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Setting fire to the heroes' main assets is a good way to motivate them to do something interesting. Rather than attack with a group of orcs, attack with a group of orcs firing flaming arrows. Any arrow that misses hitting a character, assess a chance of having it hit something else significant. Their bedrolls, their travelling packs, one of their horses, the wizard's spellbook...
Flaming attacks are also useful in battles involving vehicles. Setting fire to a wagon or to a ship's rigging or to the interior compartments of a space vessel is a guaranteed way to boost the excitement level in a combat encounter.
Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)
I need to remind myself that this is Jim and Corey, not Jim and Pete.
Jim, of course, is playing in brain-off mode. Hotwiring something on fire is easier because it's hot, right? And a 3 is "not terrible".
I once ran a D&D character that got the nickname "Rocky Hitzandduz". Even he had to check if a 3 would hit or not.
Now, with all these troopers, Annie's character manages to not be hit. No different than "You hit that other security droid that looks just like Q-eso (or whatever that combat droid was, I still think of him as "queso"/cheese.)
So a normal combat scene, lots of minions that die easily, and a simple complication. Lets see it resolve next strip.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
That's definitely an improvement over the standard X-wing; I don't recall them ever having point-defence guns. Also an improvement, allowing the droid to control parts of the ship rather than just being a passenger. I wonder if Pete came up with that design; he was always stuck as a passenger that never did anything in the X-wings as far as I could tell. The Naboo fighters let him control the ship, but those are probably in short supply now. Definitely not the sort of thing that I expect to find in starting gear.
And I'm surprised to say that I'm in agreement with Jim here on the "Not great, not terrible". For me though, not terrible is the engines remaining in a single, fixable piece. I bet BB can take care of them, assuming the ship lasts another round.
Transcript
GM: Troopers rush towards your X-wing.
BB-8: What systems can I control?
GM: The main guns, but they’re pointing away from the troopers. There’s a swivel point-defence gun.
BB-8: I fire that.
[SFX]: Pow!
[SFX]: Ka-boom!
[SFX]: Pow! Boom!
BB-8: We need to get out of here!
GM: <roll> The ship won’t start.
Poe: I hotwire it!
BB-8: The engines are on fire!
Poe: Should be easy then!
GM: Roll.
[SFX]: Boom! Pow!
Poe: 3. Not great, not terrible.
GM: The gun stops working.
BB-8: How is that not terrible?!
Poe: The engines are still warmed up!