So I've commonly encountered 2 phenomena in trying out different lists:

1) I am better than my list. In this scenario I find constantly reaching for a toolset that isn't there. Key pieces are missing, not quite good enough or elements aren't costed appropriately to allow for sufficiently flexible list building.

This has been my experience with a lot of rebels right now. Much of the action economy hasn't been good enough, the defensive tech too inefficient, too many weird holes in chasis (No pilot above I4 in the best arc dodger in faction, the A-Wing, E-Wing linking with Target Locks instead of focus). In 1.0, I could consistently use EPTs, Crews, etc to patch these holes or make weaker pilots with useful pilot abilities more viable, but the quality of upgrades has plummeted making pilots that don't natively have passive mods or action economy unappealing and hard to get to function. This has comboed very poorly with the reduction in passive mods and many of the I6 agility 3 aces either remaining the same or getting better meaning I do a lot of work for full strings of hits/crits only to get it casually shrugged off. In short, most of the normal chasis in rebels are kind of boring and underwhelming.

2) The list is better than I am. I've encountered this in a few different games. You put a list on the table, and despite your inexperience and underutilizing significant elements, it still performs well. It has a skill ceiling that you are nowhere near, but is still performing well.

This has been my experience with Rebel Han and Lando. These pilots are dumb. The best way to sum up their pilot abilities is that they're always better than you think they are. For example, my lack of experience with large bases led to Lando just barely dropping his base on a rock...but he just used the action from his pilot ability to boost off of it because as long as you fully execute, his pilot ability doesn't care about hitting rocks. I had solo jump an asteroid to get a better position and realized that his pilot ability is literally any dice roll including the dice roll to take damage from rocks or suffer the effects of various criticals. I'm not 100% sure I have the upgrades correct and there may even be better pairings, but these 2 ships have been breezing through match-ups that were previously giving more typical Rebel builds trouble.

It's also really noteworthy that they still very much behave like 1.0 turrets. In the butterfly orientation (left and right) you can easily do all the shenanigans you could previously do with 360 turrets with very few problems. I've only switched to hourglass (front and back) mode a handful of times. Just having your arcs oriented sideways presents a substantial advantage over front arc ships as you'll frequently find yourself in situations where you only need a hard or soft turn, possibly with a boost to get on target while they need room for full on K-Turns/T-rolls/Sloops etc.

So far I've gone against four ship rebels twice, imp aces (Vader, Fel, Palp shuttle), Ryad mini swarm and a double fang k-fighter. I lost to palp aces due to a lot of personal stupidity, but still took down Vader and half of the shuttle. Barely beat 1 of the four ship rebels (granted that was my first game with the list) and the rest got rocked really hard (like half points for one falcon only). The games are also less annoying to play. I definitely recall a number of games with normal Rebel builds where I went through flaming hoops to line up a pair of focus and target locked shots on Ryad for her to casually dodge everything, or engineered a block and pair of range 1 shots on vader for him to take 1 damage and table me or when my opponent flew Fenn Rau super badly, but his pilot ability and green dice kept bailing him out. This was really starting to grate on me. But with Han Lando I don't even care. Ryad shrugged off a pair of full strings from Han and Lando, but I was just like, "whatever, I can do it again next turn and the turn after that".

I'm really not sure where these pilots fall on the scale, but their pilots abilities are pretty amazing and the platform for those abilities is solid as well. Wouldn't be surprised to see lists with one or both pilots run by players with more experience becoming meta staples and despite their intimidating cost, they run well on few, if any, upgrades (ran most of these games with just trick shot on Han and Lando with Nien and Falcon title). I guess fat turrets are dead, long live fat turrets?

Just wanted to add, EPT E-Wings have an AMAZING link with White Focus. Staple Composure on them, Boost/Barrel Roll, link Target Lock to anything within Range 1 (like say an enemy you're arc dodging) to fail the lock, then activate Composure to give yourself a stress free Focus action. Doesn't help anything else, but I'm sure in time more hole-patching upgrades will become available.

7 hours ago, Enigami said:

Just wanted to add, EPT E-Wings have an AMAZING link with White Focus. Staple Composure on them, Boost/Barrel Roll, link Target Lock to anything within Range 1 (like say an enemy you're arc dodging) to fail the lock, then activate Composure to give yourself a stress free Focus action. Doesn't help anything else, but I'm sure in time more hole-patching upgrades will become available.

FAQ disagre with you.

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/2a/57/2a57fdb2-e13f-4d58-b9db-bb082dd23dcc/swzrulesreference_v102.pdf

7 hours ago, NerroSama said:

FAQ disagre with you.

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/2a/57/2a57fdb2-e13f-4d58-b9db-bb082dd23dcc/swzrulesreference_v102.pdf

"Actions are either white or red. After a ship performs or fails a red action, it gains one stress token"

Drat. Stupid FAQ. Welp, back in the garbage bin non Corran E-Wings go. Huge shame. Linked white reposition + white focus actually made me want to use them.

21 hours ago, Enigami said:

"Actions are either white or red. After a ship performs or fails a red action, it gains one stress token"

Drat. Stupid FAQ. Welp, back in the garbage bin non Corran E-Wings go. Huge shame. Linked white reposition + white focus actually made me want to use them.

HUH, ya say ya wanted to use double white action, no stress? Crazy. Can’t imagine why... ?

Why not throw Rigged Cargo on Han?

What particular upgrades are you using on the pancakes? I was thinking trick shot on both, Chewie and a hull upgrade on Han, and Nien on Lando, but that was mostly for thematic purposes. I couldn't see a way to get consistent results with them...

Also it’s almost impossible to fail a lock action in 2.0.

On 9/20/2018 at 10:55 AM, Enigami said:

"Actions are either white or red. After a ship performs or fails a red action, it gains one stress token"

Drat. Stupid FAQ. Welp, back in the garbage bin non Corran E-Wings go. Huge shame. Linked white reposition + white focus actually made me want to use them.

That FAQ was to address an attempted abuse of Composure . Typically, people would slap it on ships that did not reposition into a focus like an E-Wing or an Interceptor (although, focus and then reposition is basically the same....?) in an attempt to give it more flexibility in linked actions, thereby scarily getting closer to Push the Limit.

I'm a little disappointed with how they dealt with Composure in the end. I think it's better than the original version would have been, but with the clarification that you can't intentionally fail a lock if there exist any legal targets (and there will exist legal targets), the red-fail change was... perhaps overkill. I'd have rather an errata to Composure that you'd perform a Focus action in the difficulty of the failed action. That's not what they did, and again, it's better than if they hadn't revised the rules, but still.

//

R2-D2 crew seems really good on Han. Han's ability would work on the R2-D2 rolls to see if you expose a damage card. You'd drop from a 37.5% chance to expose a damage card to a 14.1% chance.

On 11/1/2018 at 3:50 AM, theBitterFig said:

R2-D2 crew seems really good on Han. Han's ability would work on the R2-D2 rolls to see if you expose a damage card. You'd drop from a 37.5% chance to expose a damage card to a 14.1% chance. 

And can you use it on C-3P0 ? since it is not a reroll... can you stealthily reroll the green die under Golden Rod's nose to get another chance to get its second evade ?

2 hours ago, DoctorJanus said:

And can you use it on C-3P0 ? since it is not a reroll... can you stealthily reroll the green die under Golden Rod's nose to get another chance to get its second evade ?

No.

Threepio calls out the initial role specifically. Han's reroll, even if it isn't a reroll (in one of the stupidest moves from FFG), isn't the initial dice roll.

Han is legit ... using his ability to reroll Lando or R2D2 crew is ace. I fly him relatively light (Lando, Kanan, Trickshot), with AP5 as a wingman to feed more actions, and an i5 ace (Norra/Wedge are common) as the other threat ship.

I've recently seen @Quack Shot is taking a go at a Han/Luke build that sacrifices AP5 and Lando for Jyn Erso giving room for a pretty fat Luke as a wingman into a 2 ship list.

The other experiment I did recently into fat turrets was the Roark/Dash i7 double tap. My that list is a receipe for fun times, but unfortunately, it just isn't that good. Massive dependency on variance, and relies on a 5 health, 2 green ship surviving long enough to take the major threats off the board.

On fat turrets, it's a delicate balance needed. If you reduce their price (or the price of key upgrades) they will become too cheap/cost effective, but right now, the combinations of upgrades required to make them expensive do not leave enough space for strength in the rest of the list.

11 hours ago, Dreadai said:

Han is legit ... using his ability to reroll Lando or R2D2 crew is ace. I fly him relatively light (Lando, Kanan, Trickshot), with AP5 as a wingman to feed more actions, and an i5 ace (Norra/Wedge are common) as the other threat ship.

I've recently seen @Quack Shot is taking a go at a Han/Luke build that sacrifices AP5 and Lando for Jyn Erso giving room for a pretty fat Luke as a wingman into a 2 ship list.

The other experiment I did recently into fat turrets was the Roark/Dash i7 double tap. My that list is a receipe for fun times, but unfortunately, it just isn't that good. Massive dependency on variance, and relies on a 5 health, 2 green ship surviving long enough to take the major threats off the board.

On fat turrets, it's a delicate balance needed. If you reduce their price (or the price of key upgrades) they will become too cheap/cost effective, but right now, the combinations of upgrades required to make them expensive do not leave enough space for strength in the rest of the list.

Han is definitely good. Super tanky and hits like a truck. Pair him with Rebels best pilot in the game you got two great pieces.

I just played a TTS tourney game on Hexiled Gaming today, Scott will probably edit it and put it up on YouTube tomorrow.

I’m 5-0 with the list.

Ewing can target lock first turn beyond range 3.