That's a clever workaround. I like it, and the point was the ability of the gigantic cannons to hurt whether you liked it or not. Let me think some more about whether or not we should allow more than one die to be spent for the direct damage. The light carrier could only use that for three damage, and would rather have Tide of Progress anyway. The frigate variant can theoretically hand over five unblockable damage that way, albeit a 1/1024 chance. (For math nerds too lazy to find a decimal, that's barely less than a tenth of a percentage point.) I think it should provisionally be one die only, and costed that way, and we can experiment with how that actually plays. If it proves to be useless, we can buff it later.

Cool, I'll rewrite it when I get home from work. By the way, a happy medium may be to specify red crits only (so 3 potential unavoidable damage, only slightly better than a double hit + 2 accuracies and almost as unlikely).

One further thing keeping this ability in check is that it makes accuracy results fairly useless. So what if you can't spend a brace/evade? The damage is, quite literally, already done. Which I suppose makes SW-7 Ions a great synergetic upgrade - not a bad thing.

I'm just going to throw it out there as a Spitball for Oddball Mechanics...

How would you feel about the idea of:

"Spend 2 Critical Die, remove all shields on the defending facing"

Maybe even make them specifically Red Critical Die.

VERY powerful when it goes off. Much more difficult to get off.

Very difficult to price as well, I guess

Wow. That's nasty .

OK, let's figure this out:

-The odds are only ~6% with 2 dice, but already ~14% when you add a reroll, and growing quite rapidly as you add dice. So not so difficult to get off, certainly with large attack pools.

-Then there's the fact that any damage left over will go straight into the hull (unless it's redirected/braced/evaded, of course).

So, for a small attack pool (2-3 dice), there's a small but nontrivial chance of it triggering with the situational potential for "overachieving" by stripping 4 shields off the target, which would normally be nigh-impossible for a small battery. However, the ability it provides little advantage against a weaker (say, 2 shields) target except ignoring defense tokens. Note that rolling a pair of double-hits would have also stripped off 2 shields unless the defender spent at least two defense tokens, so that would have still been a better result - meaning that a double crit is by no means a "jackpot" result in this situation, and even a double-hit plus crit result is probably better.

On the other hand, for a large attack pool (4-6 dice), there's both a large chance of it triggering and the potential to deliver multiple (even face up) damage cards in addition. Even without delving into the math, it's already apparent that it would be a massively powerful ability.

What this tells us is that it probably shouldn't be a weapons upgrade card - as it would have to be costed very highly to account for the possibility of it being equipped to a powerful ship, which would in turn make it unplayable on anything smaller. And, if made as a title upgrade, it should probably only be available for ships with batteries of no more than 3 dice; CF and TL upgrades can still bring this up, so it still shouldn't be cheap. An alternative is to word the card so the attacker must cancel all remaining dice, a la Dodonna's Pride, to trigger the effect. So even with a huge attack pool, the most it could do is remove all the shields (if you rolled 2 crits and, say, 6 additional damage, you could of course choose to not trigger the ability and let the defender spend his tokens - you'd probably still end up mauling the ship).

All in all, though I'm not sure I like it for the Munificent, I'll keep it in mind for future ships!

Although, you could always add a "Cancel all other Die results" section, too..... To stop that additional large-attack bleed through...

I had that on my ideas .txt, but totally forgot to include it

That's what I said ( "An alternative is to word the card so the attacker must cancel all remaining dice, a la Dodonna's Pride, to trigger the effect." )

We had it all sorted out on the same path

That would be vicious on a little CIS corvette! Sweep in, boom, big shields gone, get out before the big guns cut you to bits.

Yeah. If the CIS had anything smaller than a Munificent.

Like this?

In the end all it does is let you partially circumvent the opponent's defense tokens if you score crits , so I didn't think it necessary to increase the point cost. Any playtest feedback will be very welcome! I'm especially interested in comparative testing of Chasovoy and the more expensive Force of Commerce.

EDIT: By the way, G.P., I have to ask... why "Chasovoy"? I thought the CIS's shtick was commercial/financial/industrial jargon?

I am not above filling that nich with a fan made ship. (FFG did.)

http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/13/12901/Untitled.2.jpg

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/29/28146/thumb_620x2000/star_wars_cis_gunboat_3d_by_adamkop-d57qp4c.jpg

http://img14.deviantart.net/d728/i/2012/155/7/c/star_wars_cis_frigate_2d_wip_by_adamkop-d523lob.jpg

Here are three decent options. The fourth option was what the EaW modders came up with to fill the nitch. They dual/repurposed the Trade Federation lander ships into light combat ships. Personally I would prefer to use one of the fan made designs.

Hopefully Mel will weigh in and let us know if he would be interested in doing a model for any of the above.

While I'm not philosophically opposed to that, the practical problem with these (as well as some of the more obscure ships that did show up in official material, like the Diamond-class or the Sabaoth) is finding print-quality artwork that I can use for the ship and title cards.

And yet... earlier today someone wrote a comment on Shipyards bringing this beauty to my attention:





The 'pedia says very little about it, which isn't very helpful but does give us carte blanche to decide on stats that will fit the CIS well. Anyway, there's no point working on it until we've fleshed out the main CIS ship. In the meantime, I'll ask Mel if he's interested in modelling it.

EDIT: It's variously called Geonosian Pinnace, Geonosian Corvette, and Pinnace-class Dreadnought by the few sources that mention it. The only (fanon) length I could find was 6000m, but that doesn't fit the "pinnace" or "corvette" designations at all, and looks to be a confusion of two distinct ship designs. Based on the artwork above (the bridge windows can't be more than 2-3m tall - compare also the turbolaser cannons with those of the Arquitens) I estimate the length at 400-600m tops, which would place it in the Small ship category. I'm also not above some fudging for the greater good

Chasovoy came from the same place I got Mortuum, Subleuarent, and Zashchita, another language I know besides English. Chasovoy and Zashchita are Russian, transliterated from the Cyrillic, and Mortuum and Subleuarent are Latin. They mean Sentinel, Defender, Death, and Raider, respectively (in the order in the immediately preceding sentence).

For light Separatist ships, I will agree, print quality art will be a far greater challenge than ships. I have seen the Geonosian thing before, and was loathe to bring it up, since it's barely known. There are also the Sabaoth destroyers and frigates, although starfighters we have covered. There is also the Wavecrest-class frigate, a niche ship I'm thinking about as an Arquitens, but with more AS ability. For starfighters, after we get through the Vulture droids, Hyena bombers, and trifighters, there is the Rogue-class starfighter, also known as the Porax-38, which Cad Bane can be an ace for, and the Belbullab-22 for General Grievous, plus that thing Ventress flew.

Ginivex-class starfighters, more commonly known as the Fanblade starfighter.

Also we could do the Geonosian starfighter.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071020222101/starwars/images/9/99/Nantex_Geonosis.JPG

Hey everyone, wanted to drop in and let ya know how much I'm enjoying all of the fine work you guys do here, and to share a thought I had for a separatist upgrade card. Do with it what you will!

"Slave Circuit Fighters"

Squadron: When activating squadrons with the "Droid" keyword, temporarily double your Squadron ability, but affected squadrons may only move or fire.

Chasovoy came from the same place I got Mortuum, Subleuarent, and Zashchita, another language I know besides English. Chasovoy and Zashchita are Russian, transliterated from the Cyrillic, and Mortuum and Subleuarent are Latin. They mean Sentinel, Defender, Death, and Raider, respectively (in the order in the immediately preceding sentence).

Yeah, I recognized the language(s), which is why I asked. As cool as Chasovoy sounds (and it does), wouldn't you be more comfortable using established names where available? Not that there's a lot to choose from for these ships, but Voice of Industry II isn't taken yet Also, is there a precedent for non-English Earth languages being used in Star Wars? It feels... odd. Like calling a ship Schildwacht or Shaobing. It might sound alien and exotic to some of us, but jarringly out of place to others.

Anyway, here's my current to-do list for the Clone Wars, more or less in the shown order:

-Recusant (Medium)

-Providence (Medium)

-Vulture, Hyena and Tri-Fighter Droid squadrons

-Unique CIS squadrons (Dooku, Grievous, Ventress and possibly a couple more - suggestions welcome)

-Additional unique GAR squadrons (Y-Wing, Z-95, and V-Wing still don't have an ace)

-Additional Venator variant card

-Geonosian Pinnace (Small)

-C-9979 (Small)

-Core Ship (Medium)

-Lucrehulk (Large)

As well as more title cards, at the very least for the ships that still don't have any yet (Dreadnaught, Consular, Victory). And write-ups.

And this is just for the Clone Wars - there's just as much still to be done for Rebellion era material. So yeah, obscure stuff (like the Sabaoth and Geonosian fleets) may show up eventually, but... I'd rather not worry too much about it just yet. For the Pinnace I'll make an exception since we do need at least one Small combat ship and this one looks sweet. Zenzi over at Shipyards apparently extracted a model from an Empire at War mod and made a 3D print out of it:

(yes, that's a Sabaoth destroyer in the background)

The surface detail is rather poor due to the low-poly source model, but it's still perfectly valid as a proof of concept. I'm sure Mel would be happy to make a more detailed version.

EDIT: grammar

I only feel compelled to state the super obvious and say that Latin and Greek are used extensively Of course, I also mean that it's used beyond the typical confines of English loan words. Something like Empyrean and Borealis might find their way into English, along with other languages like Katana, but something like Imperalis as a name (rather than just a class) seems less common. The typical English parlance only really has a place for Imperial/Imperious or occasionally Imperium, but fitting Imperialis in is pretty tough.

That said, there's a lot of borderline things that Star Wars incorporated that are fairly well known but definitely based on non-English Earth references. The obvious ones are the classical nouns: like Leonides, Caelus, Reyna, Jericho, and Endor (both for places and as main component in ship names).

Anyway, great work par normal. I know I normally don't pipe up, but I can't help but mention how bloody beautiful ship that Geonosian dread is!

You make a good point with Latin and Greek - though, those being ancient languages from which much is routinely borrowed (and even more was assimilated over the centuries), they're a bit of a special case. And believe me, I won't be making title upgrade cards for Leonides or Reyna anytime soon, they're just not very Star Wars-like names

Ships ahoy!

These are an odd animal. I started from Giled's pre-wave 2 proposal and then tweaked them to be a bit more like the MC30c. In fact, they're a bit of an awkward hybrid between the Scout Frigate and the Assault Frigate:

Slower, less maneuverable and less responsive than the Scout Frigate, but slightly tankier and with comparable firepower.

Less tanky and less maneuverable than an AF2, worse long-range firepower, better short-range firepower.

Overall I think it's closer to the MC30c, and the price reflects that. The usual formula yields 64-68 points, but I felt safer overcosting it a little. Feedback welcome as usual; meanwhile I'll start work on the title cards.

Chasovoy came from the same place I got Mortuum, Subleuarent, and Zashchita, another language I know besides English. Chasovoy and Zashchita are Russian, transliterated from the Cyrillic, and Mortuum and Subleuarent are Latin. They mean Sentinel, Defender, Death, and Raider, respectively (in the order in the immediately preceding sentence).

Yeah, I recognized the language(s), which is why I asked. As cool as Chasovoy sounds (and it does), wouldn't you be more comfortable using established names where available? Not that there's a lot to choose from for these ships, but Voice of Industry II isn't taken yet Also, is there a precedent for non-English Earth languages being used in Star Wars? It feels... odd. Like calling a ship Schildwacht or Shaobing. It might sound alien and exotic to some of us, but jarringly out of place to others.

Anyway, here's my current to-do list for the Clone Wars, more or less in the shown order:

-Recusant (Medium)

-Providence (Medium)

-Vulture, Hyena and Tri-Fighter Droid squadrons

-Unique CIS squadrons (Dooku, Grievous, Ventress and possibly a couple more - suggestions welcome)

-Additional unique GAR squadrons (Y-Wing, Z-95, and V-Wing still don't have an ace)

-Additional Venator variant card

-Geonosian Pinnace (Small)

-C-9979 (Small)

-Core Ship (Medium)

-Lucrehulk (Large)

As well as more title cards, at the very least for the ships that still don't have any yet (Dreadnaught, Consular, Victory). And write-ups.

And this is just for the Clone Wars - there's just as much still to be done for Rebellion era material. So yeah, obscure stuff (like the Sabaoth and Geonosian fleets) may show up eventually, but... I'd rather not worry too much about. For the Pinnace I'll make an exception since we do need at least one Small combat ship and this one looks sweet. Zenzi over at Shipyards apparently extracted a model from an Empire at War mod and made a 3D print out of it:

The surface detail is rather poor due to the low-poly source model, but it's still perfect as a proof of concept. I'm sure Mel would be happy to make a more detailed version.

They follow my naming convention in a few other things I do as hobbies, where I pick an English word and find a word in a different language that reflects it well. I would be perfectly fine if my suggestion names were discarded for ones out of the Expanded Universe; in this case they were little better than placeholders. For precedent, the precedent may or may not come from the Honor Harrington series (using other Earth languages liberally)...

Are we comfortable with the Recusant and the Providence at medium? If yes, where does that leave the Venator, also in that approximate size class, if somewhat more massive? I'm of the opinion all three of those ships should share their size class, and could see them going either way. As set up right now, they are either the most powerful (and expensive) mediums or the least powerful (and cheapest) larges. The Recusant is priced like a medium, but its armament approaches a Venator, whose class Providence should certainly share. It is a debate worth having, and honestly, as I believe the consensus on the Venator was, we need larges to playtest with and examine.

I'm quite intrigued by the versions of the Recusant you have. In light of Wave 2, I like the uparming, and wholeheartedly support their inability to maneuver. I'm curious how effective the Commerce Raider will be, since at its ideal range the evades are actually only worth a reroll rather than a cancellation. It also doesn't carry Ion Cannons, another intriguing choice in light of its armament. I fully support making these ships fall outside the FFG norms and making players think other ways, and this ship seems to be the tip of that spear. I do want playtesting on the squadron value before committing to it. In that regard it is a capable ship, as it is in the lore, but it is not a automatic thought in my mind when I consider how to play these ships. Do we want a title that is a carrier one for this class? The prices are certainly reasonable, especially in light of the Squadron value. (As a member of the Rhymer Mafia, much to Myrmecology's chagrin, I place a premium on squadron value.)

This weekend I ought to have at least a little time to finagle out some ideas for other CIS squadrons, and the Geonosian whatever-it-is, as well as hopefully a few writeups. The Lucrehulk will be absolutely massive, twice the length and God only knows how many times the mass of an ISD. We may want to leave it for last, lest we discover it is the small end of the dreadnought category, which I continue to seek a model to play-test my theories with. On that note, can you link the Shipyards forum where that Geonosian proof of concept was built? Just maybe I can extract a Recusant to scale up from it. (There was a 2.2K version in TCW.) And for uniques, how do we feel about repeating, or near repeating other abilities? There are only so many ways to bend (or flagrantly break) the squadron rules for Aces. I would also raise the idea of an ace who has no unique ability, but merely a larger combination of keywords than his normal counterpart. Thoughts?

Oh and for small we do have the Wavecrest. I'll bring that up again when I have a stats idea.

Just a quick note (short break from working on the title cards):

The Venator can/should stay as a Medium as far as I'm concerned. My rule of thumb is:

Small: <700m

Medium: 700-1200m

Large: >1200m

And yeah, the Lucrehulk will be a tough one. Though I think the model need only be a little longer than an ISD to feel right.

My twist on the Recusant was to make it look great... then gimp it in horrible ways (near-zero maneuverability, mismatch between armament and defense tokens, poor upgrade choices) to push players out of their comfort zone. Call me sadistic, but I like ships which are hard to play well. And I think this design philosophy fits the CIS well. Totally agree with you on the playtesting front though!

For the Geonosian model, you should probably contact Zenzi directly (check out the comments section on the Munificent page).

Stay tuned for more cards!

Straight out of Giled's playbook:

Point of note: Should Nova Defiant discard the damage card, or merely place it face down? Either prevents the effect from taking place, but one is far more powerful, rendering the ship immune to a selection (admittedly a relatively small one) of damage cards from the damage deck. I had operated under the assumption that it would do the latter, but I am fine with the former, if there is a cost increase associated with it. 4 pts seems like not very much to shrug off a damage card flat out.

Ships ahoy!

These are an odd animal. I started from Giled's pre-wave 2 proposal and then tweaked them to be a bit more like the MC30c. In fact, they're a bit of an awkward hybrid between the Scout Frigate and the Assault Frigate:

Slower, less maneuverable and less responsive than the Scout Frigate, but slightly tankier and with comparable firepower.

Less tanky and less maneuverable than an AF2, worse long-range firepower, better short-range firepower.

Overall I think it's closer to the MC30c, and the price reflects that. The usual formula yields 64-68 points, but I felt safer overcosting it a little. Feedback welcome as usual; meanwhile I'll start work on the title cards.

Interesting take on the Recuscant, I had always pictured it more as a big Neulon-B. What with the Heavy prow turbolaser and small section between the main body and engines.

Interesting take on the Recuscant, I had always pictured it more as a big Neulon-B. What with the Heavy prow turbolaser and small section between the main body and engines.

While it does have a large forward cannon, it is not nearly as large or as prominent as the pair of monsters aboard a Munificent prow. To that end, I then decided, lacking good lore material on weaponry disposition, that since the Providence was heavy broadside, and the Munificent forward arc, the Recusant could fill the role of cheap broadside firepower. To that end it ended up being something of a riff on the MC30, except rearranged to challenge a commander, and potentially provide a potent ship nonetheless.

I love it the Recuscant is an excellent flanking ship for the Munificent.

Wasn't there also a communications frigate version of this design? Or am I thinking of a different ship?

Hey everyone, wanted to drop in and let ya know how much I'm enjoying all of the fine work you guys do here, and to share a thought I had for a separatist upgrade card. Do with it what you will!

"Slave Circuit Fighters"

Squadron: When activating squadrons with the "Droid" keyword, temporarily double your Squadron ability, but affected squadrons may only move or fire.

Quality idea.

I was thinking that Tri-fighters could get the HUNT key word, may move at speed 1 and fire only at enemy squadrons. Kind of a rogue-lite.