He also mentioned that an ISD would cost $400 if same scale... So I guess pick your poison.

I think he was being flippant. An ISD in scale with the VSD shown would be around 10 inches, or about the size of the X-Wing CR-90. No way it ould cost $400. An SSD? Sure, but not an ISD.

Besides, Im sure they watch the forums. Theres at least 3 or 4 threads dedicated to debating model scale issues. I'm sure they had some rehearsed thow away lines for interviews to address issues brought up in the forums and that was probubly one.

Is there a single on-screen action which doesn't involve fighters?

To answer your question, yes. The very first scene in A New Hope. An ISD chasing a CR-90

As for the bunching up keep in mind the standard Imperial combat doctrine of 'stay as close together as possible so when a hot rod freighter flies through we can almost collide'

1) Why are people assuming there will be SSDs? Looking at the points value of the ships, the points value of an SSD will be huge. Lets say an Imperial has one SSD with fighter escorts and that's it. Isn't that going to leave the Rebel player with a huge amounts of points to fill with (potentially) hoards of small ships? Not to mention the financial aspect of that.

2) Size matters. The nature of how a ships fights in part is based on its size. Allowing an SSD to mingle with the smaller ships defeats the strategy and tactical aspects of the game in that you no longer have to think about using the ship with all of its pluses and minuses intact. The same goes for any ship really. I get that this is a fictional universe, but looking to naval history as a guide, battleships didn't go mixing it up with destroyers. They formed battle lines and were used to best advantage by the admiral based on the developing circumstances of the battle. That's a major point for me in deciding if I want to invest in this. If it's a tactical fleet system, I would like the most realism possible, including what assets I can and can't use based on maneuverability in the area allowed.

3) What opportunity would exist for an SSD anyway? Using the movies as a guide (and even the now non-cannon books), the Rebellion never engaged a fully functional SSD purposely. They had a small, nimble fleet conducting hit and run raids. Even the attack on the Death Star in RotJ was not intended as a fleet action. The Rebels went in with the intention of destroying the Death Star and getting back out. I just can't see Rebel players purposefully attacking fleets including an SDD with the likely resources they will have in game.

4) Power lists ruin games. Im already seeing power listers bragging about how they will use their fleets of SSDs to boldly sweep across the table and destroy all that stands before them. No thanks. Power listers kill more games and chase off more players than a bad game will.

All that to get to this: I think the biggest ship in game should be an ISD and it should be in scale with the VSD. For that matter, all ships upwards in size from the corvette up to the ISD should be in one consistent scale. It's a reasonable model expectation, gives Rebel players opportunities for fleet actions in which their ships have a reasonable chance, and finally, does not put undo pressure on Rebel players to purchase massive fleet to fill points values to have equal fleets. And might keep them in the game if they dont have to spend $600 to buy a fleet to face one SSD.

Bit late to the party skipped most of the thread, but I agree with you on a lot of points. A SSD would probably be in the 500+ point range way beyond a normal level and barely useable in an epic Armada An ISD will probably be around 150ish and will be the most expensive (except an ISD 2)

Direct response to 3). I can think of 2 times off the top of my head from the EU the first is the Hunt for Zinsj but that had a task force of a MC80b, 3 ISDs, 3 Neb Bs, 2 MC80s, 2 Corvettes, Bulk Crusier and 30 Squadrons of fighters. Granted Zinsj had more than just the Iron Fist (like the second almost completed SSD, Razor's Kiss(?)) but by my math that is probably close to 1500 points worth (figuring 150ish for an ISD and the Mon Cals, and a 10pt per squadron)

The second was Rogue Squadron in the Bacta War. They had 2 Squadrons of Fighters, 1 ISD, an Alderaanian War Cruiser(about Neb B size), a crapload of freighters and an ISD against 1 SSD and 5 Squadrons Ties and it was still losing fight until the Rogues got lucky with an additional ISD and 3 Squadrons of A-wings showing up. Much closer to "normal levels" if you only count the initial ships, about 255 not counting the torpedo launching freighters I haven't seen an accurate count or even ball park for the number of those(who are probably a 100-200 point force unto themselves)

I don't think the powerlisters will even have a chance if they don't know what they are doing, there are so many tactical changes you have to deal with like shield allocation and facing your arcs, etc that nothing will every be to the point where you can't handle any list your opponent brings if your list is balanced and you know what you are running. (FFG is good like that, and I think Armada might even be better at this then X-wing but it is too early to tell)

1) Why are people assuming there will be SSDs? Looking at the points value of the ships, the points value of an SSD will be huge. Lets say an Imperial has one SSD with fighter escorts and that's it. Isn't that going to leave the Rebel player with a huge amounts of points to fill with (potentially) hoards of small ships? Not to mention the financial aspect of that.

2) Size matters. The nature of how a ships fights in part is based on its size. Allowing an SSD to mingle with the smaller ships defeats the strategy and tactical aspects of the game in that you no longer have to think about using the ship with all of its pluses and minuses intact. The same goes for any ship really. I get that this is a fictional universe, but looking to naval history as a guide, battleships didn't go mixing it up with destroyers. They formed battle lines and were used to best advantage by the admiral based on the developing circumstances of the battle. That's a major point for me in deciding if I want to invest in this. If it's a tactical fleet system, I would like the most realism possible, including what assets I can and can't use based on maneuverability in the area allowed.

3) What opportunity would exist for an SSD anyway? Using the movies as a guide (and even the now non-cannon books), the Rebellion never engaged a fully functional SSD purposely. They had a small, nimble fleet conducting hit and run raids. Even the attack on the Death Star in RotJ was not intended as a fleet action. The Rebels went in with the intention of destroying the Death Star and getting back out. I just can't see Rebel players purposefully attacking fleets including an SDD with the likely resources they will have in game.

4) Power lists ruin games. Im already seeing power listers bragging about how they will use their fleets of SSDs to boldly sweep across the table and destroy all that stands before them. No thanks. Power listers kill more games and chase off more players than a bad game will.

All that to get to this: I think the biggest ship in game should be an ISD and it should be in scale with the VSD. For that matter, all ships upwards in size from the corvette up to the ISD should be in one consistent scale. It's a reasonable model expectation, gives Rebel players opportunities for fleet actions in which their ships have a reasonable chance, and finally, does not put undo pressure on Rebel players to purchase massive fleet to fill points values to have equal fleets. And might keep them in the game if they dont have to spend $600 to buy a fleet to face one SSD.

Bit late to the party skipped most of the thread, but I agree with you on a lot of points. A SSD would probably be in the 500+ point range way beyond a normal level and barely useable in an epic Armada An ISD will probably be around 150ish and will be the most expensive (except an ISD 2)

Direct response to 3). I can think of 2 times off the top of my head from the EU the first is the Hunt for Zinsj but that had a task force of a MC80b, 3 ISDs, 3 Neb Bs, 2 MC80s, 2 Corvettes, Bulk Crusier and 30 Squadrons of fighters. Granted Zinsj had more than just the Iron Fist (like the second almost completed SSD, Razor's Kiss(?)) but by my math that is probably close to 1500 points worth (figuring 150ish for an ISD and the Mon Cals, and a 10pt per squadron)

The second was Rogue Squadron in the Bacta War. They had 2 Squadrons of Fighters, 1 ISD, an Alderaanian War Cruiser(about Neb B size), a crapload of freighters and an ISD against 1 SSD and 5 Squadrons Ties and it was still losing fight until the Rogues got lucky with an additional ISD and 3 Squadrons of A-wings showing up. Much closer to "normal levels" if you only count the initial ships, about 255 not counting the torpedo launching freighters I haven't seen an accurate count or even ball park for the number of those(who are probably a 100-200 point force unto themselves)

I don't think the powerlisters will even have a chance if they don't know what they are doing, there are so many tactical changes you have to deal with like shield allocation and facing your arcs, etc that nothing will every be to the point where you can't handle any list your opponent brings if your list is balanced and you know what you are running. (FFG is good like that, and I think Armada might even be better at this then X-wing but it is too early to tell)

You will get your SSD alright. If they can blow up a Corellian Corvette almost to the size of a Nebulon B, they can shrink the SSD to be just a bigger brother of the ISD. Which is fine by me, as long as they balance the game, they can do what they like with Lucas. He would understand, as he always chose "looking good" over "looking sensible" like the gifted movie director he was.

Which is fine by me, as long as they balance the game

That's just it. You can't balance a SSD in a 300 point Armada game.

Direct response to 3). I can think of 2 times off the top of my head from the EU the first is the Hunt for Zinsj but that had a task force of a MC80b, 3 ISDs, 3 Neb Bs, 2 MC80s, 2 Corvettes, Bulk Crusier and 30 Squadrons of fighters. Granted Zinsj had more than just the Iron Fist (like the second almost completed SSD, Razor's Kiss(?)) but by my math that is probably close to 1500 points worth (figuring 150ish for an ISD and the Mon Cals, and a 10pt per squadron)

The second was Rogue Squadron in the Bacta War. They had 2 Squadrons of Fighters, 1 ISD, an Alderaanian War Cruiser(about Neb B size), a crapload of freighters and an ISD against 1 SSD and 5 Squadrons Ties and it was still losing fight until the Rogues got lucky with an additional ISD and 3 Squadrons of A-wings showing up. Much closer to "normal levels" if you only count the initial ships, about 255 not counting the torpedo launching freighters I haven't seen an accurate count or even ball park for the number of those(who are probably a 100-200 point force unto themselves)

I don't think the powerlisters will even have a chance if they don't know what they are doing, there are so many tactical changes you have to deal with like shield allocation and facing your arcs, etc that nothing will every be to the point where you can't handle any list your opponent brings if your list is balanced and you know what you are running. (FFG is good like that, and I think Armada might even be better at this then X-wing but it is too early to tell)

I forgot about those but you are correct about the instances. With the Executor, the Rebels were unrealistically lucky. By the same token, in the novels, the Imperials are usually unrealistically incompetant and every seems to always go right for the Alliance, for the most part. I've always found it amusing that the feared and poweful Empire looses nearly every single battle it engages in with the Rebels. Thats always been one of my pet peeves about Star Wars.

I would be curious if the same force compositions sited in your examples would have anything like the same out out comes if it was gamed out.

Its not really that the Alliance/New Republic won every battle against the Empire after Endor its more that outside of the Thrawn campaign, Palpatine's return campaign, and Daala's few wins which were little more then bee stings, the battles they lost almost never got shown in the books and rarely get mentioned. In fact after Daala's assault on Yavin IV and various smaller New Republic planets the only Imperial versus New Republic battle that I recall being shown in a novel were the Battles of Bothawui and Yaga Minor at the end of Visions of the Future and the Battle of Adumar at the end of Starfighters of Adumar. There were definitely more, many of which the Empire won, but they were never included in the novels other then one being mentioned in passing during Before the Storm.

Its not really that the Alliance/New Republic won every battle against the Empire after Endor its more that outside of the Thrawn campaign, Palpatine's return campaign, and Daala's few wins which were little more then bee stings, the battles they lost almost never got shown in the books and rarely get mentioned... There were definitely more, many of which the Empire won, but they were never included in the novels other then one being mentioned in passing during Before the Storm.

That's really the meat of my argument. We almost never saw the Empire win anything, on screen at any rate, with the exceptions you mentioned. As for Imperial victories mentioned in passing... Well... I'm just saying it would have been nice to see this evidence that the Empire was as powerful an fearsome as described on screen. From the Lucas' and the novel author's points of view, the Empire was always destined to loose. That led to some very twisted pretzels of logic at times. The destruction of the Executor, for example. The shields are knocked out just before that A-wing crashes into EXACTLY the right place to eliminate the central command of the SSD, which conveniently (apparently) did not have a secondary command area for just such a situation... Really? I don't remember the exact details of the other SSD battles, but I'm willing to bet that there were similar holes.

The point I'm trying to make is that this game is going to present some interesting results. Without authors or movie makers predestining Imperial losses, I'm curious to see just how tough a VSD or ISD really is in terms of game mechanics. I hope they are tough and hard to beat. I'm an Empire fan after all. I want to see my side win one!

Well Executor did have a decent chunk of the rebel fleet shooting at it when it lost its bridge deflector shield. Ackbar ordered the fleet focus their fire on it and the novelization specificallry mentions 3 cruisers (almost certainly MC80s given the context used and the fact no EU Alliance cruisers had been created yet.) targeting Executor. And those cruisers probably had smaller escort ships helping them. So I honestly don't have a problem with how Executor was destroyed

But yeah I definitely think more Imperial victories should have been included in the post-Endor novels and comics. I also think Daala should have had some wins against decent size NR fleets to help establish her as a credible threat.

And yeah there will definitely be more Imperial wins in the game.

I don't remember the exact details of the other SSD battles, but I'm willing to bet that there were similar holes.

The Razor's Kiss being understaffed was blown up by Solo's fleet. Not part of a bad plot hole they had just stolen it from Kuat and so ZInsj could only get skeleton crew to get it underway and not intending to do heavy fighting.

Iron Fist was similar to Executor, The Falcon destroyed the shield generator domes and put 2 Missiled into the bridge, leaving it to be finished off by the Hapans

Lusankya was surrendered to Rogue Squadron after the captain who tried to scuttle the ship was killed by another officer after it was severe damaged by Rogue Squadron's "fleet"

I don't remember the exact details of the other SSD battles, but I'm willing to bet that there were similar holes.

The Razor's Kiss being understaffed was blown up by Solo's fleet. Not part of a bad plot hole they had just stolen it from Kuat and so ZInsj could only get skeleton crew to get it underway and not intending to do heavy fighting.

Iron Fist was similar to Executor, The Falcon destroyed the shield generator domes and put 2 Missiled into the bridge, leaving it to be finished off by the Hapans

Lusankya was surrendered to Rogue Squadron after the captain who tried to scuttle the ship was killed by another officer after it was severely damaged by Rogue Squadron's "fleet"

Also Razor's Kiss had an NR controlled fighter landed on the hull, and thus under the shields, which blew the shield generators if memory serves.

Which is fine by me, as long as they balance the game

That's just it. You can't balance a SSD in a 300 point Armada game.

No problem to balance a SSD in a 300 point Armada game. You might not recognize the SSD anymore, though, because it would have been considerably nerfed to fit in. What you can't have in Armada are the huge differences in size and firepower you have in the movies. So they made the corvette into some kind of frigate. I wouldn't be surprised, if we will see a tiny little Death Star. There is no "historical accuracy" in Star Wars. Why do you think Lucas did a science fiction movie instead of a remake of Pearl Harbour, Battle at the O.K. Corral and The Seven Samurai? Because he didn't want to have to deal with "but the Corsair only got the new tail fin on the 5th of august '44, you did it all wrong". Lucas aimed for visual consistency, which sometimes defies logic. A game designer has to aim for consistency in balance, which sometimes defies Lucas.

Its not really that the Alliance/New Republic won every battle against the Empire after Endor its more that outside of the Thrawn campaign, Palpatine's return campaign, and Daala's few wins which were little more then bee stings, the battles they lost almost never got shown in the books and rarely get mentioned... There were definitely more, many of which the Empire won, but they were never included in the novels other then one being mentioned in passing during Before the Storm.

That's really the meat of my argument. We almost never saw the Empire win anything, on screen at any rate, with the exceptions you mentioned. As for Imperial victories mentioned in passing... Well... I'm just saying it would have been nice to see this evidence that the Empire was as powerful an fearsome as described on screen. From the Lucas' and the novel author's points of view, the Empire was always destined to loose.

In the first half hour of A New Hope, we were presented with an Imperial Star Destroyer toying with the ship it was chasing. When it finally stopped playing and captured it, the boarding party utterly crushed the ship's defenders with barely any losses. During the battle of Yavin, the rebels were being crushed despite knowing the only weakness of the battle station. The only reason they won was because plot shields shaved the hero's day.

Then The Empire Strikes Back gives us the battle of Hoth, where the Empire smashes the rebels so hard they can't do anything except run away as fast as they can. The main characters get captured en-masse, Luke fights the bad guy and loses severely (in more than one meaning of the word) and one of the main characters ends up still captured by the time the movie ends.

Even in Return of the Jedi, the Empire was winning the battle of Endor before the plot shields activate again and a heroic turnabout enters play. Sure, the Empire was always destined to lose in the end. As is the fate of most villains in fiction. But to say the Empire was never a powerful and fearsome force is just wrong.

^This.

I was writing it in my head as I was reading the above posts, but then you went and beat me to it.

That's really the meat of my argument. We almost never saw the Empire win anything, on screen at any rate, with the exceptions you mentioned. As for Imperial victories mentioned in passing... Well... I'm just saying it would have been nice to see this evidence that the Empire was as powerful an fearsome as described on screen. From the Lucas' and the novel author's points of view, the Empire was always destined to loose.

I But to say the Empire was never a powerful and fearsome force is just wrong.

Good thing I never said it.

I don't know what you mean about the Tantive IV getting toyed with. It looked like a plain good 'ole chase scene to me. Nothing detracting or adding to the Empire's power except the over-awing size of the ship. Point to the Empire for being powerful and fearsome. And if they were just playing with the Tantive, then I retract my point because it would be idiotic for knowledgeable fleet offices to "toy" with an enemy ship and let them destroy or hide evidence, prepare shipboard defenses and traps, or prepare to launch escape pods.

The battle on the Tantive IV and Hoth for that mater shows, shows bunches of stormtroopers, in armor, getting killed with one shot. Minus a point there. Why bother with armor that stops absolutely nothing? Just something that has always bothered me a little about the storm trooper armor concept. Meanwhile, the guards on the Tantive were doing remarkably well holding off said storm troopers, who, presumably, were Vader's best.

At Yavin I would argue they were not being crushed since they got at two trench runs in. Crushed implies a total lack of success. Lucas could have shown a more heated battle by having more than just Vader and two wing-men out there. The anti-fighter towers were somewhat effective, but I wouldn't call them crushing. And then there's the whole idea of an exhaust port that leads right to the main reactor located in such a way as to allow a "trench run" to begin with. That just doesn't cry out super-genius to me.

As for Hoth, interesting point, but let me submit this: despite the Executor and her attendant fleet the Rebel's got away. The Imperials show up, surprise the Rebels, establish a quick blockade, and don't stop a thing. If Lucas really wanted to show the Imperial were fearsome and powerful he would have shown some X-Wings or some transports getting blown up. Or at least let us hear it on the com traffic. Instead, we see the transports get away and the only reports we hear are "The first transport is away!"

Look, I'm an Empire fan. It pains me they were portrayed this way. They had SSDs, Death Stars, ISDs, legions of Stormtroopers, Lord Vader, the Emperor and a host of other cool things like AT-ATs, AT-STs, and too much more to mention. I'm just saying they could have been presented as more competent and much harder to beat in both film and novels then they were. For Heaven's sake, think of Endor for a second. Who really took down the Empire on the Forest Moon? The Rebels? No. Oversized teddy bears with thrown nets, spears and logs that were always in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. I was irritated when I saw that when it premiered and I was 15!

I'm sorry, the Tantive troopers were doing remarkably well? They were defending a choke point. A very narrow choke point. If they were doing "remarkably well" the floor would be littered with stormtrooper bodies. Instead, they got only a few kills in before getting utterly butchered forced to abandon a comparatively easy to defend area in seconds. The Tantive itself got plenty of good hits in that just bounced of the Star Destroyer without even a scratch before one good shot from the Star Destroyer disabled the ship. It was utterly outmatched no matter how you look at it.

Yavin did show the rebels getting crushed. One by one their X-wings were going down, none of their shots doing so much as slow down the behemoth even as the countdown to the obliteration of their base kept ticking. There was nothing good about this. The exhaust port... is an amusing reversal where the sci-fi author has more sense of scale than the fanbase. I've heard the "why didn't they cover it up?" argument hundreds of times, but they tend to conveniently forget the little detail that a moon-sized battle station with a weapon that needs enough energy to destroy an entire planet would generate a lot of heat. That heat needs to go somewhere lest the Death Star cooks its crew or explodes on its own. That the designer managed to keep the exhaust port to a mere two meter should be commended, not scorned.

Then Hoth. Yes, the rebels did manage to escape. But you did see the battle on the ground, yes? It was a massacre. Even with some creative tactics and a lucky, plot-shielded hero with a lightsaber the rebels were being obliterated left, right and centre. It was a loss. A total and utter loss. And that's before we go into the aforementioned capturing of the heroes. The entirety of Empire Strikes Back was the rebels losing one fight after another.

As for ewoks... yes, they are the bane of Return of the Jedi.

But remember, they had no problem taking down the rebels either.

Keroko,

Just to address a couple points. The Death Star exhaust. That Lucas kept the exhaust size to just one at 2 meters accross should be laughed at. Anything that big should have hand hundreds, if not millions of exhaust ports. Much like how it was addressed with Death Star II.

I thought the Tantive IV choke point WAS littered with stormtrooper bodies. Way more than there should have been if that armor was worthy of the name. I stand by "remarkably well" for just that fact alone. Armored troopers should not have been stopped for even seconds. Which brings me to Hoth... Yes, I saw the land battle. Gen. Veers lands miles away from the objective leaving pleanty of time to have defenses mounted that led to mass evacuation of the base. The can blast the heck out of things all day long, but if they got few to no prisoners to interogate, and the majority of the Rebels got away, it really doesnt instill confidence in our beloved Empire.

And I never said the Tantive was not out matched. Never said it showed anything other than a good chase sequence. Im just saying there should have and could have been more scenes like that.

Anyway, Keroko, thanks for the lively discussion. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

You're quite welcome. I'm enjoying it too.

Yes, the Death Star should have hundreds of exhaust ports. So let's stop pointing at the fact that it only has a single two meter wide one as a failure of engineering, shall we? The Death Star II didn't really have an exhaust port so much as it had millions of holes due to being unfinished (noticed all that orange around the entrance? Those were construction grids. It was a construction shaft).

Back to the Tantive, I repeat: Extremely deadly choke-point. No matter how well trained your forces are, if you're caught in a choke point you're in a terrible position. The fact that there were only two dead stormtroopers after the very short battle at that choke point means all those troopers deserve a medal, not accusations of incompetence.

In fact, confirmed Imperial casualties during the Tantive fight has the stunningly low number of four. And that includes the one Leia shot.

Now on to Hoth, Veers had to land miles away because of the shield being raised. Remember Naboo, shields halt objects moving at high velocity. They had to land outside in order to move inside the shield. And while a good portion of the rebels did escape, they lost a stable base of operations, millions of credits in equipment they had to abandon and hundreds of men and women during the fighting. With comparatively few losses on the Imperial side. In any military book, that's a crushing victory.

Keroko

We seem to have hijacked the thread. Do you think we should continue through PMs?

And out of curiosity, mind if I ask your back ground? Im a history graduate student with an MA and moving on to a PhD. I ask, because your making some interesting points that suggest more than just a general movie goer.

Anyway... Continue here and bore everyone or privately? I have to say, Im thinking of the Star Wars not so much as a fan, but as a military historian. Gives it a new dimension in thinking how a guerrilla war is portrayed on film.

Cameraman and editor on my end. Yes, perhaps we should take it to PM's.

Quoted from wookiepedia

Direct scaling of Home One in Return of the Jedi implies a minimum length of approximately 2.5km, and some cinematic evidence suggests a length of several kilometers.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:HomeOneScaling-EaW.jpg

Yes, I read that. So, you're hanging your hat on some fan counting pixels?

Why not? It is what most of Star Destroyer.net was based upon...

Once again someone is saying a sliding scale is "unavoidable."

Once again, I'm going to say it most definitely is not. I did the math. I'm quoting it again below since no one commented on it before. This is just one example. Im sure if consensus was that the ISD should be a foot long, that would double the size quotes I have here and still everything could be in one constant scale. Excepting, of course, fighter squadrons.

I have a model scaling app in my iPad.

A 150 meter corvette in 1/10,000 scale would be 15 mm long. Certainly big enough for good detail, especially if on a stand of two representing a small squadron.

An ISD at 1,600 meters would be about 6.30 inches.

One consistent scale is extremely possible.

And in case anyone is wondering, a 19,000 meter SSD (Executor) would work out to 6.23 feet long, in scale.

But would FFG want to sell those kind of models? Probably not. FFG is very much about fancy, nice looking things. A 1.5 cm corvette is not a nice looking toy. And how much are you going to charge for them exactlym, even if you field them in Squadrons?

If you go the other way (making the big ships big), if you are looking for a "fleet action" game, how does a foot long Star Detsroyer fit into that? How many of those are you going to fit on a sensible board? How much are you going to charge for those? The X-wing Corellian Corvette is meant to be a special one off thing you have in your collection. A Star Destroyer in a fleet action game should be field-able in some numbers.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I wouldn't mind a consistently scaled game where corvettes are 1.5cm long... but then I like scaling issues, and I like wargames. However, FFG is trying to sell to a market where people looked at X-Wing and went "Those are nice models... maybe I will try that game out and see what it is like." It isn't trying to sell solely to hardcore wargamers, but a more broad market.

As for the bunching up keep in mind the standard Imperial combat doctrine of 'stay as close together as possible so when a hot rod freighter flies through we can almost collide'

Oh, it is worse than that... apparently they don't realise they are flying directly at each other until after the Falcon flies between them... Did the whole bridge crew on both ships get so fixated on the ship they missed the mile long vessel closing onto them and filling most of their viewports?

That's really the meat of my argument. We almost never saw the Empire win anything, on screen at any rate, with the exceptions you mentioned. As for Imperial victories mentioned in passing... Well... I'm just saying it would have been nice to see this evidence that the Empire was as powerful an fearsome as described on screen. From the Lucas' and the novel author's points of view, the Empire was always destined to loose. That led to some very twisted pretzels of logic at times. The destruction of the Executor, for example. The shields are knocked out just before that A-wing crashes into EXACTLY the right place to eliminate the central command of the SSD, which conveniently (apparently) did not have a secondary command area for just such a situation... Really?

Of course it was destined to loose. It is a setting determined primarily by feel and theme, rather than logic. The Empire is monolithic and faceless, shared by its massive military vessels and craft (or in its swarms of faceless stormtroopers and tie fighters). The Rebels are individualistic and improvise. The bad guys will be taken down by their weakness being discovered and then taken advantage of, even if it doesn't make "realistic" sense.

The battle on the Tantive IV and Hoth for that mater shows, shows bunches of stormtroopers, in armor, getting killed with one shot. Minus a point there. Why bother with armor that stops absolutely nothing? Just something that has always bothered me a little about the storm trooper armor concept. Meanwhile, the guards on the Tantive were doing remarkably well holding off said storm troopers, who, presumably, were Vader's best.

At Yavin I would argue they were not being crushed since they got at two trench runs in. Crushed implies a total lack of success. Lucas could have shown a more heated battle by having more than just Vader and two wing-men out there. The anti-fighter towers were somewhat effective, but I wouldn't call them crushing. And then there's the whole idea of an exhaust port that leads right to the main reactor located in such a way as to allow a "trench run" to begin with. That just doesn't cry out super-genius to me.

The armour is there to make the stormtroopers faceless mooks the good guys can shoot with no repercussions, not to stop shots from guns.

However, if you want to make a logical in universe argument for it: It is there to present a fearsome appearance for the for, and to mark the uniformity of the Empire. It is there to protect against lesser battlefield threats such as fragments from artillery and grenades, or it does provide some protection, just not sufficient to stop a full on direct hit. grazes and the like will be protected against, and maybe many shots that would be lethal are converted into survivable but still incapacitating injuries.

As far as the Tantive: There is one door the Stormtroopers are coming through. It looks like it is 1 metre wide or so, so only one guy can get through at a time. All the rebel troopers had to do was hold their nerve and pour fire into that area and it would have been really hard to get through. Instead we get 1, maybe 2, stormtroopers who are shot and then they are through. Partly through the incompetence of the rebel troopers, and presumably in part due to the stormtroopers skill, as I am guessing the covering fire they could get through must have been pretty effective.

At Yavin, there are other fighters out there, just not in the trench. Now, mostly they are there to get blown up by the good guys, but they are there.

Why Darth Vader has wingmen I don't actually know... none of the wingmen on either side seem to actually do anything useful during the trench run, and in the end it was a panicking tie fighter pilot that stopped Darth Vader killing Luke.

As for ewoks... yes, they are the bane of Return of the Jedi.

Yeah... though I liked them as a kid.

The armour is there to make the stormtroopers faceless mooks the good guys can shoot with no repercussions, not to stop shots from guns.

However, if you want to make a logical in universe argument for it: It is there to present a fearsome appearance for the for, and to mark the uniformity of the Empire. It is there to protect against lesser battlefield threats such as fragments from artillery and grenades, or it does provide some protection, just not sufficient to stop a full on direct hit. grazes and the like will be protected against, and maybe many shots that would be lethal are converted into survivable but still incapacitating injuries.

Kind of my theory on the stromtrooper armor. Also, if you look at it, the majority of those stormtroopers taken out in one shot are at extreme close ranges, ~30 meters or less.

Today, standard battlefield armor w/ ballistic plates has a hard time stopping your common assault rifle round at very close range. I think that the Stormtrooper armor is just not very effective at stopping blaster shots at those ranges. Maybe at 100 meters or more it is a bit more durable? I just don't know if a blaster rifle loses energy over range like a rifle does. My guess would be it does as it doesn't just go on forever.

Along the same lines though is why do the X-wings & Y-wings at Yavin blow up so easily? They are suppose to have shields, but Vader blasts them into bits with one burst of laser fire. Their shields seem as ineffective as the stormtroopers body armor. I think its as simple as trying to make the battles exciting on the big screen. It would be a bit boring if Vader sat there behind a Y-wing and had to shoot it 10 times.

Borithan,

To much in that one post to really discuss without writing a novel sized response so Im just going to respond to the total in the abstract.

The loss of the Executor, stormtrooper armor uselessness and other issues aside, my contentions have nothing to do with the story telling. I'm suggesting that if a person sits and thinks about it too long (which, admittedly should never be done with movies) some of the logic falls apart because of the monumentally bad decisions each side makes at various times. The ridiculously useless (armor) or monumentally flawed technology (Death Star I) or hysterical incompetence of ISD captains (three of them flying into each other?) there are just things that happen in the movies that are down right silly and take away from the idea of what the Empire and Rebellion are painted out as.

And the loss of the Executor simply is not the example of flaws being found and exploited. It's an example of unrealistic luck and outrageous stupidity joining together. That scene annoys me almost as much as the ewoks.

And the loss of the Executor simply is not the example of flaws being found and exploited. It's an example of unrealistic luck and outrageous stupidity joining together. That scene annoys me almost as much as the ewoks.

Why does everyone make such a big deal about Executor losing its bridge shields? Am I the only person who remembers that Ackbar ordered the Alliance fleet to concentrate its fire on the Executor? That means every Rebel warship and any Alliance fighters which didn't follow Lando into the Death Star II which could maneuver into position to fire on Executor were shooting at Executor. Under that kind of firepower even Executor's shields wouldn't have lasted long.