X-Wing Miniatures Game – Imperial Aces Pilot Preview

I’ve clearly been sucked into the X-Wing Miniatures Games over the last few months, late to the party and all. Though I am mostly sticking to the Rebel side so far, it’s interesting to see what Fantasy Flight Games is planning for the future of the X-Wing Miniatures Game.

The Imperial Aces Expansion is an interesting one, as it provides no truly new ships, but instead new paint-job-variants and new pilot cards for the existing X-Wing Tie Interceptor.

I don’t really enjoy buying multiples of the same miniature expansion, so this might be an approach that could get me to pick up multiple Tie Interceptors.

Here’re the new named pilots from Fantasy Flights Imperial Aces preview.

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#1 – New Tie Interceptor Pilot Previews

Lieutenant Lorrir triples the options of a barrel roll by using either bank template instead of a straight template. As a result, he’s able to change facing on a whim, combining the best aspects of the barrel roll and boost actions. Establishing a Range 1 shot on this slippery pilot is a unique challenge that often results in him shooting you instead.

While Lorrir makes barrel rolling look easy, Tetran Cowall is an expert at performing the Koiogran maneuver. He is able to change the speed of his Koiogran maneuver when he reveals it, so he always gets to choose the best speed after seeing where less skilled enemy ships have moved. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s also the only pilot in the game capable of performing the lethal 1-speed Koiogran maneuver!

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#2 – “Old” Tie Interceptor Pilot Previews

“Old” only in the sense that these two have been previewed before. Like the entire expansion, they are not yet released.

Kir Kanos focuses on pure, unbridled offensive power. His ability is better than adding an attack die; it’s incredibly potent and he can use it selectively after seeing his dice results. Since he needs to spend evade tokens to fuel his ability, he isn’t as free to use barrel roll and boost actions to optimize his positioning, so his handler needs to really focus on predicting his opponent’s moves.

Meanwhile, Carnor Jax is the ultimate predator. He utterly denies focus and evade actions, leaving his opponents defenseless. Even better, he prevents focus and evade tokens from being spent, so he can shut down the focus and evade actions of ships with lower pilot skill by pursuing them at close range; those ships, then, effectively lose their actions! Even more than Kir Kanos, though, Carnor Jax demands that his handler have the precognition of a Sith lord to avoid being destroyed while maximizing his ability.

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#3 – Thoughts?

All four pilots clearly stick with the “highly-maneuverable-glass-cannon”-theme of the Tie Interceptors as a whole. Range 1 K-Turns? Banking “Tokyo-Drift” Barrel Rolls? Fun stuff! Tetran Cowall also is a point cheaper than the existing Lvl. 7 Interceptor pilot.

Admittedly, I see nothing that will lure the “competitive”-scene away from Spam-lists and into trying out Interceptors (for a game with only two factions and – as a whole – less choices than the Space Marines Codex Elite section by itself, I find X-Wing’s “balance” as a game to be surprisingly poor, relatively speaking). But these looks like great fun for the club no less.

Mastering these pilots will truly be “learning to fly” in X-Wing.

Let me know what you think!

Z.