With 5 hull, the Y-wing can spend a good amount of time on the board with damage cards. I've personally never ran a Y with the R5-D8, but I'm beginning to think I should try it. Maybe on Dutch with Gaven to help pass around some Focus on the rounds he attempts the astromech's action. Anyone have any experience with or consistently run the R5-D8 on the Y-wing or X-wing?

He did not work well for me with any existing pilot.

Porkins + PTL should like him.

As dvor mentions Porkins may want to run it as a way to eat cards he could get avoiding stress.

After that a Y-Wing is the best place for it but I'm not all that sold that it fit there very well either. It's use costs 3 points and an action plus it is also very conditional as you need a face-down card and the droid needs to work. I guess I've never run it because I usually want to spend 3 points on something I know I'll use, or want to use, and that is not subject to the whims of fate when asked to do what I want it to do.

I have run R5-D8 on Horton with an Ion Turret and flew him in arcs at the edge of the brawl.

[insert The Little Engine That Could Analogy Here]

I have run R5-D8 on Horton with an Ion Turret and flew him in arcs at the edge of the brawl.

[insert The Little Engine That Could Analogy Here]

This is what I was thinking. The Ion doesn't need anything to work, and Horton even gets re-rolls on range 2-3 shots!

I had him on Horton last week and it worked well. I ended up removing two damage from him and was able to fight longer.

I think Porkins will like him best indeed,

thinking i'll even put a hull upgrade om him aswel

Wasnt it actually his droid in the stories?

The problem is the action cost and the unreliability; it's an enormous price to pay, since it costs you substantial power on either offense or defense, and it's an even bigger price when you don't know whether it will work.

Setting Porkins aside, R5-D8 is probably most effective on a Y-wing. If you know you'll want to spend an action defensively, then that action buys you 0.625 extra health rather than the 0.25 you'd get from a focus token.

But... picture how often you use the evade action. Then imagine how often you'd use it if it cost 3 points to give your ship the ability, and were 1/3 less effective at preventing damage. The droid isn't terrible , but it's not particularly attractive even in the best case.

Porkins will be the best choice going forward. In conjunction with Push the Limit, he only has a 14% chance if sustaining (and keeping) that damage, and if R5-D8 fails, he can try it again.

The problem is the action cost and the unreliability; it's an enormous price to pay, since it costs you substantial power on either offense or defense, and it's an even bigger price when you don't know whether it will work.

Setting Porkins aside, R5-D8 is probably most effective on a Y-wing. If you know you'll want to spend an action defensively, then that action buys you 0.625 extra health rather than the 0.25 you'd get from a focus token.

But... picture how often you use the evade action. Then imagine how often you'd use it if it cost 3 points to give your ship the ability, and were 1/3 less effective at preventing damage. The droid isn't terrible , but it's not particularly attractive even in the best case.

When I have used R5-D8, I usually have him on an Ion Turret Y-Wing with the rest of my fleet invoking Ripley from Aliens.

I have had success with it I think because I have not had to use R5-D8 every turn, and thus able to focus when I dont need him for the added survivabilty, because my opponent has to choose between shooting at him, or the larger threat that I am punching them in the face with.

But YMMV

Wasnt it actually his [Porkins} droid in the stories?

Yes it was

Wasnt it actually his [Porkins} droid in the stories?

Yes it was

And FFG contiues their trend of very thematic Pilot abilites and Upgrade abilities.

I've yet to use R5-D8, not because I don't like the ability, but simply because I've usually had to resort to cheaper droid units out of something of a necessity because of the cost of the typical Rebel units I use (usually 25 point Green Squadrons alongside 25 point Grey Squadrons with R2 units, or B-Wings of some kind).

That being said... I think if I'm going to invest 3 points or so into a droid I'd rather take R2-F2 or the upcoming R3-A2 unit that creates stress. R5-D8 is going to be great with Porkins, I don't have any doubt about that, but it was basically created as a counterpart unit to R2-D2 when the game was in Wave 1 still, which, let's be honest, is completely worth the extra point of investment for his ability.