EPISODE 19

Welcome aboard the Shuttle Tydirium for episode 19. Join the rest of the crew for a game of Sabacc in the engine room while Captain Chadwick recuperates from an encounter with hungry Ewoks on Endor. The main topic for tonight is the element of surprise in scenarios.
Co-Pilot's question: 4:20

Surprise in Scenarios: 10:05

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Can you think of any other ways that things could have gone down during the trench run to give the Rebels that upper hand at the end?

Can you think of any other ways that things could have gone down during the trench run to give the Rebels that upper hand at the end?

Have "New 'Old' Han" come out of hyperspace immediately in front of the exhaust port & launch his missiles [which, as they also aren't 'rays', would hopefully be just as good at passing through the shields, turning through 90 degrees and destroying the reactor]...then he can just illicit SLAM away from the blast radius...

...job done, no losses and lots of x-wings & y-wings left to carry on the fight...and Luke gets to have a knees-up with his old buddy Biggs...everybody's happy (except Tarkin & Vader et al...yeah, that might put a bit of a dampener on plot lines for Ep V & VI )

Cheers

Wow! What a fun and clever show! I really liked the topic, too. I'm 'working' on a Starkiller Base scenario because I like The Force Awakens so much It's interesting pondering some of the "what ifs" to see if there is a way to add surprise to the scenario to make it more exciting. Otherwise it keeps coming back to 150-200 points of TFA-only ships clashing over a black hexagon that X-wings have to shoot Torpedoes at. I'll keep at it, but I will be completing my Ph.D. this semester, so I don't have a whole ton of time.

As to the question you posed, my first thought was a GR-75 with Toryn Farr barreling into the battle...but seriously, that ship wouldn't make it past the turbolasers. The only reason the Falcon made it is because Han's an ace pilot (at least in his own mind) and he made a lot of special modifications to that ship. I really liked the idea of Vader learning of his son, even if it may be a bit far fetched for some people. When you were talking about somebody jumping ship from the Death Star, or deciding to defect it reminded me so much of the book Death Star. Have you guys read that one? Here's the part that I was thinking of.

I'd look it up, but that book is packed away somewhere I can't get to. Anyway, having some kind of Imperial ship leave the base and help out would be cool, for example, if a Lambda-class shuttle entered the scene, controlled by the Rebels. And maybe, similar to the predictions about Sabine's TIE, it couldn't be attacked until it made an attack, or something like that.

Wow! What a fun and clever show! I really liked the topic, too. I'm 'working' on a Starkiller Base scenario because I like The Force Awakens so much It's interesting pondering some of the "what ifs" to see if there is a way to add surprise to the scenario to make it more exciting. Otherwise it keeps coming back to 150-200 points of TFA-only ships clashing over a black hexagon that X-wings have to shoot Torpedoes at. I'll keep at it, but I will be completing my Ph.D. this semester, so I don't have a whole ton of time.

As to the question you posed, my first thought was a GR-75 with Toryn Farr barreling into the battle...but seriously, that ship wouldn't make it past the turbolasers. The only reason the Falcon made it is because Han's an ace pilot (at least in his own mind) and he made a lot of special modifications to that ship. I really liked the idea of Vader learning of his son, even if it may be a bit far fetched for some people. When you were talking about somebody jumping ship from the Death Star, or deciding to defect it reminded me so much of the book Death Star. Have you guys read that one? Here's the part that I was thinking of.

At the end of the book, the heroes steal a shuttle and escape during the climactic Battle of Yavin. I don't remember it very well, but I think some TIEs broke off to pursue them, but the main forces ignored them.

I'd look it up, but that book is packed away somewhere I can't get to. Anyway, having some kind of Imperial ship leave the base and help out would be cool, for example, if a Lambda-class shuttle entered the scene, controlled by the Rebels. And maybe, similar to the predictions about Sabine's TIE, it couldn't be attacked until it made an attack, or something like that.

Starkiller Base is essentially where I started thinking seriously about surprises in the context of cinematic battles. If you go with the canon battle progression, then you get the same problem as in the trench run scenario - you know what is coming and you can plan for or even trigger the explosion that opens the Oscillator to attack.

I think a better approach is to at least give players the option of a random event style surprise, where one of several possibilities happens, dictated by a die roll. Allow for players to just play out the canon version, but give the option of the randomized event.

My own version of that scenario is in Mission Control purgatory at the moment, unpublished until I can come up with a solution to a ship-crowding problem I keep running into. I want to have more than 6 T-70s on the table, but they tend to just make mindless runs at the oscillator and get into a traffic jam with the TIE/FOs as they arrive. I'll probably add other targets to the table that require attention to spread the battle out a bit.

Awesome! Sounds like great fun. I'll start brainstorming some other random events and post them here. One of the thing I thought about for solving the traffic jam problem is to have flights of TIE/fo's that come in on odd-numbered rounds, similar to the final mission of the CR90 campaign. Perhaps you start off with Epsilon Squadron heading straight at the T-70's, and then Zeta Squadron comes in from the right or left flank at range 1 of one of those red squad tokens (which the Imperials would place at setup), and finally Omega Squadron comes from the direction the T-70s came from, essentially closing the pincer maneuver, trapping the X-wings. I think the TIEs would need to respawn just like in the Trench Run missions, otherwise the T-70s could take them out piecemeal and never shoot a torp at the oscillator. I'm also trying to figure out how to make the missile launchers scary without demolishing the Resistance. So many cool things to think about!

Perhaps not as big a twist as some you proposed, but an interesting "What-if" scenario for me would be Luke and Obi-Wan signing on with a different captain at Mos Eisley.

How does the scenario change if instead they met Dash Rendar or Hera Syndulla at the cantina?

Interesting; you could definitely come up with some interesting alternate star wars history scenarios substituting Dash Rendar for Han, etc.

I searched for Starkiller Base scenarios on Mission Control, but couldn't find any. Here are some of my thoughts regarding the Starkiller base scenario.

Set up

• 6'x3' I think it's necessary to have a large area so the Resistance fighters can fly in toward their target. It heightens the suspense, and allows for interesting tactical decisions involving the speed of approach. Unlike most Epic games, play starts on the short edges of the mat.
• A large oscillator. Theoretically it could be a token and the X-wings can bomb from far away, but I think having a larger area really captures that feel of making the attack run, skimming across the surface, and coming around for another pass. Still working on an appropriate size, but I am thinking a hexagon no smaller than the length of Range 2 on each side (is that 4"?), probably bigger. Yet another reason the field should be 6'x3'

Random events

• The detonators from Han and Chewie could damage the oscillator, reducing the amount of damage required to cripple it. I don't know if there's a clever way to open a hole in the oscillator, at least not one that feels fun and exciting for both sides.
• Our heroes make it to the Millennium Falcon before Kylo Ren, and come to the rescue. Chewbacca pilot enters the fray, perhaps with Rey and Finn crew.
• Kylo Ren arrives in his command shuttle and destroys everything! ...sorry, bit of a Kylo Ren fanboy here . I think this makes the most sense if it's paired with the arrival of the Falcon. The Falcon's job is to help destroy the oscillator and the TIEs, while Kylo Ren is trying to stop the Millennium Falcon, but takes opportunistic shots at the X-wings, too. Maybe this just bogs down the game too much. I'll have to think about it.
• A star destroyer approaches. Place the Turbolaser tokens that come with the Rebel Transport Expansion Pack on one side of the board to represent the broadsides from this new threat. I'd say each turbolaser can attack one X-wing at range 1-5 using 4 attack dice, the X-wing doubles its agility. They're meant to be a threat, rather than wipe out the heroes. Being placed on one side of the board allows the Resistance fighters to move to the other edge of the board to avoid fire, but there will be a couple rounds with them trying to flee.
• Missile launchers (more on those below) could be disabled part way through the mission, thanks to the efforts of the heroic infiltrators on the base.

Do random events need to benefit the Resistance only? Seems like they should, because they are already outgunned. But maybe some help for the First Order would make it interesting. I only worry that if you're in a close match, and suddenly the Star Destroyer comes into range that the Resistance player will quit and pack up their stuff because it went from very hard to impossible. That's what I want to avoid.

Missile turrets. I have struggled with these. On the one hand, ordnance is generally regarded as not worth it in standard play. On the other hand a good missile roll could obliterate a T-70, tipping the balance pretty fast, especially if they get to attack repeatedly. Rather than direct attacks, I wondered if the missile turrets can function more like control pieces.

• Missile turrets: Instead of attacking, a missile turret may target targets an enemy ship at range 2-3, and assigns it one munitions token. During the activation phase, a ship with a munitions token assigned to it may spend an action to discard that token. At the start of the combat phase, the Imperial player may spend a munitions token from any number of enemy ships. When the Imperial player spends a munitions token from an enemy ship, that ship rolls 3 attack dice and suffers any damage or critical damage results. A ship may not have more than one munitions token assigned to it.

In this way, they can do some serious work harassing the Resistance, but they don't just destroy the good guys outright. I'll definitely need to playtest this idea to see if it needs any refinement. The only problem I see is that T-70s will be spending their actions dodging missiles instead of taking target locks - or- they'll all take Push the Limit, and there will be no squad diversity.

EDIT: I forgot to say that I envision one missile turret at each corner of the oscillator, so six total. I guess if there are only six then maybe it won't be overpowered. Also, I originally thought about having the oscillator block line of site of the missiles so that the X-wings flying over the oscillator, but it doesn't look like that is movie accurate. And there should be laser turrets, one on each side of the oscillator, but those aren't that new.

Phew. That was a lot. Thanks for letting me crash this thread. I've been trying to put some of these ideas together, and when Babaganoosh said he was working on a Starkiller Base scenario, I knew I had somebody who would listen and provide some constructive feedback.

Interesting ideas.

I am also looking at the 6x3 board size to convey a more epic feel and allow for more stuff on the table.

So far, I've been using one large container token for the oscillator, but it does feel small. I think that I may move to 4 large container tokens OR a hexagon that you cut out from paper, like you're talking about.

As far as random events go, I think that the safest course is to keep all the random events as favoring the Reseistance. If they can go either way, then you have a balance issue - to keep things as balanced as possible you'd have to build the scenario to be balanced up to the surprise, and minimize the effect of the surprise on the game state or make it a neutral net effect. So, if a hole gets blown in the side of the oscillator, maybe you also get a bunch more TIEs on the table at the same time, while if a Star Destroyer starts taking shots at the resistance, you get more T-70s to balance things out. That could get tricky.

If the random event only favors the Resistance, you can balance in the FO's favor up till the event, which should even things out more or less.

My current thinking on 'Seekers' is that they should supplement but not replace turbolaser turrets as defenses, and that they should require a bit of finesse to use/deal with. There's a bit of a throwaway line in the movie about the seekers being a danger to the TIEs as well as the X-wings (they of course use them anyway in classic bad guy fashion). I think seekers in the scenario should reflect that and essentially be a danger to both sides, with some degree of FO control. Right now my working model for them is for the FO player to place a 'seeker token' on the table at the end of a round, and during the combat phase of the next round, it resolves a 4-dice attack against the nearest ship (regardless of affiliation). That should let both players have a degree of control over what happens, although that's just the working model for the time being.

My current thinking on 'Seekers' is that they should supplement but not replace turbolaser turrets as defenses, and that they should require a bit of finesse to use/deal with. There's a bit of a throwaway line in the movie about the seekers being a danger to the TIEs as well as the X-wings (they of course use them anyway in classic bad guy fashion). I think seekers in the scenario should reflect that and essentially be a danger to both sides, with some degree of FO control. Right now my working model for them is for the FO player to place a 'seeker token' on the table at the end of a round, and during the combat phase of the next round, it resolves a 4-dice attack against the nearest ship (regardless of affiliation). That should let both players have a degree of control over what happens, although that's just the working model for the time being.

That's pretty cool. I'll have to watch that scene again (and again) to glean more info. Very different idea having them attack both ships indiscriminately.

Apparently the missile turrets pop up part way through, so there's another random element...to support the First Order . Still, I like the idea of having some kind of trigger to pop them up, like dealing a certain amount of damage to the oscillator.

Fun listen, guys. I thought the Sabacc game was well done. Really, really like the ideas for surprises in scenarios. I've always liked the idea of hidden upgrades (revealed when they are used; you know who came to the fight, but not what they brought to it), so hidden objectives sound cool, too. This discussion of secrets during missions made wonder what you guys would think of something like this: write up a bunch of generic surprises players are allowed to choose from (reinforcements, Rebel fighters with Illicit upgrades, a traitor among the enemy ranks, etc.) and play the official (or any) scenarios letting each player choose one at the beginning of the game. Could add a whole new twist to otherwise "solved" games!

Fun listen, guys. I thought the Sabacc game was well done. Really, really like the ideas for surprises in scenarios. I've always liked the idea of hidden upgrades (revealed when they are used; you know who came to the fight, but not what they brought to it), so hidden objectives sound cool, too. This discussion of secrets during missions made wonder what you guys would think of something like this: write up a bunch of generic surprises players are allowed to choose from (reinforcements, Rebel fighters with Illicit upgrades, a traitor among the enemy ranks, etc.) and play the official (or any) scenarios letting each player choose one at the beginning of the game. Could add a whole new twist to otherwise "solved" games!

How about a combo of hidden upgrades and generic surprises:

Allow each player to assign secret upgrade cards before each match. Here's how it might work: each player puts down their pilots, face up. Then, after seeing the enemy pilot lineup, they can assign upgrades to their pilots, either from a master deck of all upgrades or from a limited deck; say 10 cards or something, and place those cards facedown on the pilot cards they are on until they are used.

You could have variations on how this works; maybe you start with upgrades on the ships and can switch them out, for example.

I got to listen to this one while in the bacta tank. I liked it a lot! It was pretty fun to listen and not know what was going to happen. I also really liked the subject matter and it spun off a few ideas.

The first makes me think of a massive game in a WHFB rule book where 6 people played. Ostensibly 3 vs 3 in a large battle, but each player had a side task that no one else knew about. There was a warpstone meteor that fell and 2 Skaven and someone else vs. 2 Empire and Wood Elves. One Skaven knew of a secret meteor that fell at a Tower. The next had a feud with the first and had to make sure some of his guys died. Can't recall the other evil. The two human lords were having a border dispute and one had to hold on to the tower by the end. Can't recall the other human, but the Wood Elf wanted to clear some evil woods or something or another. So....the idea on top was that it was a 3 vs 3 battle, but each player had some sort of secret agenda to reach on their own. It looked fun and it makes me think of something similar that can be done with a big X-wing game. Maybe 2 Empire and a Scum vs. 2 Rebels and a Scum?

Another idea was to come up with a 3x3 mission that had a few objectives on the table. So, there were some cargo crates, some transponders, some asteroids, and maybe a space station. Come up with the idea that the Rebels need to raid the Imperials, but make it random what their objective is. You don't know until you get there. Or...maybe a couple of turns in. I think it might work with a primary objective, and then a secondary objective that is worth more, but random. Maybe the Imperials get a random reinforcement from somewhere. Maybe it's hidden ships that were waiting, a number of Tie Fighters from one side, Some turrets go online, or even a bunch of Mercenaries. I think this one would have replay value as it would be different every time. So, if it were play tested to make good enough, you could always play it a number of times and it would still be unexpected.

Man, I got so many ideas about playing games, but I just don't have the time to actually play anymore!