Hello good people of the Internet!
I've been browsing my extensive collection of custom ships and thought I might share yet another (and most likely final) concept for a certain vehicle in the canon, namely the Ginivex starfighter, just because I find this ship to be pretty creative in itself and it lends a lot of interesting design possibilities.
Note: Before we start though, I do have an important question first. Since I'm still new to the forums and I already posted some customs ideas, I hesitate to start a new topic each time as I don't mean to spam the forums with these, and there doesn't seem to be a dedicated subforum for such posts. So, do you guys know a better way of posting those custom ideas in an appropriate place (and perhaps collectively) while retaining the comment options? I really like doing these and it's fun to discuss ideas together, but as I said, I'd rather avoid overloading forums with something that the majority might be uninterested in.
About the custom itself, I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with it, so feel free to check out the wookieepedia article on it and how it functions:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ginivex-class_starfighter
Faction: Separatists
Dial:
Primary weapon
: 3 (Bullseye only)
Agility
: 3
Hull
: 3
Shields
: 5
Ship Trait
:
-
Solar Sail
: You
must
equip the Fanblade Actuator Configuration upgrade.
Actions
:
- Focus
- Target Lock
- Boost
Upgrade slots
:
- Modification
- Sensor
Configurations
:
-
Fanblade Actuator (
Closed
)
: (Dual card - front)
+
Evade
; +
Barrel Roll
;
You cannot cancel damage using your Shields; During the System Phase, you may flip this card.
-
Fanblade Actuator
(
Open
)
: (Dual card - back)
+
[3 Primary attack, Front 90]
; -
2 Agility
; +
Reinforce
; During the System Phase, you may flip this card.
Modifications
:
-
Ion Bafflers
(
Ginivex-class Fanblade Starfighter only
; After fully executing a blue maneuver, if your Fanblade Actuator is set to Closed, you may perform a ‘Cloak’ action; After you reveal a non-blue maneuver, you must discard your Cloak token)
Titles
:
-
Last Call
* (
Ginivex-class Fanblade Starfighter
only; +
[Crew]
slot; During Setup, treat your Initiative as 7)
Available pilots
:
-
Dark Disciple
**:
Initiative
: 3;
Force
: 1^; Force slot.
-
Count Dooku
*:
Initiative
: 3;
Force
: 3^; Force slot; After you defend, if the attacker is in your firing arc, you may spend 1 Force to remove 1 of your blue or red tokens. After you perform an attack that hits, you may spend 1 Force to perform an action.
-
Asajj Ventress
*:
Initiative
: 4;
Force
: 2^; Force slot; At the start of the Engagement Phase, you may chose 1 enemy ship in your firing arc at range 0-2 and spend 1 Force. If you do, that ship gains 1 stress token unless it removes 1 green token.
Yeah, I feel I know what you all are thinking - why is this so convoluted and complicated?
To be honest, I know this could use significant refinement and cutting out a lot of the fat, but as with most customs, I went full fun mode to see what I can fit into this design to make it as close to canon as possible (even there it's a pretty unusual and quite complicated vessel). The main gimmick of the ship revolves around the dual configuration that drastically alters the ship's function - with the solar sail closed, it's an agile interceptor limited to bullseye and unable to spend shields. When extended, the energized sail acts both like a weapon arc extender and a big shield generator, able to absorb a lot of damage, but also making the ship far easier to hit, hence the drastic agility reduction. Those few pilots are based on the fact that Ginivex' production was incredibly limited and were piloted only by selected Separatist personas. And yes, the abilities are lifted directly from the Scimitar and the Shadow Caster respectively, but I feel that with the Ion Bafflers cloak potential as well as extendable arc, their abilities could also work here in some new and interesting ways
Roles
:
- dual-mode, switching between arc-dodger and an assault ship
Strengths
:
- Dual role provides some versatility and adaptability - open solar sails gives the ship a lot of durability and firepower (and more synergies with Dooku and Ventress), and closing it allows better mobility and defense, especially after the Shields are depleted
- Potential Cloak modification, although limited, can allow more options for early engagement and possible escapes, especially with
Last Call
title, which provides easier setup
Weaknesses
:
- Bullseye-only severely limits engagement potential (and Dooku or Ventress ability) for closed solar sails, making them mainly the means to escape
- For all those solid stats, it's likely to be a very expensive ship
- Barrel Roll unavailable to open sails, making it more clunky to dogfight with
- Access to Cloak is limited to Blue maneuvers
As always, I welcome any feedback, so feel free to let me know what you think
And by the way, what do you think the Ginivex miniature would look like when it comes out eventually? I can't imagine them making a retractable sail, although if they somehow find a way for that, that'd be neat
EDIT: Missed on adding 'Bullseye only' for primary
)