I recently bought the X-Wing Starter Set. By "recently" I mean it arrived Saturday 1st August.

There is much talk about Star Wars Episode VII.

Guesses as to what might be on the horizon.

New miniatures (obviously) but some even guess/hope for a new starter.

So here is a little about my future plans:

I wanted to combine X-Wing, Armada, Force and Destiny, and Edge of the Empire into a single post-Endor narrative campaign. Yeah, I'm strange that way but I like my games to have a meaning beyond "I win you lose now let's have a lager". RPG tells the story and has characters, tabletop games provide swift battles. Rarely will both combine, as killing off an entire cast of characters as their YT-2400 is blasted to smithereens by a Star Destroyer in Armada is no fun for anyone.

I set up a blog with the post-Endor idea called Star Wars 6.1, short for Episode 6.1. Link appearing in signature soon.

So finally we get to why I've posted....

Do I stick firmly to my plans. Rigidly refusing to even consider anything else unless it fits into the sacred Wookieepedia timeline of 5ABY to 19ABY?

Or

Do I sit back in my chair. Calmly collect the RPG books, perhaps the Armada starter. Learn to play the games. Get some rough ideas, or some solid plans, and wait until I've seen Episode VII and all the new toys before committing to anything?

I know it's my life and my money and nobody will force (no pun intended) me to do anything.

But I really am struggling to decide between Patiently waiting or Eagerly getting stuck in.

Any of you having similar inner conflicts?

I would stick with your plans.

Sure keeping up with the current canon is nice and it makes sure everyone is on the same page. But with it in flux like it is right now, I'd go ahead and play with your plans as is.

Then once the movie comes out and we find out what really happened post Endor, perhaps you can recon stuff or just keep going and say your game takes place in the Legends timeline.

There is a new book coming out in Sept I believe, called Aftermath, that will fill in a lot of details about what happens post Endor, so maybe just play the games as is for now until you get your hands on it.

I'd read Aftermath before committing to flesh out the campaign. It'll be much easier to read one novel and make your storyline fit that timeline, than search through dozens-hundreds of wookieepedia entries to conform to those stories. especially if you have players familiar with the old EU who will correct you when you miss something or just loose the sense of immersion. That might happen either way, but at least if you just go by Aftermath then you wont have wasted so much time researching wookieepedia. You prep time is better spent reading the RPG rules and working out set-pieces, that'll make the game run smoothly, which is often better than knowing every detail in the old EU.

Another thing you should think about is that just because a ship is destroyed in a space battle, that doesn't mean the PC characters inside it are all killed.

• A destroyed ship could make a crash landing on a nearby planet.
• It floats in the debris of the battle, life support system strain as reserve power dwindles until discovered by the Empire, the Alliance, a salvage team, or any number of other NPC groups.
• Maybe the crew's astromech saves the day with an emergency hyperspace jump.
• The ship could be caught in a tractor beam and pull aboard one of the capital ships just before the hull is breached.

Any of those open up loads of follow up adventure, where the PCs have to escape their capture, survive on an inhospitable planet, find/steal a new ship, etc.

Lastly, if you plan on running EotE/AoR space battles with X-Wing, I recommend only using the Models, Dials, and maneuver templates from X-wing, and keep all the ship stats and PC talents/abilities from the RPG. It's the smoothest method for combining the two. and it allows for all the experience spent on the characters (pilot PCs especially) to be useful in space/vehicle combat. There are 3 pilot actions and 2 talents that need to be redone/reworded to make it work, but I wont get into that since I don't know if you have those books yet.

Good luck, it sounds like an awesome idea you've got brewing.

I'd let someone else read Aftermath, slogging through the terrible writing, and hope that he posts a clean and legible summary that you can read. Then, adapt your initial storyline to whatever revelations the book unveils.

In the meantime, by all means, play some test games in each system just to learn the ins and outs, maybe do a "prequel" RPG (prequel for your storyline, not Prequel Trilogy related in any way) to flesh out character back stories and the like.

Since you're setting it immediately after Endor, EVII is a long way off, with plenty of time for the timeline to absorb pretty much whatever your storyline wants to do (short of Death Starring certain key worlds or assassinating certain key characters). Aftermath (or better, a readable summary of it) should offer you whatever you need to set up the initial post-Endor galaxy state.

I'm sure the answer to this question is out there if I sift through a bunch of wikis that just aren't that interesting to me, but I thought I'd pose it here in case someone knows the answer off-hand: are the Timothy Zahn novels from the mid-90s no longer considered canon? It was my understanding that Zahn was officially sanctioned by George Lucas to continue the storyline after episodes 4-6. More importantly, they're the only Star Wars novels that ever "felt" like Star Wars, or that I even found readable, for that matter. And please understand, I intend no offense or disrespect to those that enjoyed other Star Wars branded fiction - we're all equally entitled to our opinions.

Like most of Legends, they're currently up in the air, though very likely to be superceded by newer "official" canon, in whole or in part.

What Disney and LFL have been doing lately is mostly drawing inspiration from Legends (characters, ships, etc.) while creating a somewhat more cohesive and controlled narrative. I'd be more than a little surprised not to see a few key characters from Zahn's Heir to the Empire Trilogy show up, though likely the story won't be carried over.

Lots of good tips. Thank you.

I think I will start by getting the RPG books and Armada. Learn the rules. Start getting some ideas down.

I'll then probably just proceed as planned. Which includes a prequel campaign. Set between Hoth and Endor time scale.