Hi, I'm new to the game and I'm looking at Carnor Jax to run in my Imperials.

I'm planning to take him with the Stealth mod, but I'm unsure what his Elite pilot skills should be. There's Marksmanship for damage, Expert Handling for survivalbility and Push The Limit for a combination of both but comes with a Stress token. Since this guy is looking to have a great ability, I'm thinking he should be more defensive so he survives.

What do you guys think?

ptl so you can boost and focus/evade or barrel roll.

Push the Limit is the best ability in the game, bar none. It gives excellent offense, excellent mobility, and excellent defense. Unfortunately, there really isn't a reason to pick anything else.

With 80% of pilots PTL is probably your best bet. On and interceptor you would have to talk me out of taking it.

Wow, tha'ts a **** shame.

This only pertains to Tie Interceptors right? That PTL is that great? It would suck if it extends to ALL Elite pilots.

In what examples would PTL be bad?

Push the Limit isn't ideal in ships that have difficulty shedding stress. Also in ships that don't have a wide variety of actions. In X-wings, it limits you to just Target Lock and Focus.

I see. Would the cheap +1 Veteran Instincts help him much to get the jump/kill on PS9 fighters?

Veteran's Instincts is a surprisingly good upgrade to catch. It doesn't do anything exciting, so folks tend to pass it over.

But yeah, Push the Limit is the ideal talent to pick up for just about every ship in the game.The ships with the most difficulty ditching stress (Y-Wing and Lambda Class Shuttle) can't pick it up at all, so it's irrelevant to them.

The reason for it is that you can pick up a focus and target lock on most ships, and on the ones you can't, you can grab a focus and evade. At base, those two abilities make for a super-high attack/defense, and that's before adding in mobility abilities, like boost or barrel roll.

Maybe it wouldn't be as good if there was a single ship in the game that didn't know how to focus.

I will at least give him a run with Opportunist, but I think a PTL w/ the Royal Guard Interceptor, Targeting Computer, and Stealth Device would be fun.

Cool, thanks for the replies.

So how would you guys load out Jax? Stealth + PTL to keep his price down? How important is Target Lock on him you think since he already denies escape mechanics.

Well at range 1 that would give him 4 dice....spend that TL to re-roll as many as you want....then spend that focus to make all eyes hits. Almost 4 hits everytime.

I do think PTL is that good especially on interceptors and Awings. Someone just posted an average # of attacks to kill a tie on another thread. Stealth + focus + evade = 24 attacks at 3 dice. Not perfect since your stealth will go and sometimes you'll get focus fired on but since the scale started at taking 3 attacks to kill a tie you see the difference. On Turr you can always focus, shoot, barrel roll and then PTL to boost and they can't shoot ya back! Or if they can you can just evade.

I take VI on him when he's the obvious target but PTL most of the time.

Well at range 1 that would give him 4 dice....spend that TL to re-roll as many as you want....then spend that focus to make all eyes hits. Almost 4 hits everytime.

Oh dang, that sounds crazy!

Would you take Target Lock on all your Interceptors or include Howlrunner in your lists?

There seem to be a few schools of thought about Jax and howlrunner. 1 says its kinda double dipping to run both so choose one or the other and spend the extra points on making one last a long time 2nd is take both and let your opponent decide how to deal with no modifying dice AND your rerolls. There was a thread called Tie Jax'd when they announced imperial aces. It had some builds and discussion.

Jax + PTL + stealth = 32

Howl + PTl + stealth = 24

That's only enough for 3 academy ties. If you take either upgrade off one the other becomes the obvious target and you still can't get a 4th academy tie. 8 points left is enough for another 1-2 named ties or a naked alpha. Not sure super accurate 5 tie swarm is really much better than already accurate 6-7 tie swarm.

Royal Guard Pilot (22) + PLT (3) + Royal Guard TIE (0) + Targeting Computer (2) + Stealth Device (3) = 30 Points

Soontir Fel (27) + PLT (3) + Royal Guard TIE (0) + Targeting Computer (2) + Stealth Device (3) = 35 Points

Carnor Jax (26) + PLT (3) + Royal Guard TIE (0) + Targeting Computer (2) + Stealth Device (3) = 34 Points

Total 99

Fly in a close formation and do 12 dice range 1 attacks with TLs and Focus, targeting a single ship, then green maneuver out of fray and come back around and repeat.

Just brainstorming so...

Thank you for the excellent replies so far guys. It really helps a newer player like me understand.

I was specifically referring to several purchases of laser lock over a single Howl.

As for the last list, do you think that list is a little thin? Only three models there with 9 hull points total.

yep push the limits is where its at. I think expose and opportunist is overpriced at 4, they would be much more viable at 3.. no sense in complaining about it though since it's in stone already.

I was thinking about a mini swarm with a bomber.. not refined but might have some merit and be fun to play.

Carnor Jax 30pts

-stealth

-determination

Howlrunner 22pts

-stealth

-determination

scimitar pilot 24pts

-proton torp

-cluster missiles

Academy pilot 12pts

Academy pilot 12pts

Carnor's ability will help bombers too, not sure if anyone noticed that yet. Could drop the bomber for two more academy's for more of a swarm.. hard for your enemy to pick out what to go for first here, the bomber or carnor and howlrunner. could also run Carnor, howl and two black squadron ties all with stealth and push the limits = 100 pts too.

Understandable. I have ran Fel, Turr, and a Saber Squad Squint with great success. But Jax with alot of little squints would be nasty to swarm an opponent 1 ship at a time getting Jax in range 1 to prevent those actions. You could get him and 6 TIE Fighter Squints for 98 points lol.

I think something people don't always realize about squints is that their best defense is barrel roll / boost. If your opponent has no shot at you aren't taking damage. I took out a three B-wing list this way with four squints. I sent my squints in one at a time and just stayed out of the B-wings shooting lanes as much as I could until I couldn't. By the time my opponent got off a shot I took out one of his Bs and all the shields on a second. I sent Turr in next and finished the game without having to use my other two fighters. PTL is ridiculous on a Squint but it works well on the following:

Wedge with R2 unit and PTL.

Land or Chewie with PTL and Falcon Title

Tyco or a green squadron with PTL and a missile

Sorry, Squints?

So is it better to have multiple ships with PTL + Laser Lock than bring no Laser Lock + bring Howlrunner?

eyeballs = tie fighters

dupes = bombers

just some rebel slang. mostly from the books and video games. Don't think i remember anyone saying them in the movies..

Howlrunner allows you to reroll one attack die per ship at range 1.

Target Lock allows you to reroll all your attack die, when used with PtL to get a focus as well, it is infinitely better.

Howlrunner is the money with normal Ties, but Squints with Target Lock capability and PtL (Shudder)

With Jax in the mix, it's going to REALLY hurt.

Sorry, Squints?

So is it better to have multiple ships with PTL + Laser Lock than bring no Laser Lock + bring Howlrunner?

Squints is a slang term for TIE Interceptors from many Star Wars books/shows.

I think the answer to your question is that it depends on what the rest of the list is.

Sorry, Squints?

So is it better to have multiple ships with PTL + Laser Lock than bring no Laser Lock + bring Howlrunner?

Hida77 beat me to it...

Woah, thanks for the speedy replies guys.

That's it, I've decided. I'm going to take a list with some Squints!