Thank you for the reply.

We did 2 missions at the moment, the introduction one and the "Needle in the Haystack" from Chasing the Phantoms. We had 2 X-wings.

The fist mission, we managed to survive until turn 10 then escaped. I scored only 5 xp and my wingman 8 xp. The first time a TIE shot me, I lost all my shield tokens, then had to play more defensive :-/

For the first real mission, in the middle of the ion storm, we made a good start. Killed 2 TIE before the two new ones appear turn 5. The YT-1300 finaly found the escape pod and the next turn all started to get bad. The Phantom poped near the docked YT-1300 and 4 TIE were in range to shoot him. It was turn 8 so an Interceptor poped as well.... behind our X-xings ...

We rolled so badly we killed only one TIE, the Phantom and the rest of the TIE just made a firework at the rescue team, leaving them with 1 hull point.

The YT-1300 tried to run and escape but we couldn't avoid all ion storm token while maintaining a good speed to keep them at range so we finaly got ionized and the 1 damage killed them...

With 1 Phantom, 1 Interceptor and 3 TIEs on our back in the middle of a ion storm, we tried to activate hyperspace, but the green maneuver droped us in range of this killiing Imperial team.

The Phantom landed range 1 and 5 damage dice killed me before I could try to jump. My wingman managed to jump safely.

Conclusion : it is a starting mission but at 2 players it seems to be very difficult, I don't know if all missions have the same difficulty but really really hard.

Second point experience difference . After 2 missions, there is already a gap btw us. I lost half xp and one upgrade in the last mission so basicaly now I have an X-wing, I am PS3 and 4xp left (lost my proton torpedo during eject).

Start : 5xp I took proton torpedo for 4 pts. 1 point left.

5 xp for mission 1 : pilot skill 3 for 6 pts. 0 point left.

9 xp for mission 2 : half due to eject rounded down, 4 points left.

My mate has an X-wing, PS3, proton torpedo, a rebel ability 3 and 6 xp from last mission as he successfully escaped.

My concern is that the difference will increase more and more. His ability made already a big difference as he can target lock an enemy when defending.

Any idea or suggestion from your play tests about difference growing up in xp ??

Thanks

Heh. We played that mission with just two Xwings as well. Our luck differed in that we got on a roll and finished killing ALL Imperial forces. I was smacking TIEs down to their final HP and flying past allowing others to get the kills... The freighter got one and an ion storm caused the final destruction of another. Our problem was that it was the last token that contained the escape pod. We had docked, rescued and had the freighter moving but ran out of time.

Don't worry about the difference in XP. My partner lost half his XP in one eject and his droid in the other and has still caught up to me.

Thanks for the feedback.

This xp thingy can be the problem. We spred our firepower to maximize xp, shooting different TIEs. Finaly with 3 agility we couldn't kill them fast enough, I think in my summary above, most of them had 1 or 2 hull points left.

The xp shadow induce some tactical choices Iam sure, some decision maybe I wouldn't take in normal play.

I will try another approach with squad xp, players earn xp in a pool and at the end you divide btw each player.

Got my books in, based off of the recommendation from the earlier post to use SpinnPrint. They did an amazing job. I am so excited. I plan to print out the obstacles on my own, and that will be coming soon. Thanks for all the hard work in creating this and making it pleasing to look at as well!

Johnson, I was thinking about sending an order through to Spinnprint too, and I wanted to ask which file you used to get yours done (as they look fantastic!) Was it the CampaignBook-Print or the CampaignBook-Screen pdf?

There are two pools of XP. One for the pilot and one for the squad. Individual XP is as normal. Squad XP is totaled up and then divided among surviving players. If there is an uneven amount, start awarding XP with the lowest PS player. Equal PS goes to the lowest mission XP. This will have the effect of a catch up for low PS pilots.

Interesting idea; please let us know how it turns out. Kind of expected that my group would propose a similar system sooner or later- that's kind of how we play everything else. Even Shadowrun, because we're weirdos. Anyway, still really chomping at the bit on this one- now if I could just convince them (or my housemates) to sit down and play it.

Odd that it convinced me to pick up a defender and a phantom and now I'm really excited about flying those things in a regular game, especially the defender. On that note, has anyone had much luck flying other rebel ships in this campaign? How do they hold up? Has anyone tried the new Sex Wing?

The forum mods should really pin this topic.

There are two pools of XP. One for the pilot and one for the squad. Individual XP is as normal. Squad XP is totaled up and then divided among surviving players. If there is an uneven amount, start awarding XP with the lowest PS player. Equal PS goes to the lowest mission XP. This will have the effect of a catch up for low PS pilots.

Interesting idea; please let us know how it turns out. Kind of expected that my group would propose a similar system sooner or later- that's kind of how we play everything else. Even Shadowrun, because we're weirdos. Anyway, still really chomping at the bit on this one- now if I could just convince them (or my housemates) to sit down and play it.

Tried it last night. We didn't do so well and the pool XP amounted to nothing. However the 1xp per 2 damage was the sole saving grace for the xwing pilots vs what the TLT was doing.

We did Cloak and Dagger twice last night. Is this supposed to be an especially hard mission? First time we played it the two phantoms came in an insta-gibbed one of our pilots on turn 2. Wasn't even especially bad or good rolls on offense of defense. They just rolled right to get short range shots. I'd personally break them up into different squadrons. 2 phantom moving together, especially given the base buffs is brutal. Second time we did a bit better. We didn't die at least, but having to find all 3 of those tokens took way to fricken long. We drew 9/10 before we found the base. It wasn't particularly hard to destroy once we found it, but chasing down the phantoms before you destroy it is almost impossible. With how long it took to find and destroy the base we were left with like 2 turns to deal with the phantoms. I'd make the odds of the base showing up higher. Maybe a roll every time you get 10-12 and it shows up. Possibly increase the number of 'good' tokens and you need 3/4 or something. Even after running it twice I'm not seeing anything we did obviously wrong. Just the way its written right now feels like there can be some especially bad swings of luck.

Absolutely, if the commandos roll really well they might be able to take the station intact very quickly. The challenge in that mission is usually dealing with everything else and surviving for the full 12 turns.

You said that the difficulty lies in surviving for the full 12 turns. If all the objectives are completed after turn 6, can all the pilots escape to hyperspace to complete the mission? Or do we have to stay and survive all 12 rounds? We had a similar scenario in one of our missions. On "Secure Holonet Receiver", with very lucky rolls, we were able to complete the objectives by turn 3 or 4. However, since we had focused fully on objectives, we started getting overwhelmed by the enemy fighters. Two of us were blown up and the rest of us had fled to hyperspace by Turn 6. We counted that mission as a success. Were we correct?

Absolutely, if the commandos roll really well they might be able to take the station intact very quickly. The challenge in that mission is usually dealing with everything else and surviving for the full 12 turns.

You said that the difficulty lies in surviving for the full 12 turns. If all the objectives are completed after turn 6, can all the pilots escape to hyperspace to complete the mission? Or do we have to stay and survive all 12 rounds? We had a similar scenario in one of our missions. On "Secure Holonet Receiver", with very lucky rolls, we were able to complete the objectives by turn 3 or 4. However, since we had focused fully on objectives, we started getting overwhelmed by the enemy fighters. Two of us were blown up and the rest of us had fled to hyperspace by Turn 6. We counted that mission as a success. Were we correct?

Great question. I was wondering the same thing after our last game. The injured HWK-290 escaped around Turn 6. At that point, we were wondering if the mission was "complete" or if we would have to jump to Hyperspace (or even, perhaps, "flee" on our board edge) to complete the mission early. As it was, we were in good shape and stuck around until Turn 10 to rack up more XP. But we were wondering if we had been in a bad spot, if the mission would have "ended" once the HWK escaped.

Thanks for any clarification you can provide. And as so many others have already expressed, YOU'VE DONE AN AMAZING JOB ON THIS!!!

In case anyone else wants to run a T-70

One thing I'd like to see awarded somehow, but currently isn't in the assist rules is the application of ion and stress tokens.

Are you suggesting you gain Assist XP for placing ion or stress on targets? Not sure what you mean.

We did Cloak and Dagger twice last night. Is this supposed to be an especially hard mission? First time we played it the two phantoms came in an insta-gibbed one of our pilots on turn 2. Wasn't even especially bad or good rolls on offense of defense. They just rolled right to get short range shots. I'd personally break them up into different squadrons. 2 phantom moving together, especially given the base buffs is brutal. Second time we did a bit better. We didn't die at least, but having to find all 3 of those tokens took way to fricken long. We drew 9/10 before we found the base. It wasn't particularly hard to destroy once we found it, but chasing down the phantoms before you destroy it is almost impossible. With how long it took to find and destroy the base we were left with like 2 turns to deal with the phantoms. I'd make the odds of the base showing up higher. Maybe a roll every time you get 10-12 and it shows up. Possibly increase the number of 'good' tokens and you need 3/4 or something. Even after running it twice I'm not seeing anything we did obviously wrong. Just the way its written right now feels like there can be some especially bad swings of luck.

I think Cloak and Dagger may need more playtesting. It didn't get played that much with my group, but I think it largely comes down to how well your squadron is equipped to deal with high-PS ships. If you've got a lot of stress/ion dealing & automatic damage, the Phantoms can be a bit of a joke.

Absolutely, if the commandos roll really well they might be able to take the station intact very quickly. The challenge in that mission is usually dealing with everything else and surviving for the full 12 turns.

You said that the difficulty lies in surviving for the full 12 turns. If all the objectives are completed after turn 6, can all the pilots escape to hyperspace to complete the mission? Or do we have to stay and survive all 12 rounds? We had a similar scenario in one of our missions. On "Secure Holonet Receiver", with very lucky rolls, we were able to complete the objectives by turn 3 or 4. However, since we had focused fully on objectives, we started getting overwhelmed by the enemy fighters. Two of us were blown up and the rest of us had fled to hyperspace by Turn 6. We counted that mission as a success. Were we correct?

Great question. I was wondering the same thing after our last game. The injured HWK-290 escaped around Turn 6. At that point, we were wondering if the mission was "complete" or if we would have to jump to Hyperspace (or even, perhaps, "flee" on our board edge) to complete the mission early. As it was, we were in good shape and stuck around until Turn 10 to rack up more XP. But we were wondering if we had been in a bad spot, if the mission would have "ended" once the HWK escaped.

Thanks for any clarification you can provide. And as so many others have already expressed, YOU'VE DONE AN AMAZING JOB ON THIS!!!

Unless a mission says otherwise, players must always retreat (edges or hyperspace, depending on territory type) after the objective is complete.

Secure Holonet Receiver:

The mission is Neutral Territory with no defined escape edge. Once the HWK does its thing and Jumps to Hyperspace, the players can either Jump to Hyperspace or hang around until the end of turn 12 and then automatically retreat, their choice.

Capture Refueling Station:

The mission is Hostile Territory, so the only way to escape would be to Jump to Hyperspace. However, players must capture and then defend the station for the full 12 turns, so at least one player has to be in play at the end of turn 12 to win (if the station is captured, the special rules mention the mission is no longer hostile territory, but this may be confusing).

Maybe these two missions need a little language cleanup in the last line of their objective tables.

One thing I'd like to see awarded somehow, but currently isn't in the assist rules is the application of ion and stress tokens.

Are you suggesting you gain Assist XP for placing ion or stress on targets? Not sure what you mean.

Something like that. Just seems like they got left out. An xp per token seems too high. Maybe every 2-3 tokens, or similar to the other assists where they have to cause a meaningful effect. Ion- if you ionize a ship and it drifts off the board you get the kill. If it prevent it from firing, or allows a range 1 shot that hits next turn? Stress- This would kinda be like negative focus. If the enemy rolls focus and would have been able to focus, 1xp. All the assist XP honestly seems a little complicated though. Just saying you get an xp get 2-3 assist actions would greatly simplify the whole thing. Figure out whatever the average kill/damage ratio to application ratio is and go with that.

Every time you do one of the following, gain an assist marker. At the end of the mission gain 1xp for every 3 assist markers, rounded up.

- Assign a focus token to another player

- Assign a target lock to another player

- Grant a free action to another player

- Use a pilot ability as listed in the campaign book

- Assign a evade token to another player

- Assign a stress token to an enemy ship

- Ionize an enemy ship

- Remove a stress token from another player

Then you don't have to keep track of if a specific token resulted in a kill, etc.

We played the starter mission and first minefield mission tonight. Both were great fun and we just managed to beat them, although 2 of the three of us ended ejecting in the first mission!

One thing I'd like to see awarded somehow, but currently isn't in the assist rules is the application of ion and stress tokens.

Are you suggesting you gain Assist XP for placing ion or stress on targets? Not sure what you mean.

Something like that. Just seems like they got left out. An xp per token seems too high. Maybe every 2-3 tokens, or similar to the other assists where they have to cause a meaningful effect. Ion- if you ionize a ship and it drifts off the board you get the kill. If it prevent it from firing, or allows a range 1 shot that hits next turn? Stress- This would kinda be like negative focus. If the enemy rolls focus and would have been able to focus, 1xp. All the assist XP honestly seems a little complicated though. Just saying you get an xp get 2-3 assist actions would greatly simplify the whole thing. Figure out whatever the average kill/damage ratio to application ratio is and go with that.

Every time you do one of the following, gain an assist marker. At the end of the mission gain 1xp for every 3 assist markers, rounded up.

- Assign a focus token to another player

- Assign a target lock to another player

- Grant a free action to another player

- Use a pilot ability as listed in the campaign book

- Assign a evade token to another player

- Assign a stress token to an enemy ship

- Ionize an enemy ship

Then you don't have to keep track of if a specific token resulted in a kill, etc.

Scoring XP for Ion-off-the-board kills is already covered on p42 (in v0.7).

However, I do like this simplified Assist idea. Will file that away for later and do some playtesting.

We haven't any turret flyers yet, but considering this was all balanced before the TLT was introduced, and that people are reporting the issues regarding TLT in play now, I think we might house-rule them (TLTs) out for the moment. I think even one in combination with Blount's ability is actually quite scary, I hadn't thought of that one either.

Mission difficulty... yeah, tough and sometimes bad luck plays a role but I find that kinda realistic. I rather like that it's quite tough to beat some missions. Rescuing the HWK transport actually felt very easy... up till the TIE Interceptor appeared by our home edge where the undefended HWK was two turns from escaping. I've enjoyed every loss as much as every victory, and the difficulty makes those victories feel very rewarding!

The one thing on my wish list now is a maneuver card for the Raider. Setup a nice strike mission in retaliation to those Imperial attacks on our freighters! I've considered it myself and I might be able to setup a poor proxy until perhaps some day in the future an 'official' version comes out. Even a dumbed down immobile version could be interesting with a few TIEs to prevent camping behind the Raider would probably work.

Going off to introduce the campaign to more people this weekend.

We're 4 missions in; players are starting to develop their builds, and it's pointing out a relatively big problem to me. We've got several turrets in the squadron (3 X-Wings, 2 Y-Wings, and an HWK, with 1 Y-wing as a reserve player that joins when someone has to miss a day).

All of the turret players grabbed Twin Laser Turrets, and the first one to reach it grabbed Lt. Blount's pilot ability, so the TLT now does 2 damage regardless of dice. The TLT's are overpowering enough by themselves, but turning that into truly automatic damage seems silly. I know power builds are kind of the point, and I applaud that player for thinking of it. But if everyone did that, then we end up with a potential of 8 unstoppable damage per a turn between the 4 turreted ships, and all of the elite enemies become 100% push-overs, only huge swarms have any chance at all of even scratching these ships.

So what are your thoughts on making the Pilot abilities unique, so that no more than one player can purchase each (or at least restrict them so that no more than one player per mission can equip each)?

Edit: Slight correction. Blount's ability has not been purchased yet, that's just his goal. I'm half distracted at work, tired, and not paying enough attention. The concern is still there though.

The modified ability in the rulebook for Blount states:

"When attacking, You may consider the defender to be hit by your attack regardless of dice results. If you do, the defender suffers no damage . You gain no XP, but the defender may still suffer tokens, such as Ion and Stress."

I forgot about the XP, but I thought the defender still suffers from the effects of the attack, if even no damage. Since the TLT discards the dice and says do one damage.... but of course, the wording of the revised Blount ability for the campaign never says the effects. It says TOKENS. Good catch.

We're 4 missions in; players are starting to develop their builds, and it's pointing out a relatively big problem to me. We've got several turrets in the squadron (3 X-Wings, 2 Y-Wings, and an HWK, with 1 Y-wing as a reserve player that joins when someone has to miss a day).

All of the turret players grabbed Twin Laser Turrets, and the first one to reach it grabbed Lt. Blount's pilot ability, so the TLT now does 2 damage regardless of dice. The TLT's are overpowering enough by themselves, but turning that into truly automatic damage seems silly. I know power builds are kind of the point, and I applaud that player for thinking of it. But if everyone did that, then we end up with a potential of 8 unstoppable damage per a turn between the 4 turreted ships, and all of the elite enemies become 100% push-overs, only huge swarms have any chance at all of even scratching these ships.

So what are your thoughts on making the Pilot abilities unique, so that no more than one player can purchase each (or at least restrict them so that no more than one player per mission can equip each)?

Edit: Slight correction. Blount's ability has not been purchased yet, that's just his goal. I'm half distracted at work, tired, and not paying enough attention. The concern is still there though.

Hey jjayers99, I think Lt Blount's ability was one that was adjusted. If memory serves you cannot cause damage when you use it, only ion or stress (I always assumed for ion torpedoes or ion pulse missiles). My assumption would be that Lt Blount just wouldn't work well with the TLT. An Ion Cannot Turret on the other hand might be amazing!

We're 4 missions in; players are starting to develop their builds, and it's pointing out a relatively big problem to me. We've got several turrets in the squadron (3 X-Wings, 2 Y-Wings, and an HWK, with 1 Y-wing as a reserve player that joins when someone has to miss a day).

All of the turret players grabbed Twin Laser Turrets, and the first one to reach it grabbed Lt. Blount's pilot ability, so the TLT now does 2 damage regardless of dice. The TLT's are overpowering enough by themselves, but turning that into truly automatic damage seems silly. I know power builds are kind of the point, and I applaud that player for thinking of it. But if everyone did that, then we end up with a potential of 8 unstoppable damage per a turn between the 4 turreted ships, and all of the elite enemies become 100% push-overs, only huge swarms have any chance at all of even scratching these ships.

So what are your thoughts on making the Pilot abilities unique, so that no more than one player can purchase each (or at least restrict them so that no more than one player per mission can equip each)?

Edit: Slight correction. Blount's ability has not been purchased yet, that's just his goal. I'm half distracted at work, tired, and not paying enough attention. The concern is still there though.

Hey jjayers99, I think Lt Blount's ability was one that was adjusted. If memory serves you cannot cause damage when you use it, only ion or stress (I always assumed for ion torpedoes or ion pulse missiles). My assumption would be that Lt Blount just wouldn't work well with the TLT. An Ion Cannot Turret on the other hand might be amazing!

I stand corrected. That's the problem with having so much material thrown at us, I can't find time to read it all so I was just trusting what the other guys in the group said. And they probably didn't think to look for a modification.

Thanks guys!

I'm with jjayers99's group, and we discovered that covering escort ships is VERY hard.

It might have been a combo a great movement by the AI, and not using our protect action enough, but escorts get eaten alive.

Escort missions in X-wing are ALWAYS very hard.

in hindsight if the spiral binding holds enough pages maybe I should have added the pilot cards, stat cards, and AI sheets to the back of the campaign guide when I had them printed.

We're 4 missions in; players are starting to develop their builds, and it's pointing out a relatively big problem to me. We've got several turrets in the squadron (3 X-Wings, 2 Y-Wings, and an HWK, with 1 Y-wing as a reserve player that joins when someone has to miss a day).

All of the turret players grabbed Twin Laser Turrets, and the first one to reach it grabbed Lt. Blount's pilot ability, so the TLT now does 2 damage regardless of dice. The TLT's are overpowering enough by themselves, but turning that into truly automatic damage seems silly. I know power builds are kind of the point, and I applaud that player for thinking of it. But if everyone did that, then we end up with a potential of 8 unstoppable damage per a turn between the 4 turreted ships, and all of the elite enemies become 100% push-overs, only huge swarms have any chance at all of even scratching these ships.

So what are your thoughts on making the Pilot abilities unique, so that no more than one player can purchase each (or at least restrict them so that no more than one player per mission can equip each)?

Edit: Slight correction. Blount's ability has not been purchased yet, that's just his goal. I'm half distracted at work, tired, and not paying enough attention. The concern is still there though.

The modified ability in the rulebook for Blount states:

"When attacking, You may consider the defender to be hit by your attack regardless of dice results. If you do, the defender suffers no damage . You gain no XP, but the defender may still suffer tokens, such as Ion and Stress."

I think this ability should supercede the TLT wording, so it is perhaps FAQ worthy.

This is absolutely the reason why I included the section on Pilot Abilites in the book, to provide space to tweak them.

We had a player do Blount + Ion Cannon Turret in our alpha playtest group and it was a really lame play experience: we did the "Revenge" mission and he practically solo'd it while the other two players hid in the clouds.

With the release of the campaign's tokens in Vassal this week, I decided to try my hand at solo play. I'm running three ships. Here's where they stand after the first mission:

• " Boogie " - X-Wing, BB-8, Plasma Torpedo, Integrated Astromech, PS 3
• " Potshot " - X-Wing, R2-D2, Flechette Torpedo, Integrated Astromech, Draw Their Fire, PS 3
• " Swivel " - Y-Wing, Plasma Torpedo, Ion Cannon Turret, Extra Munitions, Deadeye, PS3

The first mission, Local Trouble, was a piece of cake. I got lucky with the asteroid placement and the TIEs ended up doing a lot of swerving that kept them from focusing fire on me. Swivel was the only one that took any damage, thanks to good positioning and some lucky green dice. Everyone got a good chunk of XP, since I met both of the Bonus conditions, but Boogie was behind the other two by 3 or 4 points. Swivel got lots of single-damage hits with the Ion turret that racked up points, while Potshot scored the big bonus for killing the single Interceptor they faced.

I'm really looking forward to continuing this campaign and seeing where I can get to with the builds. I want to upgrade both Boogie and Potshot to T-70s eventually, but with vastly different builds. Boogie is aiming for the PTL+BB-8 combo to be really maneuverable, while Potshot is going to be the party tank. Meanwhile, Swivel is going to transition to a B-Wing ASAP - I've got plans for a crazy torpedo-centric build.

Questions that came up:

• How can I go about fairly randomizing obstacle placement? This is especially a problem in Vassal where you can't do the "throw it on the table from a distance" trick.
• In my next mission, "Capture Officer", which way are the Lambda Shuttle and its starting escorts supposed to face at setup? Is there a general rule for orienting ships that start in the middle of the board?
• Would it be reasonable to change Squad Leader to allow granting an action to a ship of equal or lower pilot skill? It seems difficult to use it as-is unless one player gets ahead of all the others in pilot skill (probably by getting more XP than anyone else).
• In the playtesting, were there ever problems with a runaway leader in XP? It seems possible for there to be a feedback loop of "Get more XP than the other players" -> "Get better PS and upgrades" -> "Get more XP than the other players".

With the release of the campaign's tokens in Vassal this week, I decided to try my hand at solo play. I'm running three ships. Here's where they stand after the first mission:

• " Boogie " - X-Wing, BB-8, Plasma Torpedo, Integrated Astromech, PS 3
• " Potshot " - X-Wing, R2-D2, Flechette Torpedo, Integrated Astromech, Draw Their Fire, PS 3
• " Swivel " - Y-Wing, Plasma Torpedo, Ion Cannon Turret, Extra Munitions, Deadeye, PS3

The first mission, Local Trouble, was a piece of cake. I got lucky with the asteroid placement and the TIEs ended up doing a lot of swerving that kept them from focusing fire on me. Swivel was the only one that took any damage, thanks to good positioning and some lucky green dice. Everyone got a good chunk of XP, since I met both of the Bonus conditions, but Boogie was behind the other two by 3 or 4 points. Swivel got lots of single-damage hits with the Ion turret that racked up points, while Potshot scored the big bonus for killing the single Interceptor they faced.

I'm really looking forward to continuing this campaign and seeing where I can get to with the builds. I want to upgrade both Boogie and Potshot to T-70s eventually, but with vastly different builds. Boogie is aiming for the PTL+BB-8 combo to be really maneuverable, while Potshot is going to be the party tank. Meanwhile, Swivel is going to transition to a B-Wing ASAP - I've got plans for a crazy torpedo-centric build.

Questions that came up:

1. How can I go about fairly randomizing obstacle placement? This is especially a problem in Vassal where you can't do the "throw it on the table from a distance" trick.
2. In my next mission, "Capture Officer", which way are the Lambda Shuttle and its starting escorts supposed to face at setup? Is there a general rule for orienting ships that start in the middle of the board?
3. Would it be reasonable to change Squad Leader to allow granting an action to a ship of equal or lower pilot skill? It seems difficult to use it as-is unless one player gets ahead of all the others in pilot skill (probably by getting more XP than anyone else).
4. In the playtesting, were there ever problems with a runaway leader in XP? It seems possible for there to be a feedback loop of "Get more XP than the other players" -> "Get better PS and upgrades" -> "Get more XP than the other players".

Numbered your questions.

1) Hmm, there's no good way to do random there. I have no idea. In person, I usually just place them without giving much thought to strategy or specifically to try and kill TIE swarms.

2) When you place AI ships, their facing is determined by the vector arrow in the setup diagram. If I remember correctly, the shuttle and escorts face south?

3) I am currently doing playtesting and collecting data on this, but it's looking like I'm going to tweak it. I will likely just include a new standard-sized card for Squad Leader with the campaign materials, which has a slightly reworded ability and some HotAC-specific art.

4) The thing to remember about my alpha playtest group is that it was run entirely at my FLGS on Friday nights, with a wide pool of players dropping in.

Few players had played the same number of games so they all leveled up at different rates. I was playing an X-wing for every mission (because I'd show up to run the campaign) to test the power-scaling with multiple abilities, so I hit PS9 while most other players were PS 5-6. I explicitly built a "Super Squad Leader" X-wing (Predator, Garven, Experimental Interface) to buff the new players which helped a bit with their power level and enjoyment of the game - I bailed out our resident A-wing pilot on many occasions after he got blocked by TIEs.

I guess I'm just saying that Squad Leader is assigned to the highest-PS pilot as way to encourage them to support their teammates more. There are no other built-in "catch up" mechanics. theruleslawyer was suggesting pooling all the bonus XP and dividing it to help balance this, but I'm not sure such a tweak is necessary in the book. Do it for your group if you like.