Pilot Spotlight: Major Vynder

Deathrain has always been the control element of my lists. He certainly felt the heat from Nerherder so maybe it’s time for him to have a rest and let someone else have a go.

Please let me die

So what else in the Imperial arsenal offers a similar presence on the battlefield? It doesn’t need to be bristling with guns, it needs to make the enemy commander think twice about their dials. With that in mind may I present the Alpha-class Star Wing.

Really out of place among the various TIE chassis in the hanger. Looks more like a F-22 Raptor than anything Star Warsy. Never played it in 1.0 but always wanted to just for the stat line and how it ties in with Vynder’s ability. 7 health hiding behind 3 agility dice. Now that’s only working if you’re slamming every turn. 3 bank slamming back and forth will put this ship on par with the fastest ships in the game and will beat most of them in a drag race.

Major Vynder w/ Xg-1 Assault Configuration, Advanced SLAM, Ion Cannon. 49pts.

It’s cheap, it’s tanky, it’s fast, and the threat of ion can put a bit of fear into the opposition. Now the chance of actually ionizing a target will be rare, and you need to be constantly on the move switching to different targets to increase your survivability, however dumping those little red tokens on low agility ships will start ringing alarm bells. If you get ioned and the Starwing is behind you, you will most certainly get ioned the next round and trapped into floating across the board.

Been having a go with Vynder paired up with Soontir and Vader in a triple ace list. Because Vynder with this loadout behaves much more like an ace than a jouster. The control element is there to keep the heat off your aces or set them up for a shot on a disabled ship. On top of that he’s so cheap you’ve got yourself a decent bid which, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been struggling for a decent bid with triple ace lists.

Perhaps he’d be better off with multiple munition types to increase his threat, more practice required for this one. Apparently you can even advanced slam after slamming through an asteroid, as it’s not part of the action step. Built in collision detector for the win!

So how about it? Enough of this one forward to victory. Roll the windows down, feel the wind in your hair and crank up that Top Gun soundtrack to 11.