Lets discuss fun and powerful rebel wings and wing leaders:

A-wings

The obvious Wing leader is Jake Farrell, with his OK initiative and his reposition -> focus -> red reposition action economy. But what kind of missiles to you put on him and his wing-mates?

Proton rockets for everyone is one alternative for some multiple five dice mayhem and a great danger for any huge ship that might come in their way.

Cluster missiles is another fun alternative that would allow a squad of A-wings to roll an awful lot of dices. Only problem is that Jake will not be able to take a target lock if he does his double re-positioning. This could be fixed by keeping "Dutch"Vander in proximity, but how the **** would an Y-wing keep up with a squad of A-wings? another option is to give Jake a focus based ordnance instead.

A third alternative is to use the "rebel salad" approach to ordnance and give each wing-mate a different ordnance. Proton rockets on Jake, for some focus based heavy hitting, cluster missiles on a wing mate for dual shots, Ion missiles to f**k up enemy formations, homing missile to take out any stealth device carrier, and Concussion missiles for when the enemy wing leader spreads out damage to their wing mates.

X-wings

Wedge is a great Wing leader due to his superior initiative, however his ability is does not really help his squad mates.

Kullbee Sperado is another alternative, since his ability allows him to first boost and then open his attack foils.

Thane Kyrell is interesting due to his I5 and his ability is generally quite nasty.

Garven Dreis is the cheapest of the I4 pilots, and his ability to give away spent focus is actually useful to his squad mates.

When it comes to equipment, proton torpedoes on everyone coupled with a high initiative wing leader would pose a significant threat, but also come at a high cost.

Personally I think I would prefer to run one of the cheaper wing leaders (Garven, Thane or Kullbee) together with a few naked Blue squadron escort, for a nice and economic chunk of fire power

Y-wings

"Dutch" Vander with Plasma torpedoes accompanied by two gray squadron bombers with Proton torpedoes is a serious amount of firepower for only 139 points

Attack shuttle

Ezra and Zeb lead by Hera or Sabine would be cheap 3 x 3 firepower squad with som weird re-positioning abilities.

These are my ideas on the topic. Would love to hear any criticism and other thoughts on the subject

In the one epic game i have played so far, i have used one wing. That wing was Horton salm with: wing leader, r4 astromech, ion cannon turret, and veteran turret gunner, and after burners (expensive i know). and two gray squadrons with just ion cannon turret and veteran turret gunner. While there are a lot of points on horton, i just want to say this wing was what made me win. They absolutly f**ked up a whole wing of tie fighters and ionized a raider. do not underestimate ion in any capacity. it shuts down wings very quickly and if you can ionize a huge ship? kiss that action economy goodbye.

What would be a recommended B-Wing Wing? B-Wing formation? B-Wing flight? I don't know, but saying "b-wing wing" sounds a bit awkward.

If you want a b-wing formation, you need a leia carrier. opens up their dial to an absurd degree. beyond that, ten numb as wing leader because his ability allows him to shed the stress he gains so he can reposition using barrel roll most turns. then the wingmates would be blue squadrons, with jamming beam to get rid of a bunch of huge ship tokens if you want. but the main attack could be APT or HLC, both would be very powerful.

@DunderStorm Why no mention of Luke as a wing leader? Because he has force for mods he can reposition freely, getting the wing in good position. We all know how irritating Luke can be if he gets to the endgame, and now he gets a bunch of extra shields and hull. Sounds good to me. Sure, he's a touch more expensive, but I think he's in the mix.

Arvel as wing leader. Doesn't matter if the wing leader bumps, as long as everybody else still fits in formation around him. Give him Intimidation, and BOOM - you are virtually guaranteed to have 2 additional ships firing on that target at range 1. And RZ-1s are cheap enough you could reasonably have a full wing of 6 of them. The low initiative kind of stinks, though.

Actually, help me out here. If Arvel gets coordinated a Boost action after his wing has activated, what happens? I thought I heard somebody say that when a leader moves outside of its activation, all the wingmates split. However, I can't find that in the rules reference right now. Because a huge ship coordinating Arvel to run into somebody, and bringing the A-wingmates along for the ride sounds fun!

13 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Actually, help me out here. If Arvel gets coordinated a Boost action after his wing has activated, what happens? I thought I heard somebody say that when a leader moves outside of its activation, all the wingmates split. However, I can't find that in the rules reference right now.

That is because it isn't there. There is nothing involving Co-ordinated actions in the Epic RR... Part of the reason I was hoping for a PDF form of the main Epic Rulebook (without the Scenarios would be fine for me) is that possible hole. Safest assumption is the wing breaks formation if the wing leader repositions outside of their normal activation since the rules do not cover it.

8 hours ago, Parakitor said:

If Arvel gets coordinated a Boost action after his wing has activated, what happens?

As long as his wingmates don’t have any effects that would stop them from rejoining a Wing (i.e. stress, ion, etc.), and they are all still at range 0-1 of him after his coordinated boost... then the wing splits, but it’s pretty much irrelevant.

You simply declare that they are rejoining the wing at the start of the next planning phase.

Going back to the original topic, I don’t think there are many pilot abilities out there that are inherently stronger for a Wing Leader.

My favourite to date is Kare Kun (Resistance), and that can be replicated across other factions by giving the Wing Leader Daredevil... it turns out that being able to rotate the entire formation through 90 degrees after manoeuvring is incredibly powerful!

For Y-Wings, I really think Evaan should be a consideration, though as a wingmate rather than leader. That ability to add extra Agility into leader Vander or Norra, or your CR-90 I think is well worth the 4 pts to upgrade a Gray Squadron.

Wings can be powerful without having a particular Wing Leader. Yes, synergy is good, but not always required. I think Rebel ships are pretty potent and work well in Wings. Small wings or big wings.

That said, Garvin is good and affordable. Dutch the same.

As for Missiles for A-wings, I can testify that Concussion Missiles are pretty nasty when you hit a wing that has been hit a bit. I would say Prockets for the Leader.

What about a Wing if Azitucks? With their wide arcs, they should usually have a shot at something.

Wing Leader Biggs. Shoot biggs, his squadron takes it. Shoot his squadron, he can spread the damage around.