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Just wondering if y'all think that the imperial equivalent of the u-boat list will become a thing to be feared as much as the scum version. ..

At base it could be 4x gamma squadron veteran (deadeye, plasma torps &extra munitions ) with room to do some interesting upgrades if you drop 1... higher PS than the u-boats and an extra target & set of torpedoes

Doubt it.

Jumpmasters have a turret primary weapon and a good dial to back them up after they fire off all of their ordnance, plus the added benefits of crew and astromech slots (R4 Agromech + Deadeye has lots of synergy). I don't see gammas coming close to U-boats at all, personally.

It won't happen. U-boats are good for two reasons:

1) The powerful synergy between deadeye and the R4 agromech. Deadeye lets you fire without all of the difficulties of getting a target lock and it gives you dice modification like you didn't have to spend an action to fire. Bombers, for obvious reasons, can't do that.

2) A strong stat line outside of the torps. U-boats have 9 HP with a decent shield/hull ratio, a very good dial, and a turret primary weapon. If your alpha strike is effective you can finish off whatever is left fairly consistently, and it's very hard to kill a u-boat before it can fire. Bombers, on the other hand, have a terrible stat line. You have 6 HP with no shields, a bad dial, and a weak primary weapon. So you aren't going to scare anything once your torps are gone, and it's pretty likely that one bomber will be dead before it can fire.

I think the latter more than the former: The fact that even three aces concentrating fire is unlikely to drop a Jumpmaster before it shoots is a big deal, and with a white segnor's loop they're a lot more able to line up their second torpedo shot.

If it was simply a question of dice modification, there are ways to achieve that (Jonus, for example) but as you say, the biggest issue is that once the alpha strike has gone in, three empty jumpmasters will almost certainly have a better chance against whatever's left than four empty bombers.

Where the TIE bomber wins is that you can fit in a TIE bomber with a torpedo almost as a 'throwaway' filler element; if you have 1-2 aces and a mini 'swarm', you can trade a couple of TIE fighters for a bomber far more easily than you could fit a torpedo-armed jumpmaster into a Scum list.

A cheap bomber can be very cheap indeed, and still be just nasty enough to keep people nervous. Long Ranged Scanners, for example, is a bad idea on an expensive veteran with multiple torpedoes, but for a Scimitar with a single torpedo on board it's not bad - you get rid of the pilot skill/target lock issues, and can get your torpedo shot with both target lock and focus - meaning you can afford to take cheaper (and if you have a focus token arguably better) plasma torps instead of proton torpedoes.

Yes, you have to telegraph your target lock a turn ahead of time, and yes, your opponent could respond by breaking off with that ship, but that in and of itself is not a bad thing.

A ship so equipped (Scimitar Squadron Pilot, Plasma Torpedoes, Long Ranged Scanners) costs just 19 points. It's quite possible to kill it before it fires, but it'll probably take a disproportionate amount of fire to do so (because, again, it'll have a focus token - which with agility 2 isn't all that bad at dodging for a cheap ship and unlike the jumpmaster it can spend said token and still launch torpedoes later)..... but once it's fired it's torps, it's utterly disposable, and at PS2, is a decent, tough blocker.


One of the most important things to do: don't try to make "an imperial U-boat list" any more than you can make "a rebel palp aces" - that's not to say you can't make a squad as dangerous, but it won't work the same way. For Imperial squads, ordnance in small games is best used in a supporting role.

In Epic games, Imperial ordnance is bloody devastating. Ordanance Tubes raiders, and squadron-strength formations of TIE Bombers and TIE punishers, where those few points saved translate to multiple extra ships, are terrifying. But not in small games.

locarno24 wrote:
Where the TIE bomber wins is that you can fit in a TIE bomber with a torpedo almost as a 'throwaway' filler element; if you have 1-2 aces and a mini 'swarm', you can trade a couple of TIE fighters for a bomber far more easily than you could fit a torpedo-armed jumpmaster into a Scum list.

A cheap bomber can be very cheap indeed, and still be just nasty enough to keep people nervous. Long Ranged Scanners, for example, is a bad idea on an expensive veteran with multiple torpedoes, but for a Scimitar with a single torpedo on board it's not bad - you get rid of the pilot skill/target lock issues, and can get your torpedo shot with both target lock and focus - meaning you can afford to take cheaper (and if you have a focus token arguably better) plasma torps instead of proton torpedoes.

Yes, you have to telegraph your target lock a turn ahead of time, and yes, your opponent could respond by breaking off with that ship, but that in and of itself is not a bad thing.

A ship so equipped (Scimitar Squadron Pilot, Plasma Torpedoes, Long Ranged Scanners) costs just 19 points. It's quite possible to kill it before it fires, but it'll probably take a disproportionate amount of fire to do so (because, again, it'll have a focus token - which with agility 2 isn't all that bad at dodging for a cheap ship and unlike the jumpmaster it can spend said token and still launch torpedoes later)..... but once it's fired it's torps, it's utterly disposable, and at PS2, is a decent, tough blocker.

Thanks for the great point(s)... I've sometimes struggled to figure out how to spend the last 20 or so points in a list (not enough for omega leader) and a Scimitar with LRS has some decent potential. .. especially with, say, homing missiles so you can use both TL and focus on the attack.

And your point about forcing one ship to break off is perfectly valid, that's definitely a good thing in my book. ..

Already play-tested this list. It really is an all or nothing setup. While you get the Focus shooting from Deadeye, you don't get the R4 mechs subsequent Target Lock...though you do get one free hit from Chimps.
In the first game (against a supoer Dash (kanaan crew) + Poe) I rolled really good and was getting 3-4 hit/crits each roll. This killed Poe and hurt dash. The next round of missiles killed Dash.
Resetting, the second game my rolls were more average 1-2 hit/crits) and Poe evaded most everything and had a token left to regen shields. Lost a Bomber in the exchange. The next turn was a forced bump-fest leaving the bombers tokenless. Another bomber taken down to 1 hull.
And so it went with 3 Bombers dieing with munitions still unused.

Its nice getting the EPT, but without the T/L to cover your focus/miss rolls your still down to hoping you roll really good.
I suspect strait up against Toilets your going to have the same problem. He's averaging 3-4 hit/crits from 3 shots (killing a bomber and hurting a second) and your getting 1-2 hits in...probably not even killing a toilet in round 1. And every Crit hurts a bomber while he can sluff off the first few on shields.
And once your missiles are gone its your bomber (not exactly as maneuverable as Soontir) against a Turret.