In Second Edition, secondary weapons got a huge makeover just like everything else. Some didn’t make it for the obvious reason of being overpowered. Things like the Twin Laser Turret and Harpoon Missiles upset game balance so much that they replaced nearly every other turret and missile in the game. Other secondaries made it into 2E with some tweaks: torpedoes dropped lock spending requirements, most missiles saw some overhaul to their function, and turrets became mobile arcs. But what of the non-OP secondaries that didn’t make the cut? What tweaks can be done to bring them over, making them usable but not abusive? Certainly some unused ordnance needs a buff to see use, and perhaps some of the strong secondaries could be brought over with a bit of a power limiter to reign in the OP.

I intend to explore the secondary weapons that didn’t make the transition and give some suggestions on how they could be updated for variety, using some of the new tools of Second Edition as well (i.e. Bull’s-eye and Charges).

Turrets

Turrets have already taken a strong hit now that they are all mobile firing arcs. With that built-in nerf, most of the turrets can be translated immediately with little modification. Primarily Kavil and Broadside are the rub with most of the balancing, but two strong Y-Wings should be manageable.

Autoblaster Turret – With the reduction of turrets into mobile firing arcs, we could probably leave this one as a range one, single arc turret with the same un-cancellable crits that the cannon has. With such a narrow range of fire, you would almost deserve to take the damage. We would need to reduce the attack value down to one, since range bonuses would pump it back up to two (with the exception of Kavil) and make it similar to the cannon that your crits cannot be cancelled if you are not in the defender’s front arc.

Synced Turret – This lackluster 1E turret could be utilized if the inbuilt rerolls worked for non-forward arcs too as long as the target was locked. To counter that new strength, limit the free re-rolls to one die, similar to how FCS works now. Single arc, 3 dice, range 1-2, target must be locked.

Blaster Turret – This turret was one of the lamest upgrades in 1st edition. Spend focus to attack? No thanks. We can make it like Barrage Rockets where you must be focused to use it, to keep the same flavor without the drawback of spending the token just to fire. It can keep the same range and attack die, but much like Barrage Rockets, if you don’t get a focus action or you spend your focus before your shot, your secondary is effectively neutered.

Twin Laser Turret – My first reaction to this turret was a solid NOPE. It garners so much ill will, why even bother? But perhaps we can use 2E’s strengths to our advantage. Limit this sucker to one arc and make it a single, standard 2 die attack. With the added defensive range bonus against this turret at range three, that shouldn’t sting too badly. Since we lose a bit of fluff on the “twin” part of Twin Laser Turret, let’s add in two non-recurring charges that let you perform a bonus attack if you spend a charge. That gives us our “twin” but also limits the double-tap use without making the turret over bearing. It may be strong with VTG since it could trigger on range 2-3 instead of 1-2, but a 2 die shot at range 3 isn’t super strong.

Cannons

Cannons are actually my inspiration for writing this post. With the exception of maybe Heavy Laser Cannon and the new Autoblaster Cannon, they are all pretty “meh”. Ships with three die attack would rather just shoot normally, the M3-A Interceptor is just a hair too expensive to put a sub-par cannon on, and the Starwings have better options using munitions. The Upsilon’s linked battery ship ability may add some complication to this list, but with a four die primary, it will always be tempted to shoot that instead of the cannon.

Flechette Cannon – With the reduction of weaponized stress in 2E, I understand how this cannon didn’t make the cut, but as with most of the other stressors that made their way into 2E (Asajj, 0-0-0, Victor Hel) we could fix it by adding choice to the equation. Flechette would deal full damage, but after defending and before dealing damage, the defender could cancel any hits or crits remaining down to one and receive a stress for each result cancelled.

“Mangler” Cannon – The “Mangler” cannon could be updated by making the simple change of only being able to change the hit to a crit if the defender is in your bullseye arc. That may be a little over-powered at range one because of the range bonus, so we can limit the range to 2-3 if need be. Also, get rid of the quotes around mangler unless the cannon was named after Heinrich Mangler.

ARC Caster – This one is a bit tricky, despite not seeing much use in First Edition. I’m tempted to leave it at four dice so the M3-A’s can pretend to be Fenn Rau every other turn when you take the range bonus into account, but the chance of self harm and the disabled token may not be enough to counteract a 5 die attack. It would be absolutely devastating on an Upsilon, a ship that would pump the range one attack up to SIX DICE. Sick. Also, the Upsilon doesn’t mind taking a weapons disabled occasionally since in plenty of instances, it won’t have a shot at anything. But if you drop the dice count, it would really only be useful on the M3-A and the Starwing, since the majority of cannon ships have a three die primary anyway. But perhaps giving those two ships a 4 die range 1 attack isn’t so bad.

Linked Battery – This “cannon” doesn’t really need to be brought back into the game. Free action economy doesn’t really jive with the majority of 2E’s philosophy. FCS has taken this role, and the name has already be co-opted by the Upsilon ship ability.

Torpedoes

Torpedoes have made a comeback in a big way in Second Edition, but really only in the Proton variety. In fact, Proton Torps seem to be the “go-to” munition; but with some variety in the family, maybe we would see other warheads flying our way.

Flechette Torpedoes – Use the same concept as the Flechette Cannon, except pump up the attack dice to 4, drop the ”spend a lock” requirement, and make it a two charge torpedo. It would be cheaper than the Proton Torp since the results could be canceled down, but that would still be nice since your opponent could potentially triple stress themselves to minimize damage, which is almost as good.

Seismic Torpedoes – I imagine this torpedo will make its appearance again since we can now Lock obstacles, and the only use for that currently is Qi’ra crew. Since we would be using an attack and a Lock action to blow up the obstacle, it should be one automatic damage similar to the seismic charges instead of rolling two dice to maybe do damage. Keep the range restriction to 1-2, that way you couldn’t Lock a rock at range three to get auto-damage on ships beyond range three. Perhaps keep it at one charge, as it shouldn’t be super easy to remove all of the obstacles from the game.

Extra Munitions – This card really isn’t needed anymore. It was a band-aid for ordnance that has been healed with charges. An argument could be made for making this add a single, non-recurring charge for a missile, torpedo, or device, which I am not against, but I think we are fine where we are at.

Renegade Refit and Bomb Loudout – These aren’t really needed since they were just bandaids for ships. With the way pricing and upgrades slots can be changed now, the job’s been filled.

Missiles

In Second Edition, missiles seem to have more personality than torpedoes currently, making them nicely distinct from torpedoes (which should be more akin to reliable spike damage). Currently, only Barrage Rockets and Energy Shell Charges truly seem to see play due to pricing. Homing Missiles made a showing early on, but I suspect that is because they were super cheap at three points.

Scrambler Missiles – In the Harpoon Missiles meta of 1E, these missiles never saw real play, but they have potential now. AoE Jam with an ISB Slicer nearby sounds brutal. We could also have it deal one pip of damage; otherwise, it would need to be on a high initiative ship to get real use, so it would still be fairly limited. Make it three charges and cheap. (With Mag Pulse Warheads popping into existence, we have received a psuedo-Scrambler, so we can probably pass over these.)

Cruise Missiles – This, I feel, should be the “go to” missile. It took some skill to use in 1E since you were so dang predictable with it compared to the Harpoons that came out at the same time. Needing to go 3+ speed to maximize damage while maintaining range 2-3 and being able to acquire lock required some skill, so I feel like this munition can carry over to 2E largely unscathed. I would make it take a missile slot and a modification slot as well, for a couple of different reasons. First, it stops TIE/v1, TIE/d, and both types of A-Wings from taking them as they don’t have modification slots. Those ships either have too strong of a fast dial or have force or an evade that could double mod the Cruise Missile too easily. The other reason is to prevent Afterburners abuse. Darth Vader doing a five straight, followed by a Afterburners boost, then double modding the shot would be over the top. If Vader wants these missiles, he’ll need to make a choice about his mod slot. Also, have it only work for standard maneuvers since you really wouldn’t be gaining any speed off of a K-turn.

Harpoon Missiles – Unlike TLT, I actually am a little less averse to making a suggestion to convert this secondary. Without Guidance Chips, these would sting less anyway. First, we drop it down to three attack dice and leave spike damage to torpedoes, otherwise people will take it just for the four dice. Second, we must minimize as much of the condition text as we can. There were far too many caveats and corollaries as to how and when damage was dealt, leading to judge headaches from weird timing interactions. Change it to this:

Harpooned! When you are defending, if you suffered critical damage, after dealing damage each ship at Range 0-1 suffers 1 damage. Then discard this card. When you are destroyed, each other ship at Range 0-1 suffers 1 damage. Action: Discard this card.

This gets rid of the weird timing of dealing a damage card before damage is dealt and gets rid of the damage under the shields. One card doesn’t need 30 different triggers. Also, altering the action for removing the “Harpooned!” condition to just an action is punishment enough. Losing an action with a 50% chance to inflict self-harm was just too obnoxious. Either way, we didn’t lose much by this missile not making the jump to Second Edition, and it would be fine for it to stay in 1st.

Assault Missiles – This missile was supposed to be the anti-swarm missile in 1E, but was hampered by the silly “spend a lock” requirement that most ordnance had. The role of this missile has largely been duplicated by Diamond Boron Missiles, so we can pass on converting this one.

Adv. Homing Missiles – I’m really not certain what to do with this missile. 2E Homing Missiles already play a really niche role. Perhaps, make it a 5 die missile that is restricted to a single range band, but it can be cancelled by the defender if they receive one exposed damage card? One charge, and costed appropriately? I dunno.

XX-23 Thread Tracers – I have mixed feelings on this particular munition. In the current 2E landscape of low action economy, does it have the possibility of being too good? Perhaps not, since it still needs to hit, and it is a lost attack either way. Maybe not much needs to change on this guy to transition. If it ends up being powerful, up it’s points.

Illicits

You thought we were done didn’t you? But no, there is one other secondary weapon that can be converted into the new X-Wing Era…

“Hot Shot” Blaster – I’d like to see this one make a return, as time on target is an essential part of strategy. Rebels have taken great advantage of time on target with Leia, and RZ-2 A-Wings and TIE/sf’s exploit multiple firing arcs to ensure they are always getting shots. I toyed with the idea of making this a turret arc, but that would play merrihob with abilities like outmaneuver and the like, not to mention adding confusion to which arc is which if a ship has the “Hot Shot” Blaster in addition to a turret arc. So to limit the upgrade just a little and to give it a personality of its own, make it a side arc only. We have yet to see a side-to-side-only bow-tie arc, and it’s time to take advantage of those arcs.

That is my take on how we could bring these upgrades into Second Edition. What are your thoughts? How would you update these secondary weapons to make the transition? Should some of these upgrades stay back in First Edition? Let us know.

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