Is it advisable to bring Biggs into play after the first contact? Lets say you have 2 ARCs and Biggs. Is it a common tactic to first let the opponent shoot on one of the ARCs (no one kill of course), and THEN in the next round bring Biggs into play to force the opponent to "split fire"?

Yes, this is a very common technique to use and seen a lot in the upper tiers of competition. Forcing your opponent to split fire in that way limits their ability to take down one of your late game ships means that you are in control of the games tempo.

It depends; do you think you're looking at enough firepower to do lasting damage in one round?

This plan can go horribly wrong, and cost you the very ship you're trying to protect, but it can also work brilliantly. If you can drw off one attacker to shoot at Norra, and let her regenerate the damage during the next turn, you keep biggs alive longer.

Another nice trick is to figure out your line of approach - if you can place an asteroid such that it'll be in biggs' way on the second turn (or whenever the first exchanged shots are), you can get 'clear shots' with 2 of your 3 ships, whilst all of your opponents' are obstructed.

It depends; do you think you're looking at enough firepower to do lasting damage in one round?

This plan can go horribly wrong, and cost you the very ship you're trying to protect

Alternatively, if facing a potential situation like this, let Biggs get shot first, then break him off after the initial engagement. That way your opponent is still forced to split fire, but if you accidentally let them kill a ship it was just Biggs. If he does get away, your opponent either has to chase him and finish him off, or potentially let him swoop in again at an inopportune time and save a ship from a kill shot.

aka "The Biggs Maneuver™"

SteleTV on YouTube has a good video for this streamed just this past weekend. Look for MD charity tournament round 1. Unfortunately I can't link from phone. I would have done some stuff differently, but he tactic was definitely sound and won him the game.

Biggs is such a powerful tactical ship as it forces your opponents hand, it feels like it's equal to or slightly better (when flown well) than Palp. I really would love to get good at flying him; I just haven't gotten good at flying him correctly with my lists. It seems those who are great at swarms (keeping Howelrunner in the sweet spot) would excel at flying Biggs; sadly, this does not describe me. The majority of my games are casual and I choose to not fly him in those games as he is so very, incredibly boring. In fact, he is such a downer for me in his abilities outside being a sacrificial lamb, I almost never fly him hen the pressure is on. Anyway, I'm gonna keep tabs on the great ideas that fall within this thread; who knows?

It depends; do you think you're looking at enough firepower to do lasting damage in one round?

This plan can go horribly wrong, and cost you the very ship you're trying to protect

Alternatively, if facing a potential situation like this, let Biggs get shot first, then break him off after the initial engagement. That way your opponent is still forced to split fire, but if you accidentally let them kill a ship it was just Biggs. If he does get away, your opponent either has to chase him and finish him off, or potentially let him swoop in again at an inopportune time and save a ship from a kill shot.

aka "The Biggs Maneuver™"

"Just Biggs" SMH.

Biggs is such a powerful tactical ship as it forces your opponents hand, it feels like it's equal to or slightly better (when flown well) than Palp. I really would love to get good at flying him; I just haven't gotten good at flying him correctly with my lists. It seems those who are great at swarms (keeping Howelrunner in the sweet spot) would excel at flying Biggs; sadly, this does not describe me. The majority of my games are casual and I choose to not fly him in those games as he is so very, incredibly boring. In fact, he is such a downer for me in his abilities outside being a sacrificial lamb, I almost never fly him hen the pressure is on. Anyway, I'm gonna keep tabs on the great ideas that fall within this thread; who knows?

You are right, Biggs is so boring to fly and to fly against

I've actually found Biggs to be quite the blocker as no one expects it. But it actually ends up working well, it forces your opponent to split fire (since at least one of them cannot shoot Biggs, while the rest are required to shoot Biggs), and the damage to the rest of your list is insignificant since it's actionless. It's even better when you zoom in there and create a chain of blocks where the lead guy doesn't get to shoot anyone, and the rest are required to shoot w/o modifiers at a focused Biggs. Meanwhile the rest of your list just pewpews that lead guy at R1.