Here we are! These next couple of articles will be covering some of my most ambitious ship creations so far!
This is a Battle of the Titans and my first attempt at making a pair of epic-sized ships for my articles. I'm also not starting small, I've decided to jump in the deep end with the Arquitens-class cruiser and Nebulon-B frigate. Both of these ships are a little more than twice the size of the largest epic ships we have so far in the game, the Raider and CR-90.
Because of this, these two ships will be larger and more powerful than anything in the game so far as they are bordering the line between starfighter combat and capital ship combat making these ships titans to starfighters yet still tiny to capital ships like Star Destroyers.
So let's get started on the Arquitens-class cruiser!
The Overall Design:
The Arquitens is a pocket Star Destroyer! It's heavy batteries, armour and shields let this ship take on other capital ships of similar sizes and larger much more easily than other ships this size. Its physical design is reminiscent of the Star Destroyer and Venator, letting it be proficient at both broadside attacks and heavy frontal fire.
One problem I had to think about with both the Arquitens and even the Nebulon-B was their size! As they are both around 300-325 meters, they are twice the length of standard epic ships making them completely unable to fit on the current Huge Ship base. To get around this, they would have base plates almost twice the length of huge ships, and a little wider as well.
I would classify these ships as Massive Base Ships, however as there are commander cards in epic already that are restricted to Huge Base Ships only, I would say that Massive Ships can equip Huge Ship upgrades so commanders like Ozzel and Dodonna can command these larger vessels!
Along the same train of thought, the Massive Ships would follow all other Huge Ship rules, with the only one new rule being applied to the new ship size!
Damaged, But Not Out:
If a Massive Ship has a number of damage cards equal to half of its hull value, it recovers one less shield during the end phase.
If a Massive Ship has a number of damage cards equal to three-quarters of its hull value, it cannot recover shields and recovers 1 less energy during the end phase.
The Stats:
These are scary! Due to its immense size and vastly stronger powerplant, the Arquitens is much tougher than any ship in X-Wing so far by a long way. I decided to show its triangular front hull by giving it a pair of overlapping front attack arcs. These would fill out to a full front arc if combined, but I wanted to show how the guns on the side of the Arquitens would be independent of the guns on the other side of the ship. This will also tie into its ship ability.
This ended up with the Arquitens having the following stat line:
Left Side/Front: 3
Right Side/Front: 3
Agility: 0
Hull: 42
Shields: 20 (Recovering thrice per round)
Energy: 12 (Recovering thrice per round)
These make it twice as tough as the Raider in every aspect except its primary attack, however, with the two arcs of three dice, it would be just as aggressive.
The Ship Ability:
The Overlapping Broadside Batteries are designed to show the advantages of the triangular ship of the Empire and Republic's ship design! It lets you perform a pair of primary attacks per round, and with the overlapping arcs at the front (thanks to its triangular shape) you can easily make a deadly cone of fire capable of tearing apart any ship in its way!
The Actions:
Well firstly like with the other epic ships, due to their size and crew compliment, the Arquitens can perform multiple actions per turn. However, due to its much larger size than the other epic ships, the Arquitens can perform three actions around. I also noticed while deciding on the actions, that all epic ships have the same five actions: focus, reinforce, target lock, coordinate and jam. So I gave all of these to the Arquitens as they are the only actions that make sense for any large base ship!
The Dial:
It's quite simply rubbish! Due to the Arquitens' size, it would be hell to manoeuvre around the board, taking ships out with its bulk, even more than normal epic ships. Because of this, I've restricted it to executing a speed two manoeuvre at max, making it a slow crawling ship that forcing you to let your opponents ships come to you and not the other way round!
The Upgrades:
These are another of the Arquitens's strong points along with its bulk, letting it have space for multiple turbolasers emplacements, some missiles, large cargo spaces, and copious amounts of crew, gunners and teams to keeping it running smoothly! This fills out to fourteen slots including its command ability and title, making this a heavily equitable ship that can be filled out for several roles.
The Pilots:
As there are no named pilots for capital ships in X-Wing, we only have the generic you've seen, and I have included both the Empire and Republics Arquitens as they both had these ships during their military history. For their points cost I would say they are about double the cost of the Raider due to most if not all the stats being doubled, so anywhere between 270-300 points.
The Upgrades:
Thunder Wasp:
What, a ship that gives me, a Thrawn obsessed nerd, a chance to make Thrawn based cards! I must be in heaven! The Thunder Wasp was the second ship that Thrawn served on during his time in the empire after leaving the Blood Crow. It was also the first he commanded as well. To show this I decided to do two things to show it as his ship: firstly I gave it an additional command upgrade (a slot that I'll expand upon in this article), and secondly, I let it equip Buzz Droids to show Thrawn's interest in Clone wars weapons during his time in the Empire. If you've read the first cannon Thrawn Book you'll understand, if not GO READ IT, IT'S AMAZING! (I'm not obsessed...)
Due to the Thunder Wasp only allowing you to add more upgrades, I'd say its cheap points-wise at about 2-3 points.
Shyrack:
Next is one of the three Arquitens Thrawn had command of as a part of the Ninety-Sixth Task Force. The Shyrack's ability is again taken from the Thrawn book, and the battle of Scrim Island, where Thrawn used his Arquitens to block incoming fire from a planet to keep his Star Destroyer safe long enough to take out the island's defences. It's ability shows this by increasing the defence value of ships hiding behind you.
This makes the ships hiding behind the Shyrack next to impossible to hit, it would make it a very strong upgrade that would be about 5-7 points.
Centicore:
The final Imperial Title, the Centicore comes from the Armarda game as one of the two Arquitens titles you can equip. In Armada, it acts as a relay for the game's version of the coordinate action. Because of this, I decided to make this work in a very similar way, extending your allies coordinate range massively.
I'd say the Centicore is of a similar points cost to the Shyrack as its ability to extend the range of coordination is very strong making it again roughly 4-6 points.
Jedi Light Cruiser:
There seems to be no named Republic Arquitens (except for Obi-Wan Kenobi's Arquitens-class light cruiser, which is just a bad name!). Because of this, I decided to give the Republic a generic(ish) title, the Jedi Light Cruiser. This lets you make use of both your comm array and your embarked Jedi Generals' force abilities to let you massively expand your coordinate range to aid you in coordinating your allies and making sense of the chaos around you!
Like with the Centicore, the Jedi Light Cruiser is powerful with its coordination range extension, however, it does require a force, so I'd say it is about the same at 4-6 points.
Docking Pincer:
The Arquitens, like most large ships, has the capabilities to carry a few small ships, even though it's not got a dedicated hanger like Moff Gideon's light cruiser. The ship could dock a handful of small starfighters like TIEs or a larger shuttlecraft like the Lambda, Eta or T-6 shuttles between its front pincer section.
For the points, I'd say because the docked ships don't give the carrier any benefit, I'd say the Docking Pincer is about 0-3 points.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo:
Well, who could have expected this upgrade after the Thunder Wasp! This is the first ship that makes sense for Thrawn to make an appearance due to his first command position being on one. Thrawn's card is based around his amazing tactical skills, letting him try to counter what his opponent is planning to do, letting him and his allies keep two steps ahead. To show
this, his ability allows you to coordinate your allies after an enemy ship reveals its dial, letting it react to the threat and potentially deal with it more effectively! It also can let you reveal another enemy ship's dial so you have a better idea of what the enemy fleet is doing. I've also made a slightly weaker standard game version of Thrawn for your use!
As for points, both versions are strong, with the epic version probably being around 14-18 points as you can coordinate two ships every round for free, and the standard version, although weaker would still be 8-11 points.
Eli Vanto:
Where there is Thrawn, Eli is not far behind. A melding of both Captain Pellaeon and Jorj Cardas from legends. Eli is Thrawn's translator, aid, pupil and even friend. He was one of few who could see Thrawn's plans, even though he would normally get the whole image just after Thrawn. Because of this, I made his ability to show this by letting him acquire a matching token to another ship after they gain a token, showing that he sees his enemy's plans as they are in action, and not before.
Ironically I'd say Eli is stronger than the standard version of Thrawn, so I'd say he'd be about 10-13 points at least.
To Defeat An Enemy:
I've decided with this and the Nebulon-B's packs to expand and change the way the Command upgrades are used in Epic. So far they are used as almost solely a way to create squadrons or have commanders. I feel they could be used as a way to show epic ships tactics during a battle. The first of these is taking Thrawn's
line 'to defeat an enemy, you must know them' and making it into a card that works in a similar way to both Informant and Vi Moradi, letting you see an opponent's movements during the system's phase. This is very useful in epic as you can choose a squadron leader and essentially see the moves for six ships if they are close enough, letting you help your fighter escorts block them or even help you use commanders like Needa to ram the squadron yourself!
I'd say To Defeat An Enemy is about 5-8 points, as it's ability is as strong as Informant but with twice the range, on a ship that is MUCH larger than a small, medium or large ship!
The Thrawn Slingshot:
The Thrawn Slingshot was a manoeuvre where a capital ship would use their tractor beams to send their starfighter complement drifting towards the enemy while they're at low power. This allowed them to sneak up on their enemy as they are invisible until the battle when they bring their power online. When active, you can use their scanners to gain access to information on the enemies' positions. This is a risky tactic to use, especially in epic, as one or two ships alone can be vaporised by all your opponent's ships before they can do any good, but three or four Gozantis worth of TIE's could be very effective. However, I'd still say its only about 3-6 points.
Marg Sabl Coordinator:
As the first time we see the Marg Sabl is when Thrawn uses it in legends, it feels fitting for it to make an appearance in the article. But as it already exists, I've decided to expand upon that card by letting the capital ship that's being used to perform a Marg Sabl make it more effective. Because the commanders on the capital ship can see the target before the fighters can, they can inform their fighters so they can make rapid attacks against the unsuspecting enemy to take full advantage of the Marg Sabl manoeuvre!
This is incredibly powerful though so it would need to be expensive, about 8-12 points as you're giving most ships a stronger than snapshot ability.
The Example List:
A new thing I'm going to start doing is making a list out of the cards I have made to help give you an idea of how my upgrades ad ships fit into the current game of X-Wing!
Outer Rim Patrol Group:
Outer Rim Enforcer (290) "Howlrunner" (44)
Turbolaser Battery (13) Veteran Wing Leader (2)
Mitth'raw'nuruodo (16) Academy Pilot (22)
Needa (8)
Vetran Turret Gunner (7) Academy Pilot (22)
Optimized Power Core (6) Academy Pilot (22)
Tibanna Reserves (3)
To Defeat An Enemy: (6) Academy Pilot (22)
Thunder Wasp (3)
Total: 498
My design for this Arquitens list is to make the Arquitens the be-all and end-all of the list, which is easy when it is over half of the standard epic points of 500!
I equipped the Arquitens with a good amount of offensive upgrades which gives it very heavy turbolasers that can easily melt through any opponents capital ships, and hopefully gain a solid hit on one or two starfighters as well. But I've also equipped a handful of upgrades to help you gather information on the opponent's movements so you use the light starfighter escort to its best potential!
The Offensive Upgrades:
These upgrades are based around the Arquitens' double primary attack and Veteran Turret Gunner to allow this ship to perform six attacks around, two of which are with the heavy turbolasers!
To explain:
Firstly you make a primary attack, then use Veteran Turret Gunner to perform a Targeting Battery attack.
Next, perform a bonus primary attack with the Overlapping Broadside Batteries ship ability.
Next, you use Veteran Turret Gunner and the lock acquired through the Targeting Battery to perform a Turbolaser Battery attack.
After that, you can then perform another Targeting Battery and Turbolaser Battery attack using the huge ship rules.
The only disadvantage is that your energy supply will be heavily drained by all these attacks but this is why the Arquitens has both Optimized Power Core and Tibanna Reserves, to try to keep its energy supply high enough to keep performing these deadly barrages of attacks.
The Predictive Upgrades
These upgrades make use of Thrawn and To Know An Enemy to allow you to have good knowledge of the battlefield so that Needa can position either your TIE fighter screen effectively or manoeuvre your Arquitens to crash through your opponent's own fighter screen. The Thunder Wasp along with Thrawn is used in this to allow you to equip both Needa and To Know An Enemy.
Overall I think this list is perfectly designed to take out any opposing capital ships, though its very light fighter screen would easily be the death of it.
However I believe this ship would be better suited for a 1000+ point epic game, this list doesn't really show the Arquitens full potential!
Conclusion:
I never really expect there to be an official Arquitens or Nebulon-B as the inclusion of ships like these would be very ambitious for AMG to do as Epic is less popular than the standard game, and the current epic ships are massively expensive to buy, let alone something that would be twice the size. That being said, imagine the model, it would be beautiful...
I'm very happy with how my Arquitens came out, it feels very powerful and deadly but also it is still killable with enough concentrated firepower.
I also think that it works quite well in the standard epic design that has already been setup. I was very tempted at first to do two ship cards per Massive Ship similar to the first edition epic ships with fore and aft sections that can be destroyed. However, they felt clunky any added even more to keep track of, something that is already a problem in the epic games as it is! And the Damaged, But Not Out rule will make it gain a similar feel to the first edition crippled sections anyway!
My next article will be the Rebellions version of the Arquitens, the Nebulon-B. I also wish to eventually test these two ships in a to vs two Tabletop Simulator epic game with something like 400 points for the Arquitens and Nebulon-B, and 200-300 points for each player, making an 800-1000 point game.
As normal feel free to use the cards in friendly games to show the rest of the X-Wing community that here comes the power of the Tiny Titans!
Thank you all for reading,
Watcher Leader out.
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