So, like it says, I have always hated the idea of boarding actions and thought that they would ruin the game. However, NakedDex said this in another thread and I actually think it could work as playable.

Also, some kind of assault boarding ship. A flotilla base style ship that, you can use to execute boarding raids on medium/large ships. Something like a black crit effect that cancels all attack dice and allows you to search through your opponents damage deck, select a crew critical effect, and deal that face up. We've all seen boarding raids in the movies, so it's thematic enough to boot.

Thoughts?

Could be an interesting one - have the boarding party use black dice and the defender roll blue (squadron value maybe? Equal to Command value even to show the defenders fighting back) and each target rolled by the defender negates one hit of the attacker, the attacker searches for a number of damage cards equal to the amount he won the roll by and assigns them to the ship, when that ship takes damage it is dealt those cards face up?

It'd be an interesting mechanic to be sure

Boarding actions would be a pretty big change. Since they're an entirely new minigame, I think it's best done through an objective. A red objective called "Boarding Party" could handle it very well. Like how Short Range Scanning does it, but instead of collecting victory tokens you can neutralize a ship.

I feel boarding is best represented by an upgrade card, likely a weapons team card. Something like sabotage commandos where you exhaust it when you reveal a command to pick a ship at distance one(needs to be very short range, maybe distance 2 tops) and roll a blue dice, on a crit you can look at top 3-4 cards of damage deck and apply one of them to the enemy vessel, prob costed at 4pts

I am on board with these ideas lads, well done

Declare boarding action -> play game of imperial assault -> profit

i think the boarding mechanic on DA shipyards makes sense.

https://armadashipyards.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/atr-6-assault-transport-card.jpg

Valid points but boarding actions in Star Wars seem more like a "dock alongside and then secure/capture the ship as a spoil of war now that the battle has been won/conceded", rather than an attack like in universes where teleportation strike teams are a possibility, like 40K and Star Trek. (Or specialized boarding craft in 40K as well)

There was at least one episode of Clone Wars (canon) where droids performed a mass boarding action against a Republic cruiser.

Valid points but boarding actions in Star Wars seem more like a "dock alongside and then secure/capture the ship as a spoil of war now that the battle has been won/conceded", rather than an attack like in universes where teleportation strike teams are a possibility, like 40K and Star Trek. (Or specialized boarding craft in 40K as well)

It seems like the sort of thing that, if it were to happen in the midst of battle, it would be from a flotilla of specialised boarding craft rather than a capital ship, and then more as a "break things and run" rather than take over or destroy.

See it on a small flotilla sized ship and can only "board" med or large ships going speed two or less. Doing auto crits to a ship as the action it should be an expensive ship.

What happens if, by some chance, all their crew effect cards are already in the discard pile/being used as hit markers?

Also, said ship would still be targetable and technically at speed 0 relative to the ship it's attached to, so no defense whatsoever. Obviously relative movement has never been addressed in the game so it could be ruled differently.

Still, points wasted IMO. I'd rather just go crit fishing.

So, I should probably weigh in here, since it was my concept in the OP.

The way I was seeing it, the boarding action was something either unique to a new flotilla style vessel with it's own boarding teams upgrade, or straight up using flotillas that exist and adding it as an Offensive Retrofit card. The rationale behind this is simple enough; these ships are reasonably fragile and don't have any - or at least very little - offensive capability in and of themselves. This offers them a combat option, at the risk of having to get in close to some serious threats. Boarding an ISD or MC80 involves staying the hell out of that front arc on approach, and hoping to survive long enough to get into close range. It promotes forward planning and clever navigating. It also opens up that ship class to something other than being activation dummies or BCC carriers.

The wording of the mechanic is purposefully along the lines of existing crit effect cards, meaning no real special rules or exceptions are needed. The upgrade offers the user the opportunity to nominate a medium or large ship at close range (or, as mentioned in the other thread, Range 1, which I think I like more if it was an Offensive Retrofit card), and roll two black dice. If either results in a crit, all dice results are cancelled, and the "crew" crit is dealt from the deck (search the deck and deal one of attackers choice). If neither results in a crit, all dice results are cancelled and no damage is dealt (because the boarding action failed). The card is then exhausted (prevents spamming double arcs on multiple flotillas). The boarding action replaces the attack from that arc, which for flotillas isn't much of a problem anyway. If no crew crits remain in the deck, deal one face down damage card.

It is, for all intents and purposes, an APT with the specific ability to hunt out a useful "crew" crit.

Here's the rub: either this is part of a new ship type that has up-close brawling and assaulting in mind or it's an Offensive Retrofit. The reason I'm suggesting it be an OR specifically is because beyond flotillas, most of the ships with access to OR won't necessarily want this upgrade - due to having to be at range 1 for it to trigger and requiring the sacrifice of a battery shot - but it does leave the option there. Also, being an OR leaves the Fleet Support slots open for the existing options of Comms Net, BCC for escort squadrons, or Slicer Tools (which would synergise nicely with an aggressively played flotilla).

A friend pointed out, when discussing this previously, that being an OR means the Raider could take it alongside OE. This is true, and means it has a fantastic chance to trigger, but it also means the Raider has to be range 1 of it's target (which as a person who plays Raiders regularly, is not an ideal place to be at all...), and that it has to sacrifice a battery shot to do so. In other words, it follows suit with the bigger ships; you could do it, but it's almost certainly better to do something else, like an actual APT.

Anyway, that was my proposal. Like I said, it was just an idea for something that could be folded into the game easily with a simple card, rather than inventing a whole new minigame/roll-off to work it out, or suddenly having to worry about power creep etc. I'm just happy it resonated with a few people!

Boarding parties causing shenanigans aboard a ship i'm all for, but they should not be able to capture ships outright. Otherwise sure, add them into both sides.

This one is kind of tricky.

I do, however, feel like there's a massive precedent for including them - the Clone Wars. The animated series made boarding actions seem pretty darn common. How many times did Jedi and clone troopers board a Separatist vessel trying to capture/kill General Grievous, or vice versa? Of course, the issue there is that you had a balance between the combat complements of Separatist and Republic warships. The Rebels trying to board an ISD would be suicide. I mean, an MC80 Liberty has about 5,000 crew and can carry a little over a thousand troops. An ISD-I has almost 10,000 stormtroopers alone. Plus, adding in a mechanic for boarding would require re-writing the rules for the game.

As far as a small, strike team-style upgrade for flotillas, or maybe even as a new class of craft (assault carriers, boarding torpedoes, etc.), that could potentially work. It wouldn't even have to be limited to crew-related crits, because it could be a targeted strike against the engine room, a gun battery, stowed ordnance, the bridge, etc. The only issue here is the ramming effect - a small crew of boarders would have the same effect on a 40,000-strong ISD as it would against a Gozanti with, what, two dozen people on board?

This one is kind of tricky.

I do, however, feel like there's a massive precedent for including them - the Clone Wars. The animated series made boarding actions seem pretty darn common. How many times did Jedi and clone troopers board a Separatist vessel trying to capture/kill General Grievous, or vice versa? Of course, the issue there is that you had a balance between the combat complements of Separatist and Republic warships. The Rebels trying to board an ISD would be suicide. I mean, an MC80 Liberty has about 5,000 crew and can carry a little over a thousand troops. An ISD-I has almost 10,000 stormtroopers alone. Plus, adding in a mechanic for boarding would require re-writing the rules for the game.

As far as a small, strike team-style upgrade for flotillas, or maybe even as a new class of craft (assault carriers, boarding torpedoes, etc.), that could potentially work. It wouldn't even have to be limited to crew-related crits, because it could be a targeted strike against the engine room, a gun battery, stowed ordnance, the bridge, etc. The only issue here is the ramming effect - a small crew of boarders would have the same effect on a 40,000-strong ISD as it would against a Gozanti with, what, two dozen people on board?

I feel the way to have this represented would be by having the defending ship defend with blue dice equal to its command value - big ships more easily defended etc - rolling target icons to negate the attacksrs hits - say red dice and the attacking ship has a "board" value similar to the snipe or counter keyword

I think if they were to do a boarding action it would probably be linked to a squadron, most likely the U-Wing for rebels, and the Sentinel-class Shuttle for the Empire, as both are troop transports.

Boarding parties causing shenanigans aboard a ship i'm all for, but they should not be able to capture ships outright. Otherwise sure, add them into both sides.

Depends on the ship involved. A CR90 could be captured pretty fast as i has a crew of 30-165. Same woud be true for flottillas. Even a squadron of Shuttles or Stormtrooper Transports could be enough.

A Nebulon-B has a crew of ~900 and could carry 75 troops.

However capturing a full crewed ISD or even MonCal would be beyond the time frime.

Once your shields are down your open to teleport attacks from Imperial Space Marines and Terminators.

Why not using squadron with ''strategic'' like the Lambda-Class or the VCX-100. Those or supposed to be troop transports too?

Boarding parties causing shenanigans aboard a ship i'm all for, but they should not be able to capture ships outright. Otherwise sure, add them into both sides.

This is why I generally oppose boarding actions. People want to entirely change the game. The suggestion here leaves it intact.

Yeah, probably too big of a change:

But, Space Piracy!

A great special ability of the "new" rogue faction.

Take control of opposing ships, at reduced effectiveness.

Boarding parties causing shenanigans aboard a ship i'm all for, but they should not be able to capture ships outright. Otherwise sure, add them into both sides.

This is why I generally oppose boarding actions. People want to entirely change the game. The suggestion here leaves it intact.

And yet the first scene in the first movie, we see is of a boarding party capturing a ship.

Boarding parties causing shenanigans aboard a ship i'm all for, but they should not be able to capture ships outright. Otherwise sure, add them into both sides.

Boarding parties causing shenanigans aboard a ship i'm all for, but they should not be able to capture ships outright. Otherwise sure, add them into both sides.

This is why I generally oppose boarding actions. People want to entirely change the game. The suggestion here leaves it intact.

And yet the first scene in the first movie, we see is of a boarding party capturing a ship.

First scene of movie...where did I say it wasn't thematic with the movies?