I'm a little surprised that the Rebel Transport hasn't showed up yet in the game. Watching the battle of Endor, there were SO many transports there... It certainly seems that the Corvette is the smallest 'ship' in the game, but I'm thinking the Transport should have been the smallest.

Obviouslywould have to have the weakest attack - perhaps no attack at all from the rear and maybe just a single die for the front and side arcs. Or maybe no regular die at all, and just anti-squadron die? I think the strength could be in having a high squadron number though. Make them support ships that are designed to have 4 X-Wings flying alongside it. Make 2 versions, one with no weapons and a Squadron value of 4, and another with 1 Blue Front, 1 Blue Sides, empty back, and squad value of 3.

Just some thoughts.

Its possible they may include it later on as an escort with buffs (as in X-Wing) or maybe as a light ship. I don't remember them being armed and was puzzled as they were in so many fleet engagements, I just wrote that off to Lucas having the model and throwing it into shots for cost purposes.

I just don't see the Rebel Transport in Armada. Its almost too small. Its in a weird size that makes it too small for a small base, but likely too big to be on a fighter platform, like the Falcon or Firespray we've seen spoiled. You maybe could put one on a small base, but the model would have to smaller than the CR-90 which is already tiny.

While they could mount lasers on them, they weren't combat vessels by any stretch. They almost have no offensive capabilities. They would have to be pretty much a support vessel like it is in X-wing. What support it could do is debatable. Fighter deployment is an option, but I won't even think it will be all that necessary. The AF Mk II B has 3 fighter points. The Mon Cal should have 4 to 5.

I'd be surprised if we get one. Being their size doesn't fit the scale well at all and that they were not an offensive ship.

They could make a token for one that was half the size of a small base. That way it would be bigger than the fighters, but smaller than the capitol ships.

I think it would be cool to have them as squadron coordinators or support ships, but in a game about capital ship combat they're pretty far down the list of importance. I would have been surprised if they had come out in the first wave, since they contribute so little to the capital ship engagement.

However, they may never show up because they would be both too weak and too inexpensive to be balanced easily. A Rebel fleet could pad their ship numbers with transports for better activation control (choosing when in the turn their heavy hitters activate), use their point-defense dice to sweep away TIEs, or even ram the enemy with them for easy damage. In missions with multiple objectives or that give bonuses to multiple ships they could dash off to claim them for an insignificant points investment, while in single-ship missions they could simply avoid engagement; saving objective points without appreciably diminishing their side's firepower.

Haha just had a vision of 8 transports ramming a vsd!

Maybe as a scenario piece, but it's kind of pointless as an actual ship. They were literally just transports....basically anything on the table would make mincemeat out of them.

I just don't see the Rebel Transport in Armada. Its almost too small. Its in a weird size that makes it too small for a small base, but likely too big to be on a fighter platform, like the Falcon or Firespray we've seen spoiled. You maybe could put one on a small base, but the model would have to smaller than the CR-90 which is already tiny.

While they could mount lasers on them, they weren't combat vessels by any stretch. They almost have no offensive capabilities. They would have to be pretty much a support vessel like it is in X-wing. What support it could do is debatable. Fighter deployment is an option, but I won't even think it will be all that necessary. The AF Mk II B has 3 fighter points. The Mon Cal should have 4 to 5.

I'd be surprised if we get one. Being their size doesn't fit the scale well at all and that they were not an offensive ship.

Didn't they make them basically electronic warfare ships in X-Wing?

I could see that being useful in Armada as long as the cards and special abilities they brought to the game were in line with an EW role (and were fun of course).

And you betcha EW is a form of offense, just not the directly explodey kind (though there are historical exceptions).

Sliding scale people. Make them slightly smaller than the Corvette, which is already almost the length of the small base.

Also I think worries about having a lot of small spammable ships are a bit unfounded, because they'd be easy victory points. I'm already rethinking taking many CR-90s and Neb-Bs in my rebel fleets because of their penchant for exploding.

I think they'd be interesting additions if some powerful support abilities could be given to them, like exhausting defense tokens. Probably still need to be in the 30-40 point range.

Sliding scale people. Make them slightly smaller than the Corvette, which is already almost the length of the small base.

Also I think worries about having a lot of small spammable ships are a bit unfounded, because they'd be easy victory points. I'm already rethinking taking many CR-90s and Neb-Bs in my rebel fleets because of their penchant for exploding.

I think they'd be interesting additions if some powerful support abilities could be given to them, like exhausting defense tokens. Probably still need to be in the 30-40 point range.

And fiddling with shield values, playing around with command tokens. How pumped would the rebels be if the properly kitted transport, say a "command and control" vessel, gave them something similar to Tarkin's ability? Maybe a squadron control version that gave them better token and command economy for squadrons, or even blanket defense tokens for fighters in a certain range of it (kind of a Transport à la AWACS)

These are just a few notions. There's a lot of room in this game for a "support" ship to be useful.

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I just don't see the Rebel Transport in Armada. Its almost too small. Its in a weird size that makes it too small for a small base, but likely too big to be on a fighter platform, like the Falcon or Firespray we've seen spoiled. You maybe could put one on a small base, but the model would have to smaller than the CR-90 which is already tiny.

While they could mount lasers on them, they weren't combat vessels by any stretch. They almost have no offensive capabilities. They would have to be pretty much a support vessel like it is in X-wing. What support it could do is debatable. Fighter deployment is an option, but I won't even think it will be all that necessary. The AF Mk II B has 3 fighter points. The Mon Cal should have 4 to 5.

I'd be surprised if we get one. Being their size doesn't fit the scale well at all and that they were not an offensive ship.

Didn't they make them basically electronic warfare ships in X-Wing?

I could see that being useful in Armada as long as the cards and special abilities they brought to the game were in line with an EW role (and were fun of course).

And you betcha EW is a form of offense, just not the directly explodey kind (though there are historical exceptions).

Yes, but that's not what they were in 'real life' (however you wanna think about that). They shouldn't just be given abilities for no reason.

It might be fun to have them for story missions. I could see them having a 1,1,1 stat line, halfway decent maneuver chart, one shield on each arc, and no armaments. According to wookieepedia, there was a variant with a could point defense lasers, so maybe the 'B' version has an anti squadron armament of one blue die.

With a 1,1,1 stat line, they could be a cheap way to get squadron commands out there... Other than that? Kinda pointless, except for missions.

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I just don't see the Rebel Transport in Armada. Its almost too small. Its in a weird size that makes it too small for a small base, but likely too big to be on a fighter platform, like the Falcon or Firespray we've seen spoiled. You maybe could put one on a small base, but the model would have to smaller than the CR-90 which is already tiny.

While they could mount lasers on them, they weren't combat vessels by any stretch. They almost have no offensive capabilities. They would have to be pretty much a support vessel like it is in X-wing. What support it could do is debatable. Fighter deployment is an option, but I won't even think it will be all that necessary. The AF Mk II B has 3 fighter points. The Mon Cal should have 4 to 5.

I'd be surprised if we get one. Being their size doesn't fit the scale well at all and that they were not an offensive ship.

Didn't they make them basically electronic warfare ships in X-Wing?

I could see that being useful in Armada as long as the cards and special abilities they brought to the game were in line with an EW role (and were fun of course).

And you betcha EW is a form of offense, just not the directly explodey kind (though there are historical exceptions).

Yes, but that's not what they were in 'real life' (however you wanna think about that). They shouldn't just be given abilities for no reason.

It might be fun to have them for story missions. I could see them having a 1,1,1 stat line, halfway decent maneuver chart, one shield on each arc, and no armaments. According to wookieepedia, there was a variant with a could point defense lasers, so maybe the 'B' version has an anti squadron armament of one blue die.

With a 1,1,1 stat line, they could be a cheap way to get squadron commands out there... Other than that? Kinda pointless, except for missions.

Plenty of reason, the rebels were inventive and desperate. They'd throw an armed garbage scow at you if they had to. No reason to think they couldn't have converted all that cargo space into all sorts of things. Medical ships, EW ships, point defense ships, all sort of things.

The transport needed planetary defense batteries to not get one-shotted by a SD. No place in this game.

The transport needed planetary defense batteries to not get one-shotted by a SD. No place in this game.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

You see what you made me do?

Yes, there are plenty of reasons for (and even a few examples of) the rebels to have done weird stuff with the ships. They also stripped a bunch of MC80s of all their weapons and used them as cargo ships. That doesn't mean I want an MC80 card with no weapons.

The imperials could strip all the turbolasers off of an ISD and replace it all with lasers for an anti-starfighter ship - but it wouldn't 'feel' right.

I'd rather them make up a new ship (which I hate), than for them to shoehorn some function into a ship that exists, but didn't do anything like that in the Star Wars Universe we know.

They

I just don't see the Rebel Transport in Armada. Its almost too small. Its in a weird size that makes it too small for a small base, but likely too big to be on a fighter platform, like the Falcon or Firespray we've seen spoiled. You maybe could put one on a small base, but the model would have to smaller than the CR-90 which is already tiny.

While they could mount lasers on them, they weren't combat vessels by any stretch. They almost have no offensive capabilities. They would have to be pretty much a support vessel like it is in X-wing. What support it could do is debatable. Fighter deployment is an option, but I won't even think it will be all that necessary. The AF Mk II B has 3 fighter points. The Mon Cal should have 4 to 5.

I'd be surprised if we get one. Being their size doesn't fit the scale well at all and that they were not an offensive ship.

Didn't they make them basically electronic warfare ships in X-Wing?

I could see that being useful in Armada as long as the cards and special abilities they brought to the game were in line with an EW role (and were fun of course).

And you betcha EW is a form of offense, just not the directly explodey kind (though there are historical exceptions).

Yes, but that's not what they were in 'real life' (however you wanna think about that). They shouldn't just be given abilities for no reason.

It might be fun to have them for story missions. I could see them having a 1,1,1 stat line, halfway decent maneuver chart, one shield on each arc, and no armaments. According to wookieepedia, there was a variant with a could point defense lasers, so maybe the 'B' version has an anti squadron armament of one blue die.

With a 1,1,1 stat line, they could be a cheap way to get squadron commands out there... Other than that? Kinda pointless, except for missions.

Plenty of reason, the rebels were inventive and desperate. They'd throw an armed garbage scow at you if they had to. No reason to think they couldn't have converted all that cargo space into all sorts of things. Medical ships, EW ships, point defense ships, all sort of things.

Hell in the Return of the Jedi novelization there were transports loaded with explosives being set on collusion courses with Star Destroyers. The crews abandoned ship but floating around that big of a battle in escape pods wasn't the safest place to be.

CR90 is probably the smallest FFG is going to go with Armada, plus what does the Transport bring? It has 0 guns, 0 anti-ship and 0 anti-squadron. There are is no 'action bar' like in X-Wing to give the Transport some support abilities. It would have to be all upgrades and titles. It would have maybe 2 shields forward, 1 elsewhere, and 2-3 hull. It doesn't do much more than provide a target for a SD.

I'd rather see bigger ships, and more combat oriented at that, than smaller 'transports'. Thats why wave 2 looks awesome.

Yes, there are plenty of reasons for (and even a few examples of) the rebels to have done weird stuff with the ships. They also stripped a bunch of MC80s of all their weapons and used them as cargo ships. That doesn't mean I want an MC80 card with no weapons.

The imperials could strip all the turbolasers off of an ISD and replace it all with lasers for an anti-starfighter ship - but it wouldn't 'feel' right.

I'd rather them make up a new ship (which I hate), than for them to shoehorn some function into a ship that exists, but didn't do anything like that in the Star Wars Universe we know.

You mean the Star Wars universe you know.

So basically you have your own personal standard of canon, and they'd better not violate it?

Relax man, there's plenty of room in the galactic pool.

If everyone believed that if they haven't seen it in a book, or movie, or show that's specifically official canon then it doesn't belong, it'd be a much less rich setting (the same really applies to any body of fiction).

I know I don't know all of the EU or Canon, and I even forgot about the Jihadi Class Transports in the ROTJ book. I read it, but completely forgot that.

So - when did Transports go toe to toe with Star Destroyers as a combat element of the Rebel Fleet? In this game, they are two turns from being in range of oblivion and losing points for the Rebel Player. Scale wise, it would take up all three stands on a squadron base.

Haha just had a vision of 8 transports ramming a vsd!

Actually there is a precedent somewhere for the Rebels filling them with explosives and ramming larger ships so...

Scale wise, it would take up all three stands on a squadron base.

I concur.

It would be a neat scenario piece either way. I'd love some pieces like that that just add realism to the game. A convoy to be ambushed or something.

Scale wise, it would take up all three stands on a squadron base.

I concur.

It would be a neat scenario piece either way. I'd love some pieces like that that just add realism to the game. A convoy to be ambushed or something.

I still shudder when I remember that evacuation convoy escort mission in X-Wing, when the ISD jumped in behind the convoy and a wall of green death started pouring out.

In fact, this one right here:

I think we will see the GR-75. the rebels never left home without them. I think FFG did a great job of adapting it for play in xwing, where it is a fantastic support ship. I feel sure we will see it eventually here as well.

I think they shrunk it even more than the CR-90 on the xwing table, in reality, isnt it nearly the same length as a CR-90?

I think there are all sorts of ways you could (and would) refit a ship like this. Mine layer, giant self propeeled torpedo, ECM ship, throw some qaud cannons on it, let it boost your squadron value with a fuel tanker upgrade.

It was a common ship with a lot of open space, which makes it perfect for a rag tag rebel force to re purpose it for a lot of other purposes. (see also mon cal ships that were converted luxury liners)

I feel sure we will see it. To me, the game would feel incomplete without it.

Release it with a new objective card where the ships themselves are the objective. Evacuation of hoth anyone? sign me up!

I think we will see the GR-75. the rebels never left home without them. I think FFG did a great job of adapting it for play in xwing, where it is a fantastic support ship. I feel sure we will see it eventually here as well.

I think they shrunk it even more than the CR-90 on the xwing table, in reality, isnt it nearly the same length as a CR-90?

I think there are all sorts of ways you could (and would) refit a ship like this. Mine layer, giant self propeeled torpedo, ECM ship, throw some qaud cannons on it, let it boost your squadron value with a fuel tanker upgrade.

It was a common ship with a lot of open space, which makes it perfect for a rag tag rebel force to re purpose it for a lot of other purposes. (see also mon cal ships that were converted luxury liners)

I feel sure we will see it. To me, the game would feel incomplete without it.

Release it with a new objective card where the ships themselves are the objective. Evacuation of hoth anyone? sign me up!

Actually the Transport is quite a bit smaller than the CR-90 which clocks in at 150m. The GR-75 is only 90 meters. Barely 2/3s the length of a Corvette.

You almost could put the thing on a Squadron base. But I can see it working on a small base.

See it as a package like fighters with several other support vessels in my opinion.