Todays reinforcements pack is the last line of defence between the Empire and the New Republic's Starhawk project as well as their nemesis, Vanguard Squadron. The mighty Titan Squadron is one of the two squads you fly under in the game Star Wars Squadrons, so some spoilers for the game ahead:
Titan is an interesting group of imperials for cannon Star Wars. In general when we get a story from the Empire's perspective, the main characters are normally seen as somewhat redeemable, as in they stand for the Empire's stability but despise it's practises. However I get the feeling Titan has no hope of redemption with one exception. Although they all fight for what they view as good reasons, they are blind to the rot deep within the Empire. They will go down with it, or help birth the First Order.
I find this dynamic a refreshing change that I enjoyed, even if I couldn't connect to them as much as the pilots of Vanguard!
The largest problem I had making this reinforcements pack was working out what ship each pilot should fly. Unlike Vanguard, who seem to always fly the same ships (except in a cut scene where they are all in X-Wings), Titan seem to swap ships constantly, which makes sense as Imperials don't form attachments to their starfighters like Rebels would. After looking over all of wookieepedia I could find no information on what they flew so I looked at each mission in game and worked out that although they swap ships a lot in the beginning, they eventually settle on their preferred ships towards the end of the game, flying them just a little more than the other ships.
Varko Grey:
Grey is the exception I mentioned earlier, I feel he does see the empire for what it is, but is either reluctant to leave the squadron he protects or is scared to leave at the risk of what the Imperial remnant or New Republic would do to his family. This has left him stuck between a rock and a hard place. He seems to be a skilled ace, capable of surviving great punishment, while also caring deeply for his squadron, protecting them with his life. Because of this I made his ability based around aiding his squad mates, helping to de-stress them after pulling off difficult manoeuvres.
Following Orders:
As a loyal Imperial pilot, Grey listens and obeys his commanders knowing that they have his best interests at heart. This upgrade shows this, allowing your pilots to gain a boost attacking targets your command staff have marked for death. I decided to exempt scum from this card due to their more chaotic and independent nature.
Titan Leader:
As with all my squadron based packs, Titan needs a Squadron command upgrade. This upgrade lets Grey take his squad into battle, and coordinates their attacks for the best damage output possible. This lets his heavy hitters make an additional attack to pack that extra punch if another tie should attack but the result would be be too weak or just out of range of the target.
Emergency Power Converter:
This card tries to simulate the Tie's in-game ability to quickly shift its power from its attack to defence or vice versa. I did this by letting you once per round, gain a boost to attack or defend by giving you a reroll. Then you gain a strain or deplete to show the energy drained from the system.
Havina Vonreg:
This angry and bitter ace seems to be a relation to the Major Vonreg in Star Wars Resistance. With her age and dedication to the imperial cause, she could easily be his mother who one day joined the early First Order and raised him amongst their ranks. To show her connection to Vonreg, I decided on a similar ability to his which lets her stress a ship in her bullseye arc. I also tried to show her uncontrolled anger by forcing her to stress a ship, even if its friendly. Because of this she's both a deadly enemy and a potential hazard to her allies.
Safety In Numbers:
This upgrade is a swarm ships best friend. Allowing you to help defend each other while in tight formation, this is especially useful to flimsy swarm ships like Tie Fighters and Interceptors due to their ability to just pop if without enough mods!
Special Forces Refit:
I've always had a problem with Ties having missiles in video games, but I understand why they are used to balancethe rebel and empire sides. They could also be explained as a modification given to ace pilots who could be trusted with the expensive missiles. The upgrade I made gives your Tie a missile and the ability to fire it even without a lock.
Quick Lock Missiles:
This is another upgrade that takes inspiration from upgrades seen in the game. This missile is built specifically to deal with those pesky aces that keep avoiding your arc, letting you sacrifice your normal shot for a quick un-moded missile shot against a ship in your bullseye arc after you have moved. Although not as effective as a normal shot, it increases the chances of a shot landing as it is fired during the action phase.
Shen:
Possibly my favourite of the Imperial pilots, I love his design as a tall brooding pilot who never removes his helmet that shows its combat scars, he's like a proto Vader (or Din)! With Shen's uncanny ability to survive crashes that would have normally have been fatal, this ability makes him as tanky as possible, auto changing any critical damage to standard hits, or keeping the crits to lose a standard damage. This makes him a real tank, capable of holding his own long enough to fire off all of his munitions and cripple his opponents before they can take him out.
Repurposed Payload Bay:
This upgrade is designed specifically for the next upgrade I've made, however I see this as a useful modification for the Tie Bomber and Punisher (and the First Orders Bomber whenever they release it!). You can easily run out of munitions on these ships, and a cannon can add the fire power of these munitions without the risk of running out ammo.
Sienar Beam Cannon:
This is the upgrade was a must for me while I was designing this pack, it was so cool to see in the squadrons trailer a squad of Tie Bombers burning the CR-90 with these mini Death Star beams. However its safe to say I'm biased because I was a massive fan of the obscure Tie Lancet Aerial Artillery that had a similar weapon! The upgrade works in a similar fashion to my Composite Beam Cannon for the B-Wing in my Alphabet Squad article, giving you access to a straight line weapon that struggles to hit manoeuvrable ships, but then packs a punch if it hits the target.
Ruthless Gunner:
An idea I've thought about for a while is a way to show how shots passing through the area that other starfighters occupy could damage them. This card forces you to choose a ship your firing through and make it roll to see if it is damaged or able to avoid the shot and how stressed it is for doing so. However in classic imperial fashion their gunners don't care for their allies safety, so if there isn't another ship soaking the shot up then you may accidently hurt your friends.
Rella Sol:
As the daughter of Imperial senators Sol seems to have the most hopeful but blind vision of the Empire, she believes that just reinstating the senate would fix all their problems and make all the people of the galaxy flock back to the Empire.
Her role as the Reaper Pilot make her the groups support ship, however I didn't want to just copy my Gunny's pilot ability in my Vanguard Squad article to show the reapers support role in the game. Her ability lets her protect her allies by giving them access to her shield tokens to keep them defended. This lets her still support her friends but works to distinguish her from Gunny.
Terisa Kerrill:
The captain of the ISD Overseer and leader of the operation to take down project Starhawk. She could be seemingly blinded with obsession to take out her former mentor and traitor
Lindon Javes. Despite this she was a relatively competent captain, which for the empire is a big complement! I tired to make her ability around both her obsessive nature but also her strengths as a leader who could get the job done.
LT-514:
I love LT, he seems just so nice, I know he's part of a tyrannical empire, but I feel the implants he has probably brain washes him quite significantly. I decided to make his ability around those implants and his role as squadron informant and coordinator. He uses the information he gathered during an attack or defence to let his allies benefit and be more effective in battle by passing off a calculate token.
Willard Waylin:
Titan's chief mechanic for all their crafst, Willard, keeps Titan in the air and as with Vanguards mechanic Zerelda, I feel sorry for how much work I must have put him through! I decided to make his ability different from Zerelda's by instead of repairing ships on the go, he allows you to customise one of your squad's ships even further with an additional modification slot.
Expert Supply Officer:
I kept Sol from having a similar ability to Gunny, however I did want to give her the ability to more affectively restock her allies supplies like in the game. To do this I decided on a dedicated crew that has the ability to increase your nearby allie's reload action effectiveness, letting them recover two charges instead of one.
Squadron Mask:
Another upgrade taken from the game that allows you to make use of your jammers to mask your squads signal and protect them from incoming enemy fire for a round. This lets the Reaper be a real centre of the squad keeping all its allies safe from enemy fire for that crucial round. This would make it the perfect swarm protector upgrade. I also used my custom design for an upgrade that could fill two different slots.
Titan Three
Our character during the Squadrons Imperial storyline, and the final member of Titan. Although we don't have any real story for Three's background as they are our character, we can make up the story for ourselves! I decided to keep Three's ability as the same as my Vanguard Fives ability and let them have an additional talent again like Five. This lets you create a pilot ability by using different talent combinations as the pilot ability. The ability keeps your ships very flexible so it could work in lots of different lists letting you treat Titan Three as like a joker card for the Empire.
Conclusion:
Titan Squad are all survivors, they have been through the Empires worst days, and as Tie pilots on top of that, an already hard to survive career in the first place. Because of this they seem to have evolved from the Empire's super strict squadron to something more like the Rebellions less formal and tightknit squadrons while retaining their Imperial discipline.
I feel that my cards and upgrades have done a good job at matching this feel for the squadron, making them all very strong individually while working very well together to keep themselves alive and able to complete the job their Empire requires of them.
As normal feel free to use them in friendly games to show the rest of the X-Wing community that unrelenting might will topple this feeble New Republic!
Watcher Leader out.