N'dru Suhlak. I think Cruise Missile might do the trick.

3 minutes ago, Jo Jo said:

Not even close to being a Defender. No white K-turn, no title that gives you an evade (still good despite the nerf), LWF is good but not as good a native 3 agility, UR needs a focus to work, and no shields to protect against crits. Also, the biggest problem with Tomax is his ability w/ Crackshot is almost too good. He can be dangerous if left alone so he always seems to be the first thing your opponent starts shooting. He just does not have the durability to give you much in return for the points. At least in my experience.

UR requiring a focus is a moot point because you want a focus most of the time anyway. And you don't have to spend it to fire UR so you can save it for defense if you want.

And at 29 points you can still drop him in with other things. I found the above build to be very successful when paired with 2 defenders. He either died early. or he was left alone long enough to UR something to death. If and when we get out of this Ps 9+ plus meta he might see more play. But this build worked perfect for me at my local store.

i mean I guess ideally you could take the inquisitor or a delta x/7 and get better results for the same points but I like flying the bomber.

Wedge Antilles. I’ve been flying him ever since I started playing the game and I just can’t get him to be where I want him. He’ll have a few bad games, and then a game where he’s on fire. I’ve moved to Poe for most tournaments, but would love to make Wedge work.

29 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Do you give him that RNG droid that removes damage cards or do you go full "I can hold it!" Mode?

Both. He gets his droid but that only works occasionally so I get to say 'I can hold it' every time. I play him as a laid-back stoner when I remember, because he never takes stress and doesn't care about wrecking his ship.

For me it has been the empire firespray pilots. Can never get them to work. But just love the ship.

1 hour ago, Pooleman said:

Rebels are the best.

When is the release date for the Gunboat? I'm curious just how much longer Pooleman can make this statement without it being demonstrably incorrect.

"The dark side is strong in me, for I am Sith."

16 minutes ago, Darth Nadir said:

When is the release date for the Gunboat? I'm curious just how much longer Pooleman can make this statement without it being demonstrably incorrect.

"The dark side is strong in me, for I am Sith."

You’re arrogance blinds you

Dace Bonearm. I have a very vivid mental image of him having "RUDE" and "DUDE" tattooed across his knuckles. In Huttese. How can you NOT want to fly a guy like that?

I love gifting my opponents ion tokens, I love the idea of getting decent damage in alonside ion tokens, and I super love Greedo sitting in the gunner's seat of the HWK making (one) ion damage come in face-up. So cheeky.

Alas, it is not meant to be. The HWK flies like a tugboat taking on water, and seems that as soon annoys my opponent, they are able to disintegrate it with no taxation of resources, swatted like so much buzzing fly. One day, one day...

6 minutes ago, Pooleman said:

You’re arrogance blinds you

Perhaps.. but if you noticed in an earlier thread, Darth Meanie and I were both killed by that **** thing this morning. So I now have first hand knowledge of the awe inspiring power that is the Gunboat.

Fortunately for me, we play games in a universe where cloning is a legitimate thing.

"The dark side is strong in me, for I am Sith."

I'm with you on trying to make Vrill decent. Late least year and early this year I did ok with a tanky stress dealing list built around him but it was brief. I'm always about 1-2 points shy the list variant being better.

Last version I ran was Vrill with Rey, Lothal Rebel with FCS Hera and Chopper and a Grey Y-Wing stress hawg. Lots of HP but once my Y-Wing was dead the list suffered at the hands of my poor decision making and piloting LOL. Tried originally using the Gold Sq stress hawg but it was 50/50.

Well here are 3 pilots I tired to make work.

• Horton Salm. He has an excellent pilot ability (as long as you are not at range 1 and do not roll all focus results) However torpedoes can be arc dodged. As for turret TLT should work the best but thing is Horton is expensive and TLT is expensive and when you put expensive and expensive together you end up with too expensive.
• Nera Dantels, in the age of Arc dodgers and Turrets I tried to make Nera's trick shot work. Problem is that arc dodgers can reposistion from range 2 to beyond range 3 (or out of arc range 1) fairly easy. Also Nera only has 2 trick shots and then she becomes a 25 point B-wing with an EPT. Put something like dead eye she breaks the 1/4 of your list barrier and those torpedo enhancing upgrades lose their value after the 2nd shot.
• Major Rhymer, there is no way around this. Major Rhymer is 3 points overcosted. Given the pilot skill increase per points spent (delta S/delta P) he has the lowest. On top of that to make use of his ability requires secondary weapons making him cost even more. Doesn't matter if it is a proton torpedo at range 1 and APT at range 2 or cluster missiles at range 3 it just cost too much and he goes down too fast. Be it Munitions or Shuttle retrofit (snap-tact) he just cost too much for what he brings you. To add insult to injury Tomax the highest skilled TIE Bomber pilot is 1 more pilot skill for 2 points cheaper.

Every new card that comes out I first look at how it improves Wedge.

Also, every "fun" list I build has Wedge. Was just playing one yesterday against my very young step son, Wedge + TFA Han. Super fun.

Redline :/ he really needs two mods and an ept

2 hours ago, Rogue3 said:

Wedge Antilles. I’ve been flying him ever since I started playing the game and I just can’t get him to be where I want him. He’ll have a few bad games, and then a game where he’s on fire. I’ve moved to Poe for most tournaments, but would love to make Wedge work.

Surprised that Wedge, or any X-wing pilot, made it to the second page.

I agree. I’ve tried to keep it him light, I’ve heavily loaded him up, charged him first and kept him far back.... just can’t make Wedge work.

In no particular order, and not counting Epic format (as most of these do just fine there)...

Winged Gundark

Nightbeast

Ten Numb

Keyan Farlander

Dutch Vander

Hobbie

Luke

Wedge

Porkins

Blue Ace

Cassian Andor

Lando

Arvel

Gemmer

Lt. Lorrir

Nowadays, Turr Phennir, any Punisher, Generic Phantoms, and PS 1/3 TIE Interceptors

2 hours ago, Ccwebb said:

Surprised that Wedge, or any X-wing pilot, made it to the second page.

I agree. I’ve tried to keep it him light, I’ve heavily loaded him up, charged him first and kept him far back.... just can’t make Wedge work.

Wedge with Adaptability, BB8, Plasma Torpedoes, and Guidance Chips. Firing 3rd, after Nym and then Airen Cracken fire their missiles.

Works very well until you get outflown. It can remove Dengar or an Upsilon/YV666 before they shoot, although Dengar still gets his revenge shot). Nym carries the rest of the squad after the alpha strike.

I'd probably say Ten Numb. His ability is so powerful, and he is so close to being playable.

I so badly want this ship to work. Minefield Mapper offered a glimmer of hope. . .until I found out you only get 2 mines.

7 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

For me it's arvel. Green leader is cool it's just hard to make him work. Also only 1 ept with the title hurts him. If he had dual epts then we'd have something to talk about.

ideally you want a missile on him, but to make that work you'll need a target lock, which means you have to fly him in range of whatever you want to hit the round before, so you need autothrusters, which will be wasted the next round when you run up and bump. Also forgot to mention how much he likes VI so he can bump a lot of stuff. He would really love advanced sensors or the new advanced optics tech coming out. There might be something with coordinate on the new phantom 2 but idk.

I think the best build for him is just chardaan + title + intimidation and he makes a cheaper wedge essentially. Could also throw AT back on him, but then you're at 25 points. Which you might as well take Biggs or Jake for that point cost.

Oh and nowadays people just take zeb crew if they want to bump n shoot.

I played him in a couple casual games a ways back and found that he took an extra shot per game, which I found to be worthwhile (combined with the blocking) in that setting. I enjoyed flying him.

I was thinking that it might be good to run Proton Rockets on him. Just focus, hit hard in your Range 1 position. This assumes everyone's flying high-PS ships that you can block, though.

7 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Juno Eclipse for me. I can never put her together in a way I feel is effective.

I've only ever flown her (but there a number of times) on Squadron Benchmark. I found that I liked Expertise/Advanced Targeting Computer the best. Just a thought!

My pilot would be, well, Juno, but also, as for others, Wedge Antilles. My favourite build is PtL/R2 Astromech/Vectored Thrusters. Really, I want him to be a tough arc-dodger. I've found BB-8 to limit his maneuvers too much, though. I really hope a future X-wing fix will add barrel roll to its action bar. I think ships are a bit boring without repositioning, it fits the movie visuals exactly, and it would let me run Wedge with double repositioning on 2-hards like an Interceptor.

The other ship was the StarViper/Guri. But she was always okay and is now perfect for my taste (except that I can't figure out the right EPT. This is actually a positive problem, though).

3 minutes ago, TheHumanHydra said:

I played him in a couple casual games a ways back and found that he took an extra shot per game, which I found to be worthwhile (combined with the blocking) in that setting. I enjoyed flying him.

I was thinking that it might be good to run Proton Rockets on him. Just focus, hit hard in your Range 1 position. This assumes everyone's flying high-PS ships that you can block, though.

I've only ever flown her (but there a number of times) on Squadron Benchmark. I found that I liked Expertise/Advanced Targeting Computer the best. Just a thought!

My pilot would be, well, Juno, but also, as for others, Wedge Antilles. My favourite build is PtL/R2 Astromech/Vectored Thrusters. Really, I want him to be a tough arc-dodger. I've found BB-8 to limit his maneuvers too much, though. I really hope a future X-wing fix will add barrel roll to its action bar. I think ships are a bit boring without repositioning, it fits the movie visuals very well, and it would let me run Wedge with double repositioning on 2-hards like an Interceptor.

The other ship was the StarViper/Guri. But she was always okay and is now perfect for my taste (except that I can't figure out the right EPT. This is actually a positive problem, though).

The problem I've found is getting him his focus for prockets, of course I want to ram and use the prockets in the same turn so maybe that's my problem.

7 hours ago, Gilarius said:

Fel's Wrath.

I've been flying Porkins and having a great time getting him blown up, but he's superb compared to Fel's Wrath!

7 hours ago, Kieransi said:

All we need is a Interceptor-only modification that’s Biggs’ ability, and Fel’s Wrath instantly becomes an NPE.

If FW granted his ability to all friendly ships (so long as he is still on the board), would he see play?

Turr... not that I can’t get him to work, just that his working isn’t good enough anymore.

Juno is more of the “tried to make it work” winner I guess.

I've tried repeatedly on a couple of pilots I really want to make work. These days they don't get past theoretical before I shake my head and move on. Each new release has me playing with newer upgrades with high hopes though...

• Wedge
• Juno

Maarek Stele on a TIE Defender.

He's my favorite pilot in all the lore, but his ability just isn't very good. It's okay on an Advanced with ATC because at least he gets to use it constantly, but even then, it's not great.

On the Defender, he doesn't even get the consistency to use his mediocre ability.

Maarek's ability should have been Miranda's ability.

17 hours ago, Skargoth said:

N'dru Suhlak. I think Cruise Missile might do the trick.

Harpoon is going to be better, but I think Cluster is better than either.

N'Dru is a risk/reward piece. You're risking a quarter of your list on him (usually almost exactly). If he can be used to remove more than a quarter of THEIR list, then he's paid for himself, but he stands a very low chance of doing that against some lists, doubly so in a meta where PS greater than 9 is so common.

N'Dru's great, but the chances of him paying for himself in the current meta are low