2 hours ago, Derrault said:

It’s 7 dice at range 4 with critical 2. Regular stormtrooper units can only throw 2 dice.

At the cost of being out activated that round to make damage stick and already having the mortar in range. There's a lot to unpack there beyond just the dice

52 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

At the cost of being out activated that round to make damage stick and already having the mortar in range. There's a lot to unpack there beyond just the dice

It deploys speed-1 from the shoretroopers, so, chances are real good it’s within range.

Extra activations are only useful if...tautologically...they are useful.

5 hours ago, Derrault said:

It deploys speed-1 from the shoretroopers, so, chances are real good it’s within range.

Extra activations are only useful if...tautologically...they are useful.

For turn 1 they are, but this game isn't built on gun lines and trenches.....

9 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

For turn 1 they are, but this game isn't built on gun lines and trenches.....

Perhaps not, but it is a suppressive weapon, and it goes to range 3, so there’s a not unreasonable chance it’ll be in range for several rounds unless the enemy is doing double moves.

15 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Perhaps not, but it is a suppressive weapon, and it goes to range 3, so there’s a not unreasonable chance it’ll be in range for several rounds unless the enemy is doing double moves.

Which makes my point. 4 white dice is only good as suppression against anything not playing silly, and the obvious counter being snipers/veers/Leia from across the board. To make damage stick it wants to pool it with the unit heavy, but that means keeping the parent unit stationary as well and cutting your own activation pool.

Don't get me wrong, they ain't doa or even a bad thing... but competitively it's not cut and dry as to who's better methinks

4 hours ago, Ralgon said:

Which makes my point. 4 white dice is only good as suppression against anything not playing silly, and the obvious counter being snipers/veers/Leia from across the board. To make damage stick it wants to pool it with the unit heavy, but that means keeping the parent unit stationary as well and cutting your own activation pool.

I was about to respond, but then I realized you might mean either of two different things.

If you're talking about Cumbersome, I don't think it means the unit that the Mortar Team is supporting can't have moved. The way it is worded, it affects the unit using the weapon, not every unit in the attack. So the original unit could still have moved/move afterwards.

If you're talking about keeping the Shoretroopers near the Mortar Team, I don't think that's necessarily the best play. The free Order token from Coordinate is nice, but it isn't worth the cost of having the Shoretroopers not really do anything. If the Shoretroopers aren't effectively using their Order, then you would have been better off letting them do something more effective and giving the Order directly to the Mortar Team. I think the biggest mistake players are likely to make with the Mortar Team is assuming you have to use Coordinate to utilize them effectively (and the second biggest will be naturally wanting them to only use Fire Support with Shoretroopers, when in reality it can be used with any unit making a Ranged attack).

10 minutes ago, GooeyChewie said:

I was about to respond, but then I realized you might mean either of two different things.

If you're talking about Cumbersome, I don't think it means the unit that the Mortar Team is supporting can't have moved. The way it is worded, it affects the unit using the weapon, not every unit in the attack. So the original unit could still have moved/move afterwards.

If you're talking about keeping the Shoretroopers near the Mortar Team, I don't think that's necessarily the best play. The free Order token from Coordinate is nice, but it isn't worth the cost of having the Shoretroopers not really do anything. If the Shoretroopers aren't effectively using their Order, then you would have been better off letting them do something more effective and giving the Order directly to the Mortar Team. I think the biggest mistake players are likely to make with the Mortar Team is assuming you have to use Coordinate to utilize them effectively (and the second biggest will be naturally wanting them to only use Fire Support with Shoretroopers, when in reality it can be used with any unit making a Ranged attack).

I mean that if you're combining the fire pool the shore troopers have to be at r1 of the mortar. So either you're keeping the shore troopers with the mortar or you're shooting as separate activations.

If you do that, you're mortar is throwing 4 white dice (probably with an aim) with a single surge to crit

9 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

I mean that if you're combining the fire pool the shore troopers have to be at r1 of the mortar. So either you're keeping the shore troopers with the mortar or you're shooting as separate activations.

U dont need to be at range one of ally to use fire support, u just need to be in range of the enemy with LOS and a face up order token

12 minutes ago, lunitic501 said:

U dont need to be at range one of ally to use fire support, u just need to be in range of the enemy with LOS and a face up order token

Faaaaark! How did I misread that......

4 hours ago, lunitic501 said:

U dont need to be at range one of ally to use fire support, u just need to be in range of the enemy with LOS and a face up order token

True, but you do need to be at R1 to use Coordinate and passing a token to the mortar the hard way just to fire support is pretty meh, so you probably keep the units at R1 regardless. Of note, if it's constantly using Fire Support, the mortar is immobile because it's not activating. So this around 120ish points just anchored to one spot to do their trick.

Theyre good against units limited to range 3 shots. Putting a mortar team at range 4 of an objective or two is legit, even without using fire support. Aim and shoot all day to keep them suppressed and panic them with even a little support.

Its a shame standby doesnt let you use fire support though. That really should be a thing for squad support weapon emplacements like this.

11 hours ago, Ralgon said:

If you do that, you're mortar is throwing 4 white dice (probably with an aim) with a single surge to crit

Did I miss something or why are so many people saying that the mortar has 4 white dice... On my screen it has only 3 white dice.

Also: Am I the only one who thinks the vet machine gun is way better than the mortar? I mean, it has more than DOUBLE the damage + Crit 2 and can be used below range 3, but has one less range and no supressive and a bit less health...

It has 3 white dice unfortunately not 4, not missing anything.

I think the T-21B on shoretroopers is excellent for them. Critical 2 gets a lot better on a unit that doesn't have surge to crit, which shores don't. In a dice pool of 6 black 2 white, crit 2 is almost as good as just having surge to hit/crit in the first place. I wouldn't really say it's an either or so much though, the mortar feels like a useful addition in certain lists, but also not terribly impressive on its own, while I think the T-21B will also be thrown into my shoretrooper units.

1 hour ago, Staelwulf said:

Did I miss something or why are so many people saying that the mortar has 4 white dice... On my screen it has only 3 white dice.

Also: Am I the only one who thinks the vet machine gun is way better than the mortar? I mean, it has more than DOUBLE the damage + Crit 2 and can be used below range 3, but has one less range and no supressive and a bit less health...

I stand corrected again. That still only pushes my point that if you're taking the mortar you had a reason for taking the shore troopers 1st and you need the slot that would otherwise be a sniper team

44 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

I stand corrected again. That still only pushes my point that if you're taking the mortar you had a reason for taking the shore troopers 1st and you need the slot that would otherwise be a sniper team

Mortar is a corps slot, not SF (or did you mean the points would otherwise have gone there?)

1 hour ago, Derrault said:

Mortar is a corps slot, not SF (or did you mean the points would otherwise have gone there?)

Yup

3 hours ago, Ralgon said:

Yup

A squad of shoretroopers + mortar is 88 points, same as 2 stormtrooper units, however if you fit both with heavies they become more expensive than shoretroopers with T21B and Mortar

so really, it could save you points

50 minutes ago, Visovics said:

A squad of shoretroopers + mortar is 88 points, same as 2 stormtrooper units, however if you fit both with heavies they become more expensive than shoretroopers with T21B and Mortar

so really, it could save you points

Yeah, but the closer comparison is a trooper+ a sniper squad.

Edit: I'm well aware it saves points, my question is the efficiency it has for the points it's using.......

15 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

Yeah, but the closer comparison is a trooper+ a sniper squad.

Yeh, but considering you need 3 corps anyway, having cheaper corps, allows for the sniper squad more easily.

4 hours ago, Visovics said:

Yeh, but considering you need 3 corps anyway, having cheaper corps, allows for the sniper squad more easily.

The most common cited use of snipers is 6 corps + heavies and 3 snipers; removing or replacing corps units would generally mean picking up support or heavies in that milieu.