So now that we know about the stats and some of the upgrades that the imperials will be getting how do you think they will implement the ISD everyone is familiar with? Will we see a larger focus on Red dice so that the ship maintains damage across the board forgoing the more damaging black and accurate blue dice? How much more health will it get, can we guess it may jump up to 12 or 18 hull? And the point cost will it be about double the amount of a Victory or a little under?

I thought it might be fun to try and guess at what it will be like until they reveal the ship most likely as part of wave 2.

I am thinking around 115 points. Victory is 900 meters the Imperial is 1,600. Not quite double.

I highly, highly doubt you'll be able to field 2 ISDs in a 300 point match. They'll kind of be like the Fat Falcon/Decimator for X-wing but more so. My guess is 140-150 points, so with a commander you won't be able to fit 2. I think one ISD is going to be a ***** to take down, but you won't be able to support it with a bunch of other ships. One VSD and one ISD will leave you with very little upgrade room or fighters.

At least I hope. An ISD or Mon Calamari should be an intimidating force on the other side of the table.

I would belive it would have a squadron value of four or five. Possibly fore arc dice of 6 + aft dice of three or four. Stern and starboard dice of five . I would expect it to be really slow on movement. But only stats i would definitly estimate that it would have is a higher number of dice for attacks and anhigher number of squadron points. Ant ship dice probably three

My guess is that a double-ISD list will be possible. Based upon FFG's usual love of symmetry in design, we can extrapolate: the small star destroyer (Gladiator) maxes out at four to a list (but three is more realistic); the medium star destroyer (Victory) maxes out at three to a list (but two is more realistic); thus, the large star destroyer (Imperial) will probably max out at two to a list (but one is more realistic).

Furthermore, the ISD is 1.8 times as large as a VSD (1600 m to 900 m), which probably means that it will have a model that is 1.3-1.5 times as large. I speculate that the overall power level (and point cost) of an ISD will be 1.5 times that of a VSD (similar to how a VSD is 1.3-1.4 times as many points as a GSD). If a VSD I is 73 points, that would put the ISD I at about 110 points (likewise, VSD II is 85 points; ISD II might be about 128 points). At 110 points for a Imperial I, a double ISD list would be something like this: ISD I @ 110, ISD I @ 110, Motti @ 24, 7 TIES @ 56 = 300 points. That feels about right to me.

Early speculation, and building off previous posts, but here it goes:

Imperial Star Destroyer

Pts- 120ish

Hull- 12

Shields- 5 fore, 4 sides, 2 aft

Armament- 4 red, 2 blue, 3 black-fore; 2 red, 2 blue, 2 black-sides; and 2 red, 2 black-aft

AA- 2 blue

Upgrade bar- lots

Command- 4, starfighter- 6, engineering- 6,

Defenses- 2 deflect

Maneuverability- Speed- 1 click at 1; S2- none at 1, 1 at 2; S3- no turning just full speed

(Probably wrong on the speed and maneuverability but in the movies the ISD could pace the falcon and a blockade runner on a straight line chase)

For varients add offensive power and drop shields slightly for the ISD-2 upgrade, if going by lore.

My 2 cents, subject to being horribly wrong or horribly right and everything in between.

There is some good modelling/guess-timation in this thread.

have you all applied this train of thought to a SSD?

There is some good modelling/guess-timation in this thread.

have you all applied this train of thought to a SSD?

As cool as an SSD would/will be, finding a way to account for its fire power is daunting. Unless you create special rules... Which probably is the way to go... You have to minimally double the ISD firepower. Think triple a VSD at a minimum... That's 18 fore attack die.

Good lord an SSD would be nuts. Im already planing on using two VSD's and a GSD and try to jam as many squadrons in as I can to screen them a SSD I will say will be high in point cost. I dare say you would probably be commiting half of your list in points just fielding and upgrading the ship.

Good lord an SSD would be nuts. Im already planing on using two VSD's and a GSD and try to jam as many squadrons in as I can to screen them a SSD I will say will be high in point cost. I dare say you would probably be commiting half of your list in points just fielding and upgrading the ship.

Actuall I think an SSD would be an entire fleets worth of points. It would probably be the equivalent of the CR90 and Raider in X-Wing, used only for 'epic' play.

Armada Fleet format: 600 points

SSD costs around say 350 points? So with the notion of the ISD here that would mean an Imperial fleet would be like:

1 SSD 350

2 VSD1 73*2

Motti 24

10 Tie fighter squadrons 8*10

=600

to say

13 CR90A 44*13

Some Rebel Commander 1-28 points

Though I wonder if at that point the corvettes wouldn't just try to be little missiles to get guaranteed crits before being blown up 2 or so at a time.

Victory is 900 meters the Imperial is 1,600. Not quite double.

I'm sure that once you go from length (one dimension) to volume (three dimensions) or mass, 'double' is a safe and conservative estimate.

Good lord an SSD would be nuts. Im already planing on using two VSD's and a GSD and try to jam as many squadrons in as I can to screen them a SSD I will say will be high in point cost. I dare say you would probably be commiting half of your list in points just fielding and upgrading the ship.

Actuall I think an SSD would be an entire fleets worth of points. It would probably be the equivalent of the CR90 and Raider in X-Wing, used only for 'epic' play.

I think unless we see a Epic Armada level of play we'll probly cap out ship size wise at the Imperials and MC80's. Those 2 ships are gonna be beasts as it is anything bigger in a regular format could be very hard to sustain.

I fear that trying to replicate an SSD will just be pure game breakingly terrible. For several reasons

1) Trying to make a SSD, even on a sliding model scale will mean it would have to be several times larger than an ISD (see pic below) - as size reports vary wildly but generally ISD's are tiny in comparison in the films. This will mean a model larger than the corvette in X-Wing, and I think (particularly given the terrible outcome of epic play in X-wing) that FFG will be extremely reluctant to go down this path again. Everyone I have talked to about the CR90 has said its a nice model, but they never use it and that the RRP is rediculously expensive. Armada already has a bad wrap with some X-Wing players because the price point of the core and expansions look to be more than X-Wing.

2) As Animewarsdude posted above in an example list, the Imperials would get just the SSD and a couple of victories, whilst the rebels would need 13 CR90's to counter it. I think this points is incredibly unrealistic though and that an SSD would have to be at least 500 points on its own! (but see point 3 for more) - how many players will have that large a rebel fleet to make gaming worthwhile against it? X-wing has a problem that as soon as you get more than five ships shooting at something, no matter how great a unit it is, It will die quickly. (until the decimator came out that was) I think Armada will be similar in this respect - because if you otherwise make these units too tough, nothing can actually kill them once the number of opposing ships gets too low (remember in Armada ships can actually repair too!)

3) So to combat the problems of size scale (to make it affordable to produce and buy) and to make it playable with a realistic rebel fleet that someone might own, what we actually end up with is a SSD the size of the corvette, which costs about 300 points, moves like a cow, Is actually easy to blow up if the opponent concentrates fire on it, and which then noone will use because it actually fails to be useful in a game that is based on an objective system (but might have some rare upgrade cards that everyone wants!). So in the end the hardcore fans get disappointed, the casual fans get disappointed and the people who didnt want it in the game in the first place also get pissed off. Basically a lose, lose, lose situation. :/

I would much rather FFG stick with doing stuff in Armada that can be done well to create a great game, then trying to shoehorn everything we ever saw or heard about in the Star Wars universe to the detriment of the game.

I highly, highly doubt you'll be able to field 2 ISDs in a 300 point match. They'll kind of be like the Fat Falcon/Decimator for X-wing but more so. My guess is 140-150 points, so with a commander you won't be able to fit 2. I think one ISD is going to be a ***** to take down, but you won't be able to support it with a bunch of other ships. One VSD and one ISD will leave you with very little upgrade room or fighters.

At least I hope. An ISD or Mon Calamari should be an intimidating force on the other side of the table.

The thing about this though is that it would mean you'd have games reduced to 1 v 1 behemoths if an MC ever went up against an ISD. Be kind of boring to have 2 giants just circling one another. Plus isn't even just a Vic supposed to put up a decent fight against an MC? I think ideally you'd field a couple of these big ships with a few supporting craft for a truly armada-like duel. But, given the point costs released so far, that seems to be priced out of possibility -- meaning you'd have at best a single MC/ISD per side.

I keep hearing a lot of "I hope they do ISD vs MC", and I get that, but to be honest these discussions have started to turn me off to the idea. At this point I'm hoping FFG does something clear out of the box but does it so well that all of us are left nodding our heads at how brilliantly it was pulled off.

I fear that trying to replicate an SSD will just be pure game breakingly terrible. For several reasons

1) ...This will mean a model larger than the corvette in X-Wing, and I think (particularly given the terrible outcome of epic play in X-wing) that FFG will be extremely reluctant to go down this path again. Everyone I have talked to about the CR90 has said its a nice model, but they never use it .... Armada already has a bad wrap with some X-Wing players because the price point of the core and expansions look to be more than X-Wing.

2) As Animewarsdude posted above in an example list, ...

3) So to combat the problems of size scale ...

I would much rather FFG stick with doing stuff in Armada that can be done well to create a great game, then trying to shoehorn everything we ever saw or heard about in the Star Wars universe to the detriment of the game.

I agree with your conclusion about the SSD based on your second two arguments, but I will quibble with what you say about the CR-90. I will grant you that they have not seen much play, but without an Imperial huge, it's hardly a fair test of the format. The outcome of epic play has not yet been determined. With the Raider coming out it has the potential to really come into its own. We'll see what happens, but I - for one - really like the huge ships. I have both the Transport and the Corvette, and the Raider is on pre-order. Also, the existing huge ships still seem to sell, so why would FFG consider them a mistake?

The bad rap that Armada might have with X-Wing players should not affect any decision to include an SSD or not. Armada is clearly aimed at a customer with a slightly different price range to begin with. Given that the target customer base is different already, what's the problem with a higher-dollar item?

without an Imperial huge, it's hardly a fair test of the format.

That is exactly the problem - the CR90 as it stands is not truly compatible with X-Wing, because it is not able to go up against the regular X-Wing ships and survive. If we can only say "yes it works, but only if you have this other broken ship on the other side so they both work the same" then its not actually a good product.

In hindsight, Huge ships for X-Wing should have come out with new "huge ship" dice - like the Armada ones, that have double hits and all sorts of nasty things, and defence dice or systems that thought outside the box, yet still could interact with X-Wings existing mechanics.

The CR90 is not legal for tournament play, so FFG would have faced no backlash for actually making it a very powerful ship - as it should have been. That way players would want to have one for large scale battles, and would eagerly await the imperial counterpart so that the empire could get back on a level footing. At the moment if the Imperial ship is the same as the CR90, (which lets be honest, if its not, there will be a tonne of pissed off players), then I would still choose to field anything BUT the raider to take on a CR90, because lets face it, why go for something equal when anything else can do the job better?. And that is the core problem with it

I'm not going to argue that it is balanced. They should have balanced its point value better. But that doesn't speak to a huge scale ship being unsuitable for a game like X-Wing, which is your original argument. It just means that they screwed up on its point value.

I might also offer the idea that because most of us have logged a lot of flight hours with small- and large-base ships, we might not have the necessary experience and know-how on hot to really make the most of the Huge ships. I'm planning to fly my Transport on Wednesday, and I want to get some more flight hours in with the Corvette in the coming weeks. I'm hoping to learn how to be better with them.

I have tried to play a few games with both the CR90 and the Transport and the key problem with them both is the same, and it has very little to do with the points values.

X-Wing is a game about blowing up your opponent, and the way that attack and defense work in X-Wing is that its always easier to hit then it is to evade, its a game of attrition odds. Couple this with giving the huge ships almost no defense values (based on the idea they cannot "dodge" - as soon as you have their equal points worth of opponents focus fire on them, to quote a famous admiral "We cannot repel firepower of that magnitude!"

The only way they are useful is if you are playing a "house rules" game where there is an alternate objective that does not focus on blowing up your opponents ships. Which is not X-Wing then really, if you have to make up rules to make things work because they are so broken.

I am not saying that a huge ship couldnt have worked for X-Wing - just that FFG made an absolute pigs ear of it in this case, probably because they already had an inkling at that stage about the game we having coming out shortly? For it to work they needed to have different attack dice to represent the "next level" of capital ship firepower, different ways of accounting for "armour" to penetrate through to simulate the ships being much tougher, and a more generous energy system.

Like its been said before, Armada seems to be learning from X-Wings mistakes, and we can only hope that it will continue to do so.

I agree with the "Huge ships in x-wing dont work" argument. I own them both (and indeed will get a Raider as well), but they are....well, rubbish. it's not about the points, they are just extremely weak. FFG really messed up the design philosophy by trying to make sure that they wopuldnt dominate games. However they went WAY too far and made it so that taking one is in fact a huge handicap to your side, which is all kinds of wrong.

I have nothing against the idea of them, but the execution was feeble. Huge ships COULD work, but the way they have been done makes them fun curisoities, not anything actually useful.

Personally i would rather they dont do an SSD at all than do it and make it a pale shadow of what it actually should be. That way at least the development time/money could be spent on more usable ships. Bear in mind we are discussing a ship with FOUR THOUSAND turblasers alone. Compare that to an ISD, and you'll start to see why there is no way to do the ship with any kind of accuracy. And thats not even getting into the size/scale issue, which has been done heavily elsewhere.

I highly, highly doubt you'll be able to field 2 ISDs in a 300 point match. They'll kind of be like the Fat Falcon/Decimator for X-wing but more so. My guess is 140-150 points, so with a commander you won't be able to fit 2. I think one ISD is going to be a ***** to take down, but you won't be able to support it with a bunch of other ships. One VSD and one ISD will leave you with very little upgrade room or fighters.

At least I hope. An ISD or Mon Calamari should be an intimidating force on the other side of the table.

The thing about this though is that it would mean you'd have games reduced to 1 v 1 behemoths if an MC ever went up against an ISD. Be kind of boring to have 2 giants just circling one another. Plus isn't even just a Vic supposed to put up a decent fight against an MC? I think ideally you'd field a couple of these big ships with a few supporting craft for a truly armada-like duel. But, given the point costs released so far, that seems to be priced out of possibility -- meaning you'd have at best a single MC/ISD per side.

I never said that you are going to end up with a bunch of 1 v 1 matches trading blows with ISDs v MCs. I just said that I doubt you'll be able to field two ISDs or Mon Cals in a single 300 point match. But that doesn't mean I can't have a Nebula and a Vette support my Mon Cal. Even if the ISD was 150 points, you add a Victory for 75 and a Commander, you still have around 50ish points for fighters and upgrades.

I agree that adding an SSD would be kind of silly. It would be no different than adding a ISD into X-wing. I'd rather they add space stations or something like that.

I agree that adding an SSD would be kind of silly. It would be no different than adding a ISD into X-wing. I'd rather they add space stations or something like that.

Though there were a LOT of threads asking for this very thing....it was a bad idea then, and still wouldnt work weoll now. Although it is at least slightly more realistic than the X-Wing ISD at least!

Dammit, guys, we're allowing this X-Wing issue to invade our Armada forum.

But I just can't resist!

I have tried to play a few games with both the CR90 and the Transport and the key problem with them both is the same, and it has very little to do with the points values.

I agree with the "Huge ships in x-wing dont work" argument. I own them both (and indeed will get a Raider as well), but they are....well, rubbish. it's not about the points, they are just extremely weak.

I'm curious why it has nothing to do with the points value. If points are an abstract measure of a ship's potential in a game, and if the ship is weak, then why is it not just a matter of its being overcosted. I'm not saying you don't have an argument, but your argument would have to be based on a fairly sophisticated understanding of the points economy, which I'm not reading here.

X-Wing is a game about blowing up your opponent, ...

The only way they are useful is if you are playing a "house rules" game where there is an alternate objective that does not focus on blowing up your opponents ships. Which is not X-Wing then really, if you have to make up rules to make things work because they are so broken.

I guess it depends on what you mean by house rules. If you mean house rules in the sense of an alternate set of game mechanics (how ships more, what a 'crit' means, etc., or how many dice these things are rolling), then yeah, it ain't X-Wing.

However, if you mean alternate objectives than blowing up your opponent, then I deeply disagree that it is not X-Wing. If missions and alternate objectives isn't X-Wing, then why all the missions, campaigns and mission-related tokens that come with the ships? I'm sorry, just because the 100-point-6-asteroid Death Match is the dominant style of play, that doesn't mean that people playing creative missions, either from the boxes, or from Mission Control, are not playing X-Wing.

It seems to me that FFG has really pushed mission-style play, but that the 100pnt6aDM is a style of game that appeals more. It appeals to people's competitiveness, but also anything else requires prior agreements and a preference for story over balance. In my experience, it's the need for prior agreements that's the bottleneck.

But, anyway, I disagree with the idea that if you're playing missions, then you're not 'really' playing X-Wing.

I am not saying that a huge ship couldnt have worked for X-Wing - just that FFG made an absolute pigs ear of it in this case, probably because they already had an inkling at that stage about the game we having coming out shortly?

You think they deliberately nerfed Huge ships because they knew they were going to make Armada?

Like its been said before, Armada seems to be learning from X-Wings mistakes, and we can only hope that it will continue to do so.

Indeed. I have great hopes for this game. Despite my partial disagreement with you on the Huge ships in X-Wing, I also think that to give the SSD its proper respect, it won't really work in Armada.

Though, it does kind of undermine the name of the game to have it be at a scale that is too small to incorporate the largest size of ships short of the Death Star.

Indeed. I have great hopes for this game. Despite my partial disagreement with you on the Huge ships in X-Wing, I also think that to give the SSD its proper respect, it won't really work in Armada.

Though, it does kind of undermine the name of the game to have it be at a scale that is too small to incorporate the largest size of ships short of the Death Star.

I agree with you. Although, that would require having a half inch long Victory Star Destroyer to place a 10 inch executor at the correct scale. At that point, support ships and squadrons become extra dice instead of actual models. Although I would love to see some Super Star Destroyers, it makes sense that they won't be there. Until the New Republic was well established, the Rebels never had access to anything bigger than a Mon Calamari Cruiser. I think the scale will work very well for what it is.

I think the rules for an SSD should be as follows:

1) All rebel capital ships take one damage each turn from sustained fire from 2000 turbolasers. (or the Empire gets to hand out a few each turn, maybe roll six dice and distribute the damage to different rebel ships. or maybe just roll a 4 die attack against each rebel ship each time it activates. There are many options)

2) The empire gets unlimited reinforcement fighter squadrons.

3) The whole table (plus a little more probably) is a Super Star Destroyer and the battle is taking place above it. The Rebels are trying to get something VITAL to the survival of the rebellion to risk a battle so close to the behemoth.