I want to fly RAC with this loadout:

VI, EU, Vader, Gunner, Hotcop

This leaves me with 37 points to play with. I've been debating who the best wingman/wingwoman would be for Chirpy. Maybe a loaded up Redline punisher for an alpha strike and taking the heat off RAC, maybe PTL Juno with homing missiles. I'm also thinking of Rexler with x/7 and Juke. I've never played him before, is he any good? I probably wouldn't even care about not triggering his ability that often, I would take him more for the high PS making it more likely that I get to use Juke on whoever RAC stripped tokens from.

I flew something very similar at a teams tournament recently. Long story short, i came up against RAC-lo twice I think it was. I was just blinded pilot'd twice. nothing i could do about it. His RAC survived on 2 health, after 2 turns of my RAC not being able to shoot. Yeah, it was a fun game. Kylo is the new cancer to the game, which is fitting as they have just nerfed the Emperor....

If you can find the points brath is fantastic with expertise.

But yeah....Kylo crew eats Everything unique and fancy and high p.s.

Honestly...If it were me..I'd join 'em. Pullvader out and put kylo in. Maybe v.i. on RAC to shoot first in the mirror match and blind him before he blinds you.

I went 3-3 at regionals with that list and it only wasn't at least 4-2 because I flew a half health RAC of the board by mistake.

It's solid, but as noted just there, Kylo crew makes it painful to run a two ship list especially with low agility.

I was thinking when I ran it though, that actually running it with the old damage deck might not be totally stupid. With HotCoP Gunner and Vader RAC can live with getting Injured much more than he can live with losing an entire round's shooting to the new Blinded Pilot. Rex is a lot less likely to get hit but again, his pilot ability is very rarely used except when you have ways to feed him extra focus, and his EPT can be lived without though it's a painful loss

You probably don't want Kylo crew without the title though, and ideally you also want some way to get rerolls, so dropping VI down to Predator.

What about a wingman with a crew slot that could take Kylo? Maybe Starkiller Base Pilot + Kylo + EU (to help turn around)? How necessary is Predator in a RAC Kylo list? I feel that with his ability and Hotcop and Gunner I can almost always get at least one damage through, which is all you need for Kylo (if at range 1-2).

'Rexpertise' is a frightening combination that's worth looking at - although you do make yourself vulnerable to stress (since it shuts off everything: actions, /x7 and Expertise), the trade off is a marked increase in reliability. Having Expertise means you're far less likely to need to spend a focus token on offence (unless you see a good opportunity for Rexler's ability), thus making him a little tankier when it comes to the return fire (since he's more likely to still have both focus+evade).

It's not easy, and requires knowing how and when to disengage fairly precisely, but could be very effective alongside Chiraneau.

1 hour ago, turkishvancat said:

What about a wingman with a crew slot that could take Kylo? Maybe Starkiller Base Pilot + Kylo + EU (to help turn around)? How necessary is Predator in a RAC Kylo list? I feel that with his ability and Hotcop and Gunner I can almost always get at least one damage through, which is all you need for Kylo (if at range 1-2).

RAC can't deal with blanks, basically. Normally he gets around this by not needing his action for anything but boost or TL, but add in Kylo to the mix and it's more difficult.

32 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

'Rexpertise' is a frightening combination that's worth looking at - although you do make yourself vulnerable to stress (since it shuts off everything: actions, /x7 and Expertise), the trade off is a marked increase in reliability. Having Expertise means you're far less likely to need to spend a focus token on offence (unless you see a good opportunity for Rexler's ability), thus making him a little tankier when it comes to the return fire (since he's more likely to still have both focus+evade).

It's not easy, and requires knowing how and when to disengage fairly precisely, but could be very effective alongside Chiraneau.

Rexpertise is very very nice but I find him a touch too expensive for running alongside Chirp. And the real trouble with him is the stress vulnerability, in particular Rebel Captive. If I were running HotCoP RAC today I'd probably be putting Captive on instead of Vader.

7 hours ago, Velvetelvis said:

If you can find the points brath is fantastic with expertise.

But yeah....Kylo crew eats Everything unique and fancy and high p.s.

Honestly...If it were me..I'd join 'em. Pullvader out and put kylo in. Maybe v.i. on RAC to shoot first in the mirror match and blind him before he blinds you.

Maybe im a rare exception but i find Vader more useful than HotCop (and cheaper). Both RAC and his partner usualy dont have that much problem hitting their target, tokened or not. Vader is at least 1x 100% garanteed hit when you need it the most. It bypass evades as well, not just focus. I dont know how many time i targeted a ship with 1 hull left, missed, used Vader to destroy it and got a full attack vs a 2nd ship afterward. It's even more satisfying if you used Kylo on that second ship and got a crit in :-)

2 hours ago, turkishvancat said:

What about a wingman with a crew slot that could take Kylo? Maybe Starkiller Base Pilot + Kylo + EU (to help turn around)? How necessary is Predator in a RAC Kylo list? I feel that with his ability and Hotcop and Gunner I can almost always get at least one damage through, which is all you need for Kylo (if at range 1-2).

Problem with Upsilon+Decimator is that the shuttle is a bad finisher. Once the decimator is down it's pretty easy for your oponent to safely destroy it.

The real danger with Vader is being tempted to overuse him. It's very easy to commit suicide with him, and even if you don't, in a tournament context 2-ship lists haemorrhage MoV fast enough on their own without help.

At my last regionals where I flew Vader/Gunner/HotCoP RAC and Juke Rexler I'm pretty sure I did more damage to myself than my opponents did. I wish I'd tracked it.

9 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

I was thinking when I ran it though, that actually running it with the old damage deck might not be totally stupid. With HotCoP Gunner and Vader RAC can live with getting Injured much more than he can live with losing an entire round's shooting to the new Blinded Pilot. Rex is a lot less likely to get hit but again, his pilot ability is very rarely used except when you have ways to feed him extra focus, and his EPT can be lived without though it's a painful loss

The old deck still has Blinded Pilot. You roll 0 dice the next time you attack, which is actually worse since the new Blinded Pilot will go away the next time you have an attack window, even if you have nothing to shoot at.

With Gunner on a PWT the old blinded Pilot is way better, especially with Hscp.

You attack and roll 0 dice, defender still needs to spend a focus and then gunner triggers, basically how it should be

@OP: Try operations specialist instead of Vader to get focus for Rexlar.