I kind of want it to be the Senator Shuttle, though. I mean, what Senator is going to ride in a HWK? Maybe I'll just print something out to fit on top.
I bought a small scale one from eBay once. I don't know if it was the exact one, I'm not home, but I recall that it was close.
P.S. You could always use the card that comes for the mission for movement, arcs, etc... and use the Lambda Shuttle for looks. I like to set 3D asteroids on the card board counters.
Edited by Ken at SunriseThere is a problem scaling up escort missions like this one, yes. The more points on the table overall, the easier it is for attackers to win... but the Protect action does counteract this to at least some degree. If the Rebel player takes enough ships the shuttle can stack quite a few evade tokens.
If you play it at 100 points, I believe the shuttle gets a load of shield tokens, too. It's actually a pretty fun game - we've used a 'flight' of shuttles as protectees in an epic game before.
Treat the senator's shuttle as a Rebel ship, which means that Rebel abilities that affect " friendly ships" may target the shuttle. It has an agility value of "2" and a hull value of "6", as shown on the token. (If playing with 100-point squads, it has a shield value of "6". Use tracking tokens to represent the shuttle's shields.)
Thought so. So yes, in a 100 point game, you're essentially trying to kill the Outrider with Chewbacca on board. That's not exactly 'easy' when you've got only about 6 turns to play with.
As the attacker, blocking the shuttle is your key trick. If it has to go around, it only gets speed 1 banks, as opposed to speed 2 straights. Slowing it down gives you more time to shoot it to hell.
Since you know where the shuttle's going to set up, and where it's aiming to go, you can afford some fairly simple ship choices - a TIE swarm of fighters, bombers or both is not a bad plan. Either TIE fighters with Youngster and Rage, or TIE bombers with cluster missiles and Captain Jonus - they have to come at you head-on, so tool up to meet them. Since the rebels are likely to be clustering around the shuttle at range 1, a couple of assault missiles wouldn't be a bad plan.
As the defender, the Protect action is your key trick. The problem is that putting an evade token on the shuttle means no other actions on your ships. For rebels, as noted, Z-95s are good escort fighters. A couple of them can give the shuttle as many evades as it's likely to use.
Biggs Darklighter is a useful asset (obviously). Nothing helps you win a scenario where you have to protect a ship like not even allowing your opponent to target it. Other than that, I'd consider Garven Dreis, a couple of Z-95s and Airen Cracken.
Not a terribly 'wieldy' squad - but unlike Dash, Dengar or Soontir Fel playing 'chase me, ladies', your opponent has to come to you. If you're following behind the shuttle at range 1, it's kind of hard for him to attack it whilst avoiding your arc.
Biggs Is pretty obvious. R2-F2 means he's agility 3 and has an extra hit point, whilst Cracken or Dreis can hand him a focus token (or two) to support him. Once he explodes, the squad can pass the shuttle focus tokens and evade tokens aplenty through free actions. The Thread Tracers are largely there because the squad had a point free and movement order is largely irrelevant - the defender and attacker's objectives are so constrained this is likely to resemble something much more like an old-style 'joust', and the free target locks might make all the difference.
Another simple - but probably less fun to use - squad would be a defensive 'box' of 3 Twin Laser Turret Y-wings and Biggs with R4-D6.
You can find a paper model on the net. Quite big, though.
Say, isn't there a third party company out there that makes the shuttle as a ship you can buy?
Got a link? Maybe I can resize it?
https://cleverpapermodel.com/ 1:270
Pics here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1409633/senator-shuttle-css-1-corellian-star-shuttle-paper
Here's one for Imperials:
Captain Oicunn (42)
Predator (3)
Rebel Captive (3)
Seismic Charges (2)
Dauntless (2)
"Chaser" (14)
"Mauler Mithel" (17)
"Scourge" (17)
Total: 100
What I like about this squad is that your destroyed TIEs get to redeploy as reinforcements in the end phase. Bringing TIE fighters let's you take advantage of that, where bombers, though powerful, would not come back. This also forces your opponent into some tactical decisions: sure they could destroy a TIE fighter this round, but there's a decent chance an Academy Pilot will fly onto the field at range 1 of your shuttle next round. Spending time destroying TIE fighters is sometimes counter productive.
A couple of thoughts.
The shuttle lacks a firing arc, so wouldn't "Backstabber's" ability always trigger? He becomes really efficient in this scenario. Outmaneuver is also decent. In the TFA core set the shuttle us replaced by a Squadmate's which can fire, making it perhaps a little more fair.
If you got enough Proton Bombs/Advanced Homing Missiles you could destroy the shuttle by completely bypassing the shields. Proton Bombs have the added benefit of harming the escorts. It would be hard to pull off, but loads of fun. Did someone else suggest making a mine field? That would also be fun.
For Rebels, I think Ion weapons are the way to go just to delay the Imperials. Won't be much fun for the Imperial player, though.
A couple of thoughts.
The shuttle lacks a firing arc, so wouldn't "Backstabber's" ability always trigger? He becomes really efficient in this scenario. Outmaneuver is also decent. In the TFA core set the shuttle us replaced by a Squadmate's which can fire, making it perhaps a little more fair.
If you got enough Proton Bombs/Advanced Homing Missiles you could destroy the shuttle by completely bypassing the shields. Proton Bombs have the added benefit of harming the escorts. It would be hard to pull off, but loads of fun. Did someone else suggest making a mine field? That would also be fun.
For Rebels, I think Ion weapons are the way to go just to delay the Imperials. Won't be much fun for the Imperial player, though.
Yeah, Backstabber and anyone with Outmaneuver would be really good. I would also think that Scourge might be decent, as well, after the shields are down.
I did post some lists with Bombs and reposting them below as I think they would be fun.
When it comes to Ion for the Rebels, what exactly is there? There are Bombs, turrets, and ordnance. They all aren't super useful and the turret is both short range or perhaps hard to hit an Agility 3 ship with a Focus. Also, the Imperials can go with lots of cheap ships and there are only so many Ion weapons. While it's a good idea, it may not be a fully winning one on it's own. Maybe combined with things?
Here's a Rebel list I thought of that uses Bombs:
Gold Squadron Pilot (18)Twin Laser Turret (6)Bomb Loadout (0)Conner Net (4)Rebel Operative (16)Ion Cannon Turret (5)Sabine Wren (2)Conner Net (4)Rookie Pilot (21)R2 Astromech (1)Integrated Astromech (0)Rookie Pilot (21)R2 Astromech (1)Integrated Astromech (0)Total: 99
I've thought about a K-wing, but am not sure if one K-wing with Extra Munitions is best, or two Y-wings with turrets and Bomb slots are better. Just thinking about it a little differently, I also could go with something like this:
Gold Squadron Pilot (18)Twin Laser Turret (6)Bomb Loadout (0)Conner Net (4)Rebel Operative (16)Ion Cannon Turret (5)Sabine Wren (2)Conner Net (4)Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)Rookie Pilot (21)Total: 100It has the Conner Nets to try to stop the Imperials from just zipping across the board. You get Sabine to try to cause a little extra damage. The TLT Y-wing can hang away from the shuttle and get some reliable damage in. Maybe kill off some damaged ships. The Ion Y-wing can hang near the rear of the Shuttle and try to protect it. It can do the Protect action and also try to Ionize any other ship that comes too close. That can set that ship up to either be blasted, or have the shuttle zip out of arc next turn (if possible). The Z's can do Protect actions and force the Imperials to blast them to pieces while the shuttle rushes towards the board edge.Just thinking of Extra Munitions and dropping a lot of Conner Nets, how about this build:
Gold Squadron Pilot (18)Dorsal Turret (3)Bomb Loadout (0)Extra Munitions (2)Conner Net (4)Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)Rookie Pilot (21)Gold Squadron Pilot (18)Dorsal Turret (3)Bomb Loadout (0)Extra Munitions (2)Conner Net (4)Total: 99
No Sabine and no TLT. The Y-wings are less effective with the Dorsal Turret, but they can hang out near the shuttle and do the Protect Action. That could be 4 ships that are doing Protect Actions a turn and 4 Conner Nets to get through to get to the Shuttle. That would be a hard list for any Imperial to get through in time.
...
Say, isn't there a third party company out there that makes the shuttle as a ship you can buy?
There are a couple on shapeways and a plaster cast version which comes in a set with satellite markers and escape pod made by "combat scenery". The set's pretty nice and rather cheap compared to 3d printed.
One thing to bear in mind though.... The senator's shuttle as depicted in the game is vastly out of scale. When the model is in 3d rather than a little card cut out, this is slightly more obvious.
OK....I haven't really thought about Scum as the attackers. You know, a Tractor Beam would be hysterical to yank the Shuttle barrel roll backwards. It might slow it down a bit.
I haven't flown my MistHunter yet, so I started there:
I think for a 100 point game, three considerations need to be met.
Firstly: only a ship with a base cost over 20 points may protect action the transport.
Secondly: Any protecting ship destroyed and reinforced may only reinforce based on the lowest cost version of it's naked ship.
Thirdly: The objective transport must be treated as a huge ship in regards to Biggs.
The first, so that a z or tie swarm can't give the transport a million (probably blank) green dice.
The second, so that based on the original wording the player can't bring 8 z-95s to protect, and then replace each one with a red x-wing.
The third... Probably not as big a deal anymore but still..
Backstabber says "when attacking from outside the defender's firing arc, you roll 1 additional attack die".
The defender has NO firing arc. So I would say there is no outside of any firing arc, thus Backstabber is useless.
I think for a 100 point game, three considerations need to be met.
Firstly: only a ship with a base cost over 20 points may protect action the transport.
Secondly: Any protecting ship destroyed and reinforced may only reinforce based on the lowest cost version of it's naked ship.
Thirdly: The objective transport must be treated as a huge ship in regards to Biggs.
The first, so that a z or tie swarm can't give the transport a million (probably blank) green dice.
The second, so that based on the original wording the player can't bring 8 z-95s to protect, and then replace each one with a red x-wing.
The third... Probably not as big a deal anymore but still..
Well...I don't think anything needs to be put in like that. I think if someone is going to go all extreme with a type of build that maximizes a certain aspect, like having a ton of Z-95's that will do the Protect action, I think there are ways to defeat it. Four Tie Bombers with Homing Missiles and Guidance Chip comes to mind. they won't be able to use the Evade tokens for defense. So, the entire strategy falls apart.
I have to look up the rules for reinforce. Dose anyone get to? Or is it just the attacker? I do think the generic version of something should work. I'd probably say any generic replacement, as long as it was less expensive than the ship that died. Still not sure if it will get back into the game in time.
Backstabber says "when attacking from outside the defender's firing arc, you roll 1 additional attack die".
The defender has NO firing arc. So I would say there is no outside of any firing arc, thus Backstabber is useless.
So, Outmaneuver would be the same, I guess.
Backstabber says "when attacking from outside the defender's firing arc, you roll 1 additional attack die".
The defender has NO firing arc. So I would say there is no outside of any firing arc, thus Backstabber is useless.
Already answered in the FAQ:
Q: Does the Senator’s Shuttle token have a firing arc?
A: no.
Q: is Backstabber outside the firing arc of a ship that has no printed firing arc?
A: no, Backstabber’s pilot ability only triggers against ships that have a printed firing arc.
Backstabber says "when attacking from outside the defender's firing arc, you roll 1 additional attack die".
The defender has NO firing arc. So I would say there is no outside of any firing arc, thus Backstabber is useless.
This was also they way they ruled in a email to me about the GR-75.
No firing arc so no chance of being out of arc. Odd that.
Instead of using the little shuttle piece, you should actually use a Lambda shuttle or an ORS. Maybe restrict it to 1 speed maneuvers only.
Well...it's the Rebels trying to escape, not the Imperials. That and the base size is much bigger for a Lambda than the shuttle, so it's a lot easier to get to the board edge with a bigger base.
Say, isn't there a third party company out there that makes the shuttle as a ship you can buy?
WotC made one that'd fit nicely on the token.
Already answered in the FAQ:Backstabber says "when attacking from outside the defender's firing arc, you roll 1 additional attack die".
The defender has NO firing arc. So I would say there is no outside of any firing arc, thus Backstabber is useless.
Q: Does the Senator’s Shuttle token have a firing arc?
A: no.
Q: is Backstabber outside the firing arc of a ship that has no printed firing arc?
A: no, Backstabber’s pilot ability only triggers against ships that have a printed firing arc.
I can't in good conscious protect a politician from assassination I'd have to fly my squad off the board.
Well, I played 3 games vs. 2 opponents. I used this list as I had never played my Tie Punisher, so picked the list with that. Then, I was too lazy to change. So, I used this list:
I have played this mission several times, and the attacker has always won. I have used Biggs, 2Zs, plus other support, but the academy TIE reinforcements always swing the battle in the last turn or two. Regardless, I love playing this mission and would love to see more discussion about the others as well!
I can't in good conscious protect a politician from assassination I'd have to fly my squad off the board.
If tory then friendly fire?
I can't in good conscious protect a politician from assassination I'd have to fly my squad off the board.
If tory then friendly fire?
Given what they are doing to our pr0n there'd be nothing friendly about it.
Murphy's law 4: Friendly fire isn't.
I completely forgot about the pr0n issue. (pun unintended, if you'd believe that)
No, it's a lot of the other stuff they are doing, which I won't get into. Suffice to say self serving scum.
Edited by DariusAPB
OK....it's the next morning and I can go on about these games some more. I've had a coffee and got another one in front of me.
The first game was with a friend who hadn't made it to game night in months. He's been sick, or working, or whatever, but it was great to see him. I don't know if he's gotten into the store since January or so. Blake picked out a list that he had from before that he hadn't really touched and just threw it on the table. Without really knowing the full details it was:
Biggs w/ dodge-bot (+1 Agility) and Experimental Interface
Esege Tuketu K-wing (lets you share Focus) w/ Recon Spec and TLT
Wedge w/ BB-8
We started off with the Rebels flying in front of the Shuttle, then realized that the shuttle moved first and kind of moved things around. He put them to one side of the shuttle, but all within R1. He did mess up and put Biggs on the far end, away from the Shuttle. We moved forward and met in the middle. I messed up and ended up Boosting with the Punisher to get in range to shoot and couldn't fire ordnance. I got the free TL from FCS, but then next turn, I ended up being in R1 and couldn't fire! I should've gone with Cluster Missiles. He messed up as all his ships and bumped, too. At first, Biggs was too far out, but then Biggs got in range. I took some hits off the Shuttle, but then had to Focus on Biggs. When I finally got the Punisher to R2-3 of Biggs, I was able to light him up and take him out. He blew up two Academy at various points, but they just came back. I used them block the shuttle for a turn or two. Wedge did take out Fel's Wrath, but I was able to use his ability! He fired and just stripped the shields off Wedge. Finally, the Punisher got two rounds at range of the Shuttle and I was able to light it up with ordnance.
Review: I think he spent too much time trying to kill the Academy Pilots, who just came back. He should've gone for the Punisher or Fel's Wrath sooner. If they die, they just come back as Academy Pilots. Rebels also bumped too much, but hey, it was his first game in months.
Next game was with fellow podcaster Jonathan. He loves HWKs and had a list that was 2 named HWKs w/ Ion Turrets, Recon Spec, Jan Ors, Biggs, and a Z-95. He flew it all close to the shuttle with the goal of trying to Ionize everything and run past. One HWK would get 2 Focus with Recon Spec and pass it to the Shuttle, who would get it turned into an Evade. The other HWK would give it an Evade, too, with Protect action.
I had the benefit of having played my list once already. The Tie Punisher was able to get within range and I fired an Ion Torpedo that fizzled EVERYTHING on the board practically!
That pretty much meant everything was all close at R1 for a few turns and I was able to blast Biggs and the Shuttle. I will completely admit that my dice were good. My green dice were rolling 2 Evade EVERY time. Jonathan was putting Evades on the Shuttle and it was helping for a bit, but with so many shots coming in, it was hard to stop the Punisher from doing it's thing. I blew the Shuttle up.
REVIEW: If your opponent rolls well, you can't do much. I was ready for Biggs and knew how to take him out.
Jonathan tweaked his list and dropped Biggs and the Z to go with Corran Horn with stuff. He didn't have the points for FCS, but he did use R2-D2. I think he should've dropped the droid for FCS as it would've helped him. There were a lot of times he used his actions to reposition himself, but didn't have a way to change the dice.
This game started off to go very well for me and I thought I was going to win a little too easily. I ended up using my Ion Torp at one point and ionized almost everything at bump range. It actually ended up being too bad for me as my Tie Fighters were not doing anything for a few turns as they didn't really have shots on anything. It took them a while to turn around. Same for Fel's Wrath as he was bumping and not modifying dice or getting the Shuttle in range. Also, Corran Horn was rolling average dice. So, he was getting in R1 and throwing 4 dice, but getting 2 hits. Average. I was rolling well, again. I almost always got 2-3 Evade EVERY time. Fel's Wrath should've been dead a couple of times over, but I just rolled well.
The Shuttle broke out of the cluster and started to boogie for the board edge. I....had a hard time turning around! I was clustered in. My Tie's were moving first. They were ionized a couple of times. I was bumping. I couldn't quite get my ships turning to face the Shuttle fast enough due to the limited space. It was looking like he was going to get away. I finally managed to get the Punisher into perfect range and fire the last Ion Torpedo. That saved the day as it slowed him down. I did lose a Tie and try to come in to block, but it really didn't matter at all. That one turn slowed things down enough to let me fire my Concussion Missile at him and finish off the Shuttle. It was REALLY close. He was about an inch from the board edge.
REVIEW: If your opponent keeps rolling well, it's hard. If I had rolled average, it would've been a different game. Still, I liked what he did with his list. I started off thinking I was going to win easy, but all the bumps and Ions hurt me. OK...it was me ionizing myself there, but hey! His HWKs were going alongside the Shuttle, but I wonder if he went ahead of them a little bit would it have been better? His idea of Ionizing and running past had more merit than I had thought. I also think he should've gone with FCS instead of R2-D2. I think I stripped Corran's shields once, but all other shots were at the Shuttle. Corran needed the offensive power more than the defensive power with this mission. It would've allowed him to get better attack results to push through my higher than average green dice.
Overall for the night, I was really impressed with the Tie Punisher for this outing. I had never used it before and wanted to get it on the table. It's tanky-ness caused people to not want to bother to even fire at it, even with 1 Agility. It caused the most damage of my list in every game with the ordnance. I think if he just ionized it, it would've been hard for me to turn around and come back. I almost wonder if it was too much for the mission? I think if my opponents realized the danger it was, it could've been dealt with and it would've been a different game. So, maybe not OP, but I think it was underestimated.
The Ion Torpedo won me the game in that last one, even if it also almost cost me the game! The ability to do 4 red dice damage AND ionize everything was key. If it was just the Ion Pulse Missile, it wouldn't have been enough damage. It would've slowed it down, but my Punisher is what caused the damage. So, slowing and doing damage was key in this game.
We only had the chance to play the 3 games, but I really want to try my hand at running defense on this one. I think I could pull a list off that would work. I especially want to find a Rebel list with Ion Torpedo or something like it. I also want to try to see if I can make Bombs work somehow. Maybe with a K-wing to SLAM out there fast and drop them?
Man...I really want to play this mission some more! I also want to try that Scum list, too.
Keep posting your results, too! It is more fun to read about this than a random store championship or game night report
Keep posting your results, too! It is more fun to read about this than a random store championship or game night report
This is all research for the 2nd episode of our new podcast, "Shuttle Tydirium", which should air soon. Well, the first episode should air soon. We were going to record today, but unexpected parental units visit has scrapped that plan. We should record on Thursday night. Hope the editing is done soon and Episode 1 is out there.