I don't much like the Defender pilots abilities, to situational for me. So for our house we are allowing custom pilots provided they aren't overpowering and points are reasonable, also all parties must agree to allow it, So my question to the X-wing community is this: If you could make a pilot for the Defender what abilities would you give him or her?

When you reveal a K-turn, you may instead perform a 3 left or right white S-Loop

PS 7 Unique Pilot, 36pts

After completing a Secondary Weapon attack at Range 1, if the attack hit then you may cause the defender to suffer one additional damage.

I thought about making it roll an additional die at R1 but I am trying to word it so that it still gives the extra damage even if you were using the flechette or ion cannons. And not that you would spend the points often, but it would work with Clusters.

When you perform a [forward] maneuver, you may assign 1 evade token to your ship.

Makes the dial with the only greens on its forward maneuvers a little less painful when having to clear stress. Also makes it more resilient against control lists.

Rexler is situational but it has the benefit of being free so it's okay, vessery is however amazing there are plenty of imp shps that can lock on for him and when tie advanced fix hits he's gonna be amazing.

But i'm all for inventing new abilities for future aces packs

Why not just take Maarek Stele? He's from the Tie Fighter game and flew a lot of different ships, including the Tie Defender. He's 4 pts higher than the mid level generic, so just do the same for the Defender:

36 pts - Maarek Stele (PS 7) = When your attack deals a faceup Damage card to the defender, instead draw 3 Damage cards, choose 1 to deal, and discard the others.

Doesn't sound that exciting at first, but give him a Mangler Cannon and that just makes him vicious.

When revealing a k-turn manuever, you may change the speed of the maneuver to any speed.

The white k-turn as is can get predictable. This helps with that.

Already posted elsewhere on this board:

When you perform a [cannon]-attack, you must roll two sets of attack dice. Before modifying any dice, you must choose one set and discard all other dice.

Posted elsewhere in this board too but back then it was meant for the XG-1:

When you assign an Ion Token to the Defender, you may assign a Weapons Disabled token as well.

New ones:

When attacking you may re-roll one die for each point the Hull Value of the Defender exceeds 3.

When defending you may spend a Shield token to roll up to two additional Defense Dice.

Yay more unnecessary fixing <_<

"Prior to revealing your dial, you may perform a free barrel roll action."

It's a simple fix, helps with the predictable k-turn, does not take the s-loop of the scum and is thematic with the high maneuverability that a Defender should have. I would rather that the ability comes from a title though *shrug*.

"Each time you get hit by an attack, drop a Proximity Mine in front of you"

Yeah this one gets the AAA!

(Absurd Ability Award)

So for our house we are allowing custom pilots provided they aren't overpowering and points are reasonable...

Yay more unnecessary fixing <_<

He wants some decent house rules. What's wrong with that? It's not "Waah! I want to fix the Defender with this crazy rule" thread.

Here's a couple:

"When attacking with a secondary weapon if you have a TL on the defender, you may roll an additional attack dice."

"Once per round when defending, you may spend one stress token to change all eyeballs into evades."

"After performing a red maneuver you may assign one evade token to your ship."

"After you perform a green maneuver you may remove all stress tokens from your ship."

When attacking, if the attack hits, assign 1 ion token to the defender.

After executing a maneuver of speed 3 or greater, you may perform a free Boost action.

Rubbish at slow speeds, better at fast speeds. Would make for an interesting pilot to fly. Usable after the 4K too.

PS 7, EPT 37 "At the start of the End Phase, you may spend 1 Shield Token to remove all Stress Tokens from your Ship."

PS 5, EPT 35 points "When you have at least one Stress Token assigned to your Ship, increase you Primary Weapon by 1 (To a maximum of 4)"

These two pilots are designed to take advantage of, or mitigate, the Defenders suboptimal dial when it comes to shedding stress. The one pilot can be pretty gross with PTL but in order to pull off that particular combo he's really limiting his maneuver choices and is stuck with that awkward PS of 5

I Just steal the pilot ability from any other pilot with an equal or lower PS. Each ability is still unique. This is a rule I have written (but never implemented) for a campaign/rpg where the players play a single progressing pilot.

When attacking, if the attack hits, assign 1 ion token to the defender.

Which defender?

When attacking, if the attack hits, assign 1 ion token to the defender.

Which defender?

The one getting shot.

After resolving an attack with a Primary weapon, you may immediately make an attack with a Secondary weapon against the same target. [i'd prefer something like this as a title for the Defender, but in the mean time I'd be happy to run it as a custom pilot]

What are folks thoughts on costing these pilot abilities? Normally I'd say that some of them would merit a premium over the standard pilot skill/cost progression, but since the Defender is somewhat overcosted I don't think it's necessary to have the premium in this case.

When attacking, if the attack hits, assign 1 ion token to the defender.

Which defender?

The one getting shot.

Oh ok. Was thinking this was the worlds worst special ability. I mean defenders are good, but they don't need a nerf lol

So what I've come up with is this.

PS 8

Immediately after performing a straight or 3 bank maneuver you may perform a free boost action using the 2 straight or 2 bank template, you may not perform a barrel-roll action after this.

The logic I used is simple. I wanted to make a unique ability based around lore and Tie Defenders are fast, very fast. The wiki list the Tie Defender at 1680kph which is 300kph faster than an A-wing or E-wing in atmosphere. I feel the Defender should be the fastest ship in the game. Now u can't k-turn and boost with this ability which might/might-not be OP and the lack of a barrel-roll afterwards limits the arc-dodge ability to be a super-intercepter. I'm curious to see what you guys think.

Nice necro.

Marrek stele: all 1 speed maneuvers are treated as green

Vader: all damage cards are immediately lost (the one mission he flew a defender in TIE Fighter his craft was set to invulnerable)

There, it's more like the computer game! And no these aren't serious attempts, although I would love to see an little more green on the dial.

Ps 7 37 poiints: After a primary weapon attack, if you have an equipped cannon with squad cost less than 4 you may immediately perform an secondary weapon attack against the same target with the cannon.

Wording is a little wonky but it fits the ships lore and precludes the use of hlc