I want to fly my brute squad but those elegant meatwagons are a tweak or two away from glory. Theyre too tanky to get cheaper, but they dont seem to compete with their peers pricewise. So what gives?

First off, theyre too immobile to use their supposedly signiature bullseye abilities. The payoff just isnt worth struggling with the dial. you can do it, but other ships do it more easily and hit just as hard without any drawbacks. simply letting them take R4 astromechs would largely solve this and doesnt seem busted. easiest fix?

Alternately, they could benefit from a harder punch. Lore wise they ought to be 4/1/7/2 , but i dont think thats likely to change. A costly configuration beefing their attacks slightly seems more likely, something like "when attacking apply your range 1 bonuses at range 2" or something similar, maybe for 10 points.

Kimogilas should fly like thrown bricks... difficult to aim, but punishing when they land. to me they arent quite there. thoughts?

The repositioning for generics can be addressed with a 3-point investment in Expert Handling.

Torani is also an absolute villain with Snap Shot, as it gives him two separate windows for his ability.

They're fine.

In terms of statline, 41 is really solid for an Init 3 with a 3-dice gun and 9 HP. Dead To Rights isn't always going to land, but when it does, it can be hugely impactful.

Mixing a few in with Kihraxzes or whatever, or maybe like two with Fenn Rau and a small 4th ship like a TIE or M3-A or Bossk Z-95 is probably a decent enough list. Gonna light the world on fire? Naw, but solid enough.

People use them in bulk lists as gunships with terrible kturns. that seems to work.

Not me as I'm not about go buy a second.

My perspective is colored right now by a couple of games where my Kimos wrecked enough face to threaten Mount Rushmore. This comes after some disappointment last year that left a bad taste in my mouth—which I now believe was a consequence of being rusty after a long 1.0->2.0 hiatus.

Here were my builds, after which I’ll share my thoughts about Kimos in general:

Cartel Executioner — M12-L Kimogila Fighter 41
Adv. Proton Torpedoes 6
Contraband Cybernetics 2
Ship Total: 49

Torani Kulda — M12-L Kimogila Fighter 48
Cluster Missiles 5
R5-TK 0
Munitions Failsafe 1
Ship Total: 54

First off, as you see, neither list had Expert Handling. Neither list had Talents at all. While I do kind of wish they’d had EH, I made it work without. I feel like the bigness of the Kimo’s base makes it easier to “know” when it’s worth eating stress to make a lateral move. Overall I would’ve liked EH but I left it out because of cost pressure elsewhere in the lists.

Contras are niiiice . They’re nice in general, but they’re especially nice on a late-phase Kimo that’s hanging out on its last hull or two and trying to stay effective. Kimos need their actions, and Contras help keep things open for you to get them.

Torani is an absolute monster . No, you’re not going to line up her ability all the time. No, she’s not a generic, either. No, she can’t solo the enemy squad. Yes, she burns just as fast as any Kimo. But it doesn’t take many instances of lining her up to make an enemy sweat hard . Combo her with other things that can pull tokens off an enemy (lookin’ at you, Mag-Pulse), and she can be a freakin’ blender.

Kimos have their problems, though. They burn fast once an enemy can start lining up good shots. They’re relatively slow, too; both their movement with your squad, as well as their blues, have to be planned-around. And there is, sadly, not a lot that you can do to mitigate those things.

Nevertheless, Kimos have earned my respect as bruising ordnance-carriers who can gut it out enough to die with empty tubes. I doubt they’re ever going to be top-tier, because they can’t really pull ace/all-star shenanigans; they have limited actions, a surprisingly short lifespan, and they live and die by the team that surrounds them.

are they satisfying to play?

im not sure.

arcs are also very good, but bore me.

I like Kimos because of the different ways they can be kitted out. Need a heavy ordinance carrier? They can do that. Want to lean in to a janky build, they can do that to. Just need a big brawling bruiser? Yep, they can do that.

In my experience you just need to be zen about the bullseye ability and if it triggers great.

My last game I ran Torani Kulda kitted out like so:

(48) Torani Kulda [M12-L Kimogila Fighter]
(4) R5-P8
(2) Contraband Cybernetics
(4) Shield Upgrade
(1) Crack Shot
Points: 59

She was the mvp of the game, and roughed up several A-wing in my opponents swarm. R5-P8 is awesome on her. Especially handy when you 4K over the top of an A-wing with contraband, somehow get the bullseye lined up, and wipe it off the board in one shot.

Just to clarify I agree Torani and Dolan are good. I was refering more to the generics.

In my experience 6 hp behind 2 green is more durable than 9 hp behind 1 green, so a khiraxz or x-wing is generally cheaper, more manueverable, more durable, and has a better action bar.

as always it depends on what you're up against. I'm sure Kimos straight up bully Lambdas or huge ships, and future expansions might create synergy with the upgrade slots. i dunno. what little Ive flown them in 2nd edition theyve felt very weak

... so what is it that the Kimo needs?

Imo I think its boring is its main problem, and its dial is bad. Which is hard to fix without errata or fix cards.

6 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

... so what is it that the Kimo needs?

Imo I think its boring is its main problem, and its dial is bad. Which is hard to fix without errata or fix cards.

It isn't exciting, but I wouldn't go so far to call it boring. Lining up the bullseye is pretty satisfying. What is so bad about the Kimo dial? All the 1s, 2s, and 3s, with only two maneuvers being red and a red 4k. It's a medium base so it is a little faster than the dial seems, but small enough to not be too much trouble to navigate obstacles.

16 minutes ago, Burius1981 said:

It isn't exciting, but I wouldn't go so far to call it boring. Lining up the bullseye is pretty satisfying. What is so bad about the Kimo dial? All the 1s, 2s, and 3s, with only two maneuvers being red and a red 4k. It's a medium base so it is a little faster than the dial seems, but small enough to not be too much trouble to navigate obstacles.

Gotta agree—it’s far from OP, but it has a decent amount of maneuverability and it rewards careful setup. I think it needs support though, and it lives and dies by the rest of what’s in your list. You gotta play a turn or two ahead, and be ready to self-block to keep yourself on target.

But it enables jank, which is what I’m here for.

30 minutes ago, Burius1981 said:

It isn't exciting, but I wouldn't go so far to call it boring. Lining up the bullseye is pretty satisfying. What is so bad about the Kimo dial? All the 1s, 2s, and 3s, with only two maneuvers being red and a red 4k. It's a medium base so it is a little faster than the dial seems, but small enough to not be too much trouble to navigate obstacles.

Seriously. It's probably the 3rd best dial of a medium base ship, after Aggressor and Firespray. U-Wing doesn't have a good dial, but Pivot Wing makes up for that. Everything else (ARC, G1A, Scurrg, Punisher) is worse. Reaper is some odd stuff, who knows.

7 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Just to clarify I agree Torani and Dolan are good. I was refering more to the generics.

In my experience 6 hp behind 2 green is more durable than 9 hp behind 1 green , so a khiraxz or x-wing is generally cheaper, more manueverable, more durable, and has a better action bar.

as always it depends on what you're up against. I'm sure Kimos straight up bully Lambdas or huge ships, and future expansions might create synergy with the upgrade slots. i dunno. what little Ive flown them in 2nd edition theyve felt very weak

Just on this for a sec. That's some flukely luck or bad crits. Against 3-red focused attacks, Kimo should have a 30% chance to die to 4 attacks, while a Kih or T-65 has a 63% chance (presuming no defensive focus)

I mean, there are ways lower mobility can translate into more vulnerability, or the list-tetris leaves you with fewer ships, but statistically speaking, 9 behind 1 is notably tougher than 6 behind 2.

7 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

... so what is it that the Kimo needs?>>> Imo I think its boring is its main problem, and its dial is bad. Which is hard to fix without errata or fix cards.

Honestly, it's not just the Kimo. Scum has several ships that are relatively boring. One fix that needs to be developed is their upgrade slots. Scum has no upgrade slots (except for Cybernetics which was too expensive until recently) Fearless is ok but only used on fist-fighters. The droids are almost never used and a lot of them are now small ship only. I think a good generic scummy droid would boost ships like the Y-wing and Kimo and maybe help the title taking Jumpmaster and Scurrg. Some other generic illicit upgrades would also help. Blail is right in that there are some ships that have horrible dials that probably need a small boost just to make those ship fun to fly.

8 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

In my experience 6 hp behind 2 green is more durable than 9 hp behind 1 green, so a khiraxz or x-wing is generally cheaper, more manueverable, more durable, and has a better action bar.

as always it depends on what you're up against. I'm sure Kimos straight up bully Lambdas or huge ships , and future expansions might create synergy with the upgrade slots. i dunno. what little Ive flown them in 2nd edition theyve felt very weak

I'm admittedly not an expert, never flown one, but flown against them. Everyone is talking around the obvious, but missing the point of the ship. This ship is heavy artillery, a field piece, one of Napoleons beautiful guns. They are to set, aim and shoot targets that are mostly predictable, and lay in the pain, as you eluded to so eloquently .

Kimos are not a space superiority fighter. That's not their design. I don't think squads of these can work unless the other side of the mat has space cows grazing on it. They're a field piece, but you need them to be complemented by infantry and cavalry, or at least one or the other, so they can keep the opposition unsure. I see them having a Punisher role -as I have flown them- albeit a tiny bit more stiff.

Have fun with them, and maybe pair them with a Fang or two, as they are sweet.

...now where's my tea?

My main problem is figuring out what their purpose is. They used to be munitions carriers as a sort of equivalent to the missile config Starwing as they both had the white reload on a small base in 1st Edition. But now with no munition that stands out as better than their 3 die primary other than Proton Torpedoes which bloats their price (not to mention it's fairly difficult for them to get locks). So now they just fill the role of a G1A with a better dial but worse shield to hull ratio. Perhaps if they had a Sensor Slot similar to the G1A, Passive Sensors could help them with munitions.

4 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Have fun with them, and maybe pair them with a Fang or two, as they are sweet.

I've been thinking about that some since last night. A generic Kimo is the same price as a Zealous Recruit. Swapping out one or two for a Kimo... honestly... might not actually make the list better.. . but it'd be fun.

Fearless Fenn, 2 Expert Handling Executioners, and a Recruit? Sweet.

42 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I've been thinking about that some since last night. A generic Kimo is the same price as a Zealous Recruit. Swapping out one or two for a Kimo... honestly... might not actually make the list better.. . but it'd be fun.

Fearless Fenn, 2 Expert Handling Executioners, and a Recruit? Sweet.

You got me thinking Fig, it seems these can best be used as area denial, which is an Ace's best friend. I think you are on to something here... @Vontoothskie should well heed your thoughts. It could be quite sweet.

11 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

and its dial is bad

super disagree.

11 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

and its dial is bad.

Opinion, sure.

10 minutes ago, miguelj said:

super disagree.

Said every pilot, like I, who put a lot of hours in the Lambda during 1.0.

...tea in the afternoon, iced, not stirred.

I played a TON of Lambda. The dial IS bad. But its fine for that ship.

Its not so fine for the Kimo I think.

I must say, I am a bit bored of one move one action ships that don't really go anywhere and just kind of sit on their starting edge waiting to make a trap.

Note the Lambda has a 0 stop, which the Kimo doesn't. (And a back arc, though my play doesn't use that as much. )

6 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

I'm admittedly not an expert, never flown one, but flown against them. Everyone is talking around the obvious, but missing the point of the ship. This ship is heavy artillery, a field piece, one of Napoleons beautiful guns. They are to set, aim and shoot targets that are mostly predictable, and lay in the pain, as you eluded to so eloquently .

Kimos are not a space superiority fighter. That's not their design. I don't think squads of these can work unless the other side of the mat has space cows grazing on it. They're a field piece, but you need them to be complemented by infantry and cavalry, or at least one or the other, so they can keep the opposition unsure. I see them having a Punisher role -as I have flown them- albeit a tiny bit more stiff.

Have fun with them, and maybe pair them with a Fang or two, as they are sweet.

...now where's my tea?

Napoleanic wars were cool but a poor analogy. there is no field piece firing from range 200+. there is no infantry forming a square. No one is using re-enforce on their bastion to protect the magazine. Cavalry makes the most sense because the maneuvers are textbook for horse formations, but most Napoleonic cavarly killed in melee with lances or sabers(though skirmish units sometimes dismounted to use carbines). Aside from 1.0 Oicun no one in X-wing does that at all.

This game is WW2 naval combat over a coral reef, with a scifi asthetic inspired by WW2 dogfighting

20 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

In terms of statline, 41 is really solid for an Init 3 with a 3-dice gun and 9 HP. Dead To Rights isn't always going to land, but when it does, it can be hugely impactful.

This one. Compare to the Red Squadron Veteran and the Blue Squadron Pilot: For the same price, you add a little bit of control-immunity (takes twice as many tokens to ionize or tractor), a little bit of beefiness, dead to rights, and even more crucially, a white reload action . You give up a little maneuverability bit in the end you come out pretty much even.

Could they drop to 40 without a problem? Maybe. The Reaper seems to be okay. I think their secret sauce is in leveraging ordnance somehow, but I don't have an answer for you there. Try Targeting Synchronizer on a Quadjumper just for the meme value?

Edit: Honestly it's really striking to me that the scum faction currently has zero pilots, crew, or other upgrades that help a ship out with locks. Qi'ra, Latts Razzi, Kimogilas, Y-Wings, and even Firesprays would benefit greatly from something like that. Unfortunately we'll probably have quite a while to wait.

R5-P8 on a cartel executioner gives you double-modded attacks at i3 on a durable chassis for only 45 points - you can't argue with that. Dead to rights also gives you a handy bit of area control - don't expect to trigger it (except against a swarm) - instead just point it where you don't want enemy ships to be

13 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

This one. Compare to the Red Squadron Veteran and the Blue Squadron Pilot: For the same price, you add a little bit of control-immunity (takes twice as many tokens to ionize or tractor), a little bit of beefiness, dead to rights, and even more crucially, a white reload action . You give up a little maneuverability bit in the end you come out pretty much even.

Could they drop to 40 without a problem? Maybe. The Reaper seems to be okay. I think their secret sauce is in leveraging ordnance somehow, but I don't have an answer for you there.

But do they get around to reloading 2nd ed? They melt relatively fast, and I feel they pay an uneccessary fee for a reload you seldom use. They already have a great 3 dice attack with Dead to rights. Putting ordnance on top of that without a reliable chance for double mods (apart from R5P8 for further 4pts, and 1/8 chance to get nasty crits) costs a lot.

I had some fun with double Generics running in parallel. Aces do not want to be in front of this = board control.

(I once caught Soontir between literally a rock and a hard place (experienced player, but got scared by the squad and a mistake earlier, partly due to the board control). He had the choice between going left, probably getting caught by SolSixxa+SkilledBombardier, going straight over the rock (leaving him potentially damaged and without repo), or right towards the Kimos. He opted right, and one of the Kimos got him nevertheless, dead Soontir )

[Addendum] supposedly there was a 4 Kimogila list in the LVO cut. [/]

13 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Edit: Honestly it's really striking to me that the scum faction currently has zero pilots, crew, or other upgrades that help a ship out with locks. Qi'ra, Latts Razzi, Kimogilas, Y-Wings, and even Firesprays would benefit greatly from something like that. Unfortunately we'll probably have quite a while to wait.

Only way until now was a hefty 9pts on a Quad.

We just got one edge case, which only helps himself, Bossk with his Pursuit craft. Still does not help anyone else.

12 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Try Targeting Synchronizer on a Quadjumper just for the meme value?

You'd need to add a Targeting Computer as well. Add to that the cost of the missile or torp and this list is getting far too bloated too quickly.