iirc Biggs does give guardian point, but you really don't want to be the target of attacks with an Awing... never trust those green dice, they will fail you! And other than giving you 1 XP and getting you in real danger the Biggs ability is not offering much (not really contributing to the missions except in real corner cases where you take a shot that might kill the only torpedo carriere etc and you couldn't just fly into the path to be nearest target anyways)

I switched to an Awing at the earlyest point, yes causing damage becomes a problem and you get less XP, but it helps the team to have someone draw fire (turrets) prockets with muntions helps, I knew I wanted an Awing so I didn't take astro but shield and preditor, then went for push and autothrusters. Bit more xp and I took juke, I have taken Farlands skill many to help shed stress but there are plenty of options that I considered,

You can gain XP for assisting kills as well, and that can add up surprisingly fast.

Yeah, but for that you need something to give others a Focus or Target Lock, right? Never had one of these abilities.

So while bored at work and trying to plan my Y-Wing I've come up with this for a low level starting A-Wing

X-wing (5)

- R2 Unit 1 - Ultimately wasted (4)

PS 3 6 - (-2)

PtL. 6 - (-8)

PS 4. 8 - (-16)

A-Wing. 5 - (-21)

Erza Bridger. 4 - (-25)

Auto Thursters 2 - (-27)

Prockets/ Conc Missiles - (-30)

Extra Munitions - (-32)

With Crackshot, Outmaneuver and Juke, the A-wing has potential I find. Add xx-23 s-tracers, have it zoom in, give target locks to allies, especially if the new assist mechanics in v0.8 are in play, the A wing has potential for support.

because of Rebels, I think the A-wing should be a availiable, but reworked a bit with the extra elite talent.

Adding Zeb's ability from the phantom, coupled by Miranda Doni, and some shield upgrades, autothrusters, and Gemmer's ability, you have a durable ship.

Or, go for the Bad Touch

A-wing

Arvel Crynyd xp/ps6

Intimidation xp4

Chopper xp/ps4

Eadron Vrill xp/ps3

Outmaneuver xp6

Like I mentioned in the other Strategy thread, the Eaden Vrill/Chopper/Arvel combo isn't really very effective. It ends up basically being slightly inferior (mathematically) to just having Predator, and it takes three Elite slots to make it work instead of one. Adding Intimidation increases its effectiveness slightly (remember, 5/8 results on a green die are blank), but that comes at the cost of a fourth Elite Slot, and by then, you are PS7 with a wealth of great options that are being missed out on. This combo only works well if you can count on consistently having one or two Action Buddies ^TM doling out Focus or Target Lock tokens. Otherwise, the extra unmodifiable/rerollable attack dice don't accomplish much on their own. And since the Imperial ships aren't significantly hampered by Stress Tokens in most instances, there's not even much of supplementary effect.

Ultimately, this is one of those combos that looks cool on paper, but in reality isn't doing much, and comes at way too high of a cost (3-4 Elite slots you could be putting to better use).

Also, Miranda is a decent ability, and really the only regen option for an A-Wing, but you can't take it until PS8. In a normal playthrough of the campaign, that's basically the endgame. A good A-Wing Build is looking at "How do I survive PS 5, 6 and 7?" Any ability added after PS7 is icing on the cake (like Wedge, for example), but your ship concept has to be solidified much earlier than that, otherwise you'll never even make it to PS8, lol.

If one was to allow an A-wing as a starter ship (I see no compelling reason not to) how many starting points would you give the player? I feel that 8 is appropriate as the base cost for an Awing is the same as a Y-wing after you adjust for pilot skill, but I am curious what others think.

If one was to allow an A-wing as a starter ship (I see no compelling reason not to) how many starting points would you give the player? I feel that 8 is appropriate as the base cost for an Awing is the same as a Y-wing after you adjust for pilot skill, but I am curious what others think.

I'd say 7 max. The dial is much better and gives you great influence on the way the enemies act. That has to be considered when you hand out starting points. Maybe 6 will even be enough, really. That will give you prockets and some other gimmick, probably stealth or thruster (for those that really want to stay at R3 all the time?!). A wing for starter combined with a X-Wing and 1 or 2 Y-Wings will really mess with the Ties, the A will draw the Ties around on the board while most of the time being out of arc while his buddies finish them off. Especially the early interceptors, always a frightening opponent the first few missions, will loose their teeth when they have to chase an A-Wing around.

I'm in a campaign with 2 A wings, 1 B wing, 1 T-70, and an X-wing (going to be a T-70 soon enough).

A wings have out manuever and dead-eye, extra muntions x2.

Easiest way to cap an Ace is to fire a missile at a tie within range 1 of him... again, and again. Being able to focus to fire missiles is awesome, you don't have to commit to a target.

Outmaneuver is really good on those A-wings, and the pilots are thinking about Stay On Target, to avoid that round that the opponent does something stupid and causes a bump.

-Matt

What I thought about today was giving the A-Wing a title, call it Rowdy Crow, allowing it to keep Evade tokens not spent in a turn. Price could be similar to Moldy Crow. What do you think?

The problem of the A-Wing is not to stay alive. The problem is to deal damage. I earned a total of 7 XP in 2 mission after I switched over to the A-Wing. One mission I was never in arc and didn't roll once for evade. The other mission I played a bit more aggressive to get a few XP and was shot down :-(

I switched over to a X-Wing, and doing real good with it (lost a total of 6 XP due to the switching around, but made 10 XP in the first mission I flew the X-Wing). We will soon restart the campaign and will pool the XP earned and distribute them afterwards;: that way ships like the A-Wing can do their magic without staying behind points-wise.

We are currently pooling. WAY better.

We are currently pooling. WAY better.

I'd love to hear more about how you're specifically handling XP in your group.

We have a bunch of players 6-8 each week, and have had as many as 12 in a game, we scaled it up to have more enemies and the exp have never been an issue, some come out worse than others but for themost part we try to help each other out getting exp equally.

We are currently pooling. WAY better.

I'd love to hear more about how you're specifically handling XP in your group.

May I point you to my Gozanti campaign? The rules are written down there. https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/132284/battlestar-gozanti-aturi-cluster-coop-campaign