Ive seen alot of complaints about Ywings being weak, and how garven or dutch NEED to have a hard to call rule to be effectvie.
I have run sevral lists and found every pilot in the rebels army is great if used correctly.
Wedge: This guy is my goto man, worth every point. He is a great vader hunter, He can destroy ties like crazy
Luke: This guy can use up his focus without fear of lose of sheilds/ hull
Garven: lots of points for just a free focus. Once he rids himself that focus he grants himself as the target,
Biggs: wow, this guy is amazing, super duper out of the galaxy.
Horten: Very pricey for what he can do, but load him out with the right specs and he can get crits on ties
Dutch: the target lock makes him better then garven for less points. Makes either a great tank or a great support tool.
So how do you use these guys? some of them can be very specific or can work with almost anything.
Well the first thing you have to know to win games is know yourself and know your opponent. know your stats and know his. target priority is very important, vader is a deadly pilot, but focus to much fire on him and you could of taken down 2 ties rather then damaging his wing.
Wedge is the easiest pilot you can use. Swarm tactics is a great addition to him, Marksmenship will make him have a good chance of damage. R2D2 is also a fine feature to make sure you win if it comes down to a 1v1, however you gotta be careful not to put all your eggs in a basket. If your opponent can focus fire on wedge then you lost your key player. Proton torperdoes are a great way of dealing death at far away.
Luke is a great pilot, throw him with r2d2 and your opponent will cry trying to kill you. r2f2 is a good choice if you want to fly in a V formation with Luke on the tip. You can also Lock on with Luke rather then focus which allows him to be a great offensive player. Give him Expert handling and r2 astromech for some extreme moves that can save his life or allow him to get a critical hit, if he falls out of formation, r2 astromech allows him to get back into the game without having to sacrifice his offensive abilities. protons are a great choice on Luke due to his abiliity to lock on and not care.
Garven is a bit tricky, good to use as a wingman to Luke or Wedge as long as one of them have swarm tactics. Proton torps are soneone you only want to take if you can have dutch give him a target. R2D2 isnt a good addition to this pilot as he attracts attention for being the pilot thats not focusing on fly evasivly.
Big ol Biggs is one of the best pilots. Use him wisely and he will be very awesome. Fly him in a backwards V formation or in the center of a line. You want him to be the focus of everyone shooting at another pilot. Dont add proton torpedoes as they will hurt his surviveability. Biggs is amazing if you add r2f2 keep him in a line formation if your opponenet has concossion missles (this will force him to hit you with the missiles and let you roll 3 evade dice) add Garven to the mix and you give him a focus to defend himself with aswell as R2F2…. this is a brutal play style…
Horton. a big ol hunk of proton firing torpedoes. The ability of the proton torpedoe is very powerful when used with Horton. Once the proton torpedoes are used up, then he becomes a hunk of metal that you pray your oppnent will target. If you can afford the points, give him an Ion cannon to let him do something at close range and do not target lock unless your about to fire a torpedo, his ability is like getting a focus and evade on an ion cannon at 2 range.
Dutch, well Dutch can give target locks like crazy, An ion cannon is a must for Dutch, he is a great support player. I give him one proton torpedoe which allows him to do something at 3 range (which only happens once in a while.)
IF your opponent takes vader and does a kiogran turn within 2 range of an ion cannon…. well make him pay through the nose for doing so. target lock with an ion cannon and youll be marching vader to his death… There are sooo many play styles you can use with the above players. I tend to only use named charecters, however Ive been wanting to try a squad with unknowns. The tactics with the rebels is much more limited then the imperial, however its harder to make a mistake (or a blunder) though make one mishap with your manuevers and youll be in trouble if a tie gets on your back.
I can go onto some more advanced tactics, but Ill save that for videos (hard to find time to do that though with the new 50 hour a week job)