This has probably been discussed ad nauseam, but I have the Clone Wars bug.
To get an idea of what the Venator would look like in Armada, I was comparing it to the Imperial Star Destroyer. In cannon the ISD was supposed to replace the Venator, so I thought it was the way to go. The one question I came up after looking is, could the Venator be the first ship with a 5 or even 6 Squadron. Before you freak, let me explain. I did find that everyone seems to have different stats, so I just picked one set and went from there, so I hope my stats are accurate.

Some stats:

Length & Width: the Venator come out to 1,137 meters in length, but the ISD is a staggering 1,600 meters. In width, the Venator is again smaller than the ISD at 548 to 900 meters. So overall the Venator is about two thirds the size of the ISD.

Weapons: in any of the stats that I saw the Venator has a credible amount of weapons, but is outclassed in this area by the ISD, though it looks like the Venator is less focused in the front arc and has its weapon spread out more evenly.

Cargo: the ISD has the mind boggling 36,000 metric tons and the Venator has a respectable 20,000.

Crew: The ISD is a small city at 37,050 with room for an additional 9,700 Stormtroopers and the Venator comes in at 7,400 with 2,000 clone troopers.

Auxiliary Craft: Here is where the Venator shows who is the undisputed boss and why I think it should have such an insane stat. The ISD has an impressive 48 TIE/ln Fighter, 12 TIE Bombers, 12 TIE Interceptors, 8 Lambda Class Shuttles, “numerous” (that’s all it said, no number) Sentinal Class Landing Craft (with 9,700 stormtroopers, I guess they would need numerous) and various utility craft. The Venator carries 192 V-Wing or V-19 Torrents (yep 192!), 36 ARC-170s, 40 LAAT Gunships and several ground attack shuttles. Also keep in mind the Venator has two bridges, one of which is dedicated to fighter craft coordination and command. Now I was curious as to how badly the 250 attack craft of the Venator compared to the MC80, and it’s still no contest as well, though the MC80 does have a respectable 120 fighter craft capacity. It really makes me wonder why the ISDs have a 4 in Squadron (probably for game balance?).

So I’m not sure what the stats for the Venator will be, but if it doesn’t have at least a 5 in Squadron, I think that would be selling them short. As far as the other stats, the Venator seems to be nothing special in fire power or shielding. From the animated show, it does seem like the Venator can take tons of damage and still continue to operate. There is even an episode where one Venator tanks attacks from six Munificent Class ships (see starting at about 2:43). The ship does get incredibly damaged, but continues to function, so I have no idea what kind of hull we’d be talking about. Probably about equal or slightly better than an ISD maybe (11-14), but with less shields (3, 3, 2 maybe? or even 3, 2, 2). The only thing is the design philosophy of the republic is for the Venator to be multipurpose, and everything from weapons to shielding seem to be evenly distributed.

I know there is a fan made version of a Venator with ship cards and all, but I don’t think that jibes with the stats or the stories. I’m not great at listing ships in Armada stats, but here’s an attempt.

Hull: 12, Anti-Squadron: 1red,1black

Command:3, Squadron:6, Engineering:4

Brace, Redirect, Contain, Salvo

Speed (pretty much the same as an ISD)

I

I I

I I -

1, 2, 3

Shields: 3Fore, 3Starboard & Port, 2Aft

Armament: 3red/2blue - Fore, 2red/3blue Port & Starboard, 2red/1blue Aft (sounds general purpose enough and the other Venator version would swap out 1 die on each side for a black)

What do you think? How would you stat the Venator given all the facts and would it have a 5 or 6 Squadron? It does have twice as many fighters as the next closest ship (though I admit, I didn’t look into CIS).

I was thinking about this recently, and knowing that the Venator was renowned for being a carrier especially when in comparison to the ISD leads me to believe that it is going to have a very high squadron capacity, something like 5 or maybe 6. I also see one of the versions having double offensive retrofit to maximize squadron potential. I also could see a special upgrade for only the Venator that is something like “rapid launch bays” that enables it to deploy its fighters via its massive hanger.

39 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

all of your post

The Venator should probably not have many blue dice, since its canon armament only consists of 10 turbolasers, 52 defense laser cannons and 4 heavy torpedo launchers. If you are interested, this was our Venator design for our CoruscantConstructions The Clone Wars Set, that me and @M0N0LITH did together. Feel free to check out the whole set here: https://imgur.com/a/MzbcwoZ

50 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

I know there is a fan made version of a Venator with ship cards and all, but I don’t think that jibes with the stats or the stories.

Just read that after my post. We took all the numbers from both canon and legends stats into consideration. You have to consider though, that the ship has to be "adjusted" to fit into faction and gameplay and needs to be balanced.

Are we making bets? If so, I’m guessing the Venator will have Squadron 4. The Invisible Hand will have the same. The Lucrehulk will have Squadron 5 (same as the Star Dreadnought prototype).

Squadron 6? No chance. The Exector-II has Squadron 6.

Only time will tell! But hopefully I remember this post when I’m proven right. 😉

Republic squads are built similarly to Rebels- slower, tougher, and more expensive so harder to bring in numbers. Rebel ships reflect this by generally having lower squadron values- the MC80 Command Cruiser is the only Rebel ship with Squadron 4, so I wouldn't expect more than that out of a Venator. Shoving 6 ARC-170s right outside your opponent's deployment zone with Hyperspace Rings would just be ridiculous. It'll probably be squadron 4 and at least one carrier-focused variant with some combination of support teams, fleet command, and/or double OR.

For the weapons, I'd expect something between an ISD and the MC75- semi-balanced firing arcs with a bias towards the front (6-5-2 dice distribution?), wide front zone (not as wide as the ISD so double-arcing is feasible), focus on red and black dice with very little blue (the Republic seems to have a preference towards turbolasers and ordnance, as seen by the Acclamator and none of their starter ships having an ion cannon slot). I think it'll still be 4-3-2 on the shields (no way they make their marquee large have weaker shields than an Acclamator), but maybe only have 1 Redirect. 14 hull is the same as the Starhawk, a ship over twice its size that went toe-to-toe with an SSD, so 10-11 hull is much more reasonable.

36 minutes ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

Are we making bets? If so, I’m guessing the Venator will have Squadron 4. The Invisible Hand will have the same. The Lucrehulk will have Squadron 5 (same as the Star Dreadnought prototype).

Squadron 6? No chance. The Exector-II has Squadron 6.

Only time will tell! But hopefully I remember this post when I’m proven right. 😉

According to legends source material, the Executor class could carry 144 TIE type fighters.

By contrast the Venator can carry up to 420 fighters between the ARC-170, V-Wing, and ETA Actis. I agree that 6 is a reach, but I highly doubt four since the ISD was built to carry less fighters than the Venator and focus its abilities on heavy firepower.

2 hours ago, Battlefleet 01 Studios said:

According to legends source material, the Executor class could carry 144 TIE type fighters.

Which I hope we can both agree is a ridiculously small and arbitrary number, and means nothing, right? Because Essex carriers carried over 100 fighters in WWII. And by my measurements, they’re about, oh, 13 miles shorter than an SSD. 😁

3 minutes ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

Which I hope we can both agree is a ridiculously small and arbitrary number, and means nothing, right? Because Essex carriers carried over 100 fighters in WWII. And by my measurements, they’re about, oh, 13 miles shorter than an SSD. 😁

I see your point, all I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to me that the ISD was designed to carry less fighters than the Venator by a large margin and the Venator gets the same squadron value as the ISD.

1 hour ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

Which I hope we can both agree is a ridiculously small and arbitrary number, and means nothing, right? Because Essex carriers carried over 100 fighters in WWII. And by my measurements, they’re about, oh, 13 miles shorter than an SSD. 😁

144 was the minimum complement for an Executor, when actually outfitted and manned for the purpose they could carry thousands.

1 hour ago, Battlefleet 01 Studios said:

I see your point, all I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to me that the ISD was designed to carry less fighters than the Venator by a large margin and the Venator gets the same squadron value as the ISD.

The Quasar Fire could hold a maximum of 48 TIE Fighters, yet has the same squadron value as an ISD. The Pelta Command Ship has the same squadron value as the MC80 Assault Cruiser. Squadron value in-game is relative to a ship's intended role, not its lore specs compared to other ships, and squadron 4 is generally the target number for purpose-built carriers. There are more ways to build into a ship's carrier role than just a crazy high squadron value.

54 minutes ago, Flyinpenguin117 said:

144 was the minimum complement for an Executor, when actually outfitted and manned for the purpose they could carry thousands.

The Quasar Fire could hold a maximum of 48 TIE Fighters, yet has the same squadron value as an ISD. The Pelta Command Ship has the same squadron value as the MC80 Assault Cruiser. Squadron value in-game is relative to a ship's intended role, not its lore specs compared to other ships, and squadron 4 is generally the target number for purpose-built carriers. There are more ways to build into a ship's carrier role than just a crazy high squadron value.

Good points, but what do you think about the dedicated command bridge? Though it’s not called a carrier and the role or intended role was to be multipurposed, it seems the Venator’s role is to be a carrier.
I realized after I wrote the post above that there are ways to alter the numbers tonally or intent wise by adding certain upgrade slots and in greater numbers. It is possible that the Venator ends up with 3 Offensive Retrofits and only a 4 Squadron value, but I’m still hoping for a 5 Squadron value since the Venator is the only ship that has, an incredible amount of fighters listed, has a dedicated bridge, and has the largest opening for fighter launch and landing with an alternate opening on the side for entrance/egress.

7 hours ago, >kkj said:

Just read that after my post. We took all the numbers from both canon and legends stats into consideration. You have to consider though, that the ship has to be "adjusted" to fit into faction and gameplay and needs to be balanced.

I see your point about the blue dice and you may be right, but I didn’t see how a Venator could have so few weapons that could aim forward, though I also agree that the Aft dice will probably be only 2 (especially considering salvo).

Edit: (almost forgot) I hear what you’re saying about game play and I am sure that’s why the ISD has a 4 in Squadron despite its lacklustre fighter numbers. Really the IDS should only have a 3, but being a mainstay of the fleet makes 4 a necessity.

Edit: Edit: As I mentioned in my last post, I realized that you can make the values different than just a flat number by the upgrade slots added and the amount of the specific slots included, but then I also realized the defence tokens play a part too. So you may also be right that the Hull may not be 12. The Hull could be 9, but maybe instead of a contain, it could have 2 braces. Still 9 seems low considering the pounding those things can take and keep operating. Even in the first part of the clip I included, Anakin is piloting a badly damaged Venator that even has one of its bridges destroyed and its still fast enough to ram the enemy’s flag ship and for them to not be able to evade. But game balance could play a part.

5 hours ago, Flyinpenguin117 said:

14 hull is the same as the Starhawk, a ship over twice its size that went toe-to-toe with an SSD, so 10-11 hull is much more reasonable.

Agreed. The Acclamator has 7 hull, the VSD has 8, Interdictor 9, and ISD 11 (if memory serves). I’m guessing the Venator has 10.

35 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

Good points, but what do you think about the dedicated command bridge? Though it’s not called a carrier and the role or intended role was to be multipurposed, it seems the Venator’s role is to be a carrier.
I realized after I wrote the post above that there are ways to alter the numbers tonally or intent wise by adding certain upgrade slots and in greater numbers. It is possible that the Venator ends up with 3 Offensive Retrofits and only a 4 Squadron value, but I’m still hoping for a 5 Squadron value since the Venator is the only ship that has, an incredible amount of fighters listed, has a dedicated bridge, and has the largest opening for fighter launch and landing with an alternate opening on the side for entrance/egress.

Here's the thing: The Republic already has an incredibly strong squadron game. If you take all that and give them their mainstay large, and give it squadron 5-6 and double/triple OR (to say nothing of slots for FCT, Flight Controllers, or AFFM) and the toughness and firepower befitting a large (especially a proto-ISD) and whatever titles and characters it comes with, you run the risk of the entire Republic faction becoming unstoppable Venator/Nevoota Bee squadballs. Squad 4 is already going to be really good for the Republic, no need to get too crazy on its capabilities. Gameplay always trumps lore. A Lucrehulk has a complement of 1500 Vultures, that doesn't mean it should have Squadron 20.

1 hour ago, Flyinpenguin117 said:

Here's the thing: The Republic already has an incredibly strong squadron game. If you take all that and give them their mainstay large, and give it squadron 5-6 and double/triple OR (to say nothing of slots for FCT, Flight Controllers, or AFFM) and the toughness and firepower befitting a large (especially a proto-ISD) and whatever titles and characters it comes with, you run the risk of the entire Republic faction becoming unstoppable Venator/Nevoota Bee squadballs. Squad 4 is already going to be really good for the Republic, no need to get too crazy on its capabilities. Gameplay always trumps lore. A Lucrehulk has a complement of 1500 Vultures, that doesn't mean it should have Squadron 20.

I’d potentially say the counter to this isn’t necessarily reducing the abilities of the Venator to make it less accurate to the lore, but rather giving the Separatists something that can compete with it in its own way.

Make a super carrier with weak guns and an assault variant with much less sqaud ability.

And a jedi command variant obv

3 hours ago, Battlefleet 01 Studios said:

I’d potentially say the counter to this isn’t necessarily reducing the abilities of the Venator to make it less accurate to the lore, but rather giving the Separatists something that can compete with it in its own way.

Wouldn’t that power creep the GCW factions?

17 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

Wouldn’t that power creep the GCW factions?

Well maybe, but I’d argue there’s ways to prevent that. I don’t think the Venator should be as well armed as the ISD in any way. The ISD was a purpose-built battleship, whilst the Venator was more of a carrier. Thus, it’s firepower should be more MC80, or even MC75 esque.

On 12/7/2020 at 4:37 AM, Battlefleet 01 Studios said:

Well maybe, but I’d argue there’s ways to prevent that. I don’t think the Venator should be as well armed as the ISD in any way. The ISD was a purpose-built battleship, whilst the Venator was more of a carrier. Thus, it’s firepower should be more MC80, or even MC75 esque.

You could also limit the Venator in other ways. Give it a low engineering value (they do seem to get blown up a lot in the CW cartoon) or no laser, ion or defensive retrofit slots.

1 hour ago, ISD Avenger said:

You could also limit the Venator in other ways. Give it a low engineering value (they do seem to get blown up a lot in the CW cartoon) or no laser, ion or defensive retrofit slots.

They’re usually blown up from sabotage or overwhelming forces, but the separatists forces run when only 3 of them arrive. Not sure if that’s the separatist’s commanders or that the Venator is that scary or a sight?

13 minutes ago, JediPartisan said:

They’re usually blown up from sabotage or overwhelming forces, but the separatists forces run when only 3 of them arrive. Not sure if that’s the separatist’s commanders or that the Venator is that scary or a sight?

In S2E2, a single Venator takes on like 4 Munificents at once. Now it absolutely should not be balanced that way in-game (and they were under the direction of Cad Bane), but they definitely weren't lacking for firepower.

1 hour ago, ISD Avenger said:

You could also limit the Venator in other ways. Give it a low engineering value (they do seem to get blown up a lot in the CW cartoon) or no laser, ion or defensive retrofit slots.

Trading Defensive for Offensive retrofit is a pretty common way to distinguish carrier variants of ships. I could see little-to-no blue dice/ion upgrades, given the Republic's preference for turbolasers and ordnance, but a large (possibly the Republic's only large) with no weapons upgrades that struggles to repair itself sounds like a pretty mediocre ship. Giving the Venator all these handicaps to pigeonhole it into being a carrier and nothing else sounds like an even bigger disservice. If they make it too frail, or too slow, or too lacking in firepower for its size, its gonna be hard to justify using it over an Acclamator.

Or option 77... cost it so its more than an ISD, with same or less hull and total shields... if its can one shot a small at long range and run 7 sqns but that is 80% of your fleet then it could be balanced like that

On 12/7/2020 at 12:25 AM, Battlefleet 01 Studios said:

I’d potentially say the counter to this isn’t necessarily reducing the abilities of the Venator to make it less accurate to the lore, but rather giving the Separatists something that can compete with it in its own way.

It isn't just the separatists though. Rebels and Empire both need to take on this Republic Venator and its fighter wing.

It's really all about feelsies isn't it. Arguing relative strength in canon is a mug's game (canon being absurdly inconsistent and illogical). If they want the Venator to feel like an ¨über-carrier, which I hope they do, it needs more than 4 squadron.

I'm not sure about the 3 command though. Yeah it's smaller than an ISD, could even be a medium, but perhaps the downside to the massive squadron value should be a high command value. Seems appropriate too given the complexity of the double-bridge system.

I also hope that it is feasible to run three Venators in a standard 400 pt list since that was the number that was most commonly used together in the Clone Wars and I always loved the way it looked.