Quick revision based on the above discussion:

The broadsides are now weaker than a VSD (or even some smaller ships) at long range, but devastating at close range. Meanwhile, the front arc is slightly better than a VSD's, but also narrower. The cost has also gone down a little, which should allow fielding 3 with full squadron support (or 4 naked) in a 400-point game.

The unusual difference between front and side dice should make an open (distance 3) line abreast formation very dangerous: ahead of them are VSD-like cones of destruction at long range, and if you try to slash between two of them like you would with VSDs you will take six black dice to the face. So you really need to outflank the formation as a whole.

So probably this is more thematic, and certainly very different from the Providence. But extensive playtesting will be a must, as with the rest of the Clone Wars material.

Aren't VSD's supposed to be significantly more powerful than Venators in ship to ship, filling a battleship role and with slightly later technology & warfare experience implemented vs a slightly more dated battlecarrier which sacrifices a lot of space to hold so many fighters?

This

First, I'm not completely convinced that the new Venator is an improvement on the Victory, especially in cost per unit punch. Second, both ships had deadly reputations in ship to ship combat, the Venator a battle cruiser with a carrier complement, the Victory more a heavy cruiser. For a modern analogy, I'd suggest a comparison of the Kuznetsov aircraft-carrying cruiser (Venator) to the Slava class cruiser (Victory). Both are formidable warships, one optimized for ship to ship combat more than the other, but both quite formidable. Third, fluff is only thematically guiding the new arrangement of the Venator. It is a Large, and intended to be the bulwark of the Republic fleet, which it was, whereas the Victory is a medium and less central to Republic strategy and flavor. One saw service far longer than the other, but that is the nature of Imperial tactical doctrine, or more really the fact that the EU created one and Lucas the other years later. We are not interested in a fluff comparison, which the Venator (200m longer, and packing a main battery equivalent to that of an ISD, something the Victory did not have) should win out anyway, but thematic development of playable warships. As a final note, these cards are being built to reflect the ships when they were the top of the line fleet ships during the Clone Wars, not the antiquated units that would serve in the Galactic Civil War twenty years later. I feel fully justified in the nature of the current cards, but as customs, you are welcome to edit them in your own play to your hearts' desire and report the results back here. I'm sure we will find them fascinating.

Of course, you can give them any stats you want. The Clone Wars writers unfortunately went completely overboard with their 'our stuff needs to be cooler and better than that of the previous movies even though those tooks place several decades in the future" mentality. The Venator is a prime example. If we go by the logic that every ship has only X amount of power generation depending on how much space it sacrifices to house reactors, things just don't add up. Compared to the Victory, the Venator has larger and better engines (use more power), main weapon batteries comparable to an ISD (use more power), more ground forces (take up more space), the same shield power (on a bigger ship: use more power), and something like 5 times as many starfighters (take up much more space).

This is just not possible: its only about 20% more massive but uses far more power and has less room for power generation, something has got to give otherwise the ship is simply superior in every way. Your real life example clearly demonstrates this, as the Kuznetsov has well over 4 times the displacement of the Slava, yet still carries less firepower.

Daft EU is daft is about all I can say to that. To me this new Venator well captures the flavor of the Venator and is a powerful, durable, balanced (as well as it can be without play test) Large ship to be the GAR core. Alternatives are welcome, but with the priorities as playability, flavor, fluff accuracy in that order, I think this one fills the bill nicely.

After this weekend I will have both my large bases, and time to play. So once I am done drooling over my new toys, and making pew pew noises, I will start doing some serious playtesting. I will also start fabricating more bases, especially large, so I can eventually get all my ship in a game at the same time.

So CW era ships are not necessarily meant to be compared to GCW era ships? A good idea, IMO. That should remove some constraints and make room a better game.

The general plan is for GCW-era versions of CW-era ships to be comparatively weaker than their CW counterparts, unless they relate to refit/modernized variants (and even then).

So, for example, the CW-era VSD has better upgrade slots than FFG's. The Imperial Navy cards of the Venator will also have less firepower, squadron capacity and/or upgrade slots than the pristine Republic ships. Gameplay-wise, I'm still aiming for the Republic and Separatist factions to be balanced against the core factions as well as against each other, but fluff-wise the stats will only be "in scale" within a given era - at least if you assume GCW era ships and equipment are an improvement over CW, which is not as trivial an assumption as it may sound.

Agreed. We should remember we are dealing with several hundred thousand years of human and alien society and technology. While "improvements" are made, one generation to the next, many, if not most will be made to match or counteract contemporary military doctrine. It is not unfeasible to say that more technological advances have been lost than we have created in our few thousand as a society. We live in a society of exponential technical advancements. It may be that the Star Wars universe has reached a plateau with only limited improvements available. Just my two credits. I will put my little soap box away now and get back to discussing little plastic ships.

Personally I love to have as many options as possible for ships, so a GCW version of all CW era ships would be great, flaws and all. Speaking of, Empire at War established Acclamator IIs as GCW ships, same source the AF MKII wa drawn from. Another option for the old CW era ships is to use some as the ever elusive Scum faction, in an even more deteriorating state, but with massive upgrade potential. IE, naked they oul suck compared to all other ships, but the upgrades would mak the effective and unique. Basically, I am thinking of upgrade slots that are potentially two upgrade types. Say, one slot that is either Turbolasers or Ion cannons, that type of thing.

Just some thoughts.

Thats how I look at it as well. We have a bad habit of comparing the technological development in the Star Wars universe with our own. Tech hasn't changed much between eras vs doctorine IMO.

What other fighters are people looking at stats for?

DA, the Liberty is about to get a massive playtest.

Wes, thanks for everything. But there is no need for you to announce this stuff here. Its risky for you and even for DA and this thread which ultimatelly is about custom cards.

But it is awesome that you visit my site so often that you find out this stuff every day

Fair enough, but I have no life. And I was talking cards. It has lacked a playtest to this point as far as I know.

SQUIRREL!

You just made my day! I really love that ship, even if nobody seems to like it as much as I do And what a ship, an absolute "Hit an run" ship. Go fast, get close to the target, injure it, and run away... and take down as many fighters with you as you can.

I thought you might like it

(I was working on the Ton Falk and got distracted...)

I think it is ugly as sin. But now that it has stats it must be playtested for the greater good. I will enjoy this one.

The Braha'Tok theorycraft can begin. I am already wondering if we should lose the turbolaser upgrade and go with an offensive or support team upgrade instead? The only reason I bring it up is to help set it apart from the DP20. As it stands they are very similar in role and capability. And currently the Braha'Tok has more firepower in a cheaper package. Not that it is a bad thing that more then one ship can do the job. Just saying.

Something does need to give on the Braha'Tok. It's ten points cheaper and those ten points buy you a hull point, blue-black AS over black-black, identical upgrades, defense tokens, and speed charts, and trading broadside red for another black and a blue. I think, without playtest or formula reference, that another five points of cost should be sufficient. I also would not oppose uparming the DP20 broadside for further differentiation, either red or black, probably with a teensy cost bump there. Both titles seem quite nice, and seem to emphasis a close-in role, working together with larger warships, so it stands out from other free-ranging corvettes in that regard. It just seems too cheap to be true, although the three hull points and close-range armament may be more of a handicap than I think they are.

I don't disagree. However, I'm inclined to believe the outlier may be the DP20 rather than the B'tok. I deliberately disregarded the DP20 entirely during the design process, using the CR90B and especially the new Raider as benchmarks. If you compare it with the Raider I in particular, you'll see the B'tok has barely better firepower (worse in some arcs), comparable maneuverability (worse at speeds 1 and 2, better at 3, same at 4), 25% less hull, but otherwise identical stats. A 2-point drop doesn't seem like a stretch. Conversely, it's a slight upgrade on the CR90B thanks to the front reds and the double-black A/S - otherwise it has worse hull, worse maneuverability, and worse upgrade slots (def ret and support are sorely lacking).

Which brings us to the Corellian Gunship. That card was made long before wave 2, so it's much more conservative than recent designs, both in terms of stats and costs. At the time I routinely added a hefty "custom tax" to card costs to increase acceptance and ward off cries of "OP!". As the data points have increased, and my understanding of costs has gotten better, I've gradually decreased the tax % significantly. In my opinion, the more recent ships are, for the most part, better balanced than earlier ones - many of which will need revision for a number of reasons. The DP20 was certainly on my revision list, not least because it amounts to little more than a tweaked overpriced CR90. The huge gap with the B'tok is another excellent reason to hit it sooner rather than later.

That's not to say I'm opposed to tweaking the B'tok, of course*. I just wanted to put it in perspective.

* (edit): In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll drop the TL upgrade icon. After all, it's a tiny ship with fixed-mount small turbolaser cannons.

I hope the Ton-Falk has 2 offensive upgrades, and a title that lets bombers re-roll dice when attacking ships.

Just part of what we talked about over time I guess. Knew things would have to change as Waves released.

I'll think on the DP20 while I am stuck at work...

*D503 I have an idea in somewhat related I will talk about that tonight

Well before we start fiddling with the DP20, and I imagine as the CIS is rounded out we all take a hard pass at the older stuff for things like this, we need to make a decision. Is it just a missile-armed CR90, in which case we need to drop the price and possibly add defensive upgrades, is it solid as it is as a ship, in which case we just drop the price, or are we going to make it a better warship than the CR90, and we uparm it to match the current cost? All three are viable, and my personal vote is the lattermost, as a weaker Rebel Gladiator-opposite missile boat, but that is only one opinion.

Good point. The truth is, I'm undecided at this stage. The third route could be the most interesting, but it's also the hardest, as there are multiple ships that the DP20 needs to be sufficiently differentiated from in terms of role:

-Consular (39)

-Braha'tok (42)

-CR90 (39-44)

-MC30C (63-69)

The sweet spot is probably high-40s to low-50s; even if the role is completely dissimilar I'd still avoid giving it a comparable power level to a Nebulon-B. From that perspective it'd be reasonable to keep it pretty much as-is (i.e. with non-substantial adjustments) and drop the price to 47-48.

If we want to differentiate the DP20, do an A and B version.

A: is armed with RRB/RB/R, and has 2 Turbolaser upgrade slots.

B: is armed with RBB/BB/R, and has 2 Ordnance upgrade slots.

That should givecit the feel of a true warship in a small package.

Could you give it a majority black anti-ship/squardron armament (think raider corvette), then differentiate it using the nav chart? I.e. make it slower, but very manoeuvrable? Then give it titles that give it a more navigationally-differentiated niche, with a focus on solo ambush style attacks such as:

• Reducing speed by 2 with a nav. token (I think you have this one already)
• Using defence tokens at speed 0 and counting as obscured
• Removing 2 dice from the attacking pool when overlapping an obstacle, not taking damage from obstacles

I don't think there is a ship like this in the entire rebel fleet, and it would be a pretty cool and unique role for the DP-20.

I have recently been replaying the Star Wars Rebellion game. In that game the DP20 was the anti fighter ship that was taken in mass. It served the same fleet role as the Lancer class.

On the Lancer class I was thinking of making it a little unique by making its anti-fighter dice red-black. That plus a cheap price would allow several of those to make life fairly uncomfortable for enemy squadrons. Just a thought.

Of course making the DP20 being a faster but weaker hulled anti-fighter platform would differentiate it from the CR90.

^2

The CR90 is an awful anti-fighter platform, so giving the Rebels a Raider analog on that count could be useful. The B'tok is already black-black, so blue-blue maybe with an offensive retrofit? We could always do one left more or less as is and jack up the anti-fighter ability, and do the other as a hard missile ship, add a black everywhere on the current model, etc. I'm skeptical of the red anti-fighter armament on such a small ship, but that is certainly a playtest type question. Once I finally get my dreadnoughts, they're going to get red anti-fighter, but they're also dreadnoughts. If it gets red, it needs to be like red black, or red alone, to keep it from getting out of control.