Coordinate Synergies

• Squad Leader restricts the action choice, meaning you could choose a Talent+Crew ship with limited and relatively rare/boring action choices so that Hondo's coordinate doesn't benefit the target ship much. (Examples include a ship with calculate instead of focus, or something boring with just focus and barrel roll)
• Nodin Chavdri lets you get a free action even while mildly stressed, so adding Hondo lets you get free actions on Nodin while you use Hondo's ability on allies or enemies.
• Probably something interesting with Major Stridan out there, possibly with some third card.
• Epic ships have abilities that alter coordination:
  • Toryn Farr grants your coordinated buddy a lock if you already have one.
  • Oooh Suppressor is evil, allowing you to jam an enemy ship at range 0-2 of the friendly ship you coordinated.
    • Interesting that this card specifies coordinating a friendly ship, showing FFG was thinking ahead about coordinating enemy ships someday.
• Probably something else I missed.

Jam Synergies

• Static Discharge Vanes on your jammed ally can pass that jam onto an enemy ship nearby.
• ISB Slicer can prevent removing the jam tokens at end of round.
• Major Vermeil benefits from jamming an enemy ship in the same way he benefits from equipping Darth Vader -- he likes targets without their green tokens. He could, in fact, equip both so the average target post-jam won't have a green token to discard to avoid Vader's damage, and then Vermeil gets his dice mod on top of that. Similar but weaker deal for Captain Feroph 's defense (and with only one die it's not as good as Vermeil).
• Petty Officer Thannison (Crew) can double the jam tokens on the target, in case you need to jam more than one token/lock (and you have them in arc).
• Probably more...

Suggestions are welcome. However, take this reminder that anything that triggers on a Coordinate Action or Jam Action doesn't synergize with Hondo, nor does anything that deals with changing the range or target of the coordinate/jam.

11 minutes ago, Wazat said:

However, take this reminder that anything that triggers on a Coordinate Action or Jam Action doesn't synergize with Hondo, nor does anything that deals with changing the range or target of the coordinate/jam.

Thannison crew is the only strong synergy that comes to mind. Vizier benefits that same way the Vermeil does, only for green dice.

27 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Thannison crew is the only strong synergy that comes to mind. Vizier benefits that same way the Vermeil does, only for green dice.

Feroph not Vizier right?

I've added those, thanks!

10 minutes ago, Wazat said:

Feroph not Vizier right?

Yup. My knowledge of semi-useless pilots fail me.

1 hour ago, Wazat said:

I'm pretty sure anything that deals with range is irrelevant, since Hondo skips the normal range and target selection steps.

Hondo has his own range yes.. however if Biohex works, that completly ignore range, so would go beyond even Hondo's range 3 limit, so long as there was a lock on the target.

But Biohex seems to interfere with what ship you choose, so im not sure it would even work with Hondo because of the wording of both abilities.

16 minutes ago, Lyianx said:

Hondo has his own range yes.. however if Biohex works, that completly ignore range, so would go beyond even Hondo's range 3 limit, so long as there was a lock on the target.

But Biohex seems to interfere with what ship you choose, so im not sure it would even work with Hondo because of the wording of both abilities.

IMO any range- or target-changing effect is useless because we don't start to coordinate or jam until after targets are chosen, and those targets are set in stone.

An effect can add additional targets (though all the ones I found only cared about coordinate/jam action), but can't change the original targets. By the time effects trigger on coordinate/jam, it's too late to be worried about choosing the target.

29 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Yup. My knowledge of semi-useless pilots fail me.

Some ships don't earn your memory. Feroph is consistently one of them for me. I have to look him up every time. Not good enough to ever use, not compelling or terrible enough to commit to memory out of spite.

BTW, let's imagine Major Vermeil with Squad Leader + Darth Vader + Hondo. The sickening points investment aside, Hondo jams at range 3 and then coordinates an enemy at range 3, only allowing them a focus, evade, coordinate, or jam action (if they have those options). On engagement, Vader deals a damage to the helpless jammed target, and Vermeil gets to mod a die for free while shooting the target. Not bad jank, if I may say so myself. If it weren't for the points investment bordering on madness, it might even be good.

IMO the Squad Leader shenanigans work best on a low-init crew + talent ship with more limited action choice, like an Auzituck/U-Wing (though only their best pilots have a talent slot, grumble), G-1A, etc; or a calculate pilot like AP-5 or L3-37 (escape craft). AP-5 is quite nice here: coordinated enemies without calculate or coordinate won't be able to use their action, and squad leader is cheap at init 1, granting a pretty far-reaching jam for a frequently useless coordinate.

And jamming the ally with Static Discharge Vanes trick is fantastic when vanes are equipped to 4-LOM.

Is any of this good? *shrug* But it's fun.

I threw this concept together, assuming that Hondo would fall somewhere around 10 points... two slicer reapers, one with vader, the other with hondo, stalk the enemies like circling sharks, while the tempests burn in hard to break up formations and swing for the fences as needed.

Major Vermeil (49)
Ruthless (1)
Darth Vader (14)
ISB Slicer (3)

Captain Feroph (47)
Ruthless (1)
ISB Slicer (3)
Hondo Ohnaka (10?)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (36)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (36)
Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

5 hours ago, Wazat said:

IMO any range- or target-changing effect is useless because we don't start to coordinate or jam until after targets are chosen, and those targets are set in stone.

Which is more or less what i said in my 2nd statement that it would interfere with the ship you choose, thus my thinking it couldn't work with him.

Glad we're on the same page.

9 hours ago, Wazat said:

Static Discharge Vanes on your jammed ally can pass that jam onto an enemy ship nearby.

Just for completeness, the SDV ship takes a <hit> damage while doing so which is something people need to keep in mind.

12 hours ago, emeraldbeacon said:

List

Maybe drop the Ruthless on both for Ion Limiter Override, depending on cost like Hondo.

16 hours ago, Lyianx said:

Which is more or less what i said in my 2nd statement that it would interfere with the ship you choose, thus my thinking it couldn't work with him.

Glad we're on the same page.

Sorry, I thought you were asking it as a question or expressing uncertainty. So I gave my view on the matter; I figured there was no wiggle room for it to behave otherwise.

Also pretty expensive and not easy to set up, but Torani (esp the janky cluster missile R5TK double shot build) would love having Hondo on a friendly carrier long range jamming Torani's target's token in Torani's bullseye.

On 7/31/2020 at 9:11 PM, meffo said:

. for example, you can argue that hondo's ability only lets you choose friendly ships, since you have to coordinate one of them and only friendly ships are valid targets for coordinate effects.

Well, I’d go with 'do what the card says'.

And Hondo first chooses the target all by himself - and then performs a coordinate. So he bypasses the 'choose a friendly ship at range 1-2'.