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 ironicsilence wrote:
Are there any decent fleet scale games out there? Something similar to BFG?

The closest would be either Firestorm Armada, or Aeronautical Imperialis from FW (I think ).

I've never really played fleet based games though :(

Only thing I recall hearing about is FireStorm Armada by Spartan Games, and I've heard mixed reviews on it. Some say it's good, some say BFG was vastly superior rules-wise. I think the rules can be downloaded free for you to make your own choice on the matter though.

The interesting thing about CapWing would be the way you could actually run a campaign that was really just one big ship battle. Launch fighters, move around until you get to a fight between ships, play a game of X-Wing. Would be a PITA to keep running week to week, but it'd be a neat thing to pull off as a special store event or something.

Do you mean, for SW particularly?

doesnt have to be for SW, i'd just like to play a fleet based game. BFG always seemed interested but i dont know anyone that plays it and the ships are rather pricey to find these days

Really any sort of neat fleet based game would be good. With battleships and carriers and fighters and such

 Krinsath wrote:
Only thing I recall hearing about is FireStorm Armada by Spartan Games, and I've heard mixed reviews on it. Some say it's good, some say BFG was vastly superior rules-wise. I think the rules can be downloaded free for you to make your own choice on the matter though.

The interesting thing about CapWing would be the way you could actually run a campaign that was really just one big ship battle. Launch fighters, move around until you get to a fight between ships, play a game of X-Wing. Would be a PITA to keep running week to week, but it'd be a neat thing to pull off as a special store event or something.

Perhaps this will be a glimpse of the "Epic Tournament" ruleset we're expecting to see to coincide with the release of the Tantive and Transport.

 ironicsilence wrote:
doesnt have to be for SW, i'd just like to play a fleet based game

http://downloads.groundzerogames.net/FullThrust.pdf
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/products/firestorm-armada
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/noble-armada/rulebooks/a-call-to-arms-noble-armada.html
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/ctastarfleet/rulebooks/a-call-to-arms-star-fleet.html
http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/

I do hope that FFG goes down the path of Capital Ship scale Star Wars battles for the eventual future of X-Wing. As much as I love the starfighter level of combat in SW, I absolutely adore the Capital Ship level (with the starfighter going on at the same time of course). This is why Empire at War is one of my favorite games of all time.

Pop out those larger ships with an 8-10" long ISD as the relative scale and build up all the capital ships around that. Would be amazing to play with a similar movement system to X-Wing but a little more tactical and "slower" paced due to slower ship speeds and varied fire arcs and such.

I don't think that would actually be as fun to play as you'd think. Capital ship engagements take place far away from each other (usually) and are typically not very mobile. Think the Battle of Coruscant in Episode 3. While the ships were close together since it was a planetary defense, none of the capital ships were moving. Every battle would be more or less like that.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:

 MajorTom11 wrote:
ISD is completely unfeasible even at a 1/8th of the correct scale... It would be 22ft long at 1/270 scale if I am recalling correctly. It's just not gonna happen without a mind numbing scale issue. Guys, certain ships don't suit the game in scale or function. This is a fighter based system at the end of the day, not BFG...

I'm inclined to believe they'll make something they call a star destroyer, it just won't be an Imperial class star destroyer. They'll find away to give us something that effectively functions in a similar fashion and looks similar to an ISD... but won't be specifically that.

This should only go to show how ridiculously out matched the Rebels were.

An Interdictor would be an interesting choice.

I was thinking a Victory class.

Edit: For fleet based games try Firestrom Armada, Full Thrust, or something called Starmada.

Aeronautica Imperialis is fighter scale for dogfight sin the 41st Millenium and plays similar to X-wing except that it also figures in altitude, does not have critical damage (instead you are either working or shot down), and does not use a Pilot Skill mechanic but alternating activations. I'm a big fan so PM me if you want more info on AI.

I for one would spend a small fortune for a Star wars capital ship game. I know they made a star ship battles game, but I think it died out pretty quickly. The models weren't any where near as good of quality as what FFG is putting out so I could just imagine how sweet an ISD or Mon Calamari cruiser would look like.

On the capital ships in the XWing game, don't forget about the Corellian Gunship! Would be perfect for the game and usable by both sides too.

What I want to know is, what fast food chain coupon is included with Porkins?

There was an older fleet-scale game that I REALLY enjoyed called Silent Death. We used the Silent Death rules for running West End Games space combat a few times, and trasfering SW ships into the game wasn't that difficult...honestly.

The only downside of the game was the tracking aspect of damage and the like. Think Battletech only with much more damage marking needed due to larger scales.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
I don't think that would actually be as fun to play as you'd think. Capital ship engagements take place far away from each other (usually) and are typically not very mobile. Think the Battle of Coruscant in Episode 3. While the ships were close together since it was a planetary defense, none of the capital ships were moving. Every battle would be more or less like that.

There's your problem right there...you actually site the prequels as an actual meaningful star wars reference.

Read some EU books, the capital ship battles are MUCH more interesting than even the star fighter battles tbh.


For instance, basic rules ideas to use:

Inertia and engine values - Firing your engines would increase your inertia up to your speed, and in order to slow down you'd need to spend time decelerating safely. So you'd have to consider how long it would take to hit max speed AND slow down and weapon facings.

Shield facings - You would have 4 shield values to track (Port, Starboard, Fore, and Aft). Rolling your ship to present undamaged shields in a fight, and timing your acceleration/deceleration/turns to avoid getting too many ships broadsiding you.

More powerful ships - Many, many magnitudes of power increases on ships would allow for things like: regenerative shields which go hand in hand with presenting a different shield face in order repair your damaged ones, weapon batteries that allow you to pump huge firepower into an enemy, perhaps with a cycle time or charge up period (Each turn your heavy turbolaser batteries generate a die up to 4 max, and you can let them charge to full in order to punch a shield instead of allowing it time to repair), damage potential in the order of a ship schematic that gets damaged similar to the Battlestar Galactica board game. So a hit might damage your weapons or sensors, and you can devote your repair capacities in the fight to fix them.


If they did a Captial-scale SW ship game, I would hope it would be an iteration on the X-Wing game: similar playstyle but with more complex rules. This would allow them to put effort into what they do best: very deep, yet elegant, rules systems.

Besides, Battlefleet Gothic was that size scale, Attack Wing sort of is...but looks entirely to simple for the scale from what i've seen...,and as a few others have posted there has been other lesser-known cap-starship scale tabletop games in the past.

The bottom-line is, Fantasy Flight are pure genius at making up rules for board/table-top/mini games, and if anyone can make a badass SW Capital scale one...it's them, who have already done an amazing Fighter-scale ship one.

Bitharne wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
I don't think that would actually be as fun to play as you'd think. Capital ship engagements take place far away from each other (usually) and are typically not very mobile. Think the Battle of Coruscant in Episode 3. While the ships were close together since it was a planetary defense, none of the capital ships were moving. Every battle would be more or less like that.

There's your problem right there...you actually site the prequels as an actual meaningful star wars reference.

Read some EU books, the capital ship battles are MUCH more interesting than even the star fighter battles tbh.


For instance, basic rules ideas to use:

Inertia and engine values - Firing your engines would increase your inertia up to your speed, and in order to slow down you'd need to spend time decelerating safely. So you'd have to consider how long it would take to hit max speed AND slow down and weapon facings.

Shield facings - You would have 4 shield values to track (Port, Starboard, Fore, and Aft). Rolling your ship to present undamaged shields in a fight, and timing your acceleration/deceleration/turns to avoid getting too many ships broadsiding you.

More powerful ships - Many, many magnitudes of power increases on ships would allow for things like: regenerative shields which go hand in hand with presenting a different shield face in order repair your damaged ones, weapon batteries that allow you to pump huge firepower into an enemy, perhaps with a cycle time or charge up period (Each turn your heavy turbolaser batteries generate a die up to 4 max, and you can let them charge to full in order to punch a shield instead of allowing it time to repair), damage potential in the order of a ship schematic that gets damaged similar to the Battlestar Galactica board game. So a hit might damage your weapons or sensors, and you can devote your repair capacities in the fight to fix them.


If they did a Captial-scale SW ship game, I would hope it would be an iteration on the X-Wing game: similar playstyle but with more complex rules. This would allow them to put effort into what they do best: very deep, yet elegant, rules systems.

Besides, Battlefleet Gothic was that size scale, Attack Wing sort of is...but looks entirely to simple for the scale from what i've seen...,and as a few others have posted there has been other lesser-known cap-starship scale tabletop games in the past.

The bottom-line is, Fantasy Flight are pure genius at making up rules for board/table-top/mini games, and if anyone can make a badass SW Capital scale one...it's them, who have already done an amazing Fighter-scale ship one.

Just to assert my nerd-cred here, I've read a ton of the EU novels. That out of the way, I grant that all that could be done, and there's plenty of detail to it, but does that make it a fun miniatures game? What makes the capital ship fights in the books interesting is the way they are written, which is to say in a way that minimizes all of the minutia that goes into a fight like that. Regardless of how you spin it, there isn't much movement, because that's just the nature of long-range capital ship fights. And how is more firepower more exciting when it is scaled up the same way for every ship, so you're still probably rolling the same amount of dice? What you describe basically just sounds like Bookkeeping: The Miniatures game, which might appeal to some people, but in no way could be "an iteration on the X-Wing game."

It would be interesting because a scale refocused on the big ships would allow a few new mechanics to be introduced without overly complicating the basic design (which IMO is wonderfully accessible in X-Wing).

For example, the smaller ships to be represented as "attacks on the board" similar to how ordnance worked in Battlefleet Gothic. Right now all attacks happen and are done within a comparatively short time, but allowing the employment of fighter squadrons as a more mobile "attack" of sorts would add a new dynamic to the equation. Since they could change course and strike where opportunity allows rather than being tied to firing arcs, they present another layer of tactics to be mulled over when planning where your big ships are going to go. Another point would the varying size of capital ship armaments (turbolasers versus anti-starfighter weapons) to introduce attack variety and a tiered environment which remains true to the movies (i.e. - Big ships beat little ships beat starfighters beat big ships). If you load up on MonCal Cruisers or ISDs, you're weak to a starfighter heavy force, but can trounce a fleet of Corvettes and/or Lancers. It makes the make-up of a fleet a very compelling thought, which is what they have so far managed to do very well with the fighters.

Further, it would be fairly easy to then combine the big ship game and the starfighter games as a campaign where dogfights between abstract "tokens" are battled out in X-Wing instead of being a simple die roll. This would make the overall game take forever, but as a special event would be really fun. I'm seeing where each side would have an Admiral who's commanding the big ships and a bunch of Squadron Commanders (which the Admirals could also be) who then square off against each other between rounds when their "tokens" clash. Work out a "quick" gameplay type to represent the attack run on a capital ship itself and it sounds like it'd be very fun way to spend a day on the weekend.

There's a lot of potential in the concept, it allows FFG to make ships they clearly want to make and Star Wars fans want to buy, and they don't have to try to shoehorn an Imperial Star Destroyer into the game and a ridiculously small scale. I'd honestly be quite surprised if we don't see such a game coming from them in the next year or two.

FWIW attack wing is a capital ship game using the same movement system. By most accounts it works well. Capital ships are slower and less maneuverable, but you also speed up the time scale at the same time and end up with a reasonable amount of movement. However the attack wing is highly simplified. Most cap ship games are about making the most of your fire arcs, and depending on the game, rotating to spread damage around your ship.

I am currently bodging together some rules for battles that involve frigate-level ships on either side, based on the "Flight of the Redeemer" scenario on Boardgamegeek and the how the Corellian Corvette ship "the Redeemer" plays. It would be something along the lines of Battlefront II, with (for a start) immobile Corvettes on either side of a 4'x4' or larger table, with a dogfight in the middle. The Corvettes can shoot at each other with special rules (basically using double-sized range rulers when firing at another corvette), and the fighters can also normally attack the Corvettes and vice versa.

Giving each side a shop that is exactly the same is a nice way to eliminate the need to balance the ships against other types of frigate-size ship.

Also playing with the idea of giving simplistic flight dials to the two frigates and letting them maneuver. Probably just six maneuvers like "White Straight 1/2/3 and White Bank 1/2/3.

The Victory ISD is smaller. Even the ISD that pulls ships out of Hyperspace or blocks their escape is way smaller than a full sized ISD.

ArthurVolts wrote:
The Victory ISD is smaller. Even the ISD that pulls ships out of Hyperspace or blocks their escape is way smaller than a full sized ISD.

The Victory Star Destroyer is 900m long. At 1/270th scale it would still be over 10 feet long.

the Interdictor class ships are actually the same size as a full blown ISD, 1600m

The Immobilizer 418 is only 600m though. That's your common Interdictor Cruiser.

So, is 'Starfleet Command' something of a banned phrase on the internet nowadays?

Not that I've ever played it on anything except the PC...

 Zefig wrote:
The Immobilizer 418 is only 600m though. That's your common Interdictor Cruiser.

But that's still about four times longer than the corvette and considerably wider/bulkier, and the corvette is already at the upper limit for a practical model. And of course the firepower difference is even bigger, you're talking about a jump from a couple gun turrets that are at least in the same general range as fighters (or existing "big" ships) to a massive ship with 20 gun turrets, hundreds of points worth of TIEs in its hangars, etc. Even if FFG is willing to break the scale even more than they already have for capital ships an interdictor is just way too big to be anything more than wishful thinking.

What about Dreadnaughts? Lancer Frigates may be a better choice and they are even designed to be anti star fighter.

ArthurVolts wrote:
What about Dreadnaughts? Lancer Frigates may be a better choice and they are even designed to be anti star fighter.

Dreadnaughts are the same length as Interdictors (though not as wide). Lancers would in theory be perfect for the game with their role, 250m is probably still a touch too big though (compared to the Corvette's 150m) .

My favourite ship is the Marauder, I'd love to see one. It's 195m long so might be pushing it a bit, but it would be a great Imperial counter to the Corvette (it looks so mean).

 Peregrine wrote:

 Zefig wrote:
The Immobilizer 418 is only 600m though. That's your common Interdictor Cruiser.

But that's still about four times longer than the corvette and considerably wider/bulkier, and the corvette is already at the upper limit for a practical model. And of course the firepower difference is even bigger, you're talking about a jump from a couple gun turrets that are at least in the same general range as fighters (or existing "big" ships) to a massive ship with 20 gun turrets, hundreds of points worth of TIEs in its hangars, etc. Even if FFG is willing to break the scale even more than they already have for capital ships an interdictor is just way too big to be anything more than wishful thinking.

Oh yeah, it's WAY outside the realm of being suitable for X-Wing. I was just being nitpicky.