New blog article! You'll never guess what it's about! https://thenerdstreamera.blogspot.com/2020/01/musings-on-epic-listbuilding-cr90.html

You basically nailed it. Magva Yarro + Saw Gerrera crew sounds fantastic. I really don't have much to add.

I've been trying to come up with a reason (any reason) to run Dodonna's Pride . Haven't found one yet. To an extent, you can imagine having a GR-75 with more health and that recovers extra shields and energy every turn. But for over twice the cost, and minimal offensive output, I'm not sure how it would do in the field.

And at any rate, I'd rather take Jan Dodonna + Perceptive Copilot on a CR90 without a title if I wanted a support CR90. I would sooner take Tantive IV than Dodonna's Pride because the latter loses you 2 shields, and the former gives you an extra 2 crew.

Alderaanian Guard (146)
- Jan Dodonna (4)
- Perceptive Copilot (8)
- Tantive IV (6)
- Lando Calrissian (2)
Total: 166
View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

Jan Dodonna let's friendly ships at range 0-3 spend your focus or evade tokens, so take a focus action and a Lando Calrissian action and end up with 3-4 focus/evade tokens. You have a lot of slots left avaliable to customize, but it's already too expensive! I guess it's not burning any energy, so might as well throw a hardpoint on there, but you won't have very well-modded shots. Actually, you could bring Point-Defense Battery because if they don't shoot you, all your ships use your tokens, but if they do shoot you, you'll have plenty of tokens to modify your Point-Defense Battery attacks.

So basically I'm interested in trying this, but I reserve judgement until after I do. And I know when I set up against my opponent I'm going to say, "I have a bad feeling about this."

P.S. Notice that I still haven't figured out how to kit out a CR90 to use Dodonna's Pride well.

My problem right now is that the "Magva Yarro, Saw Gerrera, Targetting Battery, Point Defense Battery" baseline is just so good compared to the other options, I don't see why you'd try anything else.

8 hours ago, Stefan said:

Magva Yarro, Saw Gerrera, Targetting Battery, Point Defense Battery

Drop that point defense battery for ion, and I'm in. I don't believe in the PDB. So much power consumption, so little dice modification, so short range. It'll win you a game here and there, but it's not reliable.

2 hours ago, LagJanson said:

Drop that point defense battery for ion, and I'm in. I don't believe in the PDB. So much power consumption, so little dice modification, so short range. It'll win you a game here and there, but it's not reliable.

I'm a huge fan of Point-Defense Battery. The nature of the game results in ships closing distance, so it doesn't take long to get the range 1 shots. If you're worried about energy, you can fire only when you have the mods, so usually 2 shots a round.

But I acknowledge that one of the great things about Epic is that there's not a single right way to do it.

...except maybe the CR90.

The job of the PDB isn't to win games. It's not to lose them. It's an insurance against fighter swarms getting close.

12 hours ago, Stefan said:

The job of the PDB isn't to win games. It's not to lose them. It's an insurance against fighter swarms getting close.

Interesting take. I usually use Point-Defense Battery to punish ships that turn away from my huge ship as I try to run them over.

I really do need to put the CR90 on the table more. I still think of it as the 1.0 version with the really awkward 3-5 range primary out the sides of the fore section only. That version made me learn how to keep ships at range 1-2 to cover the blind spots, so maybe you can do the same thing with fighter cover for the current CR90 if you choose not to take Point-Defense Battery.

@LagJanson If you take Ion Cannon Battery, how do you usually rotate the turret? Do you just spend the action or do you use Agile Gunner or Luke Skywalker? Does Gunnery Team help much with the Rotate -> Calculate? For that matter, do you find you even need to rotate the turret very often?

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

@LagJanson If you take Ion Cannon Battery, how do you usually rotate the turret? Do you just spend the action or do you use Agile Gunner or Luke Skywalker? Does Gunnery Team help much with the Rotate -> Calculate? For that matter, do you find you even need to rotate the turret very often

I usually don’t have to turn the turrets much, I skirt the along the side of the conflict and broadside in. I usually drop a couple of fighters on the flank during deployment to keep my opponent honest, and those fighters either joust or rush out fast and become flankers depending on how my opponent moves.

I seldom rotate turrets on the CR90. With the banks, it's not a big deal keeping everything in arc.

On 1/26/2020 at 7:41 PM, Stefan said:

Fourth, the shot requires five energy to be present. FIVE.

The Turbolaser Battery requires five energy to be equipped during squad building, not for the shot. To fire it you just need the three energy.

Wait what?! I've been playing that really, really wrong. Thanks!!! For the record, I still don't think it's good, but that makes it better.

How about combining Perceptive copilot with Jyn Erso (doesn’t even have to be on the CR90) for 2 Evades? Have Evan Verlaine flying beside to give that green die. 🤔

The rub is that you need green die. Anything attacking you from range 2 or 1 doesn't give you dice, so the Evades don't do nothing.

Yes, that’s why you need Evaan.

https://xwing-miniatures-second-edition.fandom.com/wiki/Evaan_Verlaine?file=Swz13_evaan-verlaine.png

Is that one die worth the cost of Evaan? I'm a bit unsure. It's taking a lot to make that work. 35 for Evaan, 8 points for the Copilot, 3 für Jyn, for a total of 46 points. Considering that I get a lot more consistent tankyness AND usability by simply adding a naked GR75 for 55 points, and that the CR90 will be missing A LOT of offensive firepower with this combo, I'm not convinced. The rub of all listbuilding with this ship is that the gigantic point investment REQUIRE it to have offensive punch. While you can deck it out as a supporter, it still seems incredibly inefficient to do so.

Why can't you use Bistan to fire twice from the same turret?

E.g.: normal Bonus attack, Primary, Bonus via Bistan?

28 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Why can't you use Bistan to fire twice from the same turret?

E.g.: normal Bonus attack, Primary, Bonus via Bistan?

Rules Reference addendum on page 35:

"• If an effect grants a huge ship a bonus attack that is a primary attack or a special attack with an “Attack:” header, it can perform only one bonus attack using that primary attack or “Attack:” header per round."

1 minute ago, Parakitor said:

"• If an effect grants a huge ship a bonus attack that is a primary attack or a special attack with an “Attack:” header, it can perform only one bonus attack using that primary attack or “Attack:” header per round."

Thanks! I wondered why Stefan ranked it so low

That is not true for small ships, right? E.g. brobots can use the same attack twice?

On 2/24/2020 at 6:47 AM, GreenDragoon said:

Thanks! I wondered why Stefan ranked it so low

That is not true for small ships, right? E.g. brobots can use the same attack twice?

Correct. The ruling above is actually an unfortunate side effect of brobots, specifically IG-88D crew on a huge ship flying alongside IG-88B. Every time the C-ROC misses an attack, it would be able to shoot with an equipped cannon. That would INCLUDE shots with the cannon itself. So it goes like this:

Syndicate Smugglers (58)
IG-88D (3)
Corsair Refit (15)
Ion Cannon (6)

IG-88B (63)

C-ROC shoots primary, misses, gets to fire Ion Cannon using IG-88D. It hits, and so far we're good. But now the C-ROC uses Corsair Refit to spend an energy to fire the Ion Cannon. If it misses, it gets to fire again with IG-88B's ability. And if it misses again, well, huge ships can make any number of bonus attacks, so the C-ROC would get to fire the Ion Cannon again . And again, and again until it hits with the Ion Cannon. Basically, every attack with the C-ROC will at the very least result in a hit with the equipped cannon.

So the devs really had no choice but to limit huge ships from performing each attack or bonus attack only once per round.