Hey guys.

A while back I created a bunch of custom content to add in the remaining Battle of Yavin pilots:

I said at the time I was interested in doing some custom astromechs, not only for the pilots I came up with but also for all the other Yavin pilots who don't currently have their astros in game.

Well, I finally finished them and this is what I came up with, if anyone's interested.

R5-K6 (Garven Dreis' astromech, Red Leader)

R5-K6 was in first edition, but was commonly considered one of the worst upgrades in the game. Even back in waves 1 and 2 when there weren't all that many options. R5-K6 was a 3 in 8 chance of getting a target lock back (evade result on a green die roll), which wasn't great even before 1e Fire Control System made it look totally redundant.

For Garven's droid in second edition, my first thought was to come up with a better version of the first edition ability. I even wondered about making it straight up the same ability as 1e FCS this time around, now that FCS has been toned down and given that R5-K6 would be unique.

However, my guiding principle in all of these is to make the obvious choice of pilot for these astros to be the pilot they flew with in the films. 1e was really bad about making almost every unique astromech better on someone other than their intended partner.

Garven isn't interested in lock shenanigans. R5-K6 with 1e FCs as an ability would just go straight on Dutch instead.

Garven needs a reliable way to spend a focus token. So R5-K6 gives him one. Calculate opens up so many options for themey droid abilities. Two calculate tokens is better in many ways than a single focus, especially on a 2 agility ship. R5-K6 would be useful on anyone with an astro slot, but obviously its even better when it lets Garven give your list some serious action economy.

I'd put R5-K6 at 6 points.

R2-A3 (Wedge Antilles' astromech, Red 2)

Wedge is really hard to design around.

As an I6 with a solid ability, it's really hard to come up with something that's good on him (and better on him than anyone else) without making him too powerful. It's hard to make something that Wedge can make best use of that isn't useless on anyone else.

R2-A3 is inspired by the shot of Wedge rescuing Luke by going head to head with Dark Curse and nearly crashing as he makes a kill at point blank range. It means he's free to go head to head and spend his focus on attack without worrying so much about defence against the return shot.

Again, any X-Wing can use this astro, but it decreases in viability the lower your Initiative, so Wedge is clearly the best choice for it. It gives him a little action economy, but not much.

I'd put R2-A3 at 4 points. No sliding scale here. I don't think the fact its worse at lower Initiative is a problem, it's a feature. I want this to be priced competitively with other astros on the pilot who's intended to use it.

R2-F2 (Biggs Darklighter's astromech, Red 3)

The second of our returning astros, you may also remember that R2-F2 was an even worse choice of upgrade than R5-K6. Boy, FFG really went conservative with those first wave astros....

Biggs, again, is kinda hard to design around. He's another one of those pilots who could be an overdesigned upgrade away from being broken. I struggled a lot with this one. I really wanted to keep some of the flavour of 1e R2-F2, and was determined to make him a defence focused evade-y astro who'd be at home on Biggs.

When it comes to upgrades, I don't like giving ships totally free actions. Red actions are brilliant for this. Action economy now, for potentially fewer actions next turn. R2-F2 should help keep Biggs alive when he's taking shots, but it's not so strong that he won't still die to focus fire.

It also rewards him for doing his job and soaking damage. I like upgrades that gel with roles.

I'd put R2-F2 at 3 points.

D4-R4B (John D Branon's astromech, Red 4)

This is a choice of convenience.

A few dedicated folks have put a vast amount of time into cataloging all the astromechs seen in the films, even for the briefest moment. Sadly, it seems the site I got a lot of my information from is down. This is a cached link, but frustratingly the vital images don't seem to work.

One of the conclusions they drew was that the cockpit set used for John D's one shot reused R4-M9's dome (an astromech that appears at the beginning of ANH on the Tantive IV). All the X-Wings used domes from other astros seen in the films, but the fact they swapped them for each pilot (even when those pilots had mere seconds of screen time) is incredible attention to detail.

Now, interestingly, Rogue One introduced a new droid to the Yavin hangar scenes with the exact same paint scheme as R4-M9. So I thought he was the perfect choice to become John D's droid - it seemed so obvious. The only problem is that, hilariously, according to the Visual Guide this is the one droid who's been grounded because he's scared of flying . I couldn't believe it. In the end, I went with it anyway. It was too much work to come up with another droid that also had the same paint scheme.

He has an ability that's totally different from most other astros, though, as a nod that he's not really about the ships themselves.

D4 is designed to help John D's ability work even better with Garven. Expecting Garven to give him a focus to fuel one part of the requirement for his ability, John now has access to jam to help guarantee the other requirement. John, D4 and R5-K6 are all designed to get Garven more table time. John's Initiative of 2 also makes him a great co-ordinator, and I'm a huge fan of the Hyena model of allowing certain pilots to have different roles from the norm in their ships. I'm revising my opinion on a talent slot for him so that he can also take Squad Leader and get a white co-ordinate with D4. It's maybe a little anti-themey, but no one's every going to give Squad Leader to Garven anyway.

But, as Rogue One established that the astromechs are part of a pool, and frequently assigned to other pilots. So D4 also just happens to be great on Y-Wings, without stepping on the toes of Expert Handling or R4.

Oh, also I wanted to keep the theme of R4s doing things involving changing difficulties.

I'd put D4-R4B at 5 points.

R2-D2 (Luke Skywalker's astromech, Red 5)

Hooray, he's already in the game. Just included for a complete roster.

R5-D8 (Jek Porkins' astromech, Red 6)

As above.

R2-X2 (Theron Nett's astromech, Red 10)

Getting a little wackier here.

This isn't quite so directly linked to Theron. Not in the same way as the others. Part of me actually wonders if this might be better for Dutch (see his astro below).

R2-X2 is basically designed as a way to let you use locks when you can't normally use them. In most cases, that's because you're low Initiative. If you can't get a lock to use on attack, you have the option of taking one to help a teammate. You get the lock for free here, but you can't actually use it. I think it's a neat way of bringing back the Wingman style upgrade without making it quite so easy. You have to telegraph who's getting the stress removal. Which may just tip your hand that they're going to pull a red maneuver.

It also lets you remove ion tokens from larger base ships. That might be too powerful, I haven't playtested it. But I'm trying to give real reasons to take these astros.

Basically, I wanted to use this to emphasise Theron's role as the wingman.

I think I'd put R2-X2 at 4 points. I'm really not sure on that one, though.

R2-BHD (Dutch Vander's astromech, Gold Leader)

The second of our Rogue One created astros, this is possibly the most fascinating bit of research I did for this.

So Rogue One introduced this astromech, called "Tooby", and the Visual Guide established that at the time of the film, he's assigned to Dutch. That's great and all, I thought, but I wanted to get the astromechs as they were intended for ANH's filming. The modelmakers had put so much work into the X-Wings, surely the Y-Wings must have had their astros known by someone out there.

Well, it turns out a lot less attention was given to the Y-Wings. In most of the shots of the Y-Wings where their astros should be prominent they forgot to put them in the model! This, obviously, wasn't helpful. But at some stage, the model makers did put astro domes on the shooting models, and there are some behind the scenes photos of them.

Again, these were cataloged by the source I used above. The results were one silvery grey R2 dome, one black R2 dome, a yellow R5 dome and what appears to be another re-use of the R5-D4 dome.

Turns out the Rogue One designers had seriously done their homework. They made Dutch's astro silver because one of the original Y-Wing minis had a silver astro!

Incredible, really.

So I was very happy to use Tooby here as Dutch's astro in the end.

This one should be self explanatory. Dutch wants to lock all the time, now he has a new way to use those locks. Roll all blanks, and you can spend your lock as normal with no certainty. Roll only one blank, and that lock wasn't a waste because now you're maxing a roll. It doesn't replace a focus, though, so Dutch might still want Garven as a wingman....

I'd probably put Tooby at 4 points, again. It's stronger than FCS, but more situational (can't use it on your primaries).

"Sparks" ( Dex Tiree's astromech, Gold 2)

The first astro on our list that doesn't have an official designation. He does at least have a name, though, courtesy of one of the short stories in A Certain Point of View.

Poor Tiree's astro also doesn't have an official depiction, but he's confirmed as an R5 in the story. There are two R5s in Y-Wings according to the models, and though he's not been recanonised, I'm still attributing the yellow R5 (R5-F7) to Lt. Lepira in Gold 4. That leaves the one that reuses R5-D4's dome, so I've gone with an image of a custom built R5-D4 but before all that Tatooine weathering.

Sparks is meant to jive with my intended role for Tiree as a bomber. He's potentially kinda like Ablative Plating for small ships, but not really. He won't protect you from rocks, just make sure you don't get critted.

His real strength is in shrugging off high damage from things like Bomblets or mines. He won't nullify damage, because I don't like abilities like that, but he'll minimise it.

I'd put Sparks at 2 points. I want to be aggressive there, and the benefit of his ability is kinda minimal.

R2-S1 (Davish Krail's astromech, Gold 5)

And finally, the only astromech on this list that didn't have a name or a confirmed appearance.

Poor Pops just never gets any love. He didn't get a pilot card in either addition, and no one seems bothered about filling in his backstory in reference books.

By process of elimination, Pops' droid had to be the R2 with the black dome and silver trim. Incidentally, it is really hard to find an image of a black R2 with silver trim for some reason. This is off the profile photo for an R2 model maker's club here in the UK whose own gallery seems to be defunct after several of their members got hired to work on Rogue One (!). The only other photos I could find were watermarked because they were on stock photo sites! Mad!

Anyway, the name is something I came up with (Stay One target). FFG don't mind very occasionally making their own contributions to canon when they need to (I believe they were the first to try and make Biggs' astro R2- F 2, as opposed to Q2, who we see captured earlier), so I feel like it's something they could do with a Yavin expansion pack.

S1 is meant to emphasise Pops' role as a support wingman. Sure, he'll stress you out in the heat of engagement to help you shoot, but he'll also reassure you afterwards, at a cost to himself. He loses his own action doing this, but there's a plethora of support-y Rebels to help him out now.

I'd put R2-S1 at 3 points.

And that's it. Please heap on all the comments and criticism you can. I actually found designing astromechs really difficult, and I'd love to hear what areas of gameplay I completely forgot about while designing them.

Being upgrades, there's also way more complexity in terms of figuring out possible broken combos. I basically haven't though how any of these could interact with crew and gunners on the ARC, for example. So if anyone can see a way these upgrades could be broken, I'd love to collaborate on a better design.

Oh, and lastly - please excuse the hideous, quickly thrown together art on most of these. My GIMP skills are minimal, and there's basically very little existing imagery of these droids out there beyond things like action figures.

This is some solid work. I really like what you did there, very creative and spot-on when it comes to letting the droid and the pilot work together.

On a side note... I like Sparks, but I think it might be a bit to much to let him dodge the damage of devices.

That’s some great work right there. I think FFG should be adding more droid crew cards. There are imperial droids in the movies, but only two have made it to the game and they aren’t in the movies...

some of these very delicately balanced ones are wonderful designs. I love what you did here. its very very pleasing, with an extremely creative and subtle eye to balance.

wow. i really like these, great work!

These are all really good and well thought-out, and I think they'd make fine additions to the game.

I think Sparks would really struggle to find a niche, even at 1 point. Best-case scenario, he reduces incoming damage from bomblets/prox mines by 1, if and only if you roll absolutely miserably. I suppose there are some edge cases where he could also turn a crit into a hit. Seems like his best use would be against the crazy expensive Electro-Proton Bomb, which he could turn into a 14 point one-charge seismic.

I know you don't like abilities that can totally obviate damage, so maybe he can reduce the number of dice you roll when you suffer the effects of a device that makes you roll dice? "Before you suffer the effects of a bomb or mine detonating, you may spend 1 charge to reduce the number of dice rolled by 1 (to a minimum of 1), or spend 1 charge to change 1 critical damage to 1 normal damage." It's a little more RNG-y, but it's also somewhat more usable. It also gives it a use against proton bombs (if your shields are down) without allowing you to negate any rolled crits on bomblets/proximities.

I still think this would be a very cheap astromech--he's unique, not every opponent will bring devices, and when they do Sparks doesn't exactly neuter them so much as just take the edge off a bit. A nice filler droid for 1-2 points when you're worried about enemy bombers.

Thanks for all the comments so far guys, glad to see there's some people other than me who'd like to see a bit of depth to the Rebel astro choices.

21 hours ago, Jaden Corr said:

On a side note... I like Sparks, but I think it might be a bit to much to let him dodge the damage of devices.

Really? I'm worried he does far too little, as @Maui. says.

He doesn't really dodge damage from devices. He reduces the damage from dice rolls to one 1 hit. That means Sparks has no effect on Seismics or Proton Bombs, as they don't roll dice.

He minimises bad damage on Bomblets, but Y-Wings can't take Bomblets so that's only of use if your opponent brings them.

The main one, and the one I was intending him to work best with, is Proximity Mines. But Sparks doesn't stop the auto damage from prox mines, and only helps if you roll two hits on the extra roll.

25 minutes ago, Maui. said:

I think Sparks would really struggle to find a niche, even at 1 point. Best-case scenario, he reduces incoming damage from bomblets/prox mines by 1, if and only if you roll absolutely miserably. I suppose there are some edge cases where he could also turn a crit into a hit. Seems like his best use would be against the crazy expensive Electro-Proton Bomb, which he could turn into a 14 point one-charge seismic.

As I said above, I think you're totally right and I nearly held off posting these until I'd thought of something better for Sparks.

The intention was indeed to try and make damaging yourself with Prox Mines slightly less of an issue, but I also forgot that Seismics weren't a single dice roll.

And yes, I had realised he's weirdly amazing against EPB. It would only protect one ship, which I thought was kinda cool. Especially as his name is Sparks, it sounds like having a weird relationship with an electricity attack would have been fitting.

29 minutes ago, Maui. said:

I know you don't like abilities that can totally obviate damage, so maybe he can reduce the number of dice you roll when you suffer the effects of a device that makes you roll dice? "Before you suffer the effects of a bomb or mine detonating, you may spend 1 charge to reduce the number of dice rolled by 1 (to a minimum of 1), or spend 1 charge to change 1 critical damage to 1 normal damage." It's a little more RNG-y, but it's also somewhat more usable. It also gives it a use against proton bombs (if your shields are down) without allowing you to negate any rolled crits on bomblets/proximities.

Yeah, this is a good suggestion.

Having a benefit against Proton Bombs feels much more fitting, those are the bombs Y-Wings are supposed to carry.

To be honest, he probably needs a total rethink, though.

I want him to work well with Tiree, and I want Tiree to give Y-Wings a device focused ability. But looking back over my pilots post, I realised that Tiree's ability is actually largely pointless. Given the rule for detonation, dropping a device in the engagement phase is essentially no different from dropping in the engagement phase. Indeed, the only difference is that now your opponent knows where the bomb is before they set dials.

Maybe I just don't use devices enough, but I'm really struggling to think of an ability for them that's interesting.

Maybe keeping Sparks' ability as a reduction on number of dice rolled, while Tiree's ability increases the number of dice rolled?

Or maybe Tiree's ability could be any ship he has locked that suffers damage from a device has to roll an attack die and suffer any additional damage? Might make Prox Mines just too brutal, but the lock requirement wouldn't be easy. And that would also make him pair really well with either Dutch or Pops or even both.

I don't know. I think that either way, these are the two cards that still need more work.

7 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

That’s some great work right there. I think FFG should be adding more droid crew cards. There are imperial droids in the movies, but only two have made it to the game and they aren’t in the movies...

This is a good idea.

Maybe when I get round to doing some Imperial theme expansions, I'll throw R2-Q5 and 'Death Star Droid' crew cards in.

Actually, I guess they could even be part of this expansion. Backstabber and Dark Curse are there as pilots, after all. It would still be Death Star 1/Yavin themed. Just a shame there's no Yavin Imperial crewed ship I could add content to.