Shuttle Tydirium Episode 9: Introduction to Heroes of the Aturi Cluster

By heychadwick, in X-Wing

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Shuttle Tydirium Episode 9: Introduction to Heroes of the Aturi Cluster

Welcome aboard the Shuttle Tydirium Podcast! Sit back and enjoy your in-flight meal of traditional Endorian stew as we discuss the incredibly successful Heroes of the Aturi Cluster co-op campaign system!
Captain's question: 6:15
Introduction to Heroes of the Aturi Cluster: 20:25
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You want to know more about Heroes of the Aturi Cluster? Listen to this episode!

Edited by heychadwick

Will listen to this one! Heroes of the aturi cluster is in my radar for a while now. Hope you guys can finally convince me.

Will listen to this one! Heroes of the aturi cluster is in my radar for a while now. Hope you guys can finally convince me.

If you haven't tried it, you should. It's really a lot of fun. It's much different than tournament play as it's all co-operative.

There is so much we could talk about HotAC that this is just the introduction to it. We have another episode that talks about the AI that will come out next week. We want to discuss strategies in starting a character and growing your character, too. Soooo....many things to talk about!

Man, they talk a lot about food. :P

Edited by Democratus

I have been super interested in this ever since I saw the original posts and I find the work and effort put into this campaign no less than amazing and inspiring. That being said is there a general consensus on how to obtain the materials? Printing at home would be fairly expensive there is A LOT of full color cards and mission pieces, while beautiful ink ain't cheap. I tried a web based printer, Fed Ex I think, and they were looking to be cheaper but not by much. This mod is something that I would absolutely pay a premium for a nice box set and I hope FFG contacts the creator and negotiates some form of agreement. It's far easier to drop cash on a pretty box set than almost as much money and assemble yourself.

Love the show guys and can't wait to listen to it

Edited by LordFajubi

I think one of the things we talk about is actually the different ways to get the rules printed. I actually use the pdf versions. I play on vassal with Jake and I keep vassal open on my left monitor and the rules open on my right. Works pretty well for me, but that is only good for playin on vassal and you really need both monitors.

Man, they talk a lot about food. :P

It was an unexpectedly long captain question, yeah! Also I highly recommend the Endorian stew ;)

Man, they talk a lot about food. :P

Yeah....I just listened to the episode for the first time after publishing it. We did go on about food for a while. We try to do a Captain's Question every week to add some character and let you guys get to know our different personalities more. It's usually a Star Wars question, but this one was about fast food. We did ramble on for a while on the topic. Sorry!

I have been super interested in this ever since I saw the original posts and I find the work and effort put into this campaign no less than amazing and inspiring. That being said is there a general consensus on how to obtain the materials? Printing at home would be fairly expensive there is A LOT of full color cards and mission pieces, while beautiful ink ain't cheap. I tried a web based printer, Fed Ex I think, and they were looking to be cheaper but not by much. This mod is something that I would absolutely pay a premium for a nice box set and I hope FFG contacts the creator and negotiates some form of agreement. It's far easier to drop cash on a pretty box set than almost as much money and assemble yourself.

Love the show guys and can't wait to listen to it

Right....we do talk about it for a bit. I've read that it's about $30 to get it all printed at a print shop. That seems to be the going rate online and in local shops. There are some things you can do to help out.

  • If you have a tablet, you don't have to print out the rules. Just print out the terrain and various cards. Use the tablet or laptop to look up the rules and missions.
  • print the rulebook in black and white if you want a hard copy. It does look really nice in color, but if you are trying to safe cash....
  • Does someone in your area work in an office? It's possible you could print things out on a work printer when no one is looking.
  • Print the terrain/cards on regular paper and then glue it to cardboard. I can find spare folders used for file cabinets left abandoned at work. You can also use cereal boxes, as well. Glue the paper onto the cardboard and then cut it out. This can save the money of cardstock. Or....buy some cardstock paper at Wal-mart and glue it on that for cheaper.

Yeah....I just listened to the episode for the first time after publishing it. We did go on about food for a while. We try to do a Captain's Question every week to add some character and let you guys get to know our different personalities more. It's usually a Star Wars question, but this one was about fast food. We did ramble on for a while on the topic. Sorry!

Right....we do talk about it for a bit. I've read that it's about $30 to get it all printed at a print shop. That seems to be the going rate online and in local shops. There are some things you can do to help out.

  • If you have a tablet, you don't have to print out the rules. Just print out the terrain and various cards. Use the tablet or laptop to look up the rules and missions.
  • print the rulebook in black and white if you want a hard copy. It does look really nice in color, but if you are trying to safe cash....
  • Does someone in your area work in an office? It's possible you could print things out on a work printer when no one is looking.
  • Print the terrain/cards on regular paper and then glue it to cardboard. I can find spare folders used for file cabinets left abandoned at work. You can also use cereal boxes, as well. Glue the paper onto the cardboard and then cut it out. This can save the money of cardstock. Or....buy some cardstock paper at Wal-mart and glue it on that for cheaper.

When I was looking into it online I was using the suggested card stock from the creator and it was more than 30 I want to say like in the 50 range somewhere and that was just to have standard sheets that I would then have to cut on my own. The rulebook has been on my phone since I saw it for download and I agree it's not necessary to print I haven't cracked the Xwing rulebook since I read it.

I guess my biggest issue is an OCD problem of wanting the most perfect form I can get it because this mod desearves no less in my opinion. Just me being difficult when paper is adequate lol To have a solitaire option though is enough for me to plant a wet one right on the cheeks, Sicilian style, of the person who created it.

If you really want an affordable way to print it, you should start finding someone who works in an office that might be able to print it off on the sly for you. Parents, relatives, friends, etc. Even if they have to mail it to you, it will be the cheapest method.

You guys made me so happy for mentioning döner kebab! I love you guys! As soon as you asked that question, I thought, "Do Turkish food carts in Germany count?" Spot on!

You guys made me so happy for mentioning döner kebab! I love you guys! As soon as you asked that question, I thought, "Do Turkish food carts in Germany count?" Spot on!

Why is there no doner kebab in the US? They would make a killing, guaranteed.

Just want to say that HoTAC is amazing. I printed all the bits and laminated them myself, great quality, bit slidy though.

My wife does not like competitive games so this is an x wing that she really enjoys - she does get upset if she gets shot down or if I get shot down and leave her on her own.

We played through all the missions, they got a bit easy after we had most of the upgrades on our ships. What we have done now is started from the beginning (not including the intro mission) but we have kept our ships fully upgraded. To help compensate there is the built in PS level up but we have also decided to use the AI forces as if there were 3 players instead of 2. This has really ramped up the difficulty and brought the challenge back. We won the 1st mission, lost the 2nd and replayed it and narrowly won only having 2 hull left each. So really looking forward to going through all the missions on this basis.

You guys made me so happy for mentioning döner kebab! I love you guys! As soon as you asked that question, I thought, "Do Turkish food carts in Germany count?" Spot on!

I was thinking of that thread in the Off Topic section where we talked about doner kebabs. That...and how everyone is usually stopping for Fast Food on the way to the game store. I find it hard to find a decent place on the way to the game store that isn't too far out of the way.

We played through all the missions, they got a bit easy after we had most of the upgrades on our ships. What we have done now is started from the beginning (not including the intro mission) but we have kept our ships fully upgraded. To help compensate there is the built in PS level up but we have also decided to use the AI forces as if there were 3 players instead of 2. This has really ramped up the difficulty and brought the challenge back. We won the 1st mission, lost the 2nd and replayed it and narrowly won only having 2 hull left each. So really looking forward to going through all the missions on this basis.

Let us know how it goes! Glad you like HotAC. It is really fun. I'm thinking of playing it with my son soon.

Will do - we didn't keep track of our kills 1st time around, just forgot with all the other stuff being new etc, so are keeping better track this time. I was thinking that we wouldn't need xp as we were fully upgraded but quickly found out that being shot down and losing your most expensive PS and upgrade can cost 12/13 points so it is still needed lol.

The thought of the pilot dying is too horrible to consider, I think my wife would refuse to play if that happened :s

It's OK to break the rules and cheat a little when wives are involved. Just give her a re-roll for the test. ;)

One thing that was mentioned in the episode was that the 0 point upgrades do not take up a slot on your pilot card. Is this accurate? Not saying that you were wrong but I assumed they still took the slot but were just free.

I know the titles don't take slots but things like GC I thought did.

Edited by Storgar

One thing that was mentioned in the episode was that the 0 point upgrades do not take up a slot on your pilot card. Is this accurate? Not saying that you were wrong but I assumed they still took the slot but were just free.

I know the titles don't take slots but things like GC I thought did.

Actually, I think you are right. I did mine that even though it was free, it took up the slot. I think I got it wrong later on and when I talked about it in the show. I'll have to correct myself in this next episode.

When you inevitably start talking about the imperial campaigns in the works, here's how the threads break down:

Villians of the Aturi Cluster is the general ideas and resources thread. Somewhere in that thread is everyones ideas of how ship cards, ai cards, XP changes, ship rosters, and so on should go.

Hunters of the Aturi Cluster is an attempt to take a single set of rules out of the many possibilites raised in the villians thread, and start actually making missions so we can play the darn game.

Another shout out to Invasion of the Aturi Cluster. Its not necessarily imperial, but it can be, as the enemy is one you can reasonable have a mixed rebel/imperial group against. the Vong may not be the greatest brainstorm in starwars, but I applaud the author for getting missions written.

I printed the parts with a standard laser color printer, they came out fine, though not stunning.

Then, seeing as I play with my young sons, I laminated the whole lot. It makes the colors pop, while keeping the pieces really thin and making them accident-proof. Amazon has a really affordable laminating machine that I'd been eyeing for a while for kid related project, HoTAC was the push we needed to actually buy it. It sadly appears to be out of stock now, but for roughly $20 USD + AmazonBasics sheet at roughly 3c per sheet, that was dirt cheap.

I'll try to remember to take pictures of the lot tonight.

This episode ...

1. Made me hungry.

2. Made me want to try Heroes of the Aturi Cluster

You need to do an episode on Star Wars food ... a Blue Milk Special!

Edited by Hawkstrike

I know that you guys didn't make up the HotAC campaign, but I'm wondering if you have the answer to a question.

It says to ignore 0 point upgrades like retrofit and test pilot, but what about guidance chips and integrated astromech? Do I get those w/ no xp, but still need the available slot to equip them?

Thanks again for another great podcast btw!

I know that you guys didn't make up the HotAC campaign, but I'm wondering if you have the answer to a question.

It says to ignore 0 point upgrades like retrofit and test pilot, but what about guidance chips and integrated astromech? Do I get those w/ no xp, but still need the available slot to equip them?

Thanks again for another great podcast btw!

Depends who you ask! We definitely disagree about this one. I think all 0 point upgrades are always equipped or optionally equippable, Jim disagrees.

The real bottom line is that HotAC was written before many of these 0-point upgrades were released, so it is not super-clear how we should treat these upgrades. The other 0-point upgrades that were already released when HotAC was written are literally built into the ship cards; so there is something written on the cards for those upgrades, and this is obviously not the case for the new 0-point upgrades. There may be an answer to this on the main HotAC thread, though.