This post regarding Astromech Droids is part of a larger article regarding Wave 1 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "Ship List Articles" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Card: R5 Astromech (1)
Card Text: During the End phase, you may choose 1 of your face up Damage cards with the Ship trait and flip it face down.
Usage in game: Critical damage effect mitigation.
Action?: No.Quick Take: R5 Astromechs are pretty straightforward in their use, so there won't be a ton to discuss here. For one point, you get to flip down a face up Damage card (usually the result of a Critical Hit) on the ship with the R5. Pretty simple.
What effect does this really have? Ok, first off, there are 33 Damage cards in a X-Wing Miniatures deck. Of those 33 cards, 8 are of the Pilot type, the remaining 25 are of the Ship type, so the likelihood of this card being able to be a theoretical benefit is fairly good (2/3 of a chance- me know math!) if you do happen to incur a face up Damage card.
So what kind of ships benefit from something like this? Obviously a Rebel ship as Imps can't use Astromech droids, so we're looking at X-Wings and Y-Wings. Can we pare this selection process down further? I think we can- Y-Wings, with their 5 Hull Points are more likely to incur Crit damage than an X-Wing, because well, X-Wings with only 3 Hull Points are more likely to blow up before the Crit takes effect. This isn't a knock on the X-Wing, there's just simply less Hull to go around. So a Y-Wing then? Yeah, most likely.
How big of a deal is this? Well, most Damage cards when flipped face up will have some sort of long-lasting effect- all maneuvers of a particular flavor are now red maneuvers, not being able to fire a primary weapon system next game turn, not being able to fire a secondary weapon system at all, suddenly finding yourself playing the rest of the game at Pilot Rank 0, stuff like that. There are some effects that are worse, there are some that are not that big of a deal, and they're fairly evenly peppered throughout the deck between both Pilot and Ship types. Of course, if you're really that concerned about Critical damage effects (which after Wave 2 drops, you just might be...), a Rebel could take both R5 Astromech and the Determination Elite Pilot Skill and hope to get rid of any/ all of those nasty Crit effects.
Don't misunderstand me here- R5 Astromech is not some ship-centric, droid version of Determination; there are two important differences. First, the effects of the Crit do have a chance to take effect with R5 as the text say to flip it face down during the End phase (Determination immediately nullifies) as opposed to immediately upon receiving it. Secondly, Determination makes the ouchie go away entirely- the card isn't flipped down, it's discarded. Not only do you not get dinged with the effects of the Crit, the damage doesn't even actually count against your hull! Not so with R5- the effect of the card is mitigated by flipping it face down, but the card does in fact, stay on your ship, so you are damaged by it, just not Critically. This is why if you scroll back up to my "Usage in Game" entry towards the top of this post, you see that I have "Critical damage effect mitigation". You still take the Hull damage, just not the effect of the Crit. Important distinction.
All that said, is it worth a point? On a generic Y-Wing, yeah, I'd say so. Especially so if you're running several Y-Wings in your list. Only one Y-Wing, I think you're better off putting in a real damage mitigation droid, but if you only have a point left, I think it's worth spending it on a R5. If you've got two or three (or more) Y-Wings in your list, they're each less likely to be the target of focused fire from multiple TIEs, so they're a little more likely to be floating around the board with Hull damage.
This post regarding Astromech Droids is part of a larger article regarding Wave 1 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "Ship List Articles" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Card: R2 Astromech (1)
Card Text: You may treat all 1- and 2-speed maneuvers as green maneuvers.
Usage in game: Stress mitigation.
Action?: No.Quick Take: R2 Astromechs are either invaluable or kind of pointless depending largely on your playstyle. There's really not a lot to talk about here- if you invoke Stress on your ships a lot in your games of X-Wing Miniatures, primarily by performing the K-Turn, you're probably a huge fan of the R2 Astromech as it gives you more Stress removing green maneuvers than what's present on the standard ship dial.
If you don't, you're probably not.
As that's pretty much the whole story, let's instead focus on whether or not you should be using the K-Turn. We'll limit this particular discussion to Rebel ships as they're the only ones with access to Droids currently.
Ideally, a K-Turn should be a recovery type maneuver after a Range 1 attack that didn't kill somebody it was supposed to, who is now nearly dead (e.g. 1 or 2 hull points). However, it's not a bad move to inflict on yourself from time to time if performing it will take you out of an Imperial's line of fire.
To put it another way, you probably shouldn't be performing K-Turns for offensive reasons, only defensive ones.
If you're K-Turning just to get an Imperial in your sights and he's not close to being dead, you're unlikely to kill him because since you incur Stress at the time of the maneuver, you won't be able to perform an Action that round. You compromise yourself offensively by not being able to Focus or Target Lock and you compromise yourself defensively by not being able to Focus. Additionally, to rid yourself of the Stress, you have to pull a green maneuver for your next movement. As all ships in X-Wing Miniatures are limited in the amount of available green maneuvers to make this stress mechanic function, you're also compromising yourself in your next movement phase to get rid of that Stress token, assuming of course, that you actually want to be able to perform an Action next round.
Long story short, all of that heartache isn't worth it to score a single hit on a TIE most of the time. Target Lock him instead, fly away, then come back in a round or two for a second pass. Play patiently and you'll reap the benefits. Now, that said, is it worth it to get Vader with one hull point left off the table sooner rather than later? Hell yeah. Again, don't misunderstand me here- there are times to pull K-Turns. Is it worth it to get yourself the heck away from the business end of a TIE Swarm? Oh fo' sho'. That's where your R2 Astromech comes into play.
R2 Astro won't help you with the losing of the Action and all that, but having all your 1 & 2 speed maneuvers be green for the purposes of Stress removal does put some options back into your hands as far as maneuvering in the subsequent movement phase.
So who do you put it on? Most named pilots would benefit far more from a named droid, but having an R2 Astromech on Wedge isn't a terrible idea if you've got plans for say R2-D2 and R2-F2 already as he can mitigate the no-Action Stress side effect with his card ability. Same with Luke and his defensive Focus-lite ability.
Note in a strange bit of canon-bending, the only way (currently) to obtain an R2 Astromech is through the purchase of the Y-Wing expansion blister. Now, your buddies may have different rules than what's the Tournament Standard, but if you want to play things 100% legit in your games, you have to have a copy of every card present on every ship. Bear that in mind before you make a list with 4 Rookie X-Wings doing K-Turns all over the place with R2 Astromechs as their backseat drivers.
This post regarding Astromech Droids is part of a larger article regarding Wave 1 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "Ship List Articles" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Card: R5-K6 (2)
Card Text: After spending your target lock, roll 1 defense die. On a <evade> result, immediately acquire a target lock on that same ship. You cannot spend this target lock during this attack.
Usage in game: Maintaining a Target Lock on particularly tough nuts to crack.
Action?: No.Quick Take: R5-K6 is a good droid to stick on an Rebel ship if you've got a few extra points and you plan on playing said ship offensively. He's not going to produce a massive difference in your damage output or anything, but as it's fairly uncommon to one-shot kill a ship in this game with anyone short of Wedge or some very lucky rolls, possessing a potentially persistent (look at that alliteration there! Whooo me!) Target Lock is a pretty handy ability to have at your disposal.
However, this isn't a done deal kind of agreement here. You only get the Target Lock if you successfully roll an Evade result on a Defense die after you spend the Target Lock token. So what's the odds of that happening? 3 in 8, or 37.5%. Not great odds, but considering it doesn't cost you an Action- just happens automatically, it's not bad for 2 points.
So the downside is you sort of wasted 2 points to do something you can do for free in the Action phase anyway. The upside is if it triggers, you can Focus with your normal Action instead. That's not bad at all if you really didn't have bigger plans in mind for the Astromech socket to start with.
Again, there are folks out there who will tell you that having points in your list that aren't utilized 100% of the time is inefficient. They're correct to a certain extent, but as having Initiative lends a fairly nebulous and convoluted advantage, if I were looking at a list that was 98 points that included a ship with an empty Astromech socket, I'd consider R5-K6 for sure. You also kind of have to take into account that line of "wasted points" thinking works a little differently in X-Wing than most other miniatures games because not all ships have the same access to upgrades.
I've seen people advocate the use of R5-K6 on Dutch Vander because the two card abilities dovetail in a rather interesting (and FAQ legal) way. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but I think Dutch Vander is enough of a priority target these days, I'd be more likely to give him a droid that helps to mitigate damage in some way. If you're curious about the particulars of that interaction, check out my article on Dutch.
Personally, I like using R5-K6 on a X-Wing of the Rookie or Red Squadron persuasion. If I know my opponent usually runs a roaming, loner type ship like Vader or Backstabber for example, I'll have that X-Wing with R5-K6 go after that ship in particular. Having a Target Locked X-Wing breathing down your neck who has a nearly 40% chance of getting that TL back for free isn't anyone's idea of a good day. Look at it this way, if he turns around and deals with that X-Wing, well, he's not going after Luke or Wedge or one of your other higher priority targets. If he doesn't deal with him, there's a better chance of putting some damage on him than there is with just a stock X-Wing. In my book, that's worth a couple of points.
This post regarding Astromech Droids is part of a larger article regarding Wave 1 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "Ship List Articles" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Card: R5-D8 (3)
Card Text: Roll one Defense die- on a <evade> or <focus> result, discard one of your face down damage cards
Usage in game: Hull damage mitigation.
Action?: YesQuick Take: First let's look at what all is going on with R5-D8- he requires an Action and doesn't have an automatic success rate, but the ability to remove a face down damage card is pretty huge, so is R5-D8 worth it or not?
So what's the success rate on R5-D8? Since rolling an eyeball or an Evade is what we're looking for, the only thing that screws us here is a blank. If you examine a Defense die, you'll see of its 8 sides, three are blanks, so there's a not insignificant 37.5% chance even after spending the 3 points necessary to buy R5-D8 and spending one of your valuable Actions, you still have nothing to show for it.
So with all that in mind, do we like him or not?
I like him, and the other R5's on Y-Wings in a general, blanket statement kind of way. Since X-Wings have only 3 hull, you might not live long enough to have a chance to use R5-D8 effectively. A Y-Wing though has 5 hull, so even if you blow an attempt at R5-D8's Action or two, you still just might be alive to get attempt three or four to work, and although it might not seem like much, there's a world of difference in how many TIEs statistically are required to take down a Y-Wing with 3 hull points left or 4 hull points.
To put it another way, Y-Wings are much more likely to be involved actively in the game in some sort of (hull) damaged state for a longer period of game time than an X-Wing will be. That said, I could see him work on Luke as well because of Luke's increased longevity due to his Focus-lite defensive ability. As both R2-F2 and R5-D8 are dotted (unique and can only be taken once in a ship list), I could see making a case for sticking R2-F2 on someone like Biggs or Wedge and saving R5-D8 for Luke.
Again, like R2-F2, you can somewhat mitigate the spending of your Action on the droid ability by flying alongside someone who offers the Focus and Target Lock tokens normally available to an X-Wing or Y-Wing: Garven Dreis and/ or Dutch Vander.
This post regarding Astromech Droids is part of a larger article regarding Wave 1 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "Ship List Articles" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Card: R2-F2 (3)
Card Text: Increase your agility value by 1 until the end of this game round.
Usage in game: Survival through stacking the deck.
Action?: YesQuick Take: For my own personal playstyle and taste, R2-F2 is the droid to have on a ship you're trying to keep in the game in Wave 1. Strange as it may seem as Luke and R2-D2 have this father/ robot son relationship kind of thing going on, I think R2-F2 is the best match for Luke in just about any build. Recall that Luke already has kind of a built-in Focus lite ability, spending an Action on R2-F2's ability just adds one more die to that possibility.
He also adds an interesting dimension to a Y-Wing as everyone is completely used to the notion of a Y-Wing having 1 Agility and you're sure to disrupt some game plans by using the Action and it suddenly has 2 Agility (to go along with the 3 shields and 5 hull).
The cons are obvious- he costs 3 points and requires an Action to work. The three points I don't feel is a bad price to pay for having the option of adding an extra defense die when you want it, and giving up an Action on an X-Wing isn't the end of the world. Again, you're only ever Focusing or Target Locking with most pilots anyway, so if losing those tokens is a big deal to you, try to work in Garven Dreis or Dutch Vander, respectively. Also note that R2-F2 is a "dotted" card which of course means he may only appear once in your squadron list.
Me personally, I don't find it's usually necessary because I don't usually activate R2-F2 every single round. There are some that might say that's a points inefficiency, but I usually have a handful of points lying around extra when making a 100 point list anyway, so rather than sticking on Proton Torpedoes or a droid for a pilot who probably doesn't really need him/ utilize him, I'll just use R2-F2 instead.
The last thing I'd mention about R2-F2 is figure out a system to help you remember you need to perform his action or that you've performed his action. As he doesn't have a special counter, sometimes he can get lost in the mix. I usually just turn his card sideways next to the owning pilot's card.
This post regarding Astromech Droids is part of a larger article regarding Wave 1 listbuilding- the rest of the posts n this series will be available in the coming weeks as I'm revealing a post or two per day on the various topics in that larger article. For more info, click the "Ship List Articles" tab at the top of the page or simply click here.
Card: R2-D2 (4)
Card Text: After executing a green maneuver, you may recover 1 shield (up to your shield value).
Usage in game: Survival through shield maintenance.
Action?: NoQuick Take: The key to properly using R2-D2 and getting your points out of him is to not overestimate his ability. Getting a shield back after a green maneuver is awesome, but you can't just charge in willy-nilly like a Space Marine with a new suit of blessed power armor shouting "FOR TEH EMPRAH!!!", y'know?
First, understand that R2-D2's ability is going to trigger during the movement phase in the turn after you get shot up. This is important to understand- if you get focused on by two or three TIEs, you're still going to die. R2-D2 only helps you out if you survive the current round of combat. The other portion of the equation is you need to pull a green maneuver, which usually isn't that big of a deal, but there are some Damage cards out there that will effectively nullify your ability to pull greens, sometimes permanently.
As such, putting R2-D2 on a bullet magnet like Wedge or Biggs then driving right into the middle of a TIE pile isn't the best application for him. I don't know that R2-D2 is a great droid for either of those guys in general really- they take too much fire. Does R2-D2 help? Sure. Are there other droids that can do the job of keeping those dudes alive more effectively? I think there are. There's some disagreement here to be had, I'll fully admit and in the interest of full disclosure, sticking R2-D2 on Wedge or Biggs probably won't be the dumbest thing you do that day, if you do decide to try it.
So who is R2-D2 good on? Sticking him on Luke I feel is a bit overkill, but depending on the droids your other pilots are taking, it might be a good move. Depends too if you're using Luke in a more offensive role or if he's more support because you've dished him Swarm Tactics.
I know it'll sound silly, but I like putting R2-D2 on a low priority target- a Red Squadron Pilot preferably. It seems like my opponents focus on getting the A-Listers off the table as quickly as possible, then deal with the B-listers like a Red Squadron Pilot when they feel like it with whatever ships remain. A Red Squadron Pilot with R2-D2 is unlikely to get focused on early in the game, so when it starts to get late, that dude will likely be completely unscathed and since he's facing less TIEs now, will suddenly become the MVP of your force. R2-D2 isn't going to be able to mitigate the damage from two or three focus-firing TIEs with Howlrunner letting them re-roll, but he sure as hell can mitigate a TIE or two firing on their own and that's a match-up that's going to go the X-Wing's way every time.
I tell ya who else I like sticking R2-D2 on, a Y-Wing. The downside is they have relatively few green maneuvers, but the upside is they have 3 shields standard, so they're fairly hard to burn off anyway so long as you keep them from getting ganged up on. Horton Salm with R2-D2 and 2x Proton Torpedoes? Madness you say!
