Hotshots & Aces II First Order Overview

SWZ97 Hotshots & Aces II

“Amusing how all of your efforts amounted to nothing.” –Commander Pyre, Star Wars: Resistance™

The First Order receives five additional pilots in the Hotshots and Aces II Reinforcements Pack for Star Wars: X-Wing. In this pack, the First Order gains reinforcements that mostly focus on characters from Star Wars: Resistance.

We start with Agent Tierny in the Xi-class Light Shuttle. She is skilled at making people doubt their friends and question their alliances, as shown through the condition she assigns at the beginning of the game. The Broken Trust condition forces one of your ships to no longer be counted as friendly to other ships in its squadron, nor will it count the other ships as friendly for its own abilities – instead counting those ships as allied. For example, assign the condition to Commander Poe and his ability becomes useless. In addition, whenever the target of Broken Trust attacks, each ship that is now allied to it in the attack arc gains a stress if not already stressed. They are worried their former friend has fallen for Tierny’s lies. But all is not lost: you can remove the condition by fighting for your friends and proving Tierny wrong. If you’re having trouble competing against lists that have a lot of synergistic bonuses, Tierny is great at hobbling a support ship.

Lin Gaava also grants condition cards, but this one is assigned to her and up to two other TIE/fo or TIE/sf Fighters. Lin tinkers with their ships and gives their engines a racing boost, at the cost of some structural integrity. All these ships gain the ability to SLAM, but in doing so, instead of a disarm token, they take a point of damage. The best thing to do is equip Fanatical to any TIE/fo Fighter you assign this condition to, so that you get an easy way to activate the talent. Generally, you’ll use her ability on TIE/fo Fighters, but “Quickdraw” is also a good target to gain additional attacks. Remember that you can SLAM into a red maneuver, so the 4-speed straight into a koiogran turn is an exciting way to end up behind opposing ships.

DT-798, formerly Jace Rucklin, is another racer turned First Order pilot. His ability is like “Scorch”, except he gains a strain instead of a stress. DT-798 rages against those who wronged him and concentrates on harming them, at the expense of his own defense. Unlike “Scorch”, you can use this ability after performing a red maneuver. Use DT-798 as a brute to do damage to your opponent and then run and evade when they focus on him. He combines well with his squadmate Lin to SLAM and be Fanatical with an extra attack die. He does burn out quickly with the extra strain, so be careful not to just throw him in the middle of a kill box.

The final TIE/fo Fighter in this expansion is Lieutenant Galek. Galek is a high initiative TIE/fo Fighter and wants to be in a pack with other TIE/fo Fighters. His ability lets him coordinate when other friendly ships are destroyed, but they are limited to his action bar: no boosting! You’ll most often use this to target lock or barrel roll to set up better attacks, but occasionally might evade for the next obvious target. Remember he can’t use his ability on himself. Galek needs a supply of fodder to use with his ability, and a few high-value ships that could use an additional action.

The last ship in the pack is a new TIE/se Bomber from the novel “Join the Resistance”, Jul Jerjerrod. Three times per game, she can remove a non-lock red or orange token after boosting. Most often, you’ll use this to perform the red boost action on the TIE/se Bomber and immediately remove the stress. However, there are times when you’ll use the Pursuit Thrusters on the TIE/se Bomber and remove a strain or deplete token that you’ve been assigned. It is possible to use it on orange tokens, but most are assigned at times when it isn’t possible to boost, and they are removed when the round ends anyway. Jul’s going to be used as a budget TIE/se Bomber with a better initiative than most of the other pilots in that chassis.

That’s all of the First Order pilots coming in the Hotshots and Aces II Reinforcements Pack! Look for it at your local game store in November. Pre-order your copy at your local game store or through the webstore today!