Norra is quickly becoming my favorite pilot! The pilot ability, the dial, the title, adding in R2-D2... all mixed together it's almost as delicious as one of JBR7's breakfasts!

So, unless I'm missing something (which I could be), it seems that overall the most likely build for Norra is the following:

The idea being that every time you shoot, you do it with a Target Lock and Focus (and then get a stress token). Then next turn you do a green maneuver, shed the stress and regain a shield. It's awesome! Also, if needed, you can reposition with a Barrel Roll.

But what about..... ?????

Well, I have a few ideas that might help out a little, especially if you're new to the game like me.....

1) My man C-3PO! Anytime you have a ship with 1 green die and 1 crew slot, C-3PO should be considered! YT-1300, K-Wing, B-Wing (with the mod), U-Wing, and now the ARC-170! He's worth his weight in golden rod as a defensive powerhouse. Every time you are attacked, guess 1 evade and you will guarantee 1 less hit than you would have received.

Plus... the theme, baby! The theme! R2-D2 and C3PO working hard together to keep your ship alive!

2) Tail Gunner. This of course is the first one we all thought of.... because it came in the box? Maybe? Please, honestly: enlighten me. It's good, but personally I don't think it's as great as people think it is. First off, It's situational because you have to be shooting out the back, which isn't better than the front of course. Secondly, you're not guaranteeing anything really... you're just removing a fickle green die from off the table. If they would have rolled that green die and it came up blank it would have had the same effect... so consider the odds.

Anyways, it is a good card for sure, but I don't think it's the best or only option. Just my opinion... *braces*

3) Kanan Jarrus. Definitely some flexibility afforded by Kanan here. Now those 2 turns are basically green for you, and you can help the other ships out if needed. (If you don't know already, when an upgrade card says "a friendly ship" it includes the ship that has the upgrade, if it says "another friendly ship" it has to be a different ship.) It's good, but personally I'm not a fan of trying to build a lot of synergy between other ships and the ARC has 6 very solid green maneuvers already.

But green 2 turns are so sweet....

4) Weapons Engineer. I think this one is interesting. You Target Lock the ship you are going to attack and the ship that is about to attack you to try, and maybe utilize Norra's ability on both ends? Problem is, you only have one focus token. Locking onto two ships at once could free up some actions to where you don't have to stress.... but you want to do green maneuvers anyways because of R2. I just feel like there's something here but I can't put my finger on it.

5) Jyn Erso. Once again: choose yourself! This is a better Focus action, giving you potentially three focus tokens to help you out on offence and defense. For it to work with Push the Limit you have to do Jyn's action first (because the second PTL action is limited to action bar actions), then your second action.

6) Rey. Rey who? The poor girl doesn't even have a last name! Or does she? Is it Skywalker? Is it Kenobi (I hope so)? Is it Binks? Waaaaahhhhh....?

I digress. This is basically the HWK's title in your crew slot for one less point. Is it great? Nope, not really. Why? Because you're limited to one token only! Who cares that you can store it from turn to turn! Okay, okay... well, if you save your focus token then you can use that token later to free up an action for a barrel roll? Nah, not impressed, sorry.

7) Kyle Katarn! Who? You mean Cassian Andor? Er, nevermind.

I *REALLY* like this one. Why? Because almost every turn you are going to be removing stress, that's why? Brace yourself for color-coded enthusiasm! Green maneuver, remove stress, get a free Focus token, do a Target Lock... and then you don't have stress SO YOU CAN BARREL ROLL! Or, or, or... you can do another focus action and have two focus tokens! (Assigning a free focus token does NOT count as taking a focus action!)

I love, love, love this one!

8) Lando Calrissian, the odds man himself. Okay, on a green die you have a 62.5% chance of rolling a focus or evade, 25% chance for the focus and 37.5% for the evade.

Bogey hot on your trail? Do Lando's ability and see what happens, if you're lucky: great! If not, trigger PTL for your second ability and get a focus. Maybe you missed out on getting a target lock, but maybe you already have a target lock from your last turn! Norra needs more actions and this provides it.

9) Finn. The traitor! The stormtrooper whose special ability is to MISS! What's the thought process on this? Well, sometimes it's better to miss than to add a focused die to your pool. How do? Well, say you attack and you have two blanks and a single hit. What do you do?

A) Spend the Target Lock to add an eyeball, then spend the focus to turn it to a hit = 2 hits.

B) Spend the Target Lock to reroll the two blanks, giving you 75% chance to roll something that you can turn into a hit of some kind with your focus token (Hit = 37.5%, Crit = 12.5%, Focus 25%).

Are you feeling lucky? Go for guaranteed two hits or try for three? I'd try for three EVERY TIME because you have a very good chance of getting 2 hits... maybe a crit!

But wait! WHAT if we added a blank die in there, and THEN spent the Target Lock? Now we have a 75% chance on three blank dice!

What is this? This is flexibility! You roll 3 eyeballs - don't trigger Finn, instead add another eyeball. You get it.

10) Saboteur. Saboteur?! I thought those were only good in Imperial Assault? They are, but hey, I had to put a tenth card in here because you can't stop at nine. Recon Specialist? Hmmmm.... yeah, I suppose that is helpful too... but I wanted to put this in here really to directly address a problem that Norra Has.

A lack of available actions! That is why you have Vectored Thrusters on her! You want to run PTL on her to make sure you have Focus + Target Lock, and it just feels right to be stressed when you want to trigger R2-D2 for the regen. So, if you already have a Target Lock, and you don't need to reposition... why not try this? If nothing else, there's a psychological element to this card that can make your opponent worry a little.

So there are my thoughts on ten different crew members for Norra, what do you think?

What a great pilot! Could you imagine if she could somehow squeeze an extra guy on board? Sorry, nevermind.....

A good discussion Rick.

Gotta say, I stick to Norra, PTL, R2-D2, AO and Tail Gunner (although I'm thinking Ezra to make the most of that extra eyeball)

I have used Kyle Katarn and I really like the synergy. It allows you to use PTL on getting a target lock and Barrel Roll to re-position instead of having to focus and target lock each turn.

I'd consider Nien Nunb as well. A 4-straight green when you have a rear arc might just be the ticket sometimes.

For extra hilarity, swap out R2-D2 for a generic R2 astromech, and watch A-wing pilots go green with envy.

Actually, I just had another thought:

Take Rey crew, and bring Dutch along as a wingman. You can then slot VI for the EPT on Norra and use Vectored Thrusters (or even EU) more effectively. I don't particularly love it due to cross-ship synergy jank, but it might be worth looking at.

I don't see what's stopping you stacking as much focus as you want onto Rey's card. You charge it up early on and then it provides you with the focus you need to make good use of Norra's ability later if you're unable to both focus and target lock one round.

Thing with arcs is it doesn't matter that the front gets more dice

Youre a ptl ship with no green turns or greens at a speed above 2

You're going to use the aux arc a majority of the time, no matter what (unless you're chasing a turret, but faster ships like dash can lap you easily so you're once,again better off leveraging the aux arc)

Hence, Tail Gunner. It makes your aux arc a rough equivalent to your primary which is nice as its the one you're using the grand majority of the time

In before FickleGreenDice says Tail Gunner is the only option and something about arcs being ornamental

But seriously, Tail Gunner really gives her the offensive output she is lacking, even with her pilot ability.

Thing with arcs is it doesn't matter that the front gets more dice

Youre a ptl ship with no green turns or greens at a speed above 2

You're going to use the aux arc a majority of the time, no matter what (unless you're chasing a turret, but faster ships like dash can lap you easily so you're once,again better off leveraging the aux arc)

Hence, Tail Gunner. It makes your aux arc a rough equivalent to your primary which is nice as its the one you're using the grand majority of the time

Ninja'd in the best/worst way...

Look at those time-stamps:

Hmmmm.... so Fickle Green Dice is afraid of the enemy having a Fickle Green Die?

Tbf TG isn't the only option

If you're off your meds (ie don't run biggs) you kinda need nien nub to not be a lumbering 1 agi target. 4 foward the hell outta there!!!

But yeah the vast majority of games here are v fangs and x7s with the occasional caster or aggressor

Can't hit a **** thing on 2 dice without tailgunner and or braylen stress gunner

I would say that norra really wants tailgunner because her ability can overcome the drop in attack dice, plus, free conversion of her ability/title is very important.

Why Kanan? The ARC has more greens than whites lol. It has 6 greens, 4 reds, and 5 whites. Yeah that lets the ARC do a 2turn and clear stress but i think Kyle would be far better for the free focus and just do banks rather than a turn. The ship doesnt have to turn on a dime when it has an aux arc.

Have not tried it, but BB-8 and PTL seems good on the arc, it has the greens to make BB-shine.

Why Kanan? The ARC has more greens than whites lol. It has 6 greens, 4 reds, and 5 whites. Yeah that lets the ARC do a 2turn and clear stress but i think Kyle would be far better for the free focus and just do banks rather than a turn. The ship doesnt have to turn on a dime when it has an aux arc.

Agreed! Kyle is by far my favorite, but some may love the maneuverability of Kanan.

Have not tried it, but BB-8 and PTL seems good on the arc, it has the greens to make BB-shine.

Seems good, yeah, but man, if you have an astromech slot and you're going to be using green maneuvers a lot, it's really hard to justify NOT taking R2-D2.

Though I like your thoughts on both C3PO, kyle and Jyn Erso (all them arcs!), I still think tail-gunner is your best bet; Ill explain why:
With title, you either gain 1 extra die through front arc, or a free eyeball to critical hit modification.
With tailgunner, you basically make your rear-arc as potent as your front arc, just with the added crit. With norra's ability, you almost always get a crit through your rear arc.

It all comes down to how you want to build her, and in most cases, you want her to be as offensive as she can be.
When you go with the Biggs/Braylen/Norra combo, you need to dish as much dmg as you can before Biggs dies.

I fly her with Dash, and I have found that she can survive focus fire with defensive TL + focus and R2D2, while dash does dash things. I
If people starts focusing him, I can chase the opponent for those 4-5 hit potentials. If dash dies, she can just run away with R2D2 while her rear arc finishes off the enemy.

in both cases it's about maximizing your damage output, which I feel is greatest when both of your arcs are terrifying. :-)

I will add in that Kanan is great on any ptl ship with lots of white maneuvers. (AKA Dash). However, just because he makes white manuevers *essentially* green they are in fact still white maneuvers. Which means R2-D2 will not trigger off of them. Thus I don't see Kanan as good partner for R2-D2 or BB8 ARCs.

Have not tried it, but BB-8 and PTL seems good on the arc, it has the greens to make BB-shine.

Seems good, yeah, but man, if you have an astromech slot and you're going to be using green maneuvers a lot, it's really hard to justify NOT taking R2-D2.

Basically this

R2d2 just lets you win dice trades you would otherwise have no business winning on a 1 agi ship

But if I used shara it'd be with bb8 (intentionally block yourself to "arcdodge" and let someone else use the lock you grabbed with ptl)

I don't see what's stopping you stacking as much focus as you want onto Rey's card.

Nothing.

I don't see what's stopping you stacking as much focus as you want onto Rey's card.

Nothing.

can only add one focus to the stack per round is about it

unlike moldy, which just hoards everything it can get its hands on

Hmm I am interested in using a different crew but I think if you're going to use the aux arc it's hard to beat tail gunner. Too bad they didn't switch the title ability with the crew. It does annoy me that it's almost an autoinclude on such a valuable upgrade.

You could always build and then fly to maximize your primary arc, but that's a hard sell when you're already paying to have that aux arc. Still, it's possible a great droid/crew combo could make it worthwhile.

in situations like these, where there's a clear dice modification type needed based on the ship in question, you need upgrades that work independently of dice results in order to merit comparison and to make decisions interesting

only problem is a lot of rebel crew is built around dice mods, with a few exceptions which are mostly maneuver based (nien, Hera, kanan leebo dash and...leia I guess) while tech like r3-a2 is unique because nothing else does what it does (guaranteed offense return independent of dice) unless you count guaranteed regeneration

What about Luke?

Pretty expensive for a small ship, and - if firing from the auxiliary arc - you've already got a single [focus] to [hit], and short of rolling 2+ [focus] results, can't use another (it's the same issue with Ezra).

I think BB-8/PTL/Nien is probably worth a try, if only to leave the odd wierd move as an option. Not being able to break contact with faster targets hurts.

I second what others have said about Tail Gunner. As fun as Kyle seems to be, TG allows Norra to actually hit stuff from the back - and let's face it, running away and shooting like hell is what ARC was made for. Especially when Norra enters turtle mode and uses her TL and focus for defence, her title coupled with TG is what makes her still dangerous offensively.

As a side note, after playing a few games with her I have to say I'm a bit concerned about what she means for the health of the game. She gives me Fat Han vibes all over again - a ship that can go down real fast if focused by multiple ships but which is virtually impossible to destroy in a 1v1 situation. Fat Han at least got "only" 2 guaranteed damage prevention and didn't regenerate. Norra gets 2 guaranteed (if you factor in regen) plus 0.625 chance for another evade (and twice that at range 3). And if she does manage to break off from the enemy for a couple of turns she can come back with full shields again. From my experiences with her so far it all boils down to early dice - if Biggs goes down before you've managed to destroy at least one enemy ship, you're in trouble because Norra can get focused down in a couple of turns when targeted by 3 ships. But if Biggs lasts long enough (or the enemy doesn't) the match becomes extremely frustrating to the opponent. Same for any 2 ship builds which are in a tough spot from the very start.

I haven't had a Norra vs Norra mirror yet but I imagine it must be at least as drawn out and inconclusive as Fat Han mirrors. Overall, I appreciate how powerful she is but I'm not sure I appreciate the game design side od things.