Can anyone argue that X-Wing ordnance is at all useful?

The vast majority of the time I've tried to use missiles or torpedoes, they've been a waste of points. Since they're all one-shot weapons, it's difficult to set up a decent shot that will genuinely have impact and/or stay in the necessary range window and, of course, they're subject to RNGesus. In trying to address the problem, FFG brought in Munitions Failsafe, which just makes me think that all missiles/torpedoes are overcosted by 1. Clearly, I'm not alone here, as ordnance has been absent in most of the major top 8s, if not completely, and people have been running lists with empty TIE Bombers.

Has anyone had a good experience with it?

Proton Torpedoes are clearly overcosted, other missiles/torps have their uses.

First of all, Assault Missile is phenomenal against TIE swarms. We took two of these in an Epic Match we had and knocked out 2/3rds of 8 TIEs Hull points (including inflicting two damage on a Stealth Deviced Howlrunner).

Concussion Missiles are pretty solid on Vader as he can Focus and Target lock in one round.

Rhymer is nasty with Advanced Proton Torpedoes, those can take down a large ship pretty quickly.

Homing Missiles can certainly be worth their points against either a TIE swarm or the Millenium Falcon.

Cluster Missiles generally suck but they may be very good against the Decimator due to its 0 Agility.

Flechette Torps rock. Seriously, inflicting stress is huge.

I've seen the new Ion missiles work pretty well, they can totally mess up a TIE Phantom if you can hit them.

I actually think ordinance is pretty perfectly costed in this game as you don't want everyone carrying it all the time. We still see it used pretty often. I just wish they'd do something about Proton Torpedoes as those are the only iconic ordinance in the movies and they suck. They're also used effectively all throughout the Rogue Squadron novels.

I don't play X-wing, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think thematically it makes sense proton torpedos suck. They should be good against the shuttles, tantive, etc but not exceptionally good against much else. You still have to have them in the game and stuff, but I think they're a strange fit for the system besides epic in some respects. That's not to say you shoudn't figure out some balanced way to put them in X-wing.

Not really...They are a finesse weapon and in an ideal situation they can do a lot of damage, in a less than ideal situation they aren't worth the points. I feel they really need TL and Focus to really do anything which is the same in Star Trek and I almost never used ordinance in that game either and there you can rearm them.

But, I think next game I'm going to give them a shot and see what I can come up with. More often than not though if it comes down to picking a few ordinance or an additional ship, I'll take the ship every time.

Assault Missiles are really the only thing that gets used in my group. But I think that may change with the introduction of Proton Rockets (in Rebel Aces).



Not only do you only need to have a focus to use it, but you don't even need to spend the focus to fire it, so you can save it for your 5 dice attack when using an A-Wing or Defender.