A similar wording to the Impounder title? That could work. If I understood you guys correctly, you'd be happy with something like this:

-Either dropping counter 1 or halving AS

-Droid reworded to: "Droid X: During the Squadron Phase, your speed is reduced to X." Vultures and Hyenas might have 1, Tri-Droids a more respectable 3.

-DCA reworded to: "[squadron]: You may activate an additional number of squadrons equal to your squadron value. You cannot activate squadrons without Droid."

The DCA wording means a squadron dial will activate 2*S stands, while a token will activate 1+S stands (where S is the ship's Squadron value). In practice:

Munificent Light Carrier (S=2): 3 w/ token, 4 w/ dial, 5 w/ both.

Recusant Light Destroyer (S=3): 4 w/ token, 6 w/ dial, 7 w/ both.

Providence (S=4): 5 w/ token, 8 w/ dial, 9 w/ both ?

This makes DCA an absolute must if you want to fly more than a few droids - which I suppose is thematically appropriate. If there's droid swarms, there's going to be a control ship nearby, whereas if a handful of more advanced (and expensive) Tri-Droids can manage without, especially if they have Rogue. Also, since DCA takes up your O.R. slot, Boosted Comms are out of the question... which paves the way for a double-slotted Providence carrier that could equip both. Nasty

Ok, I got done with my latest home repair and decided to try a little solitar skirmish. I ran Adi Gallia vs. 4 Vultures. No matter what turn order I used, even dropping Counter the Aethersprite was dead by turn 3. Best result I got was 3:1. All 3 0f the others were 2:1.

I was a little shocked by how one sided the engagement was. I am marking this down as a bad match up at the moment, but I think I will try Z95s or X-wings next. Besides, my son loves to run them, so he will definitely be up for a few skirmishes.

Try again with the Eta-2. I had two builds last night, of which I ran one, Skywalker's, reliant on giving Rogue to heavy fighters with Counter, the idea being that their durability will push them through the swarms with Counter deal damage left and right. The other build was Kenobi, same Venator, but one Arquitens, two C70 Retrofits with H9s, and Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and Mace Windu, all Eta-2s, Plo Koon, and three ARC-170 units. Plo Koon obviously is in the middle of all the other fighters to protect the only non-Counter unit while extending his anti-swarm umbrella to everyone possible. My concern was ship to-ship fighting power, which was clearly a mistake. Once we nail down a Venator battle cruiser, I may take two of them and as many Jedi as we have and see how it unfolds. Best tests stack the variable right?

You got everything Diablo. That Providence sounds horrifying, both in power and in cost. I suggest only the carrier Providence version be given Offensive Retrofit, relegating all squadron duties to the carrier version and forcing the destroyer to fight ship to ship. Thoughts on my Venator suggestions?

In retrospect piecemeal was a poor choice of wording: the sheer mass of fighters simply meant that, as you said, every fighter was constantly swarmed in droids, with the same net effect. The Squadron Phase speed for the Vultures is already 2 with DCA, and if you mean the listed card speed I will protest vigorously, as Gunray is the only reason a speed 2 fighter contingent was viable in the match.

As a final thought, Kalani isn't actually as useless as he seems. If I had turned my squadron commands to tokens and doubled them, due to the Droid keyword I would actually have been able to activate more squadrons than I was able to with the Light Carrier's commands (not that in that kind of attrition situation it actually mattered).

EDIT: Didn't see Diablo's post, and I like his new proposal very much, though it means I will definitely be tracking down a Lucrehulk model before Giled and I play another 400 point game.

In light of what we are seeing with DCA, I may need to flip flop back to the Unique upgrade side I started on.

Limiting the number affected by DCA may be a good idea too.

Yea Giled, I ran ETA-2 Anakin, the ETA-2 is an absolute lawnmower when it homes to vultures.

We do still have the Royal Naboo starfighters to do eventually, after seeing vultures in action, I can't help but think they should be an Interceptor/bomber hybrid. DCA killer and vulture killer rolled into 1. Probably TIE fragile, but such are the breaks.

EDIT: Didn't see Diablo's post, and I like his new proposal very much, though it means I will definitely be tracking down a Lucrehulk model before Giled and I play another 400 point game.

Give me two weeks and you can have dreadnought sized Recusants and Providences. To which I will have no choice but to respond with Mandators. (Once I track down that model. These two only took two months, give or take.)

EDIT: Didn't see Diablo's post, and I like his new proposal very much, though it means I will definitely be tracking down a Lucrehulk model before Giled and I play another 400 point game.

Give me two weeks and you can have dreadnought sized Recusants and Providences. To which I will have no choice but to respond with Mandators. (Once I track down that model. These two only took two months, give or take.)

Ok, I got done with my latest home repair and decided to try a little solitar skirmish. I ran Adi Gallia vs. 4 Vultures. No matter what turn order I used, even dropping Counter the Aethersprite was dead by turn 3. Best result I got was 3:1. All 3 0f the others were 2:1.

I was a little shocked by how one sided the engagement was. I am marking this down as a bad match up at the moment, but I think I will try Z95s or X-wings next. Besides, my son loves to run them, so he will definitely be up for a few skirmishes.

Ouch - that sounds painful. But keep in mind the Delta-7 is designed for surgical strikes, not for protracted dogfights. Plus much of their cost derives from Rogue and Grit, neither of which is useful in the tested scenario (while the disadvantage of Droid is avoided). A Delta 7 plus a Torrent vs 6 Vultures sounds like a much more reasonable engagement.

You got everything Diablo. That Providence sounds horrifying, both in power and in cost. I suggest only the carrier Providence version be given Offensive Retrofit, relegating all squadron duties to the carrier version and forcing the destroyer to fight ship to ship. Thoughts on my Venator suggestions?

Sounds good to me. I'll work on them... soon

As a final thought, Kalani isn't actually as useless as he seems. If I had turned my squadron commands to tokens and doubled them, due to the Droid keyword I would actually have been able to activate more squadrons than I was able to with the Light Carrier's commands (not that in that kind of attrition situation it actually mattered).

EDIT: Didn't see Diablo's post, and I like his new proposal very much, though it means I will definitely be tracking down a Lucrehulk model before Giled and I play another 400 point game.

Do keep in mind Kalani can't give you two identical tokens (that's still illegal). But (with DCA, at least) you do get a free multi-droid activation with every Navigate, CF or Repair - provided you're willing to accept the token version of that other command.

We do still have the Royal Naboo starfighters to do eventually, after seeing vultures in action, I can't help but think they should be an Interceptor/bomber hybrid. DCA killer and vulture killer rolled into 1. Probably TIE fragile, but such are the breaks.

Vulture killer and DCA killer in one package? That's a tall order. What does that put the N-1's stats? Hull 3 Speed 3, 2K AS, R Battery, Counter 2/3(?), Cost 12?

I was thinking: Hull 3 Speed 3, B,K AS, B Battery, Counter 2, Bomber. 10-13 on points. Ace, Anakin, recycle Luke ability, and ignore cap shields.

Meanwhile, above Coruscant...

This would make the Vulture a worse TIE Fighter, the Hyena a worse TIE Bomber, and the Tri-fighter a (somewhat) better TIE Interceptor. Too big a disparity? Counter 1 was also an option. But the 'pedia insists on these things being extremely nasty. The black dice account for the buzz droids; I didn't think an additional keyword was warranted just for that.

late to the party but you could always limit droids to counter as their only form of offense unless commanded by a ship.

"Droid: You cannot make non-counter attacks during the Squadron Phase"? It's an option. But then we'd have to give all of them a counter value, which could get messy. Definitely something to try if the current iteration doesn't work out either.

Vulture and Hyena both look good, the Hyena especially. To be perfectly honest I was expecting the trifighter at Hull 4, and without seriously testing it, it seems a tad overcosted. What that cost says to me is I'm Better Than An ARC-170, which, while it has all the appearances of an extremely strong fighter, I don't think it's quite that powerful. Hull 3 is still pretty squishy, and BBK is only marginally better than a BBB, with fewer accuracies. It certainly isn't RRR, or 6 Hull, which to be fair also come with the baggage of Heavy.

I'm confident in this iteration of the CIS fighters overall though. The Droid keyword, in particular, is simple and to the point. My biggest remaining concern is that the cost of the Vulture is still very low, allowing repeats of the Black Sunday Massacre of Crossland Tower through sheer force of mass. While outcomes now will probably be decidedly less one sided, the mass issue, if we consider it to be so, has not been solved. Next chance I get I will playtest. My goal for this week is to get a couple friends solidly hooked into the game.

I was very much in doubt about the appropriate cost for the Tri-fighter.

My calculations were based on the TIE Interceptor (cost 11), compared to which the Tri-fighter has:

-Same speed; =

-Same hull; =

-Slightly less firepower (3+c2 vs 4+c2; BBK is roughly equivalent to BBB+swarm); -1 point

-Better battery; +1 point

-Rogue (though only at speed 2); +3 points at least

-Droid (already accounted for above); =

So I think 13-15 is the right ballpark, and I'd rather start out conservative. We could always increase its hull or upgrade it to Droid 3 if need be, but I think a high cost is a good way of keeping the total droid mass down.

As for the Vulture and Hyena, hopefully the reworked Droid mechanics will make them considerably less scary. Though you'll still have to field some form of countermeasure against them, such as judicious use of AS - don't allow your squadrons to be caught out in the open!

I think the above changes should give V-wings the advantage vs the vultures on an even or slightly less than point cost. With that and without the field wide DCA effect, those holes in the wall-o-Vultures will open faster and be slower to close. Add an ETA-2, or three, and just watch those Vulture lines dissolve

I am finding it interesting, that we are changing up the Tactics here. AS is a huge issue in the potential Clone Wars meta you are creating. I count this as a huge success and a testament to the versatility of Armada as a rules set. The Rebellion and Imperial fleets each have distinct feels, our goal should be to achieve that same level of uniqueness with the CIS and the GAR. Seems like we are on the right track.

This is almost as much fun as playing the game!

Oh, and if you decide to do the Scum faction, I suggest you shoot for the feel of "Fighting Dirty".

I like the changes, hopefully that prevents the Vultures/hyena's from begin too over bearing. I look forward to hearing some of peoples new play testing results.

Reskinning the existing GAR card as an Imperial warship seems appropriate. Gives them a carrier to match an Imperial class with EHB, and cheaper to boot, although with a radically different armament profile. For GAR versions I like idea of two models, a command cruiser and a battle cruiser. For the command variant, adding an officer, defensive retrofit, and say a black AS seems appropriate and just leave it there. For the battle cruiser, I suggest some variance from the Imperial refit to keep the ships independent of each other. 3/4/3, or even 3/3/3, C/S/E seems fair, but bulking the firepower, either an additional red or blue forward, and either a black added to the sides or dropping one red and adding two black for an ability to savage starships at close range (Exhibit A Invisible Hand vs Gualara). Especially if we add two black to the broadsides I would be ok with dropping either Turbolasers or Ordnance upgrades, potentially both depending on cost, to keep the ship from running away in stopping power.

Here's a new iteration based on your comments:

These are significantly stronger than the previous version, beyond your suggestion, for three main reasons:

1) The shift from Medium to Large.

2) They now represent contemporary designs rather than obsolete ones. The Imperial cards will probably maintain their present lower level (and cost) to reflect their age.

3) At the beginning of the project I was more conservative with stats and cost. This has changed as I've grown more confident, but also with the release of wave 2, which has significantly increased the lethality of the game.

Popping in to say that I love the work done in here, been considering trying to sneak in getting a Venator or two as soon as I have some more spare cash.

That said, I think the Venator's armament is getting a bit out of hand. Compared to an Imperial II it has the same amount of dice in the front zones, granted, with more of a focus on the sides and shorter range due to black dice, but I think it still has a point in pointing out. The Imperial is supposed to be covered in turbo laser batteries and supplemented with a number of turrets, while the Venator had a much smaller amount and primarily in side facing turrets.

I got a litany here, so bear with me. First, and I honestly have never known this, is there any indication on the card itself of the size of a starship, or is that something that only affects the card on the ship's base? Second, I vastly appreciate the bulking up of these cruisers. The new Star Destroyer in particular looks as though it is as deadly lethal as befits the ship. I'm surprised that you gave it Squadron 4, but since it's a large ship now, I suppose the rise in cost associated with that is reasonable, especially since it's still the cheapest large ship, if by a much smaller margin. These ships will see action as soon as my Imperial class SD and MC80 finally arrive. Finally, on this subject anyway, are the two Imperial versions now the old Imperial Refit and the previous Republic iteration of the Venator, or were those upgraded to a separate standard?

Next, to get your mental flywheels spinning, Myrmecology has two subjects he has expressed thoughts to me on that I will pass on to you. First, he is developing a Hardcell-class transport, particularly with an eye on ramming tactics and a cargo slot. It would be a small ship of course. His other beef is with a far older card, the E-wing. He feels that the E-wing is in no way the superior successor to the X-wing's space superiority role it was in the EU. Last we spoke on the subject, he was considering upgrade ideas for the card for presentation.

As a note to those following my dreadnought exploits, today was a day of mixed progress. Computers were located nominally including SolidWorks in their installed files, but they refused to function properly, as did Google SketchUp. On the flip side, the .stl files appear intact, so only modifications to make the models printable should be necessary. Photos to follow when they exist.

There's no indication of size on the ship cards themselves, other than the ship icon linking them to a base of course. Reducing the upgunned Venator's squadron value to 3 is certainly an option. It needs to be playtested either way, but if you feel strongly about it I don't mind changing it for now. I did not yet update the Civil War cards. I expect there'll be some tweaking but I have not given it much thought at this time.

The Hardcell is something I looked at (briefly) when researching CIS ships. Weird little thing. Two blue dice on the front battery only (and possibly 1 black AS die?), hull 4, speed 2, 6-8 shields max, C1/S1/E2, officer+cargo(+support?).

I feel the E-wing cad is superior to the X-wing, much in the same way that the Me262 was superior to all of its contemporaries - it may not be better armed, or more maneuverable, but it's faster. And for air/space superiority, speed is (almost) everything. It's true that in practice the choice between X- and E-wing will mostly come down to how it interacts with the rest of your build is, but I feel that's how it should be - plus I reserve the right to ignore the EU when it's manifestly silly

On an unrelated subject, I began writing down new objective cards. Whether these will be made generic, or reserved specifically for the Clone Wars, is yet to be seen. But soon I'll be asking you to try them out

I would not recommended reducing the Venator's squadron to 3, aside from the Canon reasons, you may be stripping away this ships identity, as well as some teeth.

I have only played 2 full games with the Venator so far, but the results are telling. When the Venator is run as a carrier, it performs at its best. The 4-5 squadron value sets the Venator apart from even the ISD & Home One. If the Venator is going to be the smallest large base ship, then it should also have the highest squadron value to date, the first strike capabilities of the ship will make it competitive with the other large base ships. I would rather the points go up than bring anything down on that ship. The Victory has a 3 squadron, 4 with EH, squadrons make the difference.

Besides, it is good practice for a true mega-carrier like the Lucrehulk.

In addition, Shouldn't the Venator have Engineering 4? It would basically be the only Command 3 ship without Engineering 4 or higher, I really like the star destroyer variant though! Would make a great flagship for a fleet, albeit with a few glaring weaknesses of course (that AS single die, no turns at speed 3, weak rear...).

It's a quirk left over from the original Medium size, but I think it gives it some character and reinforces that it's an older model. Besides, the double brace should more than make up for it, this thing is supposed to tank with its hull

What I did mean to add (but I forgot - it will be on the card when I upload it to Shipyards) is a Contain token.

Oh, just thought I had read that the Venator was really well-built and efficient compared to the Imperial class, but I guess that shows up in armament and shields and not in its capability to recover from lost shields. I'm also slightly biased as I consider the Venator to be a really classy ship. I love how you've done them apart from the Engineering stat

Kudos to you Diablo!