The Rebellion is short an important I5 pilot on the A-Wing and B-Wing Chassis. We need a hero. We need HERA SYNDULLA - Phoenix Leader.

I fully expect she'll get a new ability on her new chassis (I desperately hope she does anyway) but as yet we can only speculate what that would look like. I know this would make most people here very sad, but based on their existing and former abilities, I kind of expect her to take Tycho Celchu's place. Regardless of whether she does, how would you feel about these abilities? Which is better/more interesting/more balanced, or are they both unplayable or OP?

First off, I realize both of these are very strong; she would have to be quite expensive, by far the most expensive on either chassis.

The first one is more limited, but potentially more powerful as well (I shudder to think of her slooping into a focus-boost and ending up stress free to do it again the next turn). On the B-Wing it would force her to do a lot more rolling than she might prefer to do. It kind of plays like intensity where you want to use it as often as possible, but it could screw you over if you time it wrong, bump, land on a rock, etc.

The second one is more like Tycho's ability, but makes stress/dial actually matter, as well as allowing the occasional turnaround maneuver.

Or would you prefer to see a straight-up return of Psycho Tycho, or a totally different ability on Hera? This has always been my pet favorite for her ability whenever she arrives, but I'm always open to new ideas.

So, part of me really wants Hera in an A-Wing with her current ability, though the rest of me knows why that shouldn’t be.

I actually think her current ability would actually be quite useful on a B-Wing. Not quite the hard hitting league as Ten and Braylen, but I5 with a variable dial has possibilities.

Of the two above abilities, I’d say the refitted Tycho ability is probably better, though the flip flopping Charge is a fun mechanic that i’ve enjoyed on Wollfe, so wouldn’t mind it else where.

I love both of those.

Psycho Tycho 5-ever. 😭

Seriously though, I was bummed that he didn’t return for 2nd. He was my gateway drug for stress-abuse shenanigans. I still have a 20-sided die in my game box for keeping track of his 3-stress-per-turn accumulation rate. His absence is literally one of the reasons why I’m not playing Rebels in 2nd.

Hera is worthy, but “Psycho Tycho” is so dang catchy.

Hera is also an X-Wing pilot, where I feel her current pilot ability (change between reds or change between blues) would work perfectly. Just enough of each to keep it interesting, not so many as to be busted, like it would be on either a B-Wing or A-Wing. There's so much blue on an A-Wing and so much red on a B-Wing that using her current ability would just be bonkers.

Hrm. I'll need to think on alternate Heras for a bit.

As to the ones in the original post, I don't really like the flip-charge one. I love how Wolffe works, but I kinda think that's a bit too powerful, and a bit too bland. It's just "remove stress." Particularly since once you don't have any charges, you can do a red move and clear stress, then do a red action and clear stress. Then you can repeat it the next turn. Less crazy on an A-Wing, but nutty on a B-Wing. Certainly too far.

Rationally-limited Tycho-2.0 is fine, but maybe a little boring. I dunno. I never really loved Tycho. I don't think it really needs the "remove all stress" part, though.
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I kind of want Tycho's name back, however, but with a new ability. Would it be too trash to give him Gemmer Sojan's old ability? While you are at Range 1 of an enemy ship, increase your agility by 1. Tycho would of course be an Init 5 or 6, so having Init 6 with a mild ability like Gemmer Sojan's seems fine to me. He'd be a very much "get in there" pilot.

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I'm also keen for a Sabine A-Wing, but there's literally no way she could get her rebel pilot ability on an A-Wing... I have two thoughts, however. One would be to adapt her Scum ability. While defending, you may add a [eye] result if the defender is in your front (V) firing arc . That's certainly what I'd give her if Sabine was in a Fang fighter, or if there was, say Ursa or Tristran Wren. [Man. A Clan Wren grey and yellow color scheme Fang+Firespray repaint pack would be amazing.] But adding an Eye is a Scum-Sabine style ability. Rebel-Sabine kind of wants something to do with boosts or barrel rolls. One option would be to steal the old Zeta Ace ability, and maybe improve it. When you perform a boost or barrel roll, you may use the 2-straight template instead of the 1-straight. So she couldn't do 2-bank boosts, but long barrel rolls and long straight boosts are cool.

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So, I've got half an idea for an alternate Hera ability.

I know she's a great pilot, but one aspect of her character which is really cool is her thorough determination. I'd like some sort of ability which relates to that, something that matches how, once Hera starts into a task, she'll stop at nothing to end it.

• Hera Syndulla: "After you perform an attack, assign the 'Twi'lek Determination' condition to the defender. While you defend or perform an attack, if the enemy has 'Twi'lek Determination', roll 1 additional die."
• Twi'lek Determination: "At the end of the Engagement phase, if Hera did not attack you this turn and you did not attack Hera this turn, remove this."

Instantly, it's a decent-enough defensive ability. Roll an extra green die. If you can keep on that target, you'll get extra red dice, too. There's also no "may" to the condition. You can't set it up on one target you want to defend against, then attack someone else. Your last target is the only one which matters, so keep that in mind if you want to use Cluster Missiles.

Is a 4/2/4/4 B-Wing kind of nutty? Sure. But it's also going to be expensive. Like, at least 50 if not 51 with current B-Wing prices, which probably should be going up. 3 or 4 points more than Braylen Stramm doesn't seem excessive, since extra-dice abilities are strong.

I'm also half-stumped for the name of the condition. Hera is the Twi'lek with Determination, not her enemy, so maybe there's some other phrase that would be needed.

33 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

As  to the ones in the original post, I don't re  ally like the flip-charge one. I love how Wolffe works, but I kinda think that's a bit too powerful, and a bit too bland. It's just "remove stress." Particularly since once you don't have any charges, you can do a red move and clear stress, then do a red action and clear stress. Then you can repeat it the next turn. Less crazy  on an A-Wing, but nutty on a B-Wing. Certainly too far.   

In the B-Wing, that means doing an AWFUL lot of barrel rolls, even when you don’t want to, or you don’t get your free red anymore.

Similar for the A-Wing, but boosts are less limiting on that chassis.

Maybe something other than removing stress? Hera loves playing with reds/greens as both pilot and crew, and both chassis are begging for pilots with good action economy or stress mitigation, which is where I got the idea. Maybe it should be spend a charge to remove stress, recover a charge on a blue.

1 minute ago, ClassicalMoser said:

In the B-Wing, that means doing an AWFUL lot of barrel rolls, even when you don’t want to, or you don’t get your free red anymore.

Similar for the A-Wing, but boosts are less limiting on that chassis.

Maybe something other than removing stress? Hera loves playing with reds/greens as both pilot and crew, and both chassis are begging for pilots with good action economy or stress mitigation, which is where I got the idea. Maybe it should be spend a charge to remove stress, recover a charge on a blue.

I don't think it'd be too hard on the B-Wing. 1-hard or Tallon Roll is really tight, and a barrel roll will likely fit. Throw in a few 3-banks, and it probably all works out.

I think the reason the ebb/flow works so well on Wolffe is that he can't easily do both charges at the same time (VTG, but it's hard to set up), but both charges pertain to essentially one thing: his attacks. For stress tricks, I just don't think it feels right. Stress stuff generally winds up being only pure efficiency in the end, where as Wolffe feels like his ability dictates tactics and position a lot more. Move to get a rear attack, then move to get a front attack, and so forth.

Don't get me wrong, I think Elusive is really cool. But I don't know how to set it up as an ebb and flow mechanic.

I'm going to think on it for a bit.

Maybe the trick is something more like Passive Sensors, where being without a charge will grant a benefit, but you won't always want to do the thing required to spend that charge.

Not a fan of the proposed pilots.

Big fan of an I5 Hera in a red experimental B-wing though, so I think her ability should be something related to that mega-gun that B-wing had.

Perhaps copy the Linked Battery (from the Upsilon): "While you perform a <cannon> attack, roll 1 additional die."

4 dice Ion cannon? 5 dice HLC in bulls-eye? Interesting, powerfull, but not too powerfull, so she can be reasonably priced. We might also start to se a B-wing with cannons

6 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

I think her ability should be something related to that mega-gun that B-wing had.

Here's my thought for the Composite Beam Laser that it be a 2-dice bullseye weapon, range 3-4 or 3-5 (this is mostly an epic-themed weapon for busting capital ships) which would have 4 charges which are removed at set-up. You'd be able to take an action to regain a charge on the cannon, and it'd give you a stress. When you attack with the Composite Beam Laser, you'd be able to spend up to four charges to add 2 red dice to the attack and 1 green die to the defender per charge spent. So at maximum power, that'd be a 10 dice attack, but with 4 extra green dice for the defender. Big and spashy and dramatic. In 1e, most huge ships didn't have have a way of converting focus results, so the green dice rolls of an epic ship will probably be bad.

So it'd be great for putting some major hurt onto an Epic ship, maybe a large-base regular ship, and hilarious but rare when it utterly vaporizes a TIE Fighter or Soontir Fel.

31 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Here's my thought for the Composite Beam Laser that it be a 2-dice bullseye weapon, range 3-4 or 3-5 ..When you attack with the Composite Beam Laser, you'd be able ...So at maximum power, that'd be a 10 dice attack..

.. and hilarious but rare when it utterly vaporizes a TIE Fighter or Soontir Fel.

Bad design! Bad boy! Just BAD!!!

I mean, if you spend 4 rounds charging it up, and get a bullseye on Soontir at range 3-5, and have dice mods enough to actually make those 10 dice count... I'm kinda fine with that.

45 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Here's my thought for the Composite Beam Laser that it be a 2-dice bullseye weapon, range 3-4 or 3-5 (this is mostly an epic-themed weapon for busting capital ships) which would have 4 charges which are removed at set-up. You'd be able to take an action to regain a charge on the cannon, and it'd give you a stress. When you attack with the Composite Beam Laser, you'd be able to spend up to four charges to add 2 red dice to the attack and 1 green die to the defender per charge spent. So at maximum power, that'd be a 10 dice attack, but with 4 extra green dice for the defender. Big and spashy and dramatic. In 1e, most huge ships didn't have have a way of converting focus results, so the green dice rolls of an epic ship will probably be bad.

So it'd be great for putting some major hurt onto an Epic ship, maybe a large-base regular ship, and hilarious but rare when it utterly vaporizes a TIE Fighter or Soontir Fel.

Not only does this sound complicated, but 10 attack dice(!) is not something I would like to see in X-wing. The Dash-Roark-Han 2 times 4 dice double tap was bad enough.

9 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I mean, if you spend 4 rounds charging it up, and get a bullseye on Soontir at range 3-5, and have dice mods enough to actually make those 10 dice count... I'm kinda fine with that.

You do know that a single focus can change 10 eye results to 10 hits right? and a single lock is not restricted to only rerolling a maximum of 3 dice...but up to all 10. Just try this with you dice now, you do not like the result. This is even worse than Dash-Roark-Han.

And 4 round charging it up just means slow-rolling in the initial phase, not a game design to aim for either.

12 minutes ago, RedHotDice said:

Bad design! Bad boy! Just BAD!!!

Well, that is one way to put it, but I agree that this type of spike-damage is not great for the game, and near impossible to price correctly.

7 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

Not a fan of the proposed pilots.

Big fan of an I5 Hera in a red experimental B-wing though, so I think her ability should be something related to that mega-gun that B-wing had.

Perhaps copy the Linked Battery (from the Upsilon): "While you perform a <cannon> attack, roll 1 additional die."

4 dice Ion cannon? 5 dice HLC in bulls-eye? Interesting, powerfull, but not too powerfull, so she can be reasonably priced. We might also start to se a B-wing with cannons

I second this. This would be fun and as the mechanism already exist in the game (without being overpowered), it will not skew gameplay to have one unique B-wing pilot with this ability.

2 hours ago, Sciencius said:

Not only does this sound complicated, but 10 attack dice(!) is not something I would like to see in X-wing. The Dash-Roark-Han 2 times 4 dice double tap was bad enough.

You do know that a single focus can change 10 eye results to 10 hits right? and a single lock is not restricted to only rerolling a maximum of 3 dice...but up to all 10. Just try this with you dice now, you do not like the result. This is even worse than Dash-Roark-Han.

And 4 round charging it up just means slow-rolling in the initial phase, not a game design to aim for either.

Well, that is one way to put it, but I agree that this type of spike-damage is not great for the game, and near impossible to price correctly.

I'd also probably want it to be Epic-Only. It almost surely doesn't belong in the regular game, but big splashy dramatic moments could be fun in other modes.

All fair enough, though.

8 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Here's my thought for the Composite Beam Laser that it be a 2-dice bullseye weapon, range 3-4 or 3-5 (this is mostly an epic-themed weapon for busting capital ships) which would have 4 charges which are removed at set-up. You'd be able to take an action to regain a charge on the cannon, and it'd give you a stress. When you attack with the Composite Beam Laser, you'd be able to spend up to four charges to add 2 red dice to the attack and 1 green die to the defender per charge spent. So at maximum power, that'd be a 10 dice attack, but with 4 extra green dice for the defender. Big and spashy and dramatic. In 1e, most huge ships didn't have have a way of converting focus results, so the green dice rolls of an epic ship will probably be bad.

So it'd be great for putting some major hurt onto an Epic ship, maybe a large-base regular ship, and hilarious but rare when it utterly vaporizes a TIE Fighter or Soontir Fel.

Your cannon should give 3 ion tokens after firing or maybe an ion per charge spent. In the show the cannon fried the ship after shooting so that should be included.

15 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

Not a fan of the proposed pilots.

Big fan of an I5 Hera in a red experimental B-wing though, so I think her ability should be something related to that mega-gun that B-wing had.

Perhaps copy the Linked Battery (from the Upsilon): "While you perform a <cannon> attack, roll 1 additional die."

4 dice Ion cannon? 5 dice HLC in bulls-eye? Interesting, powerfull, but not too powerfull, so she can be reasonably priced. We might also start to se a B-wing with cannons

Linked battery should be a straight-up config for the B-Wing. Limiting it to one named pilot would kind of suck, not to mention it would do nothing on the A-Wing.

The A and B are the only platforms that really need her, and the biggest thing they have in common is that they’re usually stressed, so some form of stress-mitigation makes sense to me, especially given her existing crew ability. Maybe make it more maneuver-focused:

”Before you execute a red maneuver, you may spend 3 charges to reduce its difficulty.

After you fully execute a blue maneuver, recover 1 charge.”

3 charges, non-recurring.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Linked battery should be a straight-up config for the B-Wing. Limiting it to one named pilot would kind of suck, not to mention it would do nothing on the A-Wing.

The A and B are the only platforms that really need her, and the biggest thing they have in common is that they’re usually stressed, so some form of stress-mitigation makes sense to me, especially given her existing crew ability. Maybe make it more maneuver-focused:

”Before you execute a red maneuver, you may spend 3 charges to reduce its difficulty.

After you fully execute a blue maneuver, recover 1 charge.”

3 charges, non-recurring.

Bad Design! Bad Bo.. well, ahem you heard it, hahaha!

Well, it will NOT be a straight-up config for the B-wing, cause that config aint comming.

Hera has a different ability on the VCX, anyway, no need for her pilot ability to be same on A and B-wing.

3 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

Bad Design! Bad Bo.. well, ahem you heard it, hahaha!

The config or pilot ability? Letting her use blues preemptively and get a little extra mileage out of them doesn't seem terribly busted to me, but what do I know?

3 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

Well, it will NOT be a straight-up config for the B-wing, cause that config aint comming.

I will be extremely disappointed if the B-Wing never gets a config or at least a title for the B-6 prototype. I was astonished that it didn't have a ship ability as it's the one rebel ship most fit for one. Linked battery is a match made in heaven, though naturally they'd have to up the cost (another change that I would welcome with open arms). As is, the B-Wing is a slow and heavy jouster that doesn't feel thematic as a cannon-based ship (it literally never sees anything but Jamming Beam used and that's free).

3 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

Hera has a different ability on the VCX, anyway, no need for her pilot ability to be same on A and B-wing.

She has the same ability (and subtitle) on the VCX and Attack Shuttle because it represents her as Spectre 2. If we're going to see her as Phoenix Leader, I would fully expect her to have the same ability between the two chassis.

Of course, I'm probably getting too invested here, and I know deep down that I'll likely be happy with whatever the devs decide on.

I had played around with some ideas for B-Wing pilots. One that I think would be good for Hera would be the following, since it's so much like her crew card. It's similar to your second ability.

While you have exactly 1 stress token, you may execute red maneuvers and perform actions, even while stressed.

Lets your squeeze the juice out of your B-Wing when necessary, but then you may need to spend time destressing afterwards.

16 hours ago, MikeEvans said:

I had played around with some ideas for B-Wing pilots. One that I think would be good for Hera would be the following, since it's so much like her crew card. It's similar to your second ability.

While you have exactly 1 stress token, you may execute red maneuvers and perform actions, even while stressed.

Lets your squeeze the juice out of your B-Wing when necessary, but then you may need to spend time destressing afterwards.

Kind of kills you for two turns though. If you added "after you fully execute a blue maneuver, you may remove all your stress tokens" then it would probably be worth it. Being double-stressed is never a good thing and no positioning is ever worth it.

I’m so ready for Card Packs!! New A-Wing pilots are towards the top of my list!!

Also hope A-Wings get some love in next weeks points adjustment. Would like to see a Mod slot added.

A few more ideas based on some feedback:

#1. Red Maneuvers

This one's kind of weak, but could be nice for pulling some sweet positioning tricks in the B-Wing or for clearing out with the A-Wing when you really need to. Also good for getting rid of panicked pilots or Assaj/0-0-0 stress.

#2. Blue Recovery

On the other hand, this one's potentially pretty strong. I'd have to run some examples in my head. She could potentially:

• Sloop and get two actions, but then she's out of charges. Of course, she can still do a blue and use the ship ability for two turns in a row and then do it again. Kind of nice.

• K-Turn and one action, then K-turn again and no action. Then blue and both actions. This seems cool but not busted?

• K-turn and one action, white and one action, then be a normal A-Wing for awhile to refill. Actually really sweet, maybe too strong.

Off the top of my head I can't think of a way to abuse it so maybe it's okay?

#3. L'ulo Lite

Maybe too derivative of L'ulo. Gives you a bonkers ability but at a cost to your survivability. Probably too good? The B-Wing would be pretty reluctant to use it at all, but the A-Wing would probably never stop. This one seems pretty off-balance to me.

#4. Limited Stress

My personal favorite, but probably too complicated to ever be considered by the devs. Multiple reds don't double-stress her, but don't let her do actions either. She can do actions while stressed, but only white ones (as she's not allowed to gain the stress for red ones). So some examples:

• If she's clear, she can do a red and get only one action, so she could theoretically do this every other turn if she's doing blues the rest of the time. Nice but not crazy. Awesome on the B-Wing or A-Wing and probably her best use.

• If she's stressed, she can do a white and still get just one action or do a red and get no action.

• Again mostly immune to stress-control tactics like Panicked Pilot, Assajj, and 0-0-0, and suffers less from Death Troopers and Phasma.

I like it because it doesn't give her absurd action economy and sky-high levels of stress stacking, but it opens up tons of versatility on either chassis. Though I just realized that with AS she could do an action and a red every round back-to-back. Maybe a bit too strong on a B-Wing. Even without AS she could be endlessly coordinated while stressed and not sweat it. Hmmm, still doesn't seem as good as Guri, but maybe I'm biased.

Edit: Missed that I left the weird upgrade bar there. Weird quirk of Strange Eons.

I don't see why, if she is going to be a stand-in for Tycho, she couldn't just have his 1.0 ability. It's not like it was ever considered broken.

8 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

I don't see why, if she is going to be a stand-in for Tycho, she couldn't just have his 1.0 ability. It's not like it was ever considered broken.

Infinite token-stacking and always-on abilities kind of go against the spirit of 2.0, plus no one likes the hassle of moving around 14,239 stress tokens. That's pretty much the only reason.

A good way to come close to Tycho's ability without the 14,239 stress tokens would be something like: You may treat red actions as white.

1.0 Tycho could take actions all day long but couldn't do red manuevers once he was stressed. This version lets him basically do that, AND do red maneuvers, but he'll need to clear the stress if he wants to take actions again. If you want to make him immune to stressors like Panicked Pilot and abilities, just say "When you receive a stress token outside of the Perform Maneuver step, you may discard that stress token" or something like that.