/swg/ Master & Commander Edition

How would you rank the commander specializations /swg/?

I would say it captured the essence of the madness that is our lord.

My players are balls to the wall

They were warned by their employer that pirates may well board them, and offered money if they manage to figure out where the pirates' base is

So when they got boarded by pirates, the Bounty Hunter locked himself in a military crate with a homing beacon and promptly got stolen.

Next session is going to be fucking hilarious.

Pretty damn good.

Personally I'd have liked the smile to be a tinytinytiny bit wider, but that's just me and I fear it might make it too cartoony.

>Be on patrol in a backwater sector
>Get press ganged by Peace Brigaders, but all they have is this and its modded as fuck
>Steal IVP from their base and wage a one ship war on Vong slave convoys

>Be a pop-dog causing trouble in your neighborhood, shelling some spooks inna caves with Arty which really shouldn't leave the depot
>Suddenly black X-Wings streak from the sky, blow up arty in a blaze of laserfire.
>Final thoughts before being consumed in a secondary explosion "Wedge Antilles hops on one transparisteel leg!"

One of my EotE players expressed interest in acquiring a one-shot gun he can have affixed to his wrist to stealthily blow people away. He wants one shot, but overwhelming firepower. Does such a gun, or just a similar one exist in one of the books, or should I just homebrew it up?

Corellian Duelist Pistol from Suns of Fortune.

New guy here to the wargames.

Why the fuck does Armada not get more love? Game rules just wondering why the releases are so slow in comparison to X-wing.

Armada takes more time and space to play than x-wing, it's got a higher initial buy-in, and hasn't been around as long

it's also a more niche style of game than x-wing (and most other wargames) in that it's more slow-paced kind of game, where you can win or lose just in deployment alone and have 6 turns with limited ability to fix it

>All Canon Novels and Comics (via /co/)
Link is dead.

I'm guessing it's turning out to be a bitch to get the Chimera paintjob right in mass production. I don't know why they decided to put it on top.

Because straight up less people play it. Though it's still one of the best selling minis games on the market. I really wish FFG was not in charge of it; I think it ends up lost in with all their other Star Wars product. Armada could easily be the flagship product of a company and it doesn't get nearly enough support for how good it is.

>it's got a higher initial buy-in

That's really not true anymore and hasn't been for some time. Upgrades are not nearly as important in Armada as they are in X-wing, and almost every ship can be played decently out of their starting cards. It's also much easier to mono-faction.

>You're a fuel station attendant in the Akina system
>The local tough kids in their Red Squadron TIE's challenge you to a race down the Akagi run
>You have your dad's old Z-95

some build critiques pls.

'Double Edge" — TIE Aggressor 19
Lone Wolf 2
Twin Laser Turret 6
Unguided Rockets 2
Lightweight Frame 2

Ship Total: 31

The Inquisitor — TIE Advanced Prototype 25
Push the Limit 3
Autothrusters 2
TIE/v1 1

Ship Total: 31

Darth Vader — TIE Advanced 29
Harpoon Missiles 4
Advanced Targeting Computer 1
Shield Upgrade 4
TIE/x1 0

Ship Total: 38

Grand Total: 100pts

Lone Wolf on Tie Aggressors so i can have advantage of being at range 2 or 3 away from friendly ships and pissing off my opponents from afar with TLTs while the two fuck them up head on.

also.. how is ATC + Harpoon early in the game be effective? or will it be better late in the game.

Double Edge can and should ditch those UGR's-He doesn't need them. Vader should swap Shield to Engine. Vader needs an EPT.

That's just the minimum, making each ship function independently. Making them work well together is a different problem.

You said you want to bring vader and inky into fights head-on, but both are flankers, as is the aggressor. What exactly are you trying to do? Maybe a high-PS missile alpha, followed by aces and turrets picking at the flanks?

>You win
>"Not bad, kid" says Red Squadron TIE lieutenant
>flash forward a year later
>you're a TIE ace flying your interceptor knocking out rebel scum left and right
>in between fights you play volleyball with your bros
>shirtless because you're secure in your sexuality
>your biggest mission is guarding the death star on its maiden voyage
>you fly in just in time to see Lord Vader's starfighter knocked off its course
>you catch an X-Wing ahead of him in your sights
>this must be a high priority target
>you close your eyes "just like shooting wamp rats"
>fire
>the X-Wing is destroyed
>shortly after Yavin explodes in a magnificent fireball
>you are later hailed as Hero of the Imperium™ and are given medal after medal by Tarkin
>Vader himself tosses you his towel as he heads into the locker room
>you end with the towel held up triumphantly and a qt Chiss love interest around your waist
>Kenny Loggins' DANGER ZONE™ plays over the credits over footage of TIEs flying in the sunset

youtube.com/watch?v=yK0P1Bk8Cx4

I wish I had the money to make a movie.

oops its supposed to be engine upgrade not shields dunno how that get there

They almost certainly decided to put the design on top because you wouldn't see it at all during play or when looking at the front of the packaging if it was on the bottom.

Beautiful. He looks young-ish, but that's not a complaint or anything.
I will say that his two eyes seem to have a determination that his third doesn't. It looks a little bored. Shoulder spikes could also use a bit of sharpening.

Coronet Dueling Pistol is a solid choice as says

An alternative would be the Variable Holdout from Strongholds of Resistance; it has limited ammo (12) but you can vary the damage from 1 to 7 (and it consumes ammo per damage dealt). It's not as strong, doesn't have any hard points, but it's encumberance 1 instead of 2 and it gains an extra setback to detect it when searched.

Ultimately the Disruptor pistol is the deadliest pistol you can get, though it's super expensive/illegal and not limited to one shot. But it has Vicious 4 and is guaranteed to at least cripple on a crit

Wrist rockets. If your enemy isn't watching them, then it's stealthy because nobody sees them coming, see? And if everyone is dead or deafened from the rockets, it's double the stealth.

Now I'm just imagining a bounty hunter whose gimmick is "stealthed" mini-rockets, like he's clapped a muffler over all the rocket motors.

Got a character who's got a weak force attunement, technically darkside but mostly little passive boons rather than ever getting anything flashy.

Using post-lucas fluff, would a saber crystal in their hands bleed out to true red, default to whatever it might've been before, or hit mid-range at purplish?

>I've waited so long for this moment. I will finally be with you again, Padme. When Luke is near me, all I ever do is cause him pain. I thought it was better when I did nothing at all.
>Were you afraid of Luke?
>I didn't believe anyone could love me. I never deserved to be loved.
>So, you were running away. And you rejected the others around you, so there was no chance that you would ever be hurt.
>And you were terrified by the invisible bonds that people form.
>You were afraid and so you closed off your heart.
>And so, this is my retribution. Forgive me, Luke.

Depends on how dark side they are.

If they are a genuinely evil being, it would probably necessitate bleeding a crystal to their will. Otherwise they might just struggle to activate it, which a good GM would use as an opportunity to provide the character a lesson in the virtues of the Light side.

>Otherwise they might just struggle to activate it,
Grievous didn't seem to have any problems wielding looted sabers.

>Q3 2017

There is a different between making a connection with a lightsaber crystal to create your own lightsaber, and just picking up someone elses lightsaber.

Its also been pretty much established that a properly attuned lightsaber is miles ahead using one that you are unfamiliar with. I remember the difference being described as 'the difference between the blade being a weapon and being an extension of your own arm'. Of course that is roleplay wise, there is no such mechanic (yet) in FFG SWRPG.

Okay, but that doesn't address the issue of activation. Grievous activated looted sabers with no problem. After falling to the Dark Side, Anakin activated his old lightsaber just fine. And if we expand the scope to just being about activating other peoples' lightsabers rather than dark/non-dark, then Luke, Rey, Anakin, and Obi-Wan showed that activation was no big deal. Hell, even Han in ESB and the nucanon comics was never shown struggling with activation when he had a lightsaber in hand.

I did think it was weird they were already like “hey check out the sweet spy book” while we have barley seen anything from the engi book

The release schedule fell behind because a shipment was lost. FFG does large print runs so it delayed them massively.

You can activate and wield a pre-existing saber. Theoretically, you can even learn to be in tune with it if you're not explicitly force sensitive (or the incredibly cumbersome canonical "force wielder").

But if you're super evil, Kyber crystals won't sync to you normally and come out because they sing and whisper and other weird force magic stuff - but they hide from Dark Siders. This means if you want to build your own saber or properly sync with one you find you have to break it in, which makes it red, but if it gets healed it becomes grey or white-ish. Other colors come from the sync when the crystal finds you/you find it.

A soul desires a sword, and a sword desires truth.

The FFG version between the two canons is way better, with different elements collecting the kyber to form different crystal bases, but I guess George thought his magic swords weren't magic enough

What? I did. To expand on the question, Lightsaber crystals (kybers) have three states. Unattuned, attuned and bled.

If you put an unattuned crystal into a lightsaber hilt, it will not work.

If you put an attuned crystal into a lightsaber hilt, it will work. It will work better if its attuned to you.

If you put a bled crystal into a lightsaber hilt, it will work. It won't work as good as a crystal attuned to you.

I really, really hate Nu-Canon's crystals and saber-tuning mechanics.

YOU DON'T LIKE LIVING, SINGING CRYSTALS FINDING THEIR MASTERS SO THEY CAN BECOME SWORDS, BUT THE AREN'T SO ALIVE THAT THEY CAN DO MUCH ABOUT BEING TURNED INTO WMDS, user?

Me either. Why do I feel like George & friends came too far out the other end of trying to make Star Wars magic again in TCW?

Clearly throwing people under the bus at times when opportune and gets results, but showing enough compassion to keep puppets of enemies forced into conflict alive if it seems like they didn't have much choice in the matter. Shows compassion to friends but it's a mixed bag of "Makes them useful" and sincere interest in their well being.

Party's pretty chill in actions so far, and with the polarized philosophies involved with the others, "being w/e got my job and I'm doin' it" has left the character as part-time mediator.

Lucas is an odd man, and I guess Disney figured it'd sell better if it had a IT'S MAGIC edge to it.

It's alrightish, though I did kinda like the darkside folks making their own and the other colors being various levels of chemicals and impurities.

The general science of crystals and how lightsabers were fairly mundane things but were made deadly in the hands of a Jedi/Sith/etc was always great. I also feel like the whole "red sabers are that color because they use synthetic crystals made up of material that gives it a red hue as per Sith tradition" is a lot better than "the crystals bleed"

Lost how? Also, where did you see/hear that?

Well, I assume they're just following the canon template they were handed by TCW, which I would wager was probably well-recieved enough to be commercially successful - in some sense, or would be if Lucas wasn't insane with his budgetary demands. Otherwise they wouldn't have bought it. But I assume that with Filloni still around and TCW being in the canon, that high-level story group writers are just kind of riffing off his themes to add back the mystery and stuff because I'm sure that tested well with people who are still mad about the prequels.

I mean, think about it. The OT is very barebones about its lore. Flashiest shit is palpatine's one big scene, the rest is just parlor tricks and subtle stuff. Lightsabers just work, Luke had one from his dad and then just made his own off-screen. We have no basis for anything further until the EU is invented. Now, they break down a lot of the Force in mechanical ways to relate to people, but that's not always literal.

Then we get to the PT era, and Lucas doesn't pay attention to any of that. And instead, he seems dead set on making Force and Jedi stuff common and complacent. Midichlorians are at least an easy test. Younglings use the goddamn blinding helmets to drill blaster deflection. Everybody is using flips and shit. There's hundreds of lightsabers on screen, but it doesn't do dick against a company worth of droids or some flamethrowers. I don't mind that it makes it more like wire-fu wuxia, but then the Force is just Kung-Fu; martial arts+philosophy.

Then he waits a few years and makes TCW, which has the mystic aspects of hunting crystals, finding them and finding "yours" specifically. The magical assembly. It has weird metaphysical stuff like Mortis, Moribund-i-Korriban, the Nightsisters and their magic, and other stuff. "Mere" vibroblades are not sufficient to stand against lightsabers. It works to make more shit magic, and then Rebels and TFA seem to just be following the precedent set there.

Various rumours on the forums, supposedly some people talked to FFG reps at Gencon about it or something. And there was a cargo ship loss around the time all the delays started.

Like lost as in the crate literally fell into the ocean.

Plus, in nu-canon, you can't use dragon pearls.

What kind of weak-ass story is that when you can't kill a deadly, territorial beast and from it's body you find your legendary blade?

You're the guys that think Star Wars is science-fiction, don't you?

The FFG RPGs reconcile it by just saying that the Krayt Dragons ingest kyber crystal material and their digestive system refines it.

Listen, just because something is science-fantasy or however you want to parse it doesn't mean it can't lean too hard on the fantasy equation, or that the fantasy elements can't be dumb.

I mean, a fantastical setting can have functional magic. There's a reason "it's magic, I ain't got to explain shit" is a meme.

>I mean, a fantastical setting can have functional magic
'Functional magic' is half the reason most fantasy books are shit. Once you strip out the mystery it stops being magic and is just a bullshit science/energy manipulation.

Science fantasy. Sometimes a more mundane solution or explanation makes sense and works for the story and setting. I'm not averse to the lightsabers being akin to harry potter wands, it's just the new flavor after growing up reading about Darth Maul spending hours meditating next to the kiln to make sure his pair of gem-quality cyrstals came out perfectly.

If I didn't like it I wouldn't give a damn, let alone ask here about what might work best for the character concept and expected results.

spacebump

>I don't know why they decided to put it on top.

Because otherwise nobody would see it?

>That's really not true anymore and hasn't been for some time. Upgrades are not nearly as important in Armada as they are in X-wing, and almost every ship can be played decently out of their starting cards. It's also much easier to mono-faction.

FFG published those $101 X-Wing fleets from time to time. You can't get an Armada fleet below $200.

The RPG isn't dependant on an existing store meta and ongoing tournaments for its playerbase

Would a sufficiently large fleet be able to take down the Death Star II? A completed version.

Pic would be great as a decommisioned vessel used as a freighter.

youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU
The best imperial PoV story I've seen infolved an undercover ISB agent forced to remain in her rebel cell full of disgusting alien after the battle of Endor.

space opera is a subtype of science fiction, yes.

Alright, and the rest of the issues with the list?

Why?

Prison time!

Kind of going to reserve judgement until its done, but so far its looking fairly on point with the face

yeah but it'd need to be ridiculously large, like "invasion of Naboo blockade large" wouldnt be enough

Well, it's a WiP- if anyone sees any issues, I can ask will to correct it now.

That's the Lance-class frigate. It's design prompt, military role, and sole purpose in life is "fuck fighters". It has no anti-capital weapons, but instead carries 20 quad laser cannons. All it does is make fighters die.

If the Empire had just mass produced these istead of wasting resources on star destroyers, let alone SSDs and the Death Star, the Rebellion would've been over in a week.

Crystals don't just change colors simply by being in someone's possession. The Force user has to actively attune to them (for a Jedi/light side user) or to force them to bleed (if they're dark side). Look at Marvel's current Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith comic series, specifically issue #5 for the effort that a dark sider has to go through to bleed their crystal.

Fantastic!

George himself was paying for a substantial amount of TCW out of his own pocket, not just under LucasFilm's budget. That's why the show was as gorgeous as it was. At best, they were recouping their money from toy sales and the like.

Isn't that role co-opted by the Raider now?

I think the Lancer has been banished to the shadow realm.

the rumors I see circulating on the forums is that they had to change printers and that has been a big bottleneck.

I like the Raider but it can never replace the colossal FUCK YOU the Lancer is

Guess Vader and inqy considering it as a semi-tank especially with Vader and ATC with harpoon and Inqy with range 1 weapons ability to try get some hits and do some jousting before getting out of arch and re grouping to joust again.

I havent played this list and im wandering if i can pull it off with a lot of action economy with Vader and Inqy.

They've been mentioned in a new canon book at least. I doubt we'll ever see them on a screen because for some reason those people insist on only showcasing their own shitty aesthetic, but the visual model might show up in like a game or a comic.

What the fuck is a Raider, and how can it even hope to compete with the legend?

Being small enough for internal docking with a destroyer is pretty nice

Raider-class corvette is the small Imperial ship created by FFG so that Empire would have an equivalent of the CR-90 corvette in X-Wing (Lancer or any of the other pre-existing Imperial ships would still have been too big to really fit the scale of the game). It also makes in appearance in the new SW Battlegrounds, I think.

Role-wise, it's not really the same as the Lancer, though. The Raider is a small, fast, relatively lightly armed ship that's designed for patrol duty and chasing Rebel blockade runners. The Lancer is a considerably larger ship (although still much smaller than a star destroyer) that's designed purely as an anti-squadron weapons platform.

I mean, it's science-fantasy, meaning that science has to take up a sizable portion of it. The science aspect is "put this crystal in a prism which then reflects a beam of energy into a plasmic blade", the fantasy aspect is "don't question it, it just works", and things were pretty fine that way.

Midichlorians aside, I like the science of some things more than the fantasy. In this case, crystals. I much prefer the scientific explanation of them over this whole attunement and bleeding nonsense.

That animation will never not be my favorite third party Star Wars creation of all time, outclassing even my favorites from the EU. It's just a masterpiece and being a massive Impfag it's my kinda PoV.

I've had a ton of fun with Imperial parties in EotE.
We've managed to do the full spectrum from bright-eyed statists to reluctant grunts and xenophobic hardcases that would put SS to shame, and it was very cool seing those stories mingle via newsfeeds or recurrent rebel opponents.

I'll go look, I think I still have the sheet for the long-range torpedo boat/ probe droid launcher we used in onr of those.

I need as much information on the Corporate Sector as I can get, where can I find a really good write-up that includes corps on the corporate council, example worlds and equipment loadouts for Corporate Sector Authority goons.

EAfront, Battlegrounds is the Age of Empires 2 reskin.

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Corporate_Sector_Authority
Wookieepedia is probably the best starting point for that.

WEG had a sourcebook dedicated to the corportate sector, it can be super easily found online

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Han_Solo_and_the_Corporate_Sector_Sourcebook

Thanks a lot!

There's plenty of resources on deckplans, but how do you like to use for your star wars ground maps? Do you map out your space battles in games at all?

EotE question, what do you wager, how good of a security would a pirate gang have who are on the local Hutt's payroll to ruin all his competitors, and are hiding out on the lower decks of a sleazy casino station right under the local Imperials' (also on the Hutt's payroll) noses?

One of my players decided to infiltrate them by locking himself in a crate with a homing beacon and getting stolen, you see.

Well, this is Star Wars, so every major door should be a solid sliding hatch with an electronic pad of some sort, whether this is passwords, code cylinders or whatever else electronic security passes for. Any major entrance and exits should have a couple of goons as doormen.

Now, when you say the lower decks, are we talking like typical lower decks or at they still in the casino? If they're holed up in the infrastructure, they probably can't do a lot of remodeling. This will limit them to some crude traps, maybe a few reinforced doors, and an alarm system which would "dial out" to the boss or nerdiest pirate. If they're actually operating in parts of the casino, no reason to say space opera casino security is terribly worse than real casino security, they're gonna have cameras watching, there will be guards on the floor, etc.

Mostly confined to the infrastructure, as that's where they can reasonably dock and stash their loot without visiting Imperials (their bribes are handed over as 'winnings' in the Casino) getting a least a little curious. The Casino itself is a seriously sleazy and not very profitable venture, so I say it wouldn't have Vegas levels of security contingencies, though it would obviously be guarded well.

Yeah, since you said sleazy I figured it wasn't like, Ocean's 11 level security here.

If they're trying to keep a low-profile, then yeah, nothing too complex. You don't want any weird power draws or accidentally cut a water line and have people notice weird stuff. The pirates probably control all the doors in that zone, might have an alarm system which calls them if somebody fails to infiltrate badly enough. There's rules scattered across the sourcebooks for the complex stuff like autoturrets and knockout gas and what not, but that's probably too high-tech for these guys.

Just keep the doors locked and heavy enough players will need demolitions to breach or roll some dice to pop in the doors, if the PC in the box is flying solo the whole time, be sure to throw some black dice at him if he forgot to pack some Slicer Tools or a Lockpick set in the crate with him. Random patrols on some threat is a great trick to pull, I've done that before. If you want the pirates to seem a little clever, if they have anything important throw an IED on it, or better the ol' shotgun on a string trap (The Corellian scatter gun is in the Smuggler book I believe), or maybe have them have some slicers/ship-jacker types who monitor comms so they can intercept and track any PCs broadcasting in the open inside their area and stuff.

I think he'll probably try for the good old crawling in the vents approach and circumvent a good deal of trouble, but he only has to avoid trouble until the PCs arrive, probably with a great deal of armed thugs their employer will no doubt pack on their ship (the pirates' activity has already almost driven everyone who isn't the Hutt out of business on the pitiful moon that's the focus of the story right now). I suspect it might turn into a mini D-day, with the party's rusty Wayfarer in place of an Allied invasion and a little fewer MG42s.

We use architect software.
We had discussed about making modular terrain, but it never took off. Another GM has downloaded star wars assets to make 2D maps, but I haven't seen the result yet.
One user told me to try Doombuilder, I'll have to read the manual.

>space battles
we use X-wing minis; and a big whiteboard sheet if we need planets, asteroids or other stuff.
Whiteboard sheets are great, even for drawing ground maps.

ps: where does that base come from?

Onslaught on Arda adventure supplement.

that's a damn cool map

>ps: where does that base come from?
It's from Onslaught at Arda I

Vader's ideal scenario is being at range 1 to the side of something, he will die if he goes head on into fights, especially since he doesn't have autothrusters and the like. He can do that once or maybe twice before he dies due to his 5 HP, but that goes away fast. VI, Juke, Predator, and Lone Wolf work well on him. (And Crack Shot or Adaptability in a pinch)

Inquisitor needs Proton Rockets, and here is why- he wants to stay at Range 3 and snipe with his ability to keep up his 4-dice Autothruster defense. Your opponent though has no opportunity cost to engage him at range 1- his ability is useless there and your opponent gets an extra red- if they try bumrushing Vader on the other hand, your opponent will probably take some HHHC attacks for their trouble. Those Proton Rockets let him knife-fight and act as a deterrent from charging him.

For Double Edge, his ability is effectively blank- He's a Twin Laser Turret with an EPT, that's all that matters. You aren't going to miss with both TLT shots often, and iff you do, your primary won't do much, and you probably won't have a focus for UGR. You want an EPT that lets you mod both turret shots- Expertise, Predator or Lone Wolf. You either want to flank or to lead them on a chase through asteroids.

Thanks.

The map is from Aliens.
Dumping the other levels.

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That's all, folks.