Maybe boarding actions can just inflict critical damage on the ship ? It'd be pretty kick ass !

A couple of things:

1. While ISDs are the pinnacle of ship to ship combat, they are multi role craft. Meaning they actually don't have as much combat power as they could. You could probably double the fighter compliment if the ISD didn't also shuttle around a division of stormtroopers and their support equipment. In Armada we only see their Naval role.

2. Boarding a enemy ship DURING Naval combat is exceptionally dangerous. Not only do you need to fight the crew and security force, your own ships might blow up the ship you just embarked on.

Yes New Hope opens with a boarding action, but that takes place after Naval combat has concluded.

Further more, if you can get a boarding team on a ship, why not a few proton torpedoes instead?

Do we have an idea of size scale for this guy yet? Or is all the art we have standalone. I really love this gal, and would love one for my table, but I want to make sure the size is at least passable. It looks like a fighter, but then they call it a transport. Are we talking Millenium Falcon sized, bigger, smaller. It is tough to gauge proportions from the angles of these shots.

Mel put up a picture of their render of the U-wing with its wings to the rear and it looks like it would probably be on a large base.

https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic3124076_lg.jpg

I am about 90% certain that is a an X-Wing base, not an Armada Base. I don't know how the dimensions exchange between the two games, but since it is only a single base I imagine that puts it in the squadron size range, possibly the size of some of the larger rogues like the Falcon.

Maybe not boarding..............but land a shuttle on a star destroyer to get commandos near the bridge area and have them plant demo charges on the vision ports then watch the crew scramble. Space walks on the surface of the ships could do a hell of a lot of damage. Plant explosives to damage a ships turrets or,

access a flight deck to damage the shield, causing a sudden release to the vacuum of space. Damage shield emitters or communication arrays and the ship effectiveness could be reduced.Lots of options.

I am about 90% certain that is a an X-Wing base, not an Armada Base. I don't know how the dimensions exchange between the two games, but since it is only a single base I imagine that puts it in the squadron size range, possibly the size of some of the larger rogues like the Falcon.

Oops posted in the wrong forum, but yea it is easily a Squadron base ship, so if they were to release it I'd expect the Empire to get the Lambda or the Sentinel shuttle as an equivalent.

Yes New Hope opens with a boarding action, but that takes place after Naval combat has concluded.

Further more, if you can get a boarding team on a ship, why not a few proton torpedoes instead?

Because you might want to tear ships apart searching for stolen plans and ambassadors. That's harder to do with debris fields of ship parts left by proton torpedoes.

Either way, you get plenty of Escape Pods showing Life signs to vapourise as you wait.

Yes New Hope opens with a boarding action, but that takes place after Naval combat has concluded.

Further more, if you can get a boarding team on a ship, why not a few proton torpedoes instead?

Because you might want to tear ships apart searching for stolen plans and ambassadors. That's harder to do with debris fields of ship parts left by proton torpedoes.

Fair enough, but that's a post battle objective. The times your going to want to board an operational combatant are few and far between.

Yes New Hope opens with a boarding action, but that takes place after Naval combat has concluded.

Further more, if you can get a boarding team on a ship, why not a few proton torpedoes instead?

Because you might want to tear ships apart searching for stolen plans and ambassadors. That's harder to do with debris fields of ship parts left by proton torpedoes.

Fair enough, but that's a post battle objective. The times your going to want to board an operational combatant are few and far between.

That may be so, but maybe they're not - in the first place - designed to board operational combatants, but operational non-combatants, such as freighters smuggling contraband.

While this game is designed to model conventional naval combat in the star wars setting, as you yourself implied, the SWU is more than just that. With the flotillas, it's clear that FFG recognizes that there are ships outside of that conventional role, and they have afforded them a place in the game, even if that is in the conventional combat that the game models.

Also, there's a lot about Star Wars that doesn't let logic be the enemy of the cool. So what if the Tantive IV was disabled, the movie still starts off with a boarding scene, and it's fun and exciting. Therefore boarding actions are a legit part of the game.

So if you think about it, in A New Hope it's a REALLY small boarding party on the death star. They capture a prize prisoner and disable the tractor beams

Also, there's a lot about Star Wars that doesn't let logic be the enemy of the cool. So what if the Tantive IV was disabled, the movie still starts off with a boarding scene, and it's fun and exciting. Therefore boarding actions are a legit part of the game.

So if you think about it, in A New Hope it's a REALLY small boarding party on the death star. They capture a prize prisoner and disable the tractor beams

I agree with both Vogons and Mikael - this is Star Wars, we're already bending the rules of physics to have different types of ordinance that are limited to certain ranges (despite being in the vacuum of space), we don't have to feel entirely bound to realism. If it's thematic and it's fun, and as long as it doesn't break the game, why not diversify our play options.

As Vogons points out, we have precedents for boarding actions is in Star Wars that don't mean taking over the ship entirely to turn it on the enemy. And if we do want an example of a boarding action during a fight, look no further than the Battle of Jakku - the reason that big ISD is down in Episode VII is because there was an attempt to capture the Vessel during the battle, forcing Cienna Ree (our new Tie Interceptor pilot) to scuttle it.

We use it cause it gave us an excuse to use Sentinels, ATR-6's and Stormtrooper transports on the table.

Also, there's a lot about Star Wars that doesn't let logic be the enemy of the cool. So what if the Tantive IV was disabled, the movie still starts off with a boarding scene, and it's fun and exciting. Therefore boarding actions are a legit part of the game.

So if you think about it, in A New Hope it's a REALLY small boarding party on the death star. They capture a prize prisoner and disable the tractor beams

I agree with both Vogons and Mikael - this is Star Wars, we're already bending the rules of physics to have different types of ordinance that are limited to certain ranges (despite being in the vacuum of space), we don't have to feel entirely bound to realism. If it's thematic and it's fun, and as long as it doesn't break the game, why not diversify our play options.

As Vogons points out, we have precedents for boarding actions is in Star Wars that don't mean taking over the ship entirely to turn it on the enemy. And if we do want an example of a boarding action during a fight, look no further than the Battle of Jakku - the reason that big ISD is down in Episode VII is because there was an attempt to capture the Vessel during the battle, forcing Cienna Ree (our new Tie Interceptor pilot) to scuttle it.

Why's the range restriction bend the laws of physics? I imagined it reflected each projectile's ability to arrest its own momentum enough to track vessels moving at various distances.

Found a photo with some size references in it for the U-Wing... Based off where the Dust is being kicked up, and the size of the humans standing on the opposite side of the dust near the X-Wing, it doesn't look like the two are very far off in terms of scale. So this is definitely a light shuttle-craft sized vessel, probably around the same size or a tiny tiny bit smaller than the Lamba, which in turn was around half the size of the Millenium Falcon.