Haha, I approve of the name Darth Chungus!

Wow yea, phantoms are a fine companion, especially Whisper. And points-fortressing into Vader could be a strong strategy.

Wedge's skill is literally just Outmaneuver on his primaries now; rather than the turbocharged version he has in the X-wing. And that's just fine with me, he'll be on the expensive side of 4-cost A-wing pilots though. After all, Outmaneuver plus double talents? Going to be nasty. He's a good example of "pilots that don't want Vectored Cannons".

For a non-ace A-wing pilot; Hobbie looks like he's going to be really versatile. After all, Rebels have access to a lot of toys and pilots to spread and pass locks around.

Moldy Crow Kyle also helps to support Shara, since he can focus stack then transfer as needed. I just think I prefer her with that ability on the ARC; since she *can* take the gunner or crew options needed to work that effect, the A-wing is just that little bit too finicky. Speaking of ARCs, Sabine (Gunner) is an interesting option for a munitions boat setup, or alternatively on a turreted ship. Not so good on bomb ships; unlike Sabine (Crew).

Ahsoka comes in as another 3 Force pilot, though her ability needs 2. Now there's something I don't think the Rebels needed, but can certainly make use of, a 3-force agile ace.

Nothing else really *new* aside for the Hopeful upgrade and the Blade Wing Prototype; so I'm intrigued as to the fact we have basically no new previewed B-wing pilots but Hera, and we still don't know Sabine (A-Wing)'s ability. So there's a lot of things we'll be looking forward to with release!

I don't think Shara is going to be great but I do think she will be a lot of fun. Between Dutch, Hera, Jake, Benthic, Kyle, Garvin, Coordinate, and even Arien and Esege you have a lot of options to get her ability off. Sure it's very dice dependent but a modded 4 dice shot from an A-wing makes me happy.

Hmm... true that the rebel team is a great faction for this type of support. Since it's an added focus result (added results are so rare because they're potentially so strong) maybe it could be deadly with the right support. In a high-synergy rebel team where help is passed around freely and frequently someone's able to throw Shara a bone, she could hit hard or dodge an otherwise deadly attack. Though she's spending her lock to do this, so her attack won't be double-modded. It's more about making your attack extra accurate, since you can either reroll or add a guaranteed focus.

We can start to toy with real fleet compositions once points come out, but I'd guess Shara could do reasonably well. Also... I neglected to note this because I was grumpy about the a-wings 2-dice primary (heck), but Jan Ors could be a fun ally to Wedge and Shara and friends. She's a fine support HWK, and can occasionally toss an extra red die to whoever can use it the best. In a team with lots of primary attackers and extra mods, that could be fun. That could, for example, give Shara a 5-dice range 1 attack, one result of which is a guaranteed focus (if you spend the lock on that instead of a reroll).

This is where I start negotiating with Shara to try to fit Saw (crew) in the pilot seat with her. If they just squeeze a bit... No? Not even gonna try? Your loss, Shara. :D

Lots of great support abilities on those TIE Interceptors.

Also, Disciplined grants a boon for Sensitive Controls. Taking your stress and then clearing it with a blue means your interceptor will still be able to take the action later on in the round (e.g. roll out of arc). It's definitely trickier to fly though, and you're kinda banking on an ally dying. Though with Ruthless on one of your aces...

I really like the logic behind these new faction talents. They're designed to be "come from behind" effects, giving you bonuses when you lose ships and therefore are flying at a disadvantage. Of the three, Hopeful probably feels the most impactful; but Disciplined and Cutthroat both have strong use roles.

I'm more 50/50 on the support abilities on TIE Interceptors. They're just so damn squishy; despite the potential power and upside of the abilities they bring to the table. Yes; Commandant Goran is effective in a swarm list; but at int 4 with an ability that wants him to be one of the highest int pilots; it feels like it's the only niche role he has.

Nash Windrider, too; feels like there's upside there? I can see running Nash and Goran on a list together, certainly, it at the very least assures that lower int pilots can bump and still have a focus, then shoot on death. Just feels like more often than not, Nash himself is going to be spending that ability on himself. Something about low int Interceptor pilots doesn't sit well with my personal playstyle, feels too risky without the full knowledge of where arcs are going to be. Sure, they'll work really well...

And then we have Ciena Ree. AKA the Mercy Flight. It's rare to have a pilot fly that you don't actually want to score kills; especially at initiative six. She wants to be snapping off shots on shielded ships, scoring shield shatters swiftly. Hah, alliteration. But no, getting stressed for scoring kills and losing stress when her allies die? It's the strangest ability I think we've ever seen, the kind of "wait, what?" that even Scum has never touched.

Ciena Ree: secret rebel. lol

it is a really weird ability. maybe run her with soontir to soften things up for him to kill? a little sad we got no more defender info but maybe vader and skerris are the only new uniques. same for b-wing pilots though there has to be more than just hera there. I like the idea of hopeful/disciplined/cutthroat and kind of hope they come up with ones for the other 4 factions at some point. The phoenix squadron wing card interests me because having a large ship as wing leader feels weird and janky and i like it. I also like the theme of the skystrike wing because they're trainees so they can't keep up as well but you can feed them all to the dogs once things get real. it makes the wing leader extremely hard to kill. giving a b-wing a gunner slot even without the neat new gun seems like a worthwhile investment.

My main takeaway though is that ffg was clearly and thankfully keeping epic play in mind when designing stuff and not keeping new packs as strictly one or the other and i hope amg continues with that.

I'm pretty sure there's one more pilot for the B-wing, and they haven't officially "revealed" Vader. We know there's four pilot cards for each ship; and that typically means two generics and then pilots on top. As far as I recall, only B-wing pilot we've seen any trace of is Hera; and we know Vult Skerris and Vader for the Defender.