Having finally got some table time in with my designs, I think it's due time I posted my updated work here.

There's a lot that I have drawn from the Lando comics, where the Scimitar is used in the GCW era. Cha Chanath is a bunty hunter in the personal employ of Palpatine, while O-66 is the droid caretaker of the Scimitar during its downtime.

Our other two pilots are more obscure. Valin Draco is an oldcanon Inquisitor lent the ship by Palpatine for a period, while Yansu Grjak is a Dathomiri Nightsister who flew a modified Star Courier (Though not the Scimitar itself), during the latter days of the Clone Wars.

While it seems obvious to put Maul in the cockpit of this ship, I have shied away from that option due entirely to the fact that he is alive and operating during the Galactic Civil War era, and that when he does arrive in X-Wing he will almost certainly be portrayed as a Scum character. If he had simply died on Naboo and that had been the end of it, I would have been happy to put him in the ship. We have plenty of long-dead pilots from the Clone Wars - Captain Kagi, Latts Razi and Asajj Ventress, to name a few. But, as is, I wouldn't want to see him anywhere close to the Imperial faction.
The Star Courier isn't a common vessel, and even fewer of them were outfitted for combat purposes. As such, we won't be seeing any generic pilots.

First up I've got a dial and a title for the ship. The Star Courier flies completely unlike any large ships. With a very limited array of low-speed moves, it will be in constant motion, particularly with its native boost action and the cloak it gains from its title. Similarly to the barrel roll action on large ships the Scimitar's cloak action is slowed to compensate for its base size.




Our first pilot is O-66, the droid caretaker of the Scimitar. While Chanath Cha beheaded the droid to prevent him from backstabbing her, he got the last laugh when he left her for dead on a scuttled ship, piloting the Scimitar to safety. As a pilot, O-66 is just as callous, happy to see his allies shot down around him. This is a pretty poor pilot ability, but realistically O-66 is just the cheapest way to get this ship on the table. He could perhaps drop a point for the indignity.

You'll note here that while the Star Courier is an incredibly advanced ship, featuring multiple System upgrades, S-Loops, a high shield value and a strong action bar, it is missing the Tech upgrade as no matter how overdeveloped and cutting edge the ship might be for its time, it is simply outdated at the point we see T-70 X-Wings and TIE/fo Fighters.



For Yansu Grjak and the rest of her Nightsisters, the Force moves in ways unnatural to more traditional force wielders. This strange mastery of the Force that Yansu wields as a Dathomiri shaman lets her escape from danger against unwary foes.

There is a deliberate anti-synergy here with the title. As Yansu Grjak never flew the Scimitar itself, it seemed appropriate to give her an ability that encouraged her to spend her actions elsewhere.



Valin Draco, one of the Emperor's Inquisitors, is a terrifying figure. The mere rumour of his presence will instil fear into stout hearted men, and the appearance of his ship will cause all but the staunchest opposition to turn tail and flee.

This offers Imperial players a strong control tool, able to stress opposing ships quite easily during the activation phase. Before the recent FAQ change regarding Stress and red moves this isn't an ability I would have even considered, but with the rules as they stand I think it's a very interesting but not overpowered control option.



Finally we reach the star of our show, Chanath Cha. When Palpatine assigns her a target, she will hunt it mercilessly until one or the other of them is dead. With an ability reminiscent of Agent Kallus, Chanath Cha can single out an opponent at the beginning of the game.

As the highest pilot skill Star Courier pilot, and with a native EPT slot, Chanath Cha offers a lot of options even beyond her pilot ability, able to upgrade to pilot skill nine if that powerful post-maneuver re-positioning is desired, or otherwise supplement her abilities in a multitude of ways.



Our first crew is a familiar face, though until now stuck solely as a pilot. In the same manner as Valin Draco, the Grand Inquisitor is a terrifying presence. With a foe like him bearing down on them, all but the most militant rebels will be left cowering in fear.

There is a deliberate internal synergy here with Chanath Cha's pilot card, allowing the two Imperial agents to work together and take down any foe.



Second s Chanath Cha herself, and here you can see how I've designed the pilots and crew to work in a vaguely circular fashion - Chanath Cha will aid Valin Draco in a similar manner to how The Inquisitor helps Chanath Cha. While this internal synergy is important, both of these cards are broad enough to see play on other ships.



The last card that we'll see in the expansion gives us the probe droids that Darth Maul used to hunt the Jedi during the events of Phantom Menace. A ship tracked by these droids will find it almost impossible to elude its foe, and will often have to resort to confronting them head on rather than make any meaningful escape.



And that is where I am currently standing with this expansion, though there is currently a debate as to whether the dial might need red 3-hard turns, and exactly what advantages it can leverage from the move.

Looks good to me. One thing I noticed is you included the little blurb about the inquisitor at the end again.

Really nice work, like this a lot. I had a couple model kits for the Star Courier at the right scale for X-Wing that we've been using in narrative play, so I might steal a couple of your pilots.

The only thing I'd be concerned about here is Draco, not necessarily from a balance perspective but just because that ability might end up making the game less fun to play against. Not an issue at tournament-level, but in casual games it might be a concern. Same with the probes.

I think Draco is fine. With that dial, he should not be able to use the pilot ability and shoot the same target repeatedly, and because he is rather expensive, he should not have a lot of strong mates to kill the 'limited to green moves' enemy ship.

About the ship: I absolutely love the idea of a large base ship without 1 straight/bank maneuvers and turrets.

The only thing I'd be concerned about here is Draco, not necessarily from a balance perspective but just because that ability might end up making the game less fun to play against. Not an issue at tournament-level, but in casual games it might be a concern. Same with the probes.

Before the FAQ change, I wouldn't even have considered Draco, but now that the punishment is so much less harsh it seems like a workable ability. If it does prove problematic, it could be adjusted to work similarly to Gyroscopic Targeting

• At the end of the Combat Phase, if you decloaked this round, you may choose an enemy ship at Range 1 and assign a stress token to it.

The Probes are there so that you can look at a stupid slippery ace pilot like the Inquisitor and just say "No, joust me." Which, if anything, would be a bonus for casual players who might get frustrated by that kind of play.

I'm playing around with a new ability for my PS4 pilot. It's dangerous, but she's a low pilot skill and has no elite talent so I think it's worth exploring.

For Draco, you could probably go as far as 'At the beginning of the Combat Phase, assign 1 stress to one enemy ship within Range 1'. I don't think that would be too strong, yet keeps that theme going. You also don't need to call back to whether or not you decloaked that way, which could be relying too much on memory in a later phase.

Yansu I wouldn't keep exploring in that direction. As you said, its dangerous design territory, and would have a really profound impact on the game, shutting down a large portion of viable alternatives. Maybe "When you are declared the target of an attack, if the attacker does not have a focus token, treat the attack as obstructed". Certainly less powerful, but definitely a useful ability in-game and at PS4, forces the other player to make a similar choice to your previous wording but allows them to make other decisions without completely shutting them down as long as they're willing to accept the penalty, and keeps the Nightsisters obfuscation and deception themeing.

That's honestly far better than what I had been working with. I think, though, that I'll amend it to your own focus tokens rather than an opponents - due to the fact that she never flew the Scimitar itself it seems worthwhile to give Yansu's ability a bit of anti-synergy with the title.

Sneak edit: Custom ship icon is now in action.

Hi,

With my gaming group we have big interest in the Scimitar (at least one of us ordered a Revell Easy Kit Pocket model)

Your version looks correct but here is what we've done so far :

As for base stats, we ended with only 6 hull points and 2 shields because it would be too tough to kill with cloak and evade actions. 2 for primary attack, Canon will do the extra. No lock because FCS, Targeting Computer etc...

O-66 is a master at running away to keep Palpatine's vessel safe, we found this ability somewhere in the forum and thought it would be great on him making an unpredictable blocker. Also we did a Crew card for him, kind of replacing the Advanced Cloaking Device.

Ending with upgrade cards. Probes add another way to get the lock, problem may be the interpretation as you discard it so can you still use the lock you did to force reroll greens? The Dathomir Nighsister has a good fluff ability and can help handling stress builds (Dengaroo etc...). Love your Chanath Cha (Crew) but maybe this art better fits X-Wing?

Edit : oh and the dial looks ridiculous... Here's our :

I really like your Dathomir Nightsister crew card - it makes me wish I had the ability to include an extra card for the league, but I'm really limited in the number of upgrades I can include.

A few of the decisions I've made are a little strange for the sake of being unique and new - I don't want to offer a ship that really flies like anything else, so it has that "gotta go fast" dial which is really unlike anything we've seen on a large based ship and it has that odd low-hull high-shield profile which if anything is a handicap with things like Kylo Ren being introduced. I do appreciate the points.

I might need to revise my O-66 pilot card - I think you're onto a better idea than I am, though I'm not entirely in love with the execution.

I really need to get it on the table a couple more times and put it through its paces, but I think I'll stick with the Attack 3, because without it the thing basically has a Mangler Cannon tax attached to its point cost, like the Turret tax on HWKs.

I'd probably add 'even if it is beyond range 3' to Chanath's ability, otherwise it only works in range 1-3. Unless that's what you intended.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

I'd probably add 'even if it is beyond range 3' to Chanath's ability, otherwise it only works in range 1-3. Unless that's what you intended.

Right. Like Thread Tracers. Forgot that.

Consider it fixed.

My first objection is that most of this works off stress tokens. Stressing enemies is a stale mechanic. We do NOT need even more gameplay centered around it. How fun is the game really when your ships simply can't take actions? How fun is it when you just have your opponent dead in the water till you kill them off?

Don'tcha think throwing stress tokens at people with an action is a bit much for 2 points?

And negating boosts and barrel roll actions with a target lock? Again, for 2 points? And with two system slots you can use targeting computer AND with a crew slot you can use Weapons officer. That's too much. What if I'm running A-Wings like Jake farrel? You shut down 2 of them for free and get to reacquire target locks every attack....

It's like you don't even want a fight. You just want to be shooting fish in a barrel and calling it a day.

Think about the meta this path you're choosing would create. That's just bad.