I tried out Lightning Reflexes on the Kihraxz and would almost always take it over Crack shot. Crack Shot is only valuable if you can take a ship off the board using it (I.e. Defensive via offence, bear in mind this effect can be cumulative across several ships or shots), but it also doesn't add to your unpredictability which means you risk being killed before doing sufficient damage to earn your points back.

The biggest issue I had with Kihraxz was the lack of a 1 straight makes some maneuvers in tight very difficult to pull off. If you want to go straight you are forced to close too fast, if not your attack of attack changes quite a lot. While the 5 K-turn is useful, you don't often want to get that far away. Lightning Reflexes forces your opponent to keep account of it for what you can possibly do (same goes for Inertial Dampeners). It significantly increases the unpredictability of the ship in a similar way to post manuever actions, but forces opponent to make decisions during their dial set up. Often the threat of pulling off a LR is enough to force your opponent into poor moves.

I tried it with Glitterstim, but I am now tempted to run some Black Sun Aces with LR and Inertial Dampeners to see what kind of shenanigans I can pull off (or not). 25 points seems like a reasonable deal for such unpredicable ships.

most people forget is that you can still use it if you overlap another ship or asteroid,

You can complete K-turns on asteroids.

Indeed I am aware of that, but what I was meaning was if you did ANY non-red, non-K maneuver (excluding the defender) and ended up on an asteroid and it would be preferable to be facing the wrong way then you can still activate it.

Basically what I was getting at was that you can use Lightning Reflexes after moving regardless of whether you overlap, hit an asteroid or make you move as per normal (as long as the mover you did is on the dial etc.)

I get the impression that some players read the card as that you can only use it if you perform a maneuver without bumping or hitting an obstacle, which is not the case.

I want to try it on Keyan. His ability makes the stress penalty negligible, and it would give him alternatives to the 2-K for turning around, which can be tricky to pull off in a furball.

Tried it last night with some T-70s. It worked very nicely and got me a shot from outside an opponent's arc each time I pulled it. My one concern is that whilst it tends to give you a shot with little reply, it does stress you so said shots are unmodified.

I'm not sure how to make a list stress-tolerant whilst still taking advantage of it.

The other thing to bear in mind - I'm not sure TIE/fo fighters would use it because Adrenaline Rush sits in the same bracket - if you've got a segnor's loop this lets you do a back-to-back loop but the advantage is getting your action after the first one.

On a T-70 I think lightning reflexes is better because whilst K-turns and Talon Rolls are good at getting your backside out of the way, Lightning reflexes lets you get your nose around, too.

The one exception - which left me very happy that it worked - was "Blue Ace". I'd given him R5-D6 and Adrenaline Rush, and pulling a Talon Roll and then boost-turning back in with a Hard 1 turn lets him come around in a ridiculously tight 270' turn. Definitely a move to remember!

Overall, I like the abilities. They reward (and allow) good flying - not the 'outflying your opponent' that people liked to claim with Echo before the change to decloaking, or with PTL/Daredevil Tycho, which is nothing of the sort - "I wait and see where all of your ships have moved and then reposition at will" is not you being a better pilot.

Outflying your opponent when you need to plan where they will/might end up and not just by lots of reactive manoeuvres is something that should (hopefully) make for being better at the game.

I think one of the biggest advantages of Lightning Reflexes to Adrenaline rush - is that you can use lightning reflexes when you overlap a ship

One of the best uses I thought of was actually Guri. Funny enough, I think you complete the green move. So you can segnors one way. Then 3 straight green back out, and lightning reflexes off that, turning around again. Gain a focus for R1.

I think one of the biggest advantages of Lightning Reflexes to Adrenaline rush - is that you can use lightning reflexes when you overlap a ship

Can you?

'After you execute a maneuver'.....**** it, you can, can't you. That would have dramatically changed one of the games last night, because I overcooked it and collided with a ship that hadn't moved yet. I assumed I couldn't turn about. Using Lighting Reflexes would have had me a (third) shot on its tail and probably killed it....

That makes it VERY powerful. It's not like you're getting your action anyway, so go right ahead and aim to overlap your opponent - the classic adage that a ship can't move out of its own arc of fire with any basic maneuver template remains true....

The only thing I didn't think worked was putting Weapons Guidance on the squad. They ended up stressed a lot, and even when I did have both a shot and a focus token, the odds of not getting a focus result to spend it on seem too low to justify it. Possibly Flechette Torps might be a better plan - if I can do silly maneuvers, stopping you doing the same further improves my (relative) maneuverability.

weapons guidance is pretty cool with predator...

The point of Lighting Reflexes or Inertional dampener is not that you can outmaneuver ships, it is rather that you COULD use it. Your enemy knows it for sure and that makes you unpredictable. It has even an effect when not used once in the game. It's a strong card for that point cost.

True - although at the same time, as with all one-use abilities, I find myself wanting to use it at the first advantageous opportunity; hanging on to it as a threat seems less useful a lot of the time than just taking the advantage offered by using it now.

I was thinking about it earlier - The fact that it comes in the Khiraxz pack, there's a lot of 'one use' stuff in there.

Has anyone tried the ship with the kit that comes in the box?

Trying to make a squad that can outfly and outshoot people (in the early stages) - you can get two Black Sun Aces and Talonbane Cobra, and give each one homing missiles, glitterstim and lightning reflexes. That should put the opening rounds massively in your favour - a target locked, focused, 4-dice secondary weapon attack you can't use evade against, focus on the defence, and the ability to pull a lightning reflexes end-about the following turn despite being stressed.

Of course, you'll probably never get actions again after that as you've got 2 stress tokens to shake, so it's a question on whether you can capitalise on that enough... at least the Khiraxz' white dial is actually not bad.

One-time wonder for 1 point?

Crack shot fits the niche much better, because it doesn't care if the enemy is super-arcdodger or a turret

Crack shot is fun, I'm using it in a 5 FO list right now, but it can't make up for the benefit of Lightning reflexes, I also run a list of FOs with Howlrunner sporting squadleader as well..

I like the LR because of the versatility it gives you, especially with the TIE/FOs, that 2 segnor is the best, and the extra shield is nice for survivability. Omega squads are my main use these days.

Holy crap.

With something like that... ****, Jan and Nien could TOTALLY use that..! Wow. I need this. Lots of these..!

I'll just leave this here:

I'll just leave this here:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh

Won't work, because you put the stress on After Check Pilot Stress step.

Won't work, because you put the stress on After Check Pilot Stress step.

Booooooooo.

Won't work, because you put the stress on After Check Pilot Stress step.

The new rules reference changed the timing of the Check Pilot Stress step, so it now happens in the middle of the Execute Maneuver step. Which means...wait. Lightning Reflexes triggers after executing a maneuver, and it gives you a stress after the Check Pilot Stress step, which happens before you would trigger Lightning Reflexes. Huh.

So that's confusing, but either way, Kanan should definitely trigger after executing the maneuver, which puts it after the Check Stress step and before the Perform Action step. So you should be able to fly through a debris field with a white maneuver, gain a stress, have Kanan remove the stress, and still perform your action.

They may need to fix the timing on Lightning Reflexes, though.

FAQ Incoming.

Hm. That's confuzzling.

Crack shot is fun, I'm using it in a 5 FO list right now, but it can't make up for the benefit of Lightning reflexes, I also run a list of FOs with Howlrunner sporting squadleader as well..

I like the LR because of the versatility it gives you, especially with the TIE/FOs, that 2 segnor is the best, and the extra shield is nice for survivability. Omega squads are my main use these days.

Glad to hear it works! Yeah. Crack Shot is what feels like an easy answer - I default to it, but I feel like I'll have to learn to be a better player if I try something else. One-use maneuver talents feel like I'm trying to win the game by good piloting rather than loaded dice rolls.

For a TIE/fo swarm, I was thinking Adrenaline Rush rather than Lightning Reflexes - since you've got the Segnor's Loops in your bag already, making them white seems better than turning on a hard turn - a white segnor followed by an action means you lose less capability and you don't need Lightning Reflexes so much to get your nose around.

Alternatively, Wired means you don't lose as much competence in a hard turn - and it sticks around, rather than being one use.


I had another go with my T-70 squad last night, and whilst lightning reflexes wasn't as devastating as it was in the first game, it still did me proud - letting me effectively "speed 2 koiogran" with one of the x-wings to drop in behind a Z-95 that had just tazed it, whilst the second one was able to "speed 2 segnor" to fall in almost directly on a khiraxz' arse - that rule of thumb that a fighter can't fly out of its own arc of fire with only basic maneuvers works well.

At the same time, the star of the show was Blue Ace. I was using him because I had points space, but I can't speak highly enough of this guy. Yes, his PS is low, but he's brilliant if I can learn to outfly people (read - actually predict where they're going to go, rather than just boost reactively). Paired with R2-D6 and Adrenaline Rush, he's ridiculous.


Lighting Reflexes and Adrenaline Rush are very near neighbours in tactical use. I would make the following recommendations:

• They're really, really good. Try them
• Don't be afraid of one-use talents. A 100 point standard dogfight lasts...what? Six to Eight Turns? And with nothing much happening turn One. So a really sneaky move on turn two or three can really swing the game.
• They work best on mid-cost elite pilots. Someone like Poe Dameron or whatever are too expensive and too crucial to your squad to be given one-trick-pony abilities. Red Squadron Veterans, Omega Squadron Pilots, Zeta Ace, and so on, are good choices.
• Lightning Reflexes is the more flexible talent. It essentially gives you a Koiogran Turn/Segnor's Loop on every white or green maneuver on your dial. If you have a reasonable dial, it's the better choice.
• Adrenaline Rush is tied to the red maneuvers on your dial. If you have only one or two koiogran turns, I'd probably bypass it. Where it's better than Lightning Reflexes is any of the following situations:

• You have access to Segnor's Loops - allowing you to change heading as part of an end-around maneuver
• You have access to maneuvering actions which, combined with a segnor or koiogran, are even more capable than lightning reflexes (Zeta Ace's Barrel Roll, Blue Ace's Boost, Jake Farrel's Boost/Focus/Barrel Roll)
• You are either really dependent on actions for survival or getting your 'perform actions step' is critical to your combat effectiveness (Vader)