Announcing the Rebel Aces Expansion Pack for X-Wing (TM)

“Proceed with the countdown. All groups assume attack coordinates.”
    –Admiral Ackbar

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of the Rebel Aces Expansion Pack for X-Wing™!

Rebel Aces features one A-wing and one B-wing miniature, both of which come with alternate paint schemes. You’ll also find four highly skilled unique, new pilots; thirteen upgrade cards; maneuver dials; and all the tokens necessary to launch these starfighters into the thickest action of your space battles against the evil Galactic Empire. It also includes a new mission, which thrusts some of the Rebellion’s finest pilots into a desperate rescue effort that highlights the B-wing’s durability and the A-wing’s agility.

Heroic New Paint Schemes

Fly with the best! The alternate paint schemes on the starfighter miniatures from the Rebel Aces Expansion Pack allow you to battle for the Rebellion’s cause while representing the heroic efforts of the pilots who first flew its A-wings and B-wings as experimental prototypes.

Only ace pilots were granted the right to fly prototypes for the Rebel fleet. Piloting the agile A-wing required tremendous focus and lightning fast reflexes. Still, by helping the Rebel Alliance develop and improve upon its original designs, their efforts benefitted everyone dedicated to the cause of galactic freedom, and the A-wing ultimately proved its worth during the Battle of Endor by helping to cripple Star Destroyers.

To honor those prototype pilots who first flew the ship, the A-wing in Rebel Aces features the paint scheme depicted on the Prototype Pilot ship card, with a bold blue central stripe and red and yellow highlights.

Meanwhile, with its heavy weapons array and resilient shielding, the B-wing quickly established itself as one of the Rebellion’s most formidable assault fighters. The fighter’s unique gyrostabilization system ensured that its cockpit always remained stationary during flight, better enabling its pilot to coordinate complex flight and attack maneuvers. However, its rotating cockpit and complex Fabritech ANv-9q sensor system could only be mastered by seasoned veterans, and it took the Rebellion longer than it had initially anticipated to qualify pilots who could fly the ship in battle.

The pilots of Dagger Squadron were the first to be equipped with the B-wing in its experimental stages, and they were the first to be activated and sent into battle with the starfighter. Accordingly, Rebel Aces features a B-wing painted white with red highlights to match Dagger Squadron’s color scheme.

Both the A-wing and B-wing included in Rebel Aces share the same 1/270 scale sculpt as the miniatures found in the A-Wing Expansion Pack and B-Wing Expansion Pack, respectively.

New Pilots and Upgrades

Just as each A-wing and B-wing is merely a powerful tool within the Rebel fleet, the expansion’s variant starfighters are just the beginning of what it offers players.

To fly a starfighter, you need a pilot. to fly one of the galaxy’s most challenging starfighters, you need one of the galaxy’s greatest pilots. In Rebel Aces, you’ll find four unique, new pilots who not only rise to the challenge of flying these demanding vessels, but who can make them dance.

For example, Jake Farrell came out of retirement to teach Rebels how to fly against Imperial forces and was recruited to help design the A-wing. In X-Wing, he appears as one of the game’s most focused pilots. Every time he performs the focus action or receives a focus token, he may perform a free boost or barrel roll action.

Similarly, the tremendously skilled B-wing pilot, Keyan Farlander, enters the game with a potent ability of his own. Any time he attacks, he may remove a stress token in order to change all of his  results to  results. This not only allows him to convert a detrimental effect into a positive attack modification; it also permits him to perform stressful red maneuvers with impunity. If he chose, Keyan Farlander could potentially perform the difficult Koiogran-turn maneuver every round.

Additionally, Rebel Aces introduces thirteen upgrade cards that may very well reinvent the ways in which these ships are used in battle. You’ll find a new missile, a one-cost system upgrade, Title cards for both starfighters, two Rebel only crew, and the game’s first upgrade with a negative squad point cost, Chardaan Refit.

With all these upgrades, your A-wings and B-wings will be more customizable, more versatile, and more useful than ever.

Jump to Subspace

Additionally, Rebel Aces introduces a dramatic new mission, Jump to Subspace, in which a Rebel operative has captured a high-ranking Moff. However, that operative and his captive also happen to be adrift within an escape pod headed toward an asteroid field. As Imperial forces close in on the escape pod, the Rebel Alliance races to the rescue, relying upon the agility of its A-wing and the resilience of its B-wing.

The Rebels begin this mission with more squad points than the Imperials, but they’ll need all those squad points – and the elite skills of their A-wing and B-wing aces – in order to fend off wave after wave of Imperial fighters, even as they must guide the escape pod through a jumble of asteroids.

Don Your Flight Gear

Do you want to prove your piloting skills? Then, here’s your chance to suit up as one of the elite pilots the Rebel Alliance calls upon to fly and perfect its prototype starfighters. The Rebel Aces Expansion Pack is scheduled to arrive at retailers and intensify your X-Wing battles in the third quarter of 2014!

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