So I have seen people replacing their Auzituck Gunship model with Republic Gunship models. I have also heard people complain that there is no side gunner on a U-wing.

So consider the following: If they were to release a Rebel/Imperial Low Altitude Assault Transport expansion, they could have a side gunner crew involving turret upgrades that cost 3 or less for ion cannons that could only be put on it and the U-wing. They could even introduce atmospheric mechanics to regular play with such an expansion. This would be easy to do because we already have the Auzituck Gunship as a reference.

I would say that the stats would be:

2 Attack 180 Auxiliary Firing Arc

1 Agility

5 Hull

4 Shields

Focus, Target Lock, Reinforce

Missile, Missile, Crew, Crew

Base Cost 26

Dial like the Auzituck Gunship, but no 5 straight, add the 0 stop maneuver.

The lowered attack value is to compensate with the new upgrade slots and it matches the lore too. The pack would likely come with Unguided Rockets to fill it's two missile slots. The hull and shield values reflect the ships integrity.

What do you think?

Yeah, that stat line makes a lot of sense! I might remove the missile slots though, and add the following titles:

LAAT/i

LAAT only. Title.

Cost 0

You may equip one [cannon] upgrade, reducing its cost by two (to a minimum of zero). You may perform secondary weapon attacks from your auxiliary arcs. You may not perform secondary weapon attacks from your primary arc.

LAAT/c

LAAT only. Title.

Cost 3

Reduce your agility value by one. Increase your hull value by three. Your upgrade bar gains two [missile] slots. You may not perform attacks from your auxiliary arcs.

Edit: the LAAT/c title isn't particularly thematically correct, it's just the best way to handle the LAAT/c in this game. The better way to do it would be this:

Reduce your agility and attack values by one. Increase your hull value by three. You may not perform attacks from your auxiliary arcs. Once per game, at the end of the activation phase, you may place an AT-TE token on an obstacle at range 1.

AT-TE token reference card: at the start of the activation phase, choose one ship at range 1-3 of this token. Perform a three-dice attack against that ship. No dice may be modified during this attack.

Maybe it could come with a wingtip gunner crew similar to this:

Wingtip Gunner, 7 points.

LAAT only, limited

After you perform an attack, you may perform a primary weapon attack against another ship (even a ship outside your firing arc).

18 minutes ago, GLEXOR said:

Maybe it could come with a wingtip gunner crew similar to this:

Wingtip Gunner, 7 points.

LAAT only, limited

After you perform an attack, you may perform a primary weapon attack against another ship (even a ship outside your firing arc).

What about an upgrade that could apply to the U-wing too?

I want a LAAT soooo bad, Disney seems to be moving away from the prequels, and FFG seems they rather go with lesser know ships, so I am not holding my breath

I am not sure they have conventional shields, only containment shields for traversing from space to atmosphere. Anyone with more info on this?

I don't seem to remember them ever being used in space at all. In the clonewars show they wouldn't be deployed until the troopship entered the atmosphere. So I'm not sure they'd even have atmosphere containment fields, though they probably did have a way to seal and pressurize for lower pressure atmosphere/high altitude use.

38 minutes ago, DB Draft said:

I am not sure they have conventional shields, only containment shields for traversing from space to atmosphere. Anyone with more info on this?

Wookieepedia says according to legends they had containment shields, said nothing about regular shields. However the part canon says nothing. It could have shields or could not. We don't know. But FFG has no problem with adding shields for balance reasons (TIE Aggressor).

35 minutes ago, mithril2098 said:

I don't seem to remember them ever being used in space at all. In the clonewars show they wouldn't be deployed until the troopship entered the atmosphere. So I'm not sure they'd even have atmosphere containment fields, though they probably did have a way to seal and pressurize for lower pressure atmosphere/high altitude use.

3 hours ago, AwesomeJedi said:

They could even introduce atmospheric mechanics to regular play with such an expansion.

9 hours ago, mithril2098 said:

I don't seem to remember them ever being used in space at all. In the clonewars show they wouldn't be deployed until the troopship entered the atmosphere. So I'm not sure they'd even have atmosphere containment fields, though they probably did have a way to seal and pressurize for lower pressure atmosphere/high altitude use.

Citadel Rescue - LAAT gunships launch, and fly through a CIS fleet blockade, from Venator destroyers outside the atmosphere.

They are never shown as having shields, though, and I'm not sure reinforce is justified.

A weapon that can only fire from the aux arc, not the primary arc, is nice for the 'side guns'.

Given the lower primary value, maybe make it able to fire both the 'side guns' and the primary/missiles?

That's a LAAT of hooey

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Citadel Rescue - LAAT gunships launch, and fly through a CIS fleet blockade, from Venator destroyers outside the atmosphere.

Yes, but the Cartoon got about everything wrong, including the capability of the LAAT. LA actually stands for Low Altitude . The republic gunship is a type of airspeeder, like the t-47s in ESB, the Original v-wing (the one in Rogue Squadron for the N64, which came out way before RotS), and the t-16 SkyHopper.

19 minutes ago, GLEXOR said:

Yes, but the Cartoon got about everything wrong, including the capability of the LAAT. LA actually stands for Low Altitude . The republic gunship is a type of airspeeder, like the t-47s in ESB, the Original v-wing (the one in Rogue Squadron for the N64, which came out way before RotS), and the t-16 SkyHopper.

Perhaps, but:

• The Clone Wars animation is 'officialy sanctioned' and hence they retroactively can do that and always could, whether they previously could or not (best not think about that too closely unless you want things to get a bit timey-wimey).
• The TIE/sk Striker is an atmospheric specialist ship, but is also recognised as having a void capability as well (hence the Flyby-of-the-Death-Star artwork of the Imperial Trainee)

....Wombles off to look this up.

Aha. Apparently both is correct:

Quote

Early LAAT were in-atmosphere-only vehicles, requiring cruisers to land somewhere on the planet in order to launch. Although, with their range, it was common practice for cruisers to dip into the atmosphere, let the LAAT fly to the target zone, and be gone before combat even started. Later versions allowed it to fly through space and actually be used for boarding in ship-to-ship battles.

Quote

Later versions of the LAAT/i removed the gunnery balls for forward doors, allowing them to drop from an orbital cruiser, instead of needing the cruiser to enter the atmosphere, allowing for much faster and stealthier troop deployment.

Which does marry up with what you see; any time you see LAAT operating in space in the Clone Wars series, it's gunship variants without the waist turrets. I always figured they just couldn't be bothered animating them.

25 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Perhaps, but:

• The Clone Wars animation is 'officialy sanctioned' and hence they retroactively can do that and always could, whether they previously could or not (best not think about that too closely unless you want things to get a bit timey-wimey).
• The TIE/sk Striker is an atmospheric specialist ship, but is also recognised as having a void capability as well (hence the Flyby-of-the-Death-Star artwork of the Imperial Trainee)

....Wombles off to look this up.

Aha. Apparently both is correct:

Which does marry up with what you see; any time you see LAAT operating in space in the Clone Wars series, it's gunship variants without the waist turrets. I always figured they just couldn't be bothered animating them.

The tie striker is on a different boat, it is a fighter designed for atmospheric and orbital use (like the Sabre from Halo: Reach, but with better launching capability), whereas, the four other craft cap out pretty low, for the t-47 and the V-wing, about 100m, and the others probably can't even exit the troposphere.

Halo: Reach is a trademark and or copyright of Bungie and or 343, with whom I am not affiliated.

I think LAAT's if included should be low cost and low health. In the movies it looks like they packed a punch but couldn't reallly take a hit.

plus if we do get them I'm gonna need to swarm then so I can show all all my nose art.

Redesigned the LAAT with more lore and using your suggestions.

2 Attack with Rear Facing Auxiliary Firing Arc Right

1 Agility

4 Hull

1 Shields

Focus, Target Lock

Crew, Crew, Missile, Missile

Base Cost 21

0 Stop, 1 Left Bank, 1 Straight, 1 Right Bank, 2 Left Turn, 2 Left Bank, 2 Straight, 2 Right Bank, 2 Left Turn, 3 Left Turn, 3 Left Bank, 3 Straight, 3 Right Bank, 3 Right Turn, 4 Straight

Gun Turrets

LAAT only. Modification.

You may perform primary weapon attacks outside of your primary and auxiliary firing arcs.

When attacking with a primary weapon from your primary firing arc, you may roll 1 additional attack die. If you do not, you may perform an additional attack outside of your primary and auxiliary firing arcs.

Cost: 3

Notes: The LAAT has a little gun on the back, hence the rear auxiliary firing arc. The bubble guns on the side and wings are now an option as a modification. You can use the wing guns to roll an extra die, or you can shot outside your firing arc with your side turrets.

I believe they should make this ship and release it in a wave with an Assault Gunboat. The theme of the wave could be lots of extra weapons.

On 07/08/2017 at 6:14 AM, AwesomeJedi said:

I have also heard people complain that there is no side gunner on a U-wing.

Door Gunner - Crew. 0 points

U Wing only

You may perform an attack to your left or right side. Before rolling die, discard your Pilot card an all upgrade cards associated with it as the cold vacuum of space makes you pay for your side gunner being stupid.

Not all mechanics in the movies can be translated to the game.

6 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Door Gunner - Crew. 0 points

U Wing only

You may perform an attack to your left or right side. Before rolling die, discard your Pilot card an all upgrade cards associated with it as the cold vacuum of space makes you pay for your side gunner being stupid.

Not all mechanics in the movies can be translated to the game.

Atmospheric containment is a thing in Star Wars. They have shields that can keep the air in, on a personal and ship basis.

And who cares, it's cool.

Also, who cares, it might make the U Wing not suck.

Also, K2-SO can survive in space

6 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Door Gunner - Crew. 0 points

U Wing only

You may perform an attack to your left or right side. Before rolling die, discard your Pilot card an all upgrade cards associated with it as the cold vacuum of space makes you pay for your side gunner being stupid.

Not all mechanics in the movies can be translated to the game.

Meanwhile, I shall use my ailerons to aid me in turning in said same cold vacuum of space.

It's star wars. Physics is highly optional and generally ridiculous.

Personally, I'm not a fan of 'door gunners', but it must be noted that semi-permeable atmosphere 'fields' are a thing in the universe.

3 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

...

And who cares, it's cool.

Also, who cares, it might make the U Wing not suck...

Another thing that could help the u-wing, change all instances of the word "after" on the title with the word "before", and add this to the (Landing) side "when you perform a 1-speed bank, you may treat it as a red S-loop of the same speed and direction". Still punishes you for turning around, but you don't signal your flip a turn in advance. All you do is lock in your stop or bank, reveal at the appointed time, flip the card, and turn around. Your agility is reduced for one turn after instead of one turn before. Makes you less predictable.

I've thought since the title was spoiled that it should work that way - i.e. you close your wings to land when you reveal your manoeuvre, not after you execute it, so you can close stop flip and be 1 AGI for the following round, rather than telegraphing it. It's virtually useless when you have to telegraph it