The Consortium was lame.

But their ships were awesome. So I would not mind seeing them in game.

As to criminal organizations realistically not having the needs / resources / crew to run star destroyer sized capital ships, its a fantasy setting with magic space wizards. I don't think some criminals with a couple big ships here and there is that big of a stretch.

Also, the Shadow Collective is a thing. Don't know if they have been acknowledged as existing post CW, but they were intact the last time we saw them.

The Hapes Cluster did wind up allying with the New Republic after the main events of the Courtship of Princess Leia book. But you only see one capital ship and one starfighter for them. The Corporate Sector might be interesting, an autonomous region like the Hutt Sector but run by an alliance of corporations. They have some unique ships of their own and also use Imperial designs.

The Chiss are Canon thanks to Star Wars Commander, so it stands to reason the Chiss Ascendancy is out there. That, Hapes cluster, Corporate Sector and the Hutts would be perfect for the skirmish level battles of Armada.

The Zahn Consortium is actually canon now though how strong they are is unknown. One of the NPCs you can recruit in Uprising was part of the Consortium before the blockade cut them off from contact.

I would rather have a scum Armada faction then one based on a particular group though. Sure the ZC has most of the heavy scum capital ship designs but there are a lot of smaller scum capital ships used by other groups.

When were they confirmed as canon?

Uprising is canon and as I mentioned in the post you quoted at least one of the characters you can recruit for your organization is a Zann Consortium racketeer who was cut off from contact with the Zann Consortium when the Iron Blockade went up. Their combat strength in canon is currently unknown but I would be shocked if they didn't have some capital ships for their pirate ops.

Given that in the canon novels we have already seen pirate fleets, individual pirate capital ships and references to outlaw shipyards that are able to assemble warships the size of large Heavy Cruisers I expect that sooner or later we will see some canon pirate large scale ships.

Make scum fleets have the ability to field 'rogue' fighters en masse with minimal capital support and then we are in business.

3 small, evasive capital ships and 20 fighter squadrons at 400 points would be an interesting tactical challenge, and one definitely separate from rebels and imperials.

They would still crumble if all their ships were killed, but they would be slippery, evasive smugglers. The fighters would do most of the work independently.

So in a quick Wookiepedia reading the Black Sun is listed as having used: Inteceptor class frigates, Neb B's and A least one Mc80 Liberty. It also mentions them attempting to purchase an ISD from a rouge Imperial captain. In addition it mentions the Black Sun as, "They had a practically limitless amount of credits; more than enough to finance any operation they wished to complete". That's good enough for me. Let's have a Scum faction.

I believe the MC80 was until over a century ABY though but yeah the big criminal orgs could easily support battle fleets if they wished. Hell in Legends there was a space battle which raged for over a month between Republic, Separatist, Black Sun, and Hutt forces which ended in mutual annihilation of all the fleets involved.

......there was a space battle which raged for over a month between Republic, Separatist, Black Sun, and Hutt forces which ended in mutual annihilation of all the fleets involved.

This is pretty much what happened when we tried a 1,000 point Armada battle

A scum faction seems reasonable to me for a few reasons:

First up the scale of the game is such that while the forces we play with represent only small engagements for the rebels or imperials they cold represent a significant portion of a pirate force......maybe a players 'scum fleet' represents the entirety of the x,y,z gang?

While this is correct, can you imagine any motivation for the pirate group XYZ to throw everything they have against a pair of Imperial Star Destroyers? If they lose, they have lost everything. If they win, the Empire is gonna be just slightly irritated with them.

So in a quick Wookiepedia reading the Black Sun is listed as having used: Inteceptor class frigates, Neb B's and A least one Mc80 Liberty. It also mentions them attempting to purchase an ISD from a rouge Imperial captain. In addition it mentions the Black Sun as, "They had a practically limitless amount of credits; more than enough to finance any operation they wished to complete". That's good enough for me. Let's have a Scum faction.

I could see Black Sun renting, stealing or otherwise misappropriating a few, briefly, for one scheme or another. Maybe.

But one does not continue to be wealthy by pouring credits into a black hole.

I think it's funny that people are discussing the "logic" and "motivation" for there being a scum faction like any of that mattered!

If the FFG and Disney bottom line is served by there being another faction, presto! there will be one.

Lets get serious, it's an IP owned by corporations with profit motivations, not one lovingly tended by emotionally invested nerds.

All of the "plot" and "likelihood" nonsense aside, from a purely strategy game perspective, a third faction is absolutely critical to competitive balance and is also a further revenue stream for the originating companies. Sounds like a win-win!

Personally, I won't give half a crap if the third faction showed up in some obscure book I never read or some game from 10 years ago as long as the GAME I Love to play RIGHT NOW is positively served by it's introduction!

haha!

A scum faction seems reasonable to me for a few reasons:

First up the scale of the game is such that while the forces we play with represent only small engagements for the rebels or imperials they cold represent a significant portion of a pirate force......maybe a players 'scum fleet' represents the entirety of the x,y,z gang?

While this is correct, can you imagine any motivation for the pirate group XYZ to throw everything they have against a pair of Imperial Star Destroyers? If they lose, they have lost everything. If they win, the Empire is gonna be just slightly irritated with them.

And thus the Scum objectives were born!

I think it's funny that people are discussing the "logic" and "motivation" for there being a scum faction like any of that mattered!

If the FFG and Disney bottom line is served by there being another faction, presto! there will be one.

Lets get serious, it's an IP owned by corporations with profit motivations, not one lovingly tended by emotionally invested nerds.

All of the "plot" and "likelihood" nonsense aside, from a purely strategy game perspective, a third faction is absolutely critical to competitive balance and is also a further revenue stream for the originating companies. Sounds like a win-win!

Personally, I won't give half a crap if the third faction showed up in some obscure book I never read or some game from 10 years ago as long as the GAME I Love to play RIGHT NOW is positively served by it's introduction!

haha!

Sure they are profit driven but they also know that if they are unable to motivate their clientele with the product it will not sell so they have to figure things like this out.

Personally, I won't give half a crap if the third faction showed up in some obscure book I never read or some game from 10 years ago as long as the GAME I Love to play RIGHT NOW is positively served by it's introduction!

haha!

See the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, and Admiral Screed.

But if you are willing to dispense with internal consistency in the pursuit of an enjoyable game, I would suggest you investigate Attack Wing. They have no problem with Khan on a Borg Cube with a Breen Energy Disruptor and similar tom-foolery.

On the other hand, Empire at War: Forces of Corruption seems fairly popular. I never liked the Scum faction, though. It always felt wrong.

Personally, I won't give half a crap if the third faction showed up in some obscure book I never read or some game from 10 years ago as long as the GAME I Love to play RIGHT NOW is positively served by it's introduction!

haha!

See the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, and Admiral Screed.

But if you are willing to dispense with internal consistency in the pursuit of an enjoyable game, I would suggest you investigate Attack Wing. They have no problem with Khan on a Borg Cube with a Breen Energy Disruptor and similar tom-foolery.

On the other hand, Empire at War: Forces of Corruption seems fairly popular. I never liked the Scum faction, though. It always felt wrong.

But the ships!!!

Personally, I won't give half a crap if the third faction showed up in some obscure book I never read or some game from 10 years ago as long as the GAME I Love to play RIGHT NOW is positively served by it's introduction!

haha!

See the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, and Admiral Screed.

But if you are willing to dispense with internal consistency in the pursuit of an enjoyable game, I would suggest you investigate Attack Wing. They have no problem with Khan on a Borg Cube with a Breen Energy Disruptor and similar tom-foolery.

On the other hand, Empire at War: Forces of Corruption seems fairly popular. I never liked the Scum faction, though. It always felt wrong.

But the ships!!!

Didn't like 'em. I'm a natural Empire player. Send in as many of the largest triangles you can, and let the bombers roll.

I try to play Armada the same way. Less handy.

Personally, I won't give half a crap if the third faction showed up in some obscure book I never read or some game from 10 years ago as long as the GAME I Love to play RIGHT NOW is positively served by it's introduction!

haha!

See the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, and Admiral Screed.

But if you are willing to dispense with internal consistency in the pursuit of an enjoyable game, I would suggest you investigate Attack Wing. They have no problem with Khan on a Borg Cube with a Breen Energy Disruptor and similar tom-foolery.

On the other hand, Empire at War: Forces of Corruption seems fairly popular. I never liked the Scum faction, though. It always felt wrong.

But the ships!!!

Didn't like 'em. I'm a natural Empire player. Send in as many of the largest triangles you can, and let the bombers roll.

I try to play Armada the same way. Less handy.

mer. . . I love variety and options. . .

Frankly one reason I wouldn't want to see Scum ships in Armada is because it means cutting down Rebel and Imperial releases. I'm not interested in the forgettable scrap-assembled ships or armed merchantmen the scum faction will probably be using... one faction doing this (the Rebellion) is enough, and I'd honestly like nothing better than to see more ships to further fill out the Imperial Navy.

One of the reasons I gave X-Wing a hiatus is because with scum in ascendance, that's pretty much the only releases to be excited for. When scum came out the Empire and Rebellion felt pretty side-lined in their selection choices. A TIE Avenger and/or Assault Gunboat felt more likely with two ships per wave but at one. what did we get? The TIE "Punsher", one of the goofiest looking starfighters in Star Wars. Before that it was the ridiculous R2-head VT decimator vs the YT-1300 against four Scum-ship releases. Since I'm not interested in Scum at all, that's a lot of time to be unexcited about new space ships coming out and a lot of effort spent on ships (and necessary upgrade cards) that I don't want to fly thematically. And it isn't as if I can pick choice ships to field with the rest of my forces, because it's an entirely different faction I'd have to go whole-hog into to fly anything good!

So once FFG starts down the scum path, I think it would nearly forever dominate it's destiny and I really don't care about scum. This is supposed to be Star Destroyer: The Game, so I want to see more Imperial ship releases to play navy. If Armada could up the wave compliment to 2/2/2, I'd be happy, but if armada develops like X-Wing did it means 1/1/2... and I don't wan to see that happen. I still believe scum has no place here in Armada, and would rather see the First Order, the Resistance, or third-party governments like the Hapans.

I think a "scum" faction for Armada would be fascinating... and, all told, probably not that unfeasible. Q-Ships, armed freighters, repurposed kamikaze frigates...

I mean, as much as we might all loathe the prequels, the "Trade Federation" was *probably* primarily concerned with profit and they managed to field a pretty respectable fleet. And not without precedent... if you think about things like the old British colonial empire, it was 90% based on profit, and it unquestionably fielded "capital ships" of the time.

Basically, war is very, very good for business if you're in the right business (slavery, drug smuggling, exotic material transportation, etc...). And in the Outer Rim, far enough away from the Imperial Fleets, a few capital ships were not only good investments, they would make you a kingdom unto yourself. Pretty fine justification for purchasing a few mothballed Dreadnauts or Venerator class starships...

Now, whether any of the existing pirate/scum/villain factions in the SW universe have that kind of clout... debatable. But unquestionable that if FF wanted to justify it, they could, and it wouldn't be a stretch.

That stated, the concept (already written about earlier) of a few fast, slippery capital ships (small and medium sized) with swarms of cheap, disposable fighters and a few lumbering, heavily armoured fire-boats would be awesome to see on the table.

(Aside: personally, I would rather they build "Separatist" and "Old Republic" fleets first... as much as the movies were awful, they at least had distinctive and iconic capital ships. Sadly, I think the majority of player's reaction to anything from movies I-III would mean that it would never happen)

I dunno about that for x-wing, 2 releases a wave would you be happy if the waves were spread further out? Otherwise they are going to run out of Rebel and Imperial ships when they get around 15-20 ships a side. Then they'd have nothing left to make unless the next star wars movie introduces a ton of new ships, which they can't know or make business decisions about necessarily.

I am seeing the exact same arguments against a third faction here as what I saw in X-Wing (except there it was applied to EU ships in the Rebels and Empire as well). "They are not known enough and won't sell" and "they would never be able to compete with the Empire or Rebels on any scale". And despite both of those, S&V has been a huge success and only helped X-Wing as a game.

Frankly one reason I wouldn't want to see Scum ships in Armada is because it means cutting down Rebel and Imperial releases. I'm not interested in the forgettable scrap-assembled ships or armed merchantmen the scum faction will probably be using... one faction doing this (the Rebellion) is enough, and I'd honestly like nothing better than to see more ships to further fill out the Imperial Navy.

One of the reasons I gave X-Wing a hiatus is because with scum in ascendance, that's pretty much the only releases to be excited for. When scum came out the Empire and Rebellion felt pretty side-lined in their selection choices. A TIE Avenger and/or Assault Gunboat felt more likely with two ships per wave but at one. what did we get? The TIE "Punsher", one of the goofiest looking starfighters in Star Wars. Before that it was the ridiculous R2-head VT decimator vs the YT-1300 against four Scum-ship releases. Since I'm not interested in Scum at all, that's a lot of time to be unexcited about new space ships coming out and a lot of effort spent on ships (and necessary upgrade cards) that I don't want to fly thematically. And it isn't as if I can pick choice ships to field with the rest of my forces, because it's an entirely different faction I'd have to go whole-hog into to fly anything good!

So once FFG starts down the scum path, I think it would nearly forever dominate it's destiny and I really don't care about scum. This is supposed to be Star Destroyer: The Game, so I want to see more Imperial ship releases to play navy. If Armada could up the wave compliment to 2/2/2, I'd be happy, but if armada develops like X-Wing did it means 1/1/2... and I don't wan to see that happen. I still believe scum has no place here in Armada, and would rather see the First Order, the Resistance, or third-party governments like the Hapans.

The Decimator was Wave 5, the intro to Scum was 6. And yes they got bigger waves to catch up to the other two factions that already had 5 behind them.

Now that they are caught up, everyone is on equal footing. And releases slowed before S&V (once again wave 5). As much as I like the Hunter (my 2nd favorite Tie design after the Phantom), The Tie Punisher was going to be in wave 7 regardless, it was a bomber themed wave.

The Hapes Cluster did wind up allying with the New Republic after the main events of the Courtship of Princess Leia book. But you only see one capital ship and one starfighter for them. The Corporate Sector might be interesting, an autonomous region like the Hutt Sector but run by an alliance of corporations. They have some unique ships of their own and also use Imperial designs.

Nah man, the Hapes Cluster had two capitol ships, don't forget the Hapan Battle Dragon:

I'd love to field both of those on the table. God, I remember reading the first essential guide to vehicles and vessels and thinking these were the coolest ships ever... I know of the CSA, too, and those ships could bring something to the table.

But this is what I mean by having a mercenary faction. Scum is its own faction in X-Wing, but having mercenaries makes sense for Armada. Some of these scum factions have capitol ships. Sometimes they need to work together. Sometimes they aren't "scum", but still aren't on the level of the Empire, or even the Rebellion. A player could field just ships from the mercenary faction, or field some alongside the Empire or Rebels with restriction. Scum ships may be free to ally with either side, but CSA ships would only show up alongside Imperial ships. The Hapes Cluster ships could only show up alongside the Rebels. Of course, you could just be the weirdo with a CSA or Hapes only fleet, with some scum help.

But this is what I mean by having a mercenary faction. Scum is its own faction in X-Wing, but having mercenaries makes sense for Armada. Some of these scum factions have capitol ships. Sometimes they need to work together. Sometimes they aren't "scum", but still aren't on the level of the Empire, or even the Rebellion. A player could field just ships from the mercenary faction, or field some alongside the Empire or Rebels with restriction. Scum ships may be free to ally with either side, but CSA ships would only show up alongside Imperial ships. The Hapes Cluster ships could only show up alongside the Rebels. Of course, you could just be the weirdo with a CSA or Hapes only fleet, with some scum help.

A merc faction would be a balance nightmare. Every vessel would have to be balanced around every combination things from both rebels and Empire, and would therefore have a heavily constrained design space and not much room for uniqueness.

But this is what I mean by having a mercenary faction. Scum is its own faction in X-Wing, but having mercenaries makes sense for Armada. Some of these scum factions have capitol ships. Sometimes they need to work together. Sometimes they aren't "scum", but still aren't on the level of the Empire, or even the Rebellion. A player could field just ships from the mercenary faction, or field some alongside the Empire or Rebels with restriction. Scum ships may be free to ally with either side, but CSA ships would only show up alongside Imperial ships. The Hapes Cluster ships could only show up alongside the Rebels. Of course, you could just be the weirdo with a CSA or Hapes only fleet, with some scum help.

A merc faction would be a balance nightmare. Every vessel would have to be balanced around every combination things from both rebels and Empire, and would therefore have a heavily constrained design space and not much room for uniqueness.

Point based game - all merc ships have a 3 scale point bracket... Pure (merc only) / rebel / imperial if a faction can't take the ship the points number is replace with an X

I think it is more likely to see TFA and later movie/new EU ships in Resistance/New Order factions before we see anything like Scum and Mercs.