We've had a few named TIE Fighters spoiled so far for 2.0, and there's a lot of really good ones.

Howlrunner: I5, everybody gets a re-roll.

That's always been good, and her ability applies to herself now, and re-rolls as a whole seem to be rarer. Obviously a power piece in a TIE Swarm, yet still dangerous if she's the last one alive due to I5 and meaningful offense.

Iden Versio: Says "nope" to one attack per game, after dice are rolled, as long as the target is a TIE Fighter.

This is amazing because it's a not just voiding an attack, it's voiding the worst attack at the best time. It seriously blunts the force of an alpha strike (it probably means you need three Proton Torpedoes to kill one TIE Fighter). Obviously, it makes Howlrunner even better, but it's got value in a miniswarm where you can commit the miniswarm and not just have a chunk killed quickly.

Wampa: Gets an extra attack die unless he gets shot at.

1.0 had no shortage of TIE Fighters that conditionally hit like X-wings, and it looks like there's a few in 2.0 as well. Wampa looks like a better Backstabber. He gets an extra die if you ignore him, but now he's also able to play the bodyguard role in a swarm. The less he's shot, the more stupid damage he puts out. On top of all that, if you'reooking for a small ship to round out a squad, you don't have to choose between a blocker or a ship that might actually accomplish something. Wampa can so both. I1 lets him block like an Academy, but his ability makes him dangerous. Nice combo, points will be really interesting on this guy.

Mauler Mithel: Looks like his old incarnation, I5 with an extra die in Range 1. Might be good, but at first blush maybe not as good as Wampa. I wonder if the points will reflect this. This guy has little interaction with allied ships, aside from being pretty good at taking advantage of blocked ships to unload cheap damage at R1. Maybe you use him as a pocket ace. If TIE Fighters tend toward cheap upgrades, you can probably make him an interesting 3rd or 4th ship.

Valen Rudor: You or a a friend within R1 gets shot, get an action.

This seems pretty good, but is less impressive in my mind than the damage bonuses. That being said, it's an ability that gives you a tremendous number of options, so cool.

Night Beast: Get a Focus when you do a blue move.

Cool, more action economy in a TIE Fighter. Not my first choice, but they might price it well. It's hard to get a token stack these days, so I probably shouldn't dismiss it too hard, but I'm not sure who's going to be shooting at a Focus/Evade TIE Fighter. If "free actions" is the worst of the TIE Fighter abilities, that's saying something, though. I wonder if you could do a buddy comedy thing with Night Beast and Rudor hanging out together. Rudor focuses, NB does a blue and gets a Focus. NB Evades for an action, so Rudor gets shot at with his single Focus, and then gets an Evade action for free. I don't know what two comically durable TIE Fighters are good at, but there might be something.

Lots of other pilots I've missed, I'm sure, but the stuff we've seen looks like FFG is not pulling punches on TIE Fighter abilities, which feels cool. They're dangerous in the movies, and it's cool to see some pilots with an edge.

The big question I have on points is what will you give up to put Iden and Howl together? Will you give up upgrades on Howl? Can you run a full 7 TIE Swarm at all? It looks like there will be some very interesting combinations.

Edited for getting Night Beast wrong.

It's seriously gratifying to see potential in a TIE swarm again. They're one of the most iconic Star Wars squads, and I'm hopeful that the changes to 2.0 will allow them to remain a strong option for the full life cycle of the game without being a no-brainer over everything else.

Thanks for posting this, hadnt looked closely at the named Ties yet.

2nd Edition Tie fighters might be between 23-36 pts each? Wild guess.

Id guess Iden and Howlrunner will be closer to 35pts then to 30. Should be fun to try and find the ideal mini-swarm of 4 even if it ends up being generics to save pts for a hefty ace.

Iden, Howl, Wampa, Night Beast is a semi random selection of named pilots but could be around 130 pts before mods?

looking forward to lots of Tie fighters. After the new core, I'll have seven. That should give me lots of squad building options with just ties alone.

I'd expect Howlrunner at 40 or so. Iden Versio at not a lot less than that. Who knows though. They might want a TIE Swarm strong out of the gate.

Random other thought. If Valen Rudor gets a talent, you make that talent Squad Leader, and all of a sudden anyone in the miniswarm can get a buff. When anyone in the miniswarm is shot at.

@Biophysical Where'd you get your info for "Night Beast"? I thought he had the same ability as First Edition, "After you fully execute a blue maneuver, you may perform a free focus action." Looks like you wrote Chaser's ability, which would also be fun to have in Second Edition.

5 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

@Biophysical Where'd you get your info for "Night Beast"? I thought he had the same ability as First Edition, "After you fully execute a blue maneuver, you may perform a free focus action." Looks like you wrote Chaser's ability, which would also be fun to have in Second Edition.

You're totally right, I just got confused. Thanks.

"Night Beast" was always one of my favorites, so I'm pleased to see his ability remains unchanged in Second Edition. I think he'll be a lot of fun with his ability to barrel roll and still get a focus action on blue maneuvers. At I2, he'll be a reliable blocker or a tanky target.

2 hours ago, Parakitor said:

"Night Beast" was always one of my favorites, so I'm pleased to see his ability remains unchanged in Second Edition. I think he'll be a lot of fun with his ability to barrel roll and still get a focus action on blue maneuvers. At I2, he'll be a reliable blocker or a tanky target.

I wonder with lots of stuff downrated in power if a TIE Fighter that can actually roll and Focus is sort of good.

Just re-looked at iden. Holy crap was I reading his ability wrong. I thought he only canceled 1 point of damage. Yeah, he’s waaay better than I thought.

I hope we can still fit six of them into a list.

3 minutes ago, Arschbombe said:

I hope we can still fit six of them into a list.

Pretty sure in one of the Dev interviews, Academy pilot was mentioned as 24 points, so effectively identical to 1.0. So 8 possible in a list, but if you want names, you'll be looking at 6-7 depending on those named prices.

The TIE Aces were always solid just underused due to the Chassis.

I’m really curious about Wampa. Not so much from the standpoint of his skill. Moreso because it’s Wampa that can tell us what the Ace Tax is vs the normal Genetic of the same Pilot skills as well as perhaps bonus charges.

Music to my ears, I would love ties being scary again. Also 6 named would be awesome, 1 conversion and a core gurantees that fields.

3 green dice later...

2 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

3 green dice later...

Well it depends how bad the x-wing is at rolling hits.

Red dice can be fickle too.

1 minute ago, ficklegreendice said:

3 green dice later...

They tried the no variance thing in 1.0, it failed. Made the game predictable, lop-sided and for many unfun. I’ll take the chance on rolling dice again any day if the games are exciting and fun again. ?

Just now, LordFajubi said:

They tried the no variance thing in 1.0, it failed. Made the game predictable, lop-sided and for many unfun. I’ll take the chance on rolling dice again any day if the games are exciting and fun again. ?

Doubling the dice count of everything would help (double hull + shields too) - but it would make it worse when you did blank out.

7 minutes ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

Doubling the dice count of everything would help (double hull + shields too) - but it would make it worse when you did blank out.

Eh, doubling hull and shields would just make the game take longer, especially with double dice. Maybe a system like D&D character creation where you roll 1 extra but drop your choice. Or for some real shenanigans your opponent picks which one die you drop. That could be interesting.

18 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

Eh, doubling hull and shields would just make the game take longer, especially with double dice. Maybe a system like D&D character creation where you roll 1 extra but drop your choice. Or for some real shenanigans your opponent picks which one die you drop. That could be interesting.

Surely it would not increase the time by a significant amount. There are twice as many Hit points to get through, but twice as many dice to do damage.

It should just even the variance a bit. I haven't actually done the maths, but I think that would be the case.

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I'm actually really looking forward to flying tie swarms in 2.0. By the time I had got enough TIE fighters to even do a miniswarm in 1.0, they were practically dead (wave 11). I really like theses abilities, especially wampa, but I so hope that Backstabber makes his way back ito the game. I really liked flying Darth Vader + swarm leader with thematic black squadron pilots as wingmen. (and sad the Dark curse seems gone)

Not sure either, calling @MajorJuggler we are in need of maths!

Quick intuition: on average it would be the samw, but the variance would be much more, it could lead to much longer games.

Just doubling dice wouldn’t do it, because (on average) a given die doesn’t roll 1 damage, but .5 damage (additional modifiers for tokens). So you would need to more than double the dice, but by how much I don’t know.

And more dice decreases the variance, because you are more likely to roll closer to average, but when an outlier occurs (which would be less often), it will be much more powerful.

56 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

3 green dice later...

... we announce "Iden's ability" and carry on like nothing happened.

I think the TIE fighter in 1.0 has shown that the unique pilots need powerful abilities to actually be relevant. Of the unique TIE fighters I think Wampa is the only one I take with any regularity.

I'm hoping FFG has learnt it's lesson from 1.0 and will stop giving all the most powerful pilot abilities to the fat, High PS ships.