This week, FFG streamed a preview game featuring some of the upcoming ships in wave 4. (Full stream found here). During the stream, a number of new cards were revealed. The one which has garnered the loudest response is the Electro-Proton Bomb, including some claims that the sky is falling, though mixed response overall as to how powerful this new bomb is.

What is it?

(No nice high-res images, just screenshots from the stream. Text typed out clearly alongside)

Electro-Proton Bomb Bomb

During the System Phase, you may spend 1 charge to drop an Electro-Proton Bomb with the 1-straight template. Then place 1 fuse marker on that device.

This card’s charge cannot be recovered. It has 1 charge. Uses a Device and a Modification upgrade slot. Requires the Reload action to equip.

Electro-Proton Bomb

At the end of the Activation Phase, this device detonates.

When this device detonates, each ship at range 0-2 rolls 4 attack dice. Each ship loses 1 shield for each blank result, gains 1 ion token for each focus/hit result and gains 1 disarm token for each critical hit result.

Fuse Marker

A device is Fused while it has at least one fuse marker.

When a device would detonate, if it is fused, one fuse marker is removed from that device instead.

Explodes with range of 0-2, each ship rolls 4 dice and every die result does something negative. Absolute CHAOS.

Restrictions

To compensate for the large effect, this device is quite restrictive. The first restriction is equipping it. It uses both a Device and a Modification slot ( no Ablative Plating for you Edit : doesn’t matter, re-read the damn cards Nathan!) as well as requires the equipping ship to have the Reload action, which eliminates quite a few potential options. What ships can equip it:

Rebels – Y-Wing, K-Wing

– Y-Wing, K-Wing Empire – TIE Punisher, TIE Bomber

– TIE Punisher, TIE Bomber Scum – Y-Wing, Firespray with Andrasta

– Y-Wing, Firespray with Andrasta Resistance – Starfortress

– Starfortress First Order – None

– None Republic – Y-Wing (coming in Wave 5)

– Y-Wing (coming in Wave 5) Separatists – Hyena

I can think of at least one potential bombing menace (notorious from 1st edition) absent from that list. The Scurrg can’t reload. No Captain Nym .

F

Edit 2: Yes, you can pair Captain Nym with a separate Electro-Proton Bomb carrier to use his ability on it. If you really want to. Worthwhile? We’ll have to wait and see

The next restriction is that little dot next to the name, indicating it is limited to one per squad (unique). Only one allowed. Can’t spam them. And it has a single charge which cannot be recovered. Bomb only happening once.

The other restriction is the fuse. The electro-proton bomb has a turn of beeping and flashing its warning lights telling everyone to fly the heck away. This will likely give most ships the choice of avoiding the explosion with their maneuvers and actions in the following planning/activation phases before the bomb explodes. It may prove difficult to actually hit enemy ships, but if it’s not hitting them, it will serve as an area control/denial piece for a very significant area.

The fuse is also necessary for ensuring you don’t get hit by you’re own bomb. With the larger explosion radius, very few single maneuvers will get you out of the danger zone. (Small base would need to go 4-5 straight, medium/large 3-5 straight or 3 bank. Of course repositions make this easier) And you can’t take Ablative Plating to ignore the explosion ( the playtesting works ). The fuse ensures you have enough time to avoid being hit by your own bomb.

The Punisher, Starfortress and (presumably) Hyena can take everyone’s favorite card Trajectory Simulator. But it’s even harder to avoid if you’re crazy enough to want to launch it*, with no single maneuver finishing outside the explosion radius. Yes you have an extra turn to get away from it, but then why are you launching it, if you have to then turn drastically and fly away? *Trajectory Simulator is still really good. I won’t be surprised if there’s a squad that makes good use of this

Maths

How bad are the effects really? What are the chances of different nasty combinations happening?

Other people have already crunched the numbers, so why would I do it again. Maths with working taken from Onyx Squadron on Facebook. I didn’t check it completely, but the process looks good. Here’s a neat summary:

41.38% chance of 1+ disarm tokens (having more than 1 disarm is the same as 1 in almost all cases, they all get removed at the end of the round.

tokens (having more than 1 disarm is the same as 1 in almost all cases, they all get removed at the end of the round. 98.02% chance of ionized for small based ship, 84.84% for medium based ship, 51.88% for large based ship.

for small based ship, 84.84% for medium based ship, 51.88% for large based ship. 68.36 chance of losing at least one shield token (26.17% for 2+, 5.08% for 3+, 0.39% for 4)

A ship with no shields remaining (or had none to start with), has a 0.39% chance of being unaffected . Or a small based ship has a 5.86% chance of becoming ionized, receiving a disarm token AND losing 2 shields.

How bad is it? You be the judge (for now, until people start playing with it, and see how it really effects things)

The alternative is you can always not get hit by it , by simply flying away. Can always not be hit by it. Range 2 is big, but having a whole turn to get out of the explosion should be more than enough.

Conclusion

Can’t really make a definite conclusion until points are out or some table time has been had. But I don’t think the sky is falling, everything is fine. It’s an interesting new area control/denial piece.

And there may well be other cards we haven’t that interact with it, particularly with the fuse mechanic, adding or removing fuses. Who knows?

Other Revealed Cards

There were a number of other new cards for Wave 4 revealed on stream, which can be found by either rewatching the stream or in this handy Imgur album linked by FFG forum user svelok.

Plasma Torpedoes look good, Padme looks pretty intriguing (both points cost depending of course). And glad to see the designers are in on the memes with barrel rolling kid Anakin and DBS-404: Preservation Protocol Not Found.

“I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick!”

-Nathan