T-65 X-Wing Pilots: an Analysis (Warning: long, but maybe useful post)
Ship notes:
X-Wings have attack 3, agility 2, 3 hull, and 2 shields. Integrated Astromech helps with their durability, but also hinders their effectiveness as torpedo carriers since IA precludes taking Guidance Chips. IA also requires spending at least one more point on an Astromech.
They also benefit greatly from having a focus token for their defence, which makes using their k-turn tricky. A tokenless X-Wing generally dies rapidly, and their poor range of green manoeuvres mean that a stressed X-Wing is very predictable or ineffective when keeping the stress. However, lacking boost or barrel roll means that they take a long time turning round without the k-turn – and means that enemy ships can safely chase them. However, their 3 attack dice make them reasonably dangerous if they can get both a target lock and a focus to spend on their attacks. Getting double actions is quite hard, though, being limited to either an EPT (PTL, Expertise, Rage) or a Modification (Vectored Thrusters or Engine Upgrade to trigger Intensity, or Experimental Interface) – and all of these are either expensive in points or add stress which is hard to shed, or both. With practice, they can be flown well; however that same amount of practice spent flying better ships will result in more victories!
Pilots:
PS2 Rookie Pilot 21pts
PS4 Red Squadron Pilot 23pts
PS3 Tarn Mison 23pts When an enemy ship declares you as the target of an attack, you may acquire a target lock on that ship.
PS5 Hobbie Klivian 25pts When you acquire or spend a target lock, you may remove 1 stress token from your ship.
PS5 Biggs Darklighter 25pts Other friendly ships at Range 1 cannot be targeted by attacks if the attacker could target you instead – errata’ed to only function for one combat turn.
PS6 Garven Dreis 26pts After spending a focus token, you may place that token on any other friendly ship at Range 1-2 (instead of discarding it).
PS7 Jek Porkins 26pts When you receive a stress token, you may remove it and roll 1 attack die. On a hit result, deal 1 facedown Damage card to this ship. Has EPT.
PS8 Luke Skywalker 28pts When defending, you may change 1 of your focus results to an evade result. Has EPT.
PS8 Wes Jansen 29pts After you perform an attack, you may remove 1 focus, evade, or blue target lock token from the defender. Has EPT.
PS9 Wedge Antilles 29pts When attacking, reduce the defender's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of "0"). Has EPT.
Rookie Pilot : not quite cheap enough to run 5 in a list. As a filler, the T-70 is inherently better if you have the points for it. Edited to add: 25pts of Blue Squadron Novice is inherently better than 25pts of Rookie Pilot. The Rookie can have a torpedo in those points, but will probably still lose to the baby Blue. And both will probably lose to a Contracted Scout, assuming equal player skill.
Red Squadron Pilot : an EPT slot would at least give you a reason to use it. Epic games might want these to equal huge ships’ PS for simultaneous fire.
Tarn Mison : excellent ability, best paired with M9G8 (3pts) or R7 Astromech (2pts). However, Jess Pava at 2 pts more in her T-70 has a better attack whilst also making it unpleasant for opponents to shoot her – and doesn’t need any particular astromech to function, so ends up costing the same. And she has a better dial, boost, and an extra shield.
Hobbie Klivian : as long as he has a Targeting Astromech (2pts) and an enemy within range of a target lock, Hobbie becomes an excellently manoeuvrable ship. He can k-turn, gain a TL from the astromech, which sheds his stress, and then take his focus action. At 27pts, this makes him a poor-man’s Tie Defender and the ‘best’ X-Wing in the game for his cost. His ability triggers when he spends a target lock too, so stress that gets assigned to him (cough: Assaj) can be removed easily too, and he isn’t tied to using green moves unlike other ships. Works nicely when flying with Dutch Vander, but Dutch is over-priced.
Biggs Darklighter : a very well-known pilot. Just been nerfed. Do I need to explain anything about him?
Garven Dreis : His ability is very useful, except his Pilot Skill is too low to pass the token on to useful friends, unless the enemy shoots at him early on in the round – whereupon he doesn’t get to modify his own attack. And, like almost all X-Wings, he struggles to keep his gun pointing at enemies without k-turning – which precludes his action due to stress, etc, so he tends to only get to use his ability once or twice in a game. Needs VI to get his PS higher, but that means taking R2D6 to get the slot. Better in epic games, but still not worth the extra points compared to almost anything else (eg Capt. Rex). Costs too much to be worth fitting into a 4-ship list and isn’t effective enough to use in a 3-ship list.
Jek Porkins : apart from Hobbie (and builds using BB8), Jek is the most manoeuvrable X-Wing, since he can k-turn and shed the stress. However, using his ability almost guarantees wrecking his ship, so he also needs the expensive R5D8 (3pts) to try to fix the resultant damage. This is both a random dice roll and costs him his action. To maximise the effectiveness of his ability, he also needs an EPT such as Expertise…which makes him far too expensive. I’ve played him a lot, casually and in tournaments, just to prove how poor he is. He is a lot of fun and allows for a lot of Star Wars quotes and banter with your opponent, but there is no logical reason to ever fly him (he’s still a lot better than Fel’s Wrath, though!), because he ends up just as expensive as one of the top 3 X-Wings and he doesn’t fit into a 4-ship list. Hobbie is simply better and cheaper.
Luke Skywalker : His ability makes him resilient and still have some defence after k-turning. Often paired with R2D2 to maximise his durability. High enough PS to be able to take eg Lone Wolf and make use of it, or VI to move after many opponents. He’s reasonably effective, but still not an efficient use of the points he costs, compared with eg a cut-price Miranda with TLT. Or Poe Dameron…
Wes Jansen : good ability, usually has VI so he shoots early in the round to strip opponent’s tokens. Often gets R3A2 to also stress them. Doesn’t tend to do much damage, due to needing his focus for defence, and very limited dial if he is using R3A2 and wants to shed his own stress afterwards. Braylen Stramm, for a similar cost, is better at being a stress-dealer. Wes might come back into the meta if ordnance really becomes hot, but his cost makes him a very expensive support ship.
Wedge Antilles : one of the best abilities around also makes him a high priority target and he can’t afford to get shot. This means building him with some re-positioning. BB8 and PTL work well, at the cost of making him predictable since that combo needs him to reveal green moves (reveal green; do a free barrel roll; use PTL to do another action for a stress; do the green, shedding the stress; get normal action). Engine Upgrade, if you have the points, is also good. But all of this makes him as expensive as Poe – and nowhere near as durable. Wedge, Airen Cracken, and Captain Nym make an effective PS10 alpha striking team, but Nym is the one who does most of the heavy lifting. Luke or Wes could be used instead, but they cost just as much and Wedge’s ability is better if your game-plan depends on removing an enemy before it can shoot. And the PS11x2, PS10 Imperial version can kill him before he shoots. Vader and Quickdraw are better than Wedge; Inquisitor is better than Airen – which means that it all depends on Nym!
tl;dr?
So, overall, Hobbie Klivian is worth taking and using . The other decent pilots are largely superseded by T-70 pilots (Tarn by Jess; Luke & Wedge by Poe). Biggs, despite his nerf, will still protect more fragile ships so will be used by people who get the hang of the tactics of timing his use – but Lowhhrick is probably more effective now albeit at a slightly higher cost.
Lots of people have come up with various fixes for X-Wings, often focussing on repositioning. I’d be happy with either a straight points reduction, or an equivalent of the Vaksai title so adding upgrades becomes easier and more worthwhile. And allowing Integrated Astromech to be taken along with more modifications – Guidance Chips plus a torpedo at 2 pts would add quite a lot of teeth to any X-Wing; Vectored Thrusters at 1pt without losing the IA; Engine Upgrade plus Autothrusters and IA would help the top pilots. Another possible fix might be adding the ability of an R2 Astromech to the IA card, so another astromech could be taken whilst giving the ship more green moves.
Edited by GilariusAdding a useful note. Thanks BlodVargana & ObiWonka.
This is one of the reasons why I enjoy my silly Porkins list! There are 9 people who have lost in a tournament to him!