Ultimately, the Ion Cannon is just a disruption weapon, meant to keep attackers off of your tail while you go in for your bombing run (a Y-Wing's primary role is Fighter/Bomber).  You can use it to set a target ship up for your wingmen or you can use it to get away from someone gunning for your back side.  But it is far from a game winning weapon on it's own.

I long to give it a try on the table, but I don't expect it to be the key to my victory.

-DavicusPrime

 The Ion Turret also has three attack dice, compared to the Y-Wing's 2 dice for its primary weapons, make it pretty good.

Remember an X-wing pays 4 points and a target lock to roll an extra attack dice once (proton torpedoes do have other effect but the main one is that extra attack dice.)

So far the two games I've played with the Y-Wing, it's essentially won me the game each time.  Don't know if I would call it OP against the Empire so far, but it really seems that way.  While only 1 defense die is pretty bad, the ship can still absorb 8 hits before it dies which frankly is alot since the Empire has very low damage output in wave 1.  And with the right droid upgrade you get the shields repairin….. yeah right now I would say it's a bit too good.

I'm sure things will even out more with more waves and options for the empire, but it feels beardy to take a fully upgraded Y-Wing currently.  While it may seem like a sitting duck, any smart player will make it a key component to protect in their games and while your escorts and the enemy zoom around each other, the Y-Wing gets to just coast along shooting in a 360 degree arc picking off targets.  I really think the Ion cannon should have been only 2 attack dice instead of 3

Hrathen said:

But the X-wing can do more than 1 damage per turn with its 2 (or 3 with range advantage) dice than the ion cannon can ever do with 3 dice… not sure how the probability works out but its not as cut and dry as you make out..

R2D2 said:

You mean 3 (or 4 with range advantage) dice on an X-Wing. ;)

kaffis said:

I think he meant to say the Y-wing can do more damage with normal lasers than with the ion cannon.

I, however, think that the Y-wing can't expect to do much more than 1 damage on average with it's primary weapon, so the Ion Cannon Turret is a great way to get more out of your attack. The only downside is that you're not going to deal critical damage with the ion cannon.

R2D2 said:

Working on that right now…  The odds for any one out come on a single die and pair of dice has been easy, but working out the probabilities for 3, 4 and 5 are taking some time…  And I'm only working on Attack Dice at this point.  Going with 8 sided dice with specialized symbols and then tossing in all the dice conversion skills and actions definitely makes the probabilities complex to say the least.

Making predictions in this game will be rather interesting.

-DavicusPrime

I'll admit, I don't have a Y-Wing mini, but having played a few games, I can definitely see the value in a weapon that ignores normal LOS restrictions, even if it is only range 1.

From the games I've played, it seems to me that the chief goal is to be able to roll an attack against an enemy, while minimizing their ability to roll attacks against you.

The quality of the dice pool certainly helps, but forcing them to make more evasion rolls is always good.

Next, maneuvering around the enemy is the pretty much the main part of the game, and this turret gives you significant;y more options for rolling attacks while maneuvering around a foe. No longer must you also be concerned about getting the target in your front arc.

KommissarK said:

With the Y-Wings poor maneuverability, it needs that turreted weapon to allow for it to be able to do much in a dogfight.  Minus an Ion Cannon, the Y-Wing would have trouble keeping TIE's in it's sights.  With the heavy shielding and armor, it won't go down easy, but it won't be scoring many hits, much less kills.  The Ion Cannon makes the Y-Wing a real threat rather than the guy you pick off after you vaporize the X's.

The more I read this thread the more I think I should add a 2nd Y to my preorder…  Has anyone sorted out the potential of taking 2 Y's and 2 X's in the same 100pt list? 

-DavicusPrime

 prepare for a data dump:

"xwa",16.5,31.866910738256383,0,100
#,%
0,25
1,25
10,37.5
100,12.5

"2 xwa",33,45.066617356974994,0,200
#,%
0,6.25
1,12.5
2,6.25
10,18.75
11,18.75
20,14.0625
100,6.25
101,6.25
110,9.375
200,1.5625

"3 xwa",49.5,55.19510847892229,0,300
#,%
0,1.5625
1,4.6875
2,4.6875
3,1.5625
10,7.03125
11,14.0625
12,7.03125
20,10.546875
21,10.546875
30,5.2734375
100,2.34375
101,4.6875
102,2.34375
110,7.03125
111,7.03125
120,5.2734375
200,1.171875
201,1.171875
210,1.7578125
300,0.1953125

"4 xwa",66,63.733821476512766,0,400
#,%
0,0.390625
1,1.5625
2,2.34375
3,1.5625
4,0.390625
10,2.34375
11,7.03125
12,7.03125
13,2.34375
20,5.2734375
21,10.546875
22,5.2734375
30,5.2734375
31,5.2734375
40,1.9775390625
100,0.78125
101,2.34375
102,2.34375
103,0.78125
110,3.515625
111,7.03125
112,3.515625
120,5.2734375
121,5.2734375
130,2.63671875
200,0.5859375
201,1.171875
202,0.5859375
210,1.7578125
211,1.7578125
220,1.318359375
300,0.1953125
301,0.1953125
310,0.29296875
400,0.0244140625

You can see this cleaner here

Basically this shows the probabilities of the dice.  Hundreds place is criticals, tens place is hits, ones place is focus, followed by the percentage that's likely.
 

I've also calculated Y-Wing vs TIE fighter in all it's combos.

Basically you have

• 59.29% chance of hitting with the Ion canon, or primary weapon at range 1
• 42.21% chance of hitting with the primary weapon at range 2
• 36.46% chance of hitting with the primary weapon at range 3.  

Chance of multiple hits heads downward of course:

• 41.76% of at least 2 hits at range 1
• 27.87% of at least 2 hits at range 2
• 25.58% of at least 2 hits at range 3

That slight drop off between range 2 and 3 actually suprises me.

 My point was that a y-wing normally only has two attack dice, an Ion-turret having three is a big advantage that people had previously ignored.  Yes an x-wing already has three attack dice and they can do crits as well as multiple hits, but ion0turrets are not an upgrade for x-wings, they are upgrades for y-wings.

having played a few games with TIEs I can tell you that scoring hits with only two attack dice is pretty hard.

DavicusPrime said:

  For 88 points you can field two X-wings and 2 Y-wings with ion cannons, by going with all rookie pilots.  21 points for each Rookie X-Wing Pilot and 18 for a Gold Squadron Pilot plus 5 more each for an Ion cannon turret (23 for the whole ship).  (21+21+23+23 = 88)   This leaves you with 12 "upgrade points" to equip proton torpedoes, astromechs, or swap in your favorite ace pilot.  Of course you wouldn't have to equip the Ion cannons on the Y-Wings but I honestly would rarely consider flying a Y-Wing without one.  

So with 12 "upgrade points" you could get 3 proton torpedoes, leaving 1 ship without missiles (maybe a Y-wing?). OR  I played with 4 astromechs last night a enjoyed it a bunch, cause each ship got a little lovin'.  R2-D2 to recharge shields, R2-F2 to add an agility, one of the R5's to repair hull damage and another R5 to re-acquire target locks…all for dozen points! Not bad for a bunch of trash cans!

Maybe you'd rather invest it into an single elite pilot such as Luke Skywalker.  Swapping out a rookie for Luke is a difference of 7 points (21 for a Rookie        X-Wing, 28 for Luke Skywalker), leaving you 5 more "upgrade points". Perhaps R2-D2 and Determination to increase his survivability.  OR Maybe Wedge and R2-D2 as another great combo for your "upgrade points" (Wedge cost 29pts and R2 cost 4pts)

There is a tons of potential for 2 X-Wings and 2 Y-Wings, they work well together and compliment each others strengths and weaknesses. :-D

- MantoF18

 Thanks for that MantoF18.  Your information is very dangerous to my wallet. 

-DavicusPrime