B2 Battle Droid Unit Guide

Introduction

The Separatists have as of the moment of writing this guide three choices for corps. B1 Battle Droids, Geonosians and B2 Super Battle Droids (from now on B2s). In this article we are going to put the B2s into the spotlight.

Pros

• Strong melee/range 2 firepower
• Sturdy as hell, 6 wounds behind red saves if naked
• Multipurpose

Cons

• Expensive if kitted out
• Pierce
• Surge-Thirsty

Upgrades: Comms, Personnel, Heavy

The B2s come as default in a 3-man squad with movement and courage 2. They are further customisable with a heavy, personnel, and a comms upgrade slot. Their AI-Action is attack so make sure that either they have a face up order or are in range of a commander, because that’s the most unfortunate AI-Action to deal with. For armament, they exhibit two choices: Arm Cannons with 2B and melee-range 2 as well as Wrist Rockets with 1R, Impact 1 and range 1.  I will analyse this part of the B2s in the Heavy Weapon Upgrade section more thoroughly. These armament options make it a multipurpose unit, being able to hit hard in range 2 and in melee as well as to deal with armoured threats. On the defensive part, that unit displays two wounds per model as well as red defence dice.

In conjunction with at least a Heavy Weapon Upgrade that’s 16 effective wounds. Therefore, the opponent has to direct a significant amount of resources to deal with them, which make them also a Distraction Carnifex. On average, dedicated damage dealers such as ARCs or Sleepers can’t one-shot them. Force Users like Anakin, Dooku and Vader will need two subsequent attack actions to kill them, which means that you are stuck with them for at least two rounds (unless Force Push, Anakins 1 pip and Vaders 1 pip are involved). Obviously, Pierce is their Achilles heel. Additionally, as this unit is not naturally surging, it craves any kind of surge access, which enhances their defensive and offensive potential. This can be achieved by either Tactical Droids through Bolster or through a specific upgrade in the personnel slot.

Upgrades

Heavy Weapon

The first and most popular option is the B2 ACM trooper (24 pts) with 3R and range 1 – 2 for 88 pts. In combination with the whole squad it forms an attack pool of 6B3R, which equals on average almost 6 hits without an aim. Let’s have a closer look on the consequences for enemy units (see table 1).

Table 1. Average Wound expectation for B2 ACM trooper and Arm Cannons. The numbers for “no cover” are generated by legion dice simulator, cover was applied by multiplying those numbers with 5/6 (Light Cover) and 4/6 (Heavy Cover). WS = white save, NC = no cover, RS = red save, LC = light Cover, HC = heavy cover and A x = Armour x.

For a second option, the B2s can choose to take the Wrist Rockets instead of the Arm Cannons if they are in Range 1 of something. This alternates the available dice pool either to 6R Impact 3 with the ACM (table 2) or 4R Impact 4 (table 3).

Table 2. Average Wound expectation for B2 ACM trooper and Wrist rockets. The numbers for “no cover” are generated by legion dice simulator, cover was applied by multiplying those numbers with 5/6 (Light Cover) and 4/6 (Heavy Cover). WS = white save, NC = no cover, RS = red save, LC = light Cover, HC = heavy cover and A x = Armour x.

Table 3. Average Wound expectation Wrist Rockets against Armour. The numbers are generated by legion dice simulator. WS = white save, RS = red save and A x = Armour x.

Let’s dive into these numbers. The outcome of the analysis of all possibilities for the ACM-Upgrade shows that the ACM trooper in conjunction with the Arm Cannon is the choice to go as it’s by far lethal against red and white save troopers than the Wrist Rocket ACM option. Where the latter shines is its anti-armour capability. It’s even better than the sole Wrist Rocket option against armour. The reason, therefore, is the additional 3R giving an opportunity for spiking through natural crits. Generally speaking, B2 are able to remove a filler activation per round or cripple a dedicated damage dealer unit significantly (e.g. ARCs), if they reach enemy positons in full strength. And that will be the biggest struggle to do so because every opponent will do his/her best to not let them reach the contact line intact, as of the potential thread they are causing.

The other option as a heavy weapon for 32 pts is the HA trooper (range 2 – 3) giving a dice pool with 6B2R1W with Blast and Impact 2 for a total of 96 pts (see table 4). The HA-option has less killing power in comparison to the ACM against troopers but offers a better armour penetration. In legacy legion blast was much more impactful than right now as cover isn’t anymore an absolute value. Also bear in mind that one can’t combine the HA trooper and the wrist rockets for Impact 5 because of the different range bands.

Table 4. Average Wound expectation HA trooper. The numbers are generated by legion dice simulator. WS = white save, NC = no cover, RS = red save and A x = Armour x.

As mentioned before, B2s also exhibit enhanced melee capabilities. Any heavy weapon secection  offers 8B in melee. They can give magna guards with additional droid (94 pts) a proper fight. Having the same dice pool in melee as well as defence dice, the magna guards will eventually come out as the victors due to surge:hit conversion. Also force users have to be cautious about them, but the real deal is here that they trading well into a much more expensive unit. 

Personnel

This section of the upgrades offers a lot of interesting choices which we will explore. The first and simplest option is to add an additional B2 for 18 pts. In the popular configuration with the ACM, the squad cost increases to 106 pts but offers 8B3R (avg. 7 hits) and 20 effective wounds. Another option is to add a T-Series which will become the leader of the squad. For 18 pts this unit receives an additional red die for it’s range pool as well as loosing AI:Attack and generates a surge token per round.

After the April 2025 update removing Aggressive Tactics from the game, it may be a viable option to generate those precious surges this unit loves to have, particularly defensively. Also, this squad composition is destined to operate independently on the battlefield. As an extra advantage, a player can choose whether a weapon with both an attack range and the melee symbol as either type, meaning that despite having sidearm: ranged it gets the 2 black dice in melee that the other minis do. The Viper droid adds two white dice with observe 2 for 9 pts. As for non-combatants, we have two options: the medical droid and the PK droid. The medical droid is an interesting choice if the squad needs to support the Dark Jedi fighting for the Confederacy (Dooku, Assaj, and Maul), as this configuration not just offers combat capabilities but also those precious heals charges for them and clocks in for 102 pts. The other option is the PK Driod for 22 pts. Unfortunately, due the points updates in Nov. 2024 the cost for this little cute droid was almost doubled to 22 pts, which also makes healing B2s not very efficient. Nevertheless, there is something about 6 B2 with ACM and PK droid walking up the field. The last but in my opinion the most interesting choice is the formation of a B2 super-squad with ACM or a HA-Trooper for 165 or 173 pts/unit, respectively (see table 5).

Table 5. Average Wound expectation for B2 ACM super squad. The values for no cover reflect the B2 Ha trooper. The numbers for “no cover” are generated by legion dice simulator, cover was applied by multiplying those numbers with 5/6 (Light Cover) and 4/6 (Heavy Cover). WS = white save, NC = no cover, RS = red save, LC = light Cover, HC = heavy cover and A x = Armour x.

This unit exhibits a huge amount of firepower deleting essentially a red save unit with a heavy weapon upgrade in the open and seriously crippling anything else. The heavy weapon of choice for the B2 super-squad is the HA trooper, negating any kind of cover save. Say “Auf Wiedersehen !” to any unit you point at. Anakin and Vader have to be careful as well, as this raw potential is putting both of them on average at 5 wounds. In defensive terms, we are talking about 16 wounds behind red saves (32 effective wounds!). That’s a lot to chew through. This unit is literally a brick.  It’s important to note that, due to being an investment and therefore reducing the amount of activations, gameplay-wise it relies on generating tempo to overcome the activations disparity.  Additionally, for obvious reasons, the B2 super-squad attracts a lot of attention. They carry a significant amount of your damage output on their shoulders, and if they can’t deliver for any reason you’re likely going to lose the game.

Comms

Even though the comms slot offers a variety of options most of the time B2 squads are deployed without any investment in this area. The comms jammer might be a viable option for 5 pts because B2s are already operating in close proximity to enemy units. Emergency transponder might be a small insurance for 4 pts if an attack has to make its mark. The last two options are either the hacked comm for 5 pts or an HQ-Uplink for 10 pts but neither are likely a great choice here.

List Building

The first list here on display is the one from Nicolas Bucaille, who made 3^rd place at Adepticon 2025. It is a typical loadout of a Dooku/Aqua-List archetype with full Aquas and Dekas. Nicolas reduced the B1s to a minimum of 3 units (one with HQ) and completely ignored the special forces slot. Instead, he has chosen B2s with ACMs. This added some additional punch as well as resiliency to his list and still hit 12 activations, as these lists tend to have more B1 to reach even higher act counts.  Besides that, they are a formidable unit to accompany Dooku (with AggTac at that time, even better). He only lost in the semi-final to the World Champion Isaiah Wallace. At this point I would like to sincerely apologize you for my editor mistreatment of the French language, but I suppose you took care of it prophylactically upfront [ 😉 ]. Editor’s note: I can’t speak for Nicholas but this list still retains most of its function when you replace Aggro Tac with another copy of Improvised Orders and the generic Super Tac (no longer legal) with Kalani. Also, when I began editing this paragraph, I had a slight amount of angst at seeing this list again, but by the end where Szymon further adds to my dread by insulting my attempt to speak French on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, it has transformed to angoisse existentielle.

This was slightly edited from its original form (which used Aggressive Tactics) to maintain legality, but B2’s and French/Quebecois seem to have a special relationship. Another very interesting list piloted by Nostrus on the Open de Montpellier with 11 activations and two super-squads of B2, one with ACM- and the other with HA-heavy upgrade.  That’s a lot of resiliency baked into this list. Add two units of full BX-Deflector-Squads, 3 Dekas as well as a SuperTac and a T-Series, and you’re ready to go. In total 47 red save wounds supplemented by 4 BX-Shields and 12 shields from Dekas. The immense firepower by these B2 super squads is displayed by the 2^nd highest KPs achieved at this event.

Conclusion

In summary, the B2 Super Battle Droids deserve their name. They are a very solid unit in the roster of the Confederacy, exhibiting a lot of strengths in melee/short-range engagements as well as in defence. Their red saves and 2 wounds make them a sturdy unit. Dedicated melee/range damage dealer units will need to invest a lot to deal with them.  No natural conversion on their card means an investment into any kind of surge access will enhance their abilities, but also increasing their cost further. Pierce is their biggest adversary. They are not cheap by any means, but you get what you pay for!