My son and I just started and played our first "real" game last night (not the quickplay). We messed up all kinds of things like forgetting to take our actions and running off of the board. We did have a few situations that I was not able to understand clearly. I looked on forums and FAQ and still am somewhat confused. He told me that what I was doing was overpowered. What I want to know is if I was doing it right. If not, please tell me. If I was, how does he counter more effectively?

Down to him having Han Solo and my Howlrunner. Solo has no upgrades and Howlrunner has Push the limit. I would move and evade, then push the limit and get focus and stress. The next move, I would use green maneuver to remove stress, perform evade>ptl>focus. I kept repeating until I whittled down the Falcon and he was not happy.

I looked at FAQ and thought I was doing it right but then saw a Night Beast situation that she would not receive his free action with PTL but when I read the card I thought she would. In other words, I do not believe I have a firm grasp on the rules.

We are gong to keep playing and try to get the rules down.

One more question: can my template go off of the game board as long as my ship ends up on the board? Can you barrel roll or boost if you make a move with your base off of the playing area to get yourself back in? I said "no" because the maneuver would take you off and you would not get to perform the barrel rol action to bring you back on.

We bought the core set last weekend and played quick rules and loved the game so I bought lots of more stuff these last few days. My wife is beside herself but my son and daugter and I are loving it.

As far as I can tell, you were using Howlrunner correctly. It's Night Beast which operates differently. Here is the difference in sequence:

Howlrunner with stress from the previous round:

1 - Executes a green manoeuver.

2 - Check pilot stress step: removes the stress since it was a green manoeuver.

3 - Uses evade.

4 - Uses push the limit to get a focus, earns a stress in the process

(Repeat)

Night Beast with a stress from the previous round:

1 - Executes a green manoeuver

2 - Night Beast may now perform a free focus, but he can't because he's still stressed. ***This is the important part***

3 - Check pilot stress step: removes the stress since it was a green manoeuver.

4 - Night Beast can now use one of his actions (evade, focus, etc).

Don't worry, my mind was blown the first time that I read the FAQ concerning Night Beast as well, but the more you get used with the rules, the more things will become intuitive

First of all: welcome to the game and forum! Some ideas to give your son on how to mercilessly slay you:

The best option is to get into range 1 and constantly Focus, where he'll have 4 attack dice against your 3 defence dice. He'll win out eventually, even with the Evade.

He can also predict where you're moving when you're trying to PtL every turn, as the TIE Fighter only has 4 green moves. Better yet, the slowest of those moves is speed 2, so you can't move slowly to keep him in front of you. If he uses 1-speed moves, pretty soon you'll be forced to either overlap and lose your action, or break off and either stay stressed or give up PtL for a turn. In either event he gets free shots at your relatively unprotected fighter.

As for flying off the board, all that matters is where your base ended when you finished your maneuver. Your template can go off the map, but if your base is inside when your move finishes you're fine. You're also correct about barrel roll and boost; you're gone before you get the chance to use them.

Thanks. I had an evade and focus constantly and started at full heatlth to his 5, so I only had to make up two damage. That 1 agility really hurt him. I tried to stay at range two so that his 3 die and focus were against my 3 die with focus and evade. I know it felt OP to him but it probably should not have been had I not had some hot attack die.

It sounds like you are doing things correctly. I'll admit I'd probably miss the Night Beast thing but I don't use that TIE Fighter. When it comes to "flying off the board" your templates don't matter but if you'll ever set the ship down with even a corner OoB your ship is gone.

That is why I was questioning myself. When I read Night Beast, I thought he would maneuver, remove stress, get free focus. When I saw I was wrong, I thought maybe I was doing something wrong with Howlrunner. Thanks for the quick replies!

You'll be happy to know that Night Beast is probably the weirdest case of the card being seemingly easy to understand but it causing some unexpected outcomes due to a often-overlooked timing sequence.

Most cards are relatively straightforward, please don't let the Beast scare you.