In the middle of all the discussion of the SSD and the Tector, etc., I was wondering if anyone had thought of a little-known, but still very big - and canon - ship: The Pride of Tarlandia.

Like the Tector, she makes a visual appearance in Return of the Jedi, and is mentioned in the novelization. It is the communications battlecruiser that Lando zips the Falcon around during the Battle of Endor. The command tower is considerably larger than that of the Avenger. Compare the following...:

(Notice the Falcon coming around the command tower's starboard.)

...to this:

That RotJ command tower is a lot bigger. Like the Tector, I imagine it was just Lucasfilm taking shortcuts with the models, not giving scale too much thought, and then papering it over with invented lore after-the-fact, but... that's how Star Wars develops.

Realistically, I do think that the ship is too obscure for FFG to take seriously, but, well.... the Gladiator came from the Droids cartoon, so... ?

...what are you all thinking about it?

Mostly? That The Empire is seemingly obsessed with "Bigger".

For me, this still comes across into the Game design space as: "Okay, if it is going to be used and placed in the game - how will it be treated in such a way that its obscurity doesn't overpower the Iconic Ubiquitousness of the Imperial Star Destroyer in the same design space?"

Its perhaps less of a challenge than the Tector - since at least visually from above, it would be at least somewhat different... But beyond, y'know, basically slapping Fleet Command on a Star Destroyer - what else would it accomplish?

I'm not opposedto it as such (other than, y;know, I'm a Filthy Rebel, and thus, will be in opposition to it should it arrive)... but I'm more excited about ship classes rather than unique vessels...

For example, I was disappointed at first, when we got the Interdictor as... The Interdictor. With it being shown as a Unique prototype.... So I spent a long time disappointed until it was shown to be more ubiquitous later in the season... Same as I know, from Clone Wars, there's a whole bunch of Peltas out there... All in different modification states...

But its a harder sell for a singular ship.

And perhaps even more than that - I want ships to be radically different in capability as much as possible... I don't want an ISD with a new set of slots.... I really want something unique and different so the choices of list-building are difficult, rather than looking for the best of all worlds all the time...

I know I ask too much. But hey, ex-game designer, here - this is what they should be striving for.

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

Mostly? That The Empire is seemingly obsessed with "Bigger".

For me, this still comes across into the Game design space as: "Okay, if it is going to be used and placed in the game - how will it be treated in such a way that its obscurity doesn't overpower the Iconic Ubiquitousness of the Imperial Star Destroyer in the same design space?"

Its perhaps less of a challenge than the Tector - since at least visually from above, it would be at least somewhat different... But beyond, y'know, basically slapping Fleet Command on a Star Destroyer - what else would it accomplish?

I feel that gameplay wise they could have a place. The Pride would have a fleet command and the Tector would likely be tankier with less squadrons. Whether or not that is enough differentiation to make them interesting is debatable.

My main issue is that the model itself would be pretty much the same as the ISD. Which could lead to some confusion On the tabletop.

Or maybe they make it as a "Emperor class Star Battlecruiser", (totally didn't just make that up) that has a fleet command, and then have the Pride as a title that messes with something. Maybe activations, or maybe like a Tantive-IV on steroids.

11 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

For me, this still comes across into the Game design space as: "Okay, if it is going to be used and placed in the game - how will it be treated in such a way that its obscurity doesn't overpower the Iconic Ubiquitousness of the Imperial Star Destroyer in the same design space?"

Its perhaps less of a challenge than the Tector - since at least visually from above, it would be at least somewhat different... But beyond, y'know, basically slapping Fleet Command on a Star Destroyer - what else would it accomplish?

Slapping Fleet Command on a really big fat Star Destroyer would be awesome. I'm all about it!

Beyond that, I'm not giving design space too much thought. I'm thinking sales space. The Empire needs something of large scale to weigh up against the 2:1 large-ship ratio that the Rebellion perversely enjoys right now (soon to be 3:1 with the MC-75).

2 minutes ago, pwnertrainee said:

I feel that gameplay wise they could have a place. The Pride would have a fleet command and the Tector would likely be tankier with less squadrons. Whether or not that is enough differentiation to make them interesting is debatable.

My main issue is that the model itself would be pretty much the same as the ISD. Which could lead to some confusion On the tabletop.

We know what the command tower looks like, but we know very little about the ship's main hull. Sure, it will be a pizza slice of some sort, but it may be a variation on the standard ISD-shaped hull. Also, they could use that darker/bluer hue of paint that they've used for some of the Imperial fighters in X-Wing.

Just now, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Beyond that, I'm not giving design space too much thought. I'm thinking sales space. The Empire needs something of large scale to weigh up against the 2:1 large-ship ratio that the Rebellion perversely enjoys right now (soon to be 3:1 with the MC-75).

That is a very negative assumption. Sounds like you still need more Coffee.

Especially since the basic Imperial Star Destroyer Frame is still better than all of those in the Game for its Points... I struggle so much dealing with ISDs.

(and from a sales perspective, more expensive, too... Why dilute the iconic seller? )

If it was something new and interesting, from a design perspective in game - then I'm more on board, for sure... An ISD with an Interdictor's Firepower as a tradeoff for that fleet Command... That sort of thing.

45 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

An ISD with an Interdictor's Firepower as a tradeoff for that fleet Command...

*shivers*

No ship with a large base should be cursed so...

The Empire don't really need the Fleet Commands, either... But that'd be a price to pay for it.

Empire can have fleet command when Rebels have grav wells, IMHO.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

That is a very negative assumption. Sounds like you still need more Coffee.

I struggle so much dealing with ISDs.

If I have any more coffee, I might start spelling it "covfefe". Let's not go there.

You don't struggle with ISDs, you struggle with octohedrons.

11 minutes ago, FoaS said:

Empire can have fleet command when Rebels have grav wells, IMHO.

You are a member of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take him away!

As a command ship it should get two fleet command upgrades. The Rebels should get nothing!

2 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

You don't struggle with ISDs, you struggle with octohedrons.

You are a member of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take him away!

As a command ship it should get two fleet command upgrades. The Rebels should get nothing!

The more you Tighten your Grip, the more Systems slip through your fingers...

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

The more you Tighten your Grip, the more Systems slip through your fingers...

Then, when they fall to the ground, I shall stomp on them.

21 minutes ago, FoaS said:

Empire can have fleet command when Rebels have grav wells, IMHO.

Actually, the Pride will have shields that go to 6, and have a whole suite of fleet command upgrade cards that say 'Empire only'.

Now, where's my covfefe?

Black; no sugar. Dark Side covfefe.

While I've seen arguments that the Avenger is atypically small, and that normal ISD-Is and ISD-IIs are much larger (and thus, having towers the same size as the proposed Pride of Tarlandia tower), in the context of the newcanon we can say that the Avenger is the same size as other ISDs - and that the proposed Pride of Tarlandia tower looks a bit larger than the Avengers.

From a "conservation of detail" perspective, it makes sense to me, that the atypically large tower, belong to the one battlecruiser confirmed to be present at Endor in the newcanon.

I would suggest that the battlecruiser's class be Praetor (since they got brought into the newcanon with Complete Locations (updated version) ) - Echo Base has a Praetor reactor powering it.

Pride of Tarlandia sounds like a LARP group.

Never heard of this before.

I must say...lolz.

The ship has a command structure EXACTLY the shape of an ISD. Only HUGE.

I think I'll just pretend I never noticed 8didn't before now) and call it another ISD.

It's not as if this is the first time the SW films got scaling wrong.

Geh. Unless there's something obviously different about the ship, like the Tector, I don't think that command tower belongs to the Pride. Unless there's clear evidence to the contrary, that's just another Imperial.

5 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Never heard of this before.

I must say...lolz.

The ship has a command structure EXACTLY the shape of an ISD. Only HUGE.

Or rather - it's exactly the same as the Executor's - only with extra greebles. The ISD-II has slightly different detailing on its tower. That said, given that it was a much smaller model - a case could be made that models only imperfectly represent what the ship looks like - and two different towers can be the same ship.

23 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

If I have any more coffee, I might start spelling it "covfefe". Let's not go there.

You don't struggle with ISDs, you struggle with octohedrons.

You are a member of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take him away!

As a command ship it should get two fleet command upgrades. The Rebels should get nothing!

We're Rebels! We'll steal your fleet commands the second you turn your back, along with anything else that isn't bolted down