Yohoho! and a box of Scum (I have decided that shall be how I start anything I do to do with X-Wing, good isn’t it. Now to explain why it is good, I have bought Scum ships…and they are in a box…see accurate and hilarious, the best kind of hilarious.)
I recently got introduced to the world of X-Wing Miniatures and well…I like it, and with that like comes the responsibility to inform the developers what I want and as this is the internet they have to do what I say, right…right?
Anyway, I shall preface this by saying I haven’t put in nearly enough research and thought into these abilities, the ships I definitely feel work for X-Wing and barring any copyright stuff, I (and hopefully many others) would love to see them in X-Wing at some point in the (not too distant) future.
Rogue Shadow (Sienar Imperial Transport) – So there have been Rebel and Scum crossovers (HWK-290, Y-Wing) and Imperial and Villainy crossovers (Firespray), but why? Oh! Why haven’t there been any Imperial and Rebel crossovers…you actually had to ask that question…really…isn’t it obvious they are opposing forces, 100% against one another, why would they share ships/ship designs. Well now I think they can have a ship together, what ship? Well I kind of wrote that at the beginning so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I mean the Rogue Shadow.
So why have that available in both Rebel and Imperial lists, well essentially the game Force Unleashed (Where it first appeared). As The Apprentice (Starkiller or Galen Marek, but I shall refer to him as ‘The Apprentice’) you were trained and raised by Darth Vader (fun fact he is Imperial) but are then sent to infiltrate the Jedi (they are on the side of the Rebels, in case you were unaware) so the ship has seen action on both sides of the fence, hence (ha, fence hence) why the ship should be usable by both factions. Now I don’t plan on designing the precise statistics of the craft nor go in depth to the pilot skill of the suggested pilots but suffice to say I think this nippy transport with its (quoted from Wookiepedia) “Advanced Sensors”, “Laser Cannons” and “Cloaking Device” (first Rebel cloak-er?) could fit nicely in X-Wing.
As a final sentiment I shall suggest that the size of this ship be small, as it is a transport though it should perhaps be the bigger end of small…yeah I just typed that…similar to the G-1A Starfighter.
Pilot – Juno Eclipse – Essentially seeing this name as a pilot for the TIE Advanced was what initially made me think of the Rogue Shadow, so ultimately I am wondering if it is naturally going to be included with or without my prompting. She could of course have her ability from the TIE Advanced just copied over or maybe a brand new pilot ability just to add a little more variety. Perhaps as she is clearly capable of split second adjustments to the ship’s controls something similar but alternate to the increase/decrease of speed, maybe by stressing the ship she can pull a move that isn’t on the dial (obviously only ones that exist in the game, she can’t jump across the map with an 8 straight)
Another intriguing question is whether or not to create two variants of Juno, one exclusively Rebel and one exclusively Imperial, or to have the single pilot card be viable in both Rebel and Imperial lists, this issue arises for The Apprentice as well. From previous evidence of ships pulling double duty the pilots are all different, however they aren’t meant to be the same ship having changed allegiance whereas this one is.
Pilot – The Apprentice – He has a little dark and a little light, vengeance was a goal and peace was a result…well that is deep and all but what does it mean as a pilot…no idea…well a little idea. Perhaps to highlight his duality it needs to be a dual effect. When his ship is hit he can activate one of two abilities, one for vengeance, one for peace, but what to make those abilities. It could be as simple as a target lock or focus token for vengeance and an evade token for peace. This means if he is next to attack vengeance could be well worth activating, but if he is likely to be attacked next peace is superior. It could also be something more to do with the dice, extra red for vengeance, extra green for peace (ha, greenpeace). A further thought occurred when mocking up some cards for this post, perhaps a simple counter-attack for vengeance or a boost for a peaceful exit. Whatever effect it is I definitely think it needs to highlight the duality his character displayed throughout the game.
Pilot – Somotha Duuds – Yeah, so probably give it some generic cheap pilots as with most other ships within X-Wing.
Title – Rogue Shadow – I feel that Rogue Shadow should, like Millennium Falcon and Hound’s Tooth, be a title rather than the ship itself. Not sure what it could do, maybe owing to the ship being customised when given as the Rogue Shadow to The Apprentice, the Rogue Shadow title is what gives it access to the “Cloaking Device” allowing it to perform cloaking actions.
Crew – Apprentice Sith (Imp Only) – Sith tend to be the only ones who utilise the Force Lightning (never quite knew why, I don’t think Jedi are incapable of Force Lightning, maybe they just don’t enjoy the Force-d BBQ the Sith do?) and this is an ability The Apprentice possesses. Currently in existence in the game is the Feedback Array which is kind of lightning around a ship causing damage to enemies, so taking that as a basis but using Force Lightning to rev it up a bit his action (alters it a bit compared to Feedback Array, but doesn’t necessarily have to be an action ) could be to do two damage to an enemy ship at range one (bear with me I know that seems a lot of unavoidable damage) but as The Apprentice is in the ship he would end up having to channel the lightning through the hull of his own ship, this would be quite devastating to the systems having lots of electricity surge through them, so the downside of the action is that next turn the ship is forced to do a red zero move, the implication being that the electricity has downed the systems and they require rebooting, this of course puts the ship at a disadvantage next turn, does two damage seem like a lot now?
Crew - Apprentice Jedi (Rebel Only) – Within the game The Apprentice is shown to pull a Star Destroyer from the sky suggesting his Force Pull ability is rather strong and this links with the new tractor beam system put in place in wave 8. So with Force Pull able to move things this crew action could be a super tractor beam where you can use the two move template (perhaps cut it down to one templates for large ships) to force a barrel roll or boost, including perhaps the two-bank templates as well, you don’t reduce the agility like you would with a tractor beam but you are able to re-position the opponent far more than you would with the tractor beam.
Crew - General Rahm Kota (Rebel Only) – Based on the game character he became somewhat of a drunk owing to him losing his sight and confidence it seems something pulling on that string would be interesting, so the first thought is drunken motion, which is often a little unpredictable. Therefore the concept for this crew action would be to assign any two moves (not necessarily on the ships movement dial) to hits/crits and blanks/eyes, the player then rolls the die and performs the move they assigned to that side of the roll. It keeps it tactical with just that extra twist of unpredictability to highlight Kota’s drunken nature.
Crew - PROXY (Imp Only??) - PROXY is a holodroid, and within the game (Force Unleashed) he was capable of changing appearance…that feels like something to use if desiring to put him in X-Wing, but precisely how eludes me. My thoughts lean towards trying to make him able to essentially perform any other crew position, IE you take an action and declare PROXY as Nien Nunb, so now you have Nien Nunb’s ability to perform any straight move as green, but why not just take Nien Nunb, well if PROXY is made Imp only, then it would be because Nien Nunb is Rebel only, also maybe you change your mind, you think nah, a Gunner would be more useful, so use an action and set PROXY as a Gunner. This idea I can’t help but feel may be broken, it could be too powerful so restrictions would likely have to be put in place. However something to do with his hologram capacity definitely feels the direction to proceed when working out the ability.
Crew – Juno Eclipse – If The Apprentice is flying the ship then it seems likely that Juno would potentially become crew, like The Apprentice she should probably swing both ways and have a Rebel only card and an Imperial only card. I have no inspiration for those…she can do Captain-y things…you know those things only Captains can do…
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Ebon Hawk (Dynamic Class Freighter) – Pssst, it is the ship in KoToR (Knights of the Old Republic); if it wasn’t obvious by now I like video games.
Looking to the bible of knowledge, Wookiepedia, once more (most stats and details of the ships have/will come from there) it is pretty sweetly kitted out with two turrets, two quad laser cannons, anti-personnel blaster (probably not that useful in space) and torpedoes. It seems it is also large enough for a small vehicle, could this be another opportunity to use the docking rules of the Ghost and Phantom. Potentially although the size of vehicle suggested is that of a swoop bike, more suited for planets than for space battles.
Interestingly enough this ship, like the Rogue Shadow above, could sway both ways, the story of KoToR allows for it to be used by both Imperial and Rebel, so prior to this no overlap existed between Imperial and Rebel lists and in one fell swoop I have suggested two, wow, it doesn’t necessarily have to; but if it did appear in both Rebel and Imperial lists the crew could perhaps be sorted according to their affiliation in the game, e.g. HK-47 was edging you closer to the dark side thus could be Imperial exclusive crew.
As it is a large transport…well I just wrote large transport so I think it is safe to suggest it should be a large ship, with its similarities to the YT ships it will probably be best to match it to one or the other of the current YT craft.
Title – Ebon Hawk – Much like the Rogue Shadow the Ebon Hawk is the name rather than class of ship so this should be a title, and again I don’t really know what it should actually bring to the table, perhaps as it is the ship that carried many allies in KoToR it could outfit what would be a cargo transporter with extra crew quarters, essentially adding even more crew upgrade slots to the ship.
Pilot/Crew – HK-47 – So really if this was launched as an expansion I would expect to see all of the key characters and party members from KoToR appear as either pilots or crew but there is only one I have chosen to explore here and that is the ineffable HK-47. The ability I am suggesting would probably work as either crew or pilot and fires automatically given the correct circumstances. When you hit an enemy ship you get a HK-47 happy token and the next time you attack you can roll an extra die then at the end of the turn you do so, you lose the token. Or if you miss an attack you get a HK-47 sad token (probably can be the same token flipped one side happy faced HK, the other side sad faced HK…) and the next time you attack you roll one fewer dice, again at the end of the turn the token is removed. The reasoning for the token remaining until the end of the turn is so it cannot trigger itself, you can’t get a hit, then roll next turn hit and keep the token, there is always a gap between triggers of HK-47. Further reasoning for this happy/sad style is owing to his character, he encouraged you to kill and was most pleased when you and he were decimating enemy forces, well when you are hitting ships you are more likely to kill them as a result HK is happy with you, conversely if you are missing opportunities to kill things then HK becomes saddened by your unwillingness or worse your ineptitude towards the art of death.
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Ok, so far the ships, Rogue Shadow and Ebon Hawk, were desired for X-Wing owing to my love of video games and I imagine the sentiment is shared amongst others, these next ones…not so much, this is kind of all me, not necessarily the ships, they will sit happily in X-Wing, but the pilots and titles, yeah…they are just for me…maybe one other person would recognise them…
YT-1930 – People I have seen online have shown a desire for a YT-1300 Scum and Villainy variant, although it has equally been dismissed as a way of diluting the teams too much and making factions less unique, well I have a solution…The YT-1930. It was a ship I fell in love with owing to its similarities to the Falcon but with its all too obvious differences (there is a universe where that sentence makes sense, you just aren’t in it) Giving it different stats and upgrade slots (primarily making sure it has an illicit upgrade) will keep the variety in factions and limit crossover (haven’t you just been through two ships which would crossover…shush you.) but will potentially ease the desire to have a YT in the ranks of Scum and Villainy.
Again like with other ships I shall end on suggesting the size of the ship, large, probably about the size of… guess what… go on guess… the YV-666? What… no… so many buckets of no… the Millennium Falcon; it should be the size of the Millennium Falcon.
Pilot - Aldrax Zeran – So he is a rebel pilot…wait he can’t be, if you propose the ship to be Scum and Villainy…you’re right…blast! Ok so in an animation I created (told you these proposals were pretty much just for me) the YT-1930 was piloted by Aldrax Zeran who was a rebel, but um…backstory! He started life as a smuggler…so he is Han Solo…no…mayb…yes he is Han Solo dammit original thinking is hard. Anyway I still propose Aldrax Zeran as a pilot because he is my Han Solo, a smuggling ace pilot turned ally to Rebel and Jedi causes everywhere. So what is his pilot ability…um…well in the animation it would be ‘being late to the party’ where he always shoots last and misses after Shalex Veo has cleared out the TIE’s…but in X-Wing I think we need to focus on his Scummy and equally Villainous pilot abilities. Maybe I can combine the two…hmmm, would it be ‘scummy’ and yet also ‘late to the party’ if his ability allowed him to let an enemy ship shoot before he does but in return he gets an extra attack die, so for example his Pilot Skill (PS) is 8 the enemy ship is PS 7, he would normally shoot first, but activating his pilot ability he lets the PS 7 go first, then he goes and receives his extra attack die. Likely he should only be able to do this once per combat round, but it does have the ring of the positive/negative of other scum based abilities, he may take extra damage but is risking that for the sake of potentially dishing out more. (Minor spoiler if you are reading this entire thing, I have no idea how this and Scum Han would work, I also have no clue what to do if the next ship is yours, or a ship with the same PS or the hundreds of other issues with this notion…glad I am just a guy typing random ideas and not the poor sucker who needs to work out the precise design and functionality of them)
Title – Centennial Owl – This title should be a reasonably obvious reference, it is a somewhat gimmicky, yet amusing take on ‘Millennium Falcon’ Precisely what it could mean is currently beyond me, maybe it could simply be a lesser version of the ‘Millennium Falcon’ title, perhaps simply an agility re-roll or perhaps more of a variant when stressed you get an evade token. It could also create a unique ability for the ship, maybe something to do with smuggling compartments…I don’t know what though, I just quite like the words smuggling compartments…
Crew – Scum Han – So as mentioned the YT-1930 could perform the role of a Scum YT that people seem to desire but another thing mentioned by players is Scum Han. I feel a new crew card could work nicely here and will therefore propose the ability ‘Han shot first!’ Yes that is right ‘Han shot first’, not necessarily true but essentially what this proposed crew upgrade does. The ship Han is on gets to fire first, no matter the pilot skill…anything else? Nope that simple, Han shot first and so he shall in X-Wing. Maybe as with many Scum moves, it needs some kind of negative balancing effect but fundamentally the idea really is as simple as bypassing the shot order to allow the ship Han is on to attack first.
Crew – Scum Chewie – Be honest, you can’t have a Scum Han and not include a Scum Chewie, so I won’t. Chewbacca has a slight reputation for ripping arms out of sockets, so let’s try and focus an ability on that delightful topic. Well first it is probably wise to address how does he get to an individual in a rival space ship to actually pull their arms off…er…don’t know…but I wouldn’t be asking that question if a Wookie suddenly appeared in my ship and started ripping my arms off. Anyway so the technicalities won’t let this work but I think it may be an intriguing idea to delve into. Ok, so far, we have arm ripping, well what is going to be rather difficult to do with only one arm…not that…nor that…that would actually be quite simple one handed…yeah there you go, you got it, piloting a ship. Here is the suggestion, at the beginning of the movement phase, Chewie can rip an arm off of a pilot and the result is that pilot can’t turn in the direction of his ripped off arm. Rip the left arm off, he can’t turn left, and vice versa. Now multiple issues turn up for this, having already mentioned the physics of a Wookie getting on an enemy vessel, the others are how long does the effect last, the word unbalanced springs to mind if it is the entire match, but one turn and suddenly the pilot gets his arm back…that is just plain strange, even with robo-limbs available. One solution, psychology, what Chewbacca actually does is let loose a mighty roar over a open comms network intimidating the enemy pilot, the pilot thinks about those stories of limb ripping nastiness and his arm is paralyzed with fear…gasp…then next turn his arm is fine because he remembers he didn’t actually get it ripped off. It could prove an interesting counter to the fancy green maneuvers that the JumpMaster can pull off to the left, if he declares he is going left on the dial and you have used Chewbacca, he is forced to then go the opposite direction at the same speed. Straight maneuvers are immune to the effect.
ARC 170 – This ship was one I decided to include in my animation primarily because it looks great and was something a little obscure, whereas everyone and their Mother was using X-Wings for their projects I could claim something a little unusual the ARC-170. So that is lovely and all but what could it bring to X-Wing? Well glad you asked…you wouldn’t like a sports question instead? It is a predecessor of the X-Wing featuring room for two Crew and an Astromech, well that is three upgrades sorted already, need I present more evidence. Hopefully not as I have none to give.
It appears it would end up on the side of the Imperials, which scuppers all further pilot suggestions and would force the creation of a group of Astromechs for the Imperials to potentially use. However this of course was the time when the Imperials weren’t really the Imperials, and as the ship was used to protect Obi-Wan it could be considered for the Rebel side…
sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,
is it Imperial or is it Rebel, should I Imp or should I Reb, if I Imp there could be trouble but if I Reb it will be double…I shall just leave you to process that mental meltdown…
As this ship is a precursor to the X-Wing it is probably going to work best as a small ship maybe slightly chunkier and larger than its younger cousin the T65.
Pilot – Shalex Veo – A Jedi, wait, wait, wait hold your horses didn’t you say it would be an Imperial ship, I also said that scuppers the pilot suggestions. So in my animation this ship was used by a Jedi, and was meant to have been used well past its sell by date in the future when ultimately it had been replaced with the X-Wing and other such advancements in ship design. Thus was no longer affiliated with the Imperials. Um…so, which to focus on one man’s ‘make it up as I go along’ or the actual Star Wars universe…I know which I prefer.
So let’s discuss Shalex anyway as she is my character and I like the sound of my own typing. In the animation she is seen to exert great Force Pull powers, slamming two TIE Phantoms together, so could we focus an ability to do with that…well not really as I have already given that right to The Apprentice, and if she ended up with Force Pull as well it would perhaps end up with too many tractor beam variants. Thus something else, hmmm, what? Well another feature of hers in the animation is her skillful navigation of enemies surrounding her so perhaps she could receive an extra agility roll per enemy at range one. This does however slightly step on the toes of Gemmer Sojan and perhaps is merely an overpowered version of that, although conceivably it can be mitigated by the pilot cost being placed in the high thirties.
Title – The Pussycat – The actual name of this came from the other title ‘Centennial Owl’ and was not really planned, it just sort of happened, I had shortened the ‘Centennial Owl’ merely to ‘the Owl’ and when discussing both ships the words “the Owl…and the Pussycat” rolled off the tongue. So what can it do for X-Wing, well, the ARC-170 I designed was retrofitted so essentially that is what this title can accomplish, reflecting those customisations. The first thing is that the crew were no longer a part of the ship, so the title removes the crew upgrade from the ship…wait there is more…it also adds a shuttle attachment to the rear as a form of camouflage, this shuttle is heavy and thus slows the ship down, therefore reducing the speed of all declared moves by one…so let me get this straight so far this title removes crew upgrades and decreases its speed, yep great title bravo…wait, it has more. The shuttle within my animation was used as a deployable bomb…wait what…Indeed a deployable bomb. So to reflect that I think the action that could be viable is to ditch the title by deploying the bomb shuttle; this bomb can just be plopped out the back or thrust forward. So the technical specs I feel are appropriate would be the bomb is launched out back via a straight two template, or can be thrown forward using straight templates two to five (Five could be a bit much actually…). The bomb would have a range one area of effect and do one damage when detonated, the detonation is immediate. The other interesting thing about the shuttle in my animation was that it was covering the Astromech, which could become a feature here; you could either hold a secret Astromech behind the title card from the beginning of the game, revealed to the opponent when the shuttle/title is removed or you could perhaps assign an Astromech to the ship once the title is removed. The point calculation would perhaps either be including the predesignated secret Astromech, or maybe a free Astromech if gaining one once the title is removed. Once the title has gone the ship moves normally once more. So to conclude the title is a bit off the wall and very different to normal, but could be an interesting concept to play with and tweak.
Astromech – R2-J5 – Once more something that came from my animation, he was essentially a purple R2-D2 and served…well no real purpose, he did technically autopilot the ship when Shalex jumped out of it…might be best not to ask, one thing I shall confirm this was not actually in space at the time. Unfortunately any kind of autopilot doesn’t really leap out as an ability for an Astromech to use in the game. Bringing another moment of the animation to mind the ship Shalex is in has a boost function to send it high into the sky in an almost vertical arc…so what? boosts already exist…yes but how about a boost that is not a forward boost…you can’t boost in any other direction…well yes and no. A reverse loop, instead of moving you can perform a reverse loop and go a two or three straight template backwards (think of it as the ship loops the loop it would end up behind its original position). Now why not have that as a ship ability well…I don’t know…<thinking><thinking>…ok, so Astromechs have all those fancy gadgets, so why not strip a few or more of them out and install a fuel tank that can be tapped into an engine of the ship the Astromech is on…in…is the mech considered in the ship or on the ship…oh well, doesn’t matter. So space nitrous inside an Astromech to pull off the reverse loop and head backwards…yep…genius (no he does something else and is a Scum exclusive unhinged Astromech). So is there a penalty for this, well my thoughts did lean towards just saying stress move, however I feel that is rather obvious so I decided to twist it slightly, make the move be considered white, however R2-J5 has now used his small space nitrous reserve and therefore you can’t do it again as he will need time to refuel. Now you could have it a one shot deal, spent and done, or perhaps a cooldown, suggesting the little fella can create his own supply of space nitrous in his tiny tin body. A token system could be used to represent the countdown but this is potentially superfluous and memory would be enough to count the appropriate turns the cooldown is set at, could be variable if you use the two or the three straight templates, but that might be a little convoluted.
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As a final conclusion I will say this, these ideas are more a splurge of brain than refined implementable ideas therefore if people disagree and feel they aren’t suitable then you may very well be right, but if someone reads these and thinks they would fit in the game and are in a position to put them in the game then go ahead…obviously the ships and characters from video games don’t need my say so to be used but even my off the wall ideas and characters can be implemented in X-Wing if some glorious yet mad executive at FFG views this and says “I have a bag of lettuce in my loft and I like these ideas!”
Images used are primarily taken off of Wookiepedia and Google, I do not own the rights to any images used on the cards, except for Aldrax Zeran, R2-J5, Shalex Veo, Pussycat, Centennial Owl, these are my own 3D models (and aren’t very good…).
Cards were constructed using Strange Eons 3.
Edited by JDragon56
