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| I can be your hero baby. |
Having seen what the new T-70 X-Wing can do, I'm really excited to try the newest Rebel Ace to join the meta. When you think about how much better the T-70 is over the stock X-Wing, I don't know if you can ever go back to the old thing even with the droid discard for a pseudo shield. It's really hard to say right now. The T-70 comes with a better dial, the Tallon Roll, the Boost action, and an extra shield, I can't even begin to describe just how good this is over the 21 point Rookie Pilot in the T-65. The Boost and Shield alone is a +8 point upgrade on the stock fighter, and the better maneuverability just puts this way over the top compared the upgrades to the TIE/fo. By now, I'm not even surprised that FFG has a hard on for those poor poor Rebels, who with all their Fat Han/Dash builds, 3CPO and 22 point B-Wings, still desperately need the help.
Anyways, let's take a closer look at Poe. Poe Dameron is a PS8 pilot with a pretty ridiculous pilot ability that reads: While attacking or defending, if you have a focus token, you may change 1 of your Focus results to a Hit or Evade result. This ability looks like Luke's ability on the defensive and a watered down version of Chiraneau. With the Focus token requirement, there's simply no better Elite Pilot slot than Push the Limit for action efficiency. You will almost always want a Focus in there at all times, even after boosting or triggering off of BB-8's barrel roll. Speaking of which, it's important that you pay close attention to the wording on BB-8 and how it interacts with PTL. BB-8 says that when you reveal a green maneuver, you may perform a free barrel roll action. On this free action, you can then PTL off of it for say a Boost action, acquire the stress token, and then shed the stress once you actually execute the green maneuver. Once that's done, you're free to take another action in your action phase, so you can Focus on top of it, potentially giving you 3 actions a turn, stress free. Of course this is vulnerable to stuff like debris and what not, but that's why having both the ability to free barrel roll and boost is amazing. Just keep in mind that you cannot use BB-8 if you're stressed at the beginning of your movement. The ability triggers immediately upon reveal and you clear stress after you complete the green.
I don't know about you guys, but that is absolutely ridiculous. The fact that you can have so much maneuverability and action efficiency on a 6 effective HP ship with 3 attack dice shooting at PS8 is beyond me. Poe might be the best thing the Rebels have received in a long, long time in the small ship department. At least for me and how I like to fly Rebels.
Let's examine some of the lists:
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| The new Rebel Aces. |
678 (100)
Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing 31
Push the Limit 3
BB-8 2
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 38
Jake Farrell — A-Wing 24
Push the Limit 3
Chardaan Refit -2
Wired 1
Autothrusters 2
A-Wing Test Pilot 0
Ship Total: 28
Ibtisam — B-Wing 28
Push the Limit 3
Advanced Sensors 3
Ship Total: 34
The first list here is a play on my Imperial 789 (Turr, Juno, Fel) with the Rebel Aces 678. Sure, the PS skill might be lower across the board, but you're flying with some pretty mean ships and some very capable pilots. All of the pilots here have quite a few tricks up their sleeves when dealing with stress mechanics. As touched upon earlier in the article, Poe has crazy maneuverability and action efficiency due to BB-8, PTL and having Boost on the T-70. Just having a Focus on him also makes him an incredible damage dealer and he can always choose to spend it for burst damage or evades. Jake Farrell is just super good for 28 points IMO. He's also another pilot that can pull off crazy moves because of the A-Wings ridiculous dial, and his pilot ability allows him to really min-max his actions as well. Autothrusters go on him for free while Wired allows him to keep on ticking since he should be stressed every round. Lastly, we have Ibtisam. She works best when she's stressed as it's almost like having a Lone Wolf that ignores range restrictions. In addition, PTL with Advanced Sensors allows you to do some of the most ridiculous combos in the game. Such examples include: Focus + TL before you move and 1 green to clear the stress, Barrel Roll + Focus before you move and hard 2 to keep the stress and power up Ibtisam, or even a simple Focus + 2 K-turn to activate Ibtisam's ability while flying green 1 next turn to PTL like normal. There's a reason why people think B-Wings are ridiculous, and being able to pre-action due to Advanced Sensors before movement makes them one of the most unpredictable ships in the game.
This list I'm exceptionally proud of, for probably no good reason:
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| I don't think you're ready for this. |
XBBZ (100)
Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing 31
Push the Limit 3
BB-8 2
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 38
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 22
Advanced Sensors 3
Ship Total: 25
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 22
Advanced Sensors 3
Ship Total: 25
Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12
Ship Total: 12
What can I say? It just has a ton of staying power and strong elements all around. The pilot skills are not very high at all, but you have 6+8+8+4 for 26 effective HP and 11 dice on the alpha, all of them on ships that can move like UFOs minus the poor Bandit. Let's be quite honest here: The Bandit is a great chump blocker and if ignored, can just tail someone and throw dice at them until some damage sneaks in. The primary damage dealers here are the T-70 and the dual B-Wings, especially when you consider that they can move really well and still deliver results. This list is also exceptional at jousting because you can always Focus + 2 K-turn on the initial turn while Poe himself dances around with the Tallon Roll. The list delivers a lot of firepower, a lot of staying power and can very well be a tournament-winning list. Is Poe better than two Bs from the popular BBBBZ list? I think it all depends on how well you can fly him in this case.
Let me know what you think of the lists. I think they'll work out great!
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