I'll have to look into it.

I don't really see how Howlrunner is a detriment to the tie swarm tactic like you're saying. One of the most effective builds I have used so far is Howlrunner, Mauler Mithel, and Backstabber with 4 academy pilots. Sure, it's not the 8 tie swarm, but I think it's just as effective with more potential damage output. I'm not arguing with you, this is your rating system, I'm just disagreeing with your analysis of Howlrunner.

SuperSoldier said:

Here is the link to all the rules

mind if I jack this thread with my own version?

imperials:

Darth Vader is no doubt the best pilot you can have. With 2 actions per turn, there is just so many things you can do with him. Target lock + focus, or barrel roll + target lock, or if you are already locked onto something, barrel roll + focus. If you are a bit more defensive, you can permanently put him on evade, then continue playing him as if he only had 1 action, and this makes him almost as difficult to kill as Luke. And all these are already sounding pretty crazy, even without the other stuff you could do with him. and Oh man you have so many other stuff you could do with him. Expert handling (to remove locks) + evade, squad leader to transfer the free action to somebody else whilst not really experiencing the drawbacks of squad leader, marksmanship + barrel roll, or even better, marksmanship + target lock + cluster missiles for that 1 high damage combo that if near impossible to predict when you will fire it off since everything can be done in 1 action step. Not to mention, Darth Vader is at a solid 9 pilot skill, so you have a very very good overview of the situation before choosing what to do with him. He does have his share of problems though. For example, his cost is very very high and a fully-loaded Darth Vader is easily equal to 3 TIE fighters or so. Moreover, at 9 cost you have a very high chance of overlapping somebody else, and when that happens you cannot even use a single action, wasting him completely for that round (as compared to other pilots with more passive abilities, eg. howlrunner, winged gundark etc whose abilities aren't as easy to disrupt). Your opponent could use this to his advantage and park some ship at where he will be going, and when the overlap happens, his abilities are wasted so badly there's nothing you can do with him, not even pass his actions to another ship via squad leader, making him very very easy to disrupt. On top of that, his 9 is slightly lower than Wedge's, because as a imperial player, it is a bit harder to spend points until you max out at 100, and chances are you are more likely to get initiative. Still, he's absurdly flexible, and has a very very dominating presence on the battlefield.

Honestly I'd rank Howlrunner above Darth Vader if it werent for the fact that Darth Vader is way more indepedent than her. Howlrunner is unique in the imperial lineup, in that her ability is the only pilot ability so far that doesn't affect herself, but is used to support your other ships. While she's as good as a imperial pilot by herself, her ability can easily fake-pump all your other TIEs' attack from 2 to a fake "3", as long as you keep her around. Thus, she's indispensible in all swarm builds, except maybe the 8 TIE swarm version. As her ability is supportive in nature, there's really only a few options you can give her: expert handling (to stay alive longer), swarm tactics, and squad leader. Marksmanship is very wasted on her, and determination should only be considered if you are really stuck at 99 points and have that spare slot for some reason. Squad leader on her is actually rather useful, think about this: if you can keep her out of the heat of the battle (at a comfortable range 3 or so), you can pass her action to somebody else, like ANY TIE ADVANCED SHIP, AND TURN IT INTO A FAKE DARTH VADER. WHAT IF YOU WERE RUNNING 2 OR 3 TIE ADVANCED? YOU NOW HAVE 2-3 FAKE DARTH VADERS!!!! THE HORROR!!! Of course, only 1 TIEadv with 2 actions per round, but still a pretty scary prospect for your opponent, and the only way to get rid of the fake darth vaders is to take down Howlrunner. So now you know what he's aiming for, and all you have to do is protect the queen.

Mauler Mithel is easily #3 on the list. Nope, not for his ability (alone), but because of the following 2 reasons: he's a 7, he is the only other TIE with a upgrade slot, he is cheaper than the other 3 at 17 points. Honestly, the main reason he is that good isn't for his ability, but because it is paired up with a 7 pilot skill point. Imagine if he's 5 or 6 points instead, you'd watch him get all chewed up at range 1 even before he gets to fire. On the rebel side, the only people who could out-shoot him are Wedge, Luke and Horton, and everybody else will get shot first. You could dump marksmanship on him, but I'd rather go with determination, so that he is very slightly less likely to kick the bucket, especially at that kind of close ranges. In fact, I often have a problem of miscalculating and end up overlapping other ships in my zest to get him in range 1, so i personally find actions to be less useful on him. heck, my mauler mithel squanders his actions on evade like 99.99% of the time, so the only good stuff on him is passive upgrades like determination or swarm tactics.

#4 on the list, Dark Curse. Very low point cost (16), and a very strong defensive effect pretty much ensures that he is the most survivable ship you have in your entire imperial lineup, even better than a Darth Vader on perma-evade as his abilities cannot be disrupted if you fly into a stone or another ship or whatever. The only reason I didn't rank him any higher on the list is simply beause he has no upgrade slots whatsoever, else he'd probably be #2 on this list. Then again, he'd be a little too broken if he had any upgrades.

#5 on the list? Maarek Stele. Even without comparing TIEadv vs TIE fighter, his abilities are insane. "When you deal a crit, choose a nice effect to give your opponent from the top 3 cards". So suppose you have 1 crit, what could you do? Oh I dunno, how about "Injured pilot" for Luke, Wedge or Biggs, "munitions failure" for your Y-wing without proton torpedoes that you rebels love so much, "damaged cockpit" for Wedge, "structural damage" for pretty much anybody, or if you manage to score 2 crits, just present him with 2x direct hit. Before you complain that it is hard or takes a lot of luck to pull those off, you must try marksmanship on him. Marksmanship AND cluster missiles. And Howlrunner. And squad leader from somewhere else. Heck, everytime I choose to fly him, he's worth 34 points due to marksmanship and cluster missiles. Hmm, in fact I should put a spare marksmanship and cluster missile card in his card protector, glue or stapler them together or something.

#6 on the list is the Academy pilot. Simply because he is cheap, he is skill point 1, meaning you can take one or two or three of his buddies, and park them along forward 2, forward 4 and 1 anywhere else of a opponent ship, and watch him overlap and lose and action. then have all 3 do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, until your opponent simply gives up on actions. That 1 pilot skill point is actually his most powerful weapon, so abuse it as much as possible. Oh, and did I mention that he is cheap?

At low 7 Is everybody's favourite backstabber. Yes, +1 dice is very very powerful for the imperials, who all have only 2 attack dice and can't hit **** and do not have enough punch. Biggest problem with him? His effect is very very unreliable. How often do you get to backstab someone? Not only that, you are distracting yourself by trying to get him to the target's rear, and by doing so you can end up with him in very very odd places, facing all the wrong directions, or even worse, totally removed from the combat. He is very very good at covering your own ass though. At the initial setup, have him face Left or Right, then make him fly left to right with U-turns and forwards, and keep him faced towards the middle of the fight. If any of the rebels dare to pull off a reverse 4, have him do a turn in and hammer away at range 1 from the rear at something with a stress token, that'll teach them. Else apart from this little security guard trick, my track record with him is that usually I try so hard to use his ability that in the end, i decided meh, I'mma just pretend he's a academy pilot with higher skill points, then if by sheer luck i can use his ability, why not? But otherwise, don't bother. Go for Dark Curse instead, that +1 attack is really not worth it, especially once the TIE Interceptors come out.

8th place is Obsidian squadron pilot. Slightly more expensive than Academy pilot, with a pilot skill point of 3. This means your parking skills would not be as good as your academy pilot counterpart, BUT you now have the perfect anti-swarm. 13 points is still very cheap, and you are at 3 points, so you WILL be shooting first if your rebel opponent is playing a 4 ship combo with 1 named guy and 3 ships at 2 skill points. or heck, 7 obsidian TIEs will easily kick 8 Academy TIEs butt anytime anyday, simply because they shoot first. I'd like to rate them higher if possible, but the mere fact that they are still mooks, and are useful if you employ them in numbers kinda affected their ranking a bit. And that under normal circumstances, the academy pilots are better, cheaper, and your obsidian piltos are still going to shoot last if your rebel scum is fielding 3 named pilots. Still, they are awesome, and are very very good as an anti-swarm tactic.

9th place is your tempest squadron TIE adv. It's a Xwing without astromechs, but with barrel roll and evade instead. It is more tanky than your normal TIE and has a potentially scary 1 use missile, depending on your luck. Against a rebel steup, pretty much the only use it has is to deliver the missiles to R2D2's and Luke's face, or remove a Y-wing on the 2nd turn. Then afterwards it is free to fly around trying to get people to shoot at it, so your more fragile TIEs are kept safe. Still, not that bad for a tanky TIE, and it does have its uses, such as sending it straight into the middle of a firefight without too much fear that it will die too quickly, unlike most of the TIEs, even for named pilot such as Mauler Mithel. Then again at pretty much enough points for 2 TIEs, it's kinda costly and you are essentially combining both TIEs into 1 package. good for your hp, but bad for your 2 attack dice.

Tied for 10th place are Winged Gundark and Night Beast. I honestly cannot decide which effect is worse. Winged Gundark's effect is basically a free marksmanship upgrade on him, PROVIDED YOU ARE AT RANGE 1. And at 5 skill points, he is in a lot of trouble. If he's a 6 or 7, he would be so much better, but noooooooo they had to give him a 5. Even if you do manage to get into range 1, You'd be dead by the time the 9, 8, 7 and 6 pointers get to you, and even if you survive all that, you'd probably only get in 1 hit. And that 1 hit is most likely a crit anyway due to the cancellation order. If his effect is applicable at all ranges, or if he is at skill point 6 or 7, he would be so so so so so so so so so much better, but nooooooooo, he just fell short of the mark, by that little bit. Now, onto Night Beast, WOW free focus action after you perform a green maneuver. Sounds very good. Okay, now when do I pull off green maneuvers? at the very start of the game, where both sides are kinda far and out of range from each other, so focus is useless. Ok. Hmm, after I do a U-turn? Okay, that's probably the best time I could use his effect, but oh wait, my opponent guessed what I'm doing on that turn so he did a forward 4 and he is now at range 3 from me, oh wow free focus on 2 attack dice. Okay, i guess i could get a free evade to escape that guy trying to shoot me from behind? maybe even a barrel roll out of his range, then why do I need a free focus if i'm already out of his range and the only guy i could fire at is at range 3 with a floating space rock between him and me!? The last possible use is really if you are in a very tight spot being chased by a few people, and you could perhaps do a forward 2, then you could combo barrel roll or evade with the focus to stay alive longer, but if you did that you are most likely within range 1 of your opponent now, so i do not think that's such a good tradeoff. IF they changed his effect to get a free focus after doing a white or specific speed movement, he'd be a lot better. or you could give him a upgrade slot, then think of the possibilities. expert handling on him or maybe even squad leader if your higher skilled pilots are using their upgrade slots for something more important like determination XP

11th place is storm squadron pilot. essentially the same job scope as tempest squadron pilot, but demanding higher wages. That could be used for exactly 1 winged gundark or night beast and 1 academy pilot. 4 skill points is nothing especially since you will still get bullied by named pilots with minimum 5 point, and get bullied by 1 and 2 pointers who would park their stuff in front of you. The only time I'd actually use storm squadron pilot is if I have enough points left over and I want to get rid of initiative. Is a very good counterpick against opponent's grey squad and red squad piltos though, if they were using those in the first place anyway.

At the rock bottom is black squadron pilot. 14 points is very expensive for some mathematical reason, as compared to 12 and 13. Not only that, your 4 points is only good against other 4 pointers, eg. red squadron pilots. lower skilled pilots will park their ships in front of you, all named pilots will shoot you first. And the purpose for your upgrade slot is beyond my comprehension. If I wanted marksmanship, I'd go for either Winged Gundark or really any other named pilot who is definitely lower than your 17 total cost and is a minimum 5 skill points. Squad leader and swarm tactics is near useless on it. expert handling isn't too bad, until you realize your opponent would already rather be aiming at your named pilots anyway, so they would be staying alive for quite a while with or without the expert handling. Which leaves you determination. For a total of 15 points. I'd rather you take winged gundark or night beast, who are at 15 points too. Or take academy pilot.

For the imperials, I've realized it is much better if your entire team lineup is at the same skill points then if they aren't, to prevent unintended friendly overlapping from occuring. eg. your 8 TIE build, it is much better to have 8 academy TIEs than 4 academy 4 obsidian, makes your games much smoother and gives you less stress too. Not to mention you can now park and block even 2 skill point pilots properly.

My personal favourite build is howlrunner + squad leader, 2x obsidian pilots, 2x storm squadron pilot with missiles for a perfect 100 points and hopefully no initiative, so that your storm squadron pilots can use their lock-ons properly. skill points are deliberately kept high to counter swarm builds, eg rebel builds with 3x 2 skill point ships, or academy TIEs swarms.

you could try howlrunner + any upgrade you like (i'd recommend squad leader), and 6x obsidian pilots as a anti-8-TIE-swarm build, your TIEs are going to shoot 1st, and they are shooting for 3 attack dice worth, and your numbers are comparable to their's too. Any collision cockblocks by the academy pilots can be offset by howlrunner's squad leader ability (if im playing the rules correctly, which i hope i did)

Debate is fine, it's why I posted the thread. My only issue with your argument was making points against things I addressed. And I've seen similar builds, but in all the matches I've seen the more TIEs the better really. Specifically if you go up against a 4 rebel ship build you may be in trouble as even with the unique buffs they are simply throwing more attack dice a turn than you.

Edit: Sorry misread your post. Yea actually that is a great build I like it a lot. Dropping Vader definitely allows for some awesome imperial combinations.

Honestly I feel like many will get too caught up on the ratings, or how efficient they could use someone like Howlrunner. Howlrunner IS awesome. Like stated before, I ranked her higher than of my favorite rebel pilots Garven. Maybe once there are more pilots to choose from it won't be so bad having howlrunner ranked 8th. After hearing your argument I'm inclined to bump her squad cohesion grade up to 4.0. On second thought based on her ability alone she would be a 5.0 in that category, but her point value would bring it down 1. I'm revising my thoughts, 3.5 is in fact a tad low.

Nice post Duraham. We obviously value different things in our pilots. The thought of using Maarek Steele gives me the chills (Can't stand that pilot!) Would be an interesting match to play against you as we have different styles.

Most recent update boosts Howlrunner to a 4.3 mark, the same grade as Night Beast and Dark curse. On personal taste alone though she stays at 8th overall.

Now for the rebels:

#1 on the list, Biggs Darklighter. Forget Luke, forget Wedge, forget everybody else, Biggs is that 1 guy you absolutely cannot live without. he keeps your other guys alive so much longer so that they can do their job well, and he can absorb a surprisingly lot of aggro if you can keep him at range 3 or behind a rock or both. Throw a R2F2 on him and he becomes even harder to kill via swarm. R2D2 on him lets him fend off missile or torpedo hits, and R5-D8 is equally as good if you are low on points. You could also plant a R2 astromech on him and have him easily jump from ship to ship, end even break off to engage and return asap without spending any action points. Without Biggs, most 3 ship rebel builds will simply fall apart.

Tied at the 2nd spot is tadah, Luke and Wedge. No surprises there, especially with the fact that they are the only 2 rebel pilots with the pilot skills upgrade icon. I will be breaking the discussion into 2 paragraphs here, and personally I prefer Luke over Wedge.

Luke is insanely difficult to kill most of the time. at range 2, 2 attack dice (with 4/8 chance of hitting each) vs 2 evade dice (for a total of 3/8+5/8 chance of evading) puts the TIE attacks at a slight disadvantage here. Slap a R2D2 on him and he really becomes very very difficult to kill, to the extent that he is impossible to kill with 1 TIE. With 2 attack dice, you are pretty much dealing him 1 damage every turn, if you are even dealing damage at all, and if he persists with green movements, you are basically dealing him 0 net damage. then once you get yourself in his firing arc, which you will eventually do because your TIEs do not have a forward 1 and will end up overshooting sooner or later, you will likely take some damage which will stay with you, while you are dealing him 0 damage every turn. Even if you do manage to deal him 2 damage, if on the subsequent turns you are unable to keep up your net 0 damage, he will just heal it back. So ok, I'mma just swarm him to death asap, like on the very 1st turn. Ok, now swap R2D2 with R2F2, 2 attack dice vs 3 evade dice + fake focus at range 2, I think your entire 8 TIE squad will only deal him 1 damage every turn. Then now let's see the possibilities he have. expert handling + R2 astromech, not only is is going to be chasing your TIEs, your TIEs now have a harder time of chasing him down too, making it a bit harder to kill him (not as hard as compared to having R2D2 or R2F2 on him though). My favourite is him with swarm tactics or squad leader in a 4 ship lineup, and since he's hard to die, you can actually expect him to survive a bit longer without Biggs around, which you most likely not have enough points for either way. Or you could try a more balanced and aggressive approach with marksmanship on him. If you want to really annoy your opponent, try R5 astromech and determination on him, totally wasted points yes, but the look on your opponent's fact is kinda priceless. "waddaya mean I can't crit him!?"

Wedge on the other hand is a whole different play concept. He will be the very 1st thing your opponent targets, short of R2D2 and Y-wings, so he will go down. fast. like maybe 3rd turn dead. Don't expect him to survive any longer than the 5th or 6th turn, he will not, unless you are really lucky or your imperial friend is having some play problems. Because of this, you will want to go all out with him. Marksmanship, swarm tactics, R5K6, and especially expert handling + R2 astromech combo all work very very well on him, allowing him to abuse his ability and take down multiple TIEs before he eventually kicks the bucket. Or If you prefer a more balanced approach, slap R2D2 on him. R2F2 on him is not recommended though, because you will use his target locks almost immediately, and you will want to do that or use focus for every single one of his attacks. I rate him slightly lower than Luke because he has 9 points. This means that there is no way I can give him a 2nd action from squad leader, which would make him very very deadly. imagine every single attack with a guaranteed target lock + focus, provided you stay clear from parked academy pilots. too bad this isn't possible, and swarm tactics on him is honestly a little overkill. Whatever you do, just no determination on him. unless you want to use it with R5 astromech and irritate your opponent XD. Still, he's a very very good TIE killer, one that doesnt require you to get up close and personal at range 1 or use a torpedo or any weird tactics against the TIE's evade action and 3 evade dice. Just don't expect him to survive for long.

#3 is a hard choice, but I had to give it to rookie pilot. It is pretty much your only viable swarm tactic, dumping 3 into your team then adding a 4th named pilot of your choice. And 4 ships on the rebel side opens up many alternate possibilities, like you are now able to use different tactics due to your more swarmy nature, or you could even do the parking trick against your imperial enemy who is using 6 named TIEs this time. Plus they can all slap on astromechs, so dump a R2D2 on one of them and your enemy will have a hard time deciding between him or another named pilot. Slap R2 astromech on all of them and they become a bit harder to catch. Slap R5 astromech and they become immune to Maarek, winged gundark and marksmanships. Plus with 2 evade dice and 5 health, they would not die that easily, so they can afford to shoot last. You could also easily use squad leader or swarm tactics to support them, and that's where they truely shine.

#4 is Gold squadron pilot. Pretty much the same reason as rookie pilot, but this time it's the Y-wing version. your Y-wing tends to be pretty ticklish so I'd recommend putting R5 astromechs on them if you have like 1 or 2 spare points left over. R2 astromech is rather wasted on them I feel, since you will be doing white maneuvers all the way and your ion cannon is 360deg anyways. Plus they can hoard proton torpedoes, so they can actually pack more punch than the rookie pilot, if you are feelin lucky, punk.

#5 is Dutch Vander. Yes, his ability is freaking awesome and pretty much gives 2 actions to your allies, since they only have a choice between focus or target lock anyway. give him R5K6 and suddenly your target locks become permanent. The only issue I have with him is that I have many many opportunities where i simply could not spend the target lock, either because nobody is in his range, not even his ion cannons, or he has no more torpedoes, or my dice rolls are too good they turned up with 3 hits and i really do not want to reroll them. nevermind that your friendly ship may or may not be within range 1-2 of him at all times, or that your Biggs might not be able to hit anything, so the target lock is not that useful at that instance. Still, it allows your friendly ships to quickly switch target lock targets without losing an action, so that's pretty good for setting up ambushes without letting your opponent know your intentions.

#6 is Garven, but I'm unsure about his ruling so yeah. Then again, since the rebels do not have an evade action, you can only rely on focus, and double focus (yes i play that way), double focus on someone means that someone can survive a bit longer from getting swarmed since he can use it on 2 different attacks. Again, your problem is getting garven to spend that focus, and getting someone within his range who could put that token to good use. Otherwise, he's a 6 skill point Xwing, which is pretty niffy against your opponent's lower tiered named pilots and mooks. I kinda like R2D2 on garven, but otehrwise try not to give him anything that requires the use of an action, as you would want him to use focus all the time. he can be very easily disrupted by parked academy TIEs too, so watch out for that. pairing him up with dutch vander is bestest in theory of course, but how'd you allocate the remaining points is a whole different question altogether that it kinda makes you question how good a squad based around this would be.

#7 is Horton Salm. Very nasty ability when paired up with proton torpedoes, so do put R5K6 on him as much as possible. I've also discussed a probable use for him with R2 astromech or R2F2, to turn him into a fake Xwing with more hp at the cost of 1 action every turn, since he essentially has 3 attack dice at all range. However, as his ability is best used with the proton torpedoes, which is a very very expensive and luck based card, it affected his ranking in my list pretty badly. He can still be used on his own, with ion cannons or even the plain old pewpew lasers, but being a Ywing, you will not have a fun time trying to fly around chasing TIEs. 8 skill points on his is kinda pointless too, although it does allow him to finish off named characters with 1 silver of hp left before they shoot you back, like a mauler mithel or backstabber or maarek. basically, Horton is pretty good if you are willing to be a lot more reckless with a Y-wing, but given popular notion that Y-wings are support craft, it feels kinda mismatched. Still, using a Ywing to beat your opponent in the face conveys a very awesome feeling. Overall, his ability feels funny on a Y-wing, and to properly abuse his ability, you need to spend a heckload of points, and I doubt you'd want to put all your proton torpedoes in one Y-wing too.

#8 is red squadron pilot, being a very high cost rookie pilot who is vulnerable to parked obsidian pilots and cannot outshoot named pilots. The only reason you'd be picking him is because you have some leftover points and a rookie pilot and you do not have enough to upgrade him to garven or get a better astromech or a set of proton torpedoes or swap him for a Y-wing with ion cannons (or you already have a Y-wing and don't want to run 2. or 3. or 4.)

last on the list if grey squadron pilot. Ywings cost much more than their Xwing counterparts at the same skill level due to ion cannons, and the extra points really hurt it there. Again, I can find no use for 4 skill points since it is neither here nor there, not being high enough to outshoot opponents nor low enough to do the parking trick properly. Even if you have points to spare, I wouldn't recommend you upgrade it because if you shoot first, and you ionize your opponent mook, he will know he will be moving forward 1 on his next turn, and he will thus have the luxury to choose another target based on this new information, like trying for a potshot at that escaping range 3 low hp Xwing instead of this nice juicy Y-wing with low shield and full hp at range 1. If you were to shoot after he shoots, chances are he would go for the nice juicy range 1 Y-wing instead. if you really really have the points, I'd suggest you upgrade your rookie Xwing to red squadron, or downgrade your red squadron and add a proton torpedo somewhere with your new 4 points.

my personal favourite list for the rebels is:

luke + r2d2 + swarm tactics

rookie pilot x2

gold Ywing + ion cannons

Luke + R2D2 won't die that easily unless you really get hammered by missiles and vader and etcetc, and swarm tactics will turn any of your 2 pointer pilots to potential killers, especially when attacks are focused on 1 TIE, especially named ones. Taking out the rookie pilots aren't that useful, since the swarm tactics will simply target the other Xwing or Ywing. The whole team is focused around Luke, and if he does kick the bucket, you still have 3 planes that can play the parking game fairly well and can fly very smoothly since they are at the same skill level

as for 3 ship builds, i havent decided on a favourite, but i'm swinging towards either wedge + expert handling + r2 astromech, or a 2 Y-wing formation with Biggs thrown in to draw aggro from range 3

I wonder how many games and at what point level you've been playing at to fit your analysis to?

ScottieATF said:

based off all sorts of play, usually 100 points, but also 31 points, 70 points, 2v4 matches consisting purely of mooks without upgrades, multi-player matches with each rebel player taking 1 ship and imperial player taking 2 ships, some funny format that are occasionally suggested every now and then, including mixed teams, etcetc. Playing wise I probably got in around 20-ish proper games so far, excluding games played with funny formats or those simple 2v1 games meant to teach first time players.

ScottieATF said:

Mine is mostly built around 100 pts.

SuperSoldier said:

yeah, Maarek is terrible, I've only used him once when I ran a 3 TIE advanced list. Surprisingly I won that game, and Maarek was my sole remaining pilot, but that doesn't change the fact that he is the worst pilot currently available.

xBeakeRx said:

he is better if you were somehow able to land 2 criticals with him in one shot, then from the top 6 cards of the damage deck chances are there are going to be at least 1 direct hit card. Other than trying to farm for the direct hits, probably his other use is to try and crit the ion cannons out of a Ywing.

He sucks because his ability doesnt do anything to his combat or evade rolls, and the crits only start working once the shields are gone. otherwise, he's still a 7 skill pointer with a slot for a skills upgrade, and using a TIE adv that can stay around longer than a normal TIE, so yeah. Maybe toss a swarm tactics or something if you dislike the idea of marksmanship + cluster on him.