2 minutes ago, Octarine-08 said:

The insidious thing about the auto damage is you keep the lock.

Missiles and Torps don't burn locks anymore.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

I totally missed the rexler interaction. That's super neat.

Talking about cool Rexler interactions, he triggers on Jamming and Tractor Beams. Just saying, if you have 2-3 spare points leftover and want more unpredictability. A Range 1 Tractor beam has saved me from double modded return shots on a few occasions. And the Jamming Beam wrecks havoc on Juke Phantoms.

As for Homing Missiles, I think they are well worth the 3 points. 4 dice or 1 damage? Most players choose the 1 damage which is better than facing 4 red dice with Juke and FCS. And the 4 red dice may come in handy vs a Luke with a Stealth Device at Range 3.

45 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Great!

They make Wedge and Soontir so very sad.

Wedge? I don't know what wedge you're flying, but mine has more blanks than a book of mad libs. I'd pay money for him to only take 1 damage when people shoot him.

Double post

18 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Missiles and Torps don't burn locks anymore.

I understand. But if I had to roll, chances are I would have burned the lock. Low PS single action ships like the Bandits will rarely have double mods on the first pass.

Also sets up situations where Ryad has 4 locks on her and everyone has focus.

I don't think they're bad, per se, but I'm struggling to find a list to include them. I guess I mostly just don't like 2-dice primary weapon ships, and want attacks I can use reliably every turn. I'd rather run 4 X-Wings or B-Wings than 6 A-Wings with Homing Missiles.

I have in my head a version of a maxed-out Rexler Brath (no missiles, tho) with a pair of generic Inquisitor v1s. I'd put Instinctive Aim/Homing Missile on both of them. Or maybe a pair of A-Wings along side a Luke/Wedge list. But they seem like they could easily die long before they have a chance to get their missiles off.

I flew the other day, three Fangs vs 6 A-Wings, with 4x Homing, 2x Ion. My opponent only made one missile shot the whole game. I'd gotten wicked lucky with some quick kills on A-Wings. Old T popped one for 4 hits into a blank-out before dying. Fenn Rau aced one with hit/hit/crit into Direct Hit from full once he got into the fight two turns later, and Kad Solus had a single crit slip through on an unshielded A for another lethal Direct Hit. The game really could have gone another way, but the experience of low-Init ordnance is often similar.

Just seems like it wouldn't be hard for a pair of A-Wings to die early, if swapped into in what could otherwise be 3-ship Rebels list.

6 hours ago, beardxofxdeath said:

They suck. I dont bother to take them. Everyone save maybe a cloaked whisper with tokens or a Soontir tokened up behind a asteroid will just take the 1 damage and be good.

You say that like it's a problem.

They make Z-95s dangerous in the endgame, and for that I love them. Homing missiles work best when you have a fair few of them on the table.

5 hours ago, Biophysical said:

It is absurdly good for the points.

Not really. The problem is with how good Juke is (which you definitely run on Rexler) you're almost always better off taking the Juke shot.

If they don't have tokens and you're Juking, you're more likely to do 2 damage than miss, so you take a primary shot.

If they have no shields, tokens and 3+ green die and a focus, HM does offer increased chance of landing a hit, but if they take 1 and use that token later, you've likely lost your gains.

I've tried them once. I had Supernatural Vader, Redline, and Deathfire (yeah, I know). Deathfire was there specifically for Proximity Mines + Bombardier to really leverage the TIE bomber's Nimble Bomber ability. Of course, you can't just run around with 2 attack dice, so I gave him Homing Missiles, because why not?

My opponent brought Supernatural Vader w/ Stealth Device, and two generic Inquisitors with Cluster Missiles. Vader didn't take damage the first few times I shout at him, so I knew I needed to bring Deathfire around to use Homing Missiles to strip his Stealth Device, but on the way, Deathfire got a lock on one of the Inquisitors, and by the time it was Deathfire's turn to fire, the Inquisitor had one hull left and no defense tokens, so he tried to roll for defense against the Homing Missiles, but Deathfire re-rolled into 4 hits. That felt good. I wasn't able to shoot the Homing Missiles at Vader, but he tried really hard to stay out of range - so much so that he accidentally talon rolled off the board!

So from that one game I can say that I think they are alright. Before I tried them, I thought, "Man, even if I had 3 points lying around, I would choose something else." But now, I realize there are some matchups that Homing Missiles just make so much easier that it's pretty nice to have one in your list. I am still on the fence about massed Homing Missiles - I can totally see their value, but bringing many of them seems to counter their greatest virtue: being really cheap.

12 minutes ago, jlittle576 said:

Not really. The problem is with how good Juke is (which you definitely run on Rexler) you're almost always better off taking the Juke shot.

If they don't have tokens and you're Juking, you're more likely to do 2 damage than miss, so you take a primary shot.

If they have no shields, tokens and 3+ green die and a focus, HM does offer increased chance of landing a hit, but if they take 1 and use that token later, you've likely lost your gains.

I don't even run Juke on Rexler anymore.

Targets not having tokens is a big, big if.

7 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I don't even run Juke on Rexler anymore.

Targets not having tokens is a big, big if.

Not having tokens OR having tokens can be used later if they take 1, that's more common a case.

Running HM and not Juke on Rexler is... ill advised.

@Biophysical if you don’t mind me asking, how are you running rexler? If it’s not public info, no worries!

It's a nice option to have if you absolutely must tag a target, seeing how everyone I've shot at opts for the one damage.

Plus, it keeps Stealth Device off its high horse.

2 hours ago, Parakitor said:

bringing many of them seems to counter their greatest virtue: being really cheap.

Bringing more compounds their effectiveness. If I have one homing bandit, then that's a minor problem for soontir, and barely a blip on the radar for whisper. If I have four or five homing bandits, whisper suddenly has a very real problem, and even vader and defenders are looking worried.

18 minutes ago, gadwag said:

Bringing more compounds their effectiveness. If I have one homing bandit, then that's a minor problem for soontir, and barely a blip on the radar for whisper. If I have four or five homing bandits, whisper suddenly has a very real problem, and even vader and defenders are looking worried.

Very true. But on the other hand you are a minor threat to Redline, for example. Then again, many 2-dice attacks can actually stack up on Redline and other heavy ships, so you don't actually need a missile to deal with them. Hm. I may have to trade out my Concussion Missiles for Homing Missiles on Phoenix Sq. Pilots and see how I feel.

22 minutes ago, gadwag said:

Bringing more compounds their effectiveness. If I have one homing bandit, then that's a minor problem for soontir, and barely a blip on the radar for whisper. If I have four or five homing bandits, whisper suddenly has a very real problem, and even vader and defenders are looking worried.

See, while true, this means you also have to run 4 or 5 Bandits, which just seems... blah to me.

Maybe the ship to run Homing Missiles with is the Khiraxz. Enough red dice that they'll still be functional when they don't have locks, and so they can actually burn down high-hull, low agility targets. Homing Missiles to menace the aces of the world.

Four Cartel Marauders with Shield Upgrade... 28 HP, 12 red dice. Four Black Sun Ace with Contraband Cybernetics, for a strong K-Turn round.

If you're willing to run without a bid, Fenn Rau with Fearless or Predator, plus Three Cartels with just Homing.

Three with a YV-666 with Lando (Reinforce, then spend it to reroll after everyone else has attacked) and maybe some other crew (0-0-0 or IG-88 D).

I think the problem is the ships that like them (A-wings, Z95s, TAPs, etc) aren't all that useful atm. I've tried them on Arvel a few times, and they were actually pretty good. Getting a guaranteed damage at R3 and keeping the lock for a followup shot is pretty good on a 2 dice primary ship.

11 minutes ago, CRCL said:

I think the problem is the ships that like them (A-wings, Z95s, TAPs, etc) aren't all that useful atm. I've tried them on Arvel a few times, and they were actually pretty good. Getting a guaranteed damage at R3 and keeping the lock for a followup shot is pretty good on a 2 dice primary ship.

I think this is the crux of why homing missiles and, to some extent A-Wings, kind of suck. The problem with A-Wings and 2 attack ships isn't that you can't do damage, it's that you're mostly punching through 1 point, maybe 2 if you get super lucky. If you're running generics you're also generally shooting late in the turn, so it's easier to catch token less targets. You don't really help a 2 attack ship by giving it an option to sac an attack for auto-point until you get super late game where ships may be limping around and that's just too situational to spend points on. Like, if I'm in the position where I have a bandit shooting a homing missile at a 1hp ace, cool, but they don't generally get to that point.

Yeah, it punishes Stealth device, but Stealth Device is super uncommon in the meta right now. Maybe a Soontir with one, but that's it and Soontir is the pilot you're hands down least likely to catch with a Homing Missile.

It does something highly situational and that's also match-up dependent and only emphasizes the lack of burst damage on 2 attack ships.

2 hours ago, urbanyeti said:

@Biophysical if you don’t mind me asking, how are you running rexler? If it’s not public info, no worries!

Lone Wolf, HLC, Advanced Sensors, Homing Missiles. It's great.

3 hours ago, jlittle576 said:

Not having tokens OR having tokens can be used later if they take 1, that's more common a case.

Running HM and not Juke on Rexler is... ill advised.

I ran into two problems with Juke.

1.) Squads with big, hefty Defenders tend to have not as many supporting ships, which means fewer shots to take advantage of tokens stripped by Juke. Due to the extreme durability of the Defender, you frequently end with it alone in the end game. In this case, Juke is pretty bad, because they can always save a Focus and you just can't push enough damage through for the points.

2.) The second problem is that Juke goes all in on the Evade token. It encourages you, quite strongly, to do 3 speed moves or you lose the effectiveness of your talent. This makes Advanced Sensors noticeably less useful, as an unmodified Juking shot isn't that great.

Lone Wolf is great because it lets you make the fullest use of the dial and keep good action efficiency. You get a lot more fully modded shots, you get incredibly strong defense, and you make the best use of the Defender dial.

Edit: my screen lock button is broken, I didn't mean to write anything

I do wish all not-barrage missiles were cheaper. Even 3 points seems a bit to spend on twoshot, 1 damage homings

Though my local scene seems absolutely awash with ships that would not enjoy staring them down, there's still the issue of low Initiative target locks and the fact that those most susceptible to missiles are also crazy arcdodgers

Kinda wish we had deadeye back (but ONLY for missiles)

5 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Kinda wish we had deadeye back (but ONLY for missiles)

Inquisitor (40)
Instinctive Aim (2)
Homing Missiles (3)

Total: 45

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

They are a mid/late game tool that allows a 2-dice ship to stay relevant once the joust has ended and the scrum has broken out. Being able to guarantee 1 damage going through from a stressed A-Wing that just k-turned and is attacking at range 3 is pretty decent.

That being said, it can be a lot of points to invest into something that isn't going to be relevant during the first 2 rounds of engagement, and the limited ammunition is also a bummer when each charge token is only worth 1 damage.

35 minutes ago, Toph said:

Inquisitor (40)
Instinctive Aim (2)
Homing Missiles (3)

Total: 45

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

That ain't deadeye, it's force only and requires expenditure of token