This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Saboteur (2)
Card Text: Choose 1 enemy ship at Range 1 and roll 1 attack die. On a <filled explosion symbol> or <unfilled explosion symbol>, choose 1 random facedown Damage card assigned to that ship, flip it faceup, and resolve it.Usage in game: Crit assignment outside of the Combat Phase. Also LOLs. Action?: YesBreakdown: If ever there was a card in X-Wing Miniatures that made me want to affect a terrible French accent and twirl an invisible mustache with my finger tips, it's Saboteur.
For a measly two points, you have a 50% (there are four damaging faces on an Attack die- 3 filled explosion symbols and one unfilled) chance of turning somebody's hull damage into a critical so long as they're within Range 1. In the immortal words of that redheaded kid from Harry Potter, "That's bloody brilliant."
Think about this for a second- it may be because it's really late or it may be because my mind races with possibility while I think about this card, but in any case, there are some really interesting things to note about this particular Crew Upgrade that I'll now describe in a fairly stream-of-consciousness, rather unorganized fashion.
Note that unlike pretty much every other friggin' Crew Member card, this thing is an Action. That means for once, you're kind of almost better off sticking it on a low PS pilot. Also bear in mind that you'll have the chance to move into Range 1 with your target ship and trigger this business before a higher skilled enemy pilot has the opportunity to move away from you. That's pretty sweet. Just remember not to crash into stuff or otherwise cheat yourself out of your Perform Action step or it'll be kind of a waste. That kinda dovetails nicely with using it on a low PS pilot, assuming you can avoid hitting rocks of course, huh?
Also note this thing resolves in the Activation Phase. You have the potential to really ruin somebody's day with this card. As mentioned in the FAQ article, if you manage to flip up a damage card with a Stressful effect (Damaged Engine, Thrust Control Fire, etc.) and your opponent has selected a red maneuver, and hey- if he thought you were going to move into Range 1 of him, he very well may have done just that, you're going to finally get to bust out that "drive the other guy's ship" rule that nobody ever gets to use. Not only that, you might flip Munitions Failure (discard a secondary weapon), Weapons Malfunction (reduce primary attack by 1), Damaged Sensor Array (can't pick Actions from the Action Bar), or a host of other crappy, strategy ruining other cards.
I've talked ad nauseum on here about how important it is to inflict Critical Damage to neuter the capabilities of big ships. This card makes it that much easier to do. True, it still doesn't work on a Chewie Falcon, but on everyone else, it's totally going to suck for them if you can manage to get it off.
Speaking of which, what ships should be packing a Saboteur?
As is usually the case, a YT-1300 is a great choice- two seats of which only one is usually occupied makes Saboteur a small sacrifice, a big base makes getting into Range 1 that much simpler, and the 360 degree firing arc means you don't have to worry about which way you're pointing when you do get into Range 1. If you've been on the fence about how to roll an Outer Rim Smuggler, this just could be your answer.
The card comes with the HWK-290, but I'm not 100% behind the idea of putting him in there. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, just that I'm not completely sold on the notion. On the one hand, lots of folks roll a cheap HWK as some sort of support, and not really combat capable. This can lead to your opponent just ignoring the ship entirely unless you're just absolutely master-class at making that whole support thing actually work. Putting a Saboteur in there lets you not only support your allied ships with Garnet, Katarn, or Ors card text, but also lets you put a pretty good dent in any enemy ship that happens to wander too closely to you. I also like the idea because it makes the setup much harder to outright ignore, especially when you're playing against low-count, high cost Imperial lists.
On the other hand though, the HWK-290 has a terrible dial, which assuming your opponent is about the same skill level as you, makes the idea of trying to actually get within Range 1 of him relatively difficult. It also has the small base which doesn't help, and the fact that we're using an Action to fire this thing off can make for some tough decision making if you're trying to fly to live with the light shields and aforementioned crap dial.
A Firespray can make good use of a Saboteur, but I think there are other better crew options for the named Firespray pilots. As previously mentioned, Navigator with Fett is just nasty, Scarlet has Gunner or Mercenary Copilot, Trelix the same. If there were two seats in a Firespray or some way of adding another Crew Member via some Modification or something, I'd absolutely recommend it for Fett in an instant, but there isn't so I won't. On a Bounty Hunter that you've tooled for more closeup work though? Sure, why not? Much like the Outer Rim Smuggler, if you've been looking for some way to throw one of those on the table and not be staggeringly vanilla or cheap about it, it'd be worth a go- big base, great maneuver dial, why not?
The Lambda falls somewhere in between Firespray and HWK-290 for me. It's a safer bet because of the two seats and big base, but you've got an even worse dial which makes getting into Range 1 theoretically tougher, but less reliance on Actions just to survive, so I think it comes out slightly ahead. Again, I think you go with Saboteur on a low PS flavor of Shuttle pilot like the Omicron or possibly Yorr (YOOOORRRRRR!) although me personally, I'd probably just stick with Omicron in a kind of suicide boat setup where I'm basically just going to make for the center of the board and hope for the best. And yes, pairing Saboteur up with Darth Vader is particularly bad form and I 100% stand behind the spoil-sporting nature of that idea as absolutely hilarious until it is done to me at which point I'll probably write some whiny post about this game is becoming too win-at-all-costs these days.
All that being said, you can make a case for sticking this on a high Pilot Skill pilot if you're good at maneuvering or guessing your opponent's maneuvers. Any pilot who can take Elite Pilot Skills and drive a crew worthy ship could make pretty amazing use of this card as perhaps the best thing about it (critical damage allocation outside the Combat Phase) still happens. True, your opponent will have probably already performed his maneuver and declared his Action, but it's still only two points with a pretty decent chance of affecting if not wrecking their Combat Phase.
It's also cool because there are those damage cards that say, "Action: roll a die and on a something result, flip this card face down." If you stick them with Saboteur after their Perform Action step because you've gone against the grain and used this on a high PS pilot, they have to live with that effect during the subsequent Combat Phase before they can get rid of it.
I think most folks will probably opt for more sure-thing type upgrades on those ships though and leave the chancy stuff like Saboteur to the lower PS guys though.
This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Recon Specialist (3)
Card Text: When you perform a Focus Action, assign 1 additional Focus token to your ship.Usage in game: Maintaining your Focus, excuse for singing the old Doublemint gum ad (but please, substitute the word focus for pleasure), even considering taking a Blaster Turret on a HWK-290. Action?: NoBreakdown: This is one of those cards I kind of don't like talking about because pretty much everyone already knows the score. I feel like most of y'all come by the bar because of 1) Insightful or innovative uses of the cards, 2) You don't have your X-Wing stuff with you and you Google some card because you don't remember exactly how it's worded, and 3) Boredom.
The really straightforward upgrades like Recon Specialist kind of make 1 hard to do.
All that aside, let's go through the motions here just to keep everyone honest and so I can cross it off the list.
As you've no doubt noticed in your own games of X-Wing Miniatures and as I've said on here plenty of times, Focus is an extremely useful Action. If you started out playing the "lite" or "demo" version of the rules presented in the starter kit (basically the game but without Actions), you know how much more difficult it is down enemy ships without Focusing. Subsequently, if you play ships with only a Defend die or two, you know how hard it can be to stay alive when the red dice start flying. Focusing can make a huge difference in whether or not you do or take damage and as lots of folks will tell you, "When in doubt- Focus."
This is what makes Recon Specialist such a no-brainer. Focus is a great Action- usually the only real decision you have to make is whether to burn it on offense or defense. With Recon Specialist, you don't necessarily have to make that choice as you effectively generate two Focus tokens every time you perform the Focus Action.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa- stop the clock. Did you notice that little hiccup there? Every time you perform the Focus Action. Some folks kind of gloss over this bit, but it's important. Recon Specialist only kicks in when you Perform Action: Focus. What does that mean? If you've bonked into an asteroid or another ship? No Focus for you. If you've been gifted a Focus Token from Garven Dreis or Kyle Katarn? No (extra) Focus for you. It's only going to kick on if you actually Perform the Action.
That said, I do think there are a couple of ways around that- if you're given a Free Action from some generous soul flying by with Squad Leader or from Lando, for example and you choose Focus, I think that'd work. Stuff that actually gives you a Free Action rather than a token, in other words. You just have to perform the Focus Action, of course.
There's no ship that can't benefit from having this as, once again, Focus is such a handy, Swiss Army Knife style Action, so trying to come up with some specifics where it's bad is difficult. That said, I think it works even better than usual in a couple of instances.
First and most obviously, Kyle Katarn. His card text allows him to assign one of his Focus tokens to a ship that's within Range 3 of him and also obviously, when coupled up with the Moldy Crow title, it gets even better. The other HWK pilots benefit not nearly as much, and it's perhaps not the best idea to throw Recon Specialist in with Jan Ors as Jan will probably spend a lot of her game stressed, which prevents you from being able to Perform Action, etc. etc. That said, with the Crow title, it'd likely go a long way keeping her alive if you can manage to lose the Stress long enough to Perform Action.
(And yes, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to use a Blaster Turret, you really should take a Recon Specialist. I know that it makes it expensive, but if you're already paying for a Blaster Turret, you've decided you want to try and actually use this ship as a fighter and not just a support ship, so once you've started going down that road, you might as well keep on going. If you don't, you're going to feel really silly the first time you lose your Perform Action step from a collision or because you simply forgot to pick Focus as your Action and now you can't shoot your fancy pants turret.)
On Falcons in general, I think it's handy because 1) most folks don't take more than a single Crew Member to begin with so there's usually an empty seat, and 2) it only has one defend die standard. If you can Focus that defend die, either twice on defense or once on offense and defense, so much the better. Works well with Han too as you know he's going to draw fire and he doesn't need it so much on offense with his card text. I think it makes Outer Rim Smuggler much more likely to live long enough to get some shots off too, what with being able to Focus twice on defense waiting for it to be his turn to throw around some red dice.
Firesprays it's a tougher decision as they're a one-seater, but with a pilot like Trelix who already has some attack buff in his card text, it makes downing him quite a bit tougher if he can choose to Focus two defend rolls with those two defend dice. Same thing for Scarlet and Fett, but I figure you're maybe using other Crew Members for them anyway. I do like it on Bounty Hunter for the same reason I liked it on Outer Rim Smuggler- much more likely to stay alive late in the Combat Phase if he can Focus two defend rolls.
I don't know that Recon Specialist works particularly well with any of the named Shuttle pilots- Jendon is ideally using Target Lock as his Action most rounds, Yorr is probably going to be Stressed much of the time like Jan, Yagi? Well, Yagi's not bad. I take it back- it actually works pretty well on him as he's probably going to be getting not only shot at, but shot at with Target Lock a lot. Packing a Recon Specialist would help keep him alive a little longer to work his magic.
Final note- this is a good card, don't get me wrong. That said, it's not a bulletproof vest, nor is it going to turn a ship into a force of destructive nature. It's highly unlikely this card is suddenly going to be the sole reason you win or lose games. Let me elaborate. When the Wave 2 stuff dropped, I made a list with Dreis, a Gold Squadron Y-Wing, and Lando with Nien Nunb. The idea was you could pass around Focus Tokens and Free Actions almost at will. It wasn't the dumbest idea I've ever had, but it wasn't quite as smart as I thought it was either. On paper, it seemed very, very capable. In reality, it fell a little flat.
Look at that spreadsheet- I had sooooo much more free time in my old position. Wow.
It's not a terrible list, I just seriously overestimated how well it would work. At the end of the day, you're only going to use a Focus if you roll an eyeball. While that's nothing to disregard, it's also nothing to get crazy worked-up over.
Long story long? Focus is like a condiment or a spice- it can drastically improve a dish, but you can't solely rely on it. Flying into battle with an X-Wing that has no access to Elite Pilot Skills, a Falcon that isn't flown by Han or Chewie, and a Gold Squadron Y-Wing ain't exactly a recipe for success against an opponent of equal measure, so by all means, use Recon Specialist, but don't expect drastically different results because you've now got two Focus tokens rather than
EDIT: After re-reading this, I feel like I ought to point out a couple of things to the newer players. Were this a Wave 1 or Wave 2 card, I probably would have done it without even thinking about it in the copy body, but we're further along now in our exploration of the rules and stuff with X-Wing Miniatures, so I kind of didn't think it was necessary, but now I kinda do. Not enough to go back and fill-in though, so if you're an old pro, you probably don't need to read any further.
When you spend a Focus token, you change all the dice showing the eyeball symbol to that wavy arrow symbol on defense( and when attacking, you change all the dice showing an eyeball to the filled explosion symbol). Once you've spent it though, it's of course gone, so the rest of that round, anybody attacking you is going to do so against your unmodified defense rolls, which naturally aren't as likely to be as effective as a Focused defense roll. So when I talk about being able to Focus twice on defense, what I'm saying is being able to use the Focus token on defense against two different attacks- not on two different dice against the same attack. Secondly, when I talk about getting to Focus with Squad Leader or from Lando, bear in mind- you're still bound by the no performing the same Action twice rule, so no, you're not going to somehow end up with four Focus tokens. I wrote an article about this no performing the same action twice deal awhile back- it's a Bikini Battle Basics called Multiple Actions, Same Actions Explained! If you're not quite sure how that stuff works, by all means, check it out.
This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Rebel Captive (3)
Card Text: Galactic Empire Only Once per round, the first ship that declares you as the target of an attack immediately receives one stress token.Usage in game: I can't believe you f@#kin' shot me, Harley. Action?: NoBreakdown: I'm no games design guru by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, I'm not even a student of game design theory. I do like to troubleshoot though. I like trying to find patterns in seemingly random events (which makes me more than a touch paranoid at times) and understanding how things work. Had I been blessed with a bit more self discipline at a younger age, I might have tried to develop this interest into troubleshooting people as a psychologist instead of troubleshooting industrial equipment and processes, but I wasn't so I didn't, which is neither here nor there really, come to think of it.
That in mind, I do like to try to figure out why games designers create the rules and stuff they create in the games I play.
I don't know how many of y'all play Android: Netrunner, but one of the most fascinating things about that game to me is there are so many different strategies you can employ to try to win the game. I haven't played in awhile, but I used to run an NBN deck that, true to form, tried to do little else but Tag you up but good. Now, Tagging somebody alone doesn't really do much of anything, but coupled up with other cards, it can have some pretty significantly nasty effects. Basically, my line of thinking was that if you were spending all your clicks and credits buying off tags in fear of me dropping a Scorched Earth on your head or whatever, I might win regardless of whether or not I ever actually managed to get Scored Earth in my hand, er, my HQ, because you're wasting said clicks and credits on my tags rather than your cards.
Rebel Captive is interesting to me for kinda the same reason.
I've talked about Stress a lot on here in different articles, and much like a Tag in Netrunner, being Stressed in and of itself isn't really that big of a deal. You pull a green maneuver as soon as the opportunity presents itself and you're in good shape again. Captive says if somebody attacks you, again- we're not talking about somebody hits you or somebody damages you- just attacks you, they get a Stress Token for their trouble.
Not a big deal by itself, right? The attacker would get a Stress Token at a time when it pretty much couldn't matter less- the Combat Phase. They're going to likely have a chance to pull a green in their next Movement Phase, so you're not directly doing anything to them, really as it isn't like you roll less Attack or Defend dice because you're Stressed or whatever.
However, it can be the start of something bigger.
I've mentioned before on here that the best use of an Ion Weapon is on a ship with a Stress Token. The reason being? Ionized ships (unless they have R2 Astromech or Nien Nunb with them) have to do a 1 straight in their next Movement Phase which counts as a white maneuver. Since a white maneuver doesn't rid a ship of a Stress Token, that same ship doesn't get to pull their Perform Action step in the Activation Phase, which cheats them out of an Action, and as everyone knows, ships without Actions tend to get dealt with, and by dealt with I mean dealt wit.
That used to be somewhat difficult to set up against the average player as you were more or less relying on them to Stress one of their own ships because Kath Scarlet was just about the only mechanic for Stressing somebody on the other side of the table without their consent. Now though, Rebel Captive adds a couple more ways.
So who do you stick him on? Well, he's a Crew Member, so it's gotta be a big ship. Secondly, he's Empire only, so we're down to a Firespray or a Shuttle.
Where it gets kinda tricky is this- you need him on a ship dangerous enough to make your opponent want to fire on it. It's gotta be dangerous enough that he's willing to accept the Stress Token as a trade-off for trying to get that ship off the board. Otherwise he'll just ignore the ship until it's the last one left on your side and probably not care much about the Stress when he does finally attack you.
Secondly, it's gotta be hearty enough to uh, well, not get taken off the board. As the Firespray and Shuttle are both fairly beefy ships to begin with, this isn't so hard, but you ought to look into some other upgrade that helps to reduce damage, damage effects, or raise your Defense value one way or another. You want them attacking you, yes- what you don't want is them massing firepower and turning you into dust or sticking you with some hideous face-up damage card in just a turn or two of shooting.
Lastly, you gotta have an Ion Weapon floating around in there somewhere so you can really make some hay when the sun shines and he's getting Stress Tokens for daring to attack your ship.
To give examples of ship, pilot, upgrade, and playstyle/ combat role combinations that maximize the ability of Rebel Captive would be kinda exhaustive, and as I'm already kinda exhausted, I'll trust that you guys that are interested in making this combo will figure it out for yourselves based on the above blueprint. There are a bunch of different ways you could make this work theoretically, but they'll all likely involve you and your meta more than anything, so your mileage is very much going to vary.
Off the top of my head, a list that includes a Kagi Shuttle with a Rebel Captive and a cheap Ion Cannon Firespray following closely seems like a good core to a list that could cause a lot of Rebel lists problems for several reasons. Or, if you wanted to save some points for a small wing of escort TIE Fighters, you could make that trailing Firespray an Ion Cannon packing Shuttle. If you have trouble flying Shuttles effectively like I do, consider sticking Anti-Pursuit Lasers on them, or just punt altogether and stick Rebel Captive in an Ion Firespray flown by Trelix and fly it next to Kath Scarlet also packing an Ion Cannon. See what I mean? There's a ton of possibilities here.
As for flying against a ship carrying a Rebel Captive? Pick your lamest ship that can legitimately attack and do it. Do you have a HWK-290 you're flying solely for support? There's your huckleberry right there- especially if it is at a higher Pilot Skill than the rest of your squadron because only the first ship to attack the bearer of Rebel Captive gets the Stress Token- not everybody who attacks. Jan Ors is seemingly tailor made for this kind of application.
Barring that, choose your attack ship carefully and try to find the one with a bunch of green maneuvers so you don't paint yourself into a corner getting rid of the token- A-Wings, YT-1300s with Nien Nunb, X-Wings or Y-Wings with R2 Astros, etc. Heck, the possibility of your opponent using Rebel Captive might just justify always including an R2 Astromech in one of those Rookie X-Wings you're always taking, Initiative be damned. Don't directly help if you're Stressed and Ionized both, of course, but for shedding Stress, any of those ships will do.
Is Rebel Captive for you? Well, again- it depends a lot on you and your opponents. If you're good enough to really make a guy pay for having a Stress Token- e.g. you are good at figuring out your opponent's maneuvers, you regularly run Ion Weapons, or your buddy relies heavily on K-Turns rather than effective maneuvering or is kinda bad at target priority, Rebel Captive will likely be totally worth the three points.
If not, maybe not so much.
Don't discredit the psychological effect though- somebody said in the comments on an article a week or two ago that running Fett with Navigator is nice for a lot of reasons, one of which he cuts down on the brain clutter you invoke trying to keep everybody's moves straight in your head during the Planning Phase. Rebel Captive can work against that and increase that clutter, so before you pass judgement on whether or not the card actually helped you win your match, keep in mind this card's effects may be much more subtle than you might observe if your opponent is flying differently the entire time trying to avoid the ship with RC on board.
This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Navigator (3)
Card Text: When you reveal a maneuver, you may rotate your dial to another maneuver with the same bearing. You cannot rotate to a red maneuver if you have any stress tokens. Usage in game: Lying about your dial and getting away with it, er, uh...Action?: NoBreakdown: Navigator is like that late-bloomer girl (or hell, guy I guess too- I shouldn't push my own sexual orientation upon y'all, right?) that you never really thought twice about in high school, but you run into in a bookstore four or five years later and go, "Oh, wow."
When you first saw Navigator, if you're like me, you likely glossed over it in favor of easier to use, more sexy cards like Recon Specialist or Darth Vader, Crew Member, but now that all this stuff's been out for a little while, you're going back through your cards one evening and say to yourself, "Oh, wow. That's really kind of amazing."
While Boba Fett can also change his revealed maneuver, he does it in a somewhat different way than Navigator. To my knowledge, even including the leaked Royal Guard Interceptors from Imperial Aces, these are the only two cards in the game that allow you to affect the maneuver you've picked to reveal.
So let's break this down, shall we?
First things first- what's a bearing, exactly? Are we like talking boats and starboard and sextants here? Since I grew up roughly 800 miles away from the nearest ocean, I'm no sailor. Lucky for us, a quick glance at the X-Wing Miniatures Rule Book reveals exactly what a bearing is in this game- no compass or funny hats required.
Right on- so Bearing is the arrow on your maneuver dial. A straight, a left turn, a right bank, etc. So Navigator allows you to reveal a different maneuver than the one you picked with a different speed number, but the same arrow.
So a couple of things come to mind taking this all in-
1) You still gotta pick a maneuver your ship is actually capable of, so take a look at that dial and note the moves, especially the red moves. Some folks predicted this card would help make up for the crappy movement dial on a Shuttle, it kinda does, but obviously not completely as you can't just make stuff up and you can only take on a red move if you're unstressed.
2) K-Turns and Straights don't share the same bearing even though they share the same template. Don't let anybody con you on this one. Dig on the excerpt above- it's very clear as to what are the available bearings in this game.
"What about the Lambda's stationary move?" You ask. "What's the bearing on that?" Well, lucky for you, I just got back up off the couch and checked the rules pamphlet included with the Lambda just be sure. I figured since I'd gone to the trouble of digging it out, I might as well take a picture of it with my phone (I'd already put away the wife's camera after finally taking some new ship pics- sorry the pics have been kinda recycled lately; I lost my favorite SD card for the camera and just found it earlier this evening), because, well, I don't know. I like pics. They tend to break up my wall o' text tendencies.
The bearing on the stationary maneuver is well, stationary. So despite what the rule book might have you believe, there's actually currently 7 bearings, post-Wave 3 release.
All that said, is Navigator good for anything besides the obvious benefit of being able to alter the speed of your chosen bearing? Does it work particularly well with anybody?
Well, as with the rest of these Crew Member cards, you're stuck with folks who have an extra seat in their ship- the YT-1300, the Firespray, the Shuttle, and the HWK are our candidates here.
Fett is pretty good choice if you aren't married to the idea of using him with a Gunner or Mercenary Copilot or whatever already. Using the Fett ability along with the options presented by Navigator lends some real flexibility. In case you don't remember and didn't feel like clicking on the link back up there towards the beginning of this article, Fett can flip a bank (the easy turn) maneuver from left to right or right to left at the same speed. The option to trigger this ability is upon reveal of the dial, which is also when Navigator triggers. Convenient, huh? So not only can Fett flip his turn bearing via his card text, he can change to any available speed as well if you stick a Navigator in there with him. If you're keeping score at home, that's having the option of pulling five other maneuvers than the one you actually locked in on your dial in the Planning phase. That's pretty handy if you're not so great at avoiding other ships and obstacles and for staying out of your buddy's firing arcs and Range 1 and stuff.
Past that, it benefits pretty much anyone who can take it, but not nearly to that degree. Off the top of my head, I'd say if you tend to run a small list (2-3 ships) of high PS pilots and face swarms a lot, you'll get some good use out of Navigator.
One thing it can't do though, is let you change your maneuver after you've physically moved your ship. You can't use Navigator to pick another move after you've put down a template and realized you're going to run into something. The reason? The rules state that you reveal your maneuver as the first step in the Activation phase, then set your template for step 2, and execute your maneuver as step 3. If you trigger Navigator, it'd happen between 1 and 2. That said, it's still useful in case an enemy (or maybe even friendly) ship moved into the space you were going to occupy with your ship carrying Navigator, but you gotta call it before you actually pull out the template and move.
Is it for you? Depends on how good you are at moving and guessing your opponent's maneuvers. If you find yourself the victim of blocking a lot, you'd probably get some good mileage out of Navigator, especially on higher PS ships as they reveal their dial later in the round. Like a lot of the more subtle X-Wing upgrades, I see this benefiting the new player or the very experienced without a ton of use between those extremes. This isn't to say that the average player can't use it, but I doubt that guy would see the benefit for the points as readily as someone who is still getting used to moving ships around in Pilot Skill order and maneuvering in general like a new player or somebody playing at a very high level who needs his Navigator-equipped ship to always retain it's Perform Action step or stay out of enemy arcs.
This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Intelligence Agent (1)
Card Text: At the start of the Activation phase, choose 1 enemy ship at range 1-2. You may look at that ship's chosen maneuver. Usage in game: I see London, I see France...Action?: NoBreakdown: All right, let's just get this out of the way right off the bat here- when exactly does this card go off? That's what you're thinking, it's what I'm thinking, it's what dogs are thinking, right?
When does this card happen?
Namely- do I get to look at your maneuver before or after I pick mine?
If you think about it for a moment, you probably already know the answer.
Since everybody effectively picks their maneuvers at the same time (the Planning phase), there's not really any way that Guy B could see Guy A's maneuver and be able to do anything about it without some kind of card text that actually alters when Guy B picks his maneuver.
This card has no such verbiage, so there's your answer right there.
To confirm, bust out your rulebooks and check out pages 6 and 7. Page 6 is all about the Planning phase, which is when you pick maneuvers for each of your ships. After everybody's assigned a move to their ships, then the Planning phase ends and the Activation phase begins.
So, yeah. Long story long, you don't get to look at your buddy's maneuver dial before you pick your own maneuvers. I know- bummer right?
It's not all bad news though, while Intelligence Agent isn't quite as awesome as you'd maybe hoped, let's take off our disappointed looks and see if we can think of some ways to make this card text worthwhile.
First, realize that Intelligence Agent doesn't happen as the result of any particular game event other than the start of the Activation phase and affects any enemy ship within Range 1-2 of the ship with the IA on board. Reason I mention this is you don't have to wait until the ship with IA activates or makes it's maneuver or whatever.
Example- you got Han on the board with an IA along for the ride. Even though Han's going to be moving and declaring an Action very late in the Activation phase (if not dead last), you get to use IA at the start of the Activation phase. The point here is that while the ship carrying the IA may maneuver after the ships around it, the rest of your squadron can benefit before any of that from the IA reveal.
Secondly, while nobody can outright change a chosen maneuver, there are a couple of cards in X-Wing Miniatures that do allow you to alter it. Boba Fett can change his chosen bank maneuver from left to right while keeping the same speed and number rating, and while I haven't talked about it on here yet, the Navigator Crew Member upgrade bestows the ability to any ship carrying him in that you can choose to change to a different maneuver with the same bearing.
Another group I can think of that would benefit from advance notice of another ship's maneuver is anyone who can make some sort of maneuver in the Action phase- namely ships with Barrel Roll or Boost, but also those brave souls who have figured out how to make Daredevil worthwhile in their arsenals. I guess if you had Advanced Sensors but were on the fence about using it or not, Intelligence Agent could help you with the decision.
Past all of that, it's help in the more obvious ways- ships with both Focus and Evade as Actions have an easier time choosing which to pick if they Activate before the ship with the revealed dial, some guesses can be made as to your opponent's overall gameplan for that particular turn, and stuff like that.
As you'd expect Fett and somebody carrying the Navigator Crew Member sort of make this card much less effective if they're the guys you're trying to use it on as their revealed maneuver may or may not be the maneuver they end up selecting. Also, anybody who can Boost or Barrel Roll still have some wiggle room in where they end up in relation to their chosen maneuver, so be careful when you use this card- it doesn't make you Carnac in all situations. Shimshalabim, and all that.
Is it right for you compared to some of the other single point upgrades out there? As always, it depends. I think the majority of players probably won't get a ton of use out of this card, but your opponent will likely hate the idea of it- especially if you really do manage to burn him once or twice with it, even lightly. I'd suggest sticking it in a HWK-290 with not much else in the way of upgrades and stuff- use it to force your opponent into either going after a ship that isn't worth many points or ignore it and let it keep on revealing his maneuvers early, or if you've got a two-seater that usually has the second seat empty, try throwing an Intelligence Agent in there for a few games and see if it helps you out in your own particular local meta. For just a single point and no Action required you really can't go too wrong here.
This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Flight Instructor (4)
Card Text: When defending, you may reroll 1 of your <eyeball> results. If the attacker's pilot skill value is 2 or lower, you may reroll 1 of your blank results instead. Usage in game: Defensive boostAction?: NoBreakdown: Sometimes when I start writing these breakdowns of the cards in X-Wing Miniatures, I find at first I'm all kind of like, "I really don't see the point in this." Then maybe halfway through writing the article, I realize some subtle rule interaction that's pretty sweet, and the switch clicks, the lightbulb goes on over my head, and I'm all, "Ooooooohhhh." At which point entire paragraphs get re-written or outright deleted and the entire tone of the article changes from a sort of questioning, slightly suspicious point of view to a more confident, assured view that more effectively realizes (what I hope is) the intended use of the card.
I'm not sure how this article is going to turn out yet.
Look- there is a benefit to Flight Instructor; I'm not saying there isn't. But for four points? Holy mackerel. Let's take a closer look at this thing and maybe I'll figure out where I'm losing the plot.
Right on. So first things first, let's break out our green dice shall we, snatch one up, and take a closer look at him. Of the eight sides, we see that there are three wavy arrows, two eyeballs, and the remaining three are blanks. Again, I'm no math major, but even I can tell you that based on that, you've got a 37.5% chance of throwing a blank, the same for a wavy arrow, and a 25% chance of throwing an eyeball at any given time.
With that in mind, let's see what we're getting for Flight Instructor's 4(!) points.
Ostensibly, we gotta assume you're trying to throw a wavy arrow here, so 37.5% of the time you're going to be happy right off the bat, or to put it another way, about 62.5% of the time, you ain't gonna be happy if you don't have Flight Instructor along for the ride.
Couple that fact up with the knowledge that there are four ships currently that can utilize Crew Members- the Firespray, the YT-1300, the Lambda Shuttle, and the HWK-290. Two of those ships have a Defend of 1, two have a defend of 2. The conservative minis gamer part of my brain says, "Well, why not try and maximize those ships with just 1 die of Defense, because they both have two Crew Member icons anyway, right (convenient, ain't it)?
Well, maybe.
The fly in the ointment here is that this isn't some Luke Skywalker, X-Wing Pilot pseudo-Focus, this is just a re-roll, so there's not a guarantee if you're not happy with that first roll that you'll be happy with the re-roll. Now, is it more likely to happen rolling then re-rolling than just rolling cold? Sure. Is it worth it enough to be worth 4 points and a crew slot which might be better spent elsewhere? Well, that's the question.
Ok, the bummer is those two ships with 1 Crew Member slot could make better use of this card because they're throwing down two Defend dice, and therefore have twice as many chances of rolling eyeballs. But do you want to give up the one Crew chair to do that?
In the HWK-290, almost certainly not. I think overall your strategy there is to not spend a ton of points on the ship. Ideally, you make your opponent decide between going after more dangerous and expensive targets or a cheap, supporting ship that kind of isn't worth shooting down for the points, only to cease some card text benefit. If you put too many points into the HWK, it becomes desirable to blast out of the firmament for two reasons, which is just one too many for a ship with that maneuver dial. Not to mention there are better ways to keep that ship alive than Flight Instructor for the same points (hello Chewbacca, Crew Member).
The Firespray I think is a possibility here, but the same question has to be asked- would you be better served with a Mercenary Copilot, Recon Specialist, Vader, Crew Member, or Weapons Engineer sitting in that single passenger seat? Again, if this thing was a slam dunk that let you turn eyeballs to wavy arrows- hells yeah, it would be. As it stands though?
The 1 Defend die ships, the YT and the Lambda, its easier to make a case for Flight Instructor because you still have that other chair to put somebody else in, but also turns down the possible effectiveness as you're only potentially rerolling one die.
The YT, like the HWK, has more surefire options like Chewie, Crew Member or even a Shield Upgrade, but really it boils down to how defensive you think you need to be and whether or not you need those 4 points elsewhere in your list- obviously the Shield Upgrade isn't mutually exclusive with the Flight Instructor, so if you wanted to go a little overboard on your YT because your opponent is just hammering it every time you drop it on the table, you could use it to go a little overboard on defense. And really, with that much hull and shields, you're going to get at least half a dozen chances at using Flight Instructor, so it's bound to help you out once or twice, right?
The Lambda has more or less the same story, but without Chewie of course. I'm still not 100% convinced it's worth the points, but of the ships that can utilize it, I think it's the ship that likely could justify the cost the most with it's piss-poor maneuver dial and 1 Defend die. There again, even with a bunch of ships shooting at it, your hull and shields are going to give you the opportunity to use FI several times, and it's bound to work once or twice for you before the bitter end.
So here's the part where I stop and ask, "What am I missing?"
The second part of Flight Instructor's card text reads, "If the attacker's pilot skill value is 2 or lower, you may reroll 1 of your blank results instead." Basically, that means if I have a Focus Token and the guy shooting at me is PS 1 or 2, then I'm very likely to end up with a wavy arrow one way or another, right? That's pretty cool, right?
Yeah, but here again- don't get too excited over this. First, it only works against the lowest PS pilots in the game. Secondly, even then, it's still not a 100% guarantee. Back to kinda not feeling this card for the points? Yeah, me too.
Against a traditional, low-PS, high ship-count TIE Swarm? This card's likely worth it's weight in gold. That's kinda the problem though, isn't it? The card's neutral but trends toward Imperials if you ask me as the Rebels have better options for the points, but it's most effective against Imperials. Which, yeah, I know- at tourneys and stuff Imps play against Imps all the time, but I think most of us probably play Rebels vs Imperials, right?
I guess maybe the subtle use for FI that occurs to me is that it does sort of free you up to use that Focus token on offense instead of considering holding onto it for defense. I mean, it doesn't dovetail with a Focus token in the slightest, so if you hang on to your Focus for defense while flying with FI in the copilot chair, you're basically wasting either the token or the points. Sometimes that kind of thing is out of your control (you roll all hits/ crits in the Attack phase, etc.), but usually it's not, and maybe knowing that it's kinda pointless on defense pushes you towards going for the gusto and declaring a Target Lock instead to begin with.
I don't know y'all- I'll fully admit, this is another one of those few and far between cards where I'm going, "There must be something I'm missing here", but I'm at the end of the article and have spent over an hour trying to figure it out and I'm still coming up snake eyes. Where I'm worried that when I post this article somebody is going to get on the comments and say, "Uh, hello? Here's the like super-obvious and awesome use for this card, dude- it's blah, blah, blah." And I'll be frantically trying to rewrite before my bosses notice I'm working on my website instead of, you know, work and stuff.
This post regarding Crew Members is part of a larger article regarding Wave 3 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "List Building Resources" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Darth Vader, Crew Member (3)
Card Text: Galactic Empire Only After you perform an attack against an enemy ship, you may suffer 2 damage to cause that ship to suffer 1 critical damageUsage in game: When you need an <unfilled explosion result> by any means necessary.Action?: NoBreakdown: I've been turning it around in my head how to approach talking about this card and while I'm not nuts about it, the best way I can think of is explaining what this card doesn't do. Normally, this is something I don't do- tell you what not to do. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine, as a matter of fact. Most of the time, anybody can tell you what not to do- it's telling you what you should do that's much more difficult.
It's like a couple of weeks ago, I read an article that showed up in my Twitter feed about how not to get an (literary) agent (recall that I do write more than just on this blog and all). I'm sitting there thinking, "This is stupid- I already know how to not get a friggin' agent, y'know? I have the 33 rejection emails to prove it. What would be infinitely more useful to a wannabe fiction-writer would an article on, well, you know- how to actually get an agent." The fact that it's borderline insulting to anyone with a brain (what? You mean I shouldn't harass the piss out of my agent with endless phone calls? Whew! Glad I read this article!) doesn't help either.
Again- whether or not you've realized it yet, pretty much anybody can tell you how to not do something. I mean, I've never played pro football, flown an airplane, or designed a skyscraper, but I'm pretty sure I could come up with a list of stuff not to do on any of those topics and a thousand others I also know absolutely jack shit about.
Sorry, I'll put away the soapbox now, just accept my apology for a moment that I'm going to tell you how Vader, Crew member doesn't work for a little bit.
You may have noticed in the comments for Proton Bomb, bikini aficionado +Davyd Atwood calling me out for not being completely clear on the fact that Proton Bomb's card text is fairly unique in that it actually gives the victim a face-up damage card, period.
I bring this up, of course because this card does not do that.
Note the card text- "... to cause that ship to suffer 1 critical damage." When a ship "suffers a critical damage", that's essentially the same thing as you attacking it and throwing an unfilled explosion result (or crit, in the local parlance) on one of your red dies- in other words, and this is the TL;DR part you were waiting for- yeah, shields can mitigate the effect of Darth Vader, Crew Member if they're still protecting the target ship.
Did you notice I said "essentially" the same thing? I threw that in there for a reason. It's not 100% just like it- for example, Draw Their Fire can't be used to move that critical damage because it isn't a result.
Ok, if you were like all hot to trot on the idea of sticking Vader, Crew Member in your shuttle, you're probably a little bit bummed out about this card right now because I've told you what it can't do, so let's cover what it can and what it's good for.
First, note the start of the card text- "After you perform an attack against an enemy ship,...". Sounds a little like Gunner, right? Major difference though that some folks seem to have missed on initial read-throughs: you don't have to miss to trigger Vader, Crew Member.
The cool thing here, obviously is you get to decide when you trigger this card. You attack, roll the red dice, your victim rolls his greens, modifications get made, damage gets dealt (I'm simplifying this, I know- if you want the detailed version click here), and that's it. So after all that stuff gets said and done, if the guy you really, really, really want dead still has 1 hull point left, you can decide to suffer those two damage and make him dust.
(If you're wondering how exactly I've come to this conclusion, note that in the rulebook on page 10, the very top left, it says-
During this phase, each ship may perform one attack against one enemy ship that is inside its firing arc and within range. Starting with the ship with the highest pilot skill, players resolve the following combat steps in order:
So to me, Peforming an Attack is resolving the Combat Phase for the ship that attacked. My usual "but I could be wrong" disclaimer applies as always, but I don't really see how else this could work because...)
You don't have to hit to trigger Vader, Crew Member either. So long as you attacked somebody, you can opt to suffer the 2 damage and stick 1 critical damage on that ship.
So how does this interact with Gunner and similar cards? The same way, basically. Gunner happens during the Combat Phase, so all that stuff would resolve before Vader, Crew Member. This does bring up an interesting question though- what if you go after two ships using your attack then gunner roll? Remember that it's possible in some circumstances to generate attacks at two different targets. At this point, I'd say you could Vader either of them as you technically did attack both of them.
Wow. Ok, so now you're probably not quite as bummed about Vader, Crew Member, right? I mean, yeah, the two damage is definitely a downside, and 3 points isn't super cheap, but you're more or less buying the ability to make somebody suffer a critical damage almost anytime you want; assuming you can get into at least Range 3 of them. That's nothing to dismiss.
It may kind of seem like it doesn't matter, but since this damage is happening after all the steps in the Combat Phase, it's kinda like taking the usual "cancel <filled explosion results> before <unfilled explosion results> a step further here. Unless you rolled horribly, horribly badly, you probably bled an Evade or Focus or both off your target in the initial resolution (Christ- I almost typed "resolvement"; I gotta get to bed soon) so you really are going to be pretty likely to stick them with an actual crit when you play Vader, Crew Member. Of course if you did roll terrible or they still have a shield left or whatever, you can always choose to not turn on the ability- it's not like you're forced to do it.
All that being said, there are only two ships that can take this Crew Member- the Lambda and the Firespray. The Lambda is perhaps a safer bet because it has two Crew seats, but the Firespray is just so much more maneuverable and dangerous in my opinion. Maybe it's because I have more experience flying it, but well... that means you do too. Not saying it doesn't work on a Lambda, but I think it works easier on the Firespray. I know it'd be totally overkill, but imagine stinging somebody with Trelix flying Slave I, launching Advanced Proton Torpedoes with a Focus Token, then triggering the Vader, CM text too. That's gotta hurt.
This is a tough card for me to 100% get behind as I'm a fairly conservative player at my core and the idea of purposely taking damage is something of anathema to my mindset, but it does afford the owning player a predictable outcome (for a price) 100% of the time which is worth a lot even to somebody like me. If you've analyzed your game and concluded you're losing because you're not inflicting enough damage, give Vader a fly and see if your luck changes some.
