So, because Conc Bombs deal a card, they open up the following:

1. Bomb Wullfarro w/Hull Upg turn 1. Wullf takes the strain.

2. The bomber reloads so as to prevent the carpet bombing effect.

3. Few turns later, you enter engagement w/Wulf having his ability and shields up, and still having 3 conc bombs on the bomber.

You could also do the same for a mini-swarm of some sort led by a Saw Gerrera U-Wing. Get some B-Wings w/hull upgrades and a Y-Wing with Concs. Bomb everybody turn 1, reload, and then enter combat with full shields and rerolls.

Are there any other situations where Concs could help you trigger the "damaged" condition while still keeping up shields? Or, is Saw U-Wing and Wullf about it? (Hypothetically Chopper crew as well, but then you would be constantly flipping that 1 card).

If FO could take bombs, you could put Rush up to Init 6 right away I suppose.

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P.S. Usually I think cards that damage your own ships as a "cost" never pay themselves off as having more HP is almost always better in a game where a 1 HP ship can be the difference between winning or losing. But, Concs seem to let you trigger right away abilities that are costed w/the idea that they will not be in play until mid game, so perhaps it may be worth it?

The synergy with self damage is interesting, as is the strategy to get that damage 'for free' by using Conc bombs, but the Auzituck Gunship is only rocking 2 shields and 1 agility, so it isn't exactly struggling to end up being dealt a damage card.

Saw Crew sees off-meta play, so self damage for a big upshot is actually a thing that works in X-wing. But I am trying to think if I would pay 3 points for a modification that read 'start the game with +1 hull and a damage card' and I am not sure I would play it compared to just running the hull upgrade. In the case of the Auzituck I think you could evaluate it as giving you two more turns of having Wullfarro's or Saw Pilot's effect at the cost of removing 1 turn from the ship's lifespan. In the case of Wulf that is a net loss of 1 dice over the course of the game, but the rolls you make are more 'dense' so they are less affected by evasion and more affected by modding. In the case of Saw that is an extra dice per ship in exchange for losing 3 dice at the end of the game, and the 'density' argument is weirder. On top of that losing a ship 'accelerates' losing other ships, which is why Saw crew works, but it also is why Saw crewis generally used to absolutely body ships as fast as possible so you accelerate faster than the enemy.

So it... might be a matchup thing? Vs big chunky low agility ships, you skip out on bombing yourself because the higher density of damage per-attack helps less and because its more likely that your ships 'activate' faster anyway because your more likely going to take the 3 damage needed to get the bonus much faster, but vs high agility ships you order some Wookies shaken and stirred, both because its more likely to actually require 3 turns for them to get their damage boosts, and because the higher density of red dice over the course of the game helps more vs lots of green dice?

Starting with a damage card isn't the worst bit of it IMO, but starting with a face up damage card seems problematic. Not a fan of beginning the game with a direct hit, fuel leak, panicked pilot, or loose stabilizer on a ship that is already crit-prone...

2 hours ago, HanScottFirst said:

Usually I think cards that damage your own ships as a "cost" never pay themselves off as having more HP is almost always better in a game where a 1 HP ship can be the difference between winning or losing.

This is why I really don't get how Saw is used so much more than Magva. It's true he's a little more flexible but... why damage your own ship when all of your enemies are more than happy to do that for you? Focus mods are much easier to get than re-rolls anyway

4 hours ago, HanScottFirst said:

So, because Conc Bombs deal a card, they open up the following:

1. Bomb Wullfarro w/Hull Upg turn 1. Wullf takes the strain.

2. The bomber reloads so as to prevent the carpet bombing effect.

3. Few turns later, you enter engagement w/Wulf having his ability and shields up, and still having 3 conc bombs on the bomber.

You could also do the same for a mini-swarm of some sort led by a Saw Gerrera U-Wing. Get some B-Wings w/hull upgrades and a Y-Wing with Concs. Bomb everybody turn 1, reload, and then enter combat with full shields and rerolls.

Wow, that actually seems pretty good, just put Wullf, Saw U-Wing, something that carries bombs with the concussion bombs in the middle of your ships and a fourth ship/upgrades to taste, you sacrifice four health, one from each of your ships for all having an offensive re-roll meaning they can focus each turn for the whole team having double mods plus Wulf has a four die attack. Assuming the Concussion bombs are fairly reasonably priced for other lists it seems like not a bad trade off... Very Janky and I might be missing something but could be a thing?

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Starting with a damage card isn't the worst bit of it IMO, but starting with a face up damage card seems problematic. Not a fan of beginning the game with a direct hit, fuel leak, panicked pilot, or loose stabilizer on a ship that is already crit-prone...

From the article: " Concussion Bombs can be an effective way to cripple an entire enemy squadron. When this device detonates, each ship and remote at range 0–1 is dealt a facedown damage card. Then, each ship at range 0–1 must expose a damage card unless it gains a strain token."

So you don't have to have a faceup card just take the strain and do a blue to clear it.

15 minutes ago, agenttherock said:

Wow, that actually seems pretty good, just put Wullf, Saw U-Wing, something that carries bombs with the concussion bombs in the middle of your ships and a fourth ship/upgrades to taste, you sacrifice four health, one from each of your ships for all having an offensive re-roll meaning they can focus each turn for the whole team having double mods plus Wulf has a four die attack. Assuming the Concussion bombs are fairly reasonably priced for other lists it seems like not a bad trade off... Very Janky and I might be missing something but could be a thing?

I've tried soooooo many variations of Saw/Wulf. It's good-ish but nowhere near competitive.

Most fun is overloading on Jyn/Juke/PerCop shenanigans for the nukes but that leaves it as a 3-ship list which is sad.

More likely to be good would be adding a VCX.

Or Y-Wings, one of which could incidentally carry a concussion bomb...

59 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Or Y-Wings, one of which could incidentally carry a concussion bomb...

At least one Y-Wing seems like the natural choice for sure, as do any other ships that don't pay as much for their health (low agility), like B-Wings. It could be a fun list if the bomb is priced competitively enough that you can fit some other good ships/upgrades in!

2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Starting with a damage card isn't the worst bit of it IMO, but starting with a face up damage card seems problematic. Not a fan of beginning the game with a direct hit, fuel leak, panicked pilot, or loose stabilizer on a ship that is already crit-prone...

You don't have to start with it face-up. Set this up early enough and you can just take a strain and clear it with a blue move long before you reach combat.

3 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

This is why I really don't get how Saw is used so much more than Magva. It's true he's a little more flexible but... why damage your own ship when all of your enemies are more than happy to do that for you? Focus mods are much easier to get than re-rolls anyway

The VCX has a ton of health to burn, hits like a truck, the ability to use a FCS, and the ability to double tap, so it is a fantastically synergistic ship for Saw, despite Magva probably being better in a vacuum, which almost certainly accounts for the play rate difference: Of the 45 squads that used him, only 15 weren't using him on the VCX.

I think, outside of their 'best case scenarios' they are both overpriced, and if they were at a more appropriate price point we would be seeing Magva on a much wider variety of ships than Saw, who seems pretty shackled to the VCX, which while it has fantastic synergy with him isn't doing so hot in general.

Also, lets be fair, rolling 3-4 crit results in one attack feels reaaaaaallllly good, which may also help explain the higher play rate. If your doing something sub-optimal, may as well do the most 'Timmy' sub-optimal thing possible!