So this week we are still talking about 1.5 we are looking at indirect card changes. Upgrades that have changed because of 1.5 and other card changes not because they have been changed themselves. I also want to point out I made a mistake last week with Iden she is not in addition to the evade effect, but changes the evade effect I think it was just me getting excited to bring raiders back to the table, because yeah they are great now, but we will talk about them and other ships along with titles in the near future so let's dive into the cards we are looking at today that have felt an indirect impact of 1.5
Advanced Projectors
So with the refresh cost of ECM a lot of defensive retrofits become a bit more interesting, I think none more so then Advanced projectors. ECM in most cases will save you 3-4 damage and that's a big deal, but now that you need a token to refresh it you can get nearly the same value out of ECM and Advanced projectors for a point cheaper. Also factor in that Advanced Projectors can make engineering commands more effective in that shields are cheaper then hull to regain and advanced Projectors makes it so your redirects always have access to the shields you regained no matter where you put them. Its now a tempting option for any ship with two redirects and I think you should take another look at it especially since even with XI7 you still get good value from this card.
EWS
Early Warning system has always been the kinda secondary choice to ECM, but again its more tempting its always on, and in the long term it will likely save you just as much damage as ECM would, while being even more effective against smaller dice pools than ECM, but even with larger dice pools one less dice is less damage and less accuracies. Over the course of the whole game it can really add up and when paired with a engineering token or dial you really start to compete quite well with ECMs.
RBD
Reinforced blast doors are best on ships with some way to make sure damage is face down so it can get rid of it. When played well it saves you 3 damage every game end of story. I think it pairs well with Expert Shield Tech as at first you can just use your redirects to reduce damage and one 3 get put onto your hull boom its gone. Now that is a 10 point combo, but its seems worthwhile and with this you can just use your engineering command to move shields to the most vulnerable hull zone and that is an even more effective use of engineering points. Even just by itself when used right it just saves you 3 points of damage for 2 points less and that's nothing to sneeze at.
Heavy Turbolaser Turrets
So with what I expect to be an increases in Advanced Projectors and XI7 new interaction with them I think Heavy Turbolaser Turrets becomes more effective at getting damage to stick from big ships and XI7 makes damage from small ships a bit more annoying. I still don't think ether is an amazing card, but its stock dose go up and is much more tempting to look at in the new 1.5 landscape.
Jyn Erso
she simply is better because raid is a little better she is still kinda bad in all honestly I wished she just read when you discard Jyn gain one objective token, and you would just get it without having to target an objective ship it would just make her so much easier to build around in fleet building. I don't know maybe not that raid has increased its stock slightly she will just be nice to have to keep a ship from readying or using a upgrade card, but why are you not just taking Shriv to get rid of the upgrade. She is still kinda bad but better. I like all the changes for the most part in 1.5 but I do have some disappointments that we will probably talk about down the line but Jyn while she improves slightly is still a bit of a disappointment.
Expanded Launchers
So if I am not mistaken this is the most expensive upgrade in the game, however with the nerf to black crit effects if you can get two shots off with this card I think it just might be worth its points it seems interesting to me at the very least.
Ion Cannon Batteries
Leading shot is more expensive now and that really opens up the ion cannon slot, and my thirst for a ship with two ion cannon slots have never been greater. Ion Cannon batteries gets rid of a token and if it can't it drains a shield. So tokens are more valuable so if you snipe a token off a ship it can be really nice and if you get to drain a shield that's great too. It also has the benefit of not being an exhaust crit so it can trigger on both your attacks.
MS-1 Ion Cannons
it's a simple cheap 2 point upgrade and now that some cards have a cost to ready its gotten better and as the game continues I expect to see more cards that have a cost to ready only increasing this cards value. Its simple its cheap and can really take a lot of value away from the other players cards. If your leaving your ion cannon slot empty and you are running into a lot of cards that have a cost to ready you might want to take this one.
SW-7 Ion batteries
I think this card will replace leading shots on a lot of the ships that where using it I have been a big fan of the SW-7 LTT combo and my love for it has only grown with these changes.
Jamming Field
their will be more generic squadrons in the game due to the ace cap and having some way to help them be a little more durable is nice, Jamming Field gives you that and if you pair that with flight commander you can get out of range of your fighters before you activate them, or perhaps you just have a fighter screen and really don't care about “winning” the fighter game you just want the fighters to be engaged for as long as possible.
Phylon Q7 Tractor beams
it gets to zap tokens tokens are better not many cards can ready with a nav token, but I am guessing that will change as more cards continue to come out for the game.
Expanded Hangar Bay
So this was not seen incredibly often however it still for sure had its place. However with the ace cap we will see more generics and generics are cheaper and so that means list with 10+ squadrons will likely be more common, and you need a way to activate them so Expanded Hangar Bay provides that.
Veteran Gunners
okay so re-roll effects like Ordnance Experts and Leading shots have been changed in some way Veteran Gunners is kinda that well I rolled below average card so lets roll again. I think when using this card its important to know what your average is as I see a lot of people really disappointed when an ISD only rolls 6 damage out the front, but that's average. However once you know your average this becomes your oh crap button you push to re-roll to get closer to your average. It not amazing but gunnery teams is a little worse off so this seems to work just fine for re-rolls to produce average damage and frees up other slots to do other things.
Sensor Team
Okay so this card has been bad for a long time, mostly because ECM is a thing, and ECM is still a thing. However accuracies are more useful due to the refresh cost of ECM and sensor team is one of the few ways to get accuracies that is not a modification. You are in effect dumping two dice to get this effect, but that can still be worth it, for example you have 6 dice each with 1 damage on them your opponent has a brace if you let them brace they will take 3 damage however if you dump one dice for Sensor Teams and change one to an accuracy now they are taking 4. Sure this is an in a vacuum type of scenario, but again its not a modification and sure there are other ways to get accuracies that are not modifications and we will talk about them in future AMMs but this being stapled to a ship and its not a modification I think should not be understated.
Emperor Palpatine (commander)
He is better in that because evade is better you can get more value out of his evade token effect its not a huge change or improvement, but it's worth mentioning.
General Craken
He got a little more interesting Mon Mothma is the commander that wants to get evade ships close and he is the one that wants to keep them at long range so with the boost to evade he becomes a little more interesting and powerful with his damage reduction.
Darth Vader (commander)
So no price change like I was hoping, however leading shots and other re-roll effects have been slightly nerfed in someway so that increases his value and frees up slots you would otherwise use for re-roll upgrades does that make him worth it I am not really sure, but it is something I am willing to look into in the new 1.5.
next time we are going to be talking about the ships that have been most impacted by the changes to 1.5 and their titles as well, following that we will look at squadrons impacted by 1.5, then some of my disappointments with 1.5 and overall impressions of 1.5. So we got plenty of content to talk about so until next time have a great week!
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