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. :) 

Wave 3 Preview- TIE Bomber

As a few of y'all pointed out to me via email, FFG has posted another preview of Wave 3 stuff, this time mainly focusing on the B-Wing and TIE Bomber. Personally, I was kinda stoked they finally chose to open up about the Bomber as we'd really not had a whole lot of info regarding it up to this point. 

As I've basically had nothing to talk about since like, oh, May-ish, and I gotta get another article written after this, I'm just going to talk about the Bomber today.  As is the case with most Imperial starfighters, we've got two common pilots and two named pilots. 

So if you were wondering, the cheapest dedicated missile boat in the game so far comes in at 16 points for the base model. 6 Hull is pretty solid, but as I've discussed on here before, sticking a critical on a ship is a good way to negate at least some of its effectiveness, and TIE Bombers will be no different in that regard. Longtime readers will have heard this one before, but taking stuff to help you inflict criticals, be that a Secondary Weapon System like Proton Torpedoes, or pilots who are more likely to do a crit like Maarek aren't all that effective for their points against small ships- it's the big ships with all those hull points where those guys earn their keep. Well, the Bomber is going to fall into that category too because while it's a little ship, it has a lot of hull and no shields, so if you know your opponent is going to be fielding a few, you should bring some crit infliction just like you would if you knew he was going to be rocking a big base ship. 

Playing as one of the common TIE Bombers, and likely firing pretty late in the combat phase, I think the idea would be to finish off somebody who was already dinged for their shields earlier in the round. Seems relatively obvious, I know, but I don't see many people roll torpedoes or missiles on low PS ships anymore. Back in Wave 1? Sure- you'd see folks roll Rookies with PTs, but now? Maybe that's just my own meta and experiences, but being as how the Bomber can't really be one-shotted with that high hull value and your opponent isn't likely to spend that first round having multiple ships fire on a relatively low cost ship like a Bomber, they are going to be pretty likely to get at least one round of their own warheads out of the tubes before anything particularly bad happens to them. Might not be a strategy you can rely on long term, but I'd bet you could catch a few people with their pants down the first month or so Wave 3 hits the bricks. 

So the age old question- missiles or torpedoes? I think it depends on what the rest of your list looks like. If you don't have a lot of ability to inflict crits, throw torps on your bombers, and missiles if you're just needing to score a lot of hits. How many I think is also very contextual to the rest of your list. As I've mentioned before, I cut my teeth in miniatures gaming with a Space Marine 40k army, but I really came into my own as a Guard player which means I'm loathe to load down one of these ships with a ton of missiles and/ or torpedoes. That said, once those warheads are away, you're not going to accomplish a whole lot with 2 Attack and 2 Defend, so a case can definitely made for telling me to go take a flying leap with that line of thinking. Not having seen the maneuver dials for the TIE Bomber I can't say that with 100% certainty, but I'm still comfortable making the statement as I'd guess the Bomber has a wheel somewhere between an X-Wing and a Y-Wing, likely trending more towards the Y. My advice? Take one set of warheads for sure, then if you've got 4 or 5 points left to burn after picking the rest of your ships, throw another set on some lucky pilot. 

The named pilots for the Bombers are Major Rhymer and Captain Jonus. 

His name is Jonus.... he's carryin' the wheel

Awright, so 22 points for a PS 6 Bomber with one hell of a special ability. Sounds great to me. Once again- if you haven't already realized, like I said over on BoLS last week, the TIE Bomber is going to be the sell out ship of Wave 3, y'all. Remember how tough it was to get an Interceptor back in April? The Bomber's gonna be the same way. 

One apparent application is to stick him with a ton of other Bombers and watch the hits roll in. TIE Swarm players gotta be lickin' their chops over this guy because he's more or less Howlrunner for Secondary Weapon Systems and then some. That said, if you've got the points to fly Trelix or Kath Scarlet along side this dude? Boy oh boy, somebody's in for a hurtin'. Oh, did I mention he can also take an Elite Pilot Skill? Jonus gonna be carryin' more than just the wheel in a lot of Imperial lists. Believe 'dat. 

The other named pilot guy is sure to become my favorite X-Wing Miniatures pilot bar none. Yeah, maybe even in front of Turd Ferguson. 

In case you hadn't picked up on it before following the links in my posts, I dig a lot of different kinds of music, but like most folks, there's some music I dig more than others. One of those I dig more than others is anything by Public Enemy. The fact that this dude is named Major Rhymer and Chuck D has often described himself as the Hard Rhymer, expect to hear two things from me when I roll the Major- 

1) A whole lotta whiteboy doing Public Enemy lines, 

2) The various and sundry other nicknames for Chuck D, eg., "Ok, the rhyme animal, the young cannibal, D, public enemy number one is going to attack Green Squadron Pilot..."

Opportunities for rappin' aside, D ain't a bad ship. At 26 points he's not exactly cheap, but his card text virtually assures the ability of using any Secondary at any range. Sure, you're not going to get an extra die if you get into Range 1, but you do get to fire torps or what have you, which is of course, generally not the case.

This is one time I'd break my rule of not putting a bunch of points into a single ship- if you're looking for something to change up that small quantity, elite pilot Imperial list you've been messing around with during Wave 2 and are slightly bored with, I think the Hard Rhymer would be fun to sub in. Deck him out with some warheads of your choosing, stick an Elite Pilot Skill on there (Marksmanship could be fun, for sure) if you're feelin' froggy and you've got the points and force your opponent to make that hard choice- do I try to go after Turr Phennir, Vader, or MistaChuck? Trelix, Backstabber, Mauler Mithel, or the guy who's blowin' up the 90's but started tickin' in '86? You catchin' my drift? 

So for the TL;DR crowd who wandered over here from BoLS and have no appreciation for my flow, TIE Bomber good- buy one. Actually buy several. 

And remember folks, TL;DR really only works on messageboards- you clicked on the article, knucklehead. It ain't like I've got super-important, earth-shattering information you need to know before the apocalypse hits or I hid some amazing nugget of truth you just can't live without in the last line or whatever. You think it's too long? Stop readin' it, dipshit. Ain't nobody keepin' you from hittin' the back button. 

Wave 3 Preview- Advanced Sensors and Ten Numb

During my recent hiatus (hiatuses? I don't know- you tell me), you guys might have run across another FFG Wave 3 preview article called simply, "Advanced Technology." Ostensibly, the article is about the new Advanced Systems upgrade cards available to ships with the little radar dish icon (which from the way the opening of the article reads, is the B-Wing and the Lambda). 

We've already talked about a couple of these Advanced System cards in the past, but this article calls out one that I'd not seen the text on just yet. 

Right. So instead of revealing your chosen maneuver, performing the maneuver, then declaring your Action, you declare then reveal, then maneuver. 

So what's the big deal? 

The obvious thing that jumps out is you still have a chance to declare an Action even if you're going to run into somebody or some thing. That's kind of a big deal. I mean really the only thing that keeps me from jumping out of my seat is that earlier mentioned fact that only a couple of ships can take this upgrade. If this were a Modification instead? Holy mackerel. 

I kept thinking about it, and the other pretty big deal is that since you're essentially changing when the Perform Action step is happening for this particular turn, you could perform a maneuver that would normally Stress you out, then if you've selected a green maneuver from your dial, you'd lose that Stress token just about immediately. Will everybody and their dogs start rolling Daredevil finally? It's still too early to say, but I'd say folks will at least be performing K-Turns more often than they were before in ships that can take Advanced Systems. 

Before you completely dismiss Daredevil again, bear in mind that you'd actually be doing the Daredevil maneuver before your normal maneuver. That's pretty tricky, really. 

Of course, you don't have to limit yourself to Stress-generating maneuvers. Barrel Rolls, Expert Handling, and Boosts by way of Engine Upgrade also lend themselves to some interesting potential by rearranging when the Perform Action step occurs in relation to maneuvering. 

The other card that was revealed for the first time in that article was the Ten Numb card. 

The first thing that jumps out at you is probably the first thing that jumped out at me- the cost. 31 points! Wow- that's really kind of a lot, no? It's a cool card and all- the text is good and hard to deny, B-Wings have 3 Actions stock, the stats aren't bad, Mr. Numb is Pilot Skill 8 and has access to the Elite Pilot Skills, what's not to like? 

That 1 Agility sucks, boyee. I know, I know, it's not the end of the world- this thing is basically a fence-sitter on the backline bombing in shots like a HLC'ed up Firespray, not to mention it has a Barrel Roll available to it as well as all those other icons. It just still seems like a lot to me. You could hit 35 or 40 points with this guy, easy. 

I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying you better watch your step. Sure, he's got a good amount of Shields, but Numb in particular is going to be a pretty high-points, high-priority target so when you go to upgrading him, I think you either tool him so offensive he's likely to kill back his point cost quickly before he gets shot down, or you try to make him unkillable with Expert Handling, Shield Upgrade, etc. 

I'm really curious to see what the other B-Wing pilots look like now! Well, I mean, I was before too, but now I'm like italics-level curious now. 

More Wave 3 Reveals- HWK-290, Part 3

Right on, so remember last week when we talked about Kyle Katarn on here? And how he was obviously, so much super kickass better than everyone else, you could throw their cards in the trash? 

You know I have a flair for the hyperbole, right? 

Still though... I kinda stand by that. 

Again- not saying you can't make Jan Ors, or Mr. Roark here work, just that Katarn's kinda obviously the better choice. 

That said, Mr. Roark isn't terrible. Boosting up another friendly to PS 12 at the start of the Combat Phase is nothing to sneeze at, not to mention it's on a 19 point ship. Sure, you're going to want to tool up that ship a little with upgrades, but it's still not bad, y'know? 

I think the main knock I have against him is that, unlike Katarn and Ors, he can't take Elite Pilot Skills. Which, I mean, I don't know that I was super-duper sold on any of them anyway, when paired up with a HWK-290, so maybe that statement's a little misleading. Well, that and he's... flying... A... HWK-290. 

The ability is kinda better than you think at first glance. First, you just pick a friendly at Range 1-3. It's not the closest or anything like that, you just pick any old ship at the start of the Combat Phase and poof! He's PS 12. 

Now, you might be thinking, "Yeah, but dude- it'd be better if he moved at PS 12 too!" 

Not really. Stop and think about this for a moment- with all your ships moving at their usual PS, the opponent either try to ignore/ deny or try and move every one of their ships like the opponent ship near them could possibly be the one that bumps to PS 12. That's tough. 

So I dunno, that in mind, maybe you'd be best served by trying to field as many friendlys (good mix of X-Wings, A-Wings, maybe a Y-Wing too- ain't nobody ever been ionized at PS 12 before) as possible along with Mr. Roark to try to get your opponent to tie himself in a knot anticipating who the recipient of the PS 12 will be, or against that first guy, maybe take a low-number, high-specialization type named ships (dude- a PS 12 Chewie Falcon with Draw Their Fire, perhaps) to really have the most impact in the Combat Phase. 

In either case, I think you run Roark pretty stripped down- maybe a Shield Upgrade. Maybe, maybe a Crew Member or Turret Weapon, but that's about it. You don't want to make him too tempting of a target. One that will hopefully be kind of dismissed as not having that much of an impact on the proceedings. 

Which is great, because a potentially different ship of your choice firing at PS 12 every Combat Phase obviously does have a significant impact on the proceedings. 

So there ya go. That's my take on it anyway- run him stripped down and with some friends. What am I missing here? There's usually at least one really interesting combo type thing with these ships, but I'm not feelin' it with Roark. Am I missing something? 

More Wave 3 Reveals- HWK-290, Part 2

Ok, remember when you bought your TIE Advanced and immediately threw away all the pilot cards except Vader because they paled in comparison to the awesome power of the Dark Side? 

All right, maybe you kept those other cards, but you tell me, how much do you use them? Right. As I thought. 98 hands for Vader, 1 for Maarek Steele, and one guy talking on his phone while tipping back a frosty TheMetalBikini.com mug who was unable to vote. 

I think the HWK-290 is going to be largely the same way. 

Full disclosure, I've only read the Mr. Roark card a couple of times and haven't even really thought about how to apply it, but Jan leaves me wanting a bit compared to Mr. Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (too bad it's not Jedi Outkast, amirite?) himself, Kyle Katarn. 

Ok, so stats are nothing special as usual- a HWK-290 with a Pilot Skill of 6. Not terrible, not great- firmly middle of the road and not insulting for a named pilot at 21 points. 

Right, so card text- a bit like Garven Dries at a glance because you see the words "Focus Tokens", but past that, they're actually fairly dissimilar. I saw a lot of people saying no one would bother with Dries after Katarn showed up. Admittedly, not knowing the dial for the HWK-290, I think it's hard to say definitevely either way, but as I mentioned, they actually do kinda differ in their application if the end result is essentially the same- giving someone else a Focus Token. 

(Also in case you were wondering, we're sort of into Multiple Actions, Same Actions Explained! territory here, so review that article if you need more info, but TL;DR, a friendly ship could declare Focus as his Action and still receive and use a Focus Token from Katarn.)

First and most significant difference, Dreis gives his away when he uses it, Katarn just gives his away at the start of the Combat Phase. Katarn's version also goes out to Range 3 where Dreis stops at 2. 

So here's where the lovefest begins and why I say you can probably pitch the pilots besides Katarn. Ol' Kyle has the same upgrade icons that Jan does- the turret weapon, the single Crew Member and the Elite Pilot Skills medal. 

Right on. First, Recon Specialist is the obvious choice for Katarn's Crew Member. 

Perform a Focus Action, net two Focus Tokens? Sign me up. 

Second? HWK-290 title, Moldy Crow. 

There's really nothing to even compare this to. I want to say, "Now your Focus Tokens are persistent like your Target Locks", but it's better than that obviously, because you can only have one Target Lock at a time (without Weapons Engineer, of course) and Moldy Crow allows you to bank Focus tokens... I guess indefinitely. 

As for the Elite Pilot Skill, ideally you want to be Focusing as your Action every turn to max the return on investment of Recon Specialist and Moldy Crow, so don't take anything that involves an Action- Marksmanship, Expose, etc. Instead, since you're going to be quite the target throwing around Focus Tokens like they're beads at Mardi Gras, consider Determination or if you've got some change left over from your 100 points,another passive Skill that increases your survivability while not eating up an Action- maybe Elusiveness or Veteran Instincts. Or I don't know, maybe nothing at all from the Elite Pilot Skills. 

Like Jan, I think a turret weapon is kind of an auto-include with Katarn as well, and I'd probably opt for the Blaster Turret over the Ion Cannon Turret, though just by a smidge. 

For a Modification, I'd strongly suggest Shield Upgrade as again, you're going to be a huge target for your opponent, and not being a particularly tough nut to crack to start with, there's little reason for him to not attack Katarn should he want to though a compelling case could be made for Engine Upgrade for the same reasons I mentioned yesterday with Jan- the best defense possible is not even being in your opponent's firing arc. Now, is it worth using your Perform Action step on a Boost instead of a Focus with Katarn? Well, it probably is if you're about to get shot out of the sky by a Range 1 Interceptor or something. Is it worth it compared to a Shield Upgrade? Depends on if you're good at using Boosts. 

This Katarn configuration (KK + Recon Specialist + Moldy Crow + Blaster Turret + Shield Upgrade) comes to a cool 35 points. It ain't cheap, so at some point you may want to stop and ask yourself, "Is this worth it?" 

I've been thinking about it- it being Katarn's card text, and I kinda think maybe it is. This is probably not at all viable, but I kinda look at it the same way I used Dreis in that Lando/ Dries/ Goldie list I made a long time ago. I also think it would be crazy, but that Katarn might work with some A-Wings because they have so many other fun Action things available and one of them could still pick up an extra Focus token every turn as well. In any case, it sure seems worth it on paper, at least. I think even if this build doesn't work out as awesomely on table as in theory, Katarn would be fun to fly, in any case. 

Also, this particular incarnation of the HWK-290 may be significantly more hearty than other versions when configured somewhat similar to the above. Generating two Focus Tokens per turn without having to discard them in End Phase is going to build up quick. I've never playtested a ship that could Focus on defense against each salvo of fire from say, three or four different ships after the second or third turn and still potentially build up more going forward, but I have to imagine it does increase the survivability pretty noticeably. I mean, yeah, you're still only rolling one green die, but that green die is going to help you more often than not if you're Focusing it every time you roll it. 

And hey, look at it this way- if your opponent is shooting that often at Katarn, yeah, he may not have Focuses to give away, but if you're kind of using him as either bait or a Focus gifter, either way, he's doing his job- either buffing up your other ships, or drawing fire away from them letting them roam freely amongst your opponent's ships. Imagine buddying up with a Chewie Falcon with Draw Their Fire and some other random ship or two to round out your list- those ships are likely to be on-table for a good long while for one reason or another. 

More Wave 3 Reveals- HWK-290, Part 1

All right, in addition to revealing all the Imperial Shuttle pilots in the FFG article called, "New Wingmen for the Win", we also know all the HWK-290 pilots as well, which I'll be predictably talking about for the next few days. 

First up is Jan Ors. 

Brief sidenote- can I just take a moment and tell you how silly it is for internet peoples (mainly bloggaz [that's right son, straight up blogga from the streets, yo!{Man, I can't believe I never thought of that joke before}]), to open a post with, "So-and-so here." Am I supposed to be reading their article out loud in my head in a newscaster voice or something? It's redundant too, which really sets the manufacturing engineer in my on edge. "So-and-so here", yeah, no kidding; I read the two words after "By" under the title of your post. "Clint here with news on the Jan Ors card revealed a couple of weeks ago on the FFG site. I'd go live on the scene, but the scene is my kitchen table, and we kind of can't go there because it might wake my kid up, but hey, we're really not going there anyway, so whatever right?" I mean, what's with that?

Oh, by the way, triple-parenthetical? Yeah. Totally don't even know if that's real. Probably isn't. Moving on...

Ok, anyway, Jan Ors is the highest PR HWK-290 pilot coming in at a middle of the road 25 points. As I've mentioned before, the HWK-290 isn't exactly an awesome ship stat-wise. The 1 Attack is decidedly milquetoast, 2 Defense is pretty average, then it gets kinda weird- 4 hull and 1 shield? 

Now here's the part where somebody who's not only read, but memorized The Star Wars Technical Manuals gets on the comments and tells me about how that's canon. Ok, I played Dark Forces back in the day on Playstation 1. In Austin. In like 1996. I got kinda obsessed with it for a little bit, but I didn't even remember the name of the ship, let alone that it was called the Moldy Crow. So TL;DR? Don't get on your high horse telling everybody they should already know all about the HWK-290. 

Where was I? Oh right- fairly weak stats on the HWK-290. Ok, so that in mind, what's driving up the cost of Jan Ors to 25? 

Well, one, her high Pilot Skill. 8 isn't the greatest, but it's fairly up there, so I'm sure a couple of points went towards that. Secondly, she can take some upgrades- Crew Members, Turret Weapons, and Elite Pilot Skills! 

Before we get sold on any of this stuff though, we should look more closely at Jan's card text. It's kinda long, but to break it down, it's more or less this:

If Jan does not have a Stress Token,

A friendly ship within 1-3 of Jan who is attacking-

May roll an additional attack die- 

Jan gets a Stress Token.

I have no idea why I wrote that out that way, but when I just separated those thoughts/ sentence fragments/ whatever with commas, it seemed more confusing. I really wish I could write a haiku about Jan's card text, but I don't think I can pull that off. 

So that's awesome, right? A little bit of a built-in limiter with the bit about Jan not being Stressed when she does this trick, but not bad- it's more or less Expose without the downside. 

That in mind, there's really not a lot that directly dovetails with that text. If there were something that got rid of Stress Tokens when you got them or something that'd be nice, but to my knowledge, there's nothing like that out there, so we're left with adding green maneuvers which will give us more movement options while ridding ourselves of those tokens. She can't take an R2 Astromech, but she could take Nien Nunb, which for a measly point, probably isn't a bad move, unless you have him in a Lando Falcon already. Past Nunb, it's the usual suspects- Chewie could help that rotten Shield value, Gunner can help make that one Attack die count, etc. Stay away from stuff that helps to induce Stress, obviously, take stuff like Determination that helps to mitigate the inevitable face-ups you'll be piling up, and you won't be in bad shape. 

Not knowing what the HWK-290's maneuver dial looks like, I'm talking out of my ass a little with this statement, but I think one of the two turrets should be considered an auto-include on any HWK-290. 

What, what, what? Two turrets? 

Yup, the Ion Cannon Turret and... 

Whoa! An Attack 3 turret weapon on something besides a YT-1300? Not bad, huh? Ok, caveats- first, like the Ion Cannon Turret, it only goes out to Range 2. You should also keep in mind that this is a small-base ship, so if you've been flying a Falcon around and blasting things left, right, and center, understand this ship is much less likely to do that. Smaller base plus shorter range to begin with equals not a Falcon. I'm just giving you a heads-up. Second, while it's a point cheaper than the ICT and has the potential to well, actually damage something, it does require a Focus just to fire it.  

Probably should have saved that for the upcoming article on Katarn, but oh well. Cat's outta the bag now. 

I said earlier that this gun or the ICT should be auto-include. Let me elaborate a little bit on that statement- I think either of them should be auto-include because having a 1 Attack weapon is terrible and you can't justify a quarter of what's probably your list total on a ship that you're never going to attack with because it's only a support ship. Whateva. I'm not saying Jan needs to be in the middle of the melee like the like that Blood Ravens Sergeant in the Dawn of War trailer, but actually planning on never firing a shot with her or doing nothing to try and upgrade that Attack value is a tremendous waste of points. That's why I think, although I freely admit it's might be the teensiest bit counter-intuitive, you gotta stick one of the turret guns on ol' girl. 

So that's more or less it. No missiles, ray guns, or even the new Systems Upgrade icon to talk about on Jan. As for modifications, Shield Upgrade is probably the only one I'd really consider, but Engine Upgrade might be a good choice if you use the Boost maneuver to get yourself out of an enemy's firing arc. She could take the Moldy Crow title, but much like the Blaster Turret, that works much better with Katarn. Unlike the Blaster Turret, I'm not spoiling that card in this article. I'd much rather talk about it in the context of using it with him instead. 

I'm probably missing something that y'all will remind me of in the comments, but I gotta say, while her ability is pretty awesome, I'm not nuts about her at 25 points, especially compared to Captain Yorr for 1 point less. I mean, yeah, she makes Wedge stupid good, and the range on that card text ability is pretty forgiving to get that extra die where you need it, but I don't know. If I played only against Interceptors with Stealth Devices, I'd probably be placing my HWK-290 pre-order right now, but as I don't, I'm just kind of not that fired up for her. Maybe in a themed game or a more than 100 points game. Again, I'm not saying she's terrible, I just think it's a tougher decision than you might think based on her awesome card text. 

More Wave 3 Reveals- Lambda Shuttle, Part 3

Originally, this wasn't really meant to be a multi-part set of articles, but I got really sidetracked on what became Part 1 and here's Part 2. 

Last of the named Imperial Shuttle pilots is the ubiquitious Captain Yorn. And by ubiquitous I mean... I don't know. I'm pretty sure that word doesn't mean what I thought it meant. In any case, here's this Captain Yorr fella. 

So, 24 points. Not bad for a PS 4 ship with 10 HP (Hull + Shield). Holy mackerel. Same price as a Red Squadron X-Wing, same PS... I can't wait to see the maneuver dial. I'll just leave it at that. 

All right- card text. Oh Captain, my captain says that when another friendly ship is Range 1-2 and would receive a Stress Token, The Good Captain can take it instead, assuming he has 2 or less Stress Tokens to begin with. Funny, with Kath Scarlet on the Gear Team, this guy seems like he'd see way more action on the Rebel side of the Mason-Dixon line, but whateva. 

Does that do any good? Think of some situations where it could help- any nearby pilot who can take Push The Limit basically doesn't have to worry about the downside of that card. Aaaand- oh! Anybody doing a K-Turn! 

Ok, so that's actually pretty nasty when I stop and think about it. 

I've talked about K-Turns on here a little before, generally I feel it's suited either to the super aggressive or the new player- losing your Action just to get an enemy in your sights I generally feel is too much to trade. In any case, this guy more or less makes me reverse the opinion now that's essentially a white maneuver for the (up to) two other pilots besides him. Note that this isn't an Action for Yorr, nor is there any timing confinement to the Activation or Shooting phases. 

Past that, he's the same as the other Shuttle pilots- he can take up to 2 Crew Members, secondary weapon systems symbolized by the funky raygun, and the new fangled System Upgrades. Maybe I'm missing it, but nothing jumps out to me as super-useful on Yorr. Again, what I mean by that is I don't see anything that meshes particularly and/ or uniquely well with his special card text, not that you shouldn't take any of the available upgrades to him. As he's likely to be a pretty high priority target for your opponent (or should be, in any case), I'd personally lead more towards defensive upgrades like Rebel Captive or good old Shield Upgrade. Maybe you could talk me into a Weapons Engineer on the notion that if you TLed a couple of ships, you could take Stress from other ships and yet still make use of the Target Locks. Yeah, you probably could talk me into that. Mainly though, he oughta be the support ship he's supposed to be. Of course, sometimes the best defense is a good offense, and all that. 

At some point, it's probably occurred to you that interaction between green maneuvers and Stress Tokens really makes a difference on this dude's effectiveness. Namely, if you do a green does it remove one Stress Token or all Stress Tokens? Well, depending on your faction, you'll be happy to know that in the rulebook towards the bottom of the left column on page 7 under the 4. Check Pilot Stress heading, we find that performing a green maneuver removes a single Stress Token from the ship. So there ya go. 

So what's my overall take on Captain Yorr? Kinda silly name aside (is it just me? It's not, right? Kinda sounds like a B-Movie monster or something. Definitely one of those monsters that like, is named for what it says- YYOOOORRRRRRRRR...), Yorr has a pretty solid special ability that doesn't rely on Pilot Skill or phases and is driving a pretty salty ship for 24 points. I'm down with that. 

Even More Wave 3 Info!

FFG kinda snuck this one by me. The Wave 3 article they put up Saturday night called "Support Ships and System Upgrades" has been updated with more pictures. They are as follows. 

Break out the magnifiers, folks. Look like we have all the cards now. 

More Wave 3 Pics and Info!

Good Lord, just when I thought I was going to be able to call it a night...

From... FFG itself this time.

 As other folks have confirmed, the HWK, Bomber, and B-Wing are all small bases, the Lambda is big base. 

Man that seems like a lot of Shields and Hull for 27 points. Wonder what the movement dial looks like for one of these guys? 

Everybody's favorite latent jedi, Kyle Katarn. 

Right, right. Nothin' metashaking so far, right?

 Ha, ha- cool. The B-Wing does have Barrel Roll! Two torpedo tubes, nice. Hey! It can pack a HLC or an Ion Cannon! Did I call that or what? I said that in a thread on the FFG boards awhile back. Sensor dish icon too.  Again, wonder what the dial looks like for this guy. Pretty similar to a Y-Wing stats-wise and seemingly, points-wise.

Wow, six Hull? Ok, cool. Helps make up for the Target Lock for Evade trade-off. Still, only rolling 2 green dice is gonna mess Imperial players up for a little while, I bet. 2x Missiles, 2x Torps. Whoooeee. And what's that on the right end there, is that a bomb icon? 

Wonder if anyone noticed there's some links in that text... 

Whoa! Five dice and you can change three blanks to eyeballs?!?!?! Range 1 only? Dang! Guess we know why Slave I has a torpedo icon now, huh? Imagine sticking that card on a Trelix Slave I... you gonna hurt somebody real bad. 

Ah, so here's one of those radar dish cards. FFG says that's a "System Upgrade" symbol. Interesting card- seems expensive, but that effect is always on it looks like, no Action or roll to activate. 

Holy mackerel- at a glance, that seems really nasty! Waitaminute... that's a Crew Member symbol, you're tellin' me I can put that on a Firespray too? Hoo boy. 

Oh snap! Auto crit at Range 1! 

Tomorrow, when I get some time, I'll consolidate all of today's craziness into one summary post. For now though, I'ma hit the sack. Good times! Catch y'all tomorrow!