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http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5171

This time featuring the Scum & Villainy Firesprays and HWKs.

I'm digg'n Emon Azzameen

Quite exciting. The HWK pilots and the uber bomber guy especially. And the tech card for focus after a red move.

These guys look nasty.

Agreed - I was not really enthused about Sucm and Villiany, butnow I'm wondering about a double Firespray list

It helps that I'm a huge X-Wing Alliance fan, so I am extremely pleased with the presence of an Azzameen - here's hoping for more!

First impression: OMG AWESOME.

Second thoughts: maybe not.

The Firespray pilots are all pretty nice and the title card obviously helps both versions, but I'm worried about the supporting cast. Scum don't swarm as well as rebels or imperials, and trying to fit in 2-3 "normal" ships next to a high-end Firespray seems to be pretty awkward so far. This is going to be especially bad IMO because the mid-range scum ships are the relatively fragile and poorly armed HWK and y-wing, they don't have a good b-wing/interceptor/etc equivalent that can be good without any upgrades. You either have mediocre swarm ships or high-end 30+ point aces. So I'm not really convinced that the advantage in pilot abilities for the Firespray is worth giving up the TIEs that support it, especially given how powerful Boba Fett's ability is in the current ACD metagame.

The HWKs are all interesting but probably suffer from the same problem as rebel HWKs: it's hard to fit support ships into 100 point lists. The HWK's own stats are mediocre at best for the point cost (remember the turret tax) and the dial is awful. So yeah, in theory you could do some awesome stuff if you can get around to the flank and out of arc, but you'll very often just have a more expensive version of Biggs that soaks up a few shots in the initial pass and then explodes. Is it really worth spending 20-30 points or more on a ship whose only contribution is 5 HP? I mean, five shield upgrades is 20 points and nobody thinks that would be a good investment.

Bonus preview #1 thoughts:

The y-wings pilots are mixed. Drea Renthal suffers from having an ability that depends on the awkward combination of overpriced torps and taking stress on a ship with the worst green options in the game. I doubt we'll see her too often. Kavil, on the other hand, is amazing. Extra attack dice for doing what you're already doing and taking out-of-arc turret shots is one of the best abilities in the game. Contrast this with the high point cost and difficult conditions of expose and opportunist and the power is pretty obvious. The only real downside is he's a fairly expensive y-wing (after appropriate upgrades) that faces a real danger of dying early to focused fire before it can get through the initial pass and start arc dodging.

The y-wing upgrades are amazing. The autoblaster turret suddenly makes cheap y-wings viable, and multiple autoblaster y-wings can enforce a huge no-fly zone for phantoms/interceptors/etc. The bomb upgrade turns a rarely-used torpedo slot into a cheap seismic charge that can do way more damage and movement control (even if you never drop it!) than its point cost would suggest. And the title card gives you some very nice math in your primary arc if you're willing to give up the 360* turret. I tried a game with autoblaster/bomb y-wings today and they were IMO worth their points and a lot of fun to fly.

The z-95 pilots are mixed. Leech is just awful and might as well be an overpriced generic with no ability. He doesn't do a better job of spending the token than the ship you just stole it from, so you're essentially paying for PS 5 and the rare chance to get a bonus "action" when you have a ship with no shot AND nobody able or likely to shoot at them AND no ability to take a target lock for future turns. IOW, almost never going to happen. Insult to injury is that he's almost as many points as the awesome N'Dru Suhlak. Remember how Kavil's extra dice ability is really powerful? Same thing here. You get a bonus attack die just for staying away from your friends. Let's put it this way: add a hull upgrade and you have a rookie pilot that has PS 7 and costs a point less, as long as you stay alone. This is just absurdly efficient for the cost, and almost an auto-include IMO. And it gets really interesting if you can afford cluster missiles, since the extra die applies to both attacks. Stay at range 3+ from your other ships and you have a pair of HLC shots for dirt cheap, probably boosted by lone wolf.

The illicit upgrades are not very appealing. They're all situational and in my experience points are too tight to start throwing 1-2 points onto every ship. It's something to keep in mind if you have a spare point or two and nothing better to buy, but I would strongly suggest not getting in the habit of filling your illicit slot.

I think that the Scum Hawks might fare better than the Rebels, because they de-buff enemies, which all your ships benefit from.

Rather than make one of your ships PS12 (Like Roark Garnett), Torkil Makes an opponents PS 0. At first glance, this has the same effect, letting you shoot before your opponents big, scary guy. However, it has some other effects.

1) All your ships shoot before them. Instead of you main ship shooting, then your opponents big ship shooting, then everyone else shoot, you make that ship shoot last, so all your ships shoot before it.
2) Abilities, like Predator or flight instructor, which key off of PS, will also be affected.

Likewise, Palob Godalhi removes focus or evade tokens from the enemy, instead of handing them to friendlies (like Katarn). It isn't the "Assign to self" ability which is useful. It's the fact that your opponent is now a lot more vulnerable, without a shot being fired, and also Opportunist is now very reliable.

But you're still not doing anything about the fundamental problem of having a ship with mediocre combat ability that depends on its buff/debuff to justify its place in your list. For example, lets say your opponent brought a TIE swarm where all of their ships have lower PS than yours. Now you've got a complete waste of 25ish points that you really wish was a cheaper and more effective y-wing. Similarly, the token thief can hinder a ship, but you know what can also hinder a ship? Bringing more efficient firepower and killing the ship you would have stolen a token from. Forcing your opponent to spend that evade token to stay alive against superior firepower is just as good as removing it and then shooting them with a weaker ship, with the added bonus of doing even more damage when token theft isn't relevant.

And then of course there's the "Biggs in a weaker ship" problem. HWKs are easy to kill, they have mediocre defensive stats and a predictable dial so it's very easy to just focus on them and kill them quickly. So most of the time you're probably paying more points than Biggs for a ship that soaks up less damage before exploding. And this is especially true of scum HWKs because they need to be close to their target and can't just sit back out of range and hand out buffs.