X-Wing can be a fun game. Tower Defense can be a fun game. But the two probably shouldn’t mix…

But here’s a silly combo, to get a wall of unlimited Proton Bombs around your homely little corner of the board, and never have to move. Fort Nathan shall not be breached.

Tower Defense

Bombardment Drone Hyena-class Droid Bomber (32)

Trajectory Simulator (10), Proton Bombs (5), Delayed Fuses (1), Landing Struts (1) – Total: 49

Bombardment Drone Hyena-class Droid Bomber (32)

Trajectory Simulator (10), Proton Bombs (5), Delayed Fuses (1), Landing Struts (1) – Total: 49

Bombardment Drone Hyena-class Droid Bomber (32)

Trajectory Simulator (10), Proton Bombs (5), Delayed Fuses (1), Landing Struts (1) – Total: 49



(Limited 3, so… the playtesting works?)

Trajectory Simulator…. huh. That’s a familiar name in a degenerate idea.

So the idea is land these 3 Bombardment Drones on obstacles and launch out Proton Bombs with Trajectory Simulator. And stay there with Landing Struts. And then reload the Proton Bombs to rinse and repeat.

realizing they can red reload the bombs and clear the stress with Struts, and do this forever pushed it over the edge for me

The Delayed Fuses are just gravy, for extra shenanigans.

“Can’t you just fly around that, it’s not covering all approach angles”

Then the next part of Landing Struts kicks in, allowing them all to rotate 90 degrees….

There. All angles covered.

Here’s the bombs for both rotations combined:

They say a picture speaks 1000 words.

Set Up?

Pretty easy. This first initial attempt that builds a wall with no holes took less than 10 minutes of messing around (even easier than making the 6th obstacle unplaceable). Turn them around, do a 4 straight to deployment zone and see where they should start.

A bit more time spent and preparation and it could be pretty easily honed to work with less ideal obstacle placements. And there’s a fair bit overlap in places in my wall, so room to move or not get it perfect. They have 5 straights too, so the obstacles don’t even need to be range 2 from your board edge.

Then there’s another 53 points to do something with. Goodness knows what’s best to do with that. A couple of vultures? A Kraken Belbullab to let the Bombardments hold some calculates? Something that’s just going to hide in the corner behind the safety of the wall.

Counterplay

Element of surprise is probably a big thing with this squad, but once you see all the pieces, there are definitely ways to beat it. There’s also no Harpoon Missiles and/or Twin Laser Turrets to contend with after the bombs.

Flying around it isn’t impossible, can approach at multiple vectors, as the wall isn’t in both places at once (except for well timed Delayed Fuses), and rotating the Hyenas is telegraphed as you have to rotate after launching the Proton Bomb for the round. Some fun bluffing could be employed with approaching maneuvers, betting on if there will be a Fuse laid down or not.

Well timed 5 straight+boosts can also get you safely past the danger zone

Fly through it. A lot of things can handle taking a shield or 2 per ship from the Proton bombs, and then there isn’t really too much to contend with once you’re through that. Three 2 attack, 2 agility, 5 hull drones, plus whatever else squeezed in isn’t really scary at all. There just isn’t really anything with teeth you can put there

The Bombardment Drones have the pilot ability to launch the bombs 1 forward as well, but they will be doing as much damage to themselves.

Pour one out for any TIE (or Vulture) swarm trying to fly through it, where getting hit by the Proton Bomb wall could be quite detrimental.

Or Pregame: take gas clouds and a bigger bid. Get to choose where 2 of the 3 asteroids/debris go, and place them on your side of the table. Nothing for the Hyenas to camp out on.

Verdict

Is it good? Maybe/Unlikely. Can you play around/through it? Probably. Is it stupid and degenerate? Yes.

The more I think about it, the worse it sounds, but was mildly terrified at how easy it was to build a full wall of unlimited bombs.

Maybe 2 would be better, to still create a large zone of area denial, and allow for some more punch when the wall is breached. With 3 of these ~50 point proton bomb launchers, there really isn’t much else.

But it’s probably something to keep an eye on, if they get cheaper, or some better Separatist stuff comes out to fill out the squad. Some extra bite behind the wall could make it a lot nastier.

The design of Landing/Grappling Struts seems pretty clear to park these droids on obstacles, but I doubt a full circle of Trajectory Simulated Proton bombs probably wasn’t the intended outcome. They’re not overlapping, and anything else in the squad can park up Strut their stuff on a rock or do doughnuts in the corner, so its not ‘fortressing’.

Moral of the story:

bad card, recipe for disaster, dumb as sh*t -> (don’t know why it got reprinted for second edition)

-Nathan

Happy America day Americans, you’re all about building walls, right?