I’m back!
I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I last did an article. Between things starting to open up again, my social life beginning to resurrect and my upcoming wedding, I’ve been rather busy and it looks like things are going to stay busy for the foreseeable future, but I won’t bore you with the details.
However I've finally got round to making a new article and to get back into the swing of things, I’m taking inspiration from the recently revealed multi-faction Gauntlet Fighter and Fang Fighter Fenn in the Rebel faction.
This pack will be taking one ship from each of the seven factions and placing it in a new faction with a new pilot/pilot ability.
I’ve been able to find a ship from each that can jump to a new faction, but the First Order and Separatists don’t have a new pilot here as they were less likely to allow ships from outside their designs to fly with them, so its their own fault they can't join in all of the fun!
So lets get stuck in, but firstly:
A Quick plug (sorry…)
I’ve just started selling my first alt art cards, check out my store for more details!
Now let’s actually get stuck in:
The Auzituck Gunship:
Starting us off we have the Rebel’s Auzituck Gunship going to the Scum faction for possibly its most famous pilot, the Black Krrsantan!
This Wookie was made an outcast by his species, making him turn into a gladiator then eventually a bounty hunter for Jabba the Hutt.
Thanks to his very animalistic predator nature, I felt it would be fitting for the Black Krrsantan to get access to the Fearsome Predator Tri Fighter’s pilot ability, only better! This lets him use the same condition as the Tri Fighters, however, once a ship with the condition dies, his eyes turn to a new target!
This combined with his two crew slots, and an added illicit slot would make him a very strong Jabba carrier that can also hit rather hard!
The TIE/D Defender:
Next, we have Sabine Wren in the TIE Defender moving to the Rebellion. I know what your thinking, “again?” but she makes sense here as we see her steal one of the Elite prototypes from Thrawn and he uses it as a test of the prototypes strength before disabling the ship.
Her ability is the first time Sabine gets a pilot ability that aids others instead of showing off her own skills. I decided to let Sabine show her Rebel allies some of her opponent’s new tech and abilities by transmitting data over to them via a lock. This data then lets your ally better defend or perform attacks against the enemy.
Her only issue is the fail-safe the Empire has built-in allowing your opponent to disable the ship, but this would also aid her by making her vastly cheaper than most Defenders!
The Scurrg H-6 Bomber:
Moving on to the Scum faction, we have a vast array of options as a large number of the scum ships and pilots have been in service to one or more of the other factions in the game. However, one pilot who definitely had a close relationship with a different faction is Captain Nym in his Scurrg bomber. Nym and his group aided the Jedi and Republic multiple times against the Trade Federation and later the Separatists.
His pilot ability shows his close working relationship with the Jedi, allowing him to follow their lead and drop devices when they spend the force. This allows him to better place a device by using a Jedi crew’s purple action to drop a device after moving, especially someone like Plo Koon who gives you easy access to a purple reinforce.
The T-70 X-Wing:
Moving on to the Resistances ship, the T-70 X-Wing was the obvious choice, with it first making its debut at the Battle of Jakku, so it could have some pilots within the Rebellion faction. However, the pilot I went for is Yrica Quell, the conflicted ex-Imperial who was gifted a T-70 X-Wing by Hera Syndulla for her mission to Coruscant.
Her ability is a rework of my older pilot ability for her from my Alphabet Squadron article, with it showing her conflicted nature and how she overworked herself to prove to the New Republic and her squadron she was worthy (Good god I really recommend the Alphabet Squadron books!). Although she would normally only be able to get a single stress you could bring debris clouds and fly over them to increase the number of stress tokens she has, then coordinate your entire list in one go!
The TIE/sf Fighter:
Now we move on to the First Orders and this gives us a good opportunity to bring in good old Shriv in a stolen TIE/sf Fighter!
During the events of the Battlefront 2 campaign’s DLC, Shriv and Zay (Iden and Del's daughter) stole a TIE/sf, eventually using it to escape with the plans to a FO dreadnought. They would then go on to recruit new members for the Resistance after the Battle of Crait forming Duros Squad.
The pilot ability I gave him was originally similar to my new Sabine’s pilot ability, but I changed it to show his special ops training or him returning with more allies for the Resistance. He can deploy as normal after another friendly ship deploys with an extended range, or you could deploy after an opponents ship shadowing it. But its most interesting use is with an ability like Han Solo’s or GA-97 allowing you to jump in closer to the enemy making it more of a deadly threat.
The Nimbus-Class V-Wing:
Next, we have the V-Wing and a promise.
The V-Wing is one of two ships we could have in the Imperial faction from the Republic faction, but with its heavy appearance in The Bad Batch, I felt the V-Wing was fitting right now.
The pilot I chose is part of the promise, I will do the Havoc Marauder. I’m actually almost done, I’m just struggling to write the article, and to be honest, this article is just me procrastinating the Havoc Marauder article, so I will get it done! But in the meantime we have Crosshair!
Although we don’t see him in the V-Wing, his appearance in the Nu-Class Shuttle inspired me here. His ability is what you can expect from a sniper, allowing him to hone in on target at long range, even negating their bonus defence die.
The Sith Infiltrator:
Lastly, we have the Sith Infiltrator and an obscure pilot, Chanath Cha, who was hired by Palpatine to track down his personal yacht that was stolen by Lando during the events of the Lando comic.
She was loaned Maul’s old ship, the Scimitar, for this mission and with the aid of O-66 she tracked down the yacht using a special tracking system. The only issue was this system could potentially make her jump out of hyperspace next to a neutron star, and that’s not a fun place to be…
To replicate this risky tracking I designed an ability that would allow her to jump out of hyperspace closer to the enemy but also risk getting harmed by the obstacle you're near. On a successful jump, you also get a lock on the enemy, which pairs well with Tarkin’s ability.
Surprise Appearance:
I know I said the last card was the last card but this is solely just to allow you to equip titles and configurations to your ship that are faction restricted, like the TIE Defender Elite.
Conclusion:
I really enjoy the idea of ships becoming cross-faction ships even though it starts to cause issues with single faction players having to buy a ship from a different faction, with a load of cardboard and cards that are useless to them. However, putting finances to one side, this would be a lot of fun for the game giving us a load more pilot options as the seven I’ve made today is not even close to being an exhaustive possible list!
If you’d like to see a part two to this or something similar like card pack ideas for ships I have many more ideas. For example, I’ve got a load of designs for new Scurrg pilots and a handful of upgrades.
As normal feel free to use the cards in friendly games to show the rest of the X-Wing that if it sets its mind to it, a ship can be in any faction!
Thank you all for reading,
Watcher Leader out.