2.0 Interceptor Pilot Ability Dreams

By Hoarder of Garlic Bread, in X-Wing

How about a Royal Guard pilot how has 1 recurring charge? After he rolls his dice, he can spend that charge to allow him to spend a focus token to turn only blanks to hits or evades (on their relevant dice)? "But that is highly situational!" you say, just before you realize he is piloting the escort craft to Palp's shuttle, whose force is going to fix a focus result and thus cover both bases.

Or how about a Sabre Squadron pilot who has a pseudo-swarm tactics on himself, not being removed from play until the end of the engagement round? Maybe assign him a callsign that indicates some darkside plot convenience giving him the will to live, perhaps mixing that with a more notable interceptor's name as a sign of dedication?

All jokes aside of essentially 1.0 palping blanks and the uselessness of Fel's wrath, I feel like the 2nd edition interceptor has a lot going for it in design space (and surely Kir Kanos agrees). Let's put some abilities we'd like to see out there! Remember to keep it subtle and restrained like the rest of 2.0: no adding or spending results (unless super expensive), definitely no changing results, and no combos that would force you take a specific talent.

Nimble pilot: After you preform a boost or barrel roll you may preform an action on your action bar treating it as red. You may not use autothrusters in the same round as you use nimble pilot.

Basically gives you the option to have autothrusters work in reverse.

Not sure how to word the last sentence, but I did not want a coordinated ship being able to do 4 actions in a turn.

Ok, this might be stupid, broken or both. I havent thought through the whole activation hornets nest.

1 charge, recurring. Or 1 force for Kir Kanos. You may spend 1 charge/force to ignore the restriction on duplicate actions.... So boost into boost, roll into roll....

I'm thinking Coordinate and Daredevil into a hard 2, for maximum (and pointless) positional shenaniganery.

None of this will probably work...

I want the banked barrel rolls pilot to come back. I realize it's now something Starvipers do, but...

4 hours ago, player3010587 said:

How about a Royal Guard pilot how has 1 recurring charge? After he rolls his dice, he can spend that charge to allow him to spend a focus token to turn only blanks to hits or evades (on their relevant  dice)? "But that is highly situational!" you say, just before you realize he is piloting the escort craft to Palp's shuttle, whose force is going to fix a focus result and thus cover both bases.

this sounds awesome

Generics with a pilot ability is pretty interesting design space.

Carnor Jax. Ships at range 0-2 in your bullseye arc may not gain or spend focus tokens

i love to get the bankroll guy back only remove the stupid stress part of it.

If they bring back Kir Kanos or Carnor Jax, I expect them to get 1 force and a force ability. In keeping with their 1.0 abilities, I would expect (or hope for, maybe) something like this:

Kir Kanos: While attacking, you may spend 1 [force token] to change 1 [blank] result to a [hit] result.

Carnor Jax: At the beginning of the Engagement Phase, you may spend 1 [force token]. If you do, remove all focus and evade tokens from enemy ships at range 0-1.

1 hour ago, Okapi said:

If they bring back Kir Kanos or Carnor Jax, I expect them to get 1 force and a force ability. In keeping with their 1.0 abilities, I would expect (or hope for, maybe) something like this:

Kir Kanos: While attacking, you may spend 1 [force token] to change 1 [blank] result to a [hit] result.

Carnor Jax: At the beginning of the Engagement Phase, you may spend 1 [force token]. If you do, remove all focus and evade tokens from enemy ships at range 0-1.

What a sweet dream! Legit hyped for the alt-model of a Royal Guard TIE now.

2 hours ago, Okapi said:

If they bring back Kir Kanos or Carnor Jax, I expect them to get 1 force and a force ability. In keeping with their 1.0 abilities, I would expect (or hope for, maybe) something like this:

Kir Kanos: While attacking, you may spend 1 [force token] to change 1 [blank] result to a [hit] result.

Carnor Jax: At the beginning of the Engagement Phase, you may spend 1 [force token]. If you do, remove all focus and evade tokens from enemy ships at range 0-1.

Yeah, a force user in an interceptor would be pretty sweet even if its only 1 force point.

I'm not sure Kir Kanos was force sensitive, so I'd be surprised, if he was brought back by name. I'm not sure what the current canon says about red guard as to whether they're force sensitive or not.

Royal Guard generics as a force-sensitive interceptor pilot (akin to baron of the empire/inquisitor would be interesting, but would have to be costed very carefully to avoid pricing the regular interceptor out completely.

I'd be tempted to 'bake in' a shield upgrade and make it technically a different ship (it was, after all).

As a note - supernatural reflexes/autothrusters interceptors would be mental. Boost/Barrel Roll before moving in either order, do a green move to clear stress, then focus. Today, I'm going thiiiiiiiis waaaaaaaay.......

Edited by Magnus Grendel
34 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

As a note - supernatural reflexes/autothrusters interceptors would be mental. Boost/Barrel Roll before moving in either order, do a green move to clear stress, then focus. Today, I'm going thiiiiiiiis waaaaaaaay.......

Kylo says hi

Just now, nexttwelveexits said:

Kylo says hi

True, but that's a unique ace in a hugely expensive high-end fighter, not a TIE interceptor that's basically four cocktail sticks and a Ping-Pong ball with a generic pilot.

ninja'd by magnus

Edited by Toph
ninja'd
1 minute ago, Magnus Grendel said:

True, but that's a unique ace in a hugely expensive high-end fighter, not a TIE interceptor that's basically four cocktail sticks and a Ping-Pong ball with a generic pilot.

Do not underestimate the power of ping-pongs

Image result for spaceballs stormtrooper

Upon further reflection, I am not sure it is possible to underestimate the power of ping-pongs

I know I want Vult Skerris. I feel like his ability should either be something which leaves him exposed but gives him an offensive bonus (L'ulo L'ampar's ability would have been perfect; an extra red die and one fewer green die if stressed), or else something a bit like Ruthless, where he gains a benefit at the expense of other friendly ships. Perhaps he should be able to shunt off a stress to a friendly ship, or such.

Sadly i very much doubt we will see non canon force users get force ratings. Ever. Including the likes of carnor and the other royal guard.

2 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Sadly i very much doubt we will see non canon force users get force ratings. Ever. Including the likes of carnor and the other royal guard.

It's possible - the TIE/v1 Inquisitor proves we can have a generic force user. I started an entire other thread regarding exactly this a while back. I believe I calculated that 48 pts would work really well for a In4 Squint with a force point. It could happen! I hope it does, but I'll be fine with just regular aces for the new Squint release as well.

47 minutes ago, Bad Idea Comics said:

It's possible - the TIE/v1 Inquisitor proves we can have a generic force user. I started an entire other thread regarding exactly this a while back. I believe I calculated that 48 pts would work really well for a In4 Squint with a force point. It could happen! I hope it does, but I'll be fine with just regular aces for the new Squint release as well.

It's possible to have generic force users. I never argued otherwise.

I don't believe we will *ever* see *any* force user that doesn't appear in some fashion in a canon property, get a Force rating.

14 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Sadly i very much doubt we will see non canon force users get force ratings. Ever. Including the likes of carnor and the other royal guard.

Well, we have seen Royal Guard in canon settings, so a "Royal Guard Pilot" is in the unlikely-but-not-impossible territories. What I'm not sure, however, is whether 'current' iterations of Royal Guard are supposed to be force sensitive or not. Aside from a three second cameo in Rebels I can't recall seeing them 'do anything' since the canon reboot except stand around looking imposing.

That's not the same as seeing Carnor and Kir again - and I agree seeing them with force ratings is incredibly unlikely given the precedent set by Maarek and Corran.

14 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I know I want Vult Skerris. I feel like his ability should either be something which leaves him exposed but gives him an offensive bonus (L'ulo L'ampar's ability would have been perfect; an extra red die and one fewer green die if stressed), or else something a bit like Ruthless, where he gains a benefit at the expense of other friendly ships. Perhaps he should be able to shunt off a stress to a friendly ship, or such.

I was kind of surprised Rexlar Brath didn't morph into Vult Skerris. That said, the defender elite sequence was mid to late last year, by which time the 2.0 kit contents might already have been locked down for printing. I'd be surprised if we don't get a Vult Skerris pilot at some point, though.

One thing that the 'new' structure of pilot cards does is allow for multiple versions of the same pilot (obviously not simultaneously!) - so Luke Skywalker: Red Five and Luke Skywalker: Rogue Leader and so on. Whilst I can't imagine FFG putting much drive behind re-releasing non-canon stuff, Maarek Stele: Delta One in a defender, for example, would be cool.

Edited by Magnus Grendel
On 10/9/2018 at 9:31 AM, Icelom said:

Nimble pilot: After you preform a boost or barrel roll you may preform an action on your action bar treating it as red. You may not use autothrusters in the same round as you use nimble pilot.

Basically gives you the option to have autothrusters work in reverse.

Not sure how to word the last sentence, but I did not want a coordinated ship being able to do 4 actions in a turn.

To what benefit? If you want a token take the token and then do autothrusters.

10 minutes ago, Roundy1161 said:

To what benefit? If you want a token take the token and then do autothrusters.

Massive benefit. Sometimes you are not sure if you need to do a second repositioning or not, many times with interseptors you would love to do one reposition then decide what you want to do nect based off the new location.

If you can't see the advantages in picking the order you do actions in then there is not much I can say.

My answer is get good... if you're not sure, be sure or get over it.

Part of second edition seems to be decisions matter, they don't want it easy mode.

Going along with the Force sensitive direction, do you think that characters that are force sensitive but are not as powerful as say Inquisitors, get an energy instead that allows them to proc their ability?
The problem with Force tokens is that they circumvent the need for actions and can be used offensively and defensively, which in turn limits the design space for pilots. However if they give guys like Kir Kanos an energy to use to make his ability go off without having to worry about all the possible in game cards that will affect force token users.

Jax was my favourite Interceptor pilot in 1.0, like a lot of others I guess, and I would love to see him return. I think energy dependant force sensitivity is a way around problems that may arise. Or I could be completely wrong :)

13 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Going along with the Force sensitive direction, do you think that characters that are force sensitive but are not as powerful as say Inquisitors, get an energy instead that allows them to proc their ability?
The problem with Force tokens is that they circumvent the need for actions and can be used offensively and defensively, which in turn limits the design space for pilots. However if they give guys like Kir Kanos an energy to use to make his ability go off without having to worry about all the possible in game cards that will affect force token users.

Jax was my favourite Interceptor pilot in 1.0, like a lot of others I guess, and I would love to see him return. I think energy dependant force sensitivity is a way around problems that may arise. Or I could be completely wrong :)

Neither Maarek nor Corran's ability is charge dependent, though, and Jax's ability - being an 'aura bubble' is kind of wasted if it's not always on.

I'm not sure what to do with Kir Kanos, to be honest. His ability was kind of awful and never really made sense. You could make it "whilst you are evading" instead of "spend your evade token", but that might be a bit too powerful.