Im pretty much exclusively a rebel player, and in addition to quite a few of us, have gotten the epic bug pretty bad right now. Im pretty excited for Imps to be getting a second epic ship to mirror the transport, but I'm pretty bummed that the Gozanti as at least some offensive capability in addition to support, while our GR75 is left pretty vulnerable. I find the ramming strategy pretty clumsy.

So this all got me thinking, wouldn't a refresher for the transport be nice? But its pretty much impossible to get that as a stand-alone thing but the Epic SV faction discussion got me thinking this could be the way to do it.

In addition to a SV specific epic ship, and instead of including some small base ships, issue SV cards and base to convert a GR75 to SV, and include a few non-faction specific cards to enhance the existing version.

Reasons:

-This would make the distribution of ships equal, each of the 3 factions would get 1 larger combat ship and one smaller support based ship

-This kind of "re-factioning" was already seen in the Most Wanted pack, which gave us Firespray and HWK cards and bases, but also opened up Bombs to Y wings on both factions, so its not like FFG hasn't done this before.

Issues:

-Currently, there is nothing to indicate the GR75 in any form had armament, its sole defence was escort ships.

-I dont know if any SW fiction indicates the GR75 being used by any SV factions. I'm assuming because the Rebellion and SV already share multiple ships, its possible.

-The current GR75 lacks a firing arc and target lock action.

So.

The Fix:

A card that adds some kind of offensive capability similar to the Gozanti to the transport. Im thinking either a modification or a cargo card along the lines of:

"Your rear hull zone gains one hardpoint slot. You may perform an attack outside an attack ark. Limited. GR75 only."

Or

"Your rear hull zone gains one turret slot. Limited. GR75 only.

This should remove the issues of the current base not having an attack arc.

Maybe a turret or hard point card to match, unknown # of red die

"Attack: after attacking, you may acquire a target lock on the defender. GR75 only"

To fix that the GR75 lacks a target lock action, but at an obvious penalty of lacking that lock on the first shot at that ship. Good enough to get an enemy that is actively harassing the transport but not so great at pot shots at passing ships.

I guess the idea is to give the transport some self defence capabilities. thinking like AA armament.

What SV get:

Obviously the Scum version would be open to more enhancements because it would get new ship cards, and a new base. Im thinking a base with a front arc printed on it, and a hard point on the front hull zone. So this new card and base combined with the fix above would give us a GR75 with a front arc (hello ordinance) and a turret (either hard point or turret card as above) on the rear. I would think SV would modify their transports more heavily so they wouldn't require as large of an escort, or retrofit their cheaper noncombat ship into death machines.

So thoughts? suggestions? I obviously left out things like point cost and # of die because that would have to be accurately balanced via play testing.

I think the Gozanti stuff is enough to "fix" the Transport.

not really, as it still lacks a hard point. but thats just my opinion. The Gozanti does open up a lot of possibilities however.

The issue, I imagine, is that it had trouble using it's non-offense support. The upgrades in the Gozanti fix that, big time.

Your trying to "fix" the best of the 3 huge ships?

Your trying to "fix" the best of the 3 huge ships?

Exactly, no fix needed.

Yes, the various forces of Scum and Villainy most definitely used the GR-75 as well as most other civilian vessels, probably as Q-ships as well.

The transport is quite alright as is; very economical and effective at what it does.

The transport is fantastic.

You can have less than 50 points and get an amazing return on it.

The Gozanti can't use the upgrades to stress a bunch of enemies and damage them the way the Transport can.

It gets a Turret, but you end up paying a lot of points for something as Durable as a Decimator.

I still want one....

The Gozanti can't use the upgrades to stress a bunch of enemies and damage them the way the Transport can.

It gets a Turret, but you end up paying a lot of points for something as Durable as a Decimator.

I still want one....

It has the mod to get jams and slicer tools.

The Gozanti can't use the upgrades to stress a bunch of enemies and damage them the way the Transport can.

It gets a Turret, but you end up paying a lot of points for something as Durable as a Decimator.

I still want one....

It has the mod to get jams and slicer tools.

Mod to get jams?

I though the Gozanti does not have the jam action, how can it jam?

The Gozanti can't use the upgrades to stress a bunch of enemies and damage them the way the Transport can.

It gets a Turret, but you end up paying a lot of points for something as Durable as a Decimator.

I still want one....

It has the mod to get jams and slicer tools.

Mod to get jams?

I though the Gozanti does not have the jam action, how can it jam?

Cheers, I thought I missed something.

It means you have to spend one of your cargo spots to get the Jam action, so not as good as the GR75 then that for 42 points can

Dutyfree
Raymus Antilles
Slicer Tools

and possibly stress 3 ships at range 3

What the hec, I might load the Tantive with Ion Canons and actually run these two together next time I play epic just for the fun of it

I rather like the fact that the GR75 has no true weapons. It forces me to think about what the ship is going to do and gives my opponent interesting dilemmas in terms of target priority. It doesn't strike me as something that needs a fix.

Well when making my Scum and Villainy Conversion kit for the GR-75 you can find in the link from my sig (shameless plug) it was interesting looking at the interactions all the cards have and comparing them to rebel interactions. For example looking at the Rebel GR-75 first and foremost it was designed as a support ship and a fairly weak one too, one that almost either had to be protected or was a sacrificial ship only designed to get in the way and create a hazard for other fighters. sure this was FFG's test ship into introducing larger non-starfighter capital ships into X-wing and there was a lot of limitations imposed on huge ships to keep it from being a rich kid buys power scenario which is probably the cause of why huge ships tend to be weaker than a massive starfighter swarm.

So when straight up doing a conversion to the GR-75 like Gold Squadron to Syndacate Thug it was noticed that the Rebels had an advantage as their Rebel Only crew could provide benefits to the GR-75 with crew like Chewbacca and Leia while the Scum only crew were not compatible with the GR-75 as they were either triggered on attacks or difficulty of maneuvers or stress and focus tokens. When being a rebel support ship it was clear that the rebels will use all the crew slots where as being a cheap harassing ship most of the cargo space would be used. The first "fix" was the halmark of making a rebel ship a scum ship and that is adding the illicit slot. Which then evolved into a title that adds an additional two for a total of 3 illicit slots.

Still that was more of a scum type of harass ship although fitting with the aesthetics of the faction there was no support option. So in a controversial idea and one that Gabe69velasquez, the creator of the ship card and title card, still is in a disagreement with today, the "Bloody Credit title was given to allow scum to borrow a single support crew upgrade that the rebels and imperials have access with and in theme it was used for the title of a slave transport. There the scum huge support ship issue was solved.

Now of course being a kit to give scum almost all of the huge ship capabilities that the other two factions have there was two combat title that did more manipulations to the upgrade slots as well as add a firing arc taken from IG-88 to base. This was to give the GR-75 a hard-point slot (much like the Gozanti) and give it weapons. Still no where near as potent as the CR-90 or Raider Corvettes. So an additional title was added to give it more firepower comparable to a single section of the larger combat ships with the name taken from a pirate crewed transport. However it became clear that such an advancement could not come from a single upgrade card but from no less than two. So the title "Death Merchant" became a much simpler title upgrade card and two huge ship only crew upgrades for scum was created. The Death Merchant gave it two hardpoints instead of one and a team slot at the cost of two cargo and 30 points (a ludicrously expensive upgrade) and its captain Arns Grimraker (which I had misspelled and altered a picture of Wedge fighting Wampas because the Doc Terror look alike on Wookiepedia looked awful). was added to open up the attack zones from the GR-75.

In addition to a ship+ captain combo like Arns Grimraker and the Death Merchant the most famous Scum GR-75 the Vasudra from X-wing Alliance and Thomas Azzameen was also created which was designed to work in conjunction with each other. Vasudra gave extra energy at energy restricted maneuvers such as 3 and 4 straights and Thomas was designed to make Jamming actions work against huge ships as well as smaller starfighters keeping in with the faction them of disrupting opponents.

Well that is the history of creating that kit. Learned allot about the interactions of huge ships and their upgrade cards making this. Hope you would check it out and tell me if you enjoyed it or not. Again my plan is to have something until FFG gives us an official huge ship for Scum and Villainy but since that is too far away to tell when I made this one while we wait. Also I re-uploaded the PDF file so if filedropper tends to delete the link from time to time. Let me know if it is deleted again.

lots of great thoughts about how the S&V lack crew options

Yet when our local campaign re-created Renta's Fist for the events, Bossk became THE man...eerrrr...Lizardman to go to everytime.

Especially because (mind you, it happened before the Gozanti revealed) Renta's Fist had Proton torpedoes and Concussive missiles facing forwards (required some tinkering with arcs, but still)

But yes, you are indeed right, it all has nothing to o with G75. And most Merc Crew options require some maneuver colouring or moreover, amplify one's attack. Something G75 lacks.

BUUUUT

S&V Version of HWK is a mirror of Rebel HWK, instead of buffing they nerf the enemy.

So why not give out titles like Shady Business, neat Profiteer or Smuggler's Haven

That let you stress foes just for fun, ionize everything with old and messed-up engines,

mess up enemy movement difficulties, Pilot skills, movement speeds or directions.

Issues:

-Currently, there is nothing to indicate the GR75 in any form had armament, its sole defence was escort ships.

-I dont know if any SW fiction indicates the GR75 being used by any SV factions. I'm assuming because the Rebellion and SV already share multiple ships, its possible.

-The current GR75 lacks a firing arc and target lock action.

GR-75_medium_transport

Category:GR-75_medium_transports

• Death Merchant - a GR-75 medium transport owned by the scavenger Arns Grimraker.

• The Bloody Credit - a GR-75 medium transport that was used as a slave ship during the early years of the Galactic Empire.

• Vasudra - a Gallofree Yards GR-75 medium transport owned and operated by the Azzameen family.

"Several vessels fell into the hands of the Hutt Cartel who used them to land troops and attack vehicles on Hypori for the Ground Battle on Hypori." http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ground_Battle_on_Hypori

Your trying to "fix" the best of the 3 huge ships?

I think the Gozanti stuff is enough to "fix" the Transport.

...if you buy into the argument that it needs a "fix" in the first place, that is.

@Marinealver Thanks, I had not yet seen your link, and thats great! Looks like you've been playing with this idea for a while now and have definitely given it much more thought than myself.

@gabe69velsquez You know i must have looked at that page 5 or 6 times and missed that information completely. I guess that does confirm that this train of thought is not unfounded. But yes, I did post this rather quickly, I was only thinking of it a few days ago and was more approaching it from a game mechanic perspective and not really looking to far into SW lore for answers.

1. The transport is the best epic ship in the game

2. I don't want the transport and the gozanti to be the same ship

Having said those things, I agree that a set of S&V cards make sense. The GR-75 was one of the most ubiquitous ships in the galaxy. Scum certainly would have used them, and the big open interior would have made it easy to modify.

Myself, and others have discussed this in the past, and I think a set of ship cards for some different scum variants would be cool. I like the idea of adding hardpoints that fire out the sides, like the firing arcs on a CR-90 hardpoint. Sort of like a pirate galleon.

I think it would be cool if FFG would release a card set for the transport that would give us some cool variants. I don't think it will happen, but it would be cool.

1. The transport is the best epic ship in the game

2. I don't want the transport and the gozanti to be the same ship

Having said those things, I agree that a set of S&V cards make sense. The GR-75 was one of the most ubiquitous ships in the galaxy. Scum certainly would have used them, and the big open interior would have made it easy to modify.

Myself, and others have discussed this in the past, and I think a set of ship cards for some different scum variants would be cool. I like the idea of adding hardpoints that fire out the sides, like the firing arcs on a CR-90 hardpoint. Sort of like a pirate galleon.

I think it would be cool if FFG would release a card set for the transport that would give us some cool variants. I don't think it will happen, but it would be cool.

Yeah, I am not sure that the Rebel GR-75 is in any need of fixing to be honest. If fills a specific role in Epic Games, as the support ship, and while the it doesn't have the hard points to take advantage of any weapons, it still have its own ways doing damage.

I think the real issue with the addition of the Gozanti is not a second ship for the empire that can attack, it is the complete and utter change to the game of epic that it brings with Ordinance Tubes. The ENTIRE game of epic has changed dramatically thanks to this card and it is going to be a lot of fun to field some Rambo Raiders or CR-90s! A LOT of broadsiding attacks with the CR-90 are coming!

I am still not sure how I feel the role of the Gozanti fits into the Epic game, but there are some cool possibilities. And if you have never seen two blimps (GR-75s) block out a Raider and kill it, then you have not played real Epic my friend.

So while I can see the want to add guns to a ship that seems on paper to not really do much. I am here to tell you, the GR-75 is fine, it doesn't need a fix and has several great roles in the game.

To answer the second part of this, I would not be the least bit surprised if there was a "Most Wanted' style pack that brings the GR-75 and the CR-90 into the fold of the SCUM forces. I am not sure that is the best thing to do, but I can see it. The real trick is how many ships fit in at this scale? The Raider and the CR-90 are HUGE! We clearly can't go much bigger and there really aren't a whole lot of choices left out there for the SCUM.

Before the Hound's Tooth was made as a large based ship, I would have made the argument that it should be the SCUM Epic, and maybe Jabba ship to finally bring the Hutts into the X-Wing world!

The GR-75 will only be getting better with the Gozanti. Automated Protocols is going to be terrific for it, allowing it to Coordinate or Jam freely and still get a Reinforce/Recover action. The combo only comes to 35 points, which leaves you with plenty of room to add things like Comms Boosters or Toryn Farr.

I'm also wondering if there are ways to get Optimized Generators and Ionization Reactor to play well with each other. You can move one energy from the transport to the reactor to gain 2, which slightly increases your overall energy generation for up to five rounds. Having a hard time figuring out exactly how to take advantage of that, though. Only thing it really does is give you a little more energy for Recover actions.

Yeah, I am not sure that the Rebel GR-75 is in any need of fixing to be honest. If fills a specific role in Epic Games, as the support ship, and while the it doesn't have the hard points to take advantage of any weapons, it still have its own ways doing damage.

I think the real issue with the addition of the Gozanti is not a second ship for the empire that can attack, it is the complete and utter change to the game of epic that it brings with Ordinance Tubes. The ENTIRE game of epic has changed dramatically thanks to this card and it is going to be a lot of fun to field some Rambo Raiders or CR-90s! A LOT of broadsiding attacks with the CR-90 are coming!

I am still not sure how I feel the role of the Gozanti fits into the Epic game, but there are some cool possibilities. And if you have never seen two blimps (GR-75s) block out a Raider and kill it, then you have not played real Epic my friend.

So while I can see the want to add guns to a ship that seems on paper to not really do much. I am here to tell you, the GR-75 is fine, it doesn't need a fix and has several great roles in the game.

To answer the second part of this, I would not be the least bit surprised if there was a "Most Wanted' style pack that brings the GR-75 and the CR-90 into the fold of the SCUM forces. I am not sure that is the best thing to do, but I can see it. The real trick is how many ships fit in at this scale? The Raider and the CR-90 are HUGE! We clearly can't go much bigger and there really aren't a whole lot of choices left out there for the SCUM.

Before the Hound's Tooth was made as a large based ship, I would have made the argument that it should be the SCUM Epic, and maybe Jabba ship to finally bring the Hutts into the X-Wing world!

I wouldn't want just a conversion pack but it would be cool if they included a conversion kit for the GR-75 or CR-90 in the same pack as a S&V Huge Ship model. The one thing though some people may call foul because that makes it so in order to play a full scum fleet you have to buy a Rebel epic ship. Now I know with the kit I made this is nothing more than the pot calling the kettle black. But then again the packaging and game was designed so you have to collect at least 2 of the 3 factions in order to play somewhat competitive, so it could still work.

If you look at Star Wars: Armada, you pretty much need to buy ships from both factions in order to get the best upgrades for certain ships.

The only difference, in Armada the Raider costs 20 bucks, in X-wing...