DO I WANT... a Xi Class Shuttle expansion pack?

Right, before we do anything else let's get the first thing out of the way - just how the hell are we supposed to say Xi?  Is it the Spanish Xi?  The Chinese Xi?  The Greek Xi?

Well Star Wars precedent is set that this name has been drawn from the Greek alphabet (along with other names like Upsilon, Sigma, Omega, Omicron etc) so I believe it should be pronounced almost like 'Ky' and a quick trip to a .edu website that looks like it was last updated when it migrated of Geocities tells me this...

Xi (χ): This is the same sound as "ch" in "Bach", which does not sound like "ch" in "chair". The same sound occurs in the Scottish "Loch", as in "Loch Lomond", or the German "ach!" 

So it's a Khy Class Shuttle.  Sorted.

Next up: is the Xi (Khy) Shuttle actually good?  Do you want to buy this expansion pack?

PILOTS

There are four Xi Shuttle pilots and the First Order Courier is your generic entry point to the Xi Shuttle at 38pts.  That's 20pts less than an Upsilon Shuttle but the ships are very different so comparson within the faction is really difficult.  Is there maybe something with a similar statline that we can benchmark that 2/2/5/2 chassis against to see if it's offering us good value?

Alpha-Class Starwing - 2/2/4/3 - 32pts

(you can also get a TIE Bomber with one less Hull for 27pts, or a TIE/sf with one less hull and a rear arc for 32pts)

Ok, so immediately the Courier at 38pts seems pretty expensive and not great value.  The dial's not great and the coordinate is a red action so there's no redeeming features there and it's pretty unattractive all round.  I'd personally expected the Xi to land about 32-34pts so to find it up at 38pts means I don't think you'll be seeing Couriers in play very often.

At face value Agent Terex is even worse value than the First Order Courier.  He's 42pts and the only difference for those 4pts is he's Initiative 3 not Initiative 2.  What Agent Terex DOES do, though, is allow you to then invest further points in buying Illicit upgrades to give to your squad, which is actually kind of neat and fun.  But I think it's only janky fun, unfortunately, and not actually good.

1. Terex forces you to pay points for the opportunity to pay more points, and those points are on top of the base cost of a Courier that we've already seen is overcosted to begin with.  If you want to give your TIE Fighters some cool Illicit upgrades you're being taxed for them THREE times!
   
   
2. A lot of the cool stuff you might want to do with illicits... you can't do.  You can't give illicits to anybody but TIE/fo and TIE/sf pilots so that means there's no Cloaking Device for Major Vonreg and no Contraband Cybernetics for Kylo Ren.  You also can't pass Illicits onto somebody who doesn't meet the requirements, so you can't hand out Rigged Cargo Chutes to your TIEs as they're not Medium Base ships, for instance.  In fact the list of stuff you can do that you really care much about is very limited... Deadman Switch on TN-3465 is funny, and some people are unreasonably excited about Inertial Dampeners on Quickdraw too.

It's a shame because Terex could be a starting point for some interesting and unusual squadbuilding options to diversify the First Order faction but he's been crippled by the combination of unreasonable cost and restrictive ability.  The First Order Courier should probably cost 32pts and Terex should probably cost 34pts which would then give you 8pts back to actually then buy Illicits with.  It's a shame but one that's easily fixable with future points updates.

But now we get to the meat of the Xi pilots range - Gideon Hask and Commander Malarus.  These pilots have a lot in common so it makes sense to compare and contrast them against each other.

Both pilots have similar 'force multiplier' abilities.  They're both Range 0-2 bubbles, they both buff the offense of ships around them and they both cost a Strain token for doing so.  The difference is that Commander Malarus means you reroll a blank red dice while Gideon Hask adds a whole extra red dice to the attack!  So which one is better?

• Epsilon Squadron Cadet with Focus = 1.5 hits
• Epsilon w/focus & 3rd red dice (HASK) = 2.25 hits
• Epsilon w/focus & reroll blank (MALARUS) = 1.8 hits

So there you have it: Hask adds +0.7 hits while Malarus only adds +0.3 hits. Hask is over twice as good as Malarus, and he even costs less points!

Actually, Gideon Hask is pretty rubbish and I'm firmly in the camp that Malarus is going to be better in your squad 9 times out 10.  

Why?

Well, This is because Malarus' reroll is always active while Hask's extra red dice only triggers once you've already damaged the opponent and it turns out that when you're swarming lots of ships with 2 red dice it can take quite a lot to get that first damage card down.

I need an example to demonstrate this, so let's imagine we're playing a really basic force multiplier squad - we're running 6 Epsilon Squadron Cadets (150pts) and a Xi shuttle as a support ship.  And let's say we're firing at a basic 'Average Joe' T-65 X-Wing.  First of all let's model what Commander Malarus adds to our attack

• 7x 2 dice primary attacks at range 2, vs a T-65 X-Wing with Focus = 4.9 damage

• 7x 2 dice primary attacks at range 2 plus reroll, vs a T-65 X-Wing with Focus (MALARUS) = 6.7 damage  

So we're getting a pretty hefty damage output bonus from bringing Malarus, and in fact it's the difference between only having a 37% chance of killing a T-65 without Malarus and being a 73% odds-on favourite to kill a ship.  That's a big deal.

Modelling what Gideon Hask adds to your offense is much more complicated and variable as a lot depends on if your first couple of attacks got lucky or not, but we can kind of get a rough sense of what's most likely to happen.  

For instance, would you expect that it takes 5 focused 2 dice attacks before you have >50% of actually dealing a damage card to that T-65 X-Wing?  Now yes, there's some games where the T-65 is going to blank out their first two defence rolls and you've got them damaged in time for your 3rd attack but those games are going to be very rare, and indeed there's going to be games where you'll spend your whole attack shooting that that T-65 without damaging it.  But let's use that 5 attacks as the example as it's a pretty average scenario.

• 5x 2 dice primary, 2x 3 dice primary at range 2, vs a T-65 X-Wing with Focus (HASK) = 6.3 damage

So Hask comes out worse than Malarus in a typical situation - not a lot worse, but worse.  But actually we've also been quite kind to Hask in that scenario planning - we assumed we had all 7 ships left to fire with and none got killed earlier in the Engagement Phase, and we also assumed we still had Focus tokens on all those ships to modify dice with.  Once the real world starts eating into that assumed firepower those extra red dice that Hask promises will get pushed further and further down the tracks.

And we still haven't even got into the fact that Hask never adds an extra red dice at all when you're shooting at Range 1 while Malarus is still giving your rerolls on that extra red dice (and in fact gets better at R1 as more dice = more chance you roll a blank to reroll).

9 times out of 10 Hask is a trap.  Yes his ability is CLEARLY worth +2pts on the First Order Courier but the First Order Courier is overcosted to begin with so you weren't actually going to be playing it - those 2pts are a misleading 'bargain' for Hask's ability.  And it's also CLEARLY at least 3pts worse than Commander Malarus' ability is.  Yes, you can definitely make lists that will try to leverage Hask better by hitting harder at high initiative to force the damage through and those are the 1 out of 10 times when he's better than Malarus.  The other 9 times I think you should take the rerolls.

So of all the four Xi pilots the one you're most likely to want to play is Commander Malarus.  But do you even want to play her at 43pts?  

Well, if we start from an expected chassis cost of ~32pts for the Xi Shuttle then it's +11pts for Malarus, for which you get higher Initiative for coordinate actions and those juicy offensive rerolls.  It's a lot of points but it's ballpark what you pay for that type of reroll ability where we've seen it on cards like Drea Renthal or Sinker.  And it's also true that a lot of the strength of the First Order faction is in some very efficient generics who just lack offensive dice modification (Epislon Cadets, Zeta Survivors, Seinar-Jaemus Engineers) so Commander Malarus fills a gap in the faction perfectly.

The one word I've not used all yet is an important one, though: Strain.  With Malarus that reroll is a compulsory effect and it hands out a Strain token with it.  Firstly, it worth noting that although players panic about this a lot it turns out that a Strain token isn't actually that bad (it equates to roughly 1/3rd of a health point on average) as anybody who has flown First Order Provocateurs will know.  

Secondly, though, it does mean you're going to have to be a bit more careful about including Malarus alongside expensive aces like Vonreg or Kylo Ren where you're leveraging a lot of value onto that 1/3rd of a health point.  On an Epsilon Cadet a Strain token is worth roughly 2pts (25pts divided by 4 hull multiplied by 1/3rd) but on Vonreg or Kylo it's worth more like 4-5pts on average each time you give those pilots a Strain token.

UPGRADES

The delightful Commander Malarus may be the best Xi Shuttle pilot card and it's a good job because her Crew version is diabolical.  Her starting side is similar to her Xi Shuttle pilot ability and grants rerolls to nearby ships, but it's a much more restrictive Range 1 bubble that only allows non-Limited pilots to reroll dice.  Then as soon as any of her friends miss a shot Malarus flips to her EVEN WORSE side that is inspired from her TIE/fo pilot ability only now you're expected to be nailing bullseyes with your shuttle to make it happen.  It's an utter dogshit card that somehow costs more equipped to a First Order Courier than her similar-but-better pilot version does.

Captain Pyre is not bad for 5pts, just so completely unreliable that he might make any difference at all to a game that you can't ever really burn 5pts on him.  Pyre has two effects - defensive rerolls and Setup stress - but it's almost impossible for your to reliably leverage either of them to your advantage.  First Order isn't rife with ways to force Stress onto enemy ships and it's rubbish timing that Phasma throws stress out after they've already attacked so using the defensive reroll is entirely dependent on the opponent stressing themselves.  The stress on Setup sounds nasty but it's very easy for the opponent to plan around it and clear that stress with blue maneuvers long before you get close enough to really take advantage.

Agent Terex's Crew incarnation is a very good card, almost certainly the best crew in First Order and at just 6pts he's very keenly priced.  Being able to donate Calculate tokens at the start of combat is pretty close to Emperor Palpatine's ability to use the Force (both force and calculate convert one eyeball result) - it's worse as you have to donate the token in advance of needing to spend it but it's close.  The Cyborg side of Terex is also pretty good, giving you a free Calculate token or a Jam token which you can then throw around the table at the cost of an action, and that's pretty good too.

There's a couple of things that make me a little cooler than most on Agent Terex right at this minute and it really comes down to how limited the options for Crew carriers are in First Order.  It means either bringing a Xi Shuttle (which we've seen are mostly underwhelming) or paying through the nose for a huge Upsilon Shuttle and then sinking more points into it by adding Terex.  While efficient swarms like Nantex are all the rage I think any Upsilon that's not Lt Tavson are easy meat for the opponent and loading Terex points on top of Tavson's 64pts is tough as the Upsilon is already so expensive.

I think Agent Terex is a fantastic card at a fantastic price point, but I also think opportunities to actually put that card onto the table are a lot more limited than I'd really like and it's almost Commander Malarus or bust.

Sensor Buoy Suite... right, by show of hands who originally assumed you could get target locks with your whole squad like you can with DRK-1 Probe Droids?  Yeah, lots of us.  Then by show of hands how many of us didn't immediately realise that the opponent would almost always have a free turn shooting at the Sensor Buoys to destroy them before they actually got close enough for the Buoys to do anything?  Ok, not as many I'm guessing but it's depressingly true.  I think the Buoys are a fun thing to put onto the table but the upside is so small and the risk they do nothing at all is so large that I can't imagine spending 4pts on it when bringing a Xi or Upsilon already leaves me so tight on points.

Automated Target Priority.  This thing is serious and at just 1pt may well be my pick for best card in Wave 7.  A lot of the best ships in First Order are just rolling 2 red dice and 2 red dice attacks miss quite a lot, especially at range 3 and especially in a metagame where a lot of 3 Agility ships are undercosted and being widely played.  You're going to see ATP trigger to store Calculate tokens quite a lot and then the ability to store those Calculate tokens until you're ready to use them - stressed or bumped or whatever - is really powerful.  The downside to Automated Target Priority is losing some of your choice for target priority and having to shoot at what the computer tells you.  I'm not TOO worried about that, but it's worth talking about a bit.

1. I actually like it - it's thematic!  My First Order thugs are idiots that just shoot at whatever is in front of them so it's 'fluffy' and that alone makes me feel a lot better about the times when they're going to be shooting at the wrong thing.  They're just grunts and I'm not paying them minimum wage to make management level decisions like that.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Beware the 'zombie kill' if you bring lots of ATP ships.  Ships aren't removed from the table until the end of the Initiative step in combat so if you've got lots of Initiative 1 ships and only one enemy ship at Range 1 you will be forced to pour all your fire into it even if that target got destroyed on the first attack you made.  Clever opponents will try to engineer this situation.
   
   
3. You'll be able to mitigate some of the 'zombie kill' problems by thinking carefully about your firing order, and it may also make sense to deliberately stagger your Initiatives in squadbuilding more than you otherwise would so there's chances to remove zombie ships before another Initiative level starts firing.
   
   
   
   
   
4. ATP makes most sense on TIE/fo and TIE/sf (2 red dice ships miss most often, their base chassis is defensively efficient enough to bear adding +1pt to it) but I think it's a gimme for Quadjumpers too (2 red dice, often spend actions on other things so miss more often, can control range bands with tractor).  I doubt it pushes Advanced Optics off RZ2 A-Wings but if the MG-100 Starfortress becomes a thing due to all the recent price cuts I wouldn't be surprised to see it there.  The Resistance Bomber itself is cheaper, Concussion Bombs are cheap, Veteran Turret Gunner is cheap, Automated Target Priority is cheap... that ship keeps getting better and better and will soon be hitting tables, I suspect.

CONCLUSION

So at the top of the article I asked two questions: is the Xi Shuttle good?  Do you want to buy one?

Well for the first question the answer is 'mostly no'.  As a useful support ship running around with Coordinate actions, some interesting Crew equipped or having fun with Illicit using Agent Terex the Xi Shuttle has been costed almost entirely out of the picture.  Commander Malarus is a powerful force multiplier effect to bring to First Order swarms but doesn't really support any acey type squads so well.

And do you want to buy this expansion pack?  I think the answer to that question almost entirely depends on how much you like the generic efficiency side of First Order.  If that's not your bag then you can probably avoid this expansion for the time being - you won't really miss any of the Xi pilots and although Automated Target Priority is killer for 1pt it's really expensive to spend $30 just to get two copies of that upgrade card.  But if you ARE a big swarm efficiency style player then you will want both the Xi Shuttle and Commander Malarus, and you're also likely to want the Automated Target Priority and may even need to go back and find even more copies of ATP from a second expansion pack.

Finally, if you're not a First Order player there's pretty much no reason to buy this expansion unless my long odds guess about the MG-100 Starfortress comes true as the only neutral upgrade is Automated Target Priority.