So I was able to finally play a couple more missions over my summer vacation with my brothers. I have only played the three intro missions with the starter ships, as well as the 3-man Bounty Hunt mission a few times. I wanted to briefly recap my experiences and thoughts with each of these missions.
#9: Jump to Subspace
Mission Description:
Full description: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/X-Wing_Miniatures_Mission_9:_Jump_to_Subspace
This is the mission in which a Rebel operative has captured a Moff, but the escape pod they are in is malfunctioning. The Rebels must approach the pod with multiple ships in order to jump start the pod engines and give it enough energy to navigate through an asteroid field and off the far side of the map.
Mission specifics:
The Rebels field 100 points, which must include an A-Wing and a B-Wing, and one must be a unique pilot. Imperials field 75 points, no large ships. Any Imperial ship that is PS 4 or above that gets destroyed is replaced with the lowest PS of that same ship at the end of the round. Rebels deploy ships in the top right and bottom left corner of the map, and Imperials deploy in the other two corners (for reference: the escape pod is nearest the "top" of the map in this case).
BatRep:
So I flew Rebels, and my brother flew the Imperial squad I had also designed, not knowing who would play which side. The Rebels consisted of Ibtisam (as the required unique A or B-Wing pilot), a Blue Squadron Pilot, Green Squadron Pilot, and Bandit Squadron Pilot. Ibtisam and the Green Sq. had a good few upgrades on them, the others less so. The Imperial squad was 2 TIE Fighters - Black Squadron and Night Beast - and 2 Interceptors - Saber Squadron and Turr Phenir. No upgrades, 75 points even (or... odd).
To start, I sent 3 of my 4 ships toward the escape pod to try and get it some tracking tokens (which are discarded in order to "jump start the engines" and move the pod). I attempted to flank with the A-Wing to pick off the most threatening Imp ship. Sadly, the A ran into an interceptor who came at him, and took a few hits. I did manage to jump start the Escape pod with the other ships (accomplished by drawing a line between 2 of my ships within Range 1-2 of each other that passes through the Pod), to get it moving. I then redirected my ships to try and fire a few rounds at the surrounding Imps, but my Blue Squadron and A-Wing were limping very quickly.
I picked off the Saber and Night Beast after a few rounds, which were then replaced by skill 1 ships. I worked my way into the asteroids to jump the pod a second time, taking more hits as I went. I lost my A-Wing after getting closed on by Phenir, and shortly after that, both the Black Squadron TIE and my Blue Squadron went down. My Bandit was also limping at this point.
Ibtisam did well to avoid fire and lay down some big shots, but my brother then realized that my Pod was out of power again, and without 2 ships, I wouldn't be able to jump start it anymore. So he made a beeline for my limping Z-95 and took it down before he could line up with Ibtisam to jump the pod one final time.
Takeaways:
This is a pretty cool mission. It's not all that complex compared to a couple of the other ones. It also forces some fun, interesting squads since the Rebels must field at least 1 named A or B, and at least one of each of those ships in general. The Imps have a very small 75 point cap, but I designed it correctly by fielding 4 ships, all capable of bringing in reinforcements after they fall the first time.
As the Rebel player, I played it wrong on this first go-around because I didn't focus on one objective or the other. Those would be: A) Rush the escape pod and jump start the engines a whole bunch early on, when you have a lot of healthy ships, so the pod can then do its own thing without needing constant jump starts, and the Rebel ships can then focus on defending until it escapes; or B) Focus fire on the weaker Imperial ships, knocking them out quickly, because the reinforcements can only occur once per each ship based on the wording (only PS 4 or above gets reinforced). So, clearing 2 waves of TIEs would probably not be that hard with a bunch of armored, powerful Rebel ships.
My brother was smart to realize that, once I failed to give the escape pod enough power and build up its stock early on, he could ignore my best ship and focus on picking off the weaker, wounded ones so I could no longer save the pod. Overall, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Great variation on standard play. And of course, playing it once helped me realize how to approach it better from either side.
#10: Get In, Get Out
Mission Description:
Full description: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/X-Wing_Miniatures_Mission_10:_Get_In,_Get_Out
This is the Dash Rendar mission. Basically, the Rebel player uses Dash Rendar to fly around the map, landing on asteroids or debris fields searching for the three intact caches and fending off Imperials until he finds them all and flees the map. The Imperials are simply there to take him down before he finds all three intact caches.
Mission Specifics:
The Rebel player gets one fully loaded Dash Rendar. The mission calls for this build: Lone Wolf, Leebo, Outrider, HLC, Countermeasures, Proton Rockets. You can alternatively field Dash with your own makeup of 22 additional points, but this virtually guarantees you need to take Outrider + HLC to hit that total. The only modification we made was dropping Countermeasures for Experimental Interface. Lone Wolf is a must, naturally, as Dash is your only ship. The Imperials get 75 points of ships, but no more than 3 ships total, and no large ships.
The only special rules following the mission setup are that Dash gets a free "pickup" action when on obstacles to flip over one of the five cache tokens that is on that obstacle (placed randomly by both players during setup) and if it is an intact cache, he keeps it on his pilot card. Additionally, any destroyed Imperial ships were reinforced with Academy Pilots at the end of each round. The Imp player rolls a red die, and on a hit/crit, chooses which edge to reinforce from. Otherwise, the Rebel player chooses.
BatRep:
This time, I played the Imperial squad, begrudgingly allowing my brother to play as fully loaded Dashpants. Due to the restrictive nature of the Imperial setup, a Defender was a must, in order to have something that could punch through Dash's defenses. I took a Delta Squadron with an HLC along with an Academy Pilot and Kir Kanos with autothrusters. I thought Kir's ability would fit this mission, as he could dodge with ATs and burn his evade for a hit on the return.
After the first 2 or 3 rounds, Dash already had uncovered the 2 empty caches, so he knew where all 3 intact ones were, and I had done almost no damage to him. He quickly wrecked my Academy Pilot (which is fine, because he just comes back immediately as the same ship). I scored a few hits with my Defender, but struggled to get a good shot with Kir. I kept having to burn my action to Boost, thus making it impossible to use his ability (it's true, he REALLY needs an EPT).
Dash collected 1 of the 3 caches and was beelining for the second. I attempted to block him, as all my ships were lower skill, and he then tried to juke me and go for the other cache. However, he misjudged slightly and bumped one of my ships. At this point, the tide of battle changed a bit. He actually ended up taking down both Kir and the Defender shortly thereafter, but he had been crippled down to 3 or 4 hull, including an "Agility down 1" critical hit. I then had 3 Academy Pilots chasing (or rather, blocking) Dash as he kept burning 2 actions to try and survive. He also made the mistake of trying to clear stress every round with a green move, which of course, are very predictable on freighters. My Academy Pilots blocked quite effectively, and eventually, the agility loss crit helped me to get a couple of big Range 1 attacks him, bringing down Dash before he could pick up the third and final cache.
Takeaways:
First off.....I always forget how insanely maneuverable Dash is. He can do everything - all hard turns and banks, 4-speed straights, K-turns, barrel rolls, and even boosts with Leebo. On top of it, he can do it all right through obstacles, and still blast you with an HLC. Even though the Rebels are technically only fielding 59 points vs. 75 Imperial points, he's just so far superior to a bunch of small Imp ships that the Imps get constant reinforcements to try and level the field.
My brother made mistakes by constantly trying to clear stress instead of just blasting ahead of the blockers with a white move so he could be free to clear it the next turn without being blocked. He also worried about picking off limping TIEs, without considering that a fully healthy one would just be spawning the next round - right in front of him, if the red die rolled my way. So ultimately, Dash could have easily won, and I got lucky.
My squad wasn't perfect, but again I think there's just not enough punch from Imp small ships to take down Dash without including a Defender. It's the only formidable Imp small ship that has attack, defense, and durability. It may be possible to cause some problems with 3 decent Interceptors, but they would all need Autothrusters against Dash's HLC turret. Maybe a post-Raider Advanced could do something, but currently they are too expensive with no punch. Especially against Lone Wolf Dash.
I realized that Prockets on Dash could actually be useful..... yeah, nobody would do it in a normal match, but it does actually protect his HLC donut in the front. He could fire at a ship in front of him at Range 1. The opportunity never arose in our game as Dash was often the one being chased, but in this mission there's nowhere else to blow those last 3 points really, so it's an interesting option.
Thanks for reading, and for the record I really hope there are some new Scum missions on the way in the next wave!