The saber squadron pilot is In 4.

That means that Royal Guard pilots will be In 5?

That... is... very serious. It's fitting, don't me wrong, but Initiative 5 is equal or above over 95% of other pilots... Meaning, that with a bid, you can seriously run a list arc-dodging generic interceptors...

That's amazing... If it is like that... You will get the feeling that the Royal Guards of the Emperor, even if they are just nameless generics, are truly the elite of the elite... Outflying even known aces.

HYPE

In addition, we still do not know most of the new talents (ept) which may be available to this bunch.

Interestingly, although we know there will be no permanent VI, we do not know if there will be a discard/charge using ept which will allow you to move last or perhaps delay your action to start of the engagement phase - would be interesting.

With VI, we already had PS 8 Glaives and RGPs in 1.0. So nothing really new there.

Well... lets just hope Royal guard pilots make it to 2.0

I think carnor will, cause he befits their overall design philosophy... but if he's there, he'll probably be INI5.

So that kinda makes royal guard pilots at the same skill level... unlikely.

Bear in mind that interceptors were released twice, so they are bound to lose SOME pilots.

23 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

but  Init  iative 5 is equal or above over 95% of othe  r pilot   s 

Is it? How do you know?

Because Initiative 6 is the maximum and FFG have stated that they will be very restrictive on who they hand it out to.

To date, that's Wedge Antilles, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Dengar and Fenn Rau.

Talonbane Cobra, by comparison, only gets 5.

It wouldn't surprise me to see 'generic royal guard' gone or to see them distinguished from Sabers in a different way. Remember that points and upgrades are variable on a pilot-by-pilot basis, so whilst the generic I3 Baron of the Empire gets an elite talent, the generic I3 Inquisitor gets a force point and force talents.

Making the Royal Guard the equal of Saber aces but swapping their elite talents for the multiple modifications which define Royal Guard interceptors could work.

I wouldn't be surprised if the RGP vs Saber divide is that one has Force and the Force upgrade slot, and the other has no Force and the Talent slot, as for Inquisitors/Barons.

If we even get RGPs at all. WOuldn't be surprised if we don't.

Royal Guard are very much still a thing - popping up in Rebels of all places - but I'm not sure whether they're supposed to be force sensitives or not these days. When Crimson Empire was written, Carnor being force sensitive was very much an exception, not the rule.

26 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

If we even get RGPs at all. WOuldn't be surprised if we don't.

Indeed. Not so much that you don't get Royal Guard as the idea that there's no such thing as a 'generic' royal guard - hence you get Kanos and Jax instead.

Giving them both pilot abilities which would specifically synergise well with Palpatine would be a nice touch.

58 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Because Initiative 6 is the maximum and FFG have stated that they will be very restrictive on who they hand it out to.

To date    , that's Wedge Antilles, Darth Vader, Han Solo,  Dengar and  Fenn Rau  .

And Fel I believe.

2 minutes ago, dtenchi said:

And Fel I believe.

Correct. My bad. Basically, the Correllians plus Vader and Rau.

I don't think they will do Royal Guards at 5. Lots of named people got bumped. They are putting a lot of named people from 6-8 in at I 5. I don't see them putting in any generic at I 5. I could be wrong, but that's just what I see.

15 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I don't think they will do Royal Guards at 5. Lots of named people got bumped. They are putting a lot of named people from 6-8 in at I 5. I don't see them putting in any generic at I 5. I could be wrong, but that's just what I see.

Indeed. Note that on the Rebel side, the 'generic' Rogue Squadron guy is also initiative 4.

A lot of pilots with the name-tag 'ace' appear to be PS3, as well.

Yeah, I see 6's as being really rare. Even rarer than PS 9 was. So, the 5's are set for "all the other named people that aren't the utter best". So, I just don't see a generic being in there.

Do we even know there is a Royal guard pilot?

Feels like a bit of 1.0 projection.

(Until we have evidence of a I5 generic, it sees a bit premature to assume there is one)

12 minutes ago, Icelom said:

Do we e en know there is a Royal guard pilot?

Feels like a bit of 1.0 projection.

(Until we have evidence of a I5 generic, it sees a bit premature to assum  e there is one)

As noted above, we do not.

I’m guessing RGP won’t be there, or if it is it’ll be I4 like saber and offer some diversity of some sort. But more likely not.

Double posted

33 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

I’m guessing RGP won’t be there, or if it is it’ll be I4 like saber and offer some diversity of some sort. But more likely not.

I wonder if they'll do for the Interceptor what they did for the TAP: 2 generics at the same level, one with a force point (Inquisitor/RGP), one with a talent (Baron/Saber Squadron).

2 hours ago, dtenchi said:

And Fel I believe.

I knew somebody would correct him, Soontir or later. ?

15 minutes ago, impspy said:

I wonder if they'll do for the Interceptor what they did for the TAP: 2 generics at the same level, one with a force point (Inquisitor/RGP), one with a talent (Baron/Saber Squadron).

Maybe, but if they do it wouldn’t make sense for RGP to be force sensitive, would it? I don’t know the fluff behind any of them.

The Royal Guard are a canonically force-sensitive group who guarded the Emperor. The red-armoured duders from Jedi who don't do anything except look cool in wide shots.

25 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The Royal Guard are a canonically force-sensitive group who guarded the Emperor. The red-armoured duders from Jedi who don't do anything except look cool in wide shots.

That's what I asked earlier. I wasn't sure if the current canon has them all as force sensitives, or if Jax is an exception.

If that is the case, making them a PS4 equivalent of the Inquisitor/Baron pairing makes sense.

AND THEY HAVE BUILT IN PTL!

1 minute ago, AngryAlbatross said:

AND THEY HAVE BUILT IN PTL!

Partially, only in certain combinations.

2 hours ago, Icelom said:

Do we even know there is a Royal guard pilot?

Feels like a bit of 1.0 projection.

(Until we have evidence of a I5 generic, it sees a bit premature to assume there is one)

Well, if we take a look at everything we know thus far, as tracked here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DMqgr3MQPStvLtLQRCLr0b_hcvNz53Sow7IGB7gXN_U/edit?usp=sharing

We know of 74 of the 93 pilot cards for the empire, leaving 19 unknown. Now, let's take a look at some of what we *should* know as far as counts but not specifics. We know there should be:

A second Unique Gunboat Pilot
At least a second Unique Lambda Pilot
Likely a 3rd Unique Lambda Pilot
At least 2 Unique TIE Aggressor pilots
A second Unique Bomber Pilot
A second Unique Striker Pilot
Likely a 3rd Unique Decimator Pilot

That's 8 more pilots on just the uniques we should be missing. But we also know that there should be at least a second generic interceptor (Alpha or Avenger), so that's 3 more cards. I would hazard a guess that there's at least a second generic Defender as well (thus far it seems like wherever there is an "Ace" there is a lower generic choice as well), for 2 more cards. That leaves 6 more pilot cards to be determined.

*If* there was a RGP, that would take 3 of them. And as such, we would be looking at either an incorrect assumption above, or a second set of generic Bombers, Strikers or Aggressors. In which case my money would be on the Bombers.