No events for me this weekend sadly, nothing within a reasonable drive (at least that I was aware of). So in between catching some of GenCon and the ETC (Big up Team England for bringing it home!) I’ve spent the majority of my time tinkering with Mist Hunter builds for 2.0, so I figured I’d just open up my thought process to you all this week in case you’re even vaguely interested in how I go about building a ship.

The starting point is obviously the ship itself. Compared to it’s 1.0 incarnation, the G1-A has gained a point of health, the 0-stop manoeuvre and the Jam action. Even with Jam being somewhat neutered in 2.0 compared to its current form, it’s still nice to have. Sadly it comes at the expense of the Evade action, though with the changes to that also it’s not the end of the world.

One thing that stands out from the point costs available to us now is that there is a high price associated to anything with access to the Force. That must mean it’s pretty good, right? Having access to a soft focus every turn regardless of game state seems pretty strong to say the least, so my first port of call (since Zuckuss sadly didn’t get the inherent force point I was hoping for) was to look at potential crew that might help out here. Sadly, Scum are somewhat lacking in options here (it’s not really their thing) so we have to jump straight to Maul. Thankfully he’s not stupidly broken like in 1.0, but he does give us access to a Force point. He has the ability to regain the point during the turn as well, though only when taking damage and at the cost of a stress token. Still, not bad at all.

Next up, we go to the Sensor slot. This is where I’ve been playing Sensor Jammer in previous builds but unfortunately that no longer exists, at least not yet anyway. So we’re going to have to find something else to go here. I did consider Collision Detector which could be amusing if I also took the Cloaking Device, or even just the title. (Obviously I’m taking the title. Barrel Roll is far too good to not have for just a couple of points). But having been playing Whisper of late, Advanced Sensors is just so unbelievably good. On a ship that has plenty of red, being able to action beforehand sounds like the best option here. And with the addition of Jam we can Jam someone at range 1 of the ship before it moves if it would then be too far away. So far so good.

On to the Talent slot. The pool here is vastly limited in 2.0, at least to begin with. At this point I should point out my intention is to fly this ship alongside Scum Han, who naturally wants to flood the board with obstacles to benefit from his ability more often than not. With nothing leaping off the page at me, Trick Shot at a single point seems good value here as a result, and with Advanced Sensors, getting out of the way of obstacles is a little easier. In a game where dice stacking is less prevalent, getting an extra dice here sounds good, especially if we’re going to have to hide in the obstacles a bit more to make the ship more survivable.

The Modification slot doesn’t appear to offer anything worthwhile at the moment, so I’m happy to leave it empty for now. Who knows what FFG have in the pipeline that might be relevant in the future, but for now it’s a pass. I’ve already mentioned taking the title, so that just leaves the Illicit slot. And this is where my thinking has begun to change regarding the direction I go in. In 1.0 I’ve been playing the Cloaking Device and naturally assumed I’d carry that over. However, with the G1-A now being a Medium base ship, it has access to Rigged Cargo Chute. Along with the one on the Falcon, I can now add an extra two obstacles to the field of play, and fairly substantial ones at that. Debris also nicely ties in with the title on the Scum Falcon, giving an extra attack die against stressed ships. With Advanced Sensors to barrel roll about before moving, I think I can forgo the cloaking, especially as it only now lets you cloak twice per game. The 1.0 version is more unreliable, but has a much bigger payoff if you get a little lucky with your rolls to see if it fails or not. I can even use Advanced Sensors to drop the debris before I move, which seems pretty solid.

So at this point I figured I was done, but do you ever build something and get that nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right? I certainly had something tugging at the back of my mind. And when I analysed it further, I had my doubts that the build really worked with Zuckuss’ strengths. Sure, Maul was nice to have the Force, but there was no way to take advantage of the replenish part of his ability without turning off Advanced Sensors next turn due to the stress. In addition, performing red moves (something I rarely do with the ship in 1.0) was going to severely limit its options the following round. In an environment where maneuvering is more important again as opposed to stacking dice mods, this seemed less than desirable.

I’d been so set in my ways that I hadn’t looked at the obvious choice. As much as I wanted Zuckuss to be the one, his partner in crime was the obvious answer. 4-LOM has been buffed in 2.0, not only does he retain his 1.0 ability of passing stress, he essentially gains a built-in Outlaw Tech, albeit with Calculate instead of Focus. Combined with Advanced Sensors and the Force from Maul, that’s effectively 3 actions a turn when performing a red move! The ability to pass stress off not only works nicely with the list strategy I had planned, but it also can negate Advanced Sensors being turned off. And if you’re not stressed, but have an enemy ship at range 1, you can use Maul’s ability to recharge the Force after being shot, and then pass that stress off at the end of the round. Hey Presto! It’s like it’s meant to be, right?

With the two named pilots being the same Initiative in 2.0 as well, there’s no drop-off in that respect by going to 4-LOM either. In fact 4-LOM is actually two points more expensive this time around; it seems as though higher PS is less-valued in 2.0 in the case of some ships (look at Duchess on the Striker as an example). Clearly 4-LOM’s ability is superior now. And with the Mist Hunter title opening up the cannon slot, we can just chuck a now-cheap Heavy Laser Cannon on there to still get 4 attack dice, though admittedly only on targets in the bullseye arc. Still, that’s a 5 dice shot with Trick Shot in the mix!

And there you have it, a little insight into the inner workings of my brain as I attempt to transpose the G1-A into Second Edition. Will it be any good, though? I literally have no idea, since we really don’t know what is good in relation to everything else right now. Still, it’s going to be a fun puzzle to solve in just over a month.

Happy hunting!