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.

My thought was take APT fenn with bounty to 6 dice pop someone then do it again

And now; time for my thoughts on the new reveals. Firstly; the tech access on the new Y-wing pilots does concern me a little; but not greatly. It gives them more options than the older ones, but the previewed pilots aren't quite as effective or dangerous as, say Kavil.

Well... at least, not entirely. Arliz Hadrassian is one of those really swingy options. Instead of Kavil's 4-dice Ion Cannon Turret or munitions nukes, Arliz gets one assured focus>crit on his forward arc as soon as his ship suffers hull damage; but loses a focus result on defense. His ability is basically Greedo; but instead of priority-focused, it's damage, and doesn't turn off with a charge. Also interesting is that it's not primary, but forward arc... meaning any torpedo drops from Arliz after damage has gone through is going to be nasty.

Leema Kai, too, seems like a very nasty munitions carrier, albeit a cagey one. Fly out of the opponent's forward arcs, take a focus action, get a free lock on a ship of your choice right before you engage, fire with double mods. What makes this ability so tasty, IMO; is that it doesn't mean "fly out of hostile firing arcs" ala Outmaneuver; you can comfortably charge at the turreted side or rear arc of most ships, get the lock, and slap them with big damage if you want.

Gamut Key? Every two turns, you can keep your own - or an allies - focus/calculate tokens. OR you can ensure a ship stays tractored as if you were running Ketsu, or you can force the enemy to keep jam, or disarm... there's a lot of really annoying ways you can disrupt the enemy or boost yourself with him. I'm tempted to say he's going to be more powerful as a crew option than in the HWK, but that's a 50-50. Scum have plenty of ships with crew slots that don't mind getting up nice and close with the enemy, while the HWK has to ensure they are in it's turret arc. Though in saying that, depends on the list you're fighting. Lancers and swarms will almost always provide targets, arc dodgers will probably be more vulnerable to fly vs. him as a crew option.

Haven't really played Epic; but I love the idea and flavor of being able to take Scum ships as mercenaries in any other force... but I have to say that Rebel/Republic/Resistance get a slightly better end of the stick. Slightly.

Yeah i feel it could be worth it to take zeb in the tie fighter and just dump him in the middle of everything. they could kill him and make your scum ships more dangerous or leave him to be annoying.