10 hours ago, kenngp said:

Well, X-Wing had a scum faction before it had the others, and I would much prefer to see that in Legion (releasing Maul for the Separatists instead of saving him for a scum faction) and even in Armada, before I see the ST (full disclosure, I am an unrepentant ST hater) but I think from a purely financial standpoint it would sell better as a faction. Although balance could become an issue in Armada as it would definitely be more of a small ship and elite squadron faction with no large ships and very limited medium ships (if sticking to the new canon) so it may struggle to match up with more diverse factions.

'Scum' (or more specifically, 'Non-Aligned Sectors and Organizations') would work pretty easily in Armada, after the first couple waves of Clone Wars.

Something I've wondered if they had thought of for a bit. Given the need to have an iconic "look" for the ships - when mixing so many different factions - I'd assume/hope they'd do something with the base plates. Like...I dunno, invert them. Purple arc lines over a white background, or something like that. All the white backgrounds for the bases would work to give them a consistent 'look', when borrowing models.

Because, yeah, like X-Wing... borrowing models is the way to go. You do that, though...you'll have quite the option set, immediately!

Give them a 'core set' (like the new Clone Wars-era core sets we are getting) with one of the Corporate Sector Authority Invincibles , and maybe alongside a Zann-Consotium Corvette , and then the purple-over-white (or whatever) baseplates for every OTHER small- or medium- base in the game (save, I assume, for the Imperial Interdictor and ...we assume... Republic Stealth Ship). Some packed-full-of-flavor commanders, officers and upgrades, and you're set. "Canonically" these groups operated exactly that set of ships - Victories, Acclamators, Munificents, Gladiators, MYRIADS of Nebulon-Bs and CR90s - etc. (Bonus? It makes the original core set for the game a valid 'expansion' for the faction! All three ships - Nebulon-B, CR-90, and Victory-class - perfectly fine flying alongside each other in the same fleet of a third-rate unaffiliated sector; defending its system from pirates and the occasional raider from the latest galactic war...)

The only real issue would be the squads - so I assume like the Clone Wars, the ticket would be to put out a bunch in the core set (4x Rebel-style Z-95s in...I dunno, yellow color?) and a squadron pack alongside (2x Rebel-style Z-95, 2x Republic-style Y-Wing, 2x R-41 Starchasers and 2x IRDs ?? All in the same color, of course - unfortunately, I don't think this is an area where borrowing models would make sense, but still I'd keep the same theme of inverted base plates if possible...)

And the beauty is...that's it. That's all you have to release for them, for a LONG way, and they'll still have full faction parity with what we have from the Galactic Civil War factions, and first 2-3 waves of Clone Wars factions, out of one starter kit and one squadron pack.

PLAYTESTING it, though...that'd be the trick.

And I have to say, once the other two new factions are more established...I'd definitely like to see the unique new ships for them, too. Always had an inexplicable soft spot for the Corporate Sector Authority's Marauder-class . And I certainly wouldn't say "no" to the Hutt's Chelandion-class . Also? Best/only chance to actually get the Hapans on the table - somehow eking their way into canonical existence!

The Star Wars universe just has sooooo many awesome ships beyond the "major factions", I can't help but feel such a miscellaneous/grab-bag faction HAS to be in the back of SOMEBODY's mind, somehow...

8 hours ago, xanderf said:

'Scum' (or more specifically, 'Non-Aligned Sectors and Organizations') would work pretty easily in Armada, after the first couple waves of Clone Wars.

Something I've wondered if they had thought of for a bit. Given the need to have an iconic "look" for the ships - when mixing so many different factions - I'd assume/hope they'd do something with the base plates. Like...I dunno, invert them. Purple arc lines over a white background, or something like that. All the white backgrounds for the bases would work to give them a consistent 'look', when borrowing models.

Because, yeah, like X-Wing... borrowing models is the way to go. You do that, though...you'll have quite the option set, immediately!

Give them a 'core set' (like the new Clone Wars-era core sets we are getting) with one of the Corporate Sector Authority Invincibles , and maybe alongside a Zann-Consotium Corvette , and then the purple-over-white (or whatever) baseplates for every OTHER small- or medium- base in the game (save, I assume, for the Imperial Interdictor and ...we assume... Republic Stealth Ship). Some packed-full-of-flavor commanders, officers and upgrades, and you're set. "Canonically" these groups operated exactly that set of ships - Victories, Acclamators, Munificents, Gladiators, MYRIADS of Nebulon-Bs and CR90s - etc. (Bonus? It makes the original core set for the game a valid 'expansion' for the faction! All three ships - Nebulon-B, CR-90, and Victory-class - perfectly fine flying alongside each other in the same fleet of a third-rate unaffiliated sector; defending its system from pirates and the occasional raider from the latest galactic war...)

The only real issue would be the squads - so I assume like the Clone Wars, the ticket would be to put out a bunch in the core set (4x Rebel-style Z-95s in...I dunno, yellow color?) and a squadron pack alongside (2x Rebel-style Z-95, 2x Republic-style Y-Wing, 2x R-41 Starchasers and 2x IRDs ?? All in the same color, of course - unfortunately, I don't think this is an area where borrowing models would make sense, but still I'd keep the same theme of inverted base plates if possible...)

And the beauty is...that's it. That's all you have to release for them, for a LONG way, and they'll still have full faction parity with what we have from the Galactic Civil War factions, and first 2-3 waves of Clone Wars factions, out of one starter kit and one squadron pack.

PLAYTESTING it, though...that'd be the trick.

And I have to say, once the other two new factions are more established...I'd definitely like to see the unique new ships for them, too. Always had an inexplicable soft spot for the Corporate Sector Authority's Marauder-class . And I certainly wouldn't say "no" to the Hutt's Chelandion-class . Also? Best/only chance to actually get the Hapans on the table - somehow eking their way into canonical existence!

The Star Wars universe just has sooooo many awesome ships beyond the "major factions", I can't help but feel such a miscellaneous/grab-bag faction HAS to be in the back of SOMEBODY's mind, somehow...

The issue with all of this is how tightly the Armada developers have to stick to Disney canon. It seems that most of what you've mentioned is out if they have to stick purely to new Disney canon. The scope becomes much more limited for a "scum" faction, though still doable. Between what has been seen in the new Marvel comics, Clone Wars cartoon, Rebels cartoon, and the new novels, it could be done, the issue would be (in my opinion) balancing the lack of medium and large ships. Interesting that you think squadrons would be the issue. I can think of a ton of named characters that would be perfect for squadrons, then just include a generic counterpart.

Although, depending on how in-depth Zahn gets in his next Thrawn trilogy, maybe a Chiss faction could be on the horizon. . . 😉

5 minutes ago, kenngp said:

Although, depending on how in-depth Zahn gets in his next Thrawn trilogy, maybe a Chiss faction could be on the horizon. . . 😉

Dear god, just the thought of this excites me, even if it is unlikely.

In my own realm of fandom, I'd kill to have Chiss vs. Yuuzhan Vong fleets.

3 hours ago, SithLrd88 said:

3 hours ago, kenngp said:

Although, depending on how in-depth Zahn gets in his next Thrawn trilogy, maybe a Chiss faction could be on the horizon. . . 😉

Dear god, just the thought of this excites me, even if it is unlikely.

In my own realm of fandom, I'd kill to have Chiss vs. Yuuzhan Vong fleets

Take this with a lot of salt since most of it is just guessing:

The next most possible factions in all three games after the main 7 would be the Chiss and Grysks (new Vong lol). Of course that is years down the road if it does happen. Maybe the High Republic, but we know very little about that series and nothing about the villains.

The vong have a lot of hate from the fandom and it seems that Disney sort of remade them into the Grysk and threw them together with the Chiss plotline. They appear to be strong enough to be winning against the Chiss, can move moons to block hyperspace routes, and use bugs as weapons. Disney even left a way for the Vong to be their master juuuust in case people don't like this new species.

Throw in three books that explains Thrawn and how strong the Grysk are, three more books that explains everything about the Chiss, rumors about the Rebels sequel, and the fact that Sabine, ahsoka, and Rex will be in season 2 of the Mando and I would bet these would be the newest Star Wars factions in a few years.

3 hours ago, kenngp said:

The issue with all of this is how tightly the Armada developers have to stick to Disney canon. It seems that most of what you've mentioned is out if they have to stick purely to new Disney canon. The scope becomes much more limited for a "scum" faction, though still doable. Between what has been seen in the new Marvel comics, Clone Wars cartoon, Rebels cartoon, and the new novels, it could be done, the issue would be (in my opinion) balancing the lack of medium and large ships.

Not really - that's why I mentioned only these items (and skipping a LOT of what we'd seen before from the EU).

Of these, all have been at least passingly mentioned in Disney canon. I mean, sure, the Corporate Sector Authority, Zann Consortium, Black Sun, and Hapan Consortium are not NEARLY as fleshed-out as they were in the EU, but that they exist at all is indeed canonical under Disney.

Quote

Interesting that you think squadrons would be the issue. I can think of a ton of named characters that would be perfect for squadrons, then just include a generic counterpart.

More of an issue with the styling of them - pulling a Republic-painted ship alongside an Imperial-painted ship and Rebel-painted ship into one fleet looks odd, but much can be done with a unified baseplate...and it's not completely out of the question, given how much variety in ship paintschemes exist within a faction, anyway .

The "problem" with the squadrons is that you can't really really 'borrow' them that way - the squadron color IS a major part of how it's identified. So you need to issue them all their own squadron minis, even if duplicate models they need a new color - which doesn't have to be done for the ships.

"Scum" can have an SSD in canon.

Remember that.

18 hours ago, xanderf said:

'Scum' (or more specifically, 'Non-Aligned Sectors and Organizations') would work pretty easily in Armada, after the first couple waves of Clone Wars.

Something I've wondered if they had thought of for a bit. Given the need to have an iconic "look" for the ships - when mixing so many different factions - I'd assume/hope they'd do something with the base plates. Like...I dunno, invert them. Purple arc lines over a white background, or something like that. All the white backgrounds for the bases would work to give them a consistent 'look', when borrowing models.

Because, yeah, like X-Wing... borrowing models is the way to go. You do that, though...you'll have quite the option set, immediately!

I think this is a great idea. It would be a huge boon for gamers who didn't want to invest in one particular faction (but rather simply bought what they liked). Offer a "Scum Conversion Kit" as a starter (with some cardboard bases and modified ship cards -- like they did for X-Wing 2.0) and release the odd "Scum-only" expansion here and there without worrying about building the faction up from scratch. As has been pointed out, in the Aftermath trilogy, pirates capture one of the Empire's last SSDs!

(Just don't forget about us Sequel Trilogy folks, FFG! )

18 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

"Scum" can have an SSD in canon.

Remember that.

'Capturing SSDs' seems to happen annoyingly frequently. Some kind of design flaw in the ship. Possibly related to non-A-Wing-proof command bridges and total lack of secondary command centers?

Still, I have to imagine FFG wouldn't hate another faction having reasons to buy that model.

And what makes any ship different is what is on the base plate and ship cards - which, either way, will be different for pirate versions of all ships. Who is to say the way the pirates ran the SSD it had anything but a fraction of the firepower of the Imperial version, in favor of more squadron command (or something like that)...

23 minutes ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

I think this is a great idea. It would be a huge boon for gamers who didn't want to invest in one particular faction (but rather simply bought what they liked). Offer a "Scum Conversion Kit" as a starter (with some cardboard bases and modified ship cards -- like they did for X-Wing 2.0) and release the odd "Scum-only" expansion here and there without worrying about building the faction up from scratch. As has been pointed out, in the Aftermath trilogy, pirates capture one of the Empire's last SSDs!

(Just don't forget about us Sequel Trilogy folks, FFG! )

FWIW, that's actually a possible additional point in support of this. After all, looking at a couple more waves of pure Clone Wars before a mix of Clone Wars/Galactic Civil War, means any potential launch of the sequel factions will be facing a dozen waves of OTHER faction releases. That' s quite an uphill battle to parity! (The Clone Wars factions nearly on the thin edge of how far out of sync you can be, and still get viable fast enough to be relevant, IMHO)

But, consider an alternative - as with X-Wing, the "Independent" faction would be cross-era. IE., you could use it to tease out releases of ships that would be needed for the (example) Resistance/New Republic fleet. Say, put out an Independent Free Virgilia-class as a release. Maybe an Independent Nebulon-C or Vakbeor-class . When the Resistance/New Republic faction launches, it will surely have its own core kit with conversion base plates (for the Starhawks and CR90s, for sure , as those are seen or named as being used by those factions outright) that can include these "Independent" ships which had been first seen in the Resistance faction on-screen, but initially released by FFG supporting the Independent faction to get the models out before any other option existed for them.

On 8/12/2020 at 6:50 AM, xanderf said:

'Capturing SSDs' seems to happen annoyingly frequently. Some kind of design flaw in the ship. Possibly related to non-A-Wing-proof command bridges and total lack of secondary command centers?

Still, I have to imagine FFG wouldn't hate another faction having reasons to buy that model.

And what makes any ship different is what is on the base plate and ship cards - which, either way, will be different for pirate versions of all ships. Who is to say the way the pirates ran the SSD it had anything but a fraction of the firepower of the Imperial version, in favor of more squadron command (or something like that)...

They actually do have secondary command centers, Executor crashed because they didn't transfer control to the secondary in time before it hit the DS

We should all just agree as far as ships go the best one they could put in would be the golden eagle Emperor's blue police box that's smaller on the out side from star trek. Then we can all be happy.

xD
That aside there are a lot of plot holes in the science and technology behind star wars, and while we have a good chance of accomplishing a lot of what is achieved by a class 3 civilization such as the empire, it requires us not tripping on our anti matter colliders. For an explanation of why things are the way they are in their universe probably has to do with technological regression like in Warhammer, combined with different limitations and common sense developments, as in what seems common sense to them seems silly or out of place to us (common sense not always being common).
The X wing was designed for the empire and stolen or scrapped... just like the massive Ion cannon on Hoth, The Nebulan B ships, and the Nadiri Star Hawk.
The Empire focused on developing Key technologies and super weapons while building a cheap massive fleet that could be deployed. Emphasis on cheap also where turrets were used they couldn't be used while fighters were deployed with out potentially destroying there own forces.

I would personally like to see a different paint scheme for the munificent and the consular cruiser. The starter sets already have the banking clan paint job for the munificent and the republic fleet paint job for the consular class, however I would like to see alternate paint jobs for the ships when they come individually like the red diplomatic consular cruiser or the clone wars munificent with the CIS blue rings going around the armour horizontally.

2 hours ago, Lance1717 said:

I would personally like to see a different paint scheme for the munificent and the consular cruiser. The starter sets already have the banking clan paint job for the munificent and the republic fleet paint job for the consular class, however I would like to see alternate paint jobs for the ships when they come individually like the red diplomatic consular cruiser or the clone wars munificent with the CIS blue rings going around the armour horizontally.

I wouldn't be surprised if and when the single ship expansions for the Clone Wars Starter ships are released, they'll have different paint schemes. However, for other ships, like the Venator or Providence, I doubt that repainted variants will be released in later waves. I suppose it's possible, because that's what happened with the Chimaera, but I believe that was an exception rather than a rule or precedence.

I know that repainted variants are fairly common for X-Wing, but it's a much more popular game so there's less risk involved for FFG.

Besides, if players want Armada ships with different paint schemes they can just paint their ships themselves.

∆∆∆ that

I imagine they will have a more standard grey for the acclamator as well. Counter point, they may want to include more paint schemes to encourage buying and increase shelf appeal.

5 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

∆∆∆ that

I imagine they will have a more standard grey for the acclamator as well. Counter point, they may want to include more paint schemes to encourage buying and increase shelf appeal.

My money would be on the Standard Grey models going to the Empire, since both the Acclamator and Venator served in the Imperial fleet. It would be a cheap way to give that faction more units.

Thinking about it, I'd be less surprised if the next huge ship is some Rebel giant MonCal, possibly an FFG modeling department original. Some thing other than a captured SSD. I remember when they did Epic for X-wing they scrambled pretty hard to make sure there was faction model parity, leading to the development of the Raider. And I know there's a decent number of local guys that never invested in a SSD for faction purity-esque reasons. I had a full collection (+) of both factions at the time SSD released, and I never got one either. Though if I still played I'd probably have gotten a Rebel huge if it came out.

Just thinking about what original deliciousness the FFG art department could produce in Rebel style huge ship category makes me tingle with antici...pation. MonCal or even Star Hawk design philosophy as a base line? Yes please.

The Republic could see the Stealth Corvette and Empire the Carrion Spike , would be interesting to add their stealth (submarine style) mechanics. I'm not sure 100% how to introduce them in a balanced fashion; my proposal would be a cloak token that prevents the ship from attacking but maybe allowing it to treat it's defense tokens as scatter instead of their normal effects?

Other ships I could see for Empire: the Interdictor style ship from Vader Immortal, the Tector-Class Star Destroyer , and the Secutor-class Star Destroyer .