[Originally posted in the Star Wars Wishing Well]

I used to play a good bit of Star Wars: Empire at War on PC, and I fell in love with the Imperial Broadside -class cruiser kdb-1 (and the Rebel Alliance's equivalent, a refitted Republic Marauder -class corvette ), which was basically a moving missile battery with practically unlimited range. It had very little ability to protect itself in direct combat; the hull and shields were weak, the speed and maneuverability left something to be desired for a ship of its small size, and it was completely helpless against fighters at close range. In addition, the act of firing temporarily revealed the ship's location on the map, exposing it to enemy missile attacks. But, the range of the missiles allowed the cruisers to fire on nearly any target that was within the line of sight of other Imperial ships, and a successful volley was DEVASTATING. A single missile was enough to turn half a dozen squadrons into so many fireworks, and three or four well-placed shots could reliably cripple (or outright destroy) all but the very largest of targets. Overall, using the ship was often quite difficult, and one misstep was usually fatal. Even so, it was almost always worth the cost and the risk to deploy them.

Given my love of this ship, I have often thought about how it could be incorporated into Armada. Borrowing the ship's data from the archives, and its stats from Empire at War - relative to other ships which have already been released for Armada, like the CR90 and the VSD - I've devised a prototype. The ship's two turbolasers are represented by the red dice in the attack pools, while the missiles would be the black dice. Since an unlimited supply of Diamond-Boron missiles would be far too powerful, I feel the upgrade should be limited to 3 uses per game. I don't have an enormous amount of experience with this game, though, so I'd greatly appreciate any input from other players. Once I feel like I have the details worked out, I hope to implement it in a test game.

Hull: 4

Shields (front/sides/rear): 2/1/1

Defenses: 1 redirect, 2 brace

Battery Armament (f/s/r): 2 red, 3 black/1 red, 2 black/1 red

Anti-Squadron Armament: -

Command: 2

Squadron:1

Engineering:2

Maneuverability:

@ speed 1: I

@ speed 2: I, I

Upgrade slots: Officer, Ordnance, Fleet Support?[others TBD]

Fleet cost: [TBD]

Included upgrade cards: Assault Concussion Missiles (Ordnance, 7pts.), Diamond-Boron Missiles (Ordnance, 15+pts?), Targeting Sensor Network (Fleet Support? 7pts?), [others TBD]

Upgrade card descriptions:

>Diamond-Boron Missiles (15+pts?): "At the beginning of your attack step, you may attack as normal a target hull zone or squadron at medium-long range and in line of sight with your front arc, using an attack pool of 4 red dice. All hull zones and squadrons at distance 1-3 of the target, both enemy and friendly, must be treated as individual targets of the attack. You cannot perform any other attacks this round. This upgrade may be resolved up to 3 times per game."

>Ordnance Targeting Sensor Network (7pts?): "During your activation, you may perform one of your attacks against a target at close-long range of any activated friendly ship or squadron in play, using only the black dice of your selected firing arc. Only 'Ordnance' and 'Weapons Team' upgrade effects can be resolved during this attack."

Obviously, these two upgrades are designed with each other in mind, enabling the ship to function at incredibly long range without creating special upgrade categories or special ship rules. I'm uncertain whether Fleet Support is the correct category for the Targeting upgrade, since it doesn't really affect any other part of your fleet; but, then again, neither does slicer tools.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Quantum Dot Guy

I think both upgrades are too powerful, and I personally have a dislike for ships that require certain upgrades to accomplish the intended function.

For instance, there would never be any time you would want to run these ships without these upgrades, and if they were not limited to simply this ship, they would be in every fleet on at least one ship no matter what. If they were limited to this ship, every fleet would have at least one, or do a spam of one fast beefy ship like an ISD followed by a half dozen of these guys to blow up anything that gets close.

I think if you took it down to Front: 1 red dice, Sides: 2 black 1 red, Rear: 1 black, and then changed the first upgrade in a reduced state into a title for the ship it might work. Something like "Title: Retribution- Whenever you attack, one dice of any color from your battery armament may be rolled against each adjacent hull zone of your target. These attacks do not activate card effects and No dice modification effects may be used for these attacks." This way it is somewhat an additional ACM on each attack that could potentially yeild more damage- or less depending on the roll. It is good because even at long range with a single red dice, you would still get your single red against each adjacent hull. IMO this keeps the flavor, as well as the awesomeness, but scales it into a little less game breaking level and makes sure it only stays on this ship.

Then the second upgrade could go in the ordnance slot, because it is a slot that already has awesome upgrades and this would be an interesting choice, but wouldn't necessarily be auto include. I also think it is reasonable because with Sato upcoming the precedent for using black dice at long range is going to be a thing. But I would tweak it to add an additional requirement like "You may perform one of your attacks at long range using all the dice in your battery armament as long as that target is within close-long range of another activated allied ship." or if for thematic purposes you wanted it to be able to take shots outside of it's range entirely, "As long as target is within close-long range of two activated allied ships."

Just for fun, and cause this kinda got stuck in my brain last night, I did a quick mockup of this ship in KDY. I based the stats off the Gladiator-I and CR90b since I see it playing a role similar to the 90b, somewhat niche, but it comes from the same design line as the Gladiator. Total armament dice is same as 90b as is hull and AS. Def tokens are a mirror, while the 90b has dual evade redirect, this has dual brace redirect. It adds a command stack to be similar to the Glad and uses the Glad maneuver chart, minus the ability to take engine techs. Instead, it doubles down on weapons teams. All in all seems like a fun ship to give a go.

Thanks for the input!

I definitely agree that you wouldn't get much use out of this ship on its own, but that was really quite intentional. Just as the new flotillas are largely designed around the 'Fleet Support' upgrade type, I wanted this artillery ship to be designed around the 'Ordnance' type. It may not look impressive on the surface, but I want it to be able to wield Ordnance upgrades with deadly effect.

The Diamond-Boron Missiles upgrade is currently ridiculously powerful, yes; I have considered reducing it as you said, or possibly delaying the effect:

>"You may spend this card to skip your attack step and place one objective token in your front firing arc at long range. At the beginning of the next ship phase, you must roll an attack pool of 4 red dice against all enemy and friendly hull zones and squadrons within distance 1-3 of the token."

This version is limited to one use only, and allows faster vessels to possibly escape the blast, but still retains the potential for extreme damage if used properly. Having a true area effect allows for the possibility of collateral damage against your own vessels, which I hope would somewhat balance the card.

I really like your thoughts on the other upgrade. I want players to be able to use their squadrons to call in these long range strikes, but allowing them use only one (such as Soontir Fel, with his speed and Scatter) might be too powerful.

>"Ordnance Targeting Sensor Network [Ordnance, 7pts.]: During your activation, you may perform one of your attacks against a target at close-long range of any two activated friendly ships or squadrons, using only the black dice in your battery armament. Only 'Ordnance' and 'Weapons Team' upgrades can be resolved during this attack."

This version of the upgrade would be quite useful on other ships as well. In fact, it would open up whole new applications for the Raider .

I also agree that the ship's stats need revision; however, I can't possibly remove all the black dice from the front hull zone, simply because of the three giant, forward-facing missile tubes embedded in the ship's hull. Perhaps this arrangement would work:

Battery Armament (f/s/r): 4 black/1 red, 1 black/1 red

Anti-Squadron Armament: -

An alternative version could sacrifice a front black for a single blue anti-squadron die. Having such a powerful black battery means that the Ordnance Targeting upgrade can be especially effective on this ship (and the Gladiator, though I think there are better upgrade choices for a close-combat ship like that).

To really highlight this ship's designed purpose, I've even considered adding two 'Ordnance' slots. What do you think?

EDIT: Just saw your second post and I like it. The cost seems goods for it's potential, and I like the upgrade slots. I will definitely give this a go whenever I'm able to play another game. Thanks again!

Edited September 9, 2016 by Quantum Dot Guy