I've flown HLC Outmaneuver Vessery against Horn a couple of times and won fairly handily each time.

It's really easy to have 4 rerollable focused red dice against 2 greens, and that will burn through any regenerating shenanigans that Horn can muster.

You are telling me that whoever you are flying against can't keep Vessery in arc, or avoid Vesserry's arc, with a pilot skill advantage, barrel roll and the ability to actually turn?

No offense, but anyone who lets a key 40+ point piece like Corran get outmaneuvered by a ship that can only fly straight needs some lessons.

Ahh the "whoever your playing sucks" fallacy.

I also hate the "learn to fly" arguments, but in this case, I see no way a competent pilot allows this to happen "very easy", especially if the Defender is not taking reds and has focus+TL red dice. Can it happen? Sure, occasionally. But very easy or frequent it should not be.

Corran with the right upgrades is way better than any Defender, but outside of that Defenders are better overall. E-Wings offer very little over T-70s for the points and Etahn is only good in Epic (but seriously, kill him first). Defenders have four possible choices in a regular game, E-Wings it's basically Corran or don't bother.

Let's not overlook the fact vessery is 100% efficient when he has other's TL for him.

And i don't know if anyones done the maths for rex with PTL and MK.II but when i've used him he's been alot stronger.

HLC also range three bonus dice which also makes a big difference.

Yes Corran can spit out six dice but even with a reroll he's unlikely to get six hits consistently his ability works great against low agility but is less effective against three agility.

As for not showing up in tournaments people never even tried they were told it sucks and went straight to the phantom.

It's taken time but people are finally waking up to its potential.

In terms of which is better, I don't you could make an objective observations of these ships and not pick the E-Wing. Whatever argument you can make for the defender, the E-Wing can do it better. One extra hull is the only leverage the Defender has on the E-Wing, it beats it hands down in every other category when it doesn't match it.

Up to this point, I think your analysis is spot on. Due to the Cannon slot, the Defender can have an offensive capacity that the E-wing cannot match. An HLC is a huge firepower upgrade, particularly at Range 3. An E-wing can't really do this. This isn't to say the Defender is hands-down better, but it does have an edge in at least one way.

I would argue that if you are going to pick equipment slots as the category you can't go to specific builds. The Defender has 2-3 equipment slots, the E-Wing has 3-4, noting that despite having fewer slots the defender costs more. It offers more options for the E-Wing and in this category its a clear win for the E-Wing.

Certainly you could argue that a defender with a HVL cannon is better than an E-Wing with X or Y equipment, but when you get that specific, the variables become so broad its impossible to make heads or tails of anything, in particular you have to consider the adjusted costs, for example the HVL is 7 points, sufficient for the E-Wing to buy 2-3 pieces of equipment for that cost.

I do agree however that bare bones, E-Wing's are not very good, so in that sense one could argue for the Defender, but the truth is that many ships are completely useless without equipment so that's neither here nor there, very few ships are flown bare bones in X-Wing including the Defender. Hence accounting that having more is an advantage over having less is really all you need to make an assessment. What equipment you choose falls into the same category of how you fly a ship, certainly flying it right is an advantage over flying it wrong, but we don't gauge a ships value based on how good it "can or can't" be flown.

Isn't Etahn a beast already? I get his ability is 32 point and Howlrunner is half that but Etahn ability stretches across the board. Ethan could be on the far side and when an enemy ship inside his firing arc, Range 1-3, then anyone/anything else shooting at it may change 1 of their hit results to a critical result. Even if they are Range 8 from Etahn. So the CR-90 from across the board can get a critical.

Naked Defender has 1 hull more than a naked E-wing. Offset by the dial though, difficult to shed stress or non-k-turn without Mk2.

(...)but the truth is that many ships are completely useless without equipment so that's neither here nor there, very few ships are flown bare bones in X-Wing including the Defender. (...)

There are quite a number: Tie-fighter swarms, Z95 swarms, Blue B-wings, 5 Kihraxz ....

Put two defenders with a decimator and they'll do fine against alot of lists with no upgrades.