1. Do we know what any of them do yet?

There are five likely candidates in the Most Wanted card fan:

In the top row, there's a unique that looks like its name starts with "R4", a unique that looks like its name starts with "G", and generic "R4 A...". These have their text almost entirely hidden.

In the bottom row, there are two generics: one called "Salv... Astr..." and one called "Unh... Astr..." or "Und... Astr..." (Presumably "Astr" is "Astromech".) More text is visible here, but I'll let someone else get a headache straining his or her eyes to figure out any tidbits.

I really want a grizzled droid with an eye patch....

They obviously don't want the Scum faction using R2-D2 because that doesn't make any sense thematically.

These aren't the droids you're looking for...

That said I want the Scum droids to have eye patches and smoking cigars and stuff.

Ah Yeah! That guy is awesome! I want him in my Y-Wing.

I imagine one of the reasons for having s&v mechs is that the y wing is the same sculpt and moulding as the rebel one so if the model clearly has one it makes sense to allow it as an ungrade.

Otherwise they would have to make two versions of Y wing, much eaiser to print card than remodel the steel moulds

Honestly...

A steel injection moulding tooling set cost about £250,000 to make the set up for a large kit in 2005.

(i worked for GW, a tank kit would cost about 250k to have the very precise steel stamping moulds made, they open up and slam shut hundreds of times an hour)

Now, i'm not sure if xwing minis are made in the same way as plastic tank kits but I imagine its a similar process of making a 3 up or 5 up master model and scaling it down with a pantograph to the size we play with today (judging by the pics in the rulebook)

I'd have thought that they would probably have a steel press cut to do several Y wings in one go (like seperate components for a kit). You could probably get 14 or so on your average size mould

That wont be a cheap process. Even removing the astromech from a Y wing would require a new steel mould if they use this process (whereas adding one would just require milling out more mould).

Cardstock on the other hand has no long development time, no costly trial and error.. you design it then print it.. colours might be a bit off first time or the cutters off cente but on the whole its less work than milling out industrial grade steel.

so they would have had a choice of 'design new Y wing' (which would cost thousands) or 'use the current one with a clearly modeled astromech and repaint it'..

Business no brainer.

THAT will be why S&V have astromechs on a purely business level. You can justify it in game lore later.

Even in the unlikely event that the ships are made by pouring resin into silicone moulds then making ONE ship is stil more cost effective than making two variants.

Im preatty shure those two reason ave nothing to do whit the decision to create Salvage astromec.

First: The choise of ship. They did no ave to put the Y-wing in ther

Second: They could just paint it black or the same color as the hull to make the miniscule bump in the ship beaing seamless.

Third: What did cost more the time it took to adress the issue (creating Salvage astro, diferent ability, weighting for and against, thinking other solution, etc,) or create new moulds. Or even ave a enploye snip the Astromec of the ship...

What ever the reason its higly unlikly that they made ther decision in relation off the ship model.

I imagine one of the reasons for having s&v mechs is that the y wing is the same sculpt and moulding as the rebel one so if the model clearly has one it makes sense to allow it as an ungrade.

Otherwise they would have to make two versions of Y wing, much eaiser to print card than remodel the steel moulds

Honestly...

A steel injection moulding tooling set cost about £250,000 to make the set up for a large kit in 2005.

(i worked for GW, a tank kit would cost about 250k to have the very precise steel stamping moulds made, they open up and slam shut hundreds of times an hour)

Now, i'm not sure if xwing minis are made in the same way as plastic tank kits but I imagine its a similar process of making a 3 up or 5 up master model and scaling it down with a pantograph to the size we play with today (judging by the pics in the rulebook)

I'd have thought that they would probably have a steel press cut to do several Y wings in one go (like seperate components for a kit). You could probably get 14 or so on your average size mould

That wont be a cheap process. Even removing the astromech from a Y wing would require a new steel mould if they use this process (whereas adding one would just require milling out more mould).

Cardstock on the other hand has no long development time, no costly trial and error.. you design it then print it.. colours might be a bit off first time or the cutters off cente but on the whole its less work than milling out industrial grade steel.

so they would have had a choice of 'design new Y wing' (which would cost thousands) or 'use the current one with a clearly modeled astromech and repaint it'..

Business no brainer.

THAT will be why S&V have astromechs on a purely business level. You can justify it in game lore later.

Even in the unlikely event that the ships are made by pouring resin into silicone moulds then making ONE ship is stil more cost effective than making two variants.

Im preatty shure those two reason ave nothing to do whit the decision to create Salvage astromec.

First: The choise of ship. They did no ave to put the Y-wing in ther

Second: They could just paint it black or the same color as the hull to make the miniscule bump in the ship beaing seamless.

Third: What did cost more the time it took to adress the issue (creating Salvage astro, diferent ability, weighting for and against, thinking other solution, etc,) or create new moulds. Or even ave a enploye snip the Astromec of the ship...

What ever the reason its higly unlikly that they made ther decision in relation off the ship model.

Those three points you made would have looked much sharper as a numbered list...

It' the same reason we have torpedos and missiles as separate things, when in reality they are so similar. I used to be pretty annoyed at this because every other upgrade type felt distinct.... but Torps and Missiles were basically the same thing. But separating them into their own category allows better control over mechanics.

But in the case of missiles and torps.... if they WERE ll lumped together into "ordinance", what would really be broken? An X-Wing with Assault missile? I dunno doesn't seem like there is much wrong with that. Wedge would have a better chance to hit maybe, but that's a TON of points.

That said I want the Scum droids to have eye patches and smoking cigars and stuff.

That, and a Droid only ability card called "Bite my shiny metal..."

Okay it is no surprise that Imperials don't have any Astromech as they clearly do and you can see examples of loyal imperial astromech and other droids in the movies. However they don't have them installed on ships the same way as rebels do. So if the imperials do get astromech it would be like the crew R2-D2 that takes up a crew slot instead of an astromech slot that none of the imperial ships have, and it would have the text "Imperial Only". Now since S&V use the same ships that rebels use of course they would get their own droid slot. As for now they don't have as many ships that use droids as the rebels.

It' the same reason we have torpedos and missiles as separate things, when in reality they are so similar. I used to be pretty annoyed at this because every other upgrade type felt distinct.... but Torps and Missiles were basically the same thing. But separating them into their own category allows better control over mechanics.

But in the case of missiles and torps.... if they WERE ll lumped together into "ordinance", what would really be broken? An X-Wing with Assault missile? I dunno doesn't seem like there is much wrong with that. Wedge would have a better chance to hit maybe, but that's a TON of points.

It' the same reason we have torpedos and missiles as separate things, when in reality they are so similar. I used to be pretty annoyed at this because every other upgrade type felt distinct.... but Torps and Missiles were basically the same thing. But separating them into their own category allows better control over mechanics.

But in the case of missiles and torps.... if they WERE ll lumped together into "ordinance", what would really be broken? An X-Wing with Assault missile? I dunno doesn't seem like there is much wrong with that. Wedge would have a better chance to hit maybe, but that's a TON of points.

But the fluff man...the fluff!

I imagine one of the reasons for having s&v mechs is that the y wing is the same sculpt and moulding as the rebel one so if the model clearly has one it makes sense to allow it as an ungrade.

Otherwise they would have to make two versions of Y wing, much eaiser to print card than remodel the steel moulds

Honestly...

A steel injection moulding tooling set cost about £250,000 to make the set up for a large kit in 2005.

(i worked for GW, a tank kit would cost about 250k to have the very precise steel stamping moulds made, they open up and slam shut hundreds of times an hour)

Now, i'm not sure if xwing minis are made in the same way as plastic tank kits but I imagine its a similar process of making a 3 up or 5 up master model and scaling it down with a pantograph to the size we play with today (judging by the pics in the rulebook)

I'd have thought that they would probably have a steel press cut to do several Y wings in one go (like seperate components for a kit). You could probably get 14 or so on your average size mould

That wont be a cheap process. Even removing the astromech from a Y wing would require a new steel mould if they use this process (whereas adding one would just require milling out more mould).

Cardstock on the other hand has no long development time, no costly trial and error.. you design it then print it.. colours might be a bit off first time or the cutters off cente but on the whole its less work than milling out industrial grade steel.

so they would have had a choice of 'design new Y wing' (which would cost thousands) or 'use the current one with a clearly modeled astromech and repaint it'..

Business no brainer.

THAT will be why S&V have astromechs on a purely business level. You can justify it in game lore later.

Even in the unlikely event that the ships are made by pouring resin into silicone moulds then making ONE ship is stil more cost effective than making two variants.

Im preatty shure those two reason ave nothing to do whit the decision to create Salvage astromec.

First: The choise of ship. They did no ave to put the Y-wing in ther

Second: They could just paint it black or the same color as the hull to make the miniscule bump in the ship beaing seamless.

Third: What did cost more the time it took to adress the issue (creating Salvage astro, diferent ability, weighting for and against, thinking other solution, etc,) or create new moulds. Or even ave a enploye snip the Astromec of the ship...

What ever the reason its higly unlikly that they made ther decision in relation off the ship model.

As i said i'm making that supposition based on a decade of working in the wargames industry, working with games dev and fully understanding the cost and processes involved in making lead, resin and plastic wargames figures.

But if you'd just prefer to guess rather than consider it's highly likely that the classic 'pirate fleet' ship, the y wing, would look **** stupid with an astromech slot with an mech in rather than allow people to use it thats cool with me.

Honestly, just think about it. You've got a servicable model that happens to have a very obvious astromech in there. It would be crazy to sculpt a new one or resculpt the existing one and have two production moulds when you can just make a quick rule and cheap cardstock.

...

But if you'd just prefer to guess rather than consider it's highly likely that the classic 'pirate fleet' ship, the y wing, would look **** stupid with an astromech slot with an mech in rather than allow people to use it thats cool with me.

Honestly, just think about it. You've got a servicable model that happens to have a very obvious astromech in there. It would be crazy to sculpt a new one or resculpt the existing one and have two production moulds when you can just make a quick rule and cheap cardstock.

Im not saying your input ave no sense, meaning or interess. Just that if they wanted a Y-wing with no Astromech at all (totaly stupid idea in all aspect) they could just ave put a guy (kid) to snip the model befor the paint shop. It would look like a metal plating covering the hole.

I made a custom astromech, R2-C4. He can be jettisoned before revealing your movement dial. Place straight 1 move template behind your ship to mark the astromech position. At the end of the entire movement phase, measure range 1 from the astromech. All ships within thus range are dealt a critical damage card.

I guess it just depends on the designers intent - did they intend for no astromech and go - crap what about the sculpt, or did they intend for an astromech and go - crap what about r2-d2. Or, were they methodical and crazy and said "what about scummy astromechs from the get go?!"

I'm not sure speculation on this point will actually mean much - as we have a new droid icon, so, let's hope the droids are awesome, but not so awesome we go "nooo , I want that on my rebel y-wing!"

I made a custom astromech, R2-C4. He can be jettisoned before revealing your movement dial. Place straight 1 move template behind your ship to mark the astromech position. At the end of the entire movement phase, measure range 1 from the astromech. All ships within thus range are dealt a critical damage card.

So... A proton bomb that takes a droid slot.

I made a custom astromech, R2-C4. He can be jettisoned before revealing your movement dial. Place straight 1 move template behind your ship to mark the astromech position. At the end of the entire movement phase, measure range 1 from the astromech. All ships within thus range are dealt a critical damage card.

So... A proton bomb that takes a droid slot.