Why don't Hobbie, Ibtisam, Salm, and Kenyan get a little more love? In my play I have found these ships to have a lot of interesting options for weapons and EPTs but they never seem to show up on any lists but mine. Why? They all have abilities that let them consistently avoid or in some way ignore stress, and all have pretty consistent dice.

Well the b wing pilots issue is platform. Their lots of fun but competitively over costed. Personally I love farlander. Opportunist with him is amazing

Their lots of fun but competitively over costed.

The B-wing? The jousting gold standard for five waves straight?

Their lots of fun but competitively over costed.

The B-wing? The jousting gold standard for five waves straight?

We saw a lot of Daggers .. many argue the named pilots are overcosted.

Ibitsam is overcosted, almost fatally so. Salm and Hobbie suffer from a lack of natural ept's, which lets down an otherwise good ship.

Keyan is good, but with him it's more that he's not positioned particularly well against what gets flown competitively these days; he has a hard time keeping aces in arc, and is a little too squishy to justify the points that want to be spent on him.

Ibitsam is overcosted, almost fatally so. Salm and Hobbie suffer from a lack of natural ept's, which lets down an otherwise good ship.

Keyan is good, but with him it's more that he's not positioned particularly well against what gets flown competitively these days; he has a hard time keeping aces in arc, and is a little too squishy to justify the points that want to be spent on him.

Keyan with Stay on Target and Intel Agent.

B-wing's 5 shields seem amazing until a salvo of plasma torpedoes suddenly leaves them with no shields.

Mostly because of the platform. The X-Wing is a jouster, and a poor one at that. The B-Wing is solid, but Ibtisam is a bit overcosted, other jousters are stronger, and it can't K-turn past large ships. Horton is hilariously overpriced, especially considering that Scum Y-Wings can just slap on an Overclocked R4 or an Agromech and have pretty much the same deal for one or two points instead of seven.

Keyan does/did see a decent amount of play because his ability is so good, but he's still almost thirty points hiding behind one agility and eight hull/shields, which makes him a perfect torpedo target.

And then there's the fact that there are better options for doing the same thing. Why fly Hobbie when you can fly a Defender? Both get essentially get white K-turns, but the latter sticks around way longer. Why fly Keyan when you can get a Ghost for not too much more?

B-wing's 5 shields seem amazing until a salvo of plasma torpedoes suddenly leaves them with no shields.

The same could be said of anything with shields. Strip the shields off the GR-75 in one shot? No problem. The same with the ORS, Falcon etc.

X-Wing is basically a rock-paper-scissors game. No single build beats everything all the time. I should add IF the ships and upgrades are properly designed. There's also a large dose of theory crafting and flying ability required. Seasoned with a bit of luck.

On the subject of overpriced named pilots

The normal scale it seems is +2 points for +2 ps

But ps 4 dagger of 24 jump to ps ibs of 28 and then ten nub at 31

Dutch from gray is 3 points instead of two and the salm goes back to "normal" at +2 over dutch but is still overcosted relative to generics and has, bafflingly, no ept

B-wing's 5 shields seem amazing until a salvo of plasma torpedoes suddenly leaves them with no shields.

The same could be said of anything with shields.

Not really, though As one of only 6 ships in the game with 5 or more shields (and the only small base, and the least hull behind those shields) the B-Wing has a special vulnerability to plasma spam.

Consider a 4-hit plasma torpedo vs

Y-Wing with 0 evades: 4 health remaining

B-Wing with 0 evades: 3 health remaining

Y-Wing with 1 evade: 5 health remaining

B-Wing with 1 evade: 4 health remaining

even a 3-hit torpedo is worse for the B 3/8ths of the time:

Y-Wing with 0 evades: 5 health remaining

B-Wing with 0 evades: 4 health remaining

Y-Wing with 1 evade: 5 health remaining

B-Wing with 1 evade: 5 health remaining

Horton Salm works great in a 34 point Furball. Load him up with TLT, plasma torps, and GC. Slow roll him and watch him tear the other ships apart with that auto target lock.

I've been flying bigs, Ibti (wired, hera) and keyan (adv sensors, VI). A great and fun 2nd tier list.