I know the idea of using the R3 Astromech is generally a bad idea for the following reasons:

1) This card is absolutely useless on a low pilot skill ship. By the time you get to shoot, everyone has already shot at you so what point would there be in getting an Evade token, unless you happen to have Comm Relay? If that's the case you are spending 5 points to acquire an Evade token maybe twice PLUS the opportunity cost of a better astromech and dishing out damage, which brings me to the other reason why this card is generally useless......

2) This card is absolutely useless because the point of the game is destroying the other guy's ships. Hello! McFly! You are here to blow the other guy up! Usually a high PS ship (see point 1) is there to deal damage, and amazingly enough not dealing damage is the complete opposite of dealing damage. On to the last point:

3) There are better astromechs out there. When this came out people looked at it, snorted, and watched as it waddled on over to the side of the room where all the other crappy astromechs hang out. This, over BB-8? R4-D6 was solid on Biggs and it was one point, along with some other 1 point astromechs which satisfied the need for Integrated Astromech.

So where am I going with this? I think that R3 can actually be okay on the Fenn Rau ShuttleBug.

I really must be wrong on this, so please enlighten me.

Here's why I'm considering this:

1) Reasons 1 and 2 do not apply to Rebel Rau. Fenn is a high pilot skill ship that can't deal out damage so cares.

2) Fenn needs to live but be cheap. You could throw Chewbacca on him for a guaranteed 2 more hit points, but that's four squad points + opportunity cost + some other astromech for probably about 5 points. I really think Fenn is going to draw a lot of aggro, and he's going to die first - so we need to keep him around a tad long for not a lot of points.

If you're trying to keep Fenn alive the first thing you do is put Wired on him.... and then what? Pulsed Ray Shield? If you do that you need Nien Nunb or R2 astromech to make it work. If it works you paid 3 points for 1 shield and telegraphed maneuver that your opponent will pounce on. Maybe I'm missing something there, honestly, but it just seems like you gain a shield only to let your opponent lick his chops and wipe you out next turn?

So the question is outside of Wired, what inexpensive options can you use to add just a touch more of defense to Fenn?

3) Out of all the astromechs, I think R3 **MAY** address Fenn's need more than the others. So, as far as I know, the contenders for the astromech slot on Fenn are the following:

- R2 Astromech: It's great for getting rid of stress, and that does need to be done every turn. But with having a rear arc the greens are "okay" for clearing stress for what Fenn is trying to do, just nerf someone.

- Flight-Assist Astromech: It's great for keeping people in arc and for turning around, but I think with a rear arc you're already okay.

- M9-G8: Hey, I have a great idea! Let's give our opponent ANOTHER reason to smash poor little Fenn off the board with a 3 point astromech that begs you to put a 3 point crew on it (Weapons Engineer). I don't know, maybe I'm off on that.

- Chopper: Those actions need to be for coordinating.

- R4-D6: It's okay.... but it's place really is with Integrated Astromech.

- BB-8: Same reason as Flight-Assist.

I think Fenn's greatest need is survivability at a cheap price and R3 might just help enough to be worth it.

Tell my why I'm wrong because this just doesn't feel right.

I'm going to take a slight issue with the premise of your argument -- that we need to be particularly concerned about keeping Fenn alive. If your opponent goes out of his way to blast Fenn first, then he has become a 26-ish point ship with 2 agility and 5hp who has drawn the enemy's attention away from your real end game piece. Sound like anyone we know?

Lowhrick is a good way to keep Fenn alive and allows Fenn to focus on being disruptive.

I've actually used this asteomech quite a bit in my t65 Wes/wedge/Luke squads I like to fly.

It's not good, even on Fenn.

You are probably right it fits Fenn better than anyone else, but dang, it's just not a good card for 2 points.

The issue is you're assuming it will work when you need it to. It won't. Even after all the other hoops, it still requires you to roll a focus on that crucial turn.

If the card was a sure fire way to nerf your offense for an evade token (like say removing a die from your pool for an evade), sure, it would make sense on a support ship that probably wasn't going to do any dmg anyway. Personally I had high hopes for the thing on a VI Luke, but the fact that I couldn't count on it eventually led me to give up.

Id be happy to be proved wrong on this as I have four of the stupid things lying around, but I can't currently see R3 being good. It would have been a nice 0 point Astro, or a nice 1 point one if you could guarantee it works. With the current mechanic and 2 point cost though...

You've got to roll an eye for it to do anything.

You've only got two dice to roll eyeballs with, and lady luck will ensure they both come up with something else the day you really needed it.

For two points? Tough sell. I think I'd rather flight astromech, so that way you can barrel roll or boost to force arc on your opponents so Fenn Rau's ability triggers, maintaining his threat level.

Then just bank a focus on defense.

Heres the thing though, even at 26 points he's a more balanced form of biggs.

Do you have to shoot him? No!

But if you don't you're going to have a hard time putting down kill damage.

As for addon crew, r3 lends itself to gunner (an even more expensive crew) to make it work.

I think Fenn can make the most use out of it for sure, but the other astro's are just so much more valuable to his mechanics. R2 astro really opens up his dial for stress control, whilst also fixing Pulsed Ray Shield to work with his ability. Those 2 cards combo'd with Wired are only 4pts, and as far as Fenn is concerned; he gets a lot for those 4pts.

I don't really like Flight Assist Astro on the shuttlebug, but Fenn can definitely utilise it more than the rest, almost guaranteeing having arc on ships every round to get the best out of his ability. There will be a lot of times where it doesn't trigger though, and that's where I turn back to R2.

One combo with R3 I thought of whilst reading the thread was R3 Astro, Juke, and Gunner. That will allow you to potentially cancel a focus on the first shot almost guaranteeing a miss with only 1 die, charging up Juke with the evade, and firing again with Gunner and possibly getting some damage through due to Juke. It's 9pts, and there are a lot of things I'd rather spend 9pts on, but it could work.

LOL, thanks for talking some sense into me guys, I don't know what I was thinking......

4 hours ago, DR4CO said:

I'm going to take a slight issue with the premise of your argument -- that we need to be particularly concerned about keeping Fenn alive. If your opponent goes out of his way to blast Fenn first, then he has become a 26-ish point ship with 2 agility and 5hp who has drawn the enemy's attention away from your real end game piece. Sound like anyone we know?

Well, keeping him alive FOR CHEAP. He is a Biggs, and I think if we can keep him at 26 points or less that's fantastic. I personally hate going more that 24 on him.

I think we actually saw the same idea pop up a month or so ago on these forums, don’t quite remember the thread...

I think the idea has potential. Try it out, tell us how it works. Usually you get good advice on these forums. But then sometimes you don’t. I’ve been talked out of flying three E-Wings; that was a good thing. I’ve also been talked out of flying TLT Tactician (pre nerf, pre danger zone and all that); that was a bad thing.

Edit—and actually on topic, it’s got a decent chance of triggering on Fenn. 3/8 on each die, so you should get something three turns out of four. It’s probably still a point too expensive, but it could combo nicely with Rex and Low for some impressive defense.

3/8? I thought focus was 2/8.

Man, for two points r3 astro should be this: "When attacking, you may roll 1 fewer attack die. If you do, assign 1 evade token to your ship."

That way, you still nerf your attack, but the droid is actually useful...kind of.

It did okay on TLT Horton I saw once. Still not great, might as well take Chopper or something (I guess Chopper is an action, but hey, he's cool!)

I'm all about R2 astro on him. He's usually stressed if flown right, so getting those hard 2 greens is great.

Was nice when he got ionised as well.

2 hours ago, BVRCH said:

R2 astro really opens up his dial for stress control, whilst also fixing Pulsed Ray Shield to work with his ability

Huh, does that really work? I did not know that R2 turns the ion white1 into a green maneuver?

5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Huh, does that really work? I did not know that R2 turns the ion white1 into a green maneuver?

Yep, it works. Directly mentioned in the FAQ, even. R2 Astro (and Nien Nunb) instruct you to treat "all" of the maneuvers they affect as green, and since the ion white-1 falls under both of their abilities they can change it.

Why take R3 when you can have R2?

It's probably the best possible use for R3 Astromech, but it's not even close to the best Astromech for Fenn.

4 hours ago, HanScottFirst said:

Man, for two points r3 astro should be this: "When attacking, you may roll 1 fewer attack die. If you do, assign 1 evade token to your ship."

That way, you still nerf your attack, but the droid is actually useful...kind of.

It did okay on TLT Horton I saw once. Still not great, might as well take Chopper or something (I guess Chopper is an action, but hey, he's cool!)

R3 only works on primaries, so if they were using it on TLT, they were making a mistake or cheating.

12 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It's probably the best possible use for R3 Astromech, but it's not even close to the best Astromech for Fenn.

The "best" possible use for this mech is on norra, because shes about the only ship that can trigger it reliably. It's still a long waty from best or even reasonable options for the slot

12 hours ago, DR4CO said:

I'm going to take a slight issue with the premise of your argument -- that we need to be particularly concerned about keeping Fenn alive. If your opponent goes out of his way to blast Fenn first, then he has become a 26-ish point ship with 2 agility and 5hp who has drawn the enemy's attention away from your real end game piece. Sound like anyone we know?

Don't see it as the same but I know where you're coming from.

A ship which encourages being shot at (Fenn Rau) is very different (in reality) than a ship which MANDATES being shot at (pre-nerf Biggs).

R4-D6 all day, every day. It's cheaper and helps your survive.

2 minutes ago, RunnerAZ said:

R4-D6 all day, every day. It's cheaper and helps your survive.

I am definitely going to keep that in mind. I haven't tried it yet, so I want to see just how effective the R2 + Pulsed Ray Shield combo is.

My crew has Jan Ors on it - because my other two ships won't use focus actions (One has Rey+Expertise the other is Advanced Optics Poe) so the ShuttleBug will be mostly flying around giving out Evade tokens to whoever needs it all game.

4 hours ago, Ralgon said:

The "best" possible use for this mech is on norra, because shes about the only ship that can trigger it reliably. It's still a long waty from best or even reasonable options for the slot

I disagree. Norra REALLY doesn't want to spend her ability for an evade token when she can spend her ability for an evade anyway in most cases, by using it with a focus token. not to mention that she wants regen.

1 hour ago, Boba Rick said:

I am definitely going to keep that in mind. I haven't tried it yet, so I want to see just how effective the R2 + Pulsed Ray Shield combo is.

My crew has Jan Ors on it - because my other two ships won't use focus actions (One has Rey+Expertise the other is Advanced Optics Poe) so the ShuttleBug will be mostly flying around giving out Evade tokens to whoever needs it all game.

I flew Fenn last weekend with VI & Chopper crew & R4-D6. He was so useful at only 22 points. Coordinate late in activation is so strong and his ability really helps your ships survive the initial joust.