1 hour ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

No, that was a serious question. You list 35 total interceptors but, your picture is showing four.

I need to get you a list of what is in my kit so you can make missions for what I own

Ha! Yes, it's only 3. It's a typo.

heychadwick

Do you know I wrote you a lengthy message only to find out that you can't receive messages?

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Ha! Yes, it's only 3. It's a typo.

I thought so. I'm good at seeing the obvious that way.

3 minutes ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

heychadwick

Do you know I wrote you a lengthy message only to find out that you can't receive messages?

Well...crap. I just deleted a bunch of old messages so that shouldn't happen again.

OK....I decided to put this on a nice looking table. I ordered a camera to start doing YouTube videos and I wanted to see what it would look like if we used cool terrain. There is piles of old 40k at the back of the store that we could use. I thought it might look cool if we broke out the desert table and used all the desert terrain. The table is 4x6 instead of 3x6, so I tried to pile stuff on the edges to kind of block the extra space, but look cool. Here's a shot as I was waiting for everyone to show up and I didn't have all the Tie Punishers out.

This is the Pirates starting just past R3 of the middle of the board. It ended up making a HUGE difference in the game.

The Imperial players decided to keep the Interceptors docked until the furball started. The first turn had the Gozanti move up a bit and the Punishers blowing up some mines. I think they got 2 in this first turn, but only 1 blown in the picture. The Gozanti managed to clip a turret, as well.

Now, there was a round when 3 of the Turrets could hit the Gozanti. They managed to strip the shields and give a crit where it couldn't TL anymore.

The Imperials move up, but half of them Boost past the firing arcs of the incoming Pirates. They are trying to play a more cautious game. Two turrets are blasted to pieces and a Z-95 was destroyed with an Assault Missile.

Next turn sees a replacement Z-95. I forgot to mention that all reinforcement Z's had Dead Man's Switch as there was a lot of chatting going on at this point.

With the shields down on the Gozanti and all the ships on it, we decided to blast the big ship. We decided to ignore the Tie Punishers. Wasn't sure if it was a good move, but it looked fun. Oh, also, we had a youngster flying the Scyks. He decided to go far wide of the mine field. I think he picked the wrong move as he is new and sitting facing the wrong way. We asked if he wanted to change his move and I think he was too embarrassed and went with it. This part really hurt us as 2 of our heavy hitters were out of the fight for....4-5 turns. It was kind of with the idea that they could get back into the fight to take out Gozanti that we went with it. You can see that those 2 Tie Punishers bypassed all the fighting and went in for the target hard.

We fire at the Gozanti! The Z-95 at R1 totally whiffs. He didn't get a single hit through. The other guys manage to take the shields down, but that's about it.

Tie Interceptors start to launch, but end up bumping the Punisher. The Z's are scrambling to get out of the Gozanti's way and having a hard time being relevant. Those 2 Scyks are slowly circling around.

Oh, I almost forgot this moment of glory! We had Graz the Hunter with Glitterstim as a reinforcement. He came out and faced the wrath of two Tie Punishers! Both fired Cluster Missiles at him. He didn't take a single point of damage!!!!! With Glitterstim popped and the extra green die, he ended up evading every damage rolled at him!!! It was amazing. Graz then plastered the Tie Punisher with laser bolts.

The enemy approach!

More Tie Interceptors come out!

A Scyk goes down to Cluster Missiles! There are a surprisingly low death count at this point. Only a few ships dead.

Graz the Hunter turns, blocks the other Punisher, but manages to take out our first Tie Punisher!!!'

At short range, these Tie Interceptors manage to finish off the Z-95. What? What do you mean you guys don't believe me that he should have Dead Man's Switch? Didn't you read the rules and stuff I typed up? No? *sigh*......ok.....no Dead Man's Switch for this guy, but ALL NEW Z-95'S GET DEAD MAN'S SWITCH.

The Gozanti gets closer!

At this point, there was not a lot of picture taking. The Z's are trying to take out a Tie Interceptor and manage to get it to one hull, but just can't take it out! The Scyks ionize the Gozanti and that slows it down. Still, too many of our defenders are messing around the middle without enough shots. It was a total mistake to go for the Gozanti.

The Imperials take out the left Shield Generator after a couple rounds of firing.

The Right Shield Generator blows!

Enemy shields are down!!!

Pirates finally manage to take down that Tie Interceptor!

Pirates lose more ships as the firing is fast and loose.

Concentrated fire brings down the Pirate Base!!!!!

Final thoughts and summary:

I think it's A LOT more balanced. Pushing the Pirates back really made it better. It made a big difference. Now, if we didn't have the Scyks flying off doing nothing for most of the game, I wonder how much closer it would be? Also, I wonder if we concentrated on the Punishers more how much of a difference it would make. I want to try it one more time at least before I call it "done". I wonder if I would need to include those Y-wings again in the list. Are the Pirates too weak now? I think not, but I want to try it.

Would love feedback from anyone else.

1 hour ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

No, that was a serious question. You list 35 total interceptors but, your picture is showing four.

I need to get you a list of what is in my kit so you can make missions for what I own

35 TIE interceptors...that sounds BEAUTIFUL!

@heychadwick , you've done some great work, and the terrain you chose felt very much like a pirate base. Great pictures! Two thumbs up!

20 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

@heychadwick , you've done some great work, and the terrain you chose felt very much like a pirate base. Great pictures! Two thumbs up!

Thanks! It's always worth it when I hear back from people who appreciate it.

I want to move up near you and play in some of your games. That looks awesome.

That added terrain is fantastic! Keep the pictures and the reports coming!

I enjoyed reading through this. I showed my son the pics and now he wants to do something like this instead of the normal space fight we do.

Graz´¨ REVENGE! If he only had an EPT he would see more play.

And not even collectors like Joe Boss probably have 35 Interceptors...

It looks gorgeous with the terrain!

And I would test it once more in the current configuration. Y-wings with Ions are fitting but might make it to easy for the pirates.

Getting ready to try this scenario myself...

Getting closer to starting this mission. Waiting for 2 Punishers to arrive via mail...

First time I have ever gone from blister pack to table...

All set! Combat begins tomorrow morning...

I've got several overview photos to load later. Here's the short story:

Scum won. Several mistakes/poor planning by the Imperials made it difficult for the Imps to get much traction.

Both Shield Gens were destroyed by Interceptors. Game ended with the base having 9 hull.

Don't believe anything drastic needs to change. Would like to try at least once more with different loadouts.

Here are the overview photos I took after each Round ended. I'll add narration a little later:

Things did not get started well. I was confused about how the ships could be configured, not knowing that certain ships could fly with loadouts other than what was listed on page 1 of this thread. Both the Imperial and Pirate lists were flown as heychadwick has it on page 1 (as of this writing). Had I know this, I would have selected a different list (not that my performance would have been any better).

After Round 1:

After Round 2:

After Round 3:

After Round 4:

After round 5:

After Round 6:

After 7:

After 8 (game called):

How much for a Trandoshan Slaver?

Great job guys!! Awesome pics too!

I have but one TIE Punisher so I have to have my buddy's as well as proxy two. The game is a bunch of fun. I think keeping the Scum back, but bringing them all in for the fight makes it pretty close. I think the new Syck weapon will make a big difference in taking out ships, even though there are two problems with that: 1) the next round they could be cannon fodder and 2) You need to purchase some CROCs. On the other hand, maybe Wave 11 will have some Punisher fix hidden within that will force all of our hands to personally get the full set of four.

Again, congrats! Keep up the casual work!

How flexible do you think the Scum list is? I think our local group has enough TIE Punishers collecting dust, but Scum is quite thin.

On 3/15/2017 at 5:41 AM, Biff said:

How much for a Trandoshan Slaver?

Whatever it's points are. Just use each token for 5 pts. So, 15 pts each round that you can bank up. No change given.

On 3/15/2017 at 9:05 AM, LagJanson said:

How flexible do you think the Scum list is? I think our local group has enough TIE Punishers collecting dust, but Scum is quite thin.

You could probably change out a lot of the ships for Scum versions . The one thing I found was to not do too many high attack dice ships. Lots of 3 attack die ships will melt the Tie Punishers too fast. It's just not fun or fair. Y-wings with Ion Cannon Turrets are great, though. Also, thematic as they are pirates trying to capture. Feel free to mix them up.

I did play this last night and was hoping it would be the last play test, but I utterly failed. I was late and spent 1.5 hours in heavy traffic. I was rushed and ate my foot. I was helping a total new guy. I was saying hi to people. I was trying to get a vid camera set up. I rushed all my ships through one gap between turrets at the same time. Three Assault Missiles later and the vast majority of my ships were utterly dead and the Imperials had lost a few shield points. We gave up then. It was too late to start again and it was too long to clean up to get another game in. It kind of sucked. I actually recorded it, but am wondering if it's worth it to even post it.

I knew to watch out for bunching, but was just moving ships and not really paying attention. UGH....now we have to play it one more time! Did count up the points and it's only 126 pts of Pirates fighting off 300 of the Imperials. Might throw in those 2 Y-wings with ICT again.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

You could probably change out a lot of the ships for Scum versions . The one thing I found was to not do too many high attack dice ships. Lots of 3 attack die ships will melt the Tie Punishers too fast. It's just not fun or fair. Y-wings with Ion Cannon Turrets are great, though. Also, thematic as they are pirates trying to capture. Feel free to mix them up.

I did play this last night and was hoping it would be the last play test, but I utterly failed. I was late and spent 1.5 hours in heavy traffic. I was rushed and ate my foot. I was helping a total new guy. I was saying hi to people. I was trying to get a vid camera set up. I rushed all my ships through one gap between turrets at the same time. Three Assault Missiles later and the vast majority of my ships were utterly dead and the Imperials had lost a few shield points. We gave up then. It was too late to start again and it was too long to clean up to get another game in. It kind of sucked. I actually recorded it, but am wondering if it's worth it to even post it.

I knew to watch out for bunching, but was just moving ships and not really paying attention. UGH....now we have to play it one more time! Did count up the points and it's only 126 pts of Pirates fighting off 300 of the Imperials. Might throw in those 2 Y-wings with ICT again.

I may indeed try to set this up. This is a mission that's harder for me to organize simply as our group only has one player with a Gozanti (the only epic ship on the market I don't have) and a general lack of scum. Hmm... I suppose though I could convert this to a Rebel base without much effort. Scyk=Awings, K-scums=Xwings.

As to the play test/video run... yeah. Those things happen. I tried to record my beta run 3 of the HotAC Death Star scenario. I forgot to load an SD card in one camera, the second camera being a gopro didn't have the battery life or card size to record the whole game. I have assembled a video with a lot of post-editing and some still photos, but I'm a lousy speaker individually so it's... on pause for the moment.

126 points vs 300 is quite the difference... but you've also got turrets in there to help balance, a Gozanti cruiser eating points, and depending on the scenario the attacker generally does need the boost to defeat a side that only needs to hold ground. Your 126 vs 300 isn't as one sided as it sounds, otherwise you would have noticed this in earlier playtests.

Oh, I know it's not straight up points equivalent, but it's something to think about.

If you are going to try it with Rebels, then I would stay away from 3 attack die ships. Still, use as many Z-95's and A-wings as you can. Try to use Ion weapons for the Y-wings. When we tried with the Kihraxz Fighters, they just deleted a Punisher a turn. It was too brutal.

As for the camera...yeah. The first time...I forgot to hit RECORD! This time, it worked,but....is it worth putting up? I will say that Sling Paint talked to me and they just started doing almost no editing to their videos. They just speed them up x2 and then do a voice over. I think I'll try that (when I do decide to do it).