So our Seasonal kits have arrived at our FLGS Demolition Games. Each week at game night we will give out a double sided alt art/extended art card. So for the next little while every other week will talk about the 2 upgrades/squadrons that are up for grabs at our local game for the next 2 weeks. For the next two weeks we will have the extended art for Veteran Gunners and Overload pulse. These are both cards that are not seen very often, but what can they do when they hit the table well let’s take a look.
Veteran Gunners
So these guys have always been in kind of a weird spot, because you have to reroll all your dice, now this is great if you are only looking to get a single result, usually a crit, and don’t largely care about the rest of the results, however ordinance experts is a thing and most crit effects are on black dice so it’s a bit hard to justify there. So we look for cards that have a crit effect, but are not black dice crits, and that is more than you would think.
Heavy Ion Emplacements, Ion Cannon Batteries, MS-1 Ion Cannons, Nk-7 Ion cannons, Overload pulse, and XX-9 Turbolasers. The vast majority of these are blue crits so an Ion platform seams to be the main thing we are looking to put Veteran Gunners on, so what can we put it on that fits this criteria, well not much unfortunately.
Imperial II blue crit effect:
Imperial II (120) • Veteran Gunners (5) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Heavy Ion Emplacements (9) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Chimaera (4) • Intensify Firepower! (6) = 156 Points
This has some interesting stuff to it. it’s all about pumping out damage with HIE and the like and has IF to help the red dice.
VSD Ion platform:
Victory II (85) • Veteran Gunners (5) • Disposable Capacitors (3) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Heavy Ion Emplacements (9) = 107 Points
This is basically the same Idea as the ISD II version really just a bit cheaper, but loses the IF that helps our red dice.
Raider II Ion platform
Raider II (48) • Veteran Gunners (5) • Disposable Capacitors (3) • Heavy Ion Emplacements (9) = 65 Points
Again it’s just an even cheaper version of the VSD platform.
MC-80 star cruiser
MC80 Star Cruiser (96) • Veteran Gunners (5) • Engine Techs (8) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 118 Points
This is our rebel version of the imperil II ion platform.
Okay so I think it is time we talked about some other methods to get the result we want namely the blue crit well there is leading shots, but since we are using the ion slot for the blue crit leading shots can’t be taken as no ship currently in the game has two ion slots. On the Empires side we have screed, now he will get you the crit, but its possible that this blue crit is your only crit effect in your fleet so taking screed may not work super well with the rest of your list Veteran Gunners gives you some flexibility in your commanders choice. Next on the rebels side we have Caitken and Shollian who are really just Veteran gunners made more flexible, they are one point more expensive, and unique, but the odds of you having more than one ship that needs this kind of reroll is slim, so on the rebel side veteran gunners is kinda a dead card because of Caitken and Shollian.
Vetren Gunners works best when you know what your ships average damage is. So lets say the average damage of your ship is 6 and you roll 4 you have veteran gunners to reroll again the more you roll the more things average out so you should more often than not hit your average.
Another thing to consider is you can use Veteran gunners to reroll anti squadrons attacks, its only once as the card is an exhaust but that is also something. I do think the card would be more prominet if it was not an exhaust as it would let you roroll anti-squadrons quite a lot and keep your ships damage at its average output, with the downside of having to reroll all dice I do think it would still be balanced as it would be about making all your ships shots score a more “statistical hit.” However as is, Veteran Gunners still has its place and with more Ion and Turbolaser crit effects, and more ships that can take Veteran gunners and the aforementioned upgrades the more this guy will see play, but you can still use him to great effect now with the right ship load-out and even if you have no other reroll option they will help you roll more statistically.
Overload Pulse
Okay so this is an odd card, because I feel like whoever thought of the idea for this card in the game designee forgot that critical effects resolve after defense tokens are spent as it seems to be costed that way, but maybe not. I do think Overload Pulse is expensive for what it does, because the defense token effects have already been spent and resolved by the time this effect triggers so what it really Is doing is exhausting all unspent defense tokens during the attack. I don’t think this makes the card useless, but it has to be used in one of two ways ether double arching a ship or a one, two punch.
Let’s start with the simpler one the double arch okay so we have an ISD-II and it takes its side shot first, in most cases this would not cause the other ship to spend its brace, but now it has to and then you can follow up with the front and that will likely strip the brace from the ship. Alternatively now that Avenger only works on one attack a double arch could set up a powerful Avenger attack from the front arch, sure its more expensive than boarding troopers, but has the upside of being able to be used at medium range, and exhaust all tokens regardless of your squadron value, and can also be used more than once as well. You just have to be able to get that blue crit off to make it work.
Imperial II (120) • Veteran Gunners (5) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Overload Pulse (8) • Dual Turbolaser Turrets (5) • Avenger (5) = 150 Points
its a bit odd but could work, Screed would also be an option in a list with this guy.
Alternatively you could do a one, two punch for example a raider uses D-caps to get the long range trigger of overload pulse then that ship that now has its tokens exhausted has to move into range of another attack that will make them want to spend their brace if they do its gone if they don’t you got a lot of damage to stick. You could go crazy with this one two punch idea in a scenario like this:
You have an armored MC-75 that is blocking an ISD it uses the profundity title to drop a CR-90 B with overload pulse top of the turn use the overload pulse CR-90 to get Overload pulse to trigger exhaust the tokens. Then the ISD goes and shots at the 75 does its damage, but is unable to move as it is now blocked the MC-75 drops a squadron token and uses boarding troopers to rip off 3 of the already exhausted tokens making the ship essentially defenseless and makes its attacks. This definitely has a lot of setup, but it can get pretty crazy, and also fun.
MC75 Armored Cruiser (104) • Toryn Farr (7) • Boarding Troopers (3) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • External Racks (3) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Profundity (7) = 140 Points
CR90 Corvette B (39) • Overload Pulse (8) = 47 Points
Overload pulse can also be okayish in a Sloan list as well as it just makes it easier for your squadrons to rip tokens off tokens. It would be something like your raider would overload pulse the tokens then the fighters strip the high impact tokens and you have another ship follow up with a big hit, so it becomes more of a 1,2,3 punch type thing, but it still works, though the fewer moving pieces you have in your plan the more likely it is going to happen if you have a heavy hitting carrier ISD this would work, but then you could just take avenger and not worry about the extra pieces so it’s just okayish it just makes it easier to strip tokens off of a ship, so it would probably bet better in a Sloan list with on ISD but then it becomes Overload pulse, Carrier, then your hitter probably a demolisher.
Overload pulse can work but it requires the right build and strategy its not terrible if I remember correctly and interdictor with overload pulse and an avenger ISD won a regional so it can work you will just need to have a plan on how you are going to use it the double arching avenger is the easiest way to make it go off and get value from it but you could do it cheaper with boarding troopers with the caveat of only being able to do it once and only at close range, but the one two punch method works as well and when used effectively can really help strip tokens off of ships.
At the end of the day it’s a bit expensive for what it does in most cases. If the crit effect resolved before the other player spent defense tokens it might be priced correctly, even a little too cheap. Even with its hefty price I think it can still get value in the right list and builds. Just like Veteran gunners it might not be the shiniest card, but when leveraged well with coordinated fire it can reduce the number of uses your opponent gets out of their defense tokens, and that can make a huge difference in a game getting only 1 or 2 uses out of a brace can be the difference between a ship that is alive and a ship that is dead.
While nether Overload pulse or Veteran gunners are seen very often, and are often considered bad, I personally think they have a place in the right build/scenario, even if that place is niche. They both provide something that some lists wouldn’t have otherwise. Veteran gunners provides rerolls to Imperil ships that otherwise would not have them due to us wanting to use other slots for other upgrades, and Overload pulse can help us reduce the number of uses our opponent get out of there defense tokens and even have to spend them early especially when combined with D-Caps. They are not amazing upgrades but have their place in the right lists. Until next time have a great week everyone!
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