I've been playing the 'point of no return' campaign with the wife over the last week or so.

Sians not a bad player but I think i've hammered the prime military maxim of 'be aware of your objective and focus all available effort on the objective and dont get distracted' too well.

I'm really struggling to win with the rebels in this campaign (won the first scenario, lost the last two) and i think part of the problem is that the objective is generally to cripple one section of the tantive for the imperials.

My objective varies but i usually dont get time to complete it as if you concentrate fire from even a modest force on a ship that essentially has no evades it goes down pretty quick

The problems im having are

1. the set composition of the CR90 in the scenario, you're forced to take two single turbo lasers. These are next to useless against TIE type ships as you can fire at range 3 at the shortest (so on average 4 evade dice against 4 red.. not so bad so far) but you also *double* the agility of the target so its actually more like 4 red vs 7 or more green! The only decent weapon really on a hardpoint is the quad laser but as its on the rear its usually only coming into play occasionally. The main turret is range 3-5 and slightly more useful as AG isnt doubled but still means the ship is pretty vulnerable close up. I'm just finding the default set up you have to take a pig to use.

2. The escorts you can have usually exclude large ships or unique characters. But as the games mechanics let you shoot at anyone in range an escort has trouble actually screening a huge ship as you just shoot through them. As Sians concentrating on the objective she has ignored the various escorts i've tried (swarm of Z95s in one game, three B wings in another) and the excort cant kills enough TIEs quickly enough

Much as i personally hate the Biggs card as i dont like removing choice from an opponent i'm seeing him as the only way of keeping the bloody thing alove in the final segment we're playing friday night.

With winning one of the previous three games i get one upgrade for the tantive.

I cant decide between 'slicer tools' or 'c3po' but at the moment 3p0 is crewing han solos falcon.

My 'escort' for the last section of the campaign 'minefield' is something i'd never normally play but think is my only chance and thats Han with 3p0 (can really afford any other 'fat han' upgrades), Biggs with HU and a red squadron xwing.

Suggestions for clawing back at least one win?

I have not played all missions. The first mission is well-balanced since you don't actually have to kill any ties to win it. The hardest for the rebels seems to be the one in which you have to protect satellites, it's very difficult to protect things with the Corvette against Ties! (especially while not moving).

You should also take into account that for the single turbolasers you don't add any additional range modifiers! So it's 4 vs. 6 or maximum 4 vs. 7 if the Ties are behind an asteroid. You only put range modifiers on the main weapon, with which you could have 4/5 vs. 4/5/6, depending on range.

edit: BTW, Biggs doesn't work on huge ships, as stated in the FAQ (along with Navigator I believe).

Bugger on two counts.

One i didnt realise biggs cant screen huge ships.

Two i didnt realise turbo lasers dont gt range mods... makes them marginally less useless... still double AG is as bad as huge range mods....

They still do less than one damage on average on TIE Fighters, which is ridiculous. If the TIE has focus, I believe it's less than 0.5 average, which is mind-numbingly small. These weapons are not meant to fight TIEs, they're meant for Epic Imperial ships. FFG, where are my Epic ships?

Oh agreed, hence the 'they're evading out turbolasers' line in the film.

Its why its frustrating in the campaign that the 'outfit' you *have* to take in each scenario has two turbolasers that unless you're firing at a shuttle are pointless. If you could outfit it to taste i'd have the thing covered in quad cannons

I think an Imperial 'repaint' of a CR90 would be a good stop gap.

I know i've always gone 'there are few iconic imperial ships of a comparable scale so i dont know *what* FFG coudl release' but they clearly intended there to be one at some point as the reverse of the range 1-5 ruler is imperial green.

I think unless tantive sales were so low its a risk I'd release an imperial CR90, perhaps with a tasty exclusive repaint TIE/ln and some great cards for it (like with rebel transports xwing).

Corvette vs corvette battles would be fun and it would be a zero development time (comparatively) release for a huge imperial ship. It wouldnt even mess up store 'shelf space' that much as most stores display two tantives, just displays one CR90 of each faction and keep the rest in the stock room.

I've found the big ship campaigns - which are Rebel defensive in nature to be very very hard.

All it takes are good rolls and focus on the target for Imperials to win. I've played both sides of these.

yeah i think my main problem is essentially you've got a big target where every hit goes in and no way of forcing the enemy to engage with the escort. Unless the escort can knock out the imperials *very* quickly a crippled section happens too fast.

yeah i think my main problem is essentially you've got a big target where every hit goes in and no way of forcing the enemy to engage with the escort. Unless the escort can knock out the imperials *very* quickly a crippled section happens too fast.

Have you tried using reinforce? It works for *all* attacks, so it's pretty good against TIEs. My main problems in the campaign was actually doing damage with the corvette or protecting other objectives (those satellites), being defensive isn't that hard, you just have to reinforce, or alternate reinforce with recover. Sure, it takes away some of the offensive capabilities, but they weren't that great to begin with :|.

The problem was in the last game i needed all my energy on that hyperdrive card. I did use reenforce but you know four Ties hitting you at range 1 while 3 squints hit the front at the same time... well there is only so much you can absorb

I think my main mistake was wasting energy powering up the weapons at all in that one, i'd have been better using 'all ahead' moves at speed 2 , getting the four energy (extra one for the engineering team) and putting half of it on the drive and the other half on shields. I was putting shields back up a lot but just not sustainable against the amount of fire coming in.

I've got a group (we split the squads among 3 players each side), and we've played the first three missions, and are planning the last one. The rebels have won all 3 of the first missions.

I won't say that they are easy; but they are winnable.

On Mission T1 , I'll admit I had some lucky die rolls. But you have to weigh where to allocate your energy while they are at long range. Do you spend 1 energy on the Gunnery Team to change a blank to a hit for the TL? Or do you use that 1 energy to pump the Primary up to 5 dice? By our math (which might be wrong), assuming you only have 1 energy to spend, if the Tie takes a focus token, the odds are your TL is completely nerfed. Your best bet is to fire the Primary +1 and hope he has to spend the focus there, then consider following up with the TL (sans Gunnery Team). If the Tie takes Evade, we figured you should fire the Primary and hope he has to burn the evade there, then follow up with the TL (with Gunnery Team).

Obviously, taking out Howlrunner should be your top priority, and depending on how the Imperials fly her, you should try to make sure all your guns are charged for that strike. Without her re-rolls the ties have a hard time getting past your reinforce action.

We won that one, so we went on to Mission T2A . We ignored the refueling canister and undocked on the first turn. Our squad build was 3 Talas and 2 A-Wing Prototype Pilots with Chardaan Refit + Stealth Device. Like you said, there's really no way to force the enemy to engage the escort, but you don't need them to engage, you just have to block them. All these rebel ships we're forced to fly are low pilot skill - which is great for just blocking up their flight paths. They got in some good hits on the CR90 as it pulled away from the station (like you said, you can't stop them from just running past you when they are going straight), but when they turned to make their second pass, they found themselves all jammed up with annoyingly hard to hit A-Wings in their way and the Tala swarm pinging them from the flank. Also, because the CR90 was already running when they engaged it, the Imperials found themselves forced to shoot at the aft of the ship, after already having pummeled the fore section. The CR90 got into open space and off the board. The A-Wings were the key - they could be just about anywhere cutting off pursuit. I think this mission really rewards excellent use of area control.

Argh! These stupid A-Wings won't get out of our way!

Then we were on to Mission T3A , which is just a brutal attrition match. We ran 2 E-Wings, PS1 and PS3, both with Stealth Device, and then 2 Talas with Assault Missiles + MFS. Admittedly, our opponents got frazzled when we pointed out that the mission states that the win condition is blow up all the satellites or destroy the CR90 - not just cripple it. So they failed to concentrate fire, which likely is the only reason we won (with a single E-Wing left).

Um.. in T1 it's a naked CR90, no gunnery team.

Ok. I just read the campaign pre-equip - holy hannah was I playing that campaign on hard mode or what?

Um.. in T1 it's a naked CR90, no gunnery team.

No - read page 2 of the mission booklet where it says: "Before Each Mission," section 1 "Equip the CR90."

Ok. I just read the campaign pre-equip - holy hannah was I playing that campaign on hard mode or what?

LOL - Yikes! Yeah, that would be... ummm.... tough

We've played it that the tibanna gas is one use only all campaign.

I burned mine up in mission 1 and havent put it on the ship is any following missions...

should i have?

I think it would have made a big difference in the first one of the two i lost, maybe a little in getting shields back up in the next one.

We've played it that the tibanna gas is one use only all campaign.

I burned mine up in mission 1 and havent put it on the ship is any following missions...

should i have?

I think it would have made a big difference in the first one of the two i lost, maybe a little in getting shields back up in the next one.

We took the rules literally. It says "Before setup of each mission during the Point of No Return Campaign, follow these steps..." So yes, we re-equipped Tibanna Gas Supplies before each mission. That made a big difference in deciding to abandon the refueling canister in Mission T2A. We decided it was a trap, and we could make do with the 3 from the Gas Supplies.

Tough one isnt it

I couldnt decide if tibanna should be re-equipped as other things 'wasted' in the campaign like named pilots cant be reused so it seemed unfair that howlrunner was out for the count but i got all the tantives 'one shots' back.

But then again i suppose you are transporting tons of the stuff so it makes sense.

I dont know if it would have changed the outcome of the match but i think it would have made it a longer game.

I also think you're right though, full refit before each mission.

Otherwise thinking about it the ship would be a wreck by now as i lost an engineering team and a turbolaser in the first instalment.

Yes, there's nothing in the rules that would indicate you must remove lost / used upgrades from mission to mission in the campaign, and the written rules contradict that. So I think you just added a house-rule that makes thematic sense

Like it made no sense to us that the win condition for Mission T3A would include destroying the CR90 instead of crippling it; because if it was destroyed, how could you go on ti Mission T4?

When I ran the imperials in the campaign, I managed to vent the engineering team into space with a crit on each mission. It became a running joke that the replacement crew must have been getting increasingly anxious by the last one.

Mission 1 is fairly easy for the Rebels, since you can focus on defense, but the others are a bear. I overestimated movement and picked Engine Booster as my upgrade for the final mission, hoping I could just book it across the map, but no such luck. Also didn't help that half my escort force (X & B) took too long dealing with a pair of Sigma Phantoms and couldn't get back into the fight before the CR went down.

Ok. I just read the campaign pre-equip - holy hannah was I playing that campaign on hard mode or what?

I did the same thing. Missed that before mission 1, and, yet, still won somehow...

Also, yes, Rebel CR vs Imperial CR is a lot of fun!

At the risk of hijacking the thread, we're talking about breaking out s

my Tantive and Transporter for some epic games at my FLGS this Saturday.

I haven't even gotten around to reading the epic rules so I don't really know what's what yet.

Are we going to be better off just going for a straight up 200/300 point battle, or do the missions represent a better intro to epic play?

I'd play the missions as they kind of drive you towards getting to know the limitations and benefits of a huge ship better.

The tantive campaign teaches you a lot about efficient energy use (or in my case lack of it).

Personally i'd play them as they are huge ship focussed and it means you wont forget or be ignorant of something really important you can or could do in an epic battle later.

Plus the tantive campaign is fun and well written, its tough but its a 'tree' campaign so winning one part affects the next section you play leading up to a big finale in which having a lot of previous wins in the campaign gives you upgrades

I've yet to play campaign with my transport, so just really, REALLY understanding the movement of the ship and how it uses the energy is essential. Also, since there are a limited amount of actions with the ships(and they cannot get free actions!) you should look into upgrades that give you actions in the Energy phase, like Comms Booster. Things are trickier with the corvette because there are more guns and energy to play around with and you do have two actions. My advice is experience will be your friend: practicing with the ship will make you learn it better, just likebwith fighters and large ships! :3