The most cruel part of the whole R3 Astrobad joke, is how you get two, because apparently you'd wants multiple copies, right?

Right!? Whoever designed it deserves to be out of the team, with a proper walk of shame to boot.

Who appears first in the credits for the ARC-170?

Since it was spoiled, many said this droid smelled like Wave 1. Was it made by the new guy in the team?

Because I cannot believe that Alex "Zuckuss, Jumpmasters" Davy can make this droid.

Who appears first in the credits for the ARC-170?

Since it was spoiled, many said this droid smelled like Wave 1. Was it made by the new guy in the team?

Because I cannot believe that Alex "Zuckuss, Jumpmasters" Davy can make this droid.

He made it (the R3) the day after he made Zuckuss and the Jumpmasters, when he was hungover from the bender he was on when he made the previous two.

I can almost guarantee that Biggs is the reason R3 sucks. He's a huge obstacle for Rebel ship and upgrade design.

Biggs has literally been around since the core set

so unless everything rebels have gotten is ass, I don't think this really qualifies as an excuse

and considering r2-d2, r3-a2, r4-d6 and r5-p9 (on poe), not to mention even potentially game-breaking synergy ala Kanan supporting biggs with his red-dice removing ability (on top of stuff like ors crew giving Biggs evades, soon to be potentially comboed with Jyn)...

yeah no. FFG just royally screwed the pooch on this one

Yeah but the point is a fair one. Biggs has one of the most powerful abilities in the game. Every defensive ability available to rebels needs to be looked at through a Biggs tinted glass because things could get really broken really fast.

We had a goofy local tournament where you could mix factions and two of us turned up with biggs + stealth + R2D2 + manaroo with bodyguard + Serissu. It was phenomenally powerful even in that crazy free for all environment.

Although Kanan + recspec + tac jammer + biggs is pretty gross I have to say.

Biggs taking an Evade action or rolling 2 attack die instead of 3 for a free evade token (or my idea of 1-2 speeds = free evade assignment) wouldnt improve him THAT much.

Evade action: Biggs doesnt have a focus, and on 2 die an evade is only slightly more powerful than a focus.

2attack die for evade assign: he still has to attack first, so large portion of the enemy can just out-PS him to counter it. That, and if he doesnt have a shot, it wouldnt do anything.

1-2 speed for evade assign: biggs now limits your forces' speed, as if he has to speed up to stay in range 1 he has no evade, and entire forces moving 1-2 speed makes them very predictable.

No, they didnt make R3 insanely bad because of biggs. They just f'd up this time around. Not the first time theyve done that and it wont be the last. Humans ftw.

The only "well this makes biggs too mean" excuse i could see is a title that makes the T65 oddly nimble, making him much harder to hurt but you cant ignore him. I dont see a title for T65s making them harder to hurt though, if anything it'd be more maneuverability (i.e. NOT getting shot at, which doesnt help biggs) or giving them all an escort ability (biggs already has this) or making them hit harder (bonus to biggs, but doesnt make him last any longer than before)

Considering the kanan combo exists

That incredibly powerful regen rebels exist

And that they all exist despite biggs

Is pretty telling that ffg is capable of creating defensive ships and upgrades for the rebellion regardless

R3 is **** independent of biggs and there is no reason it couldnt have been better

Ok as everyone has pointed out, they can't make an offensive droid because, Biggs.

Why didn't they give us a useful offensive generic droid instead?

Something like this

R3 (1pt)

After rolling your attack dice you may spend a target lock on the defender to change one focus result to a hit.

I'd love this as a filler astro for generic pilots. It also helps when you take a target lock and end up rolling, hit, hit, focus (I usually re-roll the focus into a blank). I can't see how that ability would be broken?

None of the current Rebel droids have useful (and dependable) offensive abilities (other than Targeting Astro) so it would fill a niche and could have been that minor tweak that T65s needed.

I think here we have a key problem with X-wings, particularly T65s. The problem is not that they can't dish out damage. They have a bunch of astros and pilots that help with that. (R5-K6, R3-A2, R7-T1 and coming soon to every rebel list ever, M9-G8, which can be offensive or defensive and all round awesome). But X-wings are a decent 3 red dice attack. The problem is they die too easily and while there are a number of options to try and keep them alive (plenty of defensive astros) they're not that manoeuvrable and still not that survivable and if you end up pouring a lot of points into them, that's a problem.

Then I can only think of the playtesters misinterpreting the R3 Astromech card text and ignoring the "primary only" or something like that, during their the playtests (maybe someone used it with Snap Shot, as the OP suggested, and no one caught the mistake?). Why would anyone want two copies of this droid on a expansion pack if it isn't some kind of fix or cool new mechanic, it's beyond my understanding. Neither Ion Projector or Enhanced Scopes are breaking the meta either, and they come in pairs too. But at least the are inexpensive and straightforward. And Davy explicitly said that they don't create filler cards on purpose, unlike in a CCG.

Even R2 Astromech, that is way more useful than this thing, comes as a single copy with a single expansion pack!

I'm at work and can't double check, and I'm blanking on this, so if I'm wrong forgive me: would Gunner and R3 work? If does Gunner trigger after Modify Dice step, you could roll to attack, swap an eye for an evade, then reroll using Gunner to make a normal attack.

Kind of expensive 7 points for an evade token, but just trying to think of options.

I'm at work and can't double check, and I'm blanking on this, so if I'm wrong forgive me: would Gunner and R3 work? If does Gunner trigger after Modify Dice step, you could roll to attack, swap an eye for an evade, then reroll using Gunner to make a normal attack.

Kind of expensive 7 points for an evade token, but just trying to think of options.

Technically that would work on an ARC, but for the same points it could also take r2d2 AND c3po.