So there's this and this. It got me thinking about using a similar board (such as would be used for a Battletech, Epic 40K, or Dropzone Commander game) as the play area for X-Wing.

Has anyone tried it? The relatively small scale of movement for X-Wing ships, relative to the model size, makes me think it's possible, and I think it would be a tense, exciting, and different sort of match, even before adding in any mission parameters. The idea of Rebels and Imperials engaging in the skies over an industrial city seems really cool to me.

The biggest drawback I see would be the difficulty in placing templates. Reducing the number of buildings will help somewhat, and I would treat intact buildings as asteroids and ruins as debris clouds just to KISS.

Several manufacturers make resin buildings in appropriate sizes, for those with sufficient disposable income. For the rest of us, there are a ton of downloadable buildings out there on the web which can be printed, folded, taped/glued and will serve as admirable stand-ins. Scales range from 6mm to 10mm to N-scale, which are all, in my opinion, close enough for scenery. Hawk Wargames has a page of downloads here, Germy from the UK has a ton of great papercraft here (you'll want the 6mm buildings), and web search for paper scenery or Battletech/Epic 40K scenery will surely turn up others.

Any thoughts? I've downloaded a bunch of templates, but my printer's on the fritz so...

I'd love to get some feedback from the community.

You don't really need it to be 3D, from a gameplay perspective, you really just need a bunch of rectangle "obstacles" to represent the buildings. And instead of taking damage like you do with Asteroids and Debris Fields, running into a building should straight-up destroy your ship. It'd make manouvering even more important, which might be interesting.

We were thinking of doing this. Looked fun and really funny. Could be great. Some sort of high speed high G chase through some ruin.

Some people want to make wayyyy too complicated rules for height. Personally I just want to see something super simple that adds one little element. Not make me have to remember another whole set of rules on top of the Xwing rules.

You could give any house rules a test run on the 'space station' mat they make, looks close enough to an industrial world and you could use tokens to indicate which areas are raised.

If you wanted to lend some flavor you could just have ships 'above' a building lose one agility die, to reflect that they are putting effort into maintaining altitude and would be an easy target for every ship at a 'lower' level. Maybe passing over a structure robs you of an action, to reflect the additional movement time spent climbing, but doesn't prevent you from engaging like a normal obstacle.

I dunno, just treating it like an asteroid feels weird given the 3D aspects (and the unlikelihood of a pilot 'winging' a massive stationary building over a cluster of tumbling asteroids...not to mention being able to do so without just being annihilated). Maybe if a maneuver ends with the base not entirely on or off the obstacle the ship's toast.

Ruins as debris clouds works surprisingly well as is.

So there's this and this. It got me thinking about using a similar board (such as would be used for a Battletech, Epic 40K, or Dropzone Commander game) as the play area for X-Wing.

Has anyone tried it? The relatively small scale of movement for X-Wing ships, relative to the model size, makes me think it's possible, and I think it would be a tense, exciting, and different sort of match, even before adding in any mission parameters. The idea of Rebels and Imperials engaging in the skies over an industrial city seems really cool to me.

The biggest drawback I see would be the difficulty in placing templates. Reducing the number of buildings will help somewhat, and I would treat intact buildings as asteroids and ruins as debris clouds just to KISS.

Several manufacturers make resin buildings in appropriate sizes, for those with sufficient disposable income. For the rest of us, there are a ton of downloadable buildings out there on the web which can be printed, folded, taped/glued and will serve as admirable stand-ins. Scales range from 6mm to 10mm to N-scale, which are all, in my opinion, close enough for scenery. Hawk Wargames has a page of downloads here, Germy from the UK has a ton of great papercraft here (you'll want the 6mm buildings), and web search for paper scenery or Battletech/Epic 40K scenery will surely turn up others.

Any thoughts? I've downloaded a bunch of templates, but my printer's on the fritz so...

I'd love to get some feedback from the community.

Wow, those are awesome! Wish I'd known about those a while ago.

I'd say running into buildings kills small ships in a fireball, knocks off half the max hp of a large ship, and huge ships use the ramming rules.

You don't really need it to be 3D, from a gameplay perspective, you really just need a bunch of rectangle "obstacles" to represent the buildings. And instead of taking damage like you do with Asteroids and Debris Fields, running into a building should straight-up destroy your ship. It'd make manouvering even more important, which might be interesting.

No, you don't NEED it to be 3D, but just like 3D asteroids are cooler than the 2D tokens, so too are the buildings. It goes a long way towards verisimilitude to see a table like that, regardless of what wargame you're playing.

We were thinking of doing this. Looked fun and really funny. Could be great. Some sort of high speed high G chase through some ruin.

Some people want to make wayyyy too complicated rules for height. Personally I just want to see something super simple that adds one little element. Not make me have to remember another whole set of rules on top of the Xwing rules.

Yeah, I started brainstorming some rules for altitude and flying OVER buildings, but decided to stick with the KISS principle, hence treating the buildings like the existing types of obstacles.

Wow, those are awesome! Wish I'd known about those a while ago.

I'd say running into buildings kills small ships in a fireball, knocks off half the max hp of a large ship, and huge ships use the ramming rules.

The Ruinscape is currently for sale through Miniatures Market (if you're in the US). As far as clipping buildings, that's probably not a bad idea. I was also thinking of determining how "squarely" you hit the building, i.e. if more than half the base/template is covered by the building, it's instant death. If it's less than half the base/template, then use the existing obstacle rules.

In the end, things like that could certainly be include as mission-specific special rules. For a pick-up game or regular dogfight, I'd probably use the existing obstacle rules just to keep things simple. I have some 3D asteroids that I made from lava rocks, and I'm working on some 3D debris tokens based on sections of a destroyed capital ship, and they add a lot to our games, as does a starfield mat. Thanks for all the suggestions & thoughts, everyone!

If it instantly destroys a ship I say up the squad limit to 200, small ships only, and 30 secs to set dials. Screw shooting at each other, just see who can live the longest without crashing

I'd like to see some ground based scenarios. Bombing runs on targets, turrets, AT-ATs (stationary turrets), etc.

Using these boards could be fun. We also see missions flown amongst the skyscrapers of coruscant in the X-Wing books

Whats the kiss principle?

If i ever get to publishing my scenario idea, it will have some bombing and buildings. =) And simplest rules posssible.

Whats the kiss principle?

If i ever get to publishing my scenario idea, it will have some bombing and buildings. =) And simplest rules posssible.

KISS= Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Essentially, don't unnecessarily over-complicate things to the point they actually defeat the original intent of a concept.

In reference to height considerations: try Dungeons and Dragons Attack Wing, as it does have a (fairly simple) height rule (landed/"swooping"/flying). It might make sense for a planetary X-wing battle- I'd love to see the scenario guys give it a try!

D&D Attack Wing: Landed units can attack anything landed or "swooping." "Swooping" units can attack targets at any altitude. Flying units can attack anything flying or "swooping."

In reference to height considerations: try Dungeons and Dragons Attack Wing, as it does have a (fairly simple) height rule (landed/"swooping"/flying). It might make sense for a planetary X-wing battle- I'd love to see the scenario guys give it a try!

D&D Attack Wing: Landed units can attack anything landed or "swooping." "Swooping" units can attack targets at any altitude. Flying units can attack anything flying or "swooping."

That seems like a fairly simple ruleset that could be implemented without too much difficulty. I'm assuming there's tokens or something to indicate a model's status? I've seen the models, but never seen anyone play it.

You could do that as an in-atmosphere game, or you could take scraps from all the cardboard we pull our tokens and stuff from and create a "girder maze" as if you were fighting in a shipyard. Slamming into one would still probably destroy your ships (referencing TIE Fighters and Death Stars), but would keep it in space. As they are smaller, you might could rule that only on Crits does it destroy your ship, otherwise take damage for flying much too close to the beams and girder framework. If you wanted to spend some time with these, you could make it 3D in an hour or two.

In reference to height considerations: try Dungeons and Dragons Attack Wing, as it does have a (fairly simple) height rule (landed/"swooping"/flying). It might make sense for a planetary X-wing battle- I'd love to see the scenario guys give it a try!

D&D Attack Wing: Landed units can attack anything landed or "swooping." "Swooping" units can attack targets at any altitude. Flying units can attack anything flying or "swooping."

That seems like a fairly simple ruleset that could be implemented without too much difficulty. I'm assuming there's tokens or something to indicate a model's status? I've seen the models, but never seen anyone play it.

There is a token for "swooping" and separate movement dials for flying vs. walking (!). The separate dials could be a tricky element, but if you keep (for example) an X-Wing's dial the same for flying high/mid/low, then you just need tokens for the altitudes (maybe make the most common- swooping?- the "default."

I've been thinking about this, and as a Battletech player, I am partial to hex maps. I was thinking about trying to convert the standard maneuver templates into hex based templates.

Now I want a Beggar's Canyon scape to fly through.

Now I want a Beggar's Canyon scape to fly through.

... and then you'll need Womp Rats too, and someone will demand FFG make a T-16

I've been thinking about this, and as a Battletech player, I am partial to hex maps. I was thinking about trying to convert the standard maneuver templates into hex based templates.

As a former 40K & WHF player, I'm partial to maps with NO gridlines whatsoever! Honestly, I can see how it might be an interesting exercise but the existing flightpath mechanics are so much more organic, I can't imagine switching back to any sort of grid-system. In a scenario like the urban terrain maps we're talking about here, a few degrees difference in how you orient your ship during deployment/maneuvering can mean the difference between success or splattering your fighter into the side of an obstacle. That's exciting, to me!

I've been thinking about this, and as a Battletech player, I am partial to hex maps. I was thinking about trying to convert the standard maneuver templates into hex based templates.

As a former 40K & WHF player, I'm partial to maps with NO gridlines whatsoever! Honestly, I can see how it might be an interesting exercise but the existing flightpath mechanics are so much more organic, I can't imagine switching back to any sort of grid-system. In a scenario like the urban terrain maps we're talking about here, a few degrees difference in how you orient your ship during deployment/maneuvering can mean the difference between success or splattering your fighter into the side of an obstacle. That's exciting, to me!

I have played a lot of 40k too and though I enjoyed playing it a lot of games had "disagreements" over range/movement. The hex based games remove that, but like I said I enjoy both. I think X wing does a nice job of mitigating that issue without resorting to hexes or grids, but that is primarily because you are not required to adjust for 3d terrain or obstacles too often and the rules for dealing with it are very clean.

If you wanted to have 3D terrain in X-Wing I would use similar rules as for asteroids for buildings and debris for rough terrain. Pass through it and roll of damage/stress land on it roll lose action/attack, but rather than ending on the building you bump bases like it was a ship in x-wing now to avoid balancing ships on buildings.

Interesting thing about this is you could have speeder and land units in the game and I am kind of fond of the snow speeder.

Now I want a Beggar's Canyon scape to fly through.

... and then you'll need Womp Rats too, and someone will demand FFG make a T-16

You say that like it's a bad thing?

Now I want a Beggar's Canyon scape to fly through.

... and then you'll need Womp Rats too, and someone will demand FFG make a T-16

You say that like it's a bad thing?

People keep talking about drawing up a new and improved version of X-Wing 2.0, I think they could just release a land speeder combat version in which many small ships still work (X-Wings, TIE fighters, etc) but they could add T-16s, snowspeeders, rebel V-Wing, etc. That would be neat.

People keep talking about drawing up a new and improved version of X-Wing 2.0, I think they could just release a land speeder combat version in which many small ships still work (X-Wings, TIE fighters, etc) but they could add T-16s, snowspeeders, rebel V-Wing, etc. That would be neat.

Mel has AT-ATs, AT-STs, turbolaser turrets, snowspeeders, and more in his Shapeways store, along with a free PDF with stats.

Now I want a Beggar's Canyon scape to fly through.

... and then you'll need Womp Rats too, and someone will demand FFG make a T-16

If they made a T-16 it would be even worse than a z-95! haha Those things sucked.