No, not playing John Williams in the background.... playing X-Wing down at the deck of a planet or moon. Seeing the new trailers for Episode VII and the new Star Wars Battleground game all we really see are ships fighting in atmosphere, so why not have it in X-Wing too?

Here are some pics of a game I ran based on a Rebel attack on an Imperial base:

It was very cool. Ordnance was mission critical to the Rebels. Turbolasers with my own rules proved to be deadly if they hit, capable of one-shotting a Y-Wing. Some of the rules used specifically to represent atmospheric combat:

Altitude

In atmosphere you can start each move either at high or low altitude. At high altitude you can freely move over ground terrain like forests but can only attack targets also at high altitude. Conversely if you go to low altitude you can only attack ground targets or low altitude enemy but need to avoid ground obstacles like forest. This is a very simple mechanic that adds something to these games. Bombs are exceptions in that they can by dropped at high altitude to attack low altitude targets.

Swerve Action

After placing a maneuver template a ship can elect to perform a swerve variant of it by offsetting their base as shown in this picture (either to the left or right) by placing the ship outside the nubs.

This is considered an action and is like to a "mini" barrel roll. Any ship type can do it. It is mainly used to avoid collisions with terrain at low level. Players made good use of it, it is simple and effective.

Just by adding ground terrain to your games is a great way to shake up the game experience. Deciding to weave your way around forests or hills or pop up over them adds a literal new dimension to the game. The swerve action is a simple modification that greatly aids player control and is suitable to make atmospheric maneuvering feel different to the usual space combat.

and the new Star Wars Battleground game

And from this point you've got my attention!

As a Huge Galactic battlegrounds game fan...

Anyone thought of using two levels for a surface combat. Suspending a sheet of clear plastic of plexiglass a foot above the ground terrain so the air combat can move freely without interference from ground units, trees and buildings. Tokens could used for a ship gaining or losing altitude to simulate attack runs. At lower and middle altitude ships can be fired on by ground defenses while ships in the upper can target upper and middle.

This game looks great. Are those micro machine walkers? I wish this variant had a nice wave from FFG.

I considered a two-tier gaming surface a couple of times but thought it would be so complicated to control. You'd have to keep moving the top board to one side possibly moving pieces. The shiny Perspex wouldn't look right either.

It looks cool, but I played a different flight path game with terrain on the table and it was a nightmare. It is just really hard to put down those movement templates over things that you are supposed to be able to fly over.

I'd be inclined to reduce the speed of all revealed maneuvers by 1, to a minimum of 0, with any resulting 0 maneuver being a Full Stop, unless the ship has shield tokens assigned to it. This would represent the reduced acceleration and maneuverability of space vessels in an atmosphere.

Yes they are Micromachine AT-STs, they are perfect for X-Wing scale.

The altitude rules (high or low) can just be shown by a token next to a ship. Forests regions need clearly defined borders.

In the second picture up the top you can see an A-Wing at low altitude (no token). In the third picture it went to high altitude and turned to overlap the forest (used a critical hit token for high altitude in this case). It cannot shoot the Turbolaser but the Turbolaser could have shot at it.

If a ship (even at low altitude) would overlap a "3D obstacle" like a Turbolaser or AT-ST then it is simply moved back just like if it overlapped another ship. However it doesn't lose it's action but cannot shoot at something it is in contact with. If the ship performed a K-Turn and overlapped a ground obstacle then it would still do the K-turn (after slight repositioning). The swerve move could be used in normal space battles if players agree.... all we really are doing is changing the scenery and when you play it atmospherically there should be a lot of scenery.

Speed is all relative so no need to change this as you want these to be fast compared with ground models. An AT-ST for example uses the 1 straight template but as it is on a round base it can move in multiple ways (even backwards).

No, not playing John Williams in the background....

But this is the best way to play X-Wing....

That's impressive. Got anymore pics?

YUP...

That's impressive. Got anymore pics?

Check out this thread:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/105371-dont-hassle-the-hoth/?hl=%2Bdon%26%2339%3Bt+%2Bhassle+%2Bhoth

There is also these guys who recreated a battle on Endor.

Can you please direct me in the proper direction for getting those size ATATs and ATSTs? Micromachine ones obviously, but how tall are they, etc. I'd really like to do that as well.

YUP...

Is that one of Ralph's Concept art AT-ATs on the bottom right?

Is that one of Ralph's Concept art AT-ATs on the bottom right?

Yeah, they came out with a short series back in the 90's of an action fleet model of the movie thing and a smaller concept sketch model of the same thing. They were pretty cool.

Yes it was the Beasts of War guys that inspired me, I recommend checking out their series of videos on this. They used the same AT-AT models as well which are from an old plastic box set called "Battle of Hoth" (see the thread "Don't hassle the Hoth" I posted above for more details on size.) They are available on ebay for variable prices.... I have bought 5 sets! The AT-ATs shown in Joe Boss Red Seven's pic are considerably larger (I have some of these too) but are a better looking, more detailed version and will work just as well. The Hoth Battle set is great though for the troops and Rebel turrets.

The Turbolasers are from Shapeways.

What I am interested in is some feedback about the altitude rules and swerve maneuver action. Would you use them? Do they make the game more atmospheric?