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.

One thing to add: Epic Wings will be great for these support TIE Interceptors. When you can distribute damage to friends, that fragile support wing leader lasts a long time. Plus you have TIEs like Iden Versio for a one-time nuke mulligan, if needed.

Hmm... At a minimum, I think Ciena will be a good "shoot early" leader to soften foes before the team finishes them, and who will shed stress when allies die. At a minimum that makes her a good candidate for either Disciplined or Ruthless. I kinda like the subversiveness of a Ruthless Ciena... >:) Or Disciplined Ciena paired with a Ruthless Soontir and some named TIEs to swarm the foe and take damage. Someone dies to Ruthless? Good, Ciena sheds stress and then arc-dodges away or gets a free lock.

And when it comes down to it, Ciena will be a cheap init 6 who will occasionally have to cope with extra stress after a kill. Players will still kill with her, just like they still kill when the opponent has a stress-on-death ability. The empire will still love her, stress and all, because it thrives on high init ships and hit & run tactics. She's going to add some great cheap top-init firepower to empire aces fleets. Empire with yet another cheap ace kinda scares me!

And I'm still excited about the stupid shenanigans potential of Cutthroat. ^_^

Yo. bounty/in it for the money though. just pick scum pilots you want in your epic lists? that's cool

It does raise the question of if you can equip upgrades like fearless on them or not. i lean towards yes since the deckbuilding restrictions are for the ship/pilot not the squad (except when specifically stated like maul and the vader droids) and the pilot is still a scum pilot. i could see them ruling the opposite though for better balance.

Yea, finally Scum can be hired into other factions like in the original movies, so this is exciting. I'm wondering which pilots I want to bring... my mind immediately drifts to Palob for shutting down tokens.

Okay, so here are my mega shenanigans ideas for Epic scum mercenaries so far:

Torani paired with Marksman Seyn and Deadeye Shot TIEs, for lots of defense-ignoring autodamage. Maybe toss in some concussion bombs?

Drea & Serissu to support a swarm with rerolls after the first death. Bonus points if everyone is Hopeful and Drea was the one who killed the ally with a bomb.

Moralo to teleport across the play area and harass the enemy's rear, causing them problems as your main force charges forward.

Sunny Bounder because she wanted to be included. ^_^

Want competent game-winning suggestions? You're asking the wrong player.