The more I think about the B2 battledroids, the more I like the unit. Initially they seemed to me like a slightly more sturdy version of fleet troopers, but they actually seem to be not only slightly more sturdy, but more or less an opposite version with the emphasis on sturdiness instead of damage output. Both fleets and B2s are area denial units that like to use a line of sight blocker to reach their destination. But while Fleet Troopers will often wait there for a viable target, B2s can move to heavy cover, hold their position and shoot for quite some time. While Fleet Troopers are all about back to back activations and high burst damage, B2s might be an attrition unit that will probably shoot at least 3 times with more or less maximum strength in most of the games.
They will usually start with an ordertoken and probably with a surge token via aggressive tactics.
If B2 droids start their activation behind a los-blocker like Fleets often do, they could expose themselves in a turn in which Grieveous plays "supreme commander", move, shoot and end their activation in the middle of some b1 units with faceup order tokens that will have Guardian 2. The B2s will have allready flipped their order token and can benefit from the other units with guardian again during the rest of the turn. Vice versa, Armor 1 would make the B2s ideal guardians for any other given unit in case Armor x can be used with Guardian x.
If B2s are hit by a "normal" attack pool with about 4 hits in the open, they will loose 2.5 wounds on average. One wound costs about 8 points for a minimum unit, so the attacker defeats 20 points of miniatures and needs a little bit more than 3 attacks to destroy a minimum unit in the open. That is better than a minimum unit of Stormtroopers, which currently have the best defensive stats in the game when it comes to attrition. 4 hits would defeat 22 points of stormtroopers on average. As long as there are less than 6 hits left after dodge and cover, the B2 Droids are better as a bullettrap than minimum Stormtroopers. As long as there are less than 5 hits left, they are as good or better than B1 droids. They are also relativly good as a tarpit vs melee units. The B2 might deal much less damage compared to other core units with their pricetag, but 6 wounds and armor 1 makes them extremly tough to kill, so they can engage and temporaly neutralize more expensive ranged damage dealers to prevent them from shooting. They could also sustain damage from dedicated melee units better than any other unit in the game. Even Vader will need 2 attack actions to chew through a minimum unit.
In the offense, 3 droids without a heavy weapon cost 48 points and deal 2.25 hits on average with their blasters if they do not use their surge token from aggressive tactics. That translates to 21.3 points for the unit per hit that it rolls during an attack on average for the B2s, which is relativly bad if you consider their range. Fleet trooper sit at 14.7 points per hit, Rebel Trooper at 20, Storms at 29.3. A Z6-Squad sits at 17.7 and a DLT Squad at 20.9. The B2s can take strong heavy weapons though, which would be protected by the other relativly sturdy and cheap wounds comparable to DLT squads. If you max out the unit with the Acm, it will probably cost about 100 points, which would translate to about 19 points per hit without surge and aim. That is still not great. After the first volley though, they will usually have an aim token due to their immunity to suppression effects. At that point, their damage per point will probably be closer to Z6 Squads when it comes to damage output, while beeing even more sturdy than DLT Squads. With the Blast keyword of the B2 HA, they will probably be even better if a game developes into a straight shootout between two gunlines in heavy cover. In that configuration they are much worse as a melee tarpit though, which might be a weak spot.
Edited by M.Mustermann