Ion Cannon Upgrades - Wave 1

Wave 1 did not give us very many ships that could equip Ion Cannons - actually it only gave us two, and they are both variants.  In fact, they are the most expensive and least expensive ship in all of wave 1 by their variant.  That's right, we're talking about the Victory II-Class Star Destroyer and the CR90 Corvette B.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at what the upgrades do, and what the best use for them is.

This article is part of the Upgrades series.




Ion Cannon Batteries - 5 pts - Blue Crit Effect - Chose and discard 1 of the defender's command tokens.  If they don't have any, defending hull zone loses 1 shield.  Not a bad way to pile on extra damage if you don't think you'll be able to crack an enemies shields with your attack.  This works well on either ship, and works best against large enemy ships which are both more likely to have command tokens to strip away and shields that will take longer to strip away.  Not the most flashy attack, but a good way to guarantee a crit effect does something.


Leading Shots - 4 pts - While attacking, you may spend 1 Blue dice to reroll any number of dice in your attack pool.  Another card ironically packaged with the wrong ship.  The Victory II-Class is the one that gets the most use out of this, rerolling up to 3 Red dice for the cost of a single Blue.  Good for insurance that you won't roll horrible on your high variance Reds.  The CR90B gets less use from this one, unless you roll 2 or more accuracies it hasn't done you much good.  The only exception is with Dodonna's Pride if you are fishing for a critical effect.


Overload Pulse - 8 pts - Blue Crit Effect - Exhaust all of the defender's defense tokens.  It should be noted at this time that the opponent can still exhaust their tokens for the attack that this was a part of, just all of their tokens will be definitely exhausted after.  A good wind-up attack to something much, much worse.  The Imperials have a good time with this one, combined with Screed, softening up a ship for another ship to put the real hurt on.  For Rebels, it also finds a place on the CR90B, as it turns a relatively undergunned ship into the first shot before bigger ships pounce.


That is it for Ion Cannons.  Only Ordinance is left for Wave 1!  And just in time, as the Massing at Sullust is over and we're gearing up for Wave 2!