At first blush, this combo is really, really good. As long as you're fighting up close, you get to perform white moves to effectively clear your PTL stress. That's good on it's own, but it gets way better. The T70 has good red moves on its dial.

Those Talon Rolls are extremely useful. When fighting against higher PS ships, Nien Nunb can perform one of his three red turnaround moves (and those T-rolls have some shift) to get behind a higher PS ship before it moves, guaranteeing that your move doesn't generate a stress, allowing you to take an action and then use PTL to take another action. As you still have a ship at Range 1 in arc, that stress is free, too. If you're modestly good at guessing dials, you can usually clear the stress against lower PS ships as well.

There's a whole pile of upgrades that can make use of his ability

Vectored Thrusters gives him extra maneuverability options to make sure he ends up in Range 1 of something.

R3-A2 lets you stress someone at Range 1 with no penalty to your own ship. Although this is likely to only work against lower PS ships, so it's probably not the greatest use of the card.

Pattern Analyzer acts as insurance against lower PS ships if you guess incorrectly. You can dial in a red move, then if you're outside of Range 1, you use Pattern Analyzer to perform your action and use PTL to get another action. Unless you're a really terrible guesser, that should allow you to bring your ship into Range 1 of your target. This then lets you dump the stress from PTL, and you then when you "check pilot stress", you're in Range 1, and you drop that stress too.

There's probably a dozen other awesome things you can do with this ability, what do you all think?

Do I have it right that he can T-Roll into effective range to trigger his ability, then PtL and remove that stress, too, if he's still at range 1, in-arc of an enemy?

Do I have it right that he can T-Roll into effective range to trigger his ability, then PtL and remove that stress, too, if he's still at range 1, in-arc of an enemy?

That's how I'm reading it. There's no per-turn limit on it.

You can even roll with targeting astromech for some clutch 3-action plays.

Ok... I like this one. It may be time to upgrade from T-65s to T-70s... Pricey though. Not saying over-priced, not my place, just X-Wing aces are always something of a big point hit.

Vector thrusters, PTL, R3-A2 , 36 points, but **** it is a killer. You can roll, boost into R1, get no stress, proc R3-A2, get no stress, T-roll into R1, target lock and focus, and still proc R3-A2 and start from the beginning again with boost/roll into R1 …

jup, I am in love.

You can even roll with targeting astromech for some clutch 3-action plays.

Yeah, good call, totally forgot that one. You'll probably be boosting and maybe Barrel Rolling (if you can give up Autothrusters or Integrated Astromech) a lot, so getting the free TL is pretty solid.

The big bonus will come from weapons that cause stress. They will have to stay outside of range one for it to stay.

To bad you can't take PTL and expert handling

Niem Nunb

-R3-A2

-Snap Shot

-Autothrusters

-Pick your tech

Stress an ace before it takes actions and shoot at it.

And... the ace will be at r1 for the combat phase 4 red dice atk without modifiers.

The big bonus will come from weapons that cause stress. They will have to stay outside of range one for it to stay.

So what's the best droid for this combo? The targeting astromech? BB-8? R3-A2?

Sure, it looks cool on paper. It's still a 32 point ship that will die instantly to Torp Scouts or Dengar (unless you're throwing 26 more points away on Biggs to die instantly), and I don't see how he ever shoots down Palp Aces with only PS7 and no way to crack through green dice + tokens + palps. He'll also struggle to wound X7s. So, godspeed, little Nien, but he seems like minimally 32 points that is going to struggle against the most common match-ups.

Is he the best non-Poe T70? Probably. Does that make him competitive? Probably not.

I'm less bullish on PTL for him, as much of the time you want to be pointing at where you think the ship is going to be, instead of where it is when you move. It's not often that those two things align. I'd much rather take the Snap Shot/R3-A2 combo.

To bad you can't take PTL and expert handling

You can, however, take

To bad you can't take PTL and expert handling

You can, however, take

I would just like to mention how awesome that card art is. It is awesome.

Give him Pattern Analyzer and he can pull a Red Maneuver, boost to get a target in arc at range one if he doesn't already have one, PTL for a second action, and then get rid of both stress tokens.

Or give Nien Nunb Rage. Only trigger it when you've got someone at range 1 in arc. Get rid of both stress tokens.

I'm less bullish on PTL for him, as much of the time you want to be pointing at where you think the ship is going to be, instead of where it is when you move. It's not often that those two things align. I'd much rather take the Snap Shot/R3-A2 combo.

I see that. I think getting effectively white K-turns and T-rolls is pretty strong against aces in its own right, even if you use stress-free PTL less often. Any Nien build can do that, of course.

Against Scouts, you do your best to avoid arcs, but otherwise rely on other Rebel tools for dealing with them.

Give him Pattern Analyzer and he can pull a Red Maneuver, boost to get a target in arc at range one if he doesn't already have one, PTL for a second action, and then get rid of both stress tokens.

Or give Nien Nunb Rage. Only trigger it when you've got someone at range 1 in arc. Get rid of both stress tokens.

Doesn't get rid of both stress tokens, only the second one. And even then, he can only PTL if his second action is Barrel Roll.

Targeting Astromech + APT might be fun on him as well. K-Turn or T-Roll and to set up the TL + Focus for the APT. Maybe give him VI so that it's more likely that anyone he lands near will stay there.

Give him Pattern Analyzer and he can pull a Red Maneuver, boost to get a target in arc at range one if he doesn't already have one, PTL for a second action, and then get rid of both stress tokens.

Or give Nien Nunb Rage. Only trigger it when you've got someone at range 1 in arc. Get rid of both stress tokens.

Doesn't get rid of both stress tokens, only the second one. And even then, he can only PTL if his second action is Barrel Roll.

Why wouldn't it? It's not limited to once per round. It triggers every time that you receive a token. Pattern Analyzer delays the stress token until after you perform your action.

Sure, it looks cool on paper. It's still a 32 point ship that will die instantly to Torp Scouts or Dengar (unless you're throwing 26 more points away on Biggs to die instantly), and I don't see how he ever shoots down Palp Aces with only PS7 and no way to crack through green dice + tokens + palps. He'll also struggle to wound X7s. So, godspeed, little Nien, but he seems like minimally 32 points that is going to struggle against the most common match-ups.

Is he the best non-Poe T70? Probably. Does that make him competitive? Probably not.

Hey look Debbie downer over here with no imagination. So quick to write it off with out seeing if it will be worth while. You might be surprised how quick things don't die to those things you listed. While yes in perfect vaccum with no other variables and perfect dice, this would be true.

That said, this expansion might make me wanna try playing rebels for real in quite some time.

Give him Pattern Analyzer and he can pull a Red Maneuver, boost to get a target in arc at range one if he doesn't already have one, PTL for a second action, and then get rid of both stress tokens.

Or give Nien Nunb Rage. Only trigger it when you've got someone at range 1 in arc. Get rid of both stress tokens.

Doesn't get rid of both stress tokens, only the second one. And even then, he can only PTL if his second action is Barrel Roll.

Why wouldn't it? It's not limited to once per round. It triggers every time that you receive a token. Pattern Analyzer delays the stress token until after you perform your action.

Oh my bad, thought you said Primed Thrusters instead of Pattern Analyzer.

Carry on.

This guy is either going to be an amazing take or a niche pilot.

He enables me to do Troll shenanigans, so im going to use him for that alone. Same reason i love Ello Asty so much is that Troll + action is amazing, and while Nein is a little limited on his action with proper planning he gets it too.

Also laughs at stressbot's face...literally.

The fact that it doesnt say once per turn is probably why its a range1 limit. Which kind of sucks but if it was once per turn at range1-3 he could easily be considered a meh pilot.

You could also give him "Stay on Target" and ensure nobody tries to outfly him by going the other way (lower PS of course). He literally takes no penalties from Stay on Target long as he was able to get arc range1 with that move, and coupled with Pattern Analyzer + VTs thats pretty likely.

Nien Nunb will be insane - with PtL, Targeting Astromech or R3A2 he will be a proper monster.

I prefered the articles SOT with targeting

Ptl you save for snap

With r2 astro and pattern analyzer, he can make an 2 speed move or 3 foward and then

Action

Ptl action

Stress

Check pilot stress on green

FULL MODS with boost as required; no stress

Also no range or arc requirement either and can action off of trolls that you can perform because ptl wont leave you stressed