Per subject, have anyone found good builds using R3 with other ships yet?

I think T-70+R3 can be quite solid:

Red Squadron Veteran (26)

Juke (2)

R3 Astromech (2)

Comm Relay (3)

Integrated Astromech (0)

33 points

Although many would argue that R3 is useless on low PS pilots, I believe R3 improves the action economy from focusing (which is gone by end of the round) and gives the generics a good reason to TL. A few situations to illustrate:

#1 Opponent out of arc: Save the TL, boost/focus/Tallon Roll next round

#2 Have TL + focus, Opponent in arc : When attacking, decide whether to cancel or spend focus based on how you roll, whether you already have an evade token and whether you need the focus more for defense later.

If you have the evade already, the juke is active as well. Aces might not have focus by the time you shoot back or they can choose to be defensive, save the focus and don't shoot you as hard. It's a win-win for you.

#3 Only TL, Opponent in arc : R3 provides you an advantage here. If focus shows up after target lock, you can convert that to free evade losing nothing in return.

The strongest contender to this build is definitely 3 TIE/X7 defenders. They are superior with Higher PS, white K-turn, evade token per round & 3 agility. But I'd say that T-70s are slightly tankier, higher firepower with TL+ potential Juke and not-as-predictable T-rolls. I'd love to try this matchup and see how this goes.

Thoughts? Also share your R3 builds!

The Red Squadron Veteran looks nice, until you realize a Glaive Squadron Pilot with Juke and x7 does largely the same thing only better for 1 point more

Glaive is Imperial.

I was making a build yesterday with that exact T-70 setup. I had 2, plus Poe for 100.

With that, I would sacrifice focus results early for R3, then just focus fire. The two Red Vets then pretty much have crackshot any time that the target doesnt have a focus when the Red Vets' late shot comes up.

The Red Squadron Veteran looks nice, until you realize a Glaive Squadron Pilot with Juke and x7 does largely the same thing only better for 1 point more

The Glaive has better PS, Agility and action economy but on balance, I think they are probably as close as the 1 point difference suggests.

Per subject, have anyone found good builds using R3 with other ships yet?

I think T-70+R3 can be quite solid:

Red Squadron Veteran (26)

Juke (2)

R3 Astromech (2)

Comm Relay (3)

Integrated Astromech (0)

33 points

Although many would argue that R3 is useless on low PS pilots, I believe R3 improves the action economy from focusing (which is gone by end of the round) and gives the generics a good reason to TL. A few situations to illustrate:

#1 Opponent out of arc: Save the TL, boost/focus/Tallon Roll next round

#2 Have TL + focus, Opponent in arc : When attacking, decide whether to cancel or spend focus based on how you roll, whether you already have an evade token and whether you need the focus more for defense later.

If you have the evade already, the juke is active as well. Aces might not have focus by the time you shoot back or they can choose to be defensive, save the focus and don't shoot you as hard. It's a win-win for you.

#3 Only TL, Opponent in arc : R3 provides you an advantage here. If focus shows up after target lock, you can convert that to free evade losing nothing in return.

The strongest contender to this build is definitely 3 TIE/X7 defenders. They are superior with Higher PS, white K-turn, evade token per round & 3 agility. But I'd say that T-70s are slightly tankier, higher firepower with TL+ potential Juke and not-as-predictable T-rolls. I'd love to try this matchup and see how this goes.

Thoughts? Also share your R3 builds!

Is it more tanky? Over the course of a game that 1 green die less will show, integrated astromech or not.

You'll likely get your first evade after you've been shot at where the Glaive squadron can start collecting evades before the first shots are fired.

Not sold on the poor R3.

Maybe stick in on Ello with the Red Squad Vet build you suggested?

The big problem is that you only 'generate' the evade when you fire, by which time expensive elites have already fired back, making the evade defensively less valuable. Using Juke to make it an offensive trick might work!

I think the above is a nice idea. 3 Red Veterans with Juke makes for a nice force.

Glaive is Imperial.

And also takes one less hit point to kill, doesn't have boost, can't Talon Roll, and loses its action economy when flying slow.

Plus, you can't have 3 so equipped; 33 points is an important value.

[way of the warrior]Ninjas! ****.[/way of the warrior]

The other use I can think of for R3 astromech is probably Wes Janson. Wes is a very valuable 'game piece' these days as his ability to strip tokens makes him useful at peeling tokens off aces and 'disarming' ordnance on alpha strike builds. What he's not good at is living very long. Since you don't really care if his ability hits or not, and he's generally firing at PS10, getting a free evade token 60% of the time goes a long way to making a fairly fragile T-65 an unattractive target.

The Red Squadron Veteran looks nice, until you realize a Glaive Squadron Pilot with Juke and x7 does largely the same thing only better for 1 point more

1 point more means you cannot fly 3 in 100 points. The T70 has an extra hitpoint courtesy of IA and has a slightly better dial.The Glaive has better PS, Agility and action economy but on balance, I think they are probably as close as the 1 point difference suggests.

It's also worth noting the Glaive gets the evade 100% of the time when moving at speed 3 or higher, whereas there'd Veteran has a 42% chance of not rolling any focuses on a given 3 dice attack.

The Glaive is significantly more durable and has better offense (since it doesn't need to sacrifice any to regenerate evades).

If you want to field 3 identical ships Glaive won't help you, but if you don't IMO the Glaive provides way more efficiency per point spent.

The big problem is that you only 'generate' the evade when you fire, by which time expensive elites have already fired back, making the evade defensively less valuable.

It's untested of course, but I will definitely be trying it out at the very least. I dont think it is as useless as people are assuming.

These days the first thing I do when I try to determine whether a build is viable is to imagine what would happen if it faced triple jumpmasters and whether or not it would stand a chance at all.

So, what would happen is this:

1. Everyone takes their focus.

2. T-70 fire at extreme range and cancel focus results if they're lucky enough to roll one. Probably 2 of them will get one but at least 1 will not. T-70s will effectively fire about 7 dice (after the cancelling) and not modify their rolls, so they will be lucky to do more than 2 damage to one of the u-boats.

3. U-boats will fire at the unlucky T-70 who didnt rolli his eye and doesnt have evade token. The first torpedo will take his shields away. The other will likely destroy it or come very close to doing so. The third u-boat will probably finish him off with primary.

4. You're left with 2 fighters without autothrusters against 3 durable PWTs. Those PWTs can also choose to spend their focus tokens multiple times if you juke them (granted, at the expense of stress). You can try and keep replenishing your evade tokens if you want to, but you'll be cannibalizing your firepower in order to do so and you've got 27 HPs to chew through.

Hate to rain on your parade man, but if u-boats wiped the rebellion off the tables, R3s on T-70s won't bring it back. Maybe last wave it could have been a nice competitive list. These days... meh. Not to mention the list would still struggle vs well played aces anyway. Or crack swarm for that matter. Or IGs...

I wonder how it would perform on a ship without the relay. For example:

Wedge Antilles

• Juke
• R3 Astromech
• Integrated Astromech

33 pt. Or 35 if you go Vectored Thrusters.

He's not going to hit as hard with two dice as he does three, but Juke compensates. Combine that with his ability and he'll be stripping agility off of enemy ships like crazy. The Vectored build could benefit from another ship to hand him locks.

I think an ARC with Gunner is probably going to be the biggest beneficiary of R3 though.

These days the first thing I do when I try to determine whether a build is viable is to imagine what would happen if it faced triple jumpmasters and whether or not it would stand a chance at all.

So, what would happen is this:

1. Everyone takes their focus.

2. T-70 fire at extreme range and cancel focus results if they're lucky enough to roll one. Probably 2 of them will get one but at least 1 will not. T-70s will effectively fire about 7 dice (after the cancelling) and not modify their rolls, so they will be lucky to do more than 2 damage to one of the u-boats.

3. U-boats will fire at the unlucky T-70 who didnt rolli his eye and doesnt have evade token. The first torpedo will take his shields away. The other will likely destroy it or come very close to doing so. The third u-boat will probably finish him off with primary.

4. You're left with 2 fighters without autothrusters against 3 durable PWTs. Those PWTs can also choose to spend their focus tokens multiple times if you juke them (granted, at the expense of stress). You can try and keep replenishing your evade tokens if you want to, but you'll be cannibalizing your firepower in order to do so and you've got 27 HPs to chew through.

Hate to rain on your parade man, but if u-boats wiped the rebellion off the tables, R3s on T-70s won't bring it back. Maybe last wave it could have been a nice competitive list. These days... meh. Not to mention the list would still struggle vs well played aces anyway. Or crack swarm for that matter. Or IGs...

Nothing to hate sir, your feedback is much appreciated! The situation you described is pretty much what would happen if we joust the ships head-on. Against PS3 scouts Red Vets are aces so we can utilize that. Deploy on the opposite end, maneuver your way through the asteroids and boost if needed. Expecting not to receive any torpedoes are bad thinking of course, so if we can minimize the damage (i.e through rocks) and maintain the advantage (3 Red juke 2 Green 7 HP vs 2 Red 2 Green 9 HP) then it should be quite possible to defeat the uboats.

That, or pray Wave 9 hits uboats so hard they lurk into the depths of outer rim

Maybe stick in on Ello with the Red Squad Vet build you suggested?

You're right. Ello is definitely a strong choice for this build

I wonder how it would perform on a ship without the relay. For example:

Wedge Antilles

• Juke
• R3 Astromech
• Integrated Astromech

33 pt. Or 35 if you go Vectored Thrusters.

He's not going to hit as hard with two dice as he does three, but Juke compensates. Combine that with his ability and he'll be stripping agility off of enemy ships like crazy. The Vectored build could benefit from another ship to hand him locks.

I think an ARC with Gunner is probably going to be the biggest beneficiary of R3 though.

hmm..I think the hardest part for this build is maintaining the advantage of Juke. Even with comm relay it's quite a challenge I guess. For the same points bat-wedge (the PTL-BB8 build) hits harder...and probably dies faster

It'll be a case of target locking (because as a PS4 you can do that to a PS3), which has the advantage over a focus that you are more in a position to get 'unused' [focus] results.

With a focus token, you never will. With a target lock, you have a 1/3 chance of ending up with an otherwise 'useless' focus result, without actually decreasing your firepower.

You definitely shouldn't fire at extreme range. Success when facing Contracted Scouts involves getting past that range 2-3 'torpedo cone' as fast as possible - and if that means using boost to end up in range 1 with no tokens, then fair enough. In fact, that actually works fairly well - doing a speed 4, then boost, is essentially a "speed 6" move - enough to jump range bands easily - and firing a 4-dice primary attack may be not quite as good as a 3-dice primary attack with a focus token, but it has a 70% chance of giving you a free evade token - which both triggers Juke and gives you a decent chance of shrugging off the return shot.

Plus, as noted, you've got the higher pilot skill, so deploying on one end of the line gives you a fighting chance of engaging the jumpmasters one-at-a-time, or getting some cover against one of the attackers.

I'll be honest, If looking at free evades to improve durability, I'd rather have Red Ace than a Red Veteran with R3 astromech, but Red Ace lacks an elite pilot talent to use Juke as well.

You're right. Ello is definitely a strong choice for this build

With back-to-back tallon rolls, Ello should only be shot at by a limited number of ships per turn, so evade tokens are a nice defence mechanism.

Good call. BB-8 and R2-D2 aren't a great pairing with Ello because whilst white, his Tallon rolls aren't green, whilst R3-A2 stresses him and takes away his ability.

It's really not worth all this effort to try and make it work.

Hate to rain on your parade man, but {u-boats, aces, crackswarm, etc}

Oh, don't worry about that; I don't have a parade to rain on. I never mentioned it being a tournament build. I fly casual, and my local meta is small. We play because we like the game. Copy-pasting is pretty boring, and we almost always exclusively fly our own lists. Its not a rule, its just what is fun.

If winning tournaments is what makes you happy, then you keep doing you, but it isn't all that the game is about. Losing with a fun list is still fun when you don't have to worry about prizes.

R3 probably ranks one rung above R5-K6 in terms of **** astromechs whose abilities have already been done much better.

I'll be honest, If looking at free evades to improve durability, I'd rather have Red Ace than a Red Veteran with R3 astromech, but Red Ace lacks an elite pilot talent to use Juke as well.

You're right. Ello is definitely a strong choice for this build

Now that is a nice idea. Poe is nailed to his focus tokens, and Red & Blue Ace lack elite talents, but Ello could work nicely.

With back-to-back tallon rolls, Ello should only be shot at by a limited number of ships per turn, so evade tokens are a nice defence mechanism.

Good call. BB-8 and R2-D2 aren't a great pairing with Ello because whilst white, his Tallon rolls aren't green, whilst R3-A2 stresses him and takes away his ability.

Ello is the bb8 pilot

just because you can't trigger it on the white t-roll doens't overwrite the fact that the white t-roll makes Ello the only t-70 that can 180 and bb-8 the following turn

"Getting through the cone" is only a small part of the problem. Having faced some really good jumpmaster players at the regionals my observations are that:

1. They will fly in a way that will make it all but impossible to dodge their torpedoes with all your ships. Boost or no boost you'll probably get 1 jumpmaster up front and the other 2 slightly further away. The front one will block any attempt to rush past the cones of the other ones and will fire his primary at range 1. The others will fire their torpedoes.

2. The next turn one of them will try and block one of your ships while the others will use their primaries against the blocked ship while setting up the white s-loop for next turn.

3. On turn 3 they'll be in position to fire another torpedo or 2.

4. Even if you can somehow prevent any more torpedoes from being fired, blocking+primaries at range 1 combined with jumpmasters natural resilience are enough to outlast 2 AGI medium fighters. Tried that using Wes+Biggs. Managed to stop all but 2 torpedoes throughout the entire game (the second one fired right at the end). Still got decimated by primaries (granted, it was back when Agros were still a thing). I also tried Poe + Fortress Red + 2 Z-95s. Zs managed to block for quite a while and significantly reduce the density of torpedo fire. Both the X-wings were also far more durable than what you propose thanks to regen, autothrusters and both pilot's abilites. The closest I ever got was a minor loss due to the time running out. It just takes too much time to score so many hits even when you don't voluntarily reduce your firepower.

Don't want to derail the thread into another "why are JM5Ks overpowered" discussion. It's just that there is a very good reason why medium fighters such as X-wings got hammered particularly hard by u-boats. If the extra evade was a bit more reliable AND did not require losing out on firepower (much like the new title for defender works), I might agree that with good flying this list would have a chance. Sadly unless the JM5K flies into rocks or does something equally stupid the odds will be stacked against you so bad that you'd need to either completely outclass him or have some serious dice gods' favor on your side to win.

I think the question is how well will it work with new cards in the heroes boxed set, i dont think this card is an x wing fix on its own but one in a series, like integrated astro and i am positive heroes will have at least one more improvement for x wings. (ideally a cost reduction of somekind imo)

I hope so anyway!

I don't think R3 was billed as an X-wing fix of any sort

neither were VTs for that matter

in fact, nothing apart from Integrated Astromech was billed as an x-wing fix

R3 Astromech and vectored thrusters on a T-65 or an Y-Wing

No, it is not the fix, but it shall be fun!

The Red Squadron Veteran looks nice, until you realize a Glaive Squadron Pilot with Juke and x7 does largely the same thing only better for 1 point more

Glaive has to move at speed 3 or more. Red Squadron can slow roll and dogfight.

The Red Squadron Veteran looks nice, until you realize a Glaive Squadron Pilot with Juke and x7 does largely the same thing only better for 1 point more

Glaive has to move at speed 3 or more. Red Squadron can slow roll and dogfight.

Ie a dice roll with focus in it

Pretty Skippy x7 is FAR less situational (you can even use the evade defensively against PS > 4!)

The big problem is that you only 'generate' the evade when you fire, by which time expensive elites have already fired back, making the evade defensively less valuable. Using Juke to make it an offensive trick might work!

I think the above is a nice idea. 3 Red Veterans with Juke makes for a nice force.

Glaive is Imperial.

And also takes one less hit point to kill, doesn't have boost, can't Talon Roll, and loses its action economy when flying slow.

Plus, you can't have 3 so equipped; 33 points is an important value.

[way of the warrior]Ninjas! ****.[/way of the warrior]

The other use I can think of for R3 astromech is probably Wes Janson. Wes is a very valuable 'game piece' these days as his ability to strip tokens makes him useful at peeling tokens off aces and 'disarming' ordnance on alpha strike builds. What he's not good at is living very long. Since you don't really care if his ability hits or not, and he's generally firing at PS10, getting a free evade token 60% of the time goes a long way to making a fairly fragile T-65 an unattractive target.

I tend to disagree with the "not really caring if he hits" part of Wes Janson. He's expensive enough that he **** well better do some damage to justify being in the list.