Every Super Bowl Sunday since X-Wing has been out, Sci-Fi City in Orlando has done a big event that day. The first year we did the trench run from Star Wars, and last year was the Battle of Endor. This year we did an original scenario that involved a rather curious interloper...

Yes, that's the Attack Wing DS9, here performing duty as Repair and Resupply Station XL1X. The scenario was an Imperial sneak attack on a Rebel outpost. The Rebels needed to get the four transports off the board, the Imperials needed to stop that from happening. Each Imperial player got 100 points to play with while the Rebels got 70, taking into account the fact they had the four transports and the station on their side. The only restriction was one large ship per side (the Imperials ended up with a Kagi shuttle while the Rebels had no large ship). Imperials got 50 points for each shuttle destroyed, 30 points for each section of the station destroyed, as well as points for destroyed Rebel ships. Rebels got 50 for each escaped shuttle, 30 for each surviving section of the station, and points for destroyed Imperial ships. We started with 3 vs. 3, with a fourth player joining the Imperial side about an hour in.

Teams took turns deploying on one of six "sectors" of the board (two on each of the long edges and one on each short edge of a 6x3 board). The Imperials chose to mass on the short edges, in order to give themselves time to intercept the transports, and this may have been their undoing; it took a turn for them to get into engagement range, and might have benefited from deploying closer to get a first round shot. They fielded a group of bombers with Soontir Fel, the aforementioned shuttle with Vader on board and more bombers, a my squad composed of a Vessery defender with a flight of Targeting Computer-equipped TIEs. The Rebels had a mix of X-Wings, B-Wings and E-Wings. It looked early on like the Rebels would get the shuttles away easily, especially since Vessery and his flight of TIEs with Targeting Computers got bogged down in a X-Wing skirmish and later got jammed by the transports, thus taking away Vessery's synergy with their target locks since nobody could take actions with any regularity. But the bombers were doing good work, and near the end, many of the Imperials turned their attention to the station when it became clear some of the shuttles were going to get away.

In the end, two shuttles escaped, the other two shuttles were destroyed, and the Imperials managed to knock out two-thirds of the station. But the Imperials casualties were high, and the Rebels ended up winning the scenario 336-322. Although half their transport fleet and two-thirds of their station gone was not a win for them to be happy about!

Good game, good players, and now I'm really itching to try some more Epic play.