R8-B8 "Blackjack" Astromech

At the start of each combat phase, you may swap your attack and agility values. If you do this, the first time you attack with your primary weapon each round, add one [HIT] to your roll.

You cannot fire "Turret" weapons.

Cost: 3

On an E-Wing, this turns it into effectively a 4 attack die ship, or rather, even better since one hit is certain. It does alot to help the weaker E-Wings, while only being half as helpful on Corran Horn. There is now a solid use for the generic E-Wing pilots as well.

It also can help X-Wings. It would turn an X-Wing's attack from 3 dice, to 2 dice and a certain hit, so that's good, but would also give an X-Wing a third agility.

I had to add the turret restriction, otherwise it would make Y-Wings ridiculous.

Should this guy be unique? Is the cost appropriate? If he is unique is his cost ok to be "cheaper" since he is restricted to only one?

If you change the wording to "primary attack value" you get around the turret problem.

3 points is probably fine. you could compare it to the tie advanced system upgrade to add a free crit. Which is difficult since it was also part of the fix so it's pts cost is wonky.

I think 3 pts for an action free extra hit in a competitive slot like the astro mech is fine, maybe worth 4 though (ie opportunist). Especially when compared to the 1 pt free crit if you have a TL the tie adv can have.

If you change the wording to "primary attack value" you get around the turret problem.

I think the intent is to avoid Y-wings with the BTL-A4 getting a boost to their defense in addition to rolling a primary and 2 attacks with Twin Laser Turret.

Rate bait

My question is why wouldn't you just put this on a T-70? It has better stats for less points. Cut the E-wing get some points to spare and throw this on a T-70.

R9

Astromech, 2 points

E-Wing only

You may not perform more than one attack per round.

When attacking at Range 2-3, roll one additional attack dice.

4 attack at all ranges and blocks Corran's ability.

Not the most thematic card I've ever seen, or maybe I'm just missing it. What does swapping attack and agility represent?

Furthermore, look at how HLC prices an extra attack die, with caveats. (The cheaper Opportunist and Expose also come with huge costs, and Jan costs a whole ship). Then to make it worse, we're talking an ATC style autohit here, on a ship with a base attack of 3. I very much doubt this card would be 3 points, even unique.

On an E-wing, it's 30 points for a noncritting ATC with no target lock requirement on an already 3 attack ship. That's, in a word, broken.

On an X-wing, it's all that for 25 points plus A-wing agility. That redefines broken and even makes the E-wing we just broke obsolete (it just became 6 points for a systems slot and moving your greens from 1 to 2) Stick it on a T-70 and it only gets worse.

To balance that extra hit you'd need to either have it be a modification effect rather than an add effect, or increase the penalty it inflicts. How I'd do it off the top of my head without any playtesting would be a -2 Agility penalty for the bonus hit.

Personally, if you're trying to help the E-wing I'd make it E-wing only. The Y-wing and T-70 are fine, and the X-wing gets Integrated Astromech, an incredible card the forum has completely underreacted to.

Not the most thematic card I've ever seen, or maybe I'm just missing it. What does swapping attack and agility represent?

Furthermore, look at how HLC prices an extra attack die, with caveats. (The cheaper Opportunist and Expose also come with huge costs, and Jan costs a whole ship). Then to make it worse, we're talking an ATC style autohit here, on a ship with a base attack of 3. I very much doubt this card would be 3 points, even unique.

On an E-wing, it's 30 points for a noncritting ATC with no target lock requirement on an already 3 attack ship. That's, in a word, broken.

On an X-wing, it's all that for 25 points plus A-wing agility. That redefines broken and even makes the E-wing we just broke obsolete (it just became 6 points for a systems slot and moving your greens from 1 to 2) Stick it on a T-70 and it only gets worse.

To balance that extra hit you'd need to either have it be a modification effect rather than an add effect, or increase the penalty it inflicts. How I'd do it off the top of my head without any playtesting would be a -2 Agility penalty for the bonus hit.

Personally, if you're trying to help the E-wing I'd make it E-wing only. The Y-wing and T-70 are fine, and the X-wing gets Integrated Astromech, an incredible card the forum has completely underreacted to.

It represents your droid transferring power from your engines to your weapons.

30 points for a generic E-Wing doing 4 hits I understand how you might that is broken, but compare that to a TIE Phantom at 25 points with a base attack of 4?

I'm trying to make it help the E-Wing and X-Wing both, but I did overlook the T-70. I also think you are right, it may need some kind of drawback.

Some drawback that makes it better for an E-Wing. Perhaps using the base agility as a modifier. Something along the lines of you having to suffer 2 damage, but get to roll your agility to prevent the two damage. THEN you get your extra attack damage. This way X-Wings would likely suffer damage if they wanted to use it, so perhaps not as useful, but an E-Wing would be more likely to avoid the damage?

It represents your droid transferring power from your engines to your weapons.

Which would reduce your agility, no? On both X-wing and E-wing the design powerups the weapon up, and on the X-wing powers the engines up too. If you want to represent this, you'd be better off with an Expose effect, raising one and lowering the other. Could be an interesting astromech, especially if you could make it go either way.

30 points for a generic E-Wing doing 4 hits I understand how you might that is broken, but compare that to a TIE Phantom at 25 points with a base attack of 4?

That TIE phantom is a 2 agility ship with four hit points. Furthermore, it has four dice, not three dice + a die with hits on all sides. I'm not certain you appreciate just how powerful the ATC effect really is (hence your stance on the TAP too ).

Some drawback that makes it better for an E-Wing. Perhaps using the base agility as a modifier. Something along the lines of you having to suffer 2 damage, but get to roll your agility to prevent the two damage. THEN you get your extra attack damage. This way X-Wings would likely suffer damage if they wanted to use it, so perhaps not as useful, but an E-Wing would be more likely to avoid the damage?

Could work. Your astromech here is effectively Darth Vader, except it hits instead of crits and you can roll agility against it.

I think that in this case the best answer is multiple answers to give a variety of new viable builds. like:

1) R8 Astromech: Once per round when a is defending against one of your attacks you may receive a stress to roll a number of defense dice equal to your agility, for every focus you roll you may cancel one of the target's evades

2) R9 Astromech: After you assign an evade token to your ship you may perform a free boost action.

3)R8-H9: After you execute a barrel roll you may increase your agility by 1 until the end of the turn.