I just tried this guy out for the first time, and he is AWESOME!

My list was:

26: Jake Farrell w/ Test pilot, VI, PtL, and a bottle of Chardaanay

32: Blue Pilot w/ HLC, advanced sensors (which I forgot about )

21: Rookie

21: Rookie

I know, I know, totally not a great list, but I've never tried a B-Wing with an HLC on it and I wanted to give it a go before I wrote it off as too expensive. Unfortunately I confused it with another list I had and didn't use the advanced sensors at all. I did, however, lament the fact that I didn't have advanced sensors many times.

BUT...

I really liked Jake. His maneuverability is insane! 2 attack dice is an obvious draw back, but he can scoot into range 1, TL, and (obviously) focus often enough that he still does a good amount of damage. With essentially 5 actions to choose from, and doing essentially 3 of them a turn, his options are many and varied.

Too bad I accidentally crashed him into an asteroid to end the game like a chump! He easily could've mopped up the remaining ships if I wasn't such a blow-hard that game.

Anyone else have any experience with him? I couldn't be happier with those 26 points spent.

How about, for your next game, you pair him with Airen Cracken with VI to get Jake to perform four actions.

Jake moves

Focuses

Moves

Airen shoots, gives Jake free action

Jake target locks, triggers ptl, moves

Jake shoots

If you throw Dutch in there as well Jake gets his TL sooner and takes an evade off Airen, for effectively five actions.

So that'd be

Jake

Prototype veteran

Chardaan

VI

PTL

Airen

VI

Hull upgrade

Dutch

Ion

R3-A2

Rookie

100 pts

Yeah that'd definitely be a fun way to run him. I wanted to start out with no squad synergy to give him a real test. See how he flies on his own. Definitely looking at Lando, Garven, or Kyle too for some synergies. He's like a mini Soontir Fel, just a little tougher and way cheaper, at the cost of some damage output.

How about, for your next game, you pair him with Airen Cracken with VI to get Jake to perform four actions.

The range limit is going to cripple this plan. Cracken needs everyone in tight formation, but Jake's biggest advantage is how maneuverable he is. If you're keeping him tied to a Z-95 you're really not exploiting him properly.

And of course you've also got the problem of diminishing returns. Focus + movement action is awesome, focus + movement action + extra action is usually effective, but after that you're not adding all that much compared to the price you're paying. Cracken is 20+ points for a 2-dice ship dedicated to boosting another 2-dice ship. You'll have lots of actions, but so few attack dice that you're going to struggle to kill anything.

Yeah, that's basically why I wanted to see how he'd do on his own. IF he can handle it on his own, then he's not tied down. That said, there were definitely moments where I wished I could have focus, TL, range manipulation AND and evade. It'd just hard to pull off consistently.

Yes, he is amazing.

Poor rebels. For being an ace you have pull some amazing stunts like Jake and Keyan does to get promoted to "Ace" status.

Flying for the Imperials it is much easier to get some recognition. You just need to do some pretty useless tricks, like jousting on a ship not fit for this style llike Cow-all or thinking just about evading like Kir Kanos. -You dont even have to be an elite pilot (!) like Kir or Lorrir, to be considered as "Ace" among peers!

Yeah, that's basically why I wanted to see how he'd do on his own. IF he can handle it on his own, then he's not tied down. That said, there were definitely moments where I wished I could have focus, TL, range manipulation AND and evade. It'd just hard to pull off consistently.

At which point you switch using Airen on Jake to Airen on Dutch or the rookie.

I haven't tried it myself but I could see it work, you don't have to tie him down, you can let him soar like a leaf on the wind.

You could safely lose VI for Outmaneuver or maybe predator, allowing for greater variance in using movement?

How many points for the chardonnay?

How many points for the chardonnay?

-2

You could safely lose VI for Outmaneuver or maybe predator, allowing for greater variance in using movement?

Those are pretty decent jumps in points. VI was absolutely his deciding factor in this game. If Soontir Fel moved after Jake, he probably would've died fairly early on. The wide range of motion, combined with doing it after everyone else kept him alive till the end of the game. Besides, I like him at 26 points, because rebs don't have a lot going at that value. At 27+, lot's of other options become inticing.

He's super manueverable, and relatively tough due to his amount of actions, but he's still just an A-Wing. And an exposed A-Wing is often a crippled or dead one.