Hello community!

Does anyone actually play the Two Tubes Brothers? Are they viable?

I like the look of their ships and the interaction between them quite a lot, but honestly... the pilot skill of 2 is pretty low.

They will be flying last most of the time. These two ships cost about half the points of your list.

What do you think?

I've been trying them out in FlyCasual, since there's no cost to it.

I think they're neat, but not really viable for competitive play because of their poor cost to initiative ratio, as well as the fact that the X-Wing's ability is too easy to completely turn off by killing the U-Wing (and the X-Wing's flight space is quite limited if you want to get value out of the pilot ability because it's too difficult to find another working partner for the list. The U-Wing is much better value in terms of pilot skill, but a much worse fighting platform).

On top of the above, the Tubes bros suffered quite a bit of collateral damage from the Beef nerfs (one of the many drawbacks of FFG deciding that their way of tweaking ship balance would be just to adjust point costs).

EDIT: Oh, and let's not forget that the Tubes are paying a (small) premium for an illicit slot, which is wasted points because every illicit upgrade is terrible.

EDIT 2: The X-Wing is also just so severely hampered by being I2. If they were even just one notch higher, they might work; as it stands, the best action combination (TL + Focus) is off of the table unless you get to fight I1 targets.

Thanks, good info!

Benthic in the U-Wing is pretty good. Take a Focus (preferably with Perceptive Copilot) and both you and a friend will gain a focus token. Also works great with Jyn Erso in the mix, so you can hand out an Evade instead (since many folks might just focus on their own). He's a support ship with a lot of punch and toughness, due to his own action economy.

Edrio in the X-Wing is... fine. He's ok. My issue with him is that he kinda doesn't have a lot to spend his action economy on. He'll start with a Focus, get a bonus action when activating, then get his normal action, and X-Wings often just don't need three actions. He's low Init, so Locks aren't always easy. He doesn't always need to barrel roll. Two focus tokens can OK, but it'd honestly probably be better to have two Focus tokens on Benthic than Edrio. Jyn can let him get Focus/Evade, but again, probably better to have Focus/Evade on Benthic.

He's not *bad* though. Like, if you want to fly the Two-Tubes boys, it's a fine list for casual day or a small tourney. Doesn't see a lot of success at top levels.

However, flying only Benthic as a U-Wing with a few other ships creates a pretty potent threat from Benthic, while also keeping your other friendly ships buff.

Benthic will always be overshadowed by Dutch and other rebel support options, and Edrio's ability just doesnt work well with his chassis and initiative. Angled Deflectors might be a possible new option for him though, but you don't need to waste the points on Benthic to get that focus token on him before he activates

Benthic with Perceptive Copilot is very strong as it's the only U-Wing that can benefit directly from a support action. It's an expensive upgrade but can be well worth it. He's 2 points cheaper than Cassian with Tactical Officer and only 2 points more than an Advanced Sensors generic. In my estimation, that's about the right price point for what he can do. It's a pretty solid option.

Edrio is decidedly eh. His action economy is really incredible, but it's gimmicky and he doesn't have much he can do with it. If Kullbee had that action on top of his own, he'd be god-tier. As it is, he's probably worth a point or two more than a generic, but as always he pays a 2 point tax for his mostly-useless illicit slot. The best use I can think of for him is to put Jyn on Benthic and use his actions to get focus/evade and double mods if you can land the lock. That works out to a pretty nice and tanky little fighter with some real bite.

Benthic is okay, honestly. His biggest competition is Garven, who bests him handily initiative and cost (you're putting perceptive on Benthic...) but who's ability is more stringent and rng based

Edrio...bleh. much better off with a passive sensor Bwing that Benthic can toss a focus on. Passive sensor a lock and bam, full mods

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Benthic will always be overshadowed by Dutch and other rebel support options, and Edrio's ability just doesnt work well with his chassis and initiative. Angled Deflectors might be a possible new option for him though, but you don't need to waste the points on Benthic to get that focus token on him before he activates

Dutch and Benthic aren't mutually exclusive.

Something nice about Benthic just occurred to me: if you're looking to coordinate someone a focus, you kinda can't fail. Maybe it gets passed to someone you don't care as much about, maybe you have to keep them both yourself (not a terrible plan! Benthic is often a prime target). It's like he's got mega-Composure built-in.

Thanks for the info, everyone!

This is really helpful.

Benthic with perceptive copilot is a frequent sight on the table with my little group. He's a piece that's great at both support and offense.

So Benthic with perceptive Co could be a good support ship without his brother?

I ran The Tubes extensively at the start of 2.0. Eventually it morphed into Benthic with Perceptive Copilot, Dutch with the target lock astromec, AP-5 with Leia, and a hitter. The hitter changed around, i tried Nora, Luke, and others. It was quite common to have 3 ships focus/locked with arc on the same target.

Benthic is a decent ship to anchor an efficiency list around, especially if you are running ships that can do shenanigans with focus tokens. Add in Leia, and he can be used to set the location that the fight happens, let your other ships orbit around him, giving a focus to whom ever happens to need it, and focus arcs as needed.

5 hours ago, Schu81 said:

So Benthic with perceptive Co could be a good support ship without his brother?

Benthic is the most versatile ship, and arguably the best period, in the Saw's Renegades pack. Any ship on your list can benefit from the free focus token Benthic can pass; allowing them to perform other actions or red maneuvers. Edrio us sorely lacking in a list without Benthic. Benthic (with per co) shine regardless of whether or not his brother's there.

Like most rebel ships, the abilities and chassis just aren't worth the cost when compared to other options, both in the Faction (Wedge, Dutch) and outside the faction.

The problem us edrio has no use for the extra actions most of the time.

Better to just hand that focus off to a different ship with an ability that might actually be useful.

Giving extream action economy to a ship with few actions that can't preform some or does not want to preform some of its limited actions is just not very good.

15 minutes ago, Icelom said:

The problem us edrio has no use for the extra actions most of the time.

Better to just hand that focus off to a different ship with an ability that might actually be useful.

Giving extream action economy to a ship with few actions that can't preform some or does not want to preform some of its limited actions is just not very good.

It’s the opposite problem to the TIE Defender. The TIE/D has a fantastic action bar but no action economy whatsoever.

Edrio has incredible action economy but nothing to do with it.

BUT! Edrio with closed S-foils is a whole nother beast, consider this, Edrio gets a focus from benthic, performs a focus, chains a red boost, reveal blue, clears stress, takes two target locks, (I can almost always manage to get the locks, even on first moves) using R3, then decimate with torpedoes, open S-foils, Talon roll with after burners and BAM! You’re right on their six already by round 2 or 3. Even if you can’t quite get the locks, feel free to take another boost or barrel roll to set up your next moves, you’ve got two focus to sit out this round even with only two attack dice