Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser: Star Wars Armada Ship Pack

I’M BACK!

Well its been a while since I’ve made an article for either X-Wing or Armada as I’ve been a little busy with the birth of my first child, but today I’m back for may the forth! But please forgive me for any small mistakes as I’m feeling a little…. ZZZ ZZZ…

Today I've made the old but reliable Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser first seen in the Heir to the Empire series but returned to cannon by rebels.

So before we get lost in hyperspace, lets get stuck in:

The Overall Design:

The Dreadnaught-class are very old ships in Star Wars lore, however, they are well made and effective ships meaning that every major galactic power made use of these ships at some point after their creation long before the Clone Wars.

The Dreadnaught succeeded at being such a success by using thick hull plating instead of depending on strong shielding and modular components that could be easily replaced and updated, making the ship remain useful long after its original design became outdated.

The Dreadnaught’s main downfall was its massive crew demand, making it a drain on personnel and being hard to run for smaller factions like the Rebellion in any meaningful numbers, although most factions found ways around this.

My design for the Dreadnaught in game uses this lore, with it having rather weak shields all around, but a tough hull and a pair of contains to keep off the critical damage. Most of the variants also have a command value of four which is very high for a medium base ship, making it slow to react to your opponent's plans.

The Variants

Dreadnought-Class Heavy Cruiser:

The “original” Dreadnought, the Heavy Cruiser variant has a very strong broadside set of armaments, a low squadron value and ok engineering value making it the perfect ship to get stuck into the middle of a Separatist fleet.

Having three officer slots and a gunnery team slot means you can easily use it to carry around many of the Republics amazing crew into battle, leaving you with lots of option on how to equip this ship

Dreadnaught-Class Rendili Refit:

A more well rounded variant of Dreadnaught, it sacrifices some deadliness on its sides for better front and rear armaments which pair better with the salvo defence token these ships have.

It’s much higher squadron value, two offensive retrofits and fleet command means it can act as more a command ship in your fleet, sitting out of the way but still able to deal out damage when needed.

Dreadnought-Class Support Vessel:

The imperial version of the Rendilli Refit variant, the Support Vessel has the same armaments as its Republic counterpart while having a slightly worse squadron value, but better engineering value.

It also triads its offensive retrofits for a support teams, so it can still act as a midsized command ship, but utilising different upgrades to do so.

Dreadnaught-Class Imperial Refit:

This variant show’s what the Empire could do to polish up one of the old Dreadnaughts. It, like the Heavy Cruiser variant, is built more for broadside attacks, but its defensive retrofit helps to defend against the more modern ships it will face.

It’s main bonus is its absolutely tiny command value of THREE!!! Showing how well the Empire could automate the dreadnought.

The upgrades:

Katana Fleet Dreadnaught:

The Katana Fleet was a project designed by the Republic to help counter the downfalls of the Dreadnaughts needing massive numbers of crews by interlinking all of the Dreadnaughts in a fleet and having them all controlled by one ship. And if that sounds like a stupid idea that is just screaming to go wrong, IT WAS!

The entire Katana Fleet was lost when the Katana’s crew went mad and jumped to hyperspace, losing the whole fleet because of a disease on one ship.

However in game you can use this interconnectivity to counter the Dreadnaught’s high command value.

Katana:

The flag ship of the Katana fleet, the Katana was eventually captured by the New Republic temporarily to help them destroy an ISD. Because of how quickly the New Republic lost this ship, this title is a Republic only upgrade, with it being able to help your Dreadnaughts even more by allowing you to pass out command tokens to all other dreadnaughts, although its loss is even more devastating to your fleets.

Outbound Flight Dreadnaught:

Another ambitious project using the Dreadnaught-class, the Republic's Outbound Flight project was meant to take colonists to a new galaxy, however they where destroyed by Thrawn (who was being tricked by Sidious) before getting through the unknown regions. Although the Outbound Flight Dreadnaughts where all attached together, this upgrade shows them as they would have been after reaching the new galaxy, a small fleet protecting the colonists, however they still aid each other with them all being able to give each other a speed boost.

49AX3:

The only named cannon Dreadnaught, 49AX3 was stolen by the Rebellion and used for a raid on an Imperial facility. As we know little more about it than that I’ve decided to give it an ability to reflect its role while in the Rebellions hands, with it being able to raid opponents ships for their tokens.

Jorus C'baoth:

The obvious commander for these ships as he played a critical role aiding the commanders of both the Outbound Flight project and rediscovered Katana Fleet for the Republic and Empire (in clone form (and I know he’s called Joruus as a clone)).

His ability shows this strength in battle meditation, letting all allies stockpile their command tokens on his card for use across the fleet. However this is at a massive risk as not only does it mean if he’s destroyed all those tokens are lost, but his anger means he will start to use his powers to lash out at his opponents, spending those tokens in the process.

The Conclusion:

As most of you probably know, I’m a massive fan of Thrawn, so a ship that ties so heavily into his role in Star Wars is always going to be a favourite of mine, even if its not the best looking of star ships. Because of this I was rather excited to make this ship, however that was not the only reason.

I recently got a 3D printer and have begun to play around with printing my own ships for Armada! And one of my most successful projects so far is the Dreadnaught-class! So finally I have a model to put to my custom cards!

But would you like one too?

I’m planning to sell these models, along with the printed cards and ship base card on my website soon so you can run these custom ships for yourself!

I hope to start to do this with most of the thing I make, primarily my Star Trek Armada stuff which I plan to release soon as well. So keep an eye out for them appearing in the future!

Thank you all for reading and may the forth be with you,

Watcher Leader out.