I am suggesting a house rule that I plan on testing this afternoon. I plan on implementing it for TIE/ln (Academy Pilot) damage. This is springboarding off the damage suggestion on page 23 of the HotAC rulebook.

Whenever you resolve a critical hit on a TIE/ln (Academy Pilot), instead of drawing a face-up damage card roll a 1d6 and apply the following result:

1: 1 Damage + 1 Ion Token

2: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

3: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

4: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

5: 2 Damage

6: 2 Damage

Justification: Overall this rule will speed up play and eliminate the need to keep track of critical hit cards for the Academy Pilots. The math is loose, but I figure with 7 Direct Hits, 2 Major Explosions, and a smattering of cards that can result in extra damage, 33% chance of 2 damage seems about right. Most of the other cards have an Action to fix the critical hit, which the Academy Pilot will do in lieu of another Action (hence the Stress token). The rest just have an annoying effect that will cause a minor hiccup (an Ion Token).

I will let you all know how it plays out in our test run.

I think that's a pretty good idea. Obviously it's an abstraction, but so is the entire AI system ... and it's an abstraction that works. I do agree that the varied critical hits from the deck just don't add much to the fight against basic TIE fighters.

Good idea.

Anyway, most crits either affect actions, or movement, or are extra damage

I see this as a good way to handle crits to all generics in the campaign, and only use the damae deck for aces/elites

How many TIEs are you encountering at a time?

How many of them have critical hits that need to be tracked?

I have not found it to be an issue... surprised others have.

My experience is that once they receive a critical hit, they tend not to last for much longer, thus not so many needing to be tracked at once and thus not a problem. ... In my experience.

So, I guess my take on it would be that you have proposed an interesting solution to a problem that doesn't exist. IMO

How many TIEs are you encountering at a time?

How many of them have critical hits that need to be tracked?

I have not found it to be an issue... surprised others have.

My experience is that once they receive a critical hit, they tend not to last for much longer, thus not so many needing to be tracked at once and thus not a problem. ... In my experience.

So, I guess my take on it would be that you have proposed an interesting solution to a problem that doesn't exist. IMO

When you have someone in your team fond of proton bombs on Y-Wings, you end with lots of face up damage cards on the table.

And it's not rare that we encounter clumps of 5 TIE Fighters clogging some quadrant of the board.

I play mostly with my kids and a few friends. As it is we use small d6 on the ship bars to keep track of damage. For the games I play with my kids (8 & 10) this would speed up the game. It also makes it easier on me as I am already laying track of my ships and theirs.

For games with my friends out might be worth trying. We started playing hotAC because we were tired of the 100pt game. This just makes one less item on the AI to keep track of.

We ran two games today using the trial rules. First, my friend and I were starting new pilots, so we played Local Trouble. Only 3 TIE/ln and a TIE Interceptor. A crit came up one time, and it resulted in the destruction of the TIE. But we did not need a damage deck at all in that game; neither one of us could touch the TIE Interceptor it seems.

The next was a 4 player Needle in a Haystack. Total of 9 TIE/ln, with multiple crits scored. It was nice not having to deal with cards or ongoing effects. We were doing so well until the traffic jam of TIEs suddenly all found themselves in range one of the YT-1300. Sadly, our transport had horrible defensive rolls despite our Protect actions; it got shot down in Turn 6 right when we found the escape pod. Turn 7 saw 2 Phantoms with Recon Spec. Turn 8 saw 2 Defenders with HLC. We all managed to escape, and we racked up some XP. But the lost was a bit disheartening.

With so much to keep track of for the AI, I like not having to think about crit cards for the Academy TIEs. I like the house rule. We plan to keep it.

How many TIEs are you encountering at a time?

How many of them have critical hits that need to be tracked?

I have not found it to be an issue... surprised others have.

Clearly you have never played with a group that uses proton bombs (or well positioned proton bombs).

We have and there have been "perfectly" placed bombs that placed a crit card on a cluster of 5-6 TIEs. Since there is a cluster of them, keeping track which crit card is assigned to which TIE can be a bit of a mess since space is so tight and then you keep moving TIEs around and sometimes forget to take tokens/crits with you. People later realize that there's a crit card in the middle of the playing field and ask questions like "hey wait a minute, which TIE did have that crit again?". I can see how that simplified system helps with these issues, would love to try that out as well.

So I went a bit deeper into it...

With the new damage deck (printing it here for close reference)

Blinded Pilot
Pilot
You cannot perform attacks.
After your next opportunity to attack (even if there was no target for an attack), flip this card facedown.

Console Fire
Ship
At the start of each Combat phase, roll 1 attack die. On a Hit result, suffer 1 damage.
Action: Flip this card facedown.

Damaged Cockpit
Pilot
Starting the round after you receive this card, treat your pilot skill value as "0"

Damaged Engine
Ship
Treat all turn maneuvers (left turn or right turn) as red maneuvers.

Damaged Sensor Array
Ship
You cannot perform any actions except actions listed on Damage cards.
Action: Roll 1 attack die. On a Hit or Critical Hit result, flip this card facedown.

Direct Hit!
Ship
This card counts as 2 DAMAGE against your hull.

Loose Stabilizer
Ship
After you execute a white maneuver, receive 1 stress token.
Action: Flip this card facedown.

Major Explosion
Ship
Roll 1 attack die. On a Hit result, suffer 1 critical damage.
Then flip this card facedown.

Major Hull Breach
Ship
Starting the round after you receive this card, all Damage cards dealt to you are dealt faceup.
Action: Flip this card facedown.

Shaken Pilot
Pilot
During the Planning phase, you cannot be assigned straight maneuvers.
When you reveal a maneuver, flip this card facedown.

Structural Damage
Ship
Reduce your agility value by 1 (to a minimum of "0").
Action: Roll 1 attack die. On a Hit or Critical Hit result, flip this card facedown.

Stunned Pilot
Pilot
After you execute a maneuver, if you are touching another ship or overlapping an obstacle token, suffer 1 damage.

Thrust Control Fire
Ship
Receive 1 stress token.
Then flip this card facedown.

Weapons Failure
Ship
When attacking, roll 1 fewer attack die.
Action: Roll 1 attack die. On a Hit or Critical Hit result, flip this card facedown.

Blinded Pilot: skips attack (2/33)
Console Fire: likely does no damage at all but spends action, so acts like a stress (2/33)
Damaged Cockpit: likely does not effect a standard TIE at all (2/33)
Damaged Engine: hard to assess, since this cannot be turned down again, nearest likelihood would probably be 1 stress, as I assume it is going to make one more hard turn during the rest of his life with <= 2hp (2/33)
Damaged Sensor Array: is is definitely at least 1 stress because it is an action damage card, and the average would be another turn lost (Sum of (1/2^n) is 1), so this card counts as 2 stress (2/33)
Direct Hit!: well it is a direct hit (7/33)
Loose Stabilizer: seems like a powerful crit for the AI since it has no greens so cannot circumvent the stress like a human could, since it is an action at least 1 stress, maybe count as 2 stress? (2/33)
Major Explosion: that's a 3/8 chance for another damage and also 3/8 chance to have another of these list of effects (2/33)
Major Hull Breach: Action just means this is a stress (2/33), although there are possibilities where this may apply for more than one turn if the AI bonks and actually effects the damage done (2/33)
Shaken Pilot: let's face it, this does literally nothing (2/33)
Structural Damage: hmm hard to calculate, it's a stress definitely, with only 50% chance to heal this averages to 2 stress again, but it also reduces agility value. A defense die prevents between 0.375 and 0.625 damage depending on focus, so let's say 0.5. I'd use 1 extra damage here, because on average it is active 1 round and it is likely that this tie will get attacked at least twice since it is hurt, so let's say 0.5*2 = 1? (2/33)
Stunned Pilot: Really hard to calculate. How often do TIEs bump? Considering it has to have this crit first and only <= 2 hp left I'd assume at most once, maybe not at all, so lets say 0.5 damage? (2/33)
Thrust Control Fire: Well, exactly what it says on the tin. A stress (2/33)
Weapons Failure: Hum. What. Not sure if you can calculate that again. On averages this is again 2 Stress like on the other cards that turn on crit/hit. This likely activates 2 times since standard TIEs fire last so likely after they got this crit and then on average another time, so they lose a die each time for 2 attacks. 2 lost dice over the course of 2 attack attacks does not equal 1 loss of attack but hey let's throw mathematics out of the window and assume it is, so I'd go with this skips one attack (2/33)

When I add that up, I come to this:
4/33 chance to skip an attack (Blinded Pilot, Weapons Failure)
4/33 chance to do literally nothing (Damaged Cockpit, Shaken Pilot)
12/33 chance to do a stress (Damaged Engine 2*1, Damaged Sensor Array 2*2, Loose Stabilizer 2*2, Major Hull Breach 2*1, Structural Damage 2*2, Thrust Control Fire 2*1, Average Stress rounds to 1.5)
13/33 chance for additional damage (Direct Hit 7*1, Major Explosion 2*3/8, Structural Damage 2*1, Stunned Pilot 2*0.5, Average additional Damage rounds to 0.8269)

if I discard one card out of this and assume 32 this would nicely work with a 8 sided die I think,
1/8th chance to make the TIE skip the next attack
1/8th chance for a nothing
3/8th chance to stress for 1.5 tokens (however that may work)
3/8th chance to do an additional (0.827 damage)

If you incorporate the damage/amount of stress in as well, you look at
12% to skip an attack
12% to do nothing
55% to gain 1 stress
33% to gain 1 damage
Of course this does not add up to 100% because of some cards having multiple effects as stated above.

If you reallocate the % a bit and give the AI ease on the stress part you could do it on a D6 like this
1: No effect
2: Skip next attack
3: Gain 1 stress
4: Gain 1 stress
5: Gain 1 damage
6: Ultimate combo: gain 1 damage + 1 stress

Or maybe combine Skip next attack with an additional stress?
1: No effect
2: Gain 1 damage
3: Gain 1 damage
4: Gain 1 stress
5: Gain 1 stress
6: Skip next attack and Gain 1 stress

It'd definitely keep the option of "no effect" though because I've been experiencing this plenty, you enjoy finally getting a crit through to the hull only to have the opponent flip it and it does literally nothing.

Any thoughts?

Most of the damage cards that you discard as "no effect" are related to limiting the dial of the ship. I think the ion token is good enough to represent that.

You could use one of the dice in X-Wing and do something like this.

On crit on a TIE Fighter, assing 1 damage token as usual, and roll an attack die on this listing:

• blank: +ion token
• eye: +damage token
• hit: +stress token
• crit: +weapons disabled token

So I played a few missions using Madcap's original house rule.

We played two missions applying the house rule to just the AI and two missions applying the rules to both the AI and our own ships.

As long as your applying the same rule to both the AI and your own ships then it works a lot better.

We found using the damage deck for us and the Dice roll for the AI unbalanced the game.

We noticed a few things using these rules.

It eliminated the damage deck all together. Which was nice.

A few of the guys that are basic players to begin with liked the simplified rules and how it sped up the game.

The table wasn't as cluttered.

We use small yellow D6 as damage markers on the ships. They sit right under the ship on the stand and move well with the ship.

These work perfect and you can see across the table what has what damage.

As someone mentioned about bombs. A ship drops a bomb in a furball and you could have 5 or more cards floating around the table.

If you took one of the Damage + Stress token from the original house rule and changed it to No Effect it would give an extra chance on the roll.

So you would have:

1: 1 Damage + 1 Ion Token

2: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

3: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

4: No Effect

5: 2 Damage

6: 2 Damage

1: 1 Damage + 1 Ion Token

2: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

3: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

4: No Effect

5: 2 Damage

6: 2 Damage

I would have #4 at least do 1 damage. All crits are 1 damage, even if the other effect is negligible.

I still like using the damage deck for players and for non-TIE/ln. The TIE/ln is such a basic ship, and it is PS1, that few of the crits are actually worth tracking. But on players and other TIEs those crits can have significant meaning.

I like the idea.

Since we're just using the counter tokens to monitor TIE's health, it works nicely in removing another component from the card area. Those counters seem like they're meant to monitor TIE/ln's and Interceptors' health, it's so simple to just move them around with the ships.

How many TIEs are you encountering at a time?

How many of them have critical hits that need to be tracked?

We regularly have four or more TIEs on the table at once (plus other ships).

Heh. Just last Friday, I dropped a Proton Bomb and caught four ships -- three of them TIEs. So ... at least three? I really do think this is a good idea, and I hope "HotAC Josh" is reading for the next revision.

Slight re-ordering/revision suggestion:

1: 1 Damage

2: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

3: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

4: 1 Damage + 1 Ion Token

5: 2 Damage

6: 2 Damage

1: 1 Damage + 1 Ion Token

2: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

3: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

4: No Effect

5: 2 Damage

6: 2 Damage

I would have #4 at least do 1 damage. All crits are 1 damage, even if the other effect is negligible.

I still like using the damage deck for players and for non-TIE/ln. The TIE/ln is such a basic ship, and it is PS1, that few of the crits are actually worth tracking. But on players and other TIEs those crits can have significant meaning.

I saw in the op you were using it for just the Tie/ IN. I used it on all ships with my kids to see how it would work and it worked well with them.

The group the other night was just a test to see how it worked with a mixed group of tournament players and basic casual players.

If I was playing with a mostly competitive group I would stick with the damage deck.

Thanks for posting this though. It made the game more enjoyable with my kids and that's all that mattered to me on it.

Thanks for posting this though. It made the game more enjoyable with my kids and that's all that mattered to me on it.

Very cool. If my kids had any interest in the game, I would use the simplified damage as well. Sadly, while my oldest loves Star Wars and the RPG*, she shows no interest in X-Wing.

*as well as Star Trek, Marvel, DC, fantasy RPGs, steampunk... We are raising her to be well-rounded, IMO.

1: 1 Damage + 1 Ion Token

2: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

3: 1 Damage + 1 Stress Token

4: No Effect

5: 2 Damage

6: 2 Damage

I would have #4 at least do 1 damage. All crits are 1 damage, even if the other effect is negligible.

I still like using the damage deck for players and for non-TIE/ln. The TIE/ln is such a basic ship, and it is PS1, that few of the crits are actually worth tracking. But on players and other TIEs those crits can have significant meaning.

1. +ion token

2. +stress

3. +stress

4. No effect

5. +1 damage

6. +1 damage

Little cleaner looking and keeps the point you are making. I am definately going to use this idea for puds but I agree the damage deck should be used for players and aces. Excellent idea though and I hope many HOTACers adopt this table.

I think that "No effect" should be excluded from this list.

Player rolled a successfull crit, so he should be rewarded. If original critical damage card almost do nothing for TIE Fighter - this is a problem of using standart critical damage deck to HotAC, and should be fixed.

So, I propose following list for 1d6:

>> If you incorporate the damage/amount of stress in as well, you look at

>> 12% to skip an attack

>> 12% to do nothing

>> 55% to gain 1 stress

>> 33% to gain 1 damage

Thanks for calculations =)

I think that "No effect" should be excluded from this list.

Player rolled a successfull crit, so he should be rewarded. If original critical damage card almost do nothing for TIE Fighter - this is a problem of using standart critical damage deck to HotAC, and should be fixed.

So, I propose following list for 1d6:

1 (17%): + Skip an attack

2-4 (50%): +1 Stress

5-6 (33%): +1 Damage

That's almost exactly what Madcap had except he has an ion instead of skip an attack.

I'm Not sure which would get you closer to what the damage deck actually does.

The ion is nice when it rolls though. Having the ship founder around a bit allows you to catch up with it.

This thread inspired me to make a HotAC reference card:

Nice one Hinnyboy!

I made a custom 8-sider with various symbols on it to represent the various crit effects on TIEs. Yes, my handwriting is terrible, but most of the symbols are self-explanatory.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMMqT0FymzizrBqevveF-jpj3vDXA0InS1a-q5d

A closer shot of the die itself.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipODIyI-ZGLU7Ea4TZ0Gq0N13j6cz30cBq4pQ_81