A great initial and well placed first strike could make the difference in the end of your game. I know it's only a one time use, but that's why most people are hesitant to use it and know when it's the opportune time to use it. You could spend it on that K-Turn or wait and keep it for that annoying stress you can't shake when your rookie x-wing is pit 1v1 against Vader who only needs that last critical hit or 2 good strikes.

Anyway, I've never used it, but I'm thinking about giving it a try. Any thoughts or preferably successful and/or unseccessful experiences? Which ships do you feel it works best on?

Edit:

I do realize rookie's don't have elite pilot abilities.

It's been getting a lot of hype lately. Could be good I guess.

It is a really good upgrade, but it is not equally good on all ships.

It is really good on TIE Interceptors and A-wings, becasue they have so much green on their dial. Also the fact that they have so many actions to choos from makes taking two actions great.

On the X-wing is isn't as great. You only have two possible actions, granted focus and target lock may a pretty nasty combo for a ship with three attack dice. But the X-wing doesn't have as much green on its dial, so the cost of that stress is higher.

Another situation where it is great is on any pilot that gets something when or can ignore being stressed.

I also like putting it on a lone TIE Bomber so it can fire its ordinace with a target lock almost every turn.

I agree that it is a great upgrade. But I wouldn't say that it is underpriced so much as I would say that other upgrades like say Marksmanship or Expose are over priced.

someone else just posted an imperial list saying how adrenal rush worked out great. I too have never used it, though I would suspect it would work fairly well on some tie fighters. It was probably over shadowed by push the limitets, though it is 2 points cheaper. I think a lot of the manuevering upgrades get overlooked..

It is a really good upgrade, but it is not equally good on all ships.

It is really good on TIE Interceptors and A-wings, becasue they have so much green on their dial. Also the fact that they have so many actions to choos from makes taking two actions great.

On the X-wing is isn't as great. You only have two possible actions, granted focus and target lock may a pretty nasty combo for a ship with three attack dice. But the X-wing doesn't have as much green on its dial, so the cost of that stress is higher.

Another situation where it is great is on any pilot that gets something when or can ignore being stressed.

I also like putting it on a lone TIE Bomber so it can fire its ordinace with a target lock almost every turn.

I agree that it is a great upgrade. But I wouldn't say that it is underpriced so much as I would say that other upgrades like say Marksmanship or Expose are over priced.

Are you talking about push the limits? I'm confused, I thought adrenal rush had something to do with turning a red manuever into a white one.

I agree that marksmanship and expose are overpriced at at least 1 point.

It is a really good upgrade, but it is not equally good on all ships.

I can't help but wonder if you're not thinking of Push the Limit based on what you posted.

Adrenaline Rush doesn't let you take 2 actions.

That said, I think AR is a good card, but tends to fit into the "Well I have 2 points left and no EPT's on this ship" type upgrade.

You wouldn't for example want to take AD over PtL on A-Wings or Interceptors. You wouldn't want to take it over Marksmanship on Han. So while it's useful the very nature of the upgrade makes it's value some what questionable.

It only helps if you know you'll be making a red manuever, and will likley need to shed that stress before your next turn. It's also a one shot card, and IMO worse, as I pointed out above, takes up your one and only EPT slot.

Adrenaline Rush is very nice on the cheap Tie characters (cheap by comparison to other characters) and on Vader who already has two actions.

It allows you to pull a flip or red maneuver at just the right time. I like to use it to flip behind the enemy when they expect me to just push past them or flip and get stressed. Getting highly maneuverable Ties behind your opponent and still having your actions is a nasty trick for 1 pt.

It is a really good upgrade, but it is not equally good on all ships.

It is really good on TIE Interceptors and A-wings, becasue they have so much green on their dial. Also the fact that they have so many actions to choos from makes taking two actions great.

On the X-wing is isn't as great. You only have two possible actions, granted focus and target lock may a pretty nasty combo for a ship with three attack dice. But the X-wing doesn't have as much green on its dial, so the cost of that stress is higher.

Another situation where it is great is on any pilot that gets something when or can ignore being stressed.

I also like putting it on a lone TIE Bomber so it can fire its ordinace with a target lock almost every turn.

I agree that it is a great upgrade. But I wouldn't say that it is underpriced so much as I would say that other upgrades like say Marksmanship or Expose are over priced.

Are you talking about push the limits? I'm confused, I thought adrenal rush had something to do with turning a red manuever into a white one.

I agree that marksmanship and expose are overpriced at at least 1 point.

lol, seriously. Strike #2 post in 2 days now. I don't even know what I'm reading.

I think adrenaline rush is rated about as well as it deserves

It's a one-time thing, and while the effect is nice, it's perfectly possible that due to dice rolls, the opponent's maneuvering, or various other factors it ends up doing little or even nothing in the end. However, for a single point, the risk is low and you may not have wasted much in the attempt.

If you happen to have an extra point or two and a pilot with an elite talent slot open, then it might be worth considering, but it's not something to build a strategy around. I would say its biggest competitors are Veteran Instincts and R2 Astromech (where applicable), so you just have to consider your own build and see if it makes sense

I like the idea of Adrenaline Rush, but I've never used it before.

If there is any issue with Adrenaline Rush, it's probably the opportunity cost of using it. It requires an Elite Pilot Skill slot, which is typically found on your highly-skilled unique pilots (although there are exceptions to this). I would usually rather spend the points to give these types of guys Push the Limit or Swarm Tactics or Marksmanship as opposed to giving them Adrenaline Rush.

I could see it being one of those filler cards that you slip into a squad that would otherwise be at 99 points, al la R2 Astromech. I think you could definitely make the case that it would have a bigger impact than Veteran Instincts in most games.

Think in that picture, you have a ship with one missile, but you are too close to send it, so you apply the Koiogran turn and fire it, so the enemy ship explode and you get the match, greettings.

Adrenaline Rush on Ibitsam + APT is awesome. Just saying.

I could see it being one of those filler cards that you slip into a squad that would otherwise be at 99 points, al la R2 Astromech. I think you could definitely make the case that it would have a bigger impact than Veteran Instincts in most games.

It's a lot like VI, some games it will matter big and you'll be glad you have it but some games it will do nadda... except VI is the entire match and not just a single action so not really at all.

Adrenaline Rush is amazing to me for 3 distinct reasons which build into 2 more.

1) It only costs 1 point . Having it so cheaply really emphasizes the utility of the other two, and you can almost always find a way to slip it into a fleet. The only other upgrade with this kind of utility is Veteran's Instincts , as the other 1 pointers need to be supported by the rest of your fleet-building decisions.

2) You can essentially discard it for a free action . When you're doing a Koiogran, or some other red maneuver, this lets you take an action for the turn as well. You do not have to choose between firing in their blind-spot and being more likely to hit them anymore. Moreover, you can stack the defensiveness of doing your stressful move out of a firing arc with a defensive move from the one ship that still has a bead on you.

3) You can use it to do a normally stressful maneuver while stressed. If you're the one causing the stress on your own ship, you'd theoretically want to spend it for the first stressful maneuver and get the extra turns of actions. However, if you decide to sandbag the ability, or get stressed in some other way (Rebel Captive, Kath Scarlett, a Stress-to-Activate ability like Jan Ors', the "Thrust Control Fire" crit, et c.), you could still use your entire movement wheel!

And that leads us to its gestalt benefits:

A) It is incredibly ver satile . If you decide to go with this upgrade, you are going to be able to use it, unless the ship it's on goes down in the alpha-strike. It's that simple. In a game where maneuverability is so extremely important, this card proves its worth time and time again.
B) This card is incredibly unpredictable . This one's subtle. While you've got Adrenaline Rush, your opponent has to forget impossibilities normally associated with maneuvers, because you theoretically have the entire wheel in white, until you use it. This has the benefit of I) Causing your opponents to stress out over plotting all of the moves 1 ship can make, with actions on all of them, or II) Causing your opponents to forget an opening you have available, in which case you use it for the huge advantage utter surprise lands you.


I run it on Howlrunner in my Swarm. I'd rather have an action in every turn with her than stressing every turn to have 2 and/or forcing re-rolls when she's attacked. An upgrade card that I discard to free myself of restrictions once can definitely hold its own against an upgrade that restricts my movements to improve my actions.

Interestingly, point 2 is what makes Advanced Sensors so good on a B-wing. I'd like to experiment and see what happens when I put both on Ten Nunb. It would also be interesting to see what a Black or Green Squadron Swarm would be able to do with it.

Adrenaline Rush is amazing to me for 3 distinct reasons which build into 2 more.

Interestingly, point 2 is what makes Advanced Sensors so good on a B-wing. I'd like to experiment and see what happens when I put both on Ten Nunb. It would also be interesting to see what a Black or Green Squadron Swarm would be able to do with it.

you can take 5x green's all w/ adrenaline rush.. unfortunately i only have 4 a-wings so I'd have to use a y wing or something for the 5th ship or take 4 homing missiles.

Initially Adrenaline rush seems like it would be great on an x-wing; once I get one stressed the limited green maneuvers mean I struggle to shake it off without making myself a target.

Then I remember that only Luke and Wedge can take an eps...

And then I wonder if you'd get similar utility and more uses out of an identically priced generic R2 Astromech.

Initially Adrenaline rush seems like it would be great on an x-wing; once I get one stressed the limited green maneuvers mean I struggle to shake it off without making myself a target.

Then I remember that only Luke and Wedge can take an eps...

And then I wonder if you'd get similar utility and more uses out of an identically priced generic R2 Astromech.

An R2-Astromech would buy you green 2 turns and banks on an X-wing, but would cost you the use of your other Astromech Droids. Moreover, it wouldn't let you use your Koiogran to get behind them, and target lock and/or focus in the same turn.

So, in essence, you're trading the greater utility of the Adrenaline Rush + [Droid] for the greater reliability of R2-Astromech + [Elite Pilot Talent].

Adrenaline rush is only suitable on certain ships. The ones I mentioned above certainly benefit from it and certain B-Wings will to.

I could see it being one of those filler cards that you slip into a squad that would otherwise be at 99 points, al la R2 Astromech. I think you could definitely make the case that it would have a bigger impact than Veteran Instincts in most games.

It's a lot like VI, some games it will matter big and you'll be glad you have it but some games it will do nadda... except VI is the entire match and not just a single action so not really at all.

Veteran Instincts lasts all game long but that doesn't mean that it makes a bigger impact. Imagine you stick Veteran Instincts on Luke to give him PS10, but your opponent runs a swarm with PS4 or lower. VI was an unequivocal waste in this case.

Even in games where VI does change the order of turn resolution, it may not actually influence the outcome. If it doesn't prevent/alter the action that would have been taken or take an opposing ship off the board before that ship can fire, then it hasn't really had any influence.

Like Adrenaline Rush, Veteran Instincts is circumstantial.

The difference is, with Adrenaline Rush, you control the circumstance

Yeah...I forgot rookies don't have eps...

I won a tournament using Adrenaline Rush with Vader....so I'm a fan.

Wedge with AR and R5 is a great combo. It gives wedge a little more survivability and gives him his all important action. And its cheap.

I'd use it on a TIE Bomber to do a bomb drop, 5K-turn and then a target-lock or focus if you wanted something to DIE NOW.

seems a bit too situational for my tastes. time will tell if its worth it. it is cheap but the one use only scares me. it might be a bit of a threat card that sits there and says to your opponent - look i might use this at any time - making them think fear its unpredictability?