+++ Emergency broadcast +++ Captain Metroux, Imperial Transport THX-7351 +++

+++ To all Imperial Naval vessels near the Killaniri system +++

We are the sole survivors of fleet convoy EL/TR-876A +++ Enroute to resupply the 334th Assault Fleet, we were ambushed by 3 Rebel warships and accompanying fighters +++ Both our escorting frigates fought back bravely but were swiftly destroyed, along with their TIE squadrons, though not before they took a heavy toll of the enemies A-wings +++

+++ Unprotected the convoy then sought to flee, but one transport was destroyed outright and 2 others surrendered after taking heavy damage +++ I refused to surrender my transport; instead my crew and I joined the ship’s Naval Troopers in successfully fighting off a Rebel boarding party +++ However, with my ship damaged, surrounded by enemy warships and with no hope of escape in-system or to hyperspace, I ordered my crew to their escape pods after setting the self-destruct mechanism (in the hope of taking out some of the boarders) +++

I watched from my escape pod as my transport and its valuable cargo exploded, costing the Empire millions in credits, but at least denying the ship and its supplies to our scavenging foes. It was with grim anger we saw the Rebel raiders retire with the two other intact transports, amid the floating debris of our erstwhile defenders +++ We are now drifting in space with only 2 days supplies and request urgent rescue +++

+++ Transmission ends +++

This was a solo-game I played, mainly to get my newly acquired MC-30 and medium transports on the table. I purposefully gave the Rebels a superior force as this was a planned ambush, though they also had the challenge of netting the transports. Special Rules Used: Transport morale (surrender or flee) based on damage received and proximity of escorts. + Boarding Actions.

Rebels Jump In

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=512256852312022&set=pcb.512256958978678&type=3&theater

Captured Transports

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=512256848978689&set=pcb.512256958978678&type=3&theater

Forces Engaged:

Imperial (Nebulan-B) Frigates x 2

TIE Fighters x 4

Transports x 4 (Hull 3/Move 1/Shields 1 all-round/Unarmed)

Ambushing Forces:

MC-30 Frigate

Consular-class Light Cruiser

Corellian Corvette

Y-Wing x 2

A-Wing x 2

YT-2400 (Dash Rendar)

Result: Total destruction of Imperial convoy, inc. capture of two transports, for loss of A-Wings squardron and minor damage to Rebel frigate. The Emperor will not be pleased...

Cool!

Interesting! How did you stimulate/handle boarding actions?

Interesting! How did you stimulate/handle boarding actions?

Hi, for the boarding action, I made up some simple rules on the fly. The Yt-2400 had closed on a transport that was closest to escaping off the boards edge (hyperspace)and I figured the Alliance would rather capture a transport than destroy it and decided there were rebel commando teams on their warships for such purpose. So as transport could only make Speed 1, I allowed the Rebels to attempt a docking maneouvre if it rolled a hit or critical on a red dice. Dash pulled it off.

I then fought combat as follows: I deemed the imperial defenders to have 2 black dice (naval troopers and crew) and the rebel boarders to have 3 red dice. So weight of numbers v. Defensive advantage. I fought combat in the boarders attack phase. The side that rolled the most hits won that round of combat and reduced the opponents dice by one for every excess hit. A critical trumped normal hit, e.g hit+hit beat just critical by one, but a critical beat a single hit.

Loss of dice = loss of men! leaders! morale! or territory. When a side had no dice left, it's defenders or boarders had been defeated.

As it happened, the Imperials fought stubbornly and beat back the Rebel boarders and earned an honourable mention in my write up.

If I was doing a capital ship boarding action I would prob say defender and available boarders should be determined by REmaining hull hits, to a minimum of a ships command value. Also perhaps that it should be at speed zero e.g through critical damage or custom rules for tractor beams allowing a ship to brought to a halt.

Nice, I'm slowly trying to piece together a narrative led campaign myself, the boarding action and resolution could be a nice touch for secondary objectives, mind if I incorporate this?

I like that a lot. Might look into something similar next time I do a casual game with friends.

Nice, I'm slowly trying to piece together a narrative led campaign myself, the boarding action and resolution could be a nice touch for secondary objectives, mind if I incorporate this?

Hi 54NCH32, I would be honoured, glad to share. I am working on my own narrative campaign as well (though this one was not part of it) and I get plenty of inspiration from other contributers to this forum as well.

If I am doing a boarding action again I might factor-in extra/better dice for elite Imperial Zero-G Troopers, crack marines or heroes. I was thinking also that Armad's Rebel & Imperial insignia counters also act as handy tokens to keep track of the forces involved.

Drifting into slightly more complex rules, you could have option to add more dice to the defenders pool if you sacrifice crew-cards or crew actions like firing the ships' main-armament (representing the diversion of crew to the fight)...but keeping it swift and simple is probably best. Other thoughts: if a large ship is boarding a smaller one e.g. a Imperial Star Destroyer v a Corvette (lets say for a random example ) , the larger ship will have more boarding dice, but maybe it should be only able to roll as many as the defender's initial pool. The attacker has greater reserves (and so can absorb losses) but it is fighting in a confined space and cannot deploy all its strength in one go. Hmmmm. We will all have different thoughts on this and again keeping it simple is probably best.

As for stopping the ship: I was thinking that for heroic/naarrative games, if a ship rolls a critical hit with an accuracy, instead of drawing a crit-hit card, it could choose to downgrade a targetted system (or system-upgrade card) e.g. reduce ship's movement. To quote C-3PO, "They've shut down the main reactor! We'll be detroyed for sure"

Good luck with the campaign!

Nice one, I shall now consider some boarding action objectives for my missions

Thanks, over the last few weeks I've had time to really have a crack at it (hoping to playtest some next week with the crew).

If interested, I posted most of my thinking so far at: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/221139-swa-campaign-1-shadows-of-the-maw-cluster/

It all advanced guesswork at the moment, but its mainly just designed to be casual fun