Leading shots was for a long time the king of the ion cannon upgrade slot. However, after its point increase, and after playing it several times I personally think it is pretty lackluster for 6 points now. In essence leading shots help negate a really bad roll, but there are many other options for dice fixing so while leading shots went up in cost it also has more competition, and it’s left the card in a pretty bad spot in my opinion. I can see arguments for it in certain places, but it’s but while using it in those places I just kept asking myself why am not taking something else for dice fixing? So what should go in your ion slot these days?
Crit effects have kind of taken a pretty big hit with the evade changes, I have personally found it very hard to get crits to stick recently so I am a little down on those right now. However, both Heavy Ion Emplacements and Ion Cannon Batteries are great picks if you can get them to connect. It is going to be hard to get crits to stick to smalls these days, so cirts are mostly received for the big ships so you should put crit effects on your big ship hunters. HIE is great for working through shields, the same goes for the cheaper ICB sure if your opponent has a command token they dump that instead, but command tokes are valuable and ICB is one of the few critical effects in the game that does not exhaust that alone can arguably make it the best crit effect in the game. Again remember both these cards are better at going after large ships without evades so if that is what you are putting in your ion slot your roll is to kill big ships.
I do at least want to touch briefly on MS-1 Ion Cannons. With cards needing tokes to un-exhaust this card is a bit more valuable, and if you find yourself with a few extra points. This is a pretty good pick over nothing at all. It can very quickly shut down Jedi Hostage in TF lists. Also having this hit from the side arc of an ISD to exhaust ECM and then following up with a frontal attack is pretty devastating. Its for sure no auto-include, but it is worth considering.
NK-7s and Overload Pulse just do yourself a favor and put them in the binder and never look back. They are to expensive for the effect they give, there are better ways to do what you are wanting to do with these some other way. Keep them in the binder.
SW-7 is a very solid card if you have 3 or move blue dice this is a great pick. You have 100% chance of damage add in Intensify firepower and you have some amazingly consistent damage. This is not for all ships, but if you have 3 or more blue dice this card I really think is underrated take it you will be surprised how much it can help your consistency.
Point Defense Ion Cannons, I mean I don’t think I have to say much this is the card that is slowly becoming the new auto-include, particularly in squadron light builds. However, It should not be underestimated on a ship that wants to get into close range and stay there like a Kuat it will boost your survivability more than you think against ships. This is a very unique Ion upgrade as well nothing is quite like it in this slot and it is so good it just always works nothing your opponent can do about it, honestly, it maybe should have been limited to one hull zone by using a chaff token or something as is it is absolutely amazing for its effect.
Ion cannon slot is in kind of a weird spot, I don’t think its in the same spot as the ordnance slot where ex-racks is pretty much all you will see there. You have multiple good options PDICs does tend to be the one that comes out on top, but SW-7 is really nice, and HIE can be devastating, ICB will help you drill through a hull zone shields or burn through a ships command tokens. What are your thoughts about the Ion slot? Do you find leading shots to be dead weight now? Until next time have a great week!
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