SW-7 vs Overload Pulse on a CR-90B

[Iskander4000 142]

Trying to work a blue corvette into my list in a support role, to soften things up before the heavies go at it. The obvious choice should be overload pulse but then I started thinking about SW-7. First of all, it doesn't rely on you rolling a crit. Second, guaranteeing 3 hits (or 4 with CF, which can be easily done since the command value is only one) can force your opponent to make a hard choice--do they use defense tokens early, and try their luck against your heavy hitters? Or do they conserve the tokens and take the damage? Finally, overload pulse is most effective if you activate the corvette first. This can mean that in certain situations, you have to choose between either activating the corvette when you don't want to, or wasting the overload pulse.

 

What do you guys think? Am I missing something here? Let's assume for argument's sake that point cost isn't an issue.

[Chris RR 19]

I like over load pulse in them. Stripping all there defense tokens is just awesome epsecillyearly in a game. Leaves them really open to lots of damage

[MoffZen 760]

Well, let's forget about the card from Overload Pulse for a moment

 

A regular CR90B benefits most from setting up a double arc against another (preferably larger) ship. And with that, you usually aim for having the initiative, that way you can activate it last (provided you have an activation advantage), set it up, then pump your shots first and move away.

 

Now, with a double arc and a CF command, I found that the most effective use was to split up 3 and 3 (side arc + CF, regular front). With a 0,75 damage average per dice, each attack throws 2.25 damage for a total of 4.5 split into two. The good bit, due to being smaller shots, is that while they usually don't tempt the Brace, they can bait the Redirects through multiple attacks, and let's be honest : 4.5 damage is more than the front hull of an Imperial class. If you can maneuver that little ship around and be out of the main guns, it's going to be pretty annoying to deal with if it can do that for a couple turn on the same ship.

 

As a side note, we see how FFG truly managed to capture the essence of the ship : it's supposed to be filled with Ion Cannons which are typically used to strip shields off and disable the enemy ships. By acticating first with more reliable dice, it's actually quite annoying for the enemy without really throwing much in the way of damage.

 

____

 

Now that this is out of the way : let's think for a moment that the upgrade cards do not define the role of a ship, but help it out. We said that the role (in the fluff, and I know it might sound outlandish but I feel FFG has gone a great deal to translate fluff into mechanics) was to strip shields off and/or to disable the enemy ships :

- SW7 Ion Cannons help to strip shields off by securing the total number of damage, but they come with a caveat. With the CF command on the side arc, the CR90 is going to throw 6 damage. If I'm flying and ISD, and I know that a heavy hitter (like an Ackbar MC80 in blue range) is coming, it's going to be preferable to only spend one redirect and take the shields off, in order to keep the brace for the larger attack (assuming the ISD is fresh). By keeping the Brace and an extra redirect (with another full hull zone of shields and 1 remaining on the front), the ISD can tank 8 damage from the MC80 without even glancing the hull. In effect, the CR90 will have done its job of stripping shields off. The reason why your opponent wouldn't Brace is because he'll only remove 1 damage from the token and still get hit by 2, which isn't the proper way to use the Brace token.

- Overload Pulse, on the other hand, is much more unreliable but it works the other way around : you are giving up a bit of your efficiency in stripping shields off like the SW7 Ion Cannons afford, but you are getting a chance to completely disable the enemy's defenses on a 83% chance per attack (with 6 dice thrown at the enemy provided you've set up your double arc correctly, you only have a 17% chance of not getting a critical hit, so in 4 cases out of 5 you're going to land it). At that point, the enemy has no choice but to spend its defense tokens : so while you might not have depleted its shields very much, you've effectively rendered it much much more vulnerable to the throw of a big hitter, because either he takes the full hit, either he discards the Brace.

[Iskander4000 142]

Very interesting, thank you! I'm thinking OP is definitely worth it if you have capital ships in your list. Now suppose we don't have any heavy hitters but rathwr a MSU swarm...would SW-7 make more sense then?

Edited January 25, 2016 by Iskander4000

[Ardaedhel 10,807]

Very interesting, thank you! I'm thinking OP is definitely worth it if you have capital ships in your list. Now suppose we don't have any heavy hitters but rathwr a MSU swarm...would SW-7 make more sense then?

Yes. I run an 8x CR90B/SW7 Rieekan swarm and these things are crazy painful. Timed right, 4 of them with double arcs will take down a large ship in one round. It essentially negates the brace token (brace off one damage? K.), and overwhelms all the others.

The nice thing about SW-7 is the absolute reliability: often you'll find yourself over-committing resources to take down a particularly crucial target because who knows what the dice might do, right? With SW-7, you just add up how many of them you need, put that many in place and send the rest somewhere else to start working on another target.

And the Moff above is exactly right: when you CF and double arc, CF your side arc. 3/3 is way worse for the defender to take than 4/2, especially over 4 pairs of shots.

[MoffZen 760]

Very interesting, thank you! I'm thinking OP is definitely worth it if you have capital ships in your list. Now suppose we don't have any heavy hitters but rathwr a MSU swarm...would SW-7 make more sense then?

 

Yeah, that would make more sense, because you'll be depleting the shields for targeted strikes on specific hull zones with other smaller ships or squadrons. These don't care much about the Brace, but the shields are a pain, so SW7 lock down the redirects by effectively dropping the shields down.

 

If you have more than one CR90B however, investing in ECM is going to be a given. At medium range, their Redirect is invaluable as it can effectively allow them to shrug off 2 damage to an adjacent hull zone. You want to aim them to be in the opponent's side arc (against imperials) or front arc (against Rebels) though, because it's going to take 8 damage to smoke a CR90B with ECM that hasn't been touched yet, and few ships are able to do that when caught off guard. 

[Iskander4000 142]

Thanks everyone!

[Lyraeus 4,759]

I feel like a video might help here. . .