Much like discovering your Vault in Fallout: Shelter is someone still running or perhaps your old tamagotchi has someone survived to become a zombie and feast on the brains of other tamagotchies, my blog is still here!
::and there was much rejoicing.... yay...::
Man'o'man. So a little come-to-Jesus moment here at Dropship Inbound. If I were to symbolize my gaming life for the last three months, the image of a Victorian woman dressed in black pacing a widow's walk waiting for her sailing husband to return is probably the best I can muster. The last three months have been difficult to say the least. Between project work at my place of employment, troubles and trials with kids, and a bevy of real-life requirements, waiting for gaming to return has been a pretty depressing lesson in futility.
I think in the last three months I've played a couple games of Netrunner, an X-wing game a month ago, and a couple games of MTG Commander with a work buddy. Aside from that, nothing. Not even work on Skunkworks projects such as Homeworld: Full Thrust. I'll admit, some evenings when exhausted and wanting to veg, I broke out my tablet to play Walking War Robots or Talisman, but its hard to count those as same category as the "gaming" I devoted this blog too. Those were more stress-relief.
Regardless, I think it's time to open up another chapter of Dropship Inbound that I hinted about in my very first post - LIFE. Ever since my amazing wife and I embarked upon creating a family a couple years ago, I knew that my gaming hobby would become a hurdle. At the time, I was very involved in my gaming club GASP (having recently been made royal court), running the first of my Battletech campaigns, and organizing an every other Thursday open miniature gaming night at a local game store called "The Open". The time I had in those was something my wife supported, for the most part, but even I'll admit it took a good amount of my time. When my wife and I found out my daughter was going to join us, she and I sat down and some horsetrading commenced. Battletech campaign? yes. The Open? No. GASP games days? Month-by-month basis. For a time, it was good.
Then along came baby #2, my son, and everything changed. I'd be foolish to say I had planned for every eventuality. Far from it, I went from "emotionally-prepared" to "deer-in-the-headlights" in the span of about a month. At that time, my second Battletech campaign was closing, I hadn't been to a Games Day in probably 3 months+, and any other gaming had become short weeknight games with Drew. The time-collapse, from that point on, was like an avalanche.
I'll save you the rest of the story and jump to the present. I haven't been to Games Day in over a year at this point. Devoting a 4 hour+ block of time to Battletech is almost a pipe dream and even the thought of a organizing The Open makes me laugh.
The point of this story? It'd be easy to say I'm bitter or jaded to see my hobby atrophy as badly as it has. Between finances and time, there's just been no ability to engage in it and to top it off, its made me a cynic to "hope" that I'll be able to jump into something (I'm looking at you Bolt Action...). The truth is, the easy emotions are usually those developed by knee-jerk responses and immediate stimuli. One thing I've learned is that lizard-brained fight-or-flight bitterness is a real emotion felt by anyone who has to sacrifice something they loved for something more important.
I'm not going to stand here with some fake altruism and say that a selfish feeling like being bitter isn't a real emotion. Far too many times we humans stand back deriding ourselves or others for feeling something. The point is the magnitude it has on your actions and what an emotion is balanced with in the scheme of day-to-day life. I am sad to see my gaming take a back seat, but I am happy to see my children develop and grow. I've needed to change my time to manage supporting my wife, supporting my house, and deal with the increased pressure of work. I deeply love my children and my wife, and the rest of life is in a constant state of flux I'm not really that comfortable with, but I'm dealing the best I can.
SO... OMG ALL THE FEELS, I CAN'T TAKE IT!
Regardless, check back soon. I'll be posting a new scenario for X-Wing.
You stay classy.
September 28, 2016
June 27, 2016
Skunkworks - Homeworld:Full Thrust
"100 years ago, a satellite detected an object under the sands of the Great Desert. An expedition was sent. An ancient starship buried in the sands. Deep inside the ruin was a single stone that would change the course of our history forever. On the stone was etched a galactic map and a single word more ancient than the clans themselves... Hiigara... Our Home..."
Well, I decided to try a little proof of concept test. I found a site with a sizeable collection of Homeworld ship models in papercraft. Better still, they are all pretty much in scale! So I decided to try my hand at building two models - the Taiidan Qwaar-Jet Heavy Cruiser and the Kushan Avatar Heavy Cruiser. Essentially two of the Homeworld's poster children.
And the Avatar! (in-game model)
Overall, they weren't incredibly difficult to assemble. In all, I used a hobby cutting board, x-acto, tweezers, and basic white glue. The Qwaar-Jet model actually had internal bracing per the instructions, but I had to beef it up. The Avatar had no internal bracing though. Overall, both are fairly sturdy, but not enough to to use in a mini-gaming scenario.
Time-wise, I'd say each took me about 6 hrs of fairly distracted construction to complete. If I were focused, I'm confident I could cut that time down significantly. Overall, though, I like the look of them. The Avatar had some bizarre angles and I don't think the Ion turrets fit right, but overall its bulky look is great. The Qwaar-Jet, on the other hand, looks great! It was fairly easy to manufacture too and the creator was brilliant for suggesting bracing.
In my roll-out versions of each model, I intend to add foam bracing as a skeleton. Both for strength and to help with mounting it to a flight stand. Then I'll have a set of ships that look great on a table!
What do you guys think? Leave a comment below!
- Homeworld Intro Cinematic
I'm not going to mince words here. I loved/love the Homeworld series.
In all honesty, when I played the first one back in college, it blew my little mind. It took all the Warcrafts and Starcrafts, Age of Empires, and anything I had played beforehand, wrapped them up into one tiny little ball and then squashed them. Don't get me wrong, I am still a pretty massive Blizzard fan, but Homeworld was a groundbreaking title in PC gaming.
For me, I geeked out pretty hard about the ship designs in the game and the attention to detail the designers had. The fact that I could play a PC game and create a massive, Star-Wars-Endor scale space battle unfurl before me and then stand back and watch it unfold, standing back as a god or literally snapping my camera to a little fighter locked in a dogfight between massive capital ships with huge turrets that would independently rotate and fire was pure, unadulterated eye candy of the first order. Add in the fact that everything was to scale and it was the stuff of legend.
I've always wanted to try and play a space miniatures game that had that same "wow" element to it. It's one of the reasons I began playing Firestorm Armada (beautiful ship design, good mechanics, etc). Only, I've never been a fan of the movement mechanics.
Full Thrust's movement mechanics are very enjoyable in terms of space combat, but honestly, the official miniatures for the game are woefully tragic and uninspired. Really, if you don't believe, go see them for yourself - Full Thrust Miniatures. I'm not down on the whole range, but when you compare them against Firestorm (see here, here, here), FT's miniatures look a little plain...
Regardless, I got an idea in my head to start developing a Full Thrust game using the ships from Homeworld. Generic fast space combat game mixed with excellent ship designs, what could be better? In truth, the mechanics for the game pretty much are writing themselves. Unfortunately, due pesky issues like intellectual property, etc and the fact that I'd like to run this at GASP's next convention, I can't really post the rules I'm working on.
Rules aside, though, my thoughts went to the thought that "wait, what do I put on the table?"
I mean, don't get me wrong, I found a couple folks out there with some great 3D printed miniatures, but I am a father of two kids and pretty poor in terms of expendable cash. Then I remembered I found a website a couple years back where folks were building Homeworld ship models in something called Papercraft.
Well, I decided to try a little proof of concept test. I found a site with a sizeable collection of Homeworld ship models in papercraft. Better still, they are all pretty much in scale! So I decided to try my hand at building two models - the Taiidan Qwaar-Jet Heavy Cruiser and the Kushan Avatar Heavy Cruiser. Essentially two of the Homeworld's poster children.
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| The Heavy Cruisers side by side |
First up, the Qwaar-Jet! (you can see the in-game model here)
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| Port Bow view |
 | |
| View down the spine |
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| Below the port side |
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| Starboard Bow view |
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| Starboard view |
Overall, they weren't incredibly difficult to assemble. In all, I used a hobby cutting board, x-acto, tweezers, and basic white glue. The Qwaar-Jet model actually had internal bracing per the instructions, but I had to beef it up. The Avatar had no internal bracing though. Overall, both are fairly sturdy, but not enough to to use in a mini-gaming scenario.
Time-wise, I'd say each took me about 6 hrs of fairly distracted construction to complete. If I were focused, I'm confident I could cut that time down significantly. Overall, though, I like the look of them. The Avatar had some bizarre angles and I don't think the Ion turrets fit right, but overall its bulky look is great. The Qwaar-Jet, on the other hand, looks great! It was fairly easy to manufacture too and the creator was brilliant for suggesting bracing.
In my roll-out versions of each model, I intend to add foam bracing as a skeleton. Both for strength and to help with mounting it to a flight stand. Then I'll have a set of ships that look great on a table!
What do you guys think? Leave a comment below!
June 20, 2016
Battletech Campaign - The Devil's Aces
Back in March, I made a point that "in the weeks to come, I'll give you folks a rundown on the two [Devil's Aces] campaigns I've produced so far." Well... it's been about 10 weeks since I said that so I technically I'm still in that "weeks to come" time frame! ^_^
The initial self-titled campaign for the Devil's Aces campaign that I wrote was, at its core, a Battletech Level 1 ruleset eleven mission story adventure set during the events of the War of 3039. Couple things to take from that:
What about the story though?
The first campaign introduced the Devil's Aces as a down-on-their-luck mercenary unit - dispossessed, on the brink of collapse, about to go under. Their luck would change when they are approached by a corporate liaison named only Mr. Williams who was interested in hiring the Aces for a yet undisclosed mission on behalf of someone he referred to as his "Benefactor". To most mercenary units, so many unknowns would usually mean they'd turn down the contract, but Mr. Williams also offered a company of Battlemechs that the Aces would call their own if they accepted. Too good to be true? Sure, but what did the Aces have to lose?
So they accepted the mission and in the following weeks, they were transported in complete secrecy to a Fedcom staging area. They were tasked with providing support, intelligence gathering, and precision strike capabilities for a secret upcoming offensive to a joint unit consisting of the 42nd Avalon Hussars and the 3rd Lyran Regulars. The entire joint force would be under the operational command of Marshal Edward Valos, commander of the 42nd.
Once the Aces connected up with their new mechs, their dropship The Devil's Hand was loaded onto a jumpship with the other taskforce ships and they headed to their still unknown objective. After a pair of jumps, the taskforce was ordered into invasion status and they made their final jump to their objective - the planet Delacruz deep within the Draconis Combine. The War of 3039 had begun.
Delacruz, a primary trading hub for the sector, would not be an easy target. With only two medium-sized continents, numerous archipelagos, and a mix of mountainous and wet terrain, the planet itself would be difficult for maneuvering. Unfortunately, it was also the home base of the 8th Sword of Light, one of the elite Draconis Combine house units. Split between two bases, located on the main continent at Goi-pa and on the smaller continent at Thune, Valos could afford to have his taskforce split to exploit the 8th's separation and use the Aces to further exploit any weaknesses.
As the players progress, they will see involvement in a number of major battles, but also a number of side missions that support the main force thrusts and maybe some missions the Benefactor deems a better use of their time. Eventually, though, the players will come face to face with the turning point of the War of '39 - the Draconis Combine counterattack and subsequent reveal of their "lostech" Mechs and weapons.
Delacruz would eventually become a battle the Fedcom taskforce would eventually have to retreat from, with little gained for the effort. Still, what part would the Aces play? Holding the line against the resurgent DCMS or perhaps working in the shadows to blunt the DCMS advance? Why did the Benefactor want to be involved with this battle in the first place? What will the endgame be for the Aces?
If you're interested in how this campaign turned out the first time I ran it, I encourage you to check out www.gaspgamer.com and their forums. If you look under Miniatures > Miniatures: Sci-Fi Wargames > Miniatures: Battletech, you'll find a little thread called "The Devil's Aces After-Action Reports" which has a chronicle of how my group played out this campaign.
How does the campaign play?
The campaign is set up as a narrative building from the initial steps of the invasion to the desperate days of the DCMS counterattack. Aside from the actual battles, the campaign encourages both the GM and players to add RPG elements to add depth to the story. On top of that, the players must manage their unit's repair status, skills, and available mechs and the GM has a spreadsheet to help streamline all of this bookkeeping. On top of that, the narrative allows the players to effect their outcome, but reminds them that they are operating in a world with far more powerful, benevolent or malevolent entities who have stakes in this war.
I developed a mission book, a player/campaign tracker spreadsheet, force unit tables, and skill tables. My intent was to keep the story in canon as well. My development sources included Sarna.net, Historical: War of 3039, & TRO: 3039.
If you're interested in possibly running the campaign in your group or some more info on it, please email me or leave a comment below!
Next up? The Aces become embroiled in a shadow war while they themselves are far from home!
The initial self-titled campaign for the Devil's Aces campaign that I wrote was, at its core, a Battletech Level 1 ruleset eleven mission story adventure set during the events of the War of 3039. Couple things to take from that:
- For leymans, the "Level 1" ruleset is effectively the base ruleset of Battletech as described in Battletech: Total Warfare and utilizing the units available in Technical Readout: 3039. It's pre-Clan Invasion (the introduction of "Level 2"), so hence it features base weapons, single heat sinks, standard armor, etc. For example, there are no pulse lasers.
- "Story adventure" - Essentially unlike most of the scenario books, the campaign isn't just about a series of battles intended to recreate an event in the Battletech history. The campaign was designed to challenge players to navigate their way through the overall conflict they would be involved in both on the battlefield and off. Hence, they wouldn't just show up for a battle, their decisions would be the reason they were.
- "War of 3039" - This relatively small conflict in the overall scope of Battletech was a watershed moment for the course of the game's story. The conflict showed that the burgeoning power of the Federated Commonwealth was not absolute, that Comstar's goals were more than just rumors and conjecture, and that a massive successor state like the Draconis Combine could adapt to face a new, potentially overwhelming threat (with outside help...).
What about the story though?
The first campaign introduced the Devil's Aces as a down-on-their-luck mercenary unit - dispossessed, on the brink of collapse, about to go under. Their luck would change when they are approached by a corporate liaison named only Mr. Williams who was interested in hiring the Aces for a yet undisclosed mission on behalf of someone he referred to as his "Benefactor". To most mercenary units, so many unknowns would usually mean they'd turn down the contract, but Mr. Williams also offered a company of Battlemechs that the Aces would call their own if they accepted. Too good to be true? Sure, but what did the Aces have to lose?
So they accepted the mission and in the following weeks, they were transported in complete secrecy to a Fedcom staging area. They were tasked with providing support, intelligence gathering, and precision strike capabilities for a secret upcoming offensive to a joint unit consisting of the 42nd Avalon Hussars and the 3rd Lyran Regulars. The entire joint force would be under the operational command of Marshal Edward Valos, commander of the 42nd.
Once the Aces connected up with their new mechs, their dropship The Devil's Hand was loaded onto a jumpship with the other taskforce ships and they headed to their still unknown objective. After a pair of jumps, the taskforce was ordered into invasion status and they made their final jump to their objective - the planet Delacruz deep within the Draconis Combine. The War of 3039 had begun.
Delacruz, a primary trading hub for the sector, would not be an easy target. With only two medium-sized continents, numerous archipelagos, and a mix of mountainous and wet terrain, the planet itself would be difficult for maneuvering. Unfortunately, it was also the home base of the 8th Sword of Light, one of the elite Draconis Combine house units. Split between two bases, located on the main continent at Goi-pa and on the smaller continent at Thune, Valos could afford to have his taskforce split to exploit the 8th's separation and use the Aces to further exploit any weaknesses.
As the players progress, they will see involvement in a number of major battles, but also a number of side missions that support the main force thrusts and maybe some missions the Benefactor deems a better use of their time. Eventually, though, the players will come face to face with the turning point of the War of '39 - the Draconis Combine counterattack and subsequent reveal of their "lostech" Mechs and weapons.
Delacruz would eventually become a battle the Fedcom taskforce would eventually have to retreat from, with little gained for the effort. Still, what part would the Aces play? Holding the line against the resurgent DCMS or perhaps working in the shadows to blunt the DCMS advance? Why did the Benefactor want to be involved with this battle in the first place? What will the endgame be for the Aces?
If you're interested in how this campaign turned out the first time I ran it, I encourage you to check out www.gaspgamer.com and their forums. If you look under Miniatures > Miniatures: Sci-Fi Wargames > Miniatures: Battletech, you'll find a little thread called "The Devil's Aces After-Action Reports" which has a chronicle of how my group played out this campaign.
How does the campaign play?
The campaign is set up as a narrative building from the initial steps of the invasion to the desperate days of the DCMS counterattack. Aside from the actual battles, the campaign encourages both the GM and players to add RPG elements to add depth to the story. On top of that, the players must manage their unit's repair status, skills, and available mechs and the GM has a spreadsheet to help streamline all of this bookkeeping. On top of that, the narrative allows the players to effect their outcome, but reminds them that they are operating in a world with far more powerful, benevolent or malevolent entities who have stakes in this war.
I developed a mission book, a player/campaign tracker spreadsheet, force unit tables, and skill tables. My intent was to keep the story in canon as well. My development sources included Sarna.net, Historical: War of 3039, & TRO: 3039.
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| Player/Campaign Tracker |
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| Mechwarrior Skills |
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| Force Unit Tables |
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| Missions |
If you're interested in possibly running the campaign in your group or some more info on it, please email me or leave a comment below!
Next up? The Aces become embroiled in a shadow war while they themselves are far from home!
June 7, 2016
Skunkworks: Crusader-class Corvette (X-Wing Mini's: Scum Faction)
"The partnership with Jabba was a mistake. No more alliances. We're going to do this our way. We'll corrupt planets one by one and crush all who oppose us."
- Tyber Zann, Forces of Corruption
Alright folks. I'm back and I must say it is good to be back. Essentially I'd been on a gaming hiatus for much of May, but now I need to get back at it. To quote the infamous Joker (THE Joker...), "now I'm tanned, I'm rested, and I'm ready to give this old town a wedgie again!"
I'm adding yet another new segment to Dropship Inbound - Skunkworks. Long story short, I'm an engineer and I love to design and develop new, well, anything. It goes without saying that I currently have about 4 or more gaming "projects" squirreled away on various thumb drives and graph pads at the current time that I hope I can bring to the light of day. I figured I'd share those and see what you folks thought.
First up is an idea I had been toying around with ever since Fantasy Flight announced the "epic scale" playstyle when they released the Tantive IV Blockade Runner miniature (aka the Corellian CR90 corvette). Course, when you say miniature, it was more like an excuse to have a pre-painted Star Wars prop reproduction, but it was so damn cool looking it inspired three additional big ships to be added to the game.
With the introduction of the Scum & Villainy faction to X-Wing, my thoughts immediately went back to one of my favorite PC games from my college years, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption. I was a huge fan of the story they crafted with Tyber Zann and the Zann Consortium and the way the writers did a pretty fair job in the campaign of weaving him into the overall Star Wars movie and extended universes. Plus I loved the way they built the Zann's touman of available units from whatever he could coerce, corrupt, or enslave into his service - especially the fine folks over at Mandal Hypernautics.
Years ago at GASPcon 14, I developed a scenario attempting to use fan-built big ship rules. I even developed a title scroll for the it (you can see it here). For the scenario, I decided to use one of my favorite FoC ships, the Crusader-class Corvette.
Overall, the scenario wasn't terrible, but the I always felt like I never did the ship the justice it deserved. Plus, with Epic Play rules in their infancy, balancing the ship was difficult at best. Still, I did find a great model to represent it. Spartan Games had produced a large scale miniature called the Agressor Planetary Dropship (link) for a proposed Firestorm Armada tabletop skirmish game. I picked one up for cheap and the scale was spot on.
Even produced a stat card and template for the ship.
Fast forward a couple years and I thought its time to return to the Crusader. From the start, I scrapped everything I had done before except for a few ideas. I wanted to design a ship that followed the "hot-rodding" mentality of the Scum faction and represented what a big ship for a non-military focused faction would be. They'd want something for intimidation against those weaker than them and speed to evade the much bigger Alliance and Imperial ships. Finally, I'd need to add in an element of "anything goes" that the Scum value as well.
Hence, here it is. The new stats for the Crusader. It's been changed to a two-card ship on-par with the Raider and CR90.
So a couple things. First, the intent of the special ability was to mimic the fact that a ship of "Mandalorian" design is going to be robust and able to shrug off damage. Its the way most of their ships have been represented in games and loosely mirrors ablative armor. Second, the Overrun action was an idea I had to give an epic scale ship the "Boost" action, but also convey the more overtly treacherous and offensive nature of S&V. I can just imagine a Zann Consortium captain plowing his ship through friend and foe alike to either escape a trap or claim an prize for himself.
Also, since I was in a brainstorming mood, I started fleshing out upgrade cards as well!
I have yet to play test any of this, but I figured I'd put it out on the street for folks to try. I'm eager to hear what people think, so either drop me an email or leave a comment below! This is a fan-made creation and in no way legal for any FFG event. Really it was all just a fun exercise into trying to make a Scum big ship. I hope to try it out soon with my gaming group and I'll let you know how it goes.
Until next time, "everyone has a price"....
- Tyber Zann, Forces of Corruption
Alright folks. I'm back and I must say it is good to be back. Essentially I'd been on a gaming hiatus for much of May, but now I need to get back at it. To quote the infamous Joker (THE Joker...), "now I'm tanned, I'm rested, and I'm ready to give this old town a wedgie again!"
I'm adding yet another new segment to Dropship Inbound - Skunkworks. Long story short, I'm an engineer and I love to design and develop new, well, anything. It goes without saying that I currently have about 4 or more gaming "projects" squirreled away on various thumb drives and graph pads at the current time that I hope I can bring to the light of day. I figured I'd share those and see what you folks thought.
First up is an idea I had been toying around with ever since Fantasy Flight announced the "epic scale" playstyle when they released the Tantive IV Blockade Runner miniature (aka the Corellian CR90 corvette). Course, when you say miniature, it was more like an excuse to have a pre-painted Star Wars prop reproduction, but it was so damn cool looking it inspired three additional big ships to be added to the game.
With the introduction of the Scum & Villainy faction to X-Wing, my thoughts immediately went back to one of my favorite PC games from my college years, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption. I was a huge fan of the story they crafted with Tyber Zann and the Zann Consortium and the way the writers did a pretty fair job in the campaign of weaving him into the overall Star Wars movie and extended universes. Plus I loved the way they built the Zann's touman of available units from whatever he could coerce, corrupt, or enslave into his service - especially the fine folks over at Mandal Hypernautics.
Even produced a stat card and template for the ship.
Fast forward a couple years and I thought its time to return to the Crusader. From the start, I scrapped everything I had done before except for a few ideas. I wanted to design a ship that followed the "hot-rodding" mentality of the Scum faction and represented what a big ship for a non-military focused faction would be. They'd want something for intimidation against those weaker than them and speed to evade the much bigger Alliance and Imperial ships. Finally, I'd need to add in an element of "anything goes" that the Scum value as well.
Hence, here it is. The new stats for the Crusader. It's been changed to a two-card ship on-par with the Raider and CR90.
- Crusader-class Corvette (S&V)
- Stat Cards
- Fore Section Card (50 pts)
- Pilot Skill: 4
- ATK: 3 (180° Arc), Range 1-4
- Energy: -
- EVADE: 0
- HULL: 8
- SHIELDS: 6
- Action Bar: Target Lock
- Special Ability Card Text: "Whenever this ship would be dealt multiple damage cards, either face up or face down, ignore the first damage card dealt."
- Upgrade Bar:
- Title, Cargo, Team, Hardpoint, Hardpoint, Crew, Illicit, Modification
- Aft Section Card (40 pts)
- Pilot Skill: 4
- ATK: - (Secondary Arc 120°)
- Energy: 6
- EVADE: 0
- HULL: 10
- SHIELDS: 4
- Action Bar:
- Reinforce, Recover, Overrun*
- Special Ability Card Text: -
- Upgrades:
- Crew, Crew, Hardpoint, Cargo, Cargo, Illicit, Modification
- Maneuver Dial (energy gained in "( )" )
- Speed 1: Bank L (3), Bank R (3)
- Speed 2: Bank L (2), Straight (3), Bank R (2)
- Speed 3: Straight (3)
- Speed 4: Straight (2)
- *NEW ACTION*
- Overrun - At the end of this ship's movement, it may perform an additional speed 2 straight maneuver or a speed 1 bank. If this ship performs this action, it gains -1 energy for the turn. It will not gain any additional energy from the selected Overrun maneuver. If this ship overlaps any ship(s) or obstacles(s), it must resolve them as per normal rules.
So a couple things. First, the intent of the special ability was to mimic the fact that a ship of "Mandalorian" design is going to be robust and able to shrug off damage. Its the way most of their ships have been represented in games and loosely mirrors ablative armor. Second, the Overrun action was an idea I had to give an epic scale ship the "Boost" action, but also convey the more overtly treacherous and offensive nature of S&V. I can just imagine a Zann Consortium captain plowing his ship through friend and foe alike to either escape a trap or claim an prize for himself.
Also, since I was in a brainstorming mood, I started fleshing out upgrade cards as well!
- New Cards (unique cards are in italics)
- Titles
- Ordo [5 pts] - +2 Energy. This ship's aft section loses 1 crew slot and gains 1 cargo slot.
- Basilisk [4 pts] - +1 Energy. You may spend 2 energy to add 1 additional attack die to a primary weapon attack.
- Scythe [2 pts] - +0 Energy. When this ship performs a Reinforce Action, it may assign a reinforce token to both the Fore and Aft Sections.
- Hardpoints
- Point Defense System [4 pts] - Whenever an ordinance (torpedo or missile) attack is made against this ship, this ship counts as having 3 additional evade dice, regardless if the attack is made against the Fore or Aft section. Discard any energy on this card at the end of the turn. {Req's 1 energy} Crusader Only
- Heavy "Mangler" Battery [6 pts] - Attack[Energy]. Spend 2 energy from this card to perform this attack. You may change 1 of your hit results to a critical result. ATK: 4, Range 2-4. {Req's 2 energy} Scum Only
- Crew (note: I had some fun with this one...)
- Tyber Zann [8 pts] - During the activation phase, you may choose an enemy ship within range 2.When that ship reveals its maneuver dial, you may change its maneuver to one of your choice. After this maneuver, the controlling player may make its "Perform Action" step as allowed in normal activation. Scum, Huge Ship Only
- Urai Fen [6 pts] - During the combat phase, friendly ships within range 2 of this ship count as having +1 pilot skill. Scum, Huge Ship Only
- Jabba the Hutt [14 pts] - Counts as taking up two Crew Slots. At the beginning of the game, name one ship on the opposing side. If the named ship is destroyed before the ship with Jabba assigned to it is removed from play, double the point value listed on that ship's card when determining victory conditions. Scum Only
- Bib Fortuna [2 pts] - Once per game, during the Activation Phase and prior to any ships revealing maneuver dials, you may see the maneuver dial of any opposing ship. Then you may change the maneuver dial of the selected ship to any legal maneuver and return it to the opposing player. The new maneuver cannot cause the ship to leave the play area. Discard this card afterwards. Scum & Imperial Only
- Zann Consortium Captain [2 pts] - At the beginning of the combat phase, if this ship has no opposing ships within range 1, it gains 1 free focus token. Scum, Huge Ship only
- Black Sun Captain [2 pts] - At the end of the activation phase, you may assign 1 Evade token to a friendly ship at range 2-3. Scum, Huge Ship Only
- High Value Bounty [3 pts] - Whenever a non-Scum ship declares this ship the target of an attack, that ship must roll one attack die. On a critical hit or hit result, that ship receives 1 stress token. Scum Only
- Teams
- Enslaved Verpine Techs [4 pts] - Whenever this ship performs a maneuver that gains 3 energy, it may recover 2 shields. Limit One. Scum Only
- Bothan Hackers [2 pts] - This ship gains the Jam action in its action bar for this section. Scum Only
- Flight Control Team [2 pts] - This ship gains the Coordinate action in its action bar for this section.
- Cargo (note: another fun section)
- Sacrificial Cargo [3 pts] - During the Activation phase, you may discard this card. If you do, deploy up to 3 seismic charge tokens from the rear of the ship using any speed 2 maneuver. These tokens activate like seismic charges and may not be within range 1 of each other. Scum only (note: picture a card with ewoks & jawas floating away from an airlock strapped to bombs ^_^ )
- Backup Generator [5 pts] - During the Activation phase, this ship gains one additional energy, regardless of the maneuver chosen. If this ship has damage cards assigned to it, discard this card.
- Ion Shunt Capacitor [2 pts] - If this ship would be assigned an Ion token, cancel any damage from the attack and assign that token to this card instead of the ship. When this card has 3 ion tokens, discard this card, assign 2 ion tokens to this ship, and assign 1 damage card to this ship based on the section this upgrade is assigned to.
- Illicits (note: as with all S&V ships, we need Illicits. The Crusader can have 2!)
- "Bright Halo" Direct Interface [3 pts] - Whenever this ship performs a primary attack or rolls defense dice, it may change 1 focus result to a hit or 1 evade respectively. Discard any energy on this card at the end of the turn. {Req's 1 energy}
- Overlord ECM/ECCM Suite [14 pts] - Crusader Only. Choose one option below at the beginning of the Combat Phase. Unless "Nothing" is selected, all friendly ships at range 1 cannot perform actions in their action bar. All friendly small and large ships within range 2 of this ship counts as having the chosen option below:
- 1 additional evade die when defending.
- Enemy ships cannot assign red target lock tokens to them.
- Enemy abilities cannot assign stress tokens to them.
- Nothing
- Modifications
- Overcharged Capacitors [6 pts] - You may assign an additional energy token during the allocate energy step to any upgrade card that requires energy above the maximum energy limit listed on the card. If you do, roll 1 attack die. On a critical result, suffer 1 face-up damage card based on the section this modification is applied to. Huge Ship Only
I have yet to play test any of this, but I figured I'd put it out on the street for folks to try. I'm eager to hear what people think, so either drop me an email or leave a comment below! This is a fan-made creation and in no way legal for any FFG event. Really it was all just a fun exercise into trying to make a Scum big ship. I hope to try it out soon with my gaming group and I'll let you know how it goes.
Until next time, "everyone has a price"....
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