THE SHIP
The G-1A Starfighter is an interesting ship. At face value its the scum equivalent of a B-wing, with almost identical stats and upgrade options, the main difference is that the G-1A doesn't have a cannon slot. However the G-1A does have a slightly better dial than the B-wing. The G-1A's dial is still heavily focused on preforming 2 maneuvers, but unlike the B-wing it has a green 3 forwards and a white 4 forwards. This makes the G-1A a little more versatile than the B-wing when it comes to chasing down a foe after the initial joust. The other difference between these two ships is the G-1A's ability to take an illicit upgrade. Not only does this allow the Starfighter to potentially cloak but also gives it access to great 360 weapons such as the hot shot blaster and the feedback array. The final notable difference is that the G-1A doesn't come with barrel roll, but instead as the evade action. This potentially makes the G-1A a little more durable than the B-wing.
PILOTS
Ruthless Freelancer
At 23 pints the Ruthless Freelancer is your basic G-1A Starfighter. It comes with a respectable Pilot Skill 3, but doesn't have the Elite Pilot Talent of the other G-1A pilots. There's not a whole lot to say about the basic grunt G-1A but if your looking for a cheap and durable ship you can drop fire control system or tactician on this little guy and you should get your moneys worth.
Gand Findsman
The Gand Findsman is Pilot Skill 5 and in my eyes is the better option for a non named G1-A. For 2 more points than the freelancer you gain 2 additional Pilot skill as well as the Elite Pilot Talent. The EPT is a huge difference and really lets you make some cool builds. Veterans instincts gives you a PS7 ship for only more 1 point. Juke will allow your ship to be more offensive if you focus on doing evade actions or Wired would allow your ship to take advantage of that very red dial. All cheap but effective options for the findsman's EPT.
4-LOM
4-Lom comes at a respectable Pilot skill 6 and has a great pilot ability to give his stress to another ship. Note that this is another ship, not an enemy or friendly ship. This makes 4-lom a very aggressive ship that wants to be at range 1 and shed his stress. With this in mind, you should consider 4-lom's upgrades so that he is able to stay in the fray and stay an issue for your opponent. Push the Limit with the Misthunter title can be great on 4-lom, as he becomes a pseudo ark dodger who can pass his stress onto his target. however this often limits you to preform the 2 maneuvers and makes your ship sum what predictable. Here is a build i was planning on running with 4-lom.
This build is focused on using 4-lom as a surprise flanker. You approach cloaked and then upon engagement, de-cloak to the side of your opponent, getting an evade, use advanced sensors to either barrel roll even wider away or to target lock. then preform a hard 1 turn back towards the target and get a focus from your outlaw tech. now your at the flank of your target with pretty much all of the tokens you can get. This build is quite expensive but damn does it feel cool.
Zuckuss
Zuckuss is the king of the G1-A star fighter. With his ability to roll an extra attack dice he can be a very powerful gun turret. He has Pilot Skill 7, which is quite high for a scum ship and at 28 points his pilot ability will make sure that Zuckuss is a problem for your opponent. I think Zuckuss is best used as a long ranged cannon who just pumps damage into the enemy. there are two builds i can think of for him. the first is just very reliable using marksmanship, gunner and fire control systems to assure solid hits for each attack. The other, that may not be better but is certainly quite cool is the following.
This build is just focused on dealing lots of damage before zuckuss dies really. Expose puts him to 0 agility but allows him to throw out 5 attack dice at range 2-3.the fire control gives you a target lock for each attack and the experimental interface allows Zuckuss to focus and still expose. As this build is just asking to be killed, i'd suggest running it with a swarm type list and have zuckuss support it. This will force your opponent to focus on the swarm or on Zuckuss.
SUMMERY
So, Is the G1-A a good ship? I think its a ship that needs to be upgraded to be worth taking. If you're going to be running basic Freelancers with no upgrades, your probably better off just running an upgraded Y-wing instead. That said, you also don't need to go overboard with upgrades on them. for 29 points a Gand Findsman with Juke and fire control systems seems like a pretty good deal. You evade each turn mitigating the damage you take while being able to nullify one of your opponents evades. All said, I don't think the G1-A really has any Wow factor to it. Its a solid ship and i'm interested to see what people do with it but as yet iv not managed to find a role or the ship to full fill that a Y-wing cannot. However, the upgrades that come with the Misthunter are amazing. Next time we will be taking a look at these upgrades and some of the ways they can be used on other scum ships.
Thanks for reading. As always my commissions page is in the side bar. If your looking to have some ships painted of have any questions, feel free to contact me there. Wave 8 has added a lot to the game and i'm looking forward to talking about it more. But until next time.Goodbye and Fly Casual.
