Tantive missions and the value of the CR90

By mazz0, in X-Wing

I'm playing the campaign missions that came with the CR90 for the first time. The values of the squads aren't even. In the first mission, for example, the Rebels get significantly more points, around 20 to 25 I'd estimate.

Why do we reckon FFg arranged it this way? The CR90 loses a little potential by not having other ships to co-ordinate, but that's not forth 20pt, plus it has an easier objective than the Empire - they've got to cripple you in six turns, you only need to avoid them.

I'm sure FFg at have thought it through, I'm just trying to understand it.

Has anyone else played these missions? I played today wi the CR90 and it was a doddle.

It's been a while since I read the epic scenarios, are those some of the ones where the empire gets to call in reinforcements as their ships die?

It's actually really close to a good balance despite the disparity. A lone CR-90 is easy prey for the Howlrunner squad if flown right in Mission 1. I've seen that mission go both ways enough to feel confident in it's design. However I will also say that if it is skewed at all, like many of the missions are, it is likely only because the missions are tilted to favor the product that it came with. If you haven't seen it yet look at the mission that comes with the Outrider. Perfect example. Kind of a showcasing of the new toys you bought abilities.

Edited by ForceSensitive

The sides are uneven because the missions are uneven. You only have even point totals where the mission is "meet in the middle of a 3x3 table and fight until someone loses all of their ships". When you have alternate mission goals you may need to adjust the points of each side because otherwise the mission goals are too difficult for one side. For example, "escape off the table" might be almost impossible when the points are even because the other side can focus fire on the escaping ship too easily and stop it well before it can get across the table. But if you give the escaping player a 50% advantage in points maybe now they have enough meatshields to put in front of their mission objective and can get it off the table roughly half the time. Or it might be the exact opposite, and you need to reduce the escaping player's points because otherwise they can throw their meatshields in the other player's path, ignore combat with the escaping ship, and just run straight off the table.

played 3 so far me as Rebels and its not to uneven i found won the first 2 lost the 3rd all very close games soon we will play the 4th the only thing I would change if I could would be the single quad laser I find them usless but then it would be uneven :)

and does any one eles think FFG made a mistake in mission T3A. Imperial Victory: Destory the CR90 or Destroy all Satellites. all other missions say to cripple CR90 so if the corvette is destroyed in T3A then how can it be used in T4 ?

I played the first 2 missions and i agree mission 1 is skewed for the rebels. We played it 2x as it was over too quick. Mission 2 wasy easy for 2xint and a phantom. So we'll see how missiin 3 plays out. When building a rebel meatshield squad its not like building a normal list. You want glass cannons so max damage and if they are shooting your small stuff the corvette is slipping away.

Even though its 1-1 howlrunner and soontir fel are dead so cannot be used. I just think the missions were written before phantoms....BP haha

Well balanced so far.

Game one, my tantive got off withouth a cripples section but needed to burn up some tibanna gas to survive, it was close.

Game two i lost with a cripples aft but again super close... one more turn i'd have been clear.

Yet to give part three a go.

Played the second one and I was two hits off crippling it but I lost soontir very quickly when he rolled six blanks at range five, with him I'd of won I think.

The sides are uneven because the missions are uneven. You only have even point totals where the mission is "meet in the middle of a 3x3 table and fight until someone loses all of their ships". When you have alternate mission goals you may need to adjust the points of each side because otherwise the mission goals are too difficult for one side. For example, "escape off the table" might be almost impossible when the points are even because the other side can focus fire on the escaping ship too easily and stop it well before it can get across the table. But if you give the escaping player a 50% advantage in points maybe now they have enough meatshields to put in front of their mission objective and can get it off the table roughly half the time. Or it might be the exact opposite, and you need to reduce the escaping player's points because otherwise they can throw their meatshields in the other player's path, ignore combat with the escaping ship, and just run straight off the table.

Absolutely, but in this case escaping off the table actually seems pretty easy. You can force the ties to either approach you from the front or go on a long loop to get behind you (wasting a few turns), and they can't easily concentrate fire on your front so that splits their attacks, which gives you the time you need to escape (and until they get to range 1 they're doing max one hit each per turn thanks to reinforce). Six turns is not long for them to cripple you.

I'm not saying it's unbalanced necessarily (I've only played it once), but that the deliberate unbalance seems to favour the Rebels, so you'd think the Empire would get more points. Strange.

Just played the second mission. I won again with rebels, but my brother was experimenting with ships he's not familiar with (first time with a Phantom) and still trying to make a bomberman with lots of ordnance work (he's been stubbornly trying to make one work fully loaded in 100pt matches (which obviously makes it my first target and it doesn't last long), sensibly dropped it to two AVPs on Rhymer this time, which could have been a good idea if covered well...), and forgot about blowing up the fuel tank damaging any ship at R1 (which included all his black squadron pilots). I suspect it would have been pretty balanced if he'd played a little better.