Hi fellow pilots I'm a new player and I was wondering how people fly Luke and what an who they fly him wit thanks.

Hi there, welcome.

I don't fly Luke too much but you can't go wrong pairing him with his good buddy R2-D2. With Luke's special ability and R2's shield regeneration, he can be very hard to kill, and very forgiving to fly for a new player.

As far as who to fly him with, what other ships do you have, or are looking to get?

I found that with R2-D2 and a shield upgrade (crucial to get the most mileage out of R2) he serves very well in a flanking roll. His natural ability and R2 combine to make him surprisingly durable, while freeing up his actions to target specific threats without needing support. While a little spendy, I have found him to often take a disproportionate amount of effort to kill.

That being said, due to his cost after upgrades I would shy away from running too many more high end or named pilots with him. Specifically I would avoid (not always, but usually) bringing only three ships. 4 is a nice sweet spot with Luke as it draws attention away from him and allows him to do his job.

All in all he fills a very nice spot in many of my lists while being appropriately flavorful for what he should be. Hope this helps and welcome aboard.

Thanks for the responses. In the 20 or so games I have played I have found Luke with R2D2 very effective and I have all of the ships so I can put pretty much any combo together.

I'm just curious what other pilots think and there ideas I also like him with R2D2 and predator.

Here are some Luke builds that have made the cut during recent big tournaments: http://xwing.macker.co/pilot.php?p=4

Should give you some ideas about what upgrades he's generally paired up with. The higher a build is listed the more popular/successful it's been. Click a build to see what lists that build has been run in.

I don't have any reason for doing it, other than purely thematic, but I just really like using X-Wing Luke with R2D2 as his Astromech. It just feels wrong to give R2 to another pilot, or to use another 'mech with Luke.

Usually I'll put Draw Their Fire as an EPT, for obvious shield regen reasons.

I'm not sure what you have for ships but playing with the squad builder this looked like fun. Would it do well, not sure but I think so

Luke

R2-D2

Draw their fire

Shield upgrade

Biggs.

Tarn mison

R7

Bandit Squadron.

If you don't have the last two pilots I've listed this Luke and biggs makes a great pair.

Everything shoots biggs. Any crits, Luke can take.

With the shield upgrade he had little more wiggle room for dmg, and regeneration with R2-D2.

There are plenty of others you can put in to substitute the other two pilots but Tarn is pretty sweet. Especially with the r7 Droid

How do I use Luke?

Target practice.

I must confess I haven't flown him for a while. Too much new shiny stuff to distract me. But back when I did I gave him R2D2, originally for flavor, but he was so awesome with it that I just kept playing him that way. Back in the day he usually only went up against 2 attack dice Imperial ships and his ability made him pretty hard to hurt. From time to time he would lose a shield or too, but R2D2 would just give it back to him.

I played against him a lot back in the day as well. I found I could kill him all in one turn (coordinated fire from my TIE formation) or not at all.

However there are lots more 3 attack dice ships in the game now, and in a tournament, there is no guarantee you will be fighting Imperials. I haven't done it myself, but I think Luke+R2D2+Shield upgrade is a great idea. I would still discourage it, but a lot of my friends like up putting marksmanship on him, since he basically already has a defensive focus on him.

Noticed R2-F2 and Predator being used recently on him. Curious what the math is like on defense with his ability + the extra dice from R2-F2 and on offense with just Predator.

Luke+R2-D2+Shield Upgrade+Draw Their Fire is a deceptively effective Biggs-lite - or rather, an optional Biggs. If your opponent lets him live too long then he becomes an end-game winner because of your ability to retreat and regain shields against the hopefully 1 remaining ship.

So I like to keep him in back to absorb the occasional crit to keep the rest of my squad alive.

NOW its all about predator + r5-p9. Of course you need to own a rebel transport for that. But it gives you similar regeneration to r2-d2 without screwing up your manuevers, and better offensive punch. R2-d2 + dtf etc still probably works a bit better for formation flying, but I would not want to play a list of 4 Xs formation flying with phantoms around now.

Luke, Biggs, and Wedge. The three amigos of the trench run. Use Biggs to draw enemy fire away from Wedge. Use Luke with draw their fire to take crits off Biggs and keep him in the fight longer. Use R2-D2 on Luke to ensure your shields eat all those crits. Once Biggs goes down Luke will continue to eat the crits meant for Wedge. If all goes well you will have taken out most of the enemy forces by the time wedge goes down leaving the few remaining enemies to deal with your highly defensive Luke which will be an uphill battle against his shield regeneration thanks to R2.

Luke's pilot ability is defensive, and combined with R2D2's it can make him one of the toughest X-Wings, but it's a costly combo & can make Luke's movements highly predictable when he's trying to recover shields. He can take a few hits, but is still far from tanky - you don't want him drawing too much aggro.

As with most X-Wings, I like to go with upgrades that maximise his offensive output while freeing up his actions. Predator is excellent, Outmaneuver is good paired with Engine Upgrade, or Push the Limit combined with a standard R2 to clear stress.

I have a transport and have had real good luck with predator but have not tried r5-p9 anyone have any kind of math for those2 upgrades together with Luke.

Predator is a great EPT. In some ways better then PtL, because you don't get stressed. Only real use of PtL on a X-Wing is to take Focus and TL, unless you put a Engine Upgrade on. With Pred you take a focus and have a built in mini-TL, but no stress.

R5-P9 is IMO on par with R2-D2. It's not as generally useful, because you have to have a focus left over to use it, which means no changing attack or defense dice. But it's cheaper by a point and doesn't lock you into a green maneuver. If you have a way of getting the ship a extra focus it becomes even better.

Luke + R5-P9 + predator is 34 points. 1/3 of your squad. It's part of my squad I call predators. The others include Wedge with Predator, and Biggs with R2-D2 and a shield upgrade. Decent results so far but far from overpowering. Fun but not the best thing I've flown.

I had fun recently with 'Luke thinks he's flying an A-wing'

Luke R2D2 Engine Upgrade, PTL

Luke makes a lot of green moves to utilize R2D2 so the stress from PTL clears fast. Boost to get out of/into firing arcs. Need that shield back but want to go a bit further, turn a bit more? Boost helps there. When not boosting getting target lock and a focus token really makes his guns effective. Thanks to R2D2 plus his own ability you never feel the need to hold back on using focus for offense.

Here is the thing with Luke. He just rocks. His ability lets him last almost twice as long as a normal X-Wing on average, he doesn't need any synergies to be effective. He is an 8 skill X-Wing that is hard to shoot down.

I am not saying you shouldn't use the synergies that are available, its just that you can fly him straight and he is a beast.

I have had tremendous luck with the following:

Luke + Swarm Tactics

Porkins + Swarm Tactics

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

Its like flying a small squad of sharks (or two squads of sharks). I am not sure how well it will do now that the game is shifting to higher pilot skills, but this really shreds. I believe I went 4-2 with this squad, losing once because I set up poorly against a tie swarm (ended up with just 2 ties remaining) and losing the second one to engaging B-Wings up close, when I should have broke and regrouped for a new attack run.

Yea Luke at end game is a beast .Thanks for post and keep them coming.

I like using him to buff the rest of the squad, such as with SL or ST. That way, you can choose to either kill him, which is harder to do, or kill the rest of the squad, while he continues to buff the rest of the squad.

When I run Luke I give him VI instead of DTF. It works well for me, especially in the era of the Phantom Menace. :-)

Pre wave 4 I liked:

Luke with swarm

Biggs

Roark with ion

Rookie.

Pre wave 4 I liked:

Luke with swarm

Biggs

Roark with ion

Rookie.

Have you tried it post? Seems like it could handle the Phantom.