3 dice (probably unmodded) shot at a ship. It's not bad, but far more situational than the Concussions that cover all of your weak range bands.

3. Ion Missiles- So a lot of the 3 attack shots with Concussion or Clusters only ping for 1 damage anyways and Ion is pretty ball busting, so if you're short on points, these are actually a pretty solid poor man's concussion missile. The main problem is obviously that they're capped at 1pt of damage and can't inflict criticals or even potentially flip criticals like Concussions, but sometimes points are tight and on many turns these are just cheaper concussion missiles.

4. Homing Missiles- Do you want to spend the time and effort setting up a target locked range 1-2 shot on something to do a single point of damage with no potential for more? The answer is probably no for most players. Unless you're spamming these things pretty hardcore, they're really weak even for the points. It takes 3 Z-95s locked on an Academy pilot to kill it and that's the weakest ship in the game. And it's not just that on average it takes 3, it will always take 3 unless you're opponent's brain has been replaced with shoelaces. There's always the dream of locking up some super ace and by some miracle staying behind them at range 2-3 for multiple turns, but this should never happen and if your opponent is letting it happen, you will probably win eventually for other reasons.

5. Proton Rockets- Ugh. So Bullseye arcs are bad. Even if you're putting some real effort into it, it's so hard to land. Then these are also focus instead of lock, which is good for hip shotting them, but terrible for modding dice as unless you're rocking some consistent action economy and you can predict where your opponent is going to be super reliably, you can't do anything with blank results, only focus. Also, they have 1 charge and are 7pts because, reasons.

3 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

1. Concussion Missiles- Most missile carriers are attack 2 base, so an attack 3 weapon for 6pts that has 3 charges and that your opponent doesn't get the range 3 against is pretty excellent. The secondary effect sometimes comes up, but it's not super important to get value out of it. If you survive long enough to empty the magazine of all 3 charges you've just gotten some pretty fantastic value out of this.

This. I see concussions as "I want a three dice attack and don't have the second missile slot to equip barrage rockets". The expose-a-card effect is kind of secondary.

3 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

2. Cluster Missiles- Not having range band 3 hurts mostly because they only really get max value at range 2. At range 1, you can burn a charge to fire a missile, then burn another charge to shoot something else, but you could've done a 3 dice shot at that range 1 target anyways, so you basically just spent 2 charges to throw a 3 dice (probably unmodded) shot at a ship. It's not bad, but far more situational than the Concussions that cover all of your weak range bands.

Range 1 can also be good if you have some native bonus when using missiles (meaning not having to spend the lock). I agree it's situational - the most important thing to make them worth considering over concussions is if you can somehow get modifiers on the bonus attack. This basically means:

• A focus token supplied by a second ship (Co-ordinate, Garven Dreis, Two-Tubes, whatever)
• R3 Astromech (I don't think anyone can currently equip both missiles and an astromech, though)
• Redline
• Captain Jonus
  • Since Jonus benefits himself plus as many cluster-missile wielding bombers as you care to stuff within range 1 of him, I think he's probably the best option here; you can realistically fit 5 bombers with cluster missiles into a pack and if someone were daft enough to joust you at range 2, you can send ten rerolled 3-dice attacks walking back and forth through their squad.

3 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

3. Ion Missiles- So a lot of the 3 attack shots with Concussion or Clusters only ping for 1 damage anyways and Ion is pretty ball busting, so if you're short on points, these are actually a pretty solid poor man's concussion missile. The main problem is obviously that they're capped at 1pt of damage and can't inflict criticals or even potentially flip criticals like Concussions, but sometimes points are tight and on many turns these are just cheaper concussion missiles.

Agreed. Frankly, swapping the second and subsequent hits to ion tokens is no bad deal if you get them; making enemy ships predictable is nice anyway, and the fact that it means all they can do is focus is even better (it's especially harsh against people with calculate instead of focus, like IG-88, as it can leave them with no legal action whatsoever, or people with a must-perform action, like Chiraneau's Reinforce action that provides both attack and defence modifiers in one go). Regardless, the odds of a 3-dice missile doing multiple damage is low enough to justify saving 2 points per ship so equipped, especially if you're packing a swarm of Z-95s, TIE/v1s, or similar.

3 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

4. Homing Missiles- Do you want to spend the time and effort setting up a target locked range 1-2 shot on something to do a single point of damage with no potential for more? The answer is probably no for most players. Unless you're spamming these things pretty hardcore, they're really weak even for the points. It takes 3 Z-95s locked on an Academy pilot to kill it and that's the weakest ship in the game. And it's not just that on average it takes 3, it will always take 3 unless you're opponent's brain has been replaced with shoelaces. There's always the dream of locking up some super ace and by some miracle staying behind them at range 2-3 for multiple turns, but this should never happen and if your opponent is letting it happen, you will probably win eventually for other reasons.

They have their uses - but I agree they're comparatively limited. They aren't a bad investment for TIE advanced, because a TIE advance with a target lock already has a 3rd primary attack die (making cluster missiles next to useless) and auto-modifies its first hit to a critical (making concussions almost - but not entirely - useless).

Whilst you can 'buy off' the missile with a single hit, a TIE/x1's primary attack at range 3 (3 dice attack versus 4 dice defend) has a pretty high chance of doing bugger all, whilst a homing missile - if your opponent lets you roll the dice - is 4 dice attack versus 3 dice defend; a much more reliable proposition. If stealth device becomes a thing again, then homing missiles are a pretty good answer; you weren't planning on doing tonnes of damage (because you won't), you're just bothered about hitting them at all, and a homing missile is a 4-dice attack that doesn't require you to shell out for a ~100 point ship like a VCX-100 or YT-2400 or to line up an awkward bullseye-only heavy laser cannon.

I'd consider the Homing Missiles for a ship with a missile slot, no torpedo slot, and a 3-dice primary attack (or equivalent) - so TIE/x1, Khiraxz, Defenders...anything else? Certainly when you're already shelling out for Vader or a Defender Ace, 3 points is no huge investment to give them a range 3 threat they otherwise wouldn't have.

3 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

5. Proton Rockets- Ugh. So Bullseye arcs are bad. Even if you're putting some real effort into it, it's so hard to land. Then these are also focus instead of lock, which is good for hip shotting them, but terrible for modding dice as unless you're rocking some consistent action economy and you can predict where your opponent is going to be super reliably, you can't do anything with blank results, only focus. Also, they have 1 charge and are 7pts because, reasons.

They are, but range 2 is an impressive reach for a 5 dice, focus-only attack. I agree they're not a bad call for high action economy pilots - TIE advanced (X1 or V1) both have focus linked with repositioning, so have a pretty good chance of getting a shot off. Vader - being Vader - can potentially reposition to line up the shot and focus and target lock, for some truly terrifying punch.

Focus versus Lock is a bit of a red herring, by the way:

• You can't do anything with blank results, agreed. But focus results automatically become hits (1/4 of the dice rolled).
• A target lock can modify blank or focus results (1/2 the dice rolled). But only half the rerolled results become hits (1/4 of the dice rolled).
• This means the two are - on average - exactly the same in the amount of extra damage they should give you if you only have one or the other.
  • Plus, since it's a bullseye arc weapon, then when firing them you are by definition in a position to use the (cheap) Predator talent if you equip it.

I have to try Homing Missiles. You get 4 dice and the TL for modification (and anything like a Focus you might have). They can take their luck with the dice or take the hit. I see this most useful for the Aces that would rather take one hit instead of gamble for being destroyed outright. If your main attack is just 2 dice, then that's not bad. How many hits were you planning on getting, anyways? The only person who wouldn't just take the hit would be someone with a lot of Green dice and a Focus. Maybe a Stealth Device and a Focus? Asteroid and a Focus? Force user and Focus?

The best thing about Homing Missile is 3 pts. I mean, that's 1.5 in old talk. That's real easy to put on a ship if you find spare points.

I will say that Homing Missile probably gets better for later in the game, instead of an Alpha Strike. If you start getting ships down to their last hit you might see them say they have to take the gamble. Let's say you have 2 Z-95's with a TL and Homing Missiles on an ace with only 2 hull. They are going to have to roll the dice on at least one of those hits. Yes....I think later in the game is the time to use Homing Missiles. That's interesting.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Range 1 can also be good if you have some native bonus when using missiles (meaning not having to spend the lock). I agree it's situational - the most important thing to make them worth considering over concussions is if you can somehow get modifiers on the bonus attack. This basically means:

• A focus token supplied by a second ship (Co-ordinate, Garven Dreis, Two-Tubes, whatever)
• R3 Astromech (I don't think anyone can currently equip both missiles and an astromech, though)
• Redline
• Captain Jonus
  • Since Jonus benefits himself plus as many cluster-missile wielding bombers as you care to stuff within range 1 of him, I think he's probably the best option here; you can realistically fit 5 bombers with cluster missiles into a pack and if someone were daft enough to joust you at range 2, you can send ten rerolled 3-dice attacks walking back and forth through their squad.

Don't forget Major Rhymer. Cluster missiles on Rhymer are range 0-3. It's not a mod but it is a lot of flexibility.

So, after flying this and some other lists, there's a definite difference between torps and missiles. Torps are harder hitting, but have less shots. Missiles are comparatively weaker, but you have far more charges. It doesn't seem like much, but this gives the weapons very different feels on the table. I'd also note, those Y-Wings have reloaded a lot more than you'd think (Three times in that game alone).

I think missiles like Clusters give Aces like Vader a way to combat swarms. I wish Fenn had a missile slot, rather than a torpedo slot.

1 hour ago, Archangelspiv said:

I think missiles like Clusters give Aces like Vader a way to combat swarms. I wish Fenn had a missile slot, rather than a torpedo slot.

Throwing naked dice at a Tie Swarm is not a great plan. Vader might be able to get some use out of Clusters thanks to force tokens, but Fenn doesn't have the mods to use Clusters.

6 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

I think missiles like Clusters give Aces like Vader a way to combat swarms. I wish Fenn had a missile slot, rather than a torpedo slot.

Ion Torps all but guarantee that Fenn has a range one shot next round.

13 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Focus versus Lock is a bit of a red herring, by the way:

• You can't do anything with blank results, agreed. But focus results automatically become hits (1/4 of the dice rolled).
• A target lock can modify blank or focus results (1/2 the dice rolled). But only half the rerolled results become hits (1/4 of the dice rolled).

I've found that a good rule of thumb is that whatever you choose will end up being the wrong choice later in the round. (i.e. choosing a focus means you'll roll all blanks, while choosing target lock means you'll roll all focus and then reroll into focus or blanks)

No offense, but I've always really hated the thought separating damage dice rolled and damage dealt. Attacks with low dice totals which do bonus damage seem overly punishing on low agility ships, particularly since these ships are already quite punished by normal attacks. The weapon which did the most separation between dice totals and damage dealt in 1e was the TLT and wishing for more separation between dice rolled and damage dealt just seems like a mistake. It can lead to such strange and skewed situations, too many awkward card interactions. I like dice being dice being dice. I like it when each marginal hit or evade matters. The new way that Ion weapons work, with each marginal hit adding an additional Ion token really feels good to me.

Meanwhile the fact that most missiles get a lot more charges and are a lot cheaper makes things interesting, IMHO. I like that Concussion/Ion Missiles are three 3-dice attacks, and Proton/Ion Torpedos are two 2-dice attacks. Missiles actually throw more dice for fewer points, but rolling more dice at once makes a large difference. Ion Missile vs Ion Torpedo is the coolest comparison to me.