Nice try...

...but if that were the case, wouldn't it just be "change one Blank to [Evade]" ???

Unless you're proposing it's meant to give you a spare token against multiple attacks (assuming you don't need to spend it against the one that generates the token), or leaving you a token to Juke with, or hold over with a Relay.

FFG.... why.

I'm an optimistic person, ok? I've tried very hard to find something to use R3 with, and i'm hoping that one of the T-70 pilots in HotR will synergize super well with it. I've found a few things that R3 could potentially work ok.

But there's so little that can use R3. You have to jump through so many hoops and compromise yourself in several ways just to get use out of the card, and by the very nature of it's mechanic, it's awful on generic pilots, which makes no **** sense because it's a generic astromech card. R3 was an astromech that i was praying would work well, because X-Wings, T-70s and the ARC-170 could really, REALLY use a convenient way to gain an evade token. An evade token gained without compromising another action or something important, at a timing where you can actually use that token, like say after executing a specific action, gaining a stress, or executing a particular maneuver. But no. You can't be low PS to use it, your attack gets reduced in potency, it's TWO POINTS for some **** reason, it has to be off of a primary weapon... did i mention that it's two points? I would have vastly preferred a unique astromech that's easier to use and allows you to get an evade token before the combat phase, because while it couldnt see mass use, it'd still see USE. This will almost never see use, except on super specific builds.

It's like FFG is so afraid to give Rebels anything decent. Meanwhile, Imperials are getting a T-70 that can shoot out of the front and the back in the same turn, and trades the astromech for a system slot and boost for barrel roll for 3 points cheaper than a T-70. It's dial will probably be on par if not better than the T-70 as well. Scum are getting an Interceptor-like craft and ANOTHER large base ship with a nifty new mechanic that will hurt Rebels more than Imperials(the pilot ability to dumb tractor beam tokens for free, as Soontir down to AGI 3 or Vader to AGI 2 is way, WAY better than a T-70 to AGI 1 or an ARC-170 to AGI 0, because at least AGI 2-3 can still dodge stuff).

I believed for a bit that the ARC-170 would be the hero of Wave 9, but i believed that before knowing what R3 did, cause i thought it'd be the savior of 2 or less AGI ships. I thought that the ARC-170 could still be viable even at AGI 1 because it was coming packaged with an astromech that could shore up it's defenses, and with crew like C3P0 or Lando, you could make that even better. I was excited especially, because it's coming with two R3s, meaning it had to be a fix of some kind, right? But now that hope is gone. R3 is awful, and honestly as a result Rebels have taken a massive blow. The other factions are proceeding to get better and better stuff, but the ARC-170 and all the stuff it's coming with is just more of the same stuff Rebels already had, that already loses to the current meta. If it had just been AGI 2 with 4 hull... It'd be so much better. Decent AGI and HP values, crew+astro combos, Norra would be great defensively, it wouldn't be OP because C3P0 is harder to use on ships higher than AGI 1, and all R3 had to do was be useful, and it'd have been a super good ship. It'd compete very very well against everything in the meta. It'd have the AGI, defensive mods, and offensive ability to take on U-Boats, and the relative mobility and aux arc to deal with Palp Aces. And it wouldnt have to cost all that much; I mean, remember, the JM5K has 1 more hull and 1 more shield than it, large base barrel roll action, better dial, and a PWT and more upgrade slots and generic PS3 base with an EPT costs only 25 points. Buuuuuut no.

All i have left is the astromech and crew and other equipment that's coming packaged with HotR. If that doesnt come with anything that would completely turn around Rebel gameplay, Rebels are looking at a whole new wave of being roflstomped. Because be honest with me, give me one reason to believe that players won't have a reason to run Palpatine after Wave 9 releases. Palpatine is going to be standard Imperial issue for many waves to come unless he's nerfed or banned from play. And as long as Scum keeps getting things that can beat what Palp Aces can't, Rebels can't compete in the competitive meta.

Nice try...

...but if that were the case, wouldn't it just be "change one Blank to [Evade]" ???

Unless you're proposing it's meant to give you a spare token against multiple attacks (assuming you don't need to spend it against the one that generates the token), or leaving you a token to Juke with, or hold over with a Relay.

- Yes, it's meant for use for a later attack in the same round. After all, it is only once per round.

- Yes, especially for low PS pilots, that would be handy.

- Yes, for T-70s that would be handy.

I'm going to call it, the reason for its cost is it's synergy with seismic (action) torps. I bet you will be able to fire them at asteroids and cause splash damage, move them or some such. You will get 2 or 3 red dice to fire them but only need one hit result. Any eyes you then bank as an evade for use in the combat phase (when you likely won't be able to shoot).

It's a crazy stab in the dark I know :-)

Sadly, the R3 only works with primary weapons...

Equally, firing an [ACTION] header torpedo won't necessarily count as an attack, so wouldn't trigger it even if it did work.

I think Seismic Torpedoes, if they have a magic 'nasty synergy' will probably be with Thane, who can bin one off at someone in his arc as a response to them firing at anyone except him.

I'm going to call it, the reason for its cost is it's synergy with seismic (action) torps. I bet you will be able to fire them at asteroids and cause splash damage, move them or some such. You will get 2 or 3 red dice to fire them but only need one hit result. Any eyes you then bank as an evade for use in the combat phase (when you likely won't be able to shoot).

It's a crazy stab in the dark I know :-)

I wish, but it seems unlikely. R3 works during an attack.

However, what we can see from Seismic Torpedoes is something like:

Action: Discard this card

to choose an enemy ship at

Range 1 - ? that is within your

primary firing arc. All ships within

Range 1 of that ship must roll

1 attack die and suffer all

damage (hit) and critical damage

(crit) rolled this way.???

of???.

I don't know what the last few words could say, but it clearly isn't an attack. (Perhaps they say "This cannot be obstructed" or something like that)

It's more like a lobbed mine that you throw forward and deal 1 attack die of damage to all ship at range 1 of the target. Think on Assault Missiles meet Proximity Mines, but without the safe 1 damage of the missiles, and without the 3 dice of the mines. Probably very cheap and good against swarms. If spammed, potentially good against aces like Soontir, that have no way to defend against this other than Palpatine.

If it costs 1-2 points, it could finally be the torpedo filler than many rebel ships could have on their single torpedo slot. But it isn't spectacular. And it certainly isn't the hardcounter to contracted scouts Alex promised, neither the ordnance that will bring Bombers, Punishers or K-Wings to an even level with the scouts.

And it certainly isn't the hardcounter to contracted scouts Alex promised, neither the ordnance that will bring Bombers, Punishers or K-Wings to an even level with the scouts.

No. As noted, if it's anything, it's a cheap 'filler' torpedo for X-wings, ARC-170s and Starvipers to put in their otherwise empty torp slots. It's probably going to be good against green-dice dependent aces and swarms where you'll get lots of targets in a 'blast zone'.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

I don't see how it's like Poe's ability at all. You're relying on the results of one roll, trading a potentially useful result for a token that you may be able to use later. Poe can make a conversion on every roll. He has a much higher chance of rolling a focus somewhere in the combat phase, and it doesn't matter when he does.

Also, guidance chips is 0 points and is straightforwardly beneficial. It is going to be nothing like Guidance chips.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

I don't see how it's like Poe's ability at all. You're relying on the results of one roll, trading a potentially useful result for a token that you may be able to use later. Poe can make a conversion on every roll. He has a much higher chance of rolling a focus somewhere in the combat phase, and it doesn't matter when he does.

Also, guidance chips is 0 points and is straightforwardly beneficial. It is going to be nothing like Guidance chips.

Ahhh yes but it costs 2 points over 1 (or 0) point for a very good reason..... look at the red and green dice. there inst the same number of hits as there are evades, statistically it is easier to hit than evade. Why? Because the game is about "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women." i.e if it was easier to evade then to hit no one would ever win the game.

There for doing damage should mathematically be easier /cheaper than avoiding it, if you ever want the game to finish.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

I don't see how it's like Poe's ability at all. You're relying on the results of one roll, trading a potentially useful result for a token that you may be able to use later. Poe can make a conversion on every roll. He has a much higher chance of rolling a focus somewhere in the combat phase, and it doesn't matter when he does.

Also, guidance chips is 0 points and is straightforwardly beneficial. It is going to be nothing like Guidance chips.

Ahhh yes but it costs 2 points over 1 (or 0) point for a very good reason..... look at the red and green dice. there inst the same number of hits as there are evades, statistically it is easier to hit than evade. Why? Because the game is about "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women." i.e if it was easier to evade then to hit no one would ever win the game.

There for doing damage should mathematically be easier /cheaper than avoiding it, if you ever want the game to finish.

But the cost of achieving the defensive benefit of R3 is already high. You have to pay the point costs for higher PS, the cost of relying on randomness, and trade one result (offensive eye) for another (evade). At that point, an additional point cost is just overkill.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

I don't see how it's like Poe's ability at all. You're relying on the results of one roll, trading a potentially useful result for a token that you may be able to use later. Poe can make a conversion on every roll. He has a much higher chance of rolling a focus somewhere in the combat phase, and it doesn't matter when he does.

Also, guidance chips is 0 points and is straightforwardly beneficial. It is going to be nothing like Guidance chips.

Ahhh yes but it costs 2 points over 1 (or 0) point for a very good reason..... look at the red and green dice. there inst the same number of hits as there are evades, statistically it is easier to hit than evade. Why? Because the game is about "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women." i.e if it was easier to evade then to hit no one would ever win the game.

There for doing damage should mathematically be easier /cheaper than avoiding it, if you ever want the game to finish.

But the cost of achieving the defensive benefit of R3 is already high. You have to pay the point costs for higher PS, the cost of relying on randomness, and trade one result (offensive eye) for another (evade). At that point, an additional point cost is just overkill.

Sure, if you look at it in a vacuum. But here's the thing - it allows you to change the way you play. Normally, an X-Wing will take 2 torps to kill, even with IA. You're going to hang onto that Focus anyway, and you took PS4+ because toilet seats. You take Autothrusters on the T-70. You are guaranteed to block 2 hits minimum, twice at Range 3.

Rebel ships are vulnerable to focus fire. This helps address that problem. In the opening rounds, whoever gets shot at will roll far more green dice than red - therefore you will conserve your Focus in the first round or two of fighting (especially if there's Opportunists). It's as simple as that. R3 is not about one-on-one fighting.

It's funny. You know Poe Dameron? His ability is basically the same thing as R3. It's situational, too - you need to have a Focus. Nooooo, you don't see a lot of Poe builds, no sir. Just casual play.

Let's see if R3 is the new Assault Missiles or if it's the new Guidance Chip.

I don't see how it's like Poe's ability at all. You're relying on the results of one roll, trading a potentially useful result for a token that you may be able to use later. Poe can make a conversion on every roll. He has a much higher chance of rolling a focus somewhere in the combat phase, and it doesn't matter when he does.

Also, guidance chips is 0 points and is straightforwardly beneficial. It is going to be nothing like Guidance chips.

If you roll 3 eyeballs with a Poe attack, what are you going to do? Go for the focus and then wither under fire like a normal X-Wing? If you bump with Poe, you're a normal X-Wing. Which is why classic Poe is PTL BB-8 or R2D2.

You're not going to see T-70s with R3 being the new Fat Han. But it frees Rebels somewhat from the Biggs or Be Picked Off trap.

Yeah no

You will never see r3 be even remotely as useful as r5p9 or r2d2 on Poe

They both cancel 1 damage per round but the other two Astros won't **** off on bad rng or if you're not shooting

So is R3 the reason why the FAQ was updated that you cant use two Evade tokens anymore?

R3 is also nearly useless in 1 on1 fight, on the sidelines or end of match. If you fire first, it might help, but if you dont then its complete waste.

Poe's ability is not. Whether he fires first or not he gets his ability. Both have the condition of needing a focus result but one works offense and defense, one is only offense and it boosts your defense...which is weird.

Sure, if you look at it in a vacuum. But here's the thing - it allows you to change the way you play. Normally, an X-Wing will take 2 torps to kill, even with IA. You're going to hang onto that Focus anyway, and you took PS4+ because toilet seats. You take Autothrusters on the T-70. You are guaranteed to block 2 hits minimum, twice at Range 3.

Rebel ships are vulnerable to focus fire. This helps address that problem. In the opening rounds, whoever gets shot at will roll far more green dice than red - therefore you will conserve your Focus in the first round or two of fighting (especially if there's Opportunists). It's as simple as that. R3 is not about one-on-one fighting.

Its not guaranteed anything. There's a 42% chance that you roll no eyeballs on the attack. If you're running two PS 4 Xwings (T-65 or T-70), one of them has a decent chance of not having an evade. Guess which one the torps will be coming for?

Never mind that it does absolutely nothing against the other meta bogeyman, Palp Aces.

So is R3 the reason why the FAQ was updated that you cant use two Evade tokens anymore?

nope

once per round and all; only the E-wing could stack evades

before r3, jan ors (crew) already let you stack evades especially on Ezra (shuttle) with PTL

Its not guaranteed anything. There's a 42% chance that you roll no eyeballs on the attack. If you're running two PS 4 Xwings (T-65 or T-70), one of them has a decent chance of not having an evade. Guess which one the torps will be coming for?

Bullseye.

If one ship has even slightly better odds of defense people tend to avoid it. I just ran a trip xwing list last night with Wedge, Ello Atsy, and Tarn Milson. Tarn literally won me my games because he was 100% free to do whatever the hell he wanted because nobody wanted to attack him. If you attack him he can TL you when you declare him the target, and i had R7 Astromech on him for defensive TL. Also slapped Adv protons and focused every round so if someone had a nice range1 shot on him they REALLY didnt wanna take it.

The deciding factor was he had an unusually high durability compared to the other two. 3 games in 1 night, all 3 people i faced willingly took a range3 shot at Wedge instead of a range1 shot at Tarn because of either they were afraid of the forced rerolls shafting them (usually did) or afraid of the adv proton torps that was staring in their face.

It wont be to the same degree, but if one ship has R3 and another has something more basic like BB8 or R2 Astromech, they are going to fire at the other one.

So is R3 the reason why the FAQ was updated that you cant use two Evade tokens anymore?

I think it was more just to make the rules consistent in whether you can do $thing multiple times per opportunity. Focus and Evade tokens were the only thing you could use for their default effect multiple times which was potentially confusing.

Fat turrets could previously get multiple evade tokens per round and didn't get nerfed, I doubt that's the logic.

I'm hoping it means we might see a few more 'spend an evade token to get $effect' things coming up, too.

Both R5-P9 and R2-D2 provide great benefit to Poe. The former allows him to use his token offensively, defensively and then use it again to regen, making him super effective. All while being cheaper than R2-D2 and making him less obvious in his choice of maneuvers. BTW, yes it has been a classic for quite a while and saying that blocking Poe with R5-P9 makes him no better than a regular X-wing is like saying that blocking Soontir turns him into a regular interceptor. Technically true but... the idea is not getting blocked and having your actions.

R2-D2 does not synergise with Poe so well but it does have the added benefit of working even when he gets blocked, stressed or otherwise denied the use of a focus token (Palob, Carnor etc).

R3 on the other hand is definitely beneficial only if:

- you manage to attack this turn

- you roll an eye on your attack

- you have no focus token to spend

- you're going to be shot at this turn after you make your attack

- you will be unable to defend yourself fully using just your natural roll

- you will be able to spend your evade token (no Carnor, Omega Leader, Homing Missiles etc)

Unless ALL of the above conditions are met you either won't be able to take advantage of R3 at all or you will have to sacrifice your firepower in order to use it. And this day and age a 3 att die ship isn't a powerhouse that can afford to reduce it's attack to effectively 2 dice...

You can avoid the "shot at this turn" restrictions by taking Comm Relay but that's another 3 points that might be better spent elsewhere. Overall I find R3 to be way too situational to be a practical addition to competitive lists.

So is R3 the reason why the FAQ was updated that you cant use two Evade tokens anymore?

nope

once per round and all; only the E-wing could stack evades

before r3, jan ors (crew) already let you stack evades especially on Ezra (shuttle) with PTL

let's just say it's somewhat akin to Tactician getting limited with YV-666 arrival.

It WAS possible to stack a ton of tokens before, but with R3 it became even more probable and they decided to put an end to it.

So is R3 the reason why the FAQ was updated that you cant use two Evade tokens anymore?

nope

once per round and all; only the E-wing could stack evades

before r3, jan ors (crew) already let you stack evades especially on Ezra (shuttle) with PTL

let's just say it's somewhat akin to Tactician getting limited with YV-666 arrival.

It WAS possible to stack a ton of tokens before, but with R3 it became even more probable and they decided to put an end to it.

it's not really probable with r3

again, only the E-wing can do it and then only against ships with lower PS than itself (in such a way that the evades actually matter at all)

Ewings or people with Jan Ors around. Even then its only 2 evades and again you have to fire first and again you need a focus to burn.