Okay so we got a few cards spoiled, but sadly it was only two more cards that we did not about. The German distributor I guess let them sell Onagers on 12/13/2019, but not starhawks, kind of weird. Anyway the Onager had 4 mystery upgrades in the box if we excluded the upgrade that gives ships salvo, and we will talk about that card 2 of the mystery cards are HFZ (probably my least favorite card in the game, so I might be a little salty about that.) 1 AFFM fleet command, and that is good as it was really only available in the pelta unless you shelled out $200.00 for an SSD, and lastly we have really the only card that we did not know about Flagship Bridge our first zero point upgrade, and that is cool. Lets talk about the Salvo card "Local Fire Control Systems"
Local Fire Control System
Okay so the translation for Local Fire Control System I have is "After deploying, you must replace one of your defense [tokens] with a salvo [token]" it is a weapons team and cost 4 points. Personally I am a bit confused at the choice to make this card a weapons team slot. I thought maybe they would do that, but then I thought naw that would not be very balanced, at least as far as access. The rebels have 10 kind of 12 ships that can equip this because of the vanguard title.
The Imperials on the other hand have 16 ships that can equip this, I thought that really does not seems fair, but the fact it takes up a weapon slot is what makes it weird. both Gladiator variations can take it, but I really don't think you want to give up ordnance experts to chuck a few extra dice, the Onager, I really dont think it wants to give up its brace or redirect for a second salvo, Quasar it can take it but its kind of a joke you got one blue die, and you give up a brace or redirect its just too steep. Raiders its not bad to give up one evade, but you do give up ordnance experts, and again it's only one blue die you get to chuck here so meh. The Victory I would probably like ordnance experts, but with two red dice it's not terrible, it's a bit more interesting on the II as Gunnery teams is nice, but its not 100% necessary, you get two reds as well, you do go down to one redirect, but it's not terrible so it's an okay option. SSD, giving up gunnery teams? on an SSD seems a bit steep, to chuck a few extra dice when someone attacks you.
lastly we have the ISDs the ISD-I I could see taking this with leading shots replacing the contain with a salvo, it seems okay just no rerolls out the side kind of stinks, but it's probably arguably the best platform for this the empire has, the ISD II, you really want gunnery teams, but I have had some success with a non gunnery teams ISD II that leaned heavily on the objectives in the list advanced gunnery being one of them, so if you are looking to go second and force advanced gunnery or a really lucrative objective for you this would not be a bad call in my opinion, but it requires a fairly specific build. the Cymoon, I really think this is in the same case as the ISD II, but probably even more so wants gunnery teams, I would not put it on this guy as your rear has two blue dice and really for your own survival the Cymoon wants to stay a long range. That brings us lastly to the Kuat, I think the Kuat is one of the few imperial ships whos weapon slot does not have a whole lot of pressure on it rerolls can come from leading shots, your squadron is low so why take flight controllers, you can use it as a blocker and when they shoot you, you get to shoot back, it seems like one of the best options for this card.
So for the Empire what our the "Viable" Ships that can take this upgrade well if I am being a bit generous I would say ISD I, Kuat, Victory I, Victory II for a total of 4 ships. I know I said the ISD II was not a bad pick in a very specific build, but because it requires a very specific build I don't really want to put it on this list. It's a small list of ships and of thoughts in the list only one has seen a lot of play in recent history, the Victory I is definitely making a comeback though. Lets go over the the rebel side and see how their ships fair.
right out of the gate you have the Starhawk, and I actually don't think this is a bad pick take this Unity, and Agate you have a double brace double redirect double salvo ship, that by itself seems pretty solid. MC80 both variations would end up dropping a brace, and that could be pretty scary for such a point investment of a ship just to chuck two extra dice, and no Endevor giving a contian does not work, because of the timing window.
Now for an interesting one the nebulon B, this ship can only take this upgrade it it is the Vanguard, with vanguard you are already switching out a toke with a redirect, but at least it is a may you don't have to if you don't want to not the case for our Local Fire Control System. We will be chucking two extra reds each time we salvo so it kind of becomes like a salvo victory, but for a bit cheaper so not terrible.
I just want to make a brief note that the hammerhead can take this card, but has no dice in its rear arc so this does not matter one bit, it's really as if it could not even take it.
MC-30's they are in the same boat as the Imperial gladiators they really want the ordnance experts, it might be slightly better as we have redundant tokens, but giving up ordnance experts is again steep. The MC-75 Ordnance is the the same boat as the MC-30s, but what about the Armored cruiser? The Armored Cruiser can get rerolls from leading shots, but it's rear is a bit said with just a blue and a black, if you are going to use this ship for a salvo ship it will need to be used as a blocker, much like a Kuat.
Lastly we come to the AF A and B, and the A acctuly likes it a little bit more than the B because more dice, but we have no duplicate tokens, so giving up a token is fairly hard, but doable. We should be getting rerolls from LTT, and outside the starhawk the AF A is the only rebel ship that will be able to chuck 3 salvo dice, it also gets the interesting benefit of paragon, not on the salvo attack but if you salvo then attack that ship out of each arc you will get a black dice for each shot on that ship because you already attacked that ship with your salvo attack this round, so that sounds pretty fun.
So looking at the rebels again being positive I think 6 ships can benefit from this upgrade the AF A, and B, The MC-75 Armored cruiser, a Vanguard Nebulon, and both starhawks, however of these only the Starhawk and the AF a will roll 3 salvo dice.
So at the end of the day I think Local Fire Control System is a better rebel upgrade in that its a bit more viable for more ships, but the Impire can get a bit more punch out of it than the rebels on most of its viable platforms. However I think this upgrade is far more niche and limited than I would have liked, but its what we have its not terrible and I think can be good particularly on a Kuat Avenger and Paragon AF A. I wish it was an officer, or even a special upgrade that took a turbolaser, or Ion or ordnance slot, but I was thinking a Sato AF with Paragon, Ordnance experts and a salvo would have been awesome, but maybe that was why it is the way it is. because it's a replace and not an add it can really be a hard sell on some ships, but really as long as you are not using the weapons team slot for rerolls I think this is a fine option even on most ships that want gunnery teams, as the game a shifted to a game with fewer ships on the table, meaning gunnery teams is a bit less useful and well to take out big ships its best to double arc them anyway. Local Fire Control System will be good when used well, and I think will see more play than is apparent at first glance.
Flagship Bridge
Here is the translation I have for Flagship Bridge "medium or large ship only. flaghips only. Modification. your upgrade bar gains one fleet command icon. You cannot spend a command [token] to Resolve the effect of a fleet command." So this is liberator for your flagship, also it is our first zero point upgrade. I like the idea of flagship only upgrades making them even more important.
So first and foremost this is a modification so you can not take other modifications, and your flagship must be a medium or large ship so this card is a bit of incentive to not put your commander on a small lifeboat, but it is kind of another blow to MSU fleets that are struggling a bit right now.
So where is this going to see play, well the AF might make a comeback in rebel ace list so it can be the flagship and take AFFM for that one turn of extra jump, A Sloan list with AFFM also seams a bit scary. A speed zero starhawk strategy with this and entrapment formation to guarantee you are able to jump back up to speed one, I mean a fleet with Rakehell would probably like this to put up to speed when needed, TEA is also good both EF or TEA can let you sneak in some non navigation commands and still get some benefits a nav command would give you. IF is generally best to constantly have up, but a one turn with more consistency when you can bring all your force to bear is not bad, I would probably stay away from StM.
This is a card that if you have a few points left over and an open offensive retrofit slot, it seams like a good idea to take to make your fleet a little more flexible on a key turn. I think this card will likely see a lot of play, and this makes the ISD I a more appealing ship as it can now take this and another offensive retrofit, but there where a lot of ships that would just leave that slot open, and now we have so many tempting options to fill it even when not running squadorns.
Heavy Fire Zone
I want to talk every so briefly about this card, so I don't get too salty about the inclusion of not one but two copies of this garbage card. We know it now cost 4 points so it is the cheapest turbolaser, so there is that. In addition there is some discrepancy as to if this lets you attack squadrons at long range, if it can do that it makes the card slightly better but brings it up to at best okay on a niche ship. Personally I don't think the card lets you do that as if you don't have long range attack dice at the time of declaring a target the target is not in attack range meaning it's not a legal target selection, but this does need some clarification. I am not against this card being able to do that, but even if it can I still think it is garbage in most cases, if it also did something against ships we could talk, but as is its just plain bad, maybe better than nothing, but I can think of a lot of better upgrades to take to round out your fleet for 4 points.
So we got the Onager card spread, but what about the Starhawk well we got 3 titles one superweapon at least one HFZ shriv wedge Krista officer and commander, in addition to that we will get two Local Fire Control Systems and you can bet money it will have a Flagship Bridge card and with that and I would also put money on it having the IF fleet command as that so far is only in Imperial expansions. With all that it brings us to 13 upgrades, and as the starhawk has 15 upgrades in the box we still got at least 2 more unknown upgrades. Now the starhawk could have two copies of HFZ, but that still leaves us with one unknown upgrade, and if its a third HFZ or so help me...
I doubt this very much, but we will see. I have my hopes up for at least one more card that can have some impact on the game. it sounds like the Starhawk and Onager will launch January 10th, don't quote me no that, but that is at least the rumor so it won't be to long until everything is in our hands. Until next time have a great week!
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