Since I'm suffering from Armada news withdraw I started brainstorming other unique huge ships and I started thinking about the mobile firing arcs from X-wing. My current thought (still early stage) would be that the first order dreadnought has an extra dice pool that can be added to any one of it's arcs to represent its siege cannon. You would declare this arc with a token (ala EWS) after your navigation step. Then it could come with a title Fulminatrix: You may spend a concentrate fire dial to change your siege cannon's arc.

Is this to easy to use? To hard? Would it be better to have the siege cannon rotate only with any concentrate fire command (token or dial)? I want to add a predictive gambling element but I'm unsure when to enable cannon rotation. Any feedback would be appreciated I think this is a cool concept for a huge ship since it will have 6 arcs to pick from and likely be assaulted from multiple sides.

I hated this ship/scene in TLJ but this is a cool idea. Let’s ignore Poe’s ability to knock down every turret single handedly, I think this ship should have strong ant-fighter batteries but only moderate shields, and I think it’s turret weapon should be four Red dice, but it’s hull arcs no more than 3-4 dice on the front arc and 1-3 on the sides/back. You have a long range bruiser that can hold its own against fighters but struggled when ships get too close.

I absolutely 100% agree it needs a limited turret like 2.0 x-wing, not the always 360 arc cheese from x-wing 1.0.

And I’d probably give it 0-1 squadron rating max.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was originally thinking to make it weak against squadrons because thematically that is how it dies, but that could make it pretty frustrating to play with if there was so much riding on your opponents list having squadrons or not. I was thinking almost exactly the same for your other suggestions with the exception of the moderate shields which I think is a great idea. With the huge ships power to get a dial + token a lower shield value combined with a higher repair value could put you in a tough spot when deciding commands as you struggle with your low maneuverability, desire to kill, and need to bring those shields back up so your opponent doesn't start chewing through your hull.

7 hours ago, sabsben said:

Thanks for the suggestions. I was originally thinking to make it weak against squadrons because thematically that is how it dies, but that could make it pretty frustrating to play with if there was so much riding on your opponents list having squadrons or not. I was thinking almost exactly the same for your other suggestions with the exception of the moderate shields which I think is a great idea. With the huge ships power to get a dial + token a lower shield value combined with a higher repair value could put you in a tough spot when deciding commands as you struggle with your low maneuverability, desire to kill, and need to bring those shields back up so your opponent doesn't start chewing through your hull.

We’ll see I would say that thematically it was very strong against squadrons, Poe just had cheese-tastic plot armour. It had plenty of anti-fighter turrets to the point they didn’t feel the need to have an active fighter defence. It’s a horribly written scene in a horribly written movie. ? . Still like the idea though! ?

You could give it a low battery armament on all sides, then have the "turret" armament add its own collection of dice to the battery for one of its attacks. You'll always have a strong attack, and one mediocre at best.

Since this would make its rear powerful for the disengagement phase, I'd say having no anti squad on armament should be a nice, thematic way of balancing.

Or: make it an experimental retrofit. If you equip it, you can't have another experimental equipped. Give life to our dear combat interdictor...

Maybe no battery armament at all and only a single very powerful anti-ship ( a Neb or a CR90 killer ) burst every two rounds ?

However very strong squadron defense ( even with Poe in mind )

14 hours ago, Bakura83 said:

We’ll see I would say that thematically it was very strong against squadrons, Poe just had cheese-tastic plot armour.

Haha so thematically an all black armament. Strong in theory but useless against aces with plot armor (Scatter).

10 hours ago, BillHimclaw said:

Or: make it an experimental retrofit. If you equip it, you can't have another experimental equipped. Give life to our dear combat interdictor...

I was just going to create a new special slot. But the Dreadnought does looks like a giant Interdictor (of sorts) and this blends more seemlessly into the game.

9 hours ago, LostFleet said:

Maybe no battery armament at all and only a single very powerful anti-ship ( a Neb or a CR90 killer ) burst every two rounds ?

This got me thinking. If the single arc is too strong (as it might be with three attacks). It could steal another X-wing idea and “target lock” a ship. You’d only get the die for 1 attack but it would be more reliable while still giving your opponent the chance to run for the hills.

In another topic we discussed a new line of upgrades called artillery which would in theory solve many of the problems

On 11/7/2018 at 2:46 PM, Bakura83 said:

I hated this ship/scene in TLJ but this is a cool idea. Let’s ignore Poe’s ability to knock down every turret single handedly.

Why have a problem with that in the Force Awakens he made like 15 kills in the space of a minute or two? Based on that killing all the point defense turrets on a dreadnought is well within his skill range.

1 hour ago, chr335 said:

In another topic we discussed a new line of upgrades called artillery which would in theory solve many of the problems

Why have a problem with that in the Force Awakens he made like 15 kills in the space of a minute or two? Based on that killing all the point defense turrets on a dreadnought is well within his skill range.

The ship is ridiculous. Ships that size should have thousands of small anti-squadron lasers scattered all over its hull, not 6 or so gigantic turrets that can apparently easily be taken out by a single fighter. Then there is the obvious issue with the very exposed and thus vulnerable mega-cannons that do not have any firing arc to enemy vessels being above the massive superstructure at closer ranges, and they are not exactly rapid-firing either. They also seem to fire fairly slow projectiles meaning enemy ships can dodge them at long range. In fact what does this ship actually do that a bunch of normal ISD's for half the cost cannot do? I mean the impacts on the rebel base were not that impressive, for the size of the ship and the cannons I'd have expected continent-sized shockwaves or something.

1 hour ago, Lord Tareq said:

The ship is ridiculous. Ships that size should have thousands of small anti-squadron lasers scattered all over its hull, not 6 or so gigantic turrets that can apparently easily be taken out by a single fighter. Then there is the obvious issue with the very exposed and thus vulnerable mega-cannons that do not have any firing arc to enemy vessels being above the massive superstructure at closer ranges, and they are not exactly rapid-firing either. They also seem to fire fairly slow projectiles meaning enemy ships can dodge them at long range. In fact what does this ship actually do that a bunch of normal ISD's for half the cost cannot do? I mean the impacts on the rebel base were not that impressive, for the size of the ship and the cannons I'd have expected continent-sized shockwaves or something.

The cannons can apparently bust through some planetary defensive shields. Basically seige weapons for planetary assualt that works on ships too

1 minute ago, chr335 said:

The cannons can apparently bust through some planetary defensive shields. Basically seige weapons for planetary assualt that works on ships too

And this is an important concept to note, because its noted in canon that planetary shields completely block orbital bombardment otherwise.

(However, Planetary shields are not to be confused with regional shields, such as DS-11s)

2 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

And this is an important concept to note, because its noted in canon that planetary shields completely block orbital bombardment otherwise.

(However, Planetary shields are not to be confused with regional shields, such as DS-11s)

Even regional shields could be tough as the rebels on Hoth had a shield strong enough to stand up to 6 ISDs and an SSD indefinitely (per General Veers)