Lengthy title I know.

The 2018 X-Wing Systems Open series have been announced. With the announcement has come the expected awesome loot…that I’ll never get to see with my own eyes (when will Australia get an open!)

The thing that caught my eye the most though, short of the unexpected Resistance and FO spoilers, was the top 16 templates.

They. Are. Beautiful.

I have seen a little bit of conversation around the internet since the announcement that the templates are just a random collection of symbols and icons from the movie X-Wing pilots helmets.

Whilst that is true, and I can appreciate that they are not to everyone’s taste (those Boba templates though ooooh boy) a lot of effort has been put into these.

Here’s why

Garven Dreis or Red Leader as he is more commonly known as is a solid second edition T-65 pilot. In the films he leads Red squadron into the battles of Scarif and Yavin respectively.

In the template set, his helmets features are used for all the 1 speed manoeuvres, the straight matches the front, the bank matches the top and the turn matches the side.

This theme continues throughout the template set with;

A man who needs no introduction, he is in 50% of all Rebel lists at the moment! His bucket is across the two speeds showing off his iconic green markings and matching his call sign of Red 2. The markings in question are actually at the back of his helmet…so perhaps not awfuly iconic.

Biggs adorns all the 3 speeds with the mesmerising black and yellow checkerboard pattern. I also would have accepted a black moustache on a white background, but i am happy with this.

Not in X-Wing yet, it would be good to see him one day as a pilot. Rocking his sweet all red design on the 4 straight template.

And of course Red – 5 Luke Skywalker.

I’m sure others have picked up on this but I thought it was nice to paint the picture so to speak.

I adore these templates, X-Wings and the pilot helmets in particular.

It’s why I made this for myself for the Rogue One premier

And why I have set about making helmet based pilot target locks for 2.0



(which can be found here if interested)

A pilots bucket is very special, to see these 5 immortalised this way is absolutely top drawer stuff FFG, very very impressive.

Thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed this little forray into the world of X-Wing helmet markings. Up next….some actual 2.0 content…maybe.