With the prevalence of decimators, falcons, and to an lesser extent, outriders, I find myself looking at E'tahn more and more. Initially written off due to lower PS and possible over-costing by the community at large, I wonder if he might prove more useful than before.

Corran is often the go-to guy, but without VI he is only PS 8. And let's be honest, there's not much difference between PS 8 and PS 5 these days. With VI, he doesn't have the action economy to go toe-to-toe with a buzzsaw Whisper. His reliance on greens (assuming R2-D2) makes him predictable and vulnerable to Whisper's maneuverability.

Now I'm not saying E'tahn is impressive against Whisper either, but he does offer something particularly nasty to all those tough, big ships dancing through the stars these days.

Thoughts?

Ten Numb and his trusty Ion Cannon agree about E'tahn and his usefulness.

Except for the game where I clipped etahn with a proton bomb second turn and got a direct hit, every game I have played my decimator against him I have lost, badly. When I have a decimator out I fear seeing etahn more than any other pilot.

I was dabbling with an Etahn (Lone Wolf) + 3x Blue list (obviously the B-Wings and E-Wing starting in opposite corners), but I haven't really had time to tweak that much.

Seems like it may have some promise, as the hardiness of the blues and high attack output can help then crunch up TIE Interceptors with crits as well as cutting up Decimators...presuming Etahn can line them up the shots.

Pure theorycrafting at this point, though...

Maybe:

Etahn A'baht — E-Wing 32

Predator 3

Sensor Jammer 4

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12

I'm hovering between:

46: Etahn w/ PtL, Adv Sensors, R2-D2, Shield Upgrade

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

15: Prototype w/ Chardaan

15: Prototype w/ Chardaan

Or:

42: Etahn w/ PtL, Adv Sensors, R2-D2

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

22: Blue

I think the second list is probably the better one, having another tough, 3 attack ship to round it out. On the other hand, the idea of blocking phantom's decloaks with the maneauverabily of A-wings is hilarious and fun. Probably not a strategy I can count on pulling off in a tournament though...

People are easily tempted to load up Etahn with all of his upgrades, but I just think its not worth it at all. You shouldn't be afraid to run a ship blank because of lost potential, but rather see it as potential info itself to run him without upgrades. I also think Etahn has the best results when working in conjunction with a high-damage output squadron. Just brewed this up in a matter of seconds:

Etahn A'baht (32)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Total: 99

12 red dice, Biggs' Bullet Magnet, the amount of damage you can shovel out with this list would be deadly. You can also change one of the Rooks to a Blue for a little more resiliency and maneuverability with the B-Roll action.

Against Swarms, you can potentially pop off two Academies before they get a shot back, Biggs is gonna stick around for awhile with all of the two-ship builds out there, and you have extremely maneuverable ships in your pack if you ever need to break off to fight Phantoms.

I dunno man, that Biggs looks like a 25 point upgrade to Etahn.

One of the interesting things about Etahn's ability is that it can work when he's at range 5.5 from his friendly ship. While I do like the general idea of 3 attack ships with Etahn, I think Biggs range requirements go against my inclination of running Etahn like a flanker.

Biggs is more like a modifier for the whole squad, rather than just having a Super-Etahn, which won't work out well if he gets shot out of the stars before you can capitalize on his modifiers. He works as a force multiplier, similarly to Howlrunner, except with an increased damage output and effectiveness instead.

The great thing is that once Biggs is shot down or if you just want to break things up right away, you can have Etahn at range 3 of an enemy and another ship at range 3 from the opposite side and still have Etahn's modifier. Sure, keeping things in Biggs' range can be limiting, but you're also inherently focusing your fire by doing so, which also fully utilizes Etahn's ability.

The idea with tooled up Etahn is it forces an awkward decision for opponents. With R2, you have to do 2 damage to him to make anything last. If I evade/focus every turn, that's a really difficult thing to do. And if getting shot by anything with gunner, it gives me the best chance to manipulate the dice into allowing only one hit through, preventing gunner from triggering and giving R2 something to do.

So, do you try to kill the pain in the ass Etahn, or instead target his more vulnerable wingmen? The longer they are ignored, the more crits I can put through per turn. The longer Etahn is on the board, the harder it is to take him out before time is up.

As far as naked Etahn builds go, my favorite is this:

32: Etahn

13: Tala

13: Tala

42: Chewie

Dishes out crits but doesn't take them.

I've run a completely naked list like so a couple of times:

[32] Etahn

[22] Blue

[22] Blue

[12] Bandit

[12] Bandit

Sat him back with the Blues and slow-rolled behind rocks, sent the Bandits up a bit, basically just one on each side of the main formation to prevent flanks and pincer. If anything takes the bait you've got a very solid 9-dice firebase.

The idea with tooled up Etahn is it forces an awkward decision for opponents. With R2, you have to do 2 damage to him to make anything last. If I evade/focus every turn, that's a really difficult thing to do. And if getting shot by anything with gunner, it gives me the best chance to manipulate the dice into allowing only one hit through, preventing gunner from triggering and giving R2 something to do.

So, do you try to kill the pain in the ass Etahn, or instead target his more vulnerable wingmen? The longer they are ignored, the more crits I can put through per turn. The longer Etahn is on the board, the harder it is to take him out before time is up.

The biggest problem with that tactic is that you're giving your opponent the ability to make decisions. They'll see Etahn loaded up and go for the rest of the force, or they'll see Etahn and blast him so he can no longer modify your forces. Either way, whichever one benefits their tactic or chances more, they'll go for that one simply because once they complete that objective it will be all uphill for you to fight.

Biggs, on the other hand, forces your opponent to make one decision and that becomes the only option they have: Kill Biggs. From there, they must choose between going after Etahn or the Rookies, but by then you've already chewed up their force because it takes at least one round of shooting to blow up Biggs, two on a good day, three rounds on a really really good day. That potentially buys you more time for Etahn to get his ability to fire off than turtling up and regenerating with R2-D2.

Another list that I've seen WonderWAAAGH pilot a few times was:

Etahn A'baht (32)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Airen Cracken (19) + Swarm Tactics (2)

Total: 100

It has Biggs' blanket effect, Etahn's multipliers, Cracken for PS bidding and action economy, and its topped off with a resilient B-Wing for more firepower. You lose 1 red die compared to the EXXX list, but shooting at PS8 and getting an extra action can be even more deadly.

The idea with tooled up Etahn is it forces an awkward decision for opponents. With R2, you have to do 2 damage to him to make anything last. If I evade/focus every turn, that's a really difficult thing to do. And if getting shot by anything with gunner, it gives me the best chance to manipulate the dice into allowing only one hit through, preventing gunner from triggering and giving R2 something to do.

So, do you try to kill the pain in the ass Etahn, or instead target his more vulnerable wingmen? The longer they are ignored, the more crits I can put through per turn. The longer Etahn is on the board, the harder it is to take him out before time is up.

The biggest problem with that tactic is that you're giving your opponent the ability to make decisions. They'll see Etahn loaded up and go for the rest of the force, or they'll see Etahn and blast him so he can no longer modify your forces. Either way, whichever one benefits their tactic or chances more, they'll go for that one simply because once they complete that objective it will be all uphill for you to fight.

This isn't really a criticism of tooled up Etahn so much as an explanation why Biggs should be in every rebel list.

PTL, Sensor, R2-D2 E'athn will straight up outfight a full health decimator. But he's expensive

For a more support orientated E'athn (albeit a support ship that fires 3 dice and then changes his own hit into a crit), FCS and R7 astro are the way to go in the 2 ship meta.

People are easily tempted to load up Etahn with all of his upgrades, but I just think its not worth it at all. You shouldn't be afraid to run a ship blank because of lost potential, but rather see it as potential info itself to run him without upgrades. I also think Etahn has the best results when working in conjunction with a high-damage output squadron. Just brewed this up in a matter of seconds:

Etahn A'baht (32)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Total: 99

12 red dice, Biggs' Bullet Magnet, the amount of damage you can shovel out with this list would be deadly. You can also change one of the Rooks to a Blue for a little more resiliency and maneuverability with the B-Roll action.

Against Swarms, you can potentially pop off two Academies before they get a shot back, Biggs is gonna stick around for awhile with all of the two-ship builds out there, and you have extremely maneuverable ships in your pack if you ever need to break off to fight Phantoms.

I like it, but you might as well spend that last point. Adrenaline Rush, Determination, R2, etc. on Ethan. VI is kind of worthless on him. I'd probably go with R2 on Ethan just to make him less predictable out of a K-turn or if he gets stressed by something.

I won a small local tourney with an Etahn, Biggs, Rookie x 2 list when the wave first came out, didn't lose a match. Stopped playing him for awhile after that, but now with the number of big ships around I have been practising with Etahn, PTL Green, Bandit x 4. I am 4-0 with the list. I have considered dropping the green to a prototype to upgrade Etahn, but so far Etahn has never lost more than 1 shield so it doesn't seem to be needed. The PTL on green seems more useful as I use him for a flanker.

Etahn is great except that he eats so **** many points that he limits his own effect. If you KNOW you are facing a ton of Decimators or Falcons, he'll make a bunch of Z95s sing, and they can also be effective against a swarm. But you start facing highly maneuverable or well-shielded (e.g., typical Rebel lists) and they are grasping for straws. He's a good guy, it's a fun ability, but he's so expensive and E-Wings so underwhelming that I rarely find a use for him.

in a recent store championship I took Ehtan with PTL and 2 protos+refit and 2 greens+refit for 99 points.

Didn't like it. The A's on there own where getting crits natural, and he is pretty much 35 points gone before you have a change to eat up shields on most set ups. I did have one match where the stars aligned and I range 1 with all ships to a low ps phantom, where it rolled junk and I have 2 range one shots PLUS the crit roll over. But other then that I finished dead middle for the event, didn't like set up.

HIs problem is the points on him to keep him actually in the game.

I had a list once that was Ehtan and Corren and biggs. Worked great and BIggs was a beast on green rolls, but that was a while ago and don't know if that would still be a pain like it was the couple times I took it out

It probably wouldn't be competitive, but I want to try

Etahn (32)

VI (1)

Ten Numb (31)

Mangler (4)

VI (1)

Wes (29)

VI (1)

R2 (1)

Shots at PS 10, 10, and 8, and there's pretty much no way of stopping Ten from getting a crit -- Wes strips any evades, and then you get to change TWO hits to crits. Even though only one of them is auto-hit, it's still pretty cool.

(Also, it's Etahn, not E'tahn . . . the apostrophe is in his last name . . . .)

I once run Etahn and 4 Bandits with Cluster Missiles. I don't remember what I had on Etahn. The list may not be competitive but it was a lot of fun. And a Decimator will be in a world of hurt: 27 red dice with hopefully 9+ crits. OUCH!

It probably wouldn't be competitive, but I want to try

Etahn (32)

VI (1)

Ten Numb (31)

Mangler (4)

VI (1)

Wes (29)

VI (1)

R2 (1)

Shots at PS 10, 10, and 8, and there's pretty much no way of stopping Ten from getting a crit -- Wes strips any evades, and then you get to change TWO hits to crits. Even though only one of them is auto-hit, it's still pretty cool.

(Also, it's Etahn, not E'tahn . . . the apostrophe is in his last name . . . .)

Nice build. Although I think trading the higher damage Mangler for control Ion saves you 1pt for extra control via Wes and R3-A2.

Ten Numb + Ion + Etahn would be crazy.

Etahn A'baht (32)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Total: 99

Tried this tonight against an Imperial build and was surprised at how easily this ate through the competition. I did tweak it a tad and threw a Blue Squadron Pilot (B-Wing) in there, instead of the Rookie X-WIng, for the following:

Etahn A'baht (32)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Total: 100

Took on a Krassis build with a mini-Howlrunner swarm and handled it easily enough - even when Mara Jade crew was able to stress all my ships on one turn! Etahn really is a mini-tank and his ability is, in my opinion, one of the best in the game. Biggs was my only casualty, compared to the utter destruction of my opponent, lol.

Their build:

Krassis Trelix (36)

- Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

- Mara Jade (3)

"Howlrunner" (18)

Academy Pilot (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Total: 100

I did like the fact that his build punished you with Krassis. At range 2 or 3? Here's the HLC in your face. At range 1? Have some stress. That worried me, but a hard turn in the wrong direction trying to outguess me took the Firespray out of contention for 2 rounds, which let me whittle the rest of his list down. Outcome may've been different otherwise, but I suspect I probably still would've won, just not as handily, lol.

I played 3 games with this list today:

42: Etahn w/ PtL, Adv Sensors, R2-D2

22: Blue B

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

First, I played:

Boba w/ Lone Wolf, Ysanne Isard

Vessery w/ Ruthlessness, Cluster Missiles

Obsidian TIE

I spread the asteroids wide and deployed in a tight formation in the corner. Boba deployed in line for a joust. And Vessery and the Tie deployed in the opposite corner. I went in hard, daring Boba to joust all 5 of my ships. He didn't bite, and cut hard to the inside. But I was able to bring firepower to bear on Boba before his reinforcements could show up. A crit dropping his agility made Boba easy pickings for all my Zs. The TIE was knocked out soon after. Vessery pulled his cluster missile double ruthlessness and put the hurting on Etahn and with it, killed a wounded Z. After that, Etahn led vessery through overlapping fire arcs. He died for his troubles but vessery was killed too.

Win: 100-54

Next, I played the same opponent with this list:

Vessery w/Ruthlessness, Cluster Missiles (seems familiar)

Vader w/ VI, Engine Upgrade, Proton Rockets

Alpha Interceptor

Asteroids were a diagonal picket. I set up my Zs in the corner to go outside the picket, and my E and B set up just inside from there, to barrel roll and hug the nearside of the asteroid line. My opponent set up on the opposite corner. The alpha went all put to get on my side of the picket to flank. Anticipating this, my B and E cut right and put a direct hit on the alpha. The Zs were going full speed on the opposite side of the asteroids to either get behind my opponent if Vader and Vessery went full speed ahead, or joust if they stayed on his side. He went outside first thinking I was gonna cut in on the vulnerabcmle interceptor but I ignored it and continued forcing the joust. Vessery stuck with it and dished out some ruthlessness but Vader tried to cut in to get some range 1 prockets on my B-wing. Unfortunately, he cut in too hard and hit an asteroid. Etahn, the B, and a Z all got SHOTTS on Vader and quickly dispatched him. After that it was just mop-up. Vessery cluster blasted the B and double ruthlessed a nearby Z. It wasn't enough to finish either though. He received a blinded pilot crit and at PS 0, Etahn was able to pursue with ease and finished him off.

Win: 100-0

Third game I played:

Echo w/ VI, rebel captive, ACD, FCS

Howlrunner w/ stealth device

3x Academies

I set up a tight asteroid cluster, deployed on the opposite corner from the academies and I promptly flew into the asteroid field, daring the swarm to follow me in. They didn't and hugged the board edge. No problem, I just his in the asteroid field until they ran out of board space and had to turn towards me. Howlrunner lost her stealth device on a direct hit. Echo and Howlrunner brought the B-wing to one hull on the following turn, but the B-wing finished off Howlie. The 3 Zs attacked the swarm and knocked 2 academies out with a couple lucky direct hits. The last one killed my B-wing though. The numbers were on my side at this point but I wasn't ready to discount Echo. Unfortunately by opponent misjudged her decloak and she ended up on an asteroid. The next 2 turns had me shooting at a couple of action less ships with no return fire.

Win: 100-24

Final thoughts:

I'm really liking this list. The crits really stacked up against the lists that I played. I can't wait to try it out against a falcon or decimator! The low PS will make it difficult against phantoms but with enough ships to block decloak lanes, I can hopefully coral it into an unfavorable position.

Thanks for reading!

I think I may try a new variant of the list today:

39: Etahn w/ FCS, R3-A2, Hull Upgrade

25: Blue Squadron w/ E2: Tactician

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

12: Bandit

Etahn is less of a tank in this list, but it can dish out two stress a turn. Enough to keep turrets from boosting, phantoms from cloaking, and jousters from K-turning. Hopefully...