So, I've done the math countless times and Expose just doesn't seem to make the cut. It's always better to Focus or TL than it is to Expose. Thus the search for finding that scenario that would make expose useful began.

First off, with the addition of Jan, I figured she should be included in any squad that's attempting to use Expose to double its effectiveness. She can also provide a second action via Squad Leader if the Expose player is PS7 or lower.

This leaves us with GSP, Chewy, Lando, and Ibitsam as eligible Expose carriers. But we still need two other actions, which means Garvin, Dutch, or Lando (not as the expose carrier) need to be in play. This rules out Chewy and Lando as there's just not enough space left in a 100 point squad for the Expose carrier. So now we're down to Dutch and Garvin as the second member of the team.

At this point, I ruled out the GSP, as I wanted a base attack of 3 to maximize all the stacking dice. So I chose Ibtisam as the Expose carrier. I'm thinking Garvin would be the better choice over Dutch because he is deadly himself and can TL/F/Jan after Ibtisam dies much more effectively than Dutch. Plus Jan can carry an Ion turret anyways. So, this is what we got:

Jan Ors 25

Squad Leader 2

Chewy 4

Ion Turret 5

Ibtisam 28

Expose 4

Adv. Sensors 3

Garvin 26

This leaves 3 points left over, and I'm not quite sure where to put them. I'm wondering if I should drop down to FCS to allow Ibtisam some more manueverability, and then have 4 points for either an R2-D2 or Shield / Engine Upgrade. Thoughts?

I really can't ever find a use for expose. Taking an action to gain 1 attack die whilst losing 1 def just doesn't add up.

If it left your action intact, then I can see it's use. Or if you had to have a TL to use it so you were forced into one type of action, maybe. But as it stands it just isn't worth 4 pts when I can focus for free.

Instead of stacking all of that on ibtisam, you might as well take Wedge. Wedge without expose is just as effective as Ibtisam with expose, unless Ibtisam rolls all hits and the target rolls all blanks on defense.

Now, you can make a list with Wedge w/ Expose and R5 K6, Jan, and Kyle to try to maximize the expose attack (6 dice at range 1 + wedge's ability) but I think you're just as well off dropping PtL on wedge with an advanced torp.

...Oh! What about Darth Vader? He has two actions per turn and has low base attack. I'm not sure it's worth the 4 points still, but that's the one instance I can see it working.

Aye, Expose is only good if you already have TL+F, so if you don't have a way to get that third action, you might as well just take PTL and TL+F. But I've done that plenty. R5-K6 is never a good use of points though, and by taking it, you're putting 6 points into him + Expose in the hopes of alternating TL and Expose. In theory I suppose it could keep chaining, but the RNG gods would never allow that to work in a tourney, and you'd just end up TL every turn and never using Expose.

Plus, once wedge goes (and that's going to be real quick) Jan and Kyle and useless. Jan can't even use her ability (assuming you gave Kyle a turret and if you didn't, then he can get at most 3 dice at R1) and Kyle would be better off holding on to his focus anyways.

Wedge w/ PTL + APT seems interesting. I should try that at some point.

As for Vader, he could be teamed with Yorr to get a TL to give him all three actions, but then he's still left with only 3 attack dice, 4 at R1. And with 2 Evade, he might as well be a more expensive X wing at that point.

Expose's artwork is neat, so I think it's best use is to look pretty until Opportunist is released.

It's a shame Dark Curse can't make use of Elite Upgrades, because I can see that working... kinda.

I'll say Soontir Fel if you make him stressed? The only problem is that you can really only get it with Koiogran turns... or do you get the stress BEFORE you can do an action, because then that wouldn't work either. :s

Here's a really good analysis of Expose that I ran across a couple days ago:

you get the stress before you can do an action, so you couldn't use it like that.

Well ... Expose ... would be somewhat interesting at a cost of 1 or 2 points as a 'gamble' feature. A price of 4 Points makes this upgrade a strategic one and its just not worth it to build your squad around the one using the Expose upgrade.

There are 2 occasions where Expose could work somewhat on a single ship (external factors excluded)

1: Han Solo + Gunner (so many re-rolls; maybe the best chance of a natural 4 hit attack)

2: Darth Vader (turns his T/A into a vanilla X-Wing)

I think they need to change the card text from

Action: Until the end of the round, increase your primary weapon value by 1 and decrease your agility value by 1.

to

At the beginning of the combat phase, you may increase your primary weapon value by 1 and decrease your agility value by 1. Receive one stress token.

Keep the cost at 4 points. The stress token represents you committing to the attack, which makes you less capable of making tough maneuvers next round (unless you're willing to lose your action that next round).

Expose will find its worth if we ever have a ship that delights in taking damage and/or reducing its own agility, or one who cannot be attacked for some reason.

Expose will find its worth if we ever have a ship that delights in taking damage and/or reducing its own agility

Well, Porkins IS incoming....

Here's a really good analysis of Expose that I ran across a couple days ago:

Haha awesome!! That's my buddy nick, we went to High School together, glad to see his videos getting used

Expose will find its worth if we ever have a ship that delights in taking damage and/or reducing its own agility, or one who cannot be attacked for some reason.

Agreed. I'm not sure whom, but someone who wants to get hit (because they spread around focus tokens or something as they get damaged) is not too hard a pilot special ability to imagine. Sadly they don't exist yet, but as noted, there's always Porkins.

And yeah, Vader's the other one. I've seen Vader used with Expose and Engine Upgrade. If he's in arc, Action-based manouvring shennanigans to avoid it, if out of arc of enemy return fire, focus and expose simultaneously (with a prior target lock if he has on for the Trifecta of lasery death)

Maybe you want to try this squad:

Herm... interesting thought about a ship that loves to be damaged. I can see them doing something like the did with Chewy in the LCG where he returns damage when he's damaged. To keep it from being OP in this game, I would suggest that it only happens to the first person to hit him per round or something.

The only way (for Rebels) I could see Expose getting used was maybe if you had Biggs in your squad to take hits while you tried to get early use out of it.

The problem is that a Focus + Target Lock combo on (say) 3 dice is demonstrably superior in terms of reliably hitting (not as spiky, but more consistent) than just adding a bonus die on top of it. And if you can take Expose, you could instead take PTL and do precisely that.

Not to mention that you get two actions for the cost of a stress, which is STILL probably superior to even the alternate Expose text proposed above, which gives you the Expose effect and a single action for a stress. And even if it did exist, and you did argue that you could, in theory, get a Target Lock one turn, then the following turn focus and take a stress to trigger the Expose effect, a lot of things have to come together to pull that off, versus just Pushing the Limit.

There may be a genius combo for it nobody has thought of, or there might be a card coming in the future that spikes the value of Expose. Weirder things have happened. But in general, F+TL is just going to produce better offensive output than an extra die. Ask anyone who ever fired an HLC off without a focus or target lock, and rolled a single hit, two focuses, and a blank.

Here's my take on it...

1) if you're talking about percentages and min-max'ing, then yeah, you probably don't want to use expose.

2) if you like the IDEA and THEME of it, go for it! I think tonight I'm going to put this on Wedge (my favorite ship is X-Wing with Wedge with R2-D2 and no other upgrades - well maybe marksmanship) and try to have him get BEHIND someone and see what happens...

3) I love using Kyle Katarn in the Moldy Crow with a Recon Specialist and a Blaster Turret. He can pass that focus off to Wedge to assist in this. Yes, I know people talk about how BAD the HWK is, but to me it's FUN to play it.

And yes, I have a Fly Casual T-Shirt. :-)

I only played against a rebel player using Expose once ... and it was on a tournament.

He put it on Lando ... and he had Biggs next to him. I blasted Biggs and I got my full 4 Tie formation right on range 1 and 2 to Lando. So he pulled Expose hoping for 4 vanilla hits on one of my ties in range 1 ... he scored a single hit ... and I wrecked the falcon afterwards - because he had defence 0. This was fun. It was like kind of a joke ... but it really happened.

So if your Vader is going to use Expose - you better get a couple of grunts near him taking the critical hits for him. And if they die ... well its their job to die for the Empire. This is exactly what you would do as Vaders' wingman - die for your Lord so he can life and fight.

the main bonus is not in the average result but in the top result.

No focus or TL can make a tiefighter cause 3 hits. (unless on range 1)

The problem I feel is it's not 4 points better than either Focus of TL... Now in a Rebel force all your ships have both so I don't think it will ever be worthwhile. In a Imperial Force however it may work OK with a Squad Leader in the force. So you focus and then the Squad Leader allows you to Expose.

I played around with a few of the upgrade cards, and I'm thinking I'm going to try out the following:

Ibtisam w/ Expose, Autoblaster

Garvin w/ R2

Jan w/ Ion, Chewy, Squad Leader

If flown properly, the Autoblaster should be able to put out 4.69 hits (TL from Jan, Focus from Garvin)- enough to take out pretty much any TIE. The fact that Ibtisam isn't going to be stressed often is negated from the fact that she should have a TL (from Jan's squad leader) for her attack, and no defensive dice when she's being attacked. I'm torn between the autoblaster and putting APT on Garvin (and deleting the R2 for the 6th point). If I went with APT, it would make it much more likely that Ibtisam survives an extra turn as the first round emphasis would be placed on Garvin instead of Ibtisam. If they don't, I get to roll 6 dices with the APT the second turn.

Yes, I think I'll run that instead:

Ibtisam w/ Expose

Garvin w/ APT

Jan w/ Ion, Chewy, Squad Leader

I still don't have high hopes for it working well, but I feel like there's something that we're missing when it comes to Expose... There's a reason the developers thought that it was more powerful than a second action, and I feel like everyone has just written it off without truly trying to make good use of it first.

I've run Expose on sabers and then used a combo of squad leader and different support abilities to maximize the damage.

It's not a great squad. It's not bad either. The problem is it is easy to One Shot a squint when it is down to two green dice. So Expose becomes situational and you don't get your money out of it.

Note - the above list would be destroyed by a TIE swarm. But I feel like it's gotta have a place, especially with the emergence of more named TIE pilots. I would love to take out Vader in one attack, or finally have more dice than Soontir is defending with (lets be honest, I'll never get in R1 for the autoblaster shot). Not to mention it has a severe chance of taking out a TIE bomber before he gets any of his ordinance off.