Luke, Poe, Ezra Build

By Underachiever599, in X-Wing Squad Lists

Just a funny thought I had earlier today:

Luke Skywalker with Cool Hand, R2-F2, and Experimental Interface. Takes a Target Lock/Focus action, then uses EI to trigger R2-F2 and bump his agility up to 3. Then takes a stress from EI, which triggers Cool Hand, allowing Luke to get an Evade Token. Luke with 3 evade dice, his ability, and an Evade Token sounds like a real pain in the neck to kill.

Couple that with Poe Dameron, also with Cool Hand, R5-P9, and Autothrusters. Cool Hand allows him to get that all-important Focus token, even when he goes through debris or does a red maneuver. R5-P9 and Autothrusters, of course, help increase his durability in the long run.

Then finally, we come to Ezra, with Rage, Kyle Katarn, and Blaster Turret. Rage assigns a focus and gives him two stress tokens, which trigger his ability. The focus can then be spent to fire the Blaster Turret, which can reroll up to 3 dice, thanks Rage. The next turn, Ezra clears a stress, gets a focus from Kyle, which he then either uses to modify his primary or fire the Blaster Turret again. The turn after that, assuming he lives long enough, Ezra can clear a stress and Rage, getting a Focus from both Kyle and Rage, which can grant him a fully modified Blaster Turret shot. All the while, Ezra will be ridiculously annoying to shoot down thanks to his perpetual stress allowing him to always turn two [eyeball] results into [evade] results when defending.

I'm sure this isn't the most competitive build. Not by a long shot. But it is three ships that are stupidly annoying to kill because of their defensive abilities. And with all three of them getting some degree of attack modifiers coupled with their defensive abilities, they should do fairly well. Ezra's turret is this group's only real shot against arc dodgers, and his slightly lower health and inability to regenerate mean he's probably going to be the first shot down. Between Luke and Poe, it's hard to say who will last longer. Luke is more frustrating to shoot down, between an Evade, three dice, and a similar defensive ability. However, Poe is capable of regenerating the damage that's done to him, so assuming they both take equal amounts of damage from turn to turn, Poe will last longer. Either way, it's a pair of late game ships with decent offensive ability, and irritating levels of defense.

Trouble with Cool Hand is that it is one-use only. It is good on Poe where the focus token is very important and having a one-off exception allows you to pull T-rolls and still benefit from Regen/pilot text. On Luke it is nice for a one-off bonus but I think you might be better with R2-D2 if you want to keep him alive (or Red Ace with R2-D2, comms relay and Auto-thrusters for a really hard-to-kill ship).

Rage on Ezra is OK but I would rather try to find 2 extra points and give him PTL. The trouble with Rage is that with 2 stress tokens, you can only use it every other turn. Also the blaster turret is literally the worst turret in the game. Give him a Dorsal turret which is cheaper and does not require a Focus token to fire. Or give him an auto-blaster turret and try to use barrel-rolls to get you in range of high-agility targets.

What he said. Its an expensive combo on Luke for not much return. He'll be hard to hit 1 time, but after that he'll be predictable due to stress. You are better off going a cheaper route and just taking R2-D2.