I've been toying with the idea of hosting an epic X-wing scenario game with two battlefields in separate rooms joined by hyperspace tokens.

The goal is to try to capture the feeling of exiting hyperspace and not knowing what, exactly, you're about to find (like the Falcon dropping into the Alderaan debris field in Star Wars).

I've thought about a few different mechanics for this, but I'm not sure what would work best -- again, wanting to keep a high priority on the "surprise" factor.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated -- thanks!

Before bandying around ideas for what can be found, are there accepted rules for the jump to hyperspace? I have my own ruleset, but does the new Rebel Aces have something in one of its scenarios?

One problem I always had with adding rules was they were convoluted and EVEN more rules to remember. I would love for something that is elegant and simple, although maybe simplified from what we expect it to be. A abstraction say: like rolling dice for attacks that simulate both power of the guns and the chances of hitting.

I've also been experimenting with introducing elements of surprise into my scenarios on Mission Control, although I haven't worked on anything like your idea.

Are you thinking of having two battles running concurrently in two rooms? that might be tough to coordinate, practically speaking.

If what you want is a randomized, preset board arrangement, you could always just reset the table the ship just hyperspaced out of, turning the old map into the new map.

It might be interesting to have two battles going, with one ship trying to make it through both battles. Or to have a scenario where ships can transfer between battles. Having a game where you can reinforce from one battle to the other might be interesting, maybe you could just forget about trying to keep the games running at the same speed and treat it more like a race -- the first table to finish their game gets to reinforce the other table's game and swing the tide there.

I prefer to have one big board with multiple objectives on the map to spread the fight out across the table.

You could also set the game up more like a D&D style game, with a ship moving though a gauntlet of enemies, over the course of one or two big maps.

If I were you, I would just draw up a few different scenarios or pull them off Mission Control, and randomly pick which one you play with on the spot.

I like your original idea! I think this would be an awesome game to gun at a convention or at a major "Epic" event at the LGS.

An idea I was toying with was an Epic battle with 600 points per side and 3 simultaneous battles. Players would determine what/how many ships they wanted to assign to each "system". Ships (well... those capable of doing so) could jump between systems.

Maybe yours could be something like a CR-90 having to cross one board to enter hyperspace, then jumping to the second board, where it would have to have to survive for a certain number of turns (or perform some other function, etc...) to accomplish its task of transmitting the stolen plans to an Imperial Battle Station, etc...

Thank you all for your feedback. After giving it some more thought, I've decided to scrap (for now) the simultaneous battlefield mechanic (though the idea still intrigues me -- I like where you were headed, Chris).

But I'm still working on a "hyperspace surprise" sort of scenario.

One problem I always had with adding rules was they were convoluted and EVEN more rules to remember. I would love for something that is elegant and simple, although maybe simplified from what we expect it to be. A abstraction say: like rolling dice for attacks that simulate both power of the guns and the chances of hitting.

Unfortunately, my rules are VERY convoluted, but it's the only way I could get the "feel" I wanted. Basically, I wanted the Rebels to be surprised by what they drop into, and I wanted the Imperials to be surprised by the make-up and exact location of the Rebel forces.

I also wanted the hyperspace mechanic to be more than just a way to add some randomness to the game. I wanted it to, again, "feel" like a mission where the Rebels would jump in, complete (or fail to complete) a mission, and jump out (if possible) -- kind of like playing the X-Wing computer games back in the day.

So, I came up with this (Mission Control PDF): http://tools.fantasyflightgames.com/xwing/htmlpreview/749/

I'll copy it below:

* * *

"Capture the Defector" (200 point game)

Scenario: A high-ranking Rebel officer is defecting to the Empire. Rebel forces attempt to capture the defector as he makes his escape.

Use a 3x6 playing area.

The Imperial player places 12 asteroids and all Imperial ships on the playing area. Asteroid placement follows normal rules, but the Imperial ships may be placed anywhere on the playing area. The Rebel player does not see the asteroid or Imperial ship placement.

Without knowing the Imperial placement, the Rebel player identifies one or more locations for Hyperspace Tokens. Locations are determined by measuring (with a range ruler or measuring tape) distance from the "top/bottom" and "left/right" edges of the playing area. For example, prior to the game, the Rebel player would write down that Hyperspace Token 1 should be placed at Range 2 (20 cm) from the left edge and Range "4" (40 cm) from the top of the playing area.

Also prior to the game, the Rebel player must make note of which ships will be entering from which tokens as well as the direction they'll be facing. For example, the Rebel player would write down that Jan, Dutch, Garven, and Biggs are entering from Hyperspace Token 2 and facing the "bottom" of the play area.

After the Imperial player has finished placement, the Rebel player reveals the Hyperspace Token locations. Once the tokens are in place, the Rebel player places the ships assigned to each token. The ships must face the pre-arranged direction, and they must be placed within Range 1 of the Hyperspace Token. A ship may be placed on an obstacle. If so, normal obstacle rules apply.

The Imperial player must use at least one Lambda-class shuttle. If the Imperial player uses only one shuttle, then the defector is automatically aboard that ship. If the Imperial players uses multiple shuttles (as decoys), then the player must indicate before the game which shuttle actually holds the defector. The player does this by placing a damage card beneath the ship card of the defector's shuttle. The Rebel player may identify a shuttle if a Rebel ship is at Range 1 of a shuttle at the end of the activation phase. When a shuttle is identified, the Imperial player raises the ship card to reveal whether or not it holds the defector.

The Rebels may either try to capture the defector or destroy the shuttle. To capture the defector, the Rebels must first disable the shuttle. A shuttle is considered immediately disabled the moment it has no shields and two ion tokens. A disabled shuttle may no longer move or attack.

To capture the defector, the Rebels must have a freighter (HWK-290, YT-1300, or YT-2400) at Range 1 of the disabled shuttle following the round when the shuttle was disabled.
Players may not attack their own ships. (For example, an Imperial player attempting to destroy a disabled shuttle.)

Rebels
Total Victory: The Rebels earn a total victory if they are able to disable the defector's shuttle, capture the defector, and return him to the Rebel fleet. Rebel ships may jump back into hyperspace by using a hyperspace token. A ship has the option to jump when a maneuver or action places the ship at Range 1 of a Hyperspace Token.

Partial Victory: The Rebels earn a partial victory if they destroy the defector's shuttle.

Imperials
Total Victory: The Imperials earn a total victory if the defector's shuttle is able to flee to the Imperial fleet by jumping into hyperspace. Like the Rebels, the shuttle may jump into hyperspace when a maneuver or action places the ship at Range 1 of a Hyperspace Token.

Partial Victory: The Imperials earn a partial victory if the Rebels capture the defector, and the Imperials destroy the Rebel freighter that holds the defector.

* * *
Pretty convoluted, I know. Any suggestions for improvement or other ideas for hyperspace mechanics would be much appreciated.

Not 2 battles but I wouldn't mind say a hyperspace entry and exit mechanic. I think the GR-75 has a scenario like that (but I think it is more of repairing the ship) Also I can't remember which pack may be the CR-90 but it has 4 hyperspace group tokens for some hyper escape scenario. You could use those tokens for say reinforcements sort of like reserves, to see which groups comes on table roll 1 attack dice at the beginning of the planning phase of turn 2 and each turn after till all hyperspace groups arrive from reserve. Consult the chart on the results.

Turn 1 (no roll)

Turn 2-3 (Critical hit only)

Turn 4-5 (Hit or Critical hit)

Turn 6+ (Focus, Hit, or Critical hit)

Hyper Escape. Declare a hyper escape during ships activation by removing the dial and placing a 2 straight template. That ship is now firepower 0 and agility - 1 and cannot make attacks or actions. Cannot be done if any ship has any critical hits with the ship header other than direct hit. Cannot be done also if ship has any stress tokens or is ionized.

At the next turn on the ships activation move the ship 5 straight. If base does not overlap an obstacle or another ship or the ship base touches or passes the table edge that ship has successfully made a hyper escape. Ship counts as destroyed but only for half the point value.

The following ships cannot make a hyper escape:

• Tie Fighter
• Tie Interceptor
• Tie Bomber
• Tie Defender (conflicting reports)
• Z-95 Headhunter

Oh my gods. My brain hurts.

My rules are just that you need to get off your current board. Then it takes 3 turns to enter the battle you are going into. In the destination battle's time.

It would be nice to maybe add that you need to take two hyperspace tracking actions first but that's about it. Simple fast.

The way I'd play it is let the two battles happen and use these rules if any ships want to change to another battle. You don't really have to be in different rooms either.

I think the best rule sets allow you to use them for multile purposes and different missions. Not just the feel you want.

I'm reminded of a campaign weekend I attended for the Babylon 5: A Call To Arms system. In the last battle of that weekend, there was a rule whereby ships could jump to hyperspace, move to a different table, then jump in as reinforcements at the beginning of the next turn.

It wasn't aiming for balance so much as it was aiming for fun. As long as it's not used as part of a competitive tourny, I could see something similar working well with X-Wing's "Fly Casual" ethic

I like the scenario, reinman. It may make things a little easier if you have 3-4 preset hyperspace entry points that just stay on the table. This is consistent with star wars lore/fluff, and lets you proceed with a minimum of blindfolding/hustling people in and out of the room.

The rebel player can pre-plan their jump into the system by writing down which point they are jumping in at by either holding onto an identical token or writing it down, and then the Imperial player can set up with the Rebel in the room.

The shuttle should stay disabled after it is Ioned, to give the rebels a decent chance of capturing the defector. I also suggest you give the defector's shuttle the rebel captive upgrade. Seems thematic that way.

I like the scenario, reinman. It may make things a little easier if you have 3-4 preset hyperspace entry points that just stay on the table. This is consistent with star wars lore/fluff, and lets you proceed with a minimum of blindfolding/hustling people in and out of the room.

The rebel player can pre-plan their jump into the system by writing down which point they are jumping in at by either holding onto an identical token or writing it down, and then the Imperial player can set up with the Rebel in the room.

The shuttle should stay disabled after it is Ioned, to give the rebels a decent chance of capturing the defector. I also suggest you give the defector's shuttle the rebel captive upgrade. Seems thematic that way.

Great suggestions. I like the 3-4 preset tokens -- much more streamlined, eliminating the "clunkiest" part of my idea (writing down measurements for token placement). I intended for the shuttle to be disabled for the remainder of the game. I'll have to make that a little more clear.

And I had the same idea for Rebel Captive In fact, I just use a Rebel Captive card for the shuttle ID as well -- a lot more dramatic than a plain old damage card...

I'm reminded of a campaign weekend I attended for the Babylon 5: A Call To Arms system. In the last battle of that weekend, there was a rule whereby ships could jump to hyperspace, move to a different table, then jump in as reinforcements at the beginning of the next turn.

It wasn't aiming for balance so much as it was aiming for fun. As long as it's not used as part of a competitive tourny, I could see something similar working well with X-Wing's "Fly Casual" ethic

That's exactly the sort of thing I was envisioning at first. How did it go? Was it kind of clunky or did it work pretty smooth?

Not 2 battles but I wouldn't mind say a hyperspace entry and exit mechanic. I think the GR-75 has a scenario like that (but I think it is more of repairing the ship) Also I can't remember which pack may be the CR-90 but it has 4 hyperspace group tokens for some hyper escape scenario. You could use those tokens for say reinforcements sort of like reserves, to see which groups comes on table roll 1 attack dice at the beginning of the planning phase of turn 2 and each turn after till all hyperspace groups arrive from reserve. Consult the chart on the results.

Turn 1 (no roll)

Turn 2-3 (Critical hit only)

Turn 4-5 (Hit or Critical hit)

Turn 6+ (Focus, Hit, or Critical hit)

Hyper Escape. Declare a hyper escape during ships activation by removing the dial and placing a 2 straight template. That ship is now firepower 0 and agility - 1 and cannot make attacks or actions. Cannot be done if any ship has any critical hits with the ship header other than direct hit. Cannot be done also if ship has any stress tokens or is ionized.

At the next turn on the ships activation move the ship 5 straight. If base does not overlap an obstacle or another ship or the ship base touches or passes the table edge that ship has successfully made a hyper escape. Ship counts as destroyed but only for half the point value.

The following ships cannot make a hyper escape:

• Tie Fighter
• Tie Interceptor
• Tie Bomber
• Tie Defender (conflicting reports)
• Z-95 Headhunter

I really like how you make the ships vulnerable just prior to jumping to hyperspace (as well as the no stress, ion, ship crits provisions) -- very thematic!

How about a wormhole instead?

How about a wormhole instead?

If liked the idea that if multiple games are running and one gets finished the survivors could jump into another battle as reinforcements. I guess you could add mystery to things by not telling someone the exact state of a battle that they are joining and if you want to be mean you have them plan their setup without actually knowing the state of the battle; this could mean they jump into other ships are could be forced out of the battle before they even get in or they could jump in to one side of the board when the other side would have been better.

I'm reminded of a campaign weekend I attended for the Babylon 5: A Call To Arms system. In the last battle of that weekend, there was a rule whereby ships could jump to hyperspace, move to a different table, then jump in as reinforcements at the beginning of the next turn.

It wasn't aiming for balance so much as it was aiming for fun. As long as it's not used as part of a competitive tourny, I could see something similar working well with X-Wing's "Fly Casual" ethic

That's exactly the sort of thing I was envisioning at first. How did it go? Was it kind of clunky or did it work pretty smooth?

It worked fairly well IIRC. Keep in mind that I'm thinking back half a decade or so here, so the memories are a little blurred, but...

- It was a game mode where everyone was controlling a single flagship from their fleet, so you didn't need to worry about your forces being split over multiple tables.

- The overall battle did tend to snowball if I remember right. Whoever could get the upper hand the quickest on one table could then jump forces to another table and outnumber the opponents there. This would cause you to gain the upper hand their more quickly, so on and so forth.

- It did add an element of strategy to the whole proceedings.

- Even just on the tactical level it meant you couldn't just assume that you were safe from a given area. like you can at times when you only have the opponents on the board to worry about.

Of course, B5:ACTA already had a mechanism in place for opening jump points to hyperspace (both as an escape and a reinforcements mechanism). This is something we'd need to develop from scratch.

For jumping to hyperspace, how about the following:

- Take a calculate hyperdrive action, putting a hyperdrive lock token next to your ship and a matching token on the table you wish to jump to.

- Take a hyperdrive jump action, which can only be taken after a green maneuver, and spends the hyperdrive lock token. At the end of the turn, remove your ship from the table, ready to jump in on the next turn at the target table.

- Optional: Have a restriction that the hyperdrive jump action can only be used when the ship is pointing towards the target table.

- Optional: Have a restriction that the hyperdrive jump action cannot be used whilst you have an ion token.

Run two tables in the same room, players can converse back as forth as this would be considered a communications network. Turns should be ran concurrently and remain synced. Use preselected positions to jump from one table to another, allow no combat for the ships jumping as they need to set their navigation.

I would envision a likely scenario for such a game to be something similar to a battle of Leyte Gulf. Have one table a mass of fighters dogfighting it out to represent the fighter screen for freighters being engaged. The other table would have the freighters/transports along with a rear echelon fighter element, these would be engaged by a secondary attacker as the convoy fighter screened is engaged and allows it to pass by.

If liked the idea that if multiple games are running and one gets finished the survivors could jump into another battle as reinforcements. I guess you could add mystery to things by not telling someone the exact state of a battle that they are joining and if you want to be mean you have them plan their setup without actually knowing the state of the battle; this could mean they jump into other ships are could be forced out of the battle before they even get in or they could jump in to one side of the board when the other side would have been better.

Yeah, and you could even throw "Scum & Villainy" into the mix! Maybe multiple factions, with their own victory conditions, like take out (ie, collect the bounty on) the most expensive ship in each fleet, or a particular ship type or character. Maybe "Scum" working FOR the Empire and "Villainy" supporting the Rebels but it is a secret which faction they are for. More chaos... more fun!

For jumping to hyperspace, how about the following:

- Take a calculate hyperdrive action, putting a hyperdrive lock token next to your ship and a matching token on the table you wish to jump to.

- Take a hyperdrive jump action, which can only be taken after a green maneuver, and spends the hyperdrive lock token. At the end of the turn, remove your ship from the table, ready to jump in on the next turn at the target table.

- Optional: Have a restriction that the hyperdrive jump action can only be used when the ship is pointing towards the target table.

- Optional: Have a restriction that the hyperdrive jump action cannot be used whilst you have an ion token.

I love this suggestion. I think I'm gonna try it out at our next epic game.

Run two tables in the same room, players can converse back as forth as this would be considered a communications network. Turns should be ran concurrently and remain synced. Use preselected positions to jump from one table to another, allow no combat for the ships jumping as they need to set their navigation.

I would envision a likely scenario for such a game to be something similar to a battle of Leyte Gulf. Have one table a mass of fighters dogfighting it out to represent the fighter screen for freighters being engaged. The other table would have the freighters/transports along with a rear echelon fighter element, these would be engaged by a secondary attacker as the convoy fighter screened is engaged and allows it to pass by.

I like this as well. I think I was hung up on the "surprise" element too much -- I just don't think it would work that great with two battlefields. Keeping everything in the same room solves a few clunky issues. Good suggestion for a possible scenario, too.