(I'm aware that all the images are currently unavailable, due to a technical problem I lost them and I'm currently working to replace them, until then please look at my Instagram where you can find most of the images sorry for the inconvenience!)
One of my favourite Star Wars characters, Doctor Chelli Aphra, was a rogue archaeologist who made use of her knowledge of ancient lost civilizations and her technical genius to disable and capture any of their interesting tech that would fetch a tidy profit on the black market.
However some of this tech could be rather large and hard to move, so what sort of ship would a rogue archaeologist use? Heavy lifter maybe? A Modified Bellicose-class Heavy Lifter to be precise!
So today’s article is on Aphra’s personal Modified Bellicose-class Heavy Lifter, the Arc Angel!
So lets get stuck in:
The Overall Design:
The Bellicose-class Heavy Lifter is a Clone Wars era vessel that was, as its name suggests, a heavy load lifter, capable of transporting and moving large quantities of cargo and ships, however its intended purpose was to deploy assault droids from orbit.
Because of this my original design was to make it a large base Quadjumper, however after playing around with the ability to fling asteroids and debris fields around, I decided it was FAR too powerful unless I added so many caveats that it became too wordy and complex, so I came up with another ability around lifting heavy objects;
Heavy Lifter: You can dock and deploy 1 small or medium ship as if you where a huge ship. Action: Your docked ship may deploy with a 1 straight manoeuvre.
The Bellicose-class' role as a heavy lister inspired the ship ability, allowing it to dock any small or medium ship in your list and chuck them out in any direction using an action. This is amazing especially with higher initiative Bellicose pilots carrying lower initiative ships as it can deploy them so they have a shot on a target that could have otherwise arc dodged the docked ship.
The reason for having the Bellicose-class be treated as a huge ship for docking and deploying is because it means that ships can dock at range 0-1 and deploy from the Bellicose's sides.
Otherwise this ship is a basic large ship stat-wise, low agility, lots of hit points, basic actions, poor dial and solid firing arcs.
The fact it has 2 mobile firing is a massive boost as it essentially has 270 degrees of coverage, or 360 if you equip missies to the ship. However these weapons have a new feature, restricted ranges for attacks. These are still primary attacks, however they work in the same way as special weapon attacks for the ranges they can attack at.
I’m also going to say, when a ship has two mobile arcs, you can only rotate one of them when told to, either through the rotate action or form an ability like Agile Gunner. This is different to the Huge ships ruling on rotating multiple arcs, but I think its fair as smaller ships have less crew to help keep the turrets on target.
The Pilots:
Each of the pilots have their upgrades slots shown in the bottom right corner as well as a suggested point cost for 2.5. The 2.0 point cost would be roughly the original point cost times ten. The loadout points for all the pilots would all roughly be around 20 points, but as I haven't tested them, none of these points are fixed and are just suggestions.
Chelli Aphra:
The main pilot of the pack, Aphra’s ability shows her skills with tech and also gives a nod to Indiana Jones, one of the main inspirations for her character. She can swindle ships near her, swapping out their tokens with her similar tokens (Like Indi at the beginning of Raiders with the golden idol). This is amazing as you can use your actions to rotate your arc then gain a calculate token, then use her ability to swap that token with one of your opponents focus tokens! The only issue is that Aphra is almost compulsively getting into trouble meaning she sometimes will be forced to give away a token she needs and get a worse one in return.
Darth Vader:
This rather obscure character from the Doctor Aphra comics surprisingly appeared in the movies, it is easy to miss, so keep your eyes peeled for him. After the destruction of the Death Star, Vader was blamed and almost demoted in the Emperor's eyes. Angered by this and the fact his son's existence had been hidden from him, Vader became laser focused on getting back into power. This lead him to hiring Aphra to work for him, hence his appearance here. His ability shows his focus on a single goal, letting him roll an extra attack die against ships he has locked, but one fewer against all other ships, as they are not apart of his plans.
0-0-0:
Triple Zero is a terror. A torturer droid made to look like a normal protocol droid, Trip was sadistic and deadly, taking any opportunity to inflict pain and suffering on any organic available. His ability shows this, with him relishing in the stress of other pilots, gaining calculate tokens when they are under the pressure of red tokens or even prolong their stress by keeping those tokens around.
BT-1:
Trip’s companion, BT was another horrifying droid. On the outside he looked to be a simple astromech, but under his plating, he contains an arsenal to take on most opponents! He was also obsessed with destruction and mayhem like his friend, with him constantly having to be held back from releasing his weapons on any target insight. This is reflected in his pilot ability with him being able to naturally perform a bonus attack just by spending a calculate token, but if he can’t, he becomes frustrated and therefore stressed.
Black Krrsantan:
As one of Aphra’s closest associates, Krrsantan would often spend time flying the Arc Angel while on missions with the Doctor. His ability makes use of one I made for him in the past for his custom Auzituck Gunship pilot ability. This is ability makes him a Fearsome Predator, and allows him to use the Tri Fighter of the same name’s condition card, with a bonus ability to choose an enemy ship, at range one of a ship you destroy, to intimidate them and pass the condition.
The Upgrades:
Arc Angel (I and II):
Aphra’s first and second ship, the Arc Angel was heavily modified to her specifications. I have shown this in its ability to increasing a bank manoeuvres difficulty to being red to execute them as sideslips. An amazing ability, and made even better with Vader (or any of the pilots aided by a force user) being able to also do this with the three
bank manoeuvres as well. The ability to then flip this card to the Arc Angel II side is to show how Aphra rebuilt the original Arc Angel after its first destruction and renamed it the Arc Angel II. You can decided to just increase your hull value early on in the game, but the loss of the sideslips could cost you the game, but at the same time if you leave flipping the card until its too late, you will regret it!
Chelli Aphra (Crew):
As one of the first custom card I made for my Instagram, I’m happy to remake her crew card two years on! Aphra’s crew card, like her pilot card, shows her trixy ways, being able to not only jam a ship, but steal the jammed token. Her being able to target friendly ships is a both a bonus and a curse as it could take away a vital token from another of your ships, or it could ensure you get a token if your range predictions are wrong. She is even better when paired with the Bellicose-class as she can get a token off an enemy ship, plus a calculate token on top of that!
Electro-Tattoos:
The distinctive tattoos of Doctor Aphra, Electro-Tattoos are capable of carrying data in its ink, this outlawed type of tattoo are obscure and rarely seen by the time that Aphra operated. I liked the idea of the Electro-Tattoos being able to keep green tokens around for a round at the cost of becoming stressed, with calculate tokens being much easier to store as they are already data and other green tokens being much harder to keep around.
The Conclusion:
The Bellicose-class is possibly one of the most odd looking ships in Star Wars, however I quite like this. I see it as cobbled together and chaotic, a lot like Aphra herself.
This ship is definitely on my wish list for the official game, but with the amount of love Scum has recently got, I don’t imagine them getting this ship anytime soon.
But until then I may have a have a solution!
Watcher Squadron is proud to announce that its first 3D printed model is now available for sale!
This detailed Modified Bellicose-class Heavy Lifter 3D printed model does its best to reconcile the MANY differences seen on the Arc Angel across the different comic panels. Standing at 92mm wide, 91mm long and 100mm tall, it is a decently sized large base ship comparable to the YT1300 with a hole for the appropriate ship peg, as well as a small ship peg on the neck so you can "dock" a small base ships like Vader's TIE Advanced as seen in the comics.
At £40 you get the 2 half's of the Modified Bellicose-class Heavy Lifter printed in silver filament, but that's not all! You will as get all the cards in this pack for free as well so you can run this custom ship in all its glory as long as you have a MG-100 StarFortress's dial as they have identical dials.
(Unfortunately I don't have any way to create the base plates, so if you know of a cost effective way of printing the cardboard base plates, please let me know!)
If you wish to purchases this ship and support Watcher Squadron, please go here and keep an eye out because I hope to start to create more 3D models for both X-Wing and Armada in the future.
But anyway, as normal, thank you all for reading,
Watcher Leader out.
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