So I love the books and all but that's probably a subject for a different thread.

In regards to the Carrion Spike - There are very few Canon small ships for the Empire right now and that would be a perfect addition to their options. Cloaking wouldn't have to be a "Thing" outside of perhaps one specific title. In terms of firepower, I'd like the ship to be cheap and swarmy - but perhaps allow the Spike itself to be an expensive title that makes it more formiddable - perhaps a 15 point title.

The generic corvette itself could be perhaps an alternate platform for TRC, with having 2 red dice in the front - but perhaps also a black and a blue. Could have weak side arcs but perhaps a respectable rear arc. Make it tempt you into Spinal Armament.

18 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

So I love the books and all but that's probably a subject for a different thread.

In regards to the Carrion Spike - There are very few Canon small ships for the Empire right now and that would be a perfect addition to their options. Cloaking wouldn't have to be a "Thing" outside of perhaps one specific title. In terms of firepower, I'd like the ship to be cheap and swarmy - but perhaps allow the Spike itself to be an expensive title that makes it more formiddable - perhaps a 15 point title.

The generic corvette itself could be perhaps an alternate platform for TRC, with having 2 red dice in the front - but perhaps also a black and a blue. Could have weak side arcs but perhaps a respectable rear arc. Make it tempt you into Spinal Armament.

I really like this idea of making the Carrion Spike a front arc torpedo boat.

22 hours ago, Alzer said:

The list of cannon books is actually getting rather long.

• Catalyst
• Dark Disciple
• Ahsoka
• Lords of the Sith
• Tarkin
• Thrawn
• A New Dawn
• Lost Stars
• Battlefront: Twilight Company
• "Adventures in Wild Space" series x7
• Servants of the Empire Series x5
• Aftermath Series x3

Also Rebel Rising and Guardians of the Whills, not to mention the numerous new comic books, from which FFG has been drawing for Imperial Assault.

3 hours ago, Keoki said:

Also Rebel Rising and Guardians of the Whills, not to mention the numerous new comic books, from which FFG has been drawing for Imperial Assault.

I thought guardians of the whills was a middle grade book

On 5/11/2017 at 0:00 PM, Alzer said:

As for the books, Tarkin was an interesting backstory, but the overall plot was laughable.

I agree. I read Tarkin , and I did like how much was brought back into canon, including - implicitly - much of the astrographic elements from the Essential Atlas . I also like the way Tarkin's character was fleshed out.

But, yeah, the story/plot was a snore. I know a lot of people swear by the X-Wing series, but they too bored me fairly stiff. I really remember liking the Heir to the Empire trilogy, but I was also 16 when I read it. I did like A New Dawn . I've tried numerous other books, and I did enjoy the Zahn books ( Specter of the Past / Vision of the Future ), mostly because of the stormtrooper squad. However, someone does have to really swear by the quality of a book and put their reputation on the line with me before I pick up another SW book. There's just so much garbage!

So, anybody want to put their reputation on the line, and suggest a book to pick up?

Regarding the original question. I'll get on board for it once someone gets me to be excited about the source material. Maybe as well if it proves to be a compelling in-game ship, but until then: meh.

6 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I agree. I read Tarkin , and I did like how much was brought back into canon, including - implicitly - much of the astrographic elements from the Essential Atlas . I also like the way Tarkin's character was fleshed out.

But, yeah, the story/plot was a snore. I know a lot of people swear by the X-Wing series, but they too bored me fairly stiff. I really remember liking the Heir to the Empire trilogy, but I was also 16 when I read it. I did like A New Dawn . I've tried numerous other books, and I did enjoy the Zahn books ( Specter of the Past / Vision of the Future ), mostly because of the stormtrooper squad. However, someone does have to really swear by the quality of a book and put their reputation on the line with me before I pick up another SW book. There's just so much garbage!

So, anybody want to put their reputation on the line, and suggest a book to pick up?

Regarding the original question. I'll get on board for it once someone gets me to be excited about the source material. Maybe as well if it proves to be a compelling in-game ship, but until then: meh.

Well, I dunno if I'm putting my reputation on the line, but I'd suggest Karen Traviss' Republic Commando series, which I consider to include as the fifth book her Imperial Commando book (direct continuation, different 'era').

Personally my favourite series is the Darth Bane ones by Drew Karpyshin.

9 hours ago, NobodyInParticular said:

Well, I dunno if I'm putting my reputation on the line, but I'd suggest Karen Traviss' Republic Commando series, which I consider to include as the fifth book her Imperial Commando book (direct continuation, different 'era').

There's always ONE Traviss fanboy in a thread...

Karen Traviss is a bad writer for one reason: she has stated several times that she's never read a Star Wars book she didn't write.

Why is that bad?

Because Star Wars is a shared universe . Each author builds on it, but is also expected to respect the previous additions that other authors have made - it's why the Jedi Academy trilogy keeps Mara Jade as a potential love interest for Luke Skywalker instead of some young, lithe Twi'lek girl. Zahn introduced Mara, and Anderson respected that and even expanded upon it.

Traviss gives no ***** about any of that. Everyone else says that Mandalorians are blood-thirsty, honorable, space Vikings? She'll turn them into a group of peace-loving farmers with strong family values that only fight when they have no choice and whose only flaw is that they love their people too much. Everyone else says that the Jedi Order has good intentions, but also serious flaws? She turns them into baby-stealing Nazis. Everyone else says that the Jedi were mostly killed during Order 66 and that Darth Vader was tasked with hunting them down afterwards? She says that Boba Fett hunted down, like, the mostest Jedi ever - despite being barely a teenager when the peak Jedi killing was going on.

Don't read her books, @Mikael Hasselstein . Most of the old Legends novels have problems, (which go back to that shared universe thing and that no one had a unified vision of where it was going), but hers are absolutely rock bottom. I'd use them for toilet paper, but my hemorrhoids would protest at the low quality pulp.

I personally like the Han Solo At Star's End trilogy - AKA the Han Solo Adventures. I enjoy old scifi authors like Heinlein and Asimov, and the author (Brian Daley) is from that school. It also has the perfect quote in there, and this was written in 1979 : "Han made a sour face. 'I happen to like shooting first, Rekkon. As opposed to shooting second.'" I also wonder if Daley was ever a pilot, because there's a couple of really good dogfights in there.

However, if you don't like classic scifi, then you probably wouldn't like them.

Then there's the Timothy Zahn stuff, which is usually readable. The Old Republic novels are decent, but tie into the KOTOR games quite heavily. The Ahsoka novel isn't all that great, but worth reading at least once for an idea of how the Rebellion started.

One thing I'd recommend: The new canon comic books. They're all uniformly excellent, at least the ones I've read. I quite liked the Kanan one especially.

Traviss is not a terrible writer. She does have a silly attitude towards writing in the Star Wars universe that is really the antithesis of Zahn but still...

The jedi are seen as cold and ruthless because the books are typically from the clones perspective. In war commanders are usually that way, I imagine then a detatched jedi would be doubly or triply so. So yes if I was a clone I probably would resent the jedi a lot. However its the Kaminoans that are depicted more as the space nazis, not the jedi, and honestly the new canon continues that.

The Mandolorians of course come out looking good because the cultural anchor characters are Mandocentrists. Its a perspective.

I would highly recommend the first two Republic Commando books, at least the first one. It does a lot of cool stuff to frame the Clone Wars as this massive scale war in a way better then most others.

1 minute ago, Forresto said:

Traviss is not a terrible writer. She does have a silly attitude towards writing in the Star Wars universe that is really the antithesis of Zahn but still...

The jedi are seen as cold and ruthless because the books are typically from the clones perspective. In war commanders are usually that way, I imagine then a detatched jedi would be doubly or triply so. So yes if I was a clone I probably would resent the jedi a lot. However its the Kaminoans that are depicted more as the space nazis, not the jedi, and honestly the new canon continues that.

The Mandolorians of course come out looking good because the cultural anchor characters are Mandocentrists. Its a perspective.

I would highly recommend the first two Republic Commando books, at least the first one. It does a lot of cool stuff to frame the Clone Wars as this massive scale war in a way better then most others.

it's her base attitude which is deplorable. Her technique is acceptable, but her self-admitted arrogance about cooperating with other authors is not. The excuse of Mando-centric viewpoints is made commonly because she really didn't KNOW how any of the stuff was written previously - she liked the armor, she liked Boba Fett, she was told to write during the Clone Wars, and like all of the worst Legends novels spun that into a manuscript which got accepted thanks to lax editorial standards.

If her stuff wasn't written as official Star Wars, if it was a thinly veiled satire mocking the blind Jedi worship of the Star Wars universe, then I might find it more acceptable. But she wrote it as an addition to what already existed, and didn't have enough respect for any other author to even crack ONE of their books - and yet expected HER work to be canonical and definitive.

So I give her and her work the exact same amount of respect she gives to anyone not named Karen Traviss: Zero.

Thats your opinion but honestly I dont see how she overtly contradicts anything else in canon. It does now because of the 3D clone wars show but pre-TCW? I dont see it and I read a lot of the prequel novels.

For instance in the excellent Labyrinth of Evil, Grievous's perspective is fairly damning of the jedi order.

Im really just not understanding your point? She wrote her own thing? She had a bad attitude? Sure thats terrible and I would never want to work or collaborate with her but you have to seperate the art from the artist. Honestly if anything is contradictory thats less her fault and more who ever was in charge of canon back then.

38 minutes ago, Forresto said:

Honestly if anything is contradictory thats less her fault and more who ever was in charge of canon back then.

In this instance, the argument is:

There wasn't one person.

Authors were expected to cooperate.

Ergo, the blame is still on her.

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

There's always ONE Traviss fanboy in a thread...

Karen Traviss is a bad writer for one reason: she has stated several times that she's never read a Star Wars book she didn't write.

Why is that bad?

Because Star Wars is a shared universe . Each author builds on it, but is also expected to respect the previous additions that other authors have made - it's why the Jedi Academy trilogy keeps Mara Jade as a potential love interest for Luke Skywalker instead of some young, lithe Twi'lek girl. Zahn introduced Mara, and Anderson respected that and even expanded upon it.

Traviss gives no ***** about any of that. Everyone else says that Mandalorians are blood-thirsty, honorable, space Vikings? She'll turn them into a group of peace-loving farmers with strong family values that only fight when they have no choice and whose only flaw is that they love their people too much. Everyone else says that the Jedi Order has good intentions, but also serious flaws? She turns them into baby-stealing Nazis. Everyone else says that the Jedi were mostly killed during Order 66 and that Darth Vader was tasked with hunting them down afterwards? She says that Boba Fett hunted down, like, the mostest Jedi ever - despite being barely a teenager when the peak Jedi killing was going on.

Don't read her books, @Mikael Hasselstein . Most of the old Legends novels have problems, (which go back to that shared universe thing and that no one had a unified vision of where it was going), but hers are absolutely rock bottom. I'd use them for toilet paper, but my hemorrhoids would protest at the low quality pulp.

I personally like the Han Solo At Star's End trilogy - AKA the Han Solo Adventures. I enjoy old scifi authors like Heinlein and Asimov, and the author (Brian Daley) is from that school. It also has the perfect quote in there, and this was written in 1979 : "Han made a sour face. 'I happen to like shooting first, Rekkon. As opposed to shooting second.'" I also wonder if Daley was ever a pilot, because there's a couple of really good dogfights in there.

However, if you don't like classic scifi, then you probably wouldn't like them.

Then there's the Timothy Zahn stuff, which is usually readable. The Old Republic novels are decent, but tie into the KOTOR games quite heavily. The Ahsoka novel isn't all that great, but worth reading at least once for an idea of how the Rebellion started.

One thing I'd recommend: The new canon comic books. They're all uniformly excellent, at least the ones I've read. I quite liked the Kanan one especially.

To be honest, I don't particularly care how her stories fitted in with the rest of the canon. Sure, it was bad form, so to speak, to ignore other people's writing, but I like the stories as stories. The books themselves are nicely written and captivating, just like her Halo series (which I'd also recommend reading). After all, my attitude to Star Wars books was: If I don't like it, it didn't happen. It's fiction. So just like I select which books of fiction to read, I also select which bits of fiction I like and keep. Since most of the EU was garbage, I could care less what contradicted what. I took what I liked and formed my own 'spin-off' universe of all the me-approved bits.

Sure, Karen Traviss may have been disrespectful, sure somethings may have contradicted other writers (though truth be told I too haven't read much else that specifically contradicted her), but who cares? Her books are good fiction books and they should be treated as such. Don't ignore the quality of the story just because the author or certain aspects don't fit the big picture. As books they're pretty good, so if you're looking for a good book, and more specifically one that relates to Star Wars, they're worth a read.

Sorry @LordTesla for continuing to sidetrack your thread. . . as recompense, might I add that I think the Carrion Spike, being a stealth spy ship, in essence, and based off of a stealth blockade runner, would be a bit of an odd addition to a game that focuses on stand up fights? I mean, sure it could be a sort of 'ambush ship' that cloaked, flew up to point-blank range of the flagship and then emptied tons of missiles into the bridge, but how would you capture the main feature of the ship, i.e. the cloak?

8 hours ago, NobodyInParticular said:

To be honest, I don't particularly care how her stories fitted in with the rest of the canon. Sure, it was bad form, so to speak, to ignore other people's writing, but I like the stories as stories. The books themselves are nicely written and captivating, just like her Halo series (which I'd also recommend reading). After all, my attitude to Star Wars books was: If I don't like it, it didn't happen. It's fiction. So just like I select which books of fiction to read, I also select which bits of fiction I like and keep. Since most of the EU was garbage, I could care less what contradicted what. I took what I liked and formed my own 'spin-off' universe of all the me-approved bits.

Sure, Karen Traviss may have been disrespectful, sure somethings may have contradicted other writers (though truth be told I too haven't read much else that specifically contradicted her), but who cares? Her books are good fiction books and they should be treated as such. Don't ignore the quality of the story just because the author or certain aspects don't fit the big picture. As books they're pretty good, so if you're looking for a good book, and more specifically one that relates to Star Wars, they're worth a read.

Sorry @LordTesla for continuing to sidetrack your thread. . . as recompense, might I add that I think the Carrion Spike, being a stealth spy ship, in essence, and based off of a stealth blockade runner, would be a bit of an odd addition to a game that focuses on stand up fights? I mean, sure it could be a sort of 'ambush ship' that cloaked, flew up to point-blank range of the flagship and then emptied tons of missiles into the bridge, but how would you capture the main feature of the ship, i.e. the cloak?

Like I said, I think it would be best implemented as a title card that gives the ship a scatter token. Adding a token is already a mechanism in the game. I think it could be a good candidate for a Fleet Command ship like the pelta. I think the generic version should be a corvette with red dice and no stealth because the Carrion Spike was specifically made for Tarkin and thus the Carrion Spike can have all the gimmicks and tricks.

6 hours ago, LordTesla said:

Like I said, I think it would be best implemented as a title card that gives the ship a scatter token. Adding a token is already a mechanism in the game. I think it could be a good candidate for a Fleet Command ship like the pelta. I think the generic version should be a corvette with red dice and no stealth because the Carrion Spike was specifically made for Tarkin and thus the Carrion Spike can have all the gimmicks and tricks.

I remember you saying that, but I think a scatter in place of invisibility, while the closest pre-existing effect in the game, is a bit of a stretch. And if it's title-based, you'd have to think of a thematic role the ship can perform without cloak. Given it's a personal transport vessel or spy-ship, I don't know if there is one. What'd it do in the book that didn't rely on cloak? I know you've already somewhat answered this, but how does a red-dice corvette differ from the Arq or CR90?

As for the Fleet Command type, I agree that may be a useful application, but one must consider if there is a better candidate. I don't know the role the ship played in the book, nor do I know of many other ships that were the center-point of fleets except the SSD and perhaps some other SDs. If you can think of a more likely candidate then we're back to square one, but if you can't then sure, an invisible command ship sounds like a great strategic asset, so why not have something akin to it in-game?

On 5/11/2017 at 0:11 PM, Green Knight said:

The Tarkin book makes me want to puke.

Carrion Spike included.

That's odd. it's in my top three. One of the ones I recommend as a must read to people who are casually interested in reading a couple of Star Wars books.

That being said I have no interest in seeing the Carrion Spike in Armada.

I have read a wide range of SW comics from the now non-canon to the modern marvel and have paved my way through Star Wars novels also the tv series clone wars and the soon ending rebels series.

The carrion spike or corvettes of the same size would be ideal to have in a fleet for its speed and manueverabilty but I’d also would like to see a rebellion liberated card so certain rebel fleets can camand small to medium imperial ships

On 14/05/2017 at 5:56 PM, Forresto said:

Traviss is not a terrible writer. She does have a silly attitude towards writing in the Star Wars universe that is really the antithesis of Zahn but still...

Even Zahn is often accused of "disrespect for the work of other writers" thanks to the Hand of Thrawn duology, which takes shots at a lot of previous events, including Dark Empire and Palpatine's return, with Mara saying "Personally I'm not convinced it was really him".

I’m totally down for the Carrion Spike. I’d like to see Cloak given another try in Armada.

Im another in the EU > Disneyverse. Unless JJ really knocks it out of the park, ties everything together and clean up all messes in 9, I imagine it will stay that way.

the only post Disney book I’ve read is Thrawn, which I really enjoy. I’ve had no real interest in reading any other.

The best of Legends are anything by Zahn, Stackpole, Allison, and the anthology books. Anything beyond that ranges from meh to HOLY GOD, LIGHT IT ON FIRE!!!!

I miss the Dark Horse comics. They were fantastic. I never read the old marvel comics, and have heard mixed things about the new ones.

Does anyone else remember the Dark Forces Novellas? Based on the old FPS Games. They had pretty cool stories, and some great artwork.

Anyone know how to put a Threadoracy warning on posts?

May 17 to March 18 .... I'd say it was a pretty dead thread till some one brought it back......

23 minutes ago, slasher956 said:

Anyone know how to put a Threadoracy warning on posts?

May 17 to March 18 .... I'd say it was a pretty dead thread till some one brought it back......

Sometimes these things just have a life of their own... bah-room-chi!

On May 11, 2017 at 10:08 PM, WigTii said:

The Carrion Spike would be a great addition to the game. I've read Tarkin three times. It's a great source book for my thematic approach to Armada in terms of Imperial vessel deployments and tactics.

Totally agree, this is an outstanding book. I couldn't put it down. Thrawn is also another good book.