The fourth set for Star Wars Unlimited, Jump to Lightspeed, features an entirely new keyword: Piloting. This keyword features on numerous unit cards, and even on leader cards too. The set is bringing space units to the fore for the first time in the game, and the Piloting keyword is be a big part of that. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at how it works.
How to Use the Piloting Keyword in Star Wars Unlimited
There’s a similarity between Piloting and Smuggle, in that it has an alternate cost to be paid, if players choose to deploy a unit using the new keyword. In the case of the Bossk card above, if you choose to deploy it to the ground arena, as a ground unit, as normal, its cost of four resources will apply, with the aspects of cunning and villainy also required.
However, if you instead want to use Bossk’s Piloting keyword, you can pay two resources (along with the cunning and villainy aspects) to attach Bossk to a vehicle, either in the ground or space arena, where it instead functions as an upgrade to the vehicle itself.
The vehicle will gain +2 power and +2 HP, as shown at the bottom of the Bossk card, and also the On Attack ability, which will exhaust the defender and deal one damage to it, if it’s a unit.
Similarly, the Chewbacca card shown above can be deployed as a unit normally, using five resources (with the command and heroism aspects). However, using Piloting, Chewbacca can be attached as an upgrade to a vehicle instead. Using Piloting with Chewbacca’s card costs three resources (plus the command and heroism), and gives the unit it’s attached to an extra +3 power, as well as an extra +3 HP. The vehicle will also gain the ability “This unit can’t be defeated or returned to hand by enemy card abilities.”
Units with Piloting can be attached to any friendly vehicle unit, in ground or in space, as long as it doesn’t already have a pilot. However, we’ve already seen an exception to this, which we’ll take a look at now!
That’s right, if you take a look at the Millennium Falcon card above, it allows for two pilots to be played or deployed on it. So you can get both Han Solo and Chewbacca on there, if you choose. Or any other combination of two pilots that you have in your deck, and it even gets a +1 power bonus per pilot it’s upgraded with!
There’s no doubt that Piloting is an extremely exciting new keyword, and it’s very likely to add an entirely new layer of strategy to Star Wars Unlimited. For details on other keywords, take a look at our guide to how coordinate and exploit work, along with our list of all currently available keywords in Star Wars Unlimited.
