Named Pilots- Ibtisam

This post regarding Named Pilots is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts in this series will be available in the coming weeks. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.

Ibtisam (28)
Card Text: When attacking or defending, if you have at least one stress token, you may reroll one of your dice.
Usage in game: Stress to impress.
Breakdown: I can't really explain why other than it starts with an "I" and has about the same number of syllables (at least the way I say it- which is in all likelihood not the correct pronunciation), but as a lot of y'all have commented on enjoying my conversational writing style here on TheMetalBikini.com, if you want the full effect like you're hearing me say this stuff to you, you gotta say "Ibtisam" the way those cultists dudes or whatever said, "Imhotep" in The Mummy. Because that's totally how I say it. Not every single time, but most of the time, yeah.

That out of the way, ol' Ibtisam's really got it goin' on, doesn't she? Dig on that card text- got a Stress Token? You're in luck, pal- you get a free re-roll of a single die when attacking or defending. Pause on that for a second- not only can she use the re-roll on a red die or green die, she can use it on a red die and a green die. There's nothing limiting how often you can use Ibtisam's ability during the turn so long as you've got that Stress Token. Pretty nutty, huh?

Now, I'll fully admit I didn't grasp the awesomeness of this card in the B-Wing preview/ Wave 3 leaked cards article I wrote awhile back. I'd not fallen in love with the B-Wing yet and not having seen the dial, it was hard to get your head around how any of this stuff was really going to work in-game. That said, there was a commenter even back then that saw a potential that sailed right by me at the time.

That commenter was +Matt Bounds and he had this to say-

Surprised you didn't mention putting Advanced Sensors on Ibtisam. That way you still get your action, and THEN you can pull a red maneuver to stress her out. Seems like a hell of a good deal to me, especially if you use that action to barrel roll into a better firing position. There are some great mind games that could come out of this.
Heckuva a great idea, isn't it? If you don't remember and haven't clicked on the link, Advanced Sensors essentially changes the order in which you do stuff in the Activation Phase. Namely, you do your Perform Action step before you reveal your maneuver, so assuming you aren't already Stressed at that point (which hey- you may very well be if you're several turns into the game), you could get your Action for the round, reveal your red maneuver, get Stressed, and reap the re-roll from Ibtisam (remember you can only re-roll a die once). If that doesn't seem like it jives to you, take a look at Bikini Battle Basics- Multiple Actions, Same Actions. 

While you couldn't pull that combo off every single game turn (at least, I can't think of a way off the top of my head and have it be worthwhile), there's still some solid value in Ibtisam's card text in that you've likely always got some kind of re-roll or modification available to you. As y'all know, if you've Stressed yourself and therefore (likely) denied yourself your Perform Action step, you're usually flying naked with no re-rolls or dice mods available. If you're not Stressed and got to Perform Action, you probably have a Focus or a Target Lock or whatever and you've got the dice mods and/ or re-rolls available to you. Undoubtedly, you've noticed a pretty significant difference in your gross Attack and Defend results if you've got those re-rolls and mods available. With Ibtisam, you've always got a little something available- either the benefits from the Action you chose because you're not Stressed or the re-roll from being Stressed via her card text. I'm sure for those of y'all who have flown her, it goes without saying that always being able to re-roll that single Green die likely goes a long way to keeping her on the table. 

As for what works on Ibtisam, she's another one of those PS6 pilots who actually does have an Elite Pilot Skill available to her as well as the usual compliment of B-Wing options- 2 torpedo tubes, the funky raygun, and a system upgrade.

I think ideally you'd want to stay away from the Skills and upgrades that require an Action as you'll likely spend a lot of time Stressed out. Also stuff that lets you re-roll isn't going to be quite as effective, but if the re-roll is on multiple dice as opposed to just one or a particular negative result, you still want to look at it pretty hard. As usual, Push The Limit could be pretty useful here as well as stuff that keeps Ibtisam alive longer like Determination or Expert Handling. Be careful with Elusiveness- there's nothing saying you can't take it on her, but it can't be triggered if you're already holding a Stress Token. As is also usually the case, Daredevil could work here, but you're probably better off with PTL and if you want the Boost functionality, take Engine Upgrade along with it instead. 

As for guns, it's similar to what I said in the Ten Numb article. My own personal experience is that 7 points for a Heavy Laser Cannon on a B-Wing is a bit high for what it gets you, but Ions or Autoblaster could be fun. Depending on how much you want Ibtisam to ultimately cost you, Proton Torpedoes are a good fit for her with their sort of built-in, no Action required Focus-ish card text, but Advanced Proton Torpedoes probably aren't a great idea as you really do need at least a Focus to make them worthwhile and there's probably a good chance you'll be Stressed out when you need to fire them. 

Advanced Sensors are a pretty good idea for any B-Wing because of the flexibility they provide, but as mentioned in some of the other Wave 3 articles, none of the System Upgrades are bad, per se- some just work better for certain pilots than others. As Matt pointed out up above, it's hard to beat AS on Ibtisam, but Fire Control System is a good way to mitigate the fact that she probably won't have that Perform Action step a lot of the time, and Sensor Jammer could go that much further in increasing her survivability. Again, it really just depends on how much more you want to spend on her. 

Named Pilots- Ten Numb

This post regarding Named Pilots is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts in this series will be available in the coming weeks. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.

Ten Numb (31)
Card Text: When attacking, one of your <unfilled explosion> results cannot be canceled by defense dice.
Usage in game: Stickin' crits.
Breakdown: So it's no secret my favorite ships from Wave 3 are the TIE Bomber and B-Wing. I always liked flying both of them in X-Wing Alliance and TIE Fighter on PC back in the day, so I'm kinda biased to start with, but nostalgic personal feelings aside, they're both solid ships. Add a pilot with a solid PS value (8) and a nice bit of card text into the mix, and you end up with our good pal Ten Numb.

He's awesome, no doubt about it, the only question you ought to have in mind really is whether or not he's actually worth a third of your available points.

B-Wings have a decent dial, good stats, and a fairly varied amount of upgrades and options available, so I think the decision for most people will boil down to how comfortable they are running a three ship list. I know you could probably generate a four ship list, but you'll probably not run Ten Numb totally naked, right? I mean, you could- his card text is pretty cool, but let's look a little closer and see what we can do with some of those aforementioned upgrades and stuff.

B-Wings already have a respectable Attack of 3, but keeping in mind Ten's card text, Proton Torpedoes seem like a no-brainer. Is it worth taking two loads of them? Advanced Proton Torpedoes are their usual nasty selves, and while they don't particularly mesh up with Ten Numb's card text, you are throwing 5 dice instead of 4, so there's one more die to possibly roll a critical. Is it worth it points-wise? For me? Nah- I'd stick with normal Torps, just looking at it in a vacuum like this. 

That said, if you were to take an Elite Pilot Skill like say, Marksmanship? That might change things a bit. Expensive? Hells yeah. Ability to hurt something real bad? In spades, my friends. You don't have to take APTs to make it worthwhile though- Ten Numb's card text doesn't specify secondary weapons or anything, so you could even work it on just a regular old primary Attack roll.

As for other Elite Pilot Skills, Push The Limit is always a pretty good option to have up your sleeve for the flexibility it provides, but here doubly so to pull off a Target Lock and Focus (or TL and Marksmanship) in the same Activation Phase should a really golden opportunity present itself. It'd also be handy for comboing some other Action with a Barrel Roll should you find yourself on the wrong end of things. If you're more concerned about keeping Ten Numb alive with your Actions, perhaps letting upgrades and secondaries do your offensive work for you, Elusiveness isn't a bad idea, but Expert Handling could be fun to throw on there especially if your opponent loves to run Bombers, TIE Advanced with Missiles, or Colonel Jendon.

Taking an Ion Cannon for Ten Numb is kind of a waste with how Ion handles crit results, and while there is definitely an argument to be made, I think sticking a Heavy Laser Cannon on a ship that already has an Attack 3 weapon is kind of a waste and even more so with Numb's card text (EDIT: As Bikini Aficionado +TheForlornViking pointed out in the comments, a HLC actually isn't that much of a waste on Ten Numb- if you have a Target Lock, Marksmanship, or some other means available to re-roll your Attack roll, your second results stick regardless of the card text on HLC, and therefore would trigger Ten's card text should one of your re-roll results be an unfilled explosion symbol). The Autoblaster I think will get FAQed in the future, but right now, it's probably the only non-ordnance secondary weapon I'd consider for Numb. I don't know how exactly they'll choose to rule it, when they choose to rule it, but as for now, it would appear that rolling Ten Numb with an Autoblaster does not allow the defender to cancel any hits and one crit with his defense dice (if you rolled two crits, he could cancel the second one as +Davyd Atwood reminded me in the comments that only one of Ten's crits avoids the cancellation). Take that TIE Interceptors! Please note that other, non-dice related means of cancelling hits and/ or crits (namely Evade tokens) would still be effective here.

As B-Wings are currently the only Rebel ship that can use the new-fangled System Upgrades, I gotta mention those. Any of the three would be useful to Numb, but I like Fire Control System for the free Target Lock the best. Again though, it's easy to make a case for using a more defense-oriented System Upgrade like Sensor Jammer so you can go more offensive with Elite Pilot Skills or Secondary Weapon Systems or even Advanced Sensors and pull a Barrel Roll early in the Activation Phase if a ship unexpectedly gets behind you at an inopportune time.

EDIT: I wanted to throw this great idea in from the comments courtesy of +Nick Smale as it's a great use for a normally forgotten (at least by me) Modification and would likely catch a lot of folks unawares.

I've had a lot of success with PtL, Advanced Sensors and Engine Upgrade. The choice to possibly boost and barrel roll either before or after you move, plus instantly shed the stress from PtL immediately after you've used it (assuming you've gone green) is insanely effective. 

It wouldn't be cheap, but it's hard to argue with the effectiveness! I remember playing against some Interceptor lists where the ships kept on flying out of my firing arcs using Boosts and Barrel Rolls, now, I realize the B-Wing doesn't have the dial those ships do, but they also can't take Advanced Sensors and immediately shed the Stress token as Nick mentioned above by choosing a green maneuver. I'm just saying, the possibility of flying right out of lower PS pilots' arcs is still there if you're a veteran at maneuvering.

If stuff like that's still a little over your head though, I think one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get more mileage out of Numb is picking the rest of your squadron around the idea of using Ten as the heavy hitter he is. Biggs can help pull some of those shots away from him, Garven Dreis can hook him up with a Focus, Dutch Vander can kick him over a Target Lock all of which theoretically allows you to go overboard on offense or provide some help for that single green Defense die that Numb is stuck with.

B-Wing Horizontal Orientation Conversion

While writing today's article, I got an email from Yeti who runs a blog called Sarcophagi. 

Dude! Hope you are well. Picked up the new B Wing, chopped it, drilled it, filed it, glued it, flew it. Screw it!

If that's not the coolest thing you've seen all day, then obviously you weren't at home babysitting your two boys all day, only leaving the house for a couple of hours to get the oil changed in your Scion xB. I mean look, the Kun Aguero goal against United is a close second, but that B-Wing mod is even hotter than that. Note he even changed the orientation of the cockpit! That's quality, y'all. 

Interested in how to pull it off yourself? Well, lucky for you our good pal has an in-depth step-by-step tutorial available on his blog so you don't have to make your head hurt figuring it out. 

Thanks again Yeti! Good lookin' out, bro!

Wave 3 Preview- The B-Wing

Right on, so this article's been a long time coming. I covered the rest of the Wave 3 stuff prior to this, but today, finally, the oft-delayed B-Wing article from me goes up. Was it worth the wait? Hell, I don't know. Let's take a look and see what we've got here. 

First, the majority of the info from this article comes from the stuff revealed in the FFG article called, "Target Lock Acquired" where they talk about the B-Wing and the TIE Bomber. The info does not come from my totally hilarious April Fool's Day post from, uh, well, 1 April. 

Like most of the Rebel ships, the B-Wing comes in two named pilot versions and two common pilot versions. I always like to start off with the common dudes first just to get an idea of what I'm working with before muddying the waters with named pilots and their abilities, and since this is my bar, that's where we'll start. 

So Blue Squadron is the cheapest, lowest Pilot Skill version of the B-Wing and clocks in at 22 points or one point more expensive than the Rookie X-Wing. How do the two compare? 

First, the stats are relatively similar. Easy, I said relatively. The one Defend die is a bit rotten, but it has 3 more shields than the Rook to help make up for that. They have the same 3 Attack, so that's good, and they both also have 3 Hull. All in all, it's looking fairly even. Where I think the B-Wing kinda comes into its own is possessing the extra Barrel Roll Action in addition to the Focus and Target Lock that Rookie also gets. How often you make use of it is entirely dependent on you and your ability, but as any TIE Interceptor player will attest, having a Barrel Roll in your arsenal is never a bad thing. After all, who cares if you only have one Defense die if you can BR out of your opponent's firing arc anyway? 

Past that, you've got a double load of torpedoes, the funky raygun, and the new Wave 3-centric Advanced Systems upgrades all available to you. That's a lot of variations via upgrades for such a cheap ship. 

So what are the common B-Wings well suited for? I think folks who regularly switch their alliances between Empire and Rebels will probably have a ball with this ship because they're used to barrel rolling, whereas guys like me who predominantly play Rebels, might struggle a bit with it at first. Also folks who have messed around with Firespray lists as I think the most straightforward application of this ship is as a Firespray-lite- staying back behind some X-Wings, bombing in shots to finish fools off from long range. I could see tacking on a Heavy Laser Cannon or an Ion Cannon once in a while for the the lulz, but really, I think it runs fairly decent just as it is. Keep in mind, the most common backline Firesprays are built around Trelix with an HLC or Kath with either an HLC or an Ion Cannon. Your generic B-Wing isn't going to be nearly as effective, but it's also much cheaper, so as long as you're not leaning on it heavily for results, you can use it in much the same way, albeit to diminished effect. As usual, the PS2 version of the ship is 2 points cheaper than the PS4 version with no other differences between the two. 

Ten Numb is the most expensive B-Wing pilot slotting into your list for 31 points. Considering the other options available at that amount of points, he'd better bring something pretty special to the table, right? PS8 is solid but not earthshaking, and the Elite Pilot Skill icon is something you should expect at this kind of point cost. Ten Numb's main benefit is his card text ability- which states that when you attack, 1 of your <crit> results cannot be cancelled by defense dice. 

Ok, so as I've stated before, I think crits are an important way to reduce the effectiveness of big ships. That's not to say that they don't work on small ships, just that they work on big ships better. As the Imperials will be able to choose between the Firespray and the Lambda, both quite capable and dangerous options, having the ability to stick a crit that can't be cancelled is kind of a big deal. That said, sticking an uncancelable (yeah, not a real word, I know) crit on a TIE Interceptor could be pretty amazing too, so it's not like you should only use Ten against big ships. 

The question in my mind is how often does this card text actually work. You're paying 9 points over the cost of the Dagger version for 6 more Pilot Skill, the Elite Pilot Skill icon, and the card text. Is it worth it? 

Weeeeell, maybe. 

As you've likely noticed before, your red Attack die is an 8-sider. Of those 8 sides, one is a critical result. Since you get to throw three of them down every time you attack, you've got a decent shot at rolling a crit. Of course, increasing those odds by running Ten Numb with Marksmanship or with Proton Torpedoes, and you've got the potential to stick somebody with some nasty and (probably) lasting effects. That said, you're talking about more than a third of your point total in a 100 point match, and Rebel ships aren't exactly cheap to start with (translation: you're not going to field much anything else in a 4-ship list in the way of upgrades or named pilots). There again though, against anybody buy a low PS swarm, you're probably coming out ahead with that strategy. 

As formidable as Ten Numb is, it's Ibtisam I'm more likely to mispronounce. I mean, I'm more likely to use. 28 points, she's not exactly cheap, but like Ten Numb, she adds the Elite Pilot Skill icon as well as (in this case) 4 PS above the cheapest incarnation, and her card text for 6 more points. 

28 points is the same total as Luke, so naturally I want to compare them. Luke's at a higher PS (8), but Ibtisam has that intensely interesting card text ability. As you'll recall, via his card text, Luke can change an eyeball result rolled on defense to an Evade. Ibtisam's ability is kinda similar, but her ability can be used on attack or defense and so long as she has a Stress token, she can reroll 1 of her dice. 

Now, some folks have been interpreting this as if Miss I has more than one Stress Token, she can reroll more than one die. I'm not one of those people who thinks that's how this card works, but whatever. I guess we'll have to wait on the FAQ. Either way, at a glance, the ability seems pretty great right? 

Again- weeeeeeeell, kinda. 

Bear in mind that you've gotta have her Stressed for this to work. That means you pulled a red, you took Push The Limit (and paid those additional points), or you cancelled one of Kath's hits. It's not like it's too hard to get Stressed (especially with all those red maneuvers available), but you very well may have sacrificed your Perform Action step to get that Stress token. If you used Push the Limit, well, kudos to you- your'e like the B-Wing Vader or something. If you purposely pulled  a red maneuver to generate the Stress, you just traded in a Focus, Target Lock, or Barrel Roll for the ability to reroll a single die. Not a great return on investment. Still though, if you don't mind the idea of wrapping up a third of your points in a single PS6 ship, you're probably not all that worried about that. 

Me personally, I'm probably going to play several games with only my common B-Wing pilots to get the hang of maneuvering them. Past that though, while Ten Numb and Ibtisam both have some pretty unique card text abilities, I think a case could definitely be made for going common on the B-Wing and still getting some good results. 

Wave 3 Previews: The Moves and Grooves of the Wave 3 Ships!

Yeah, I don't know. Found it on the Gencon site just now. 

I'm working a split shift this week and next week at the plant (11:30 am until 9:00pm) and as I was killing a few minutes in the driveway while my wife got our barky-ass dachshunds hidden away back in our bedroom in an attempt to prevent them from waking up the kiddos when I opened the garage door, I checked my email and found that longtime reader Shane had emailed me to say the maneuver dials had been leaked for the Wave 3 ships at Gencon today. 

First, I came close to heading to Gencon this year. It's just right up the road from me, but ultimately, I had enough vacation days left to either hit Gencon or attend the USMNT v Mexico World Cup Qualifier in Columbus next month. Lest you think poorly of me dear readers, a thousand apologies, but I opted for the WCQ. In addition to being your Blogmaster General and a reluctant hipster, I'm also a member of both the USSSC and an American Outlaw (if any of y'all are going too, drop me an email and we'll meet up at the tailgate or something). Being one of the relatively lucky few to score not only 4 tickets to this sold out match, but tickets in the American Outlaws section... well, there's just no way I could pass that up.  

I figured people would leak all the Wave 3 info one way or another anyway, but it still would have been cool to attend and cover for the site. Maybe next year as it's not a World Cup year. :) 

Right on, enough blabbing- here's the skinny on the maneuver dials from the Wave 3 ships (and if you'd like to talk more about them than just my little comments section, Team Covenant and BoardGameGeek both have the info posted up. 

A user on BGG made some sweet visual templates, but as I'm always particularly careful about not jacking people's images and stuff, I'm not using them, so bear with me as I describe them to you. Figured I'd mention them though if you want to see them. 

I think the ship I was most curious about was the Lambda what with it's seemingly ridiculous low cost, so let's look over her moves- 

At Speed 3- Red Left Bank, White Straight, Red Right Bank
At Speed 2- Red Left Turn, White Left Bank, White Straight, White Right Bank, Red Right Turn
At Speed 1- Green Left Bank, Green Straight, Green Right Bank
At Speed 0 (not a typo)- Red Stationary

So this thing's got less moves than a white accountant in a disco. The whole stationary thing has everybody all a twitter tonight, as you might expect. Apparently the rules for remaining stationary are discussed in the little pamphlet thing that comes with the Lambda. I have no idea what they are at the moment (aside from the obvious, of course), but I'm sure someone will drop some science about it in the comments before too long. I wonder how much of this seemingly limited dial gets made slightly better by the fact that it's a big base? No K-Turn, but again, I think that's not that big of a deal. Y'all likely know my stance on the K-Turn, but in short, you probably don't rely on it a ton to begin with if you're past your first couple of months playing X-Wing Miniatures (or you've got some list cooked up that benefits from Stress), so I still think the Lambda is pretty nasty. 

Next up? How about the ship I forgot to write about (well, not really- truth is I left the Chromebook out in the car night before last when I was going to write about it and was too lazy to go and get it out after everyone went to bed- I'll cover it this Monday; I promise), the B-Wing? 

At Speed 4- Red Straight
At Speed 3- Red Left Bank, White Straight, Red Right Bank
At Speed 2- White Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn, Red K-Turn
At Speed 1- Red Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn

So if a Falcon and a Y-Wing had a kid, it'd be a B-Wing, more or less. More green moves than a Y-Wing, but less moves overall. The K-Turn at speed 2 is slightly eyebrow raising. Overall, for movement options while not taking into account colors (red, white, green) the dial is very similar to the YT-1300. Kind of the opposite of the way I feel about the Lambda though- I think without the big base and 360 degree turret of the YT, the B-Wing might be tougher to fly right off the bat than you might think. Of course, if you've got it penciled in for backline duty, it kinda doesn't matter so much, does it? 

Next on the list, the TIE Bomber- 

At Speed 5- Red K-Turn (Huh?)
At Speed 4- White Straight
At Speed 3- White Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn
At Speed 2- Red Left Turn, Green Left Bank, Green Straight, Green Right Bank, Red Right Turn
At Speed 1- White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank

I have no idea what to make of the K-Turn at 5 with no corresponding straight move. Don't even ask. That said, the fact that you can green move straight at speeds 1, 2, or 3 as well as bank left or right at speed 2 gives you a lot of functionality for losing that speed 5 K-Turn Stress Token, so if you do enjoy the K-Turn, you ought to be able to make fairly good use of it in a Bomber. I still think the TIE Bomber will be the belle of the Wave 3 ball. 

Lastly, the ship some random guy on BoLS got offended over because I labeled it "Most Likely To Be Slightly Underwhelming", the HWK-290- 

At Speed 4- Red Straight
At Speed 3- Red Left Bank, White Straight, Red Right Bank
At Speed 2- White Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn
At Speed 1- Green Left Bank, Green Straight, Green Right Bank

If my math is right (big if there- as we've discussed in the past, the maths are not exactly my strong suite), the HWK is tied with the Lambda for fewest moves of any ship in the game (12 total). Also like the Lambda, no K-Turn available. Skimming the threads on both Team Covenant and BGG before writing this, I read people talking about how the HWK is effective out to Range 3 (I guess in terms of pilot card text and that blaster turret) as kind of a way to make up for the rotten dial. Again, maybe I'm completely missing something obvious to everybody else, but I'm just not feelin' this ship on any level. Oh sure, I'll probably buy one because I'm a big dork like that, but I just don't see the viability of this ship in any kind of remotely competitive setting. Don't take my word for it, play around with it when it comes out, I'll do the same, and maybe we'll figure out what I'm missing here. I mean, the Y-Wing has a (somewhat debatably, but not very)  better movement dial than this thing. You ever use a Y-Wing and think to yourself, "Good Lord, this thing has just got moves for days and one too many Attack dice!"? Yeah, me neither. 

So there it is, y'all. At this point, there's not much left we don't know, and I'm sure by the end of the weekend, the rest of the proverbial beans will have been spilled (if they haven't already). I made this joke already in my reply to him, but allow me to say, Danke Shane for giving me the heads-up that the dial info had leaked. 

I know, that's a terrible joke and you're likely rolling your eyes, but hey- it's me. :)