The Car'Das Boys Are Coming - Skipray Blastboat Design Part 5

Intro

Welcome pilots! Today, we are discussing the second half of the upgrades that come with the Skipray Blastboat expansion. These four upgrades are all crew cards, showcasing the Car'Das smugglers in Timothy Zahn's trilogy. Let's get to it!

Talon Karrde

As the Car'Das leader, Talon relies on always being cautious and well-informed. As such, it makes sense that his fighting style is about biding his time to know the most opportune move to make next. While researching how to make such a mechanic, I came across the Passive Sensors upgrade from X-wing 2.0. It was a perfect fit.

With Talon flying as crew, a ship's pilot can wait out the Activation phase in order to make the best decision during the Combat phase. Since taking Talon's action has the crew in a wait-and-see situation, it makes sense that the ship cannot be coordinated by other scum ships. Additionally, I extended this to also include not being able to be jammed while the action is active.

However, Talon does have one weakness: stress. In the books, Talon's ability to observe and act accordingly was always being beaten by Thrawn's unpredictable and pre-emptive moves. If your ship receives a stress token before its turn in the Combat phase, then the bided action is lost and the crew is out of luck.

Just like with Passive Sensors, this is going to make the pilot skill you choose for Talon's ship an important decision. If you go with a high-PS ace, you aren't getting much benefit from biding. However, if you put Talon on a generic ship, that increases the chances of a stress token ruining the action. Perhaps a mid-range generic is the best bet for your squad?

Picture Credit: Artwork from the Talon Karrde Wookieepedia page.

Mara Jade

I designed this Mara to be like her Imperial version, but not as powerful. After the death of the Emperor, Mara chose to distance herself from the Force. While Imperial Mara can stress multiple enemy ships at Range 1, Scum Mara can only jam one enemy ship.

Still, the jam is a powerful weapon to have, especially when it does not take your action to use. Additionally, Mara is able to provide this jam ability to any Scum ship that has a crew slot. This makes her especially nasty when paired with pilots like Palob Godalhi, Asajj Ventress, or 4-LOM.

Consider putting her on an aggressive ship that will hound enemy large ships. A high PS Skipray with Mara Jade and a Fire Control System can trade really well against ships greater in size and cost. Alternatively, you can take her as a deterrent to close-range combat. Any enemy ace is going to think twice about closing to Range 1 against a Skipray with Mara Jade and an Autoblaster Turret.

Picture Credit: Artwork by Kohse on Deviant Art. The picture depicts Mara in her smuggler's outfit, and showcases her small forearm blaster.

Luke Skywalker (Rebel & Scum)

I designed a new Luke Skywalker crew card to represent him in the Thrawn Trilogy. Captured on the planet on Myrkr and surrounded by a forest of ysalamiri, Luke only has his Jedi discipline to fall back onto to survive. This design of Luke allows a ship to be focused, even while stressed. The only caveat is that you must use that focus token on defense dice.

This makes the card a lot like the Outlaw Tech crew. However, this Luke has the benefit of continuing to focus, even if you are unable to get rid of the stress. That way, your ship can continue to pick white maneuvers and still modify defensive dice while trying to escape any enemy ship that is doggedly pursing.

Similar to the Maul crew card, this Luke can join a different faction if your squad meets the appropriate parameter. In this case, your Scum squad must contain Mara Jade before you can equip this Luke crew card. As for synergies, this card works well with stress abilities, such as: Saw Gerrera, Rage, Attani Mindlink, and debris clouds.

Picture Credit: Star Wars Heir to the Empire alternate cover art.

Smuggling Crew

It wouldn't work to create a crew card for every Car'Das member, like Aves and Fynn. So instead, I made a generic crew card to pay tribute to all of these other smugglers.

As this card encompasses a whole crew, it makes sense to have it take up double crew slots. This means it is the Scum counterpart to the Rebel and Imperial double crew cards. While Wookiee Commandos provide attack die modification, and Death Troopers forces careful declarations of attacks, Smuggling Crew deals with getting a cheap and easy access to the boost action.

This crew allows your ship to fly hard and quick, and get some action economy. However, that cheaper costs comes with a downside: the enemy can negate the ability by locking onto your ship. This makes abilities Long-Range Scanners and Fire-Control System banes to this card. However, you can prepare for these counters by taking upgrade cards like the Mara Jade crew or the Countermeasures modification.

By normal 1st edition mechanics, only one ship can take this card, the Hound's Tooth (creating a whole new kind of Party Bus, lol). However, since we are dealing with 1st edition home rules, we get a list of three ships:

• Skipray Blastboat
• Hound's Tooth
• Razor Crest

Picture Credit: Artwork by JakeMurray on Deviant Art. I love that the picture captures the chill nature of the smugglers, as they relax after after a hard smuggling run. However, once the ship gets pinged by authorities, these crew members are going to be on-station, giving it their all!

(Also, here is the explanation for the Party Bus meme, if you haven't see it before).

Conclusion

These four cards and our previous ones make up all the upgrades four this expansion! I hope they inspire some new ideas on how to fly some of your favorite ships. With this part of the design done, all that we have left is the Skipray pilots. I am excited to see this project come together and can't wait to get the final expansion to you!

PGP out.