52 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Large scale shields are a thing in Star Wars that would prevent that. You also have collateral damage to think of since a lot of the strategic worlds were populated.

I am pretty sure he is talking about genenosis and the battle there

13 minutes ago, Cleto0 said:

I am pretty sure he is talking about genenosis and the battle there

I mean, take your pick, there are dozens of examples. Edit: And even if there were a planetary shield, that’s the only important target, since once that goes orbital bombardment is an attrition free way of annihilating an opponent.

53 minutes ago, Derrault said:

I mean, take your pick, there are dozens of examples. Edit: And even if there were a planetary shield, that’s the only important target, since once that goes orbital bombardment is an attrition free way of annihilating an opponent.

Geonosis was inhabited by billions of geonosians, not all of which were enemy combatants.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Geonosis

They also had shield generators capable of withstanding orbital bombardment.

Even without having to jump through logic hoops, the real reason the ground battles happen is because they look cooler than some guy in a ship giving the order to press a button. They make for a better story that fits the pulp sci-fi aesthetic.

41 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Geonosis was inhabited by billions of geonosians, not all of which were enemy combatants.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Geonosis

They also had shield generators capable of withstanding orbital bombardment.

Even without having to jump through logic hoops, the real reason the ground battles happen is because they look cooler than some guy in a ship giving the order to press a button. They make for a better story that fits the pulp sci-fi aesthetic.

Justified ones certainly do, as is the case in ESB and RotJ. Not so much in most Clone Wars scenarios.

Edit: And according to the clone Wars it’s a Hive Society controlled by a Queen.

6 hours ago, Derrault said:

Exactly, it’s like when the Jedi decide to do some kind of ground campaign across half a planet instead of obliterating droids with orbital bombardment.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the last 50 years or so has taught us that it's not possible to defeat an insurgency with aerial bombardment.

On 3/29/2019 at 9:38 AM, DreadPiratGinger said:

Despite possessing little cunning or tactical intelligence, these droids march heedlessly forward to crush any resistance through raw attrition alone. Mindlessly loyal and eminently expendable, the Separatist Alliance has few qualms about sacrificing endless waves of B1 Battle Droids to subdue a planet.

I am super excited about the opportunity to play these guys, I just happened upon a curious thought. While I am sure it is a balance issue, does anyone else find it curious that the B1's actually have a Courage value? Given their description, I would have thought that their courage would have at least been 2-3 if not a -.

Thoughts?

I don't think anyone that's seen Episode 1 or watched the Clone Wars finds it curious that B1s have a courage value and a low one at that.

10 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

Yeah I'm pretty sure the last 50 years or so has taught us that it's not possible to defeat an insurgency with aerial bombardment.

Respectfully, I wouldn’t exactly put aerial bombardment in the same category as orbital.

Nor does the Battle droids methodology remotely count as an insurgency.

Thirdly, you’re mixing up two things; one that no war has been won purely through air power (true enough, although that requires overflight and munitions; arguably orb bombardment with laser weapons does not) and that insurgencies aren’t typically defeated militarily. The latter is actually not true, as many examples exist of insurgencies that were ultimately crushed through pure military force (albeit in areas with well defined geographies; aka islands)

16 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Large scale shields are a thing in Star Wars that would prevent that. You also have collateral damage to think of since a lot of the strategic worlds were populated.

Yep, and that's literally the reason why the war bogs down into the Outer Rim sieges; Seps hole up in strategic worlds with foundries, protected by shields, and force the GAR to go in after them.

15 hours ago, Cleto0 said:

I am pretty sure he is talking about genenosis and the battle there

A distinct lack of a naval presence there would probably explain that away. Before Disney's tweaking of the timeline, there were no Venators at the first battle of Geonosis, and Acclamators were used to get troops to the ground. While they were later used as assault ships/cruisers, there's no reason to believe that they were ready and organized to do so right off the bat at Geonosis. The lack of fighter cover for capital warships would also play a factor, as only the Jedi had starfighters at that point. The V-19 wasn't introduced until after Geonosis. Geonosis also makes sense when you factor in both sides' objectives. The Republic wanted to destroy the foundries and capture Dooku, while the CIS initially tried to protect the foundries, and later just to escape with as much hardware as possible. Neither side can accomplish that with an orbital bombardment, especially with the ships they had available.

Orbital bombardments, much like Naval bombardments, or aerial bombardments (strategic or tactical) really depend on a case by case basis for their effectiveness.

Thanks for the replies all. I completely understand and agree that the characterization of the B1's within the movies and shows presents them in a comedic light of ineptitude. That being said, over the course of Episodes 1-3, there were a couple of battles where waves of these guys marched straight into combat, often suffering waves of losses and not showing any signs of retreat.

I'm also willing to say that what works in scripted media doesn't typically pan out too well in a competitive miniatures combat game.

We do not have full information on how these will work on the table, so all of this is so much speculation.

They will probably fielded with 8 models for somewhere around 60 points or so (36 for the base unit, 6 for the extra droid, I'm guessing that the missile launcher model will be around 18 points, (3x base cost)). Out of 800 points, a full 6 units of them will occupy 360ish points of your army, leaving a lot of points left over for other things. Cheap large units is GREAT! They will probably be the only faction that actually considers the 6 Troop cap a restriction, giving them a LOT of activations each turn.

While they do have large individual unit sizes, what does this actually give you strategically? The larger unit size will make getting them into cover more difficult. One of the reasons I find the Courage factor curious is how it would interact with AI: Attack. Assume that they were not issued an order, and with probably 4-6 units of them on the field I doubt that there will be enough orders, and that they do not succeed in removing all of their suppression tokens when they Rally (which given a white defense dice, no surges, and probably a large unit making cover harder they won't be that hard to shoot). They would then have 1 action during their activation that they must use to Attack if able, meaning that they would have no opportunity to Recover. Unless something else effected them, this could potentially continue indefinitely, as long as there are targets available. I shudder to think what would happen if some crafty rebel sniped the missile launcher then posted an AT-RT in front of them.

Now if they were immune to suppression, the unit above would still have to spend their first action to attack, but could then Recover and get back into the fight.

I'll be the first to say that what we DO NOT know currently far out weighs what we DO know. At first glance having droves of these guys on the table looks nice, but it could be as much of a liability as a benefit.

2 hours ago, DreadPiratGinger said:

Thanks for the replies all. I completely understand and agree that the characterization of the B1's within the movies and shows presents them in a comedic light of ineptitude. That being said, over the course of Episodes 1-3, there were a couple of battles where waves of these guys marched straight into combat, often suffering waves of losses and not showing any signs of retreat.

I'm also willing to say that what works in scripted media doesn't typically pan out too well in a competitive miniatures combat game.

We do not have full information on how these will work on the table, so all of this is so much speculation.

They will probably fielded with 8 models for somewhere around 60 points or so (36 for the base unit, 6 for the extra droid, I'm guessing that the missile launcher model will be around 18 points, (3x base cost)). Out of 800 points, a full 6 units of them will occupy 360ish points of your army, leaving a lot of points left over for other things. Cheap large units is GREAT! They will probably be the only faction that actually considers the 6 Troop cap a restriction, giving them a LOT of activations each turn.

While they do have large individual unit sizes, what does this actually give you strategically? The larger unit size will make getting them into cover more difficult. One of the reasons I find the Courage factor curious is how it would interact with AI: Attack. Assume that they were not issued an order, and with probably 4-6 units of them on the field I doubt that there will be enough orders, and that they do not succeed in removing all of their suppression tokens when they Rally (which given a white defense dice, no surges, and probably a large unit making cover harder they won't be that hard to shoot). They would then have 1 action during their activation that they must use to Attack if able, meaning that they would have no opportunity to Recover. Unless something else effected them, this could potentially continue indefinitely, as long as there are targets available. I shudder to think what would happen if some crafty rebel sniped the missile launcher then posted an AT-RT in front of them.

Now if they were immune to suppression, the unit above would still have to spend their first action to attack, but could then Recover and get back into the fight.

I'll be the first to say that what we DO NOT know currently far out weighs what we DO know. At first glance having droves of these guys on the table looks nice, but it could be as much of a liability as a benefit.

I think that's why they have coordinate (beyond the thematic reasons). If you position them in a range 1 chain, issuing orders to one will give ALL of them orders, which allows you to circumvent AI. It will be truly terrifying.

With all of the face up order token mechanics I'm thinking that Pin Down will start looking more appealing to Imperials

21 hours ago, DreadPiratGinger said:

Now if they were immune to suppression, the unit above would still have to spend their first action to attack, but could then Recover and get back into the fight.

Gungans will be immune to suppression - saving it for them

We do know that after the battle of Naboo, the Trade Federation entirely changed how their droid armies worked and were programmed. Each droid after that had its own tactical computer and could function independently. A side effect of this are the quirky personalities which are shown in the Clone Wars show.

Another side effect of this could be that the droids actually have enough self-awareness to feel fear, or at least have enough self preservation programming to result in a similar effect.

So Droids from before the Battle of Naboo might have had a Courage value of -. But afterwards they gained a courage value of 1.

On 3/30/2019 at 4:49 PM, KommanderKeldoth said:

Geonosis was inhabited by billions of geonosians, not all of which were enemy combatants.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Geonosis

They also had shield generators capable of withstanding orbital bombardment.

Even without having to jump through logic hoops, the real reason the ground battles happen is because they look cooler than some guy in a ship giving the order to press a button. They make for a better story that fits the pulp sci-fi aesthetic.

Ground battles can also be necessary to achieve your goals. Not all goals can be achieved by bombarding a planet to dust from total safety.

Neither the Republic nor the CIS wants to just destroy planets. They want to occupy and rule them after the war. If you just orbital bombard everything you're not going to have anything left when you win. The same applies to the Empire and the Rebellion/New Republic.

The only times we see orbital bombardment get used or mentioned in the background are cases where the planet was/is of no value to one side. Taris was leveled because killing Bastila was more important than keeping that planet for the Sith. The Empire was willing to bombard Hoth because its a worthless ball of ice, but that pesky shield was in the way and Vader would probably have said "No! Skywalker is with them!".

On 3/31/2019 at 9:59 AM, Alpha17 said:

Yep, and that's literally the reason why the war bogs down into the Outer Rim sieges; Seps hole up in strategic worlds with foundries, protected by shields, and force the GAR to go in after them.

A distinct lack of a naval presence there would probably explain that away. Before Disney's tweaking of the timeline, there were no Venators at the first battle of Geonosis, and Acclamators were used to get troops to the ground. While they were later used as assault ships/cruisers, there's no reason to believe that they were ready and organized to do so right off the bat at Geonosis. The lack of fighter cover for capital warships would also play a factor, as only the Jedi had starfighters at that point. The V-19 wasn't introduced until after Geonosis. Geonosis also makes sense when you factor in both sides' objectives. The Republic wanted to destroy the foundries and capture Dooku, while the CIS initially tried to protect the foundries, and later just to escape with as much hardware as possible. Neither side can accomplish that with an orbital bombardment, especially with the ships they had available.

Orbital bombardments, much like Naval bombardments, or aerial bombardments (strategic or tactical) really depend on a case by case basis for their effectiveness.

Yeah but that’s the whole point, if there’s a planetary shield that’s the only target with any strategic significance; the factories make no difference until the shield is down, and once it is, it’s far less resources to destroy from orbit.

6 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Ground battles can also be necessary to achieve your goals. Not all goals can be achieved by bombarding a planet to dust from total safety.

Neither the Republic nor the CIS wants to just destroy planets. They want to occupy and rule them after the war. If you just orbital bombard everything you're not going to have anything left when you win. The same applies to the Empire and the Rebellion/New Republic.

The only times we see orbital bombardment get used or mentioned in the background are cases where the planet was/is of no value to one side. Taris was leveled because killing Bastila was more important than keeping that planet for the Sith. The Empire was willing to bombard Hoth because its a worthless ball of ice, but that pesky shield was in the way and Vader would probably have said "No! Skywalker is with them!".

I think you misunderstand what bombardment entails. It’s not saturating the planet, ala the Death Star firing a single reactor, but instead a small scale highly targeted blast.

They even do this in Empire at War whenever you have a cap ship in orbit. Once the shields are down, basically unlimited cannon fire can mop the floor with enemy ground forces.

1 hour ago, Derrault said:

Yeah but that’s the whole point, if there’s a planetary shield that’s the only target with any strategic significance; the factories make no difference until the shield is down, and once it is, it’s far less resources to destroy from orbit.

I think you misunderstand what bombardment entails. It’s not saturating the planet, ala the Death Star firing a single reactor, but instead a small scale highly targeted blast.

They even do this in Empire at War whenever you have a cap ship in orbit. Once the shields are down, basically unlimited cannon fire can mop the floor with enemy ground forces.

However orbital bombard is of limited effectiveness in situations where the targets are hardened or buried deep enough, or where the factories in addition have their own more limited shields in addition to the planetary shield.

It's also only portrayed in canon as about as accurate as grid bombardment by artillery in the real world. Sure, you can eliminate a target, but you'll also destroy anything else nearby. So if the military target is the middle of a civilian population on Ryloth, a targeted ground attack should result in fewer civilian casualties.

8 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

However orbital bombard is of limited effectiveness in situations where the targets are hardened or buried deep enough, or where the factories in addition have their own more limited shields in addition to the planetary shield.

It's also only portrayed in canon as about as accurate as grid bombardment by artillery in the real world. Sure, you can eliminate a target, but you'll also destroy anything else nearby. So if the military target is the middle of a civilian population on Ryloth, a targeted ground attack should result in fewer civilian casualties.

Or you do what was done in WWII, firebomb the village, and cave in all the entrances entombing the enemy.

14 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Or you do what was done in WWII, firebomb the village, and cave in all the entrances entombing the enemy.

Which doesn't work as well against subterranean and semi-subterranean species, such as the Geonosians.

1 minute ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Which doesn't work as well against subterranean and semi-subterranean species, such as the Geonosians.

I mean, they did commit genocide against the geonosians anyway, but it is pretty clear there wasn’t any kind of energy shield there.

1 hour ago, Derrault said:

I mean, they did commit genocide against the geonosians anyway, but it is pretty clear there wasn’t any kind of energy shield there.

That was after the Empire enslaved them to build the start of the Death Star. They killed them all to keep the project top secret.

The republic couldn't afford to use such brutal tactics and not alienate more member states into joining the CIS, it's one of the reasons Anakin and Tarkin were frustrated with how the war was being run.

On 3/30/2019 at 1:39 AM, Derrault said:

Because neither Anakin nor Obiwan, who are the dominant focus of the first few seasons, have the slightest bit of Charisma, and worse, they (and really just all the Jedi except perhaps Ahsoka and this one older detective gent who sadly only gets a single episode) are incredibly stupid relative to many of the other characters, including the clones themselves.

Like, Grievous defeating a Jedi...any Jedi makes zero sense on the face of it, they can literally hold him still in the air (or throw, or theoretically rip in half) with their minds.

When Maul and Oppress break out of prison on Mandalore and pretty much slaughter everything in their paths using nothing more than the force (push, choke, crush) it puts the whole situation into stark contrast. Non-force users should have essentially zero chance of defeating a Jedi who can see them, but it’s routinely, and absurdly, portrayed as an even fight of some kind.

On 3/30/2019 at 10:31 AM, Derrault said:

Yeah, but that doesn’t hold up if the opponent isn’t ‘also’ a force user, and they routinely portray that by the Jedi tossing Grievious (and others) around like paper toys.

The Jedi are still human (alien) and one thing they touch on in the series is that the force requires concentration. Grievious is shown to use terror tactics to unnerve his opponents or use his Magnaguard to distract them. Notice the only Jedi to best him were able to stay grounded while all those that he killed he did so by scaring or tricking.

19 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

That was after the Empire enslaved them to build the start of the Death Star. They killed them all to keep the project top secret.

The republic couldn't afford to use such brutal tactics and not alienate more member states into joining the CIS, it's one of the reasons Anakin and Tarkin were frustrated with how the war was being run.

I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but neither the show nor the movies make it particularly clear exactly what is motivating the separatists.

There’s some vague mentions of corruption in the Republic, but that just begets even more questions when you see in the show that there’s a parallel Separatist Senate. Like, if that’s really the motivating factor, what systems, if any, would the Separatists not welcome? Ie could the entire Republic “defect” individually to the Separatists, ending the war instantly?

And if that’s not the case, and the entire Republic War effort consists of: Clones + Jedi, and the Senate is paying entirely with credit, what exactly are the individual

44 minutes ago, Tealadin said:

The Jedi are still human (alien) and one thing they touch on in the series is that the force requires concentration. Grievious is shown to use terror tactics to unnerve his opponents or use his Magnaguard to distract them. Notice the only Jedi to best him were able to stay grounded while all those that he killed he did so by scaring or tricking.

I mean, we see them doing all sorts of force powers under duress, so I don’t really buy into this when it comes to trained Jedi.

There’s no reason at all for a Jedi to plow into a lightsaber battle with Grievous, and that they do is inconsistent with their demonstrated abilities to simply levitate things.

On 4/1/2019 at 1:56 PM, DreadPiratGinger said:

They will probably fielded with 8 models for somewhere around 60 points or so (36 for the base unit, 6 for the extra droid, I'm guessing that the missile launcher model will be around 18 points, (3x base cost)). Out of 800 points, a full 6 units of them will occupy 360ish points of your army, leaving a lot of points left over for other things. Cheap large units is GREAT! They will probably be the only faction that actually considers the 6 Troop cap a restriction, giving them a LOT of activations each turn.

While they do have large individual unit sizes, what does this actually give you strategically? The larger unit size will make getting them into cover more difficult. One of the reasons I find the Courage factor curious is how it would interact with AI: Attack. Assume that they were not issued an order, and with probably 4-6 units of them on the field I doubt that there will be enough orders, and that they do not succeed in removing all of their suppression tokens when they Rally (which given a white defense dice, no surges, and probably a large unit making cover harder they won't be that hard to shoot). They would then have 1 action during their activation that they must use to Attack if able, meaning that they would have no opportunity to Recover. Unless something else effected them, this could potentially continue indefinitely, as long as there are targets available. I shudder to think what would happen if some crafty rebel sniped the missile launcher then posted an AT-RT in front of them.

Now if they were immune to suppression, the unit above would still have to spend their first action to attack, but could then Recover and get back into the fight.

I'll be the first to say that what we DO NOT know currently far out weighs what we DO know. At first glance having droves of these guys on the table looks nice, but it could be as much of a liability as a benefit.

A few things.

1) Large, cheap units means you have more bodies to protect your special weapons. Your special weapons will be doing the heavy lifting for the squad.

2) Unupgraded base, these guys are better at shooting at vehicles than the other faction troopers. You only need a crit, and Droids roll the most for the cheapest amount.

On 4/3/2019 at 4:17 PM, Derrault said:

There’s some vague mentions of corruption in the Republic, but that just begets even more questions when you see in the show that there’s a parallel Separatist Senate. Like, if that’s really the motivating factor, what systems, if any, would the Separatists not welcome? Ie could the entire Republic “defect” individually to the Separatists, ending the war instantly?

I honestly think that Palpatine's plan originally was to be the one who started the CIS directly and publicly.

Vallorum wasn't going to be able to do anything about the Trade Federation, but Amidala was supposed to be dead or on Naboo when the time came to act in the Senate.
I don't think he would have won a no confidence o his own. But the young beautiful and well spoken queen who just escaped captivity and stood up to the chancellor in front of the whole senate changed the plan.

45 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

I honestly think that Palpatine's plan originally was to be the one who started the CIS directly and publicly.

Vallorum wasn't going to be able to do anything about the Trade Federation, but Amidala was supposed to be dead or on Naboo when the time came to act in the Senate.
I don't think he would have won a no confidence o his own. But the young beautiful and well spoken queen who just escaped captivity and stood up to the chancellor in front of the whole senate changed the plan.

I mean, the plan as it was: to run both sides of things and cause massive attrition of the Jedi order, while creating emergencies to justify concentrating power in Palpatine’s hands makes sense on its own merits.

The only real danger from Palpatine’s perspective would have been that the Republic win too early, or worse, the CIS be too successful, and Dooku seeing an opportunity to become the one Sith, finishes Palpatine off.

The cartoon series featured a few moments where Palpatine definitely could have died (giant monster episode, a few times when he was knocked unconscious, some large scale explosions, and some ship to ship battle). Force users are by far at their most vulnerable in fleet combat

IMO the seperatist movement in star wars is basically the us civil war if it was about state rights only and had nothing to do with slavery. Add in some corruption and boom, you’re done