Decided to write my own scenario and playtest it with the wife today.

Essentially the plot is thus. A rebel supply convoy has been sucked out of hyperspace by 'gravity well generator satellites' (like staic interdictor globes) into an are in which a 'wolf pack' of phantoms are hiding.

The rebel player has to either escape with his CR90 with at least ONE of its three tibanna gas cargo off the imperial start edge OR hyperspace out but to do this easily the generators have to be blown.

The playing area is 6x3.

Rebels start off withing wep range 3 of one short edge. the imperial 'wolf pack' of three phantoms starts cloaked and *anywhere* withing the three foot of the opposite short edge.

The generators can be anywhere on table but no closer than range 2 of an edge and at least range 3 min of each other (basicaly the lenght of the ruler apart).

After turn 4 the Imperials gain one Academy pilot with no upgrades who has been called in by the wold pack each turn up to a max of three.

There are no asteroids as its supposed to be an otherwise clear hyperspace route.

FORCES:

Rebels:

Transport, YT1300 and YT2400.. basically cargo ships.

Imperials

3 phantoms with 3 Ties as escalation

Forces in detail for our playtest:

Rebel Side for Convoy Scenario

158 points

I ended up having to spend two of the tibanna gas just to keep the treadwell powered up to repair the holes the phantoms were tearing in the hull.

I forgot to mention imperial victory conditions were 'destroy the transport' or 'force it to use up all the gas' or 'knock out the gas via cargo criticals' or a combination

In the end it was just shredded by fire. I took down two of the phantoms with dash but couldnt hit whisper and with the two TIEs chipping in they were doing more damage than the treadwell could weld up in a turn!

I think if the imperial victory condition had been 'minor victory to do the above' and major victory to destory the whole convoy it might be actually properly balanced as it is.

Looks cool! If you did want to add obstacles, and you have the money/time/ships, the debris tokens from the wave 5 ships, or a spare Transport might be thematic and interesting.

They would basically represent previous Phantom kills.

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Not the worlds best pic , thats the wold pack with a 'cloaking' paint job i did in about ten minutes. if it looks rubbish in daylight i'll redo it.

It was taken on my phone which really doesnt like doing pics of small things.

When i get the proper camera pics up i'll show you it looks loads better

I like the debris clouds idea. I actually have six of those tokens and ive not used them yet.

Be great to have a 'ship graveyard' in the phantoms 'trap' zone

Clearly they were not flying that close i was just trying to photo them all together!

Another variant: create 2-3 different Rebel lists. Assign each of them 2 numbers between 1 and 6. Make the Imperial player roll a D6 before the match.

That's what they are facing.

For extra fun, create a 4th squad that's a pure "murder squad", and if 1 gets rolled, reroll the die. 2-5, and its squad 1. If 1 gets rolled twice, though, the Phantoms are in a lot of trouble...

Its a fair bit of planning but could be fun.

My main intention was to represent a raid on shipping like the uboat attacks on the atlantic convoys in WWII... big cago shis escorted by escort ships.. also pretty laden with cargo.

Initially i wanted the entire rebel list to be generic but it was just going to get slaughtered as iv'e only got one of each freighter. With perhaps two of each type of YT rather than 60 points on dash it would feel more like a convoy but i worked with what i had

I think it would be better if you made it so the REBs can only leave if all the GW are destroyed.

A variant where the Shuttle arrives to board the Transport?

yeah that could be playable. Might need to add in a few cheap escorts though as each turn you're hammering a GW you're not taking on the enemy.

quite easy to get gorund down

only played it once obviously but dash did ok tackling the phantoms while the 'rubbish' generic ORS took on the GW but with two attack dice (three close up) and an evade die on the GWs he cant be guaranteed to get one every time. I could make them one hit point?

A variant where the Shuttle arrives to board the Transport?

That could be quite litterally 'epic' but im trying to avoid too many house rules but maybe that comes in on turn 7. if you're not wrecked by then..... then you will be

yeah that could be playable. Might need to add in a few cheap escorts though as each turn you're hammering a GW you're not taking on the enemy.

quite easy to get gorund down

only played it once obviously but dash did ok tackling the phantoms while the 'rubbish' generic ORS took on the GW but with two attack dice (three close up) and an evade die on the GWs he cant be guaranteed to get one every time. I could make them one hit point?

Add blaster and missile mines for defense for GW. Blaster mine have turret auto blaster, missile fires smart missiles every three rounds. mines have 2 defence and three hull.

A variant where the Shuttle arrives to board the Transport?

That could be quite litterally 'epic' but im trying to avoid too many house rules but maybe that comes in on turn 7. if you're not wrecked by then..... then you will be

Doesn't the core rulebook come with a scenerio for tractor beams? Could be possible to adapt that rule for a boarding action.

again good ideas but i want the GW to be speed bumps... it was tough enough as it is without making it any harder for the rebels.

I just wanted a good 'either / or' dilemma you see. either you pay silly energy costs to get the hyperdrive fired up enough to leave (18 energy as opposed to six with no GWs functioning) or you knock out the GWs quick and leave quick.

I could possibly make the energy cost decrease proportional to the amount of functioning GWs but i dont want to make it too complicated. im going for the level of scenario depth in say the end of the tantive campaign

These are all great ideas though, i'll have a chat with the wife about them, see what she thinks and defintely include some of them

How about setting the GW's up on one short side in a square, beforehand with the convoy setting up in that square, the net that caught them.

Something like this, where there are asteroids on both sides of the setup area for the rebel convoy. The reds are the GW's, your choice if they only become known if you fly close enough to them to detect them.

Tht makes loads more sense.

In out playtest sian put the GWs as far behind the line as possible so i had t fight through the phantoms to get them

But.. you're right if we had the area the rebels START in being a 'net' of GWs that would make more sense, it would make it easier to choose 'shoot phantons or shoot yourslef free'

Thats a great idea.

On the whole though how do you rate the scenario out of 10 at the mo.

Im thinking i'd give it a 6 out of 10 as it is. With the mods you guys are suggesting i think it would be an 8 at least.

At the mo its very much 'you have this'.

But i need to give some 'choice' options like FFG scenarios do im thinking.

Rebels

You must take 'duty free' GR75 with three tibanna gas cargo and combat retrofit.

You then have 100 points for the 'convoy' but can only choose YT1300, YT2400, HWK90

possibly an escort fighter choice.... chronologially this is quite early as phantoms are between ANH and ESB (i think Dash jars the timeline here so maybe it should be based around Han as the main hero) but an early escort fighter might make it Y wings mayu be taken (max 2)

Imperials

You must choose 150 points , at least two phantoms

other craft may be TIE/ln, Bombers, Shuttles, firespray in your starting force. Any ships in the starting force MUST take stealth device as an upgrade.

No interceptors, no defenders, etc

The escalation TIEs stay the same

150 of attack vs 100 of defense plus a transport? You might provide the Convoy with some relieve force to put the pressure on the attackers instead of an escalation force for the attackers?

I like ambush scenarios anyway, they feel very X-Wing and TIE Fighter computer games and especially with Scum coming soon this scenario should provide oodles of fun.

it is quite close after the one play through we've had.

yeah its 150 points of offence versus 100 points of offence and a transport but bear in mind the imperial player has to kill off that transport so its a the choice between shooting the escort that can hurt you and risking the transport warping away or concentrating on crippling the transport and making yourslef vulnerable to the freighters.

It might be less points of rebel offence but for a while the rebels are not recieving any fire on the YTs

But at first my gut reaction was the rebs were underpowered.

Hence thinking about one or two y wing 'escorts' as they are long ranged craft and hyperdrive capable but i dont really want to dilute the 'cargo convoy' element... maybe a HWK or two?

I think i wanted the 'frustration' for the imperial player being a lot of stuff that can stress their ships, HWKs might add nicely to this.

again good ideas but i want the GW to be speed bumps... it was tough enough as it is without making it any harder for the rebels.

I just wanted a good 'either / or' dilemma you see. either you pay silly energy costs to get the hyperdrive fired up enough to leave (18 energy as opposed to six with no GWs functioning) or you knock out the GWs quick and leave quick.

I could possibly make the energy cost decrease proportional to the amount of functioning GWs but i dont want to make it too complicated. im going for the level of scenario depth in say the end of the tantive campaign

These are all great ideas though, i'll have a chat with the wife about them, see what she thinks and defintely include some of them

I think the game would run better without the HD charge up mechanic, and just went with having to destroy the GW and getting the C90 off the otherside of the table. If need be reduce the speed of C90 from the get go.

Just like how the Phantoms must chose to kill the C90 or the YTs, because of risk of YTs coming from behind, I think the REBS should have to deal with two sources of danger, Phantoms and weapon mines. May be two auto blaster and smart missile per GW.

I feel if you went for the "call for back up route" since its 1 TIE at a time they could easily be taken out the turn they arrive.

Just from the timeline, the Rebels should have the following small base craft available:

Z-95s

Y-Wings

X-Wings

HWKs

How much that impacts your scenario is up to you.

And it's a small gas convoy, not some heavily guarded high profile official of course. So maybe only one named pilot?

Unless of course the imperials have been preying on shipping a long time and the Rebels decide to set a trap and turn the ambush around.

But now I'm thinking I'm channeling either Rogue Squadron or Biggles books.