Question regarding the Corellian Corvette...

By martok2112, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

Hi, all,

I wasn't sure quite where to pose this question.

The Corellian Corvette is my favorite starship design in all the SWU. (Probably in all of sci-fi/space fantasy).

I believe there are a couple of variants accounted for it in Armada, when I looked at the web page for the Rebel fleet expansion, which I believe consists of the CR-90 Corvette, the Nebulon-B Frigate, and the Assault Frigate.

Well, one day, I was watching The Clone Wars, Season 3, Episode 3, and I do believe we get to see the Tantive IV (I'm guessing it was the Tantive IV, Bail Organa's Corvette). I noticed that in addition to the two turbolasers on the top and bottom of the ship, and the four anti-starfighter laser cannons for the upper escape pods, there were two heavy laser cannons (additional turbolasers? ion cannons?) mounted on the horizontal shaft where the airlocks supposedly are. Is that accounted for in one of the card variants? Or is it something that may be covered in a future variant card?

Either way, that extra pair of weapons made the Tantive IV/Corvette look totally bad ***. :)

Not really.

In effect, in Armada, the weapons loadouts of the ships is somewhat abstracted...

Although we usually associate Red Dice with Turbolasers, Blue Dice with Ion Cannons and Black Dice with Ordnance, this is not explicitly the case... (As shown by the Torpedo Frigate having Blue Dice but Turbolasers, the Interdictor having Red Dice but Ion Cannons, etc).

Also, there is no definitive abstract of "2 Turbolasers = Red Dice" or anything like that. There's no way of being specific.

The Tantive IV is currently a Title Upgrade. Explicitly, any cosmetic modifications to the actual ship frame are just that - cosmetic - and are generally irrelevant to the actual game itself...

(For example, the ISD-1 and ISD-2 do look very different to each other, but beyond the difference in Ship Cards, we utilise the same ship model, which is consequently an ISD-II, for the game...)

Things just aren't that "Detailed" in Armada.

Okeeday. Thanks for the info.

Largely I was just curious. :) I figure there has to be a lot of streamlining in a game of this nature so that the pace remains fast enough to be fun, but detailed enough to allow for strategy and tactics.

Thanks again. :)

Not really.

In effect, in Armada, the weapons loadouts of the ships is somewhat abstracted...

Although we usually associate Red Dice with Turbolasers, Blue Dice with Ion Cannons and Black Dice with Ordnance, this is not explicitly the case... (As shown by the Torpedo Frigate having Blue Dice but Turbolasers, the Interdictor having Red Dice but Ion Cannons, etc).

Also, there is no definitive abstract of "2 Turbolasers = Red Dice" or anything like that. There's no way of being specific.

The Tantive IV is currently a Title Upgrade. Explicitly, any cosmetic modifications to the actual ship frame are just that - cosmetic - and are generally irrelevant to the actual game itself...

(For example, the ISD-1 and ISD-2 do look very different to each other, but beyond the difference in Ship Cards, we utilise the same ship model, which is consequently an ISD-II, for the game...)

Things just aren't that "Detailed" in Armada.

I think a good example of this abstraction would be the ISD and the CR90.

While we can easily see the "main" batteries of the ISD along the upper hull decks, we know from various sources that it is bristling with anti-ship and squadron weaponry far in excess of these primary cannons. Enough firepower that canonically, a single Star Destroyer could annihilate a massive landmass by itself in the work of a few minutes, and less than a half-dozen could raze the entire surface of an inhabited world over the course of a few hours. We also know that the Tantive 4 is being targeted with less powerful weaponry in the opening minutes of Star Wars so that it can be captured with most or all or the crew and passengers alive.

By this comparison, the CR90 should barely be able to mount even a functionally ineffective counterattack.But in order to do that, they still gave the CR90 a full eighth of the power of a fully armed and operational Imperial Star Destroyer to fight with. In the current and formerly canonical Star Wars sources, the idea of eight CR90s posing a serious threat to an ISD would have been laughable.

I do wonder though, if perhaps a small, specialized fleet of CR90's equipped with just ion cannons would be a threat to an ISD?

The Corvette does have speed and maneuverability on its side. A small fleet of them armed with capital scale ion cannons could possibly disable, or at the very least, disrupt ISD operations long enough for other, more capable Rebellion capital ships to come in and pound the ISD.

I base this on the notion that the ion cannon that was placed at Echo Base on Hoth was really not very big, or at least, not as big as it was made out to be on the big screen. And it effectively (albeit temporarily) shut down the one ISD. If there were ion cannons mounted on a CR90 that were about the size of the turbolasers that are found at the forward edge of the ship (dorsal and ventral), and had decent power plants, not to mention the power fed to them from the engines, plus the two cannons I saw on the sides of the CR90 in that episode of Clone Wars, several similarly armed Corvettes could conceivably cause a single ISD some problems.

But that's just me. :D

Edited by martok2112