I'm somewhat unsure how to use the Ion Token and it's effects. I Play in german, maybe it's just the Translation, but what happens to a ship hit by an Ion weapon?

It gets an Ion token. On the following turn it skips choosing a maneuver on the dial and is forced to take a speed 1 (white) straight move. Even if its 1 straight is normally green, which prevents it from shaking a stress token. It can otherwise act and shoot normally.

What about the turn it's hit? Say your hit with an Ion weapon before your turn. Do you still get to shoot?

I believe the ONLY effect it has is to jam up your movement the folloWing turn. Even then you're able to attack, perform actions, etc.

CrookedWookie is correct. Also note that large ships (YT-1300, Firespray, Lambda Shuttle) require 2 ion tokens before the effects happen.

Ok, thanks for the clarification!

He raises a good point - I forgot that part the last game my friends and I ran.

I've always found Ions slightly underwhelming, but the ability to dictate where a ship will be on the following turn is certainly powerful if used well.

The canon is a good cheap way to deal damage at range or to keep a slipery foe in sight since, let's face it, none of the three ships that can use it are that nimble. Turret is good for protecting yourself and gaining an accuracy boost since both ships with it have attack stats that range from "meh" to"awful". ion turret is actually a lot better than the new blaster turret if you think about it. Three dice with no focus (since you need to spend it to fire) will, on average and if we're rounding, show two hits. Taking defensive measures even an agility one ship can reduce that down to a one, making the fact that the ion caps at one damage moot. Add in the special effect and that you are more likely to be able to use focus and target lock to help land hits and that one point increase is looking like a pretty fair deal.

I disagree with Von, but more as a matter of personal taste. I've used both and it's simply been my experience that any time I have an ion turret I wind up wishing I'd taken the blaster instead. Especially if you plan around it with a Garven or Kyle around to pay its cost.

Fair enough. Don't get me wrong, Blaster looks good and I plan on using it in a fair number of squads. I just tend to be a status effect and defensive kind of player in any game so something that helps me get out of firing arcs and potentially save that focus for a defense roll looks shinier than a potential damage spike. I'm not a competitive gamer by any stretch though.

Ion turret is great. Last game a friend and I played, I took it and was fighting his TIE swarm and I swear, every shot was 3 hits, 2 hits and a crit, and I vowed never to let my heart get broken like that again.

But seriously, Dutch or Horton with a blaster, paired with Garven is a fun half of a squad for you to experiment with.

Dutch and Garven always make a good team. With blaster even moreso since you get rid of the problem I mentioned before of not being able to boost an attack from it. I love ships with support powers.

But seriously, Dutch or Horton with a blaster, paired with Garven is a fun half of a squad for you to experiment with.

I like that, and put the following together...

Horton Salm (30) Y-Wing (25), R2 Astromech (1), Blaster Turret (4)

Garven Dreis (30) X-Wing (26), R2-D2 (4)

Ten Numb (40) B-Wing (31), Fire-Control System (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Horton Salm (30) Y-Wing (25), R2 Astromech (1), Blaster Turret (4)

Garven Dreis (30) X-Wing (26), R2-D2 (4)

Ten Numb (40) B-Wing (31), Fire-Control System (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

You're going to have a hard time leveraging Garven with this squadron, because everyone else is higher PS. That means you aren't going to be able to feed the focus anywhere offensively, including to Horton to keep the Blaster Turret firing effectively. The only potential use would be to send it over for anyone who might attack Horton or Ten after Garven shoots, and at 1 Agility that's not going to be all that useful.

Ten's build is a little iffy, too... Pairing a crit-dependent ability with an HLC isn't really a strong combination. If you're not going to have Ten generating crits, you might as well drop Ten for Ibtisam, which saves you three points to add Push the Limit to try and maximize her ability. That also puts her at the same PS as Garven, so he an pass his focus over effectively.

You might do better - and I'm just spitballing here, not running any numbers - swapping Horton for Dutch, since he has much better Synergy with Garven. Then you might be able to squeeze in Marksmanship, which makes HLC a much better option for him since it helps lock in a hard to shake crit.

The canon is a good cheap way to deal damage at range or to keep a slipery foe in sight since, let's face it, none of the three ships that can use it are that nimble. Turret is good for protecting yourself and gaining an accuracy boost since both ships with it have attack stats that range from "meh" to"awful". ion turret is actually a lot better than the new blaster turret if you think about it. Three dice with no focus (since you need to spend it to fire) will, on average and if we're rounding, show two hits. Taking defensive measures even an agility one ship can reduce that down to a one, making the fact that the ion caps at one damage moot. Add in the special effect and that you are more likely to be able to use focus and target lock to help land hits and that one point increase is looking like a pretty fair deal.

Shields still have to be shot away for an ion cannon to work though, right? For instance, a Tie Advanced with two shields would have to be stripped of shields before an ion effect could take place.

No, actually. The 1 damage done by an Ion shot will come off of shields, if they have any, but the Ion effect itself happens regardless of whether they have shields or not.

With the exception of medium-base ships, which require 2 ion tokens to get bezazzled.

with the new wave 3 cards, I think Ion cannons are going to be a lot more useful, especially with the FCS on Y wings or a B wing

True, you could zap them, target lock them, move around to flank them on your next turn and get a nice target-locked shot off safely out of harm's way if you play your cards right. And in fact you could more than likely FOCUS that shot, as well, unless you needed to barrel roll or something to line the shot up.

I came up with this list, haven't run it yet though

2 Dagger Squadron with FCS Ion Cannon and APT

Biggs with R2-F2

No, actually. The 1 damage done by an Ion shot will come off of shields, if they have any, but the Ion effect itself happens regardless of whether they have shields or not.

With the exception of medium-base ships, which require 2 ion tokens to get bezazzled.

Wow, I didn't know that. That is very effective. I'll have to take a second look at those.

Pretty sure that's the way it works, and I'm not even a huge fan of Ion weapons.

The way it's phrased is yadda yadda, "suffers 1 damage and receives 1 Ion token." The suffering damage part indicates that functions as normal (meaning first check for shields) but there's nothing to indicate that you don't receive the ion token, period.

Pretty sure that's the way it works

Yeah that's how it works. The Ion effect isn't dependent on doing damage to the target.

Horton Salm (30) Y-Wing (25), R2 Astromech (1), Blaster Turret (4)

Garven Dreis (30) X-Wing (26), R2-D2 (4)

Ten Numb (40) B-Wing (31), Fire-Control System (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

You're going to have a hard time leveraging Garven with this squadron, because everyone else is higher PS. That means you aren't going to be able to feed the focus anywhere offensively, including to Horton to keep the Blaster Turret firing effectively. The only potential use would be to send it over for anyone who might attack Horton or Ten after Garven shoots, and at 1 Agility that's not going to be all that useful.

Throw Swarm Tactics on any of the ships acting before Garven to fix this problem.