Today's ship pack embodies Obi-Wan's New Hope line:
There are alternatives to fighting
To explain, let's get stuck in!
The Lore:
The Consular-Class was built for the Republic and was seen in service as early as the events of the Phantom Menace. It was used as a diplomatic vessel by both the senate and the Jedi, transporting teams of diplomates to locations or even being the place to hold the negotiations itself. Because of its role as a diplomatic vessel, it was not armed to ensure that its presence would not have any chance of escalating the situation.
However, when the Clone Wars broke out across the galaxy, the Republic suddenly needed light cruisers to act as picket ships in their battle formations so they turned to their large supply of already durable and fast Consular-Class Space Cruisers.
The Overall Design:
My thought process with this ship was to give the Republic a pacifist vessel that could be used as a solid crew carrier that helps to deescalate the combat, but also could be armed for epic combat like the CR90 or Raider.
The Stats:
The Stat line for the Consular was rather easy thanks to it being purposely designed to look like a predecessor to the CR90. So because of this, I gave it a similar but slightly weaker hull value. I was going to do the same for its shields until I saw that thanks to its role as a diplomatic vessel, its shields were considered to be rather tough so I ended up increasing them a little over the CR90's.
The hardest part for me was the attack value. Although it is technically unarmed in-universe so was the GR-75, but that's been given a weak little gun in X-Wing. Because of this I did the same thing with the Consular, giving it a little pee shooter turret, letting it be armed, but nowhere near as heavily as its close cousin the CR90.
The Actions:
Epic ships normally all have the same five actions, however, again because of the unarmed nature of this ship I decided that the lock action was unnecessary, so I dropped it.
The Dial:
This is a pretty basic adjustment of the CR90's dial, just increasing the difficulty of their three straight thanks to the ship being a little slower than the CR90.
The Upgrade Slots:
This ship's upgrades are rather sparse compared to other epic ships, again thanks to its lack of heavy weapons, however, the few it does have allows you to equip this ship as a solid crew carrier and centre of a more support focused list.
These slots are:
Command Slot
Crew Slot
Crew Slot
Team Slot
Cargo Slot
Cargo Slot
Configuration Slot
Title Slot
The Ship Ability:
This is what makes this ship worthwhile despite the lack of big guns. The Diplomatic Vessel ship ability allows you to deescalate the situation with your crews expert diplomatic skills, talking down your enemy from hitting as hard, the only issue is that you must also show your willingness to stop the shooting as well, however, you can be more tactical about which ships you choose on your side.
The Pilot Card:
As with all huge ships, there is only one pilot card, this Diplomatic Guard pilot is around the 100 point cost because of its lack of weapons.
The Upgrades:
Charger c70 Retrofit:
If you dislike the more diplomatic design of the stock Consular-Class, I have good news for you! The Charger Retrofit is perfect for you, letting you gain access to two turbolaser upgrades and a missile slot. This makes your ship able to more effectively fight with its piers, however, thanks to the rushed nature of the retrofit done for the Clone Wars, it does take more energy to fire each shot. Points wise I'd say it's about 15-20 points.
Radiant VII:
The first of the Consular-Class vessels we see in Star Wars, the Radiant took Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi to negotiate with the Trade Federation. Because of its strictly diplomatic nature, the Radiant gains an action to even more effectively disarm ships, however, it cannot take the Charger configuration. I'd say it's about 10-15 points.
Swift Return:
The Consular that took Master Yoda to negotiations with the Toydarian King, Katuunko. Despite the Separatist ambush that caught them, the Swift Return was able to escape while still delivering Yoda to his mission. Because of this, I make the Swift Return able to increase or decrease its speed with ease while also being the most agile huge ship out there. All this together makes it around 8-12 points.
Wilhuff Tarkin:
Moving past configs and titles, we now have the first of four commanders. Tarkin the future Grand Moff is definitely one of the more aggressive of these, letting you force all your friendly ships nearby to perform an action if they can, effective but also a little restrictive. I'd say he's about 13-15 points.
Wullf Yularen:
The great Anakin Skywalker's admiral and future ISB agent, Yularen is a favourite of mine (it probably helps that he's friends with Thrawn). For his crew ability, I took inspiration from his Star Wars Armada upgrade where he can activate an additional squadron, so this inspired me to let him coordinate an additional ship each time he coordinates. Points wise I'd say he's about 6 points.
Clone Captain Zac:
The Clone Captain that took Yoda on the mission to meet Katuunko, Zac was a skilled enough commander to escape the trap sprung on his vessel, while also protecting Yoda's escape pod. Because of this, I decided to let him improve his allies survivability if he obstructs an attack (take note that he can go on ships of all sizes). Points wise I'd say he's about 3-5 points.
Qui-Gon Jinn:
This is probably the only pack that would make sense for Qui-Gon to come in. Qui-Gon's crew card gives the ship he's aboard no special abilities beside an additional force, it's what happens in his death that's interesting, with him ascending to be one with the force and going to aid one of his other force sensitive allies, giving them an additional force. This combined with Yoda
as a pilot would be very powerful as it would technically increase every pilots pool of force by one! Points wise this is hard to place as he's not overly useful as a crew and requires you to loose a ship to aid another force user. However, that being said, giving some one like Yoda, Obi-Wan or Anakin an additional force is VERY strong, so I would make him about 11-13 points.
Diplomatic Team:
A strange upgrade that aids both you and your enemies, letting any ship choose to disarm to become less stressed, strained, depleted or locked (or ionised, which doesn't make as much sense, but just go with it). This is very useful but also incredibly situational, with makes it quite cheap at about 2-4 points.
Diplomatic Escape Pod:
Wow, this article technically contains two custom ships, oh how I treat you!
One of the most interesting features of the Consular-Class is its detachable Solon Pod, a place where negotiations could be held (with it even being designed to have its environmental conditions chanced to accommodate any species depending on the mission) or to act as an oversized but durable escape pod! This cargo card lets you dock this pod, as well as letting you quickly transfer a pair of crew upgrades to it in an emergency escape situation.
Points wise, as the ship its self is what will cost, this upgrade is 0 points.
The Pilot Card(Again):
Emergency Auto Pilot:
This is practically not a ship. It would probably be better as a remote. However, as it's meant to hold crew upgrades it needs to be a ship for the purposes of some game effects. The ship itself is weak and unarmed, with an ok action bar, letting it act mostly as a coordinator. The ship ability comes directly from the Rebel Sheathipede shuttle, making it useful even while docked. Its dial would be STUPIDLY poor! With only a 1 and 2 blue straight and 3 white straight, making it dependent on its boost action to manoeuvre. Upgrade wise it would only have a pair of crew slots allowing it to take on the crew from the Consular-Class.
Points wise I'd say it's really cheap at about 12-16 points thanks to its poor dial and lack of attack arcs. It is an otherwise good way to increase the survivability of important (and expensive) crew members on your Consular-Class ships.
I would also say this would be an epic only ship, as I don't think it would fit in hyperspace or even extended play.
Conclusion:
I'm a fan of trying to work out ways to make ships in X-Wing more pacifist, letting them depend on their crew carrying abilities and ship abilities rather than pure damage output. Because of this, the Consular-Class was always a more interesting project for me to concentrate on and one of the main reasons I went with it (alongside all the easy to find FFG art from Armada making the cards soooooo much easier to make!).
The Consular-Class Space Cruiser is definitely the logical choice for AMG to choose for the Republic's first huge ship so I imagine that it won't be long before we seen the official version. However, as normal feel free to use the cards in friendly games to show the rest of the X-Wing community what's yet to come!
Thank you all for reading,
Watcher Leader out.
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