Yesterday I posted two missions that a friend of mine created and figured I throw in the "Ace Pilots" system he threw together. It's worked out pretty well in our home games.

Named "Ace" Pilots

Upon successfully surviving a mission, an unnamed pilot (e.g, rookie pilot, alpha squadron pilot, etc) may be promoted to a named Ace Pilot, and gain a single Ace Ability.

Ace Pilots are 0 point cards that can be attached to any unnamed "pilot" ship. They can also be added to the Outer Rim Smuggler, Rebel Operative, Omicron Group Pilot, and Bounty Hunter ships. They cannot be added to the Corvette or Transport.

Aces have the capacity to accumulate a maximum of 3 Ace Abilities - One after surviving his/her first battle, then an additional upgrade for each subsequent battle. Ace Abilities are unchangeable once chosen, and the same ability may not be chosen more than once (unless noted otherwise). Ace Pilots can be placed in different ships from game to game, but are permanently eliminated once destroyed.

Note: Disengaging from combat with an Ace by flying him off the map does not qualify as destruction. However, the Ace doesn't gain anything from the experience.

Ace Abilities

<<I tried to keep all of these abilities in line with the usefulness of a 2pt card. I think I succeeded, but some tweaking might be needed. The only exception is Hard to Kill. I would say that's closer to a 4pt upgrade, but that's by design. I wanted to give named pilots a stock ability that increases survivability a little, so players don't build them up only to see them vaporized on round 3>>

Hard to Kill - The last hull on the Ace's ship requires a critical hit or 1 point excess damage to destroy.

Munitions Expert - When firing missiles or torpedoes, the Ace may reroll one blank result.

Excellently Average - When attacking with a primary weapon, the Ace can turn one critical hit into a normal hit, then reroll one die.

Hotrod - When the Ace performs a straight 4 or 5, he gains a free Focus.

Fast Thinker - The Ace may perform his action before his movement.

Contingency Planner - After revealing his movement dial, the Ace may instead choose a 1 forward maneuver.

Careful Strategist - The Ace may take his action last, after everyone else has moved, but before combat phase.

Undeterred - After completing a red K-turn, the Ace can execute a Focus or Target Lock action for 1 additional stress.

Twitchy Reflexes - After spending a Target Lock, the Ace may reacquire a lock on a separate ship in his firing arc.

Cover Artist - When defending through an asteroid, the Ace gets an additional 2 defense dice instead of 1.

Sharpshooter - The Ace gets 1 additional attack die at range 3, but loses his bonus die at range 1.

Gambler - Once per round, the Ace can choose to roll one defense die, and apply its result to his remaining defense dice versus a single attack. The result cannot be rerolled from any source.

Big Boy - The Ace gains 2 pilot skill. This Ace Ability maybe be taken multiple times and are cumulative.

Laser Accurate - When attacking with a primary weapon, the Ace can spend a Target Lock to remove 1 focus or 1 evade from the defender.

Perceptive - During movement phase, when an enemy ship at range 1 gains focus, the Ace gains one free Focus.

Astroid Miner - When the Ace makes a primary weapon attack through an asteroid, the Defender does not gain an additional defense die.

Ion Specialist - The Ace can force an ionized ship to use a soft 1 in a direction of his choice during that ships movement phase.

HE Pro - When using bombs, mines or charges, the Ace can choose to deploy them using a soft 1.

G-Force Jockey - After performing a Hard 1, 2, or 3 maneuver, the Ace may acquire a free target lock on an enemy in his firing arc.

Bully - When successfully damaging an enemy ship, the Ace may sacrifice one uncanceled hit to cause 1 stress.

Repair Whiz - After completing a green maneuver, the Ace can attempt a free slapdash repair on a face up damage card. Roll an attack die: on a hit, the card may be flipped face down.

Vengeful - In the same round after sustaining damage, the Ace gains 1 additional attack die versus his attacker in retaliation.

Casual Flier - The Ace can execute Barrel roll actions even while stressed.

Slippery Customer - The Ace's ship gains the barrel roll action, but causes 1 stress after white maneuvers. Cannot be used on large sized ships.

Fast thinker is basically the 3-point advanced sensors but doesn't take a systems slot.

I also think your giving them out a bit fast, unless your campaign us expected to only be 5 missions or something. That may just be me though.

Seems to me there needs to be more PS increases than devoting a whole card to it. Seems a little off if an academy tie has 3 ace abilities but is still PS 1. Maybe have each card include a PS bump as well, but then you can take the veteran instincts on if you really want your ace to get up to wedge levels.

On the whole, love the concept.

I believe Fast Thinker was designed with the intent of getting other ships to be able to use an ability they otherwise wouldn't have access to. As I'm not the designer, I'm not positive, but when he and I discussed the concept of ace abilities that was the vibe I got from him.

This isn't bad at all. You really seem to have put some thought into this and your ace skills seem fairly balanced. I could see myself playing a campaign using these kind of rules.

In play: After receiving "an ace" after a mission, we picked or rolled (player's preference) an ability and wrote it down on an index card along with a "name", ex: I had Muon Nexx, a Duros pilot with "Fast-Thinker". Representing your ace during gameplay was done by taking a token such as Mandalore skull from Preystalker or the twin pistols from the YT-1300 expansion pack, and placing that in the ID number slot at the base of the ship.

My buddy is still tweaking here and there trying to get it where he wants it, but so far it's added a fun element to the game. Trying to talk him into writing up something for title cards and maybe crew members.

Not sure I agree with pilots being able to switch between ships. Goes contrary to established x-wing conventions. Would obviously be expected in attack wing though.

For a friendly home game it works fine. The ace pilot is kind of like an upgrade card. Just like you can attach Luke or Vader to different ships, so to can you attach your pilot to different ships. Limiting the ace to one ship is fine also, but there's nothing wrong with versatility either. It really comes down to how strict you want the system to be.

As for Pilot Skill, we've briefly discussed it and are going to look at a way to implement it down the road. For now, this has worked well. Sometimes moving first is good.

-Cal