Hello everyone,

Allow me to welcome you to Misfit Squadron's campaign log for HotAC. We are based in Rochester UK and will be playing fortnightly in our local game store.

Incase people haven't seen my previous HotAC thread herre are a few changes that we have made to the standard campaign;

we are playing a group of mercenaries - so players could pick any small based generic ship from any faction with a max pilot skill of 2, once you picked a ship you are locked to that faction for the rest of the campaign (so no need to worry about cross-faction madness with Pilot abilities)

because we are a crazy bunch there are also more of us playing than recommended, at the moment we have 7 pilots in the squadron and we are planning on either rotating players (as we also play other games/don't make every week/etc) or will just boost the number of AI ships

Let me introduce the squadron and their starting loadouts (all call-signs picked based on the first mission performance)

Straif - Kihraxz Fighter - Vectored Thrusters, Hot-Shot Blaster, Tread Tracers

Sunshine Bus - K Wing - Advanced SLAM, Bombadier

Dice - TIE Interceptor - PS2, shield upgrade

Slice - Protectorate Famg Fighter - Stealth Device, Concord Dawn Protector

Rek - X wing - R2 F2, Vectored Thrusters

Magnet (trust me, this one is well earnt) - Y-wing - Genius, Ion Turret, Bomb loadout, Proximity Mine,

Hammer Time - B-wing - Advanced Sensor

And there we go, as i said we are a mad lot, and not only do we have more pilots than recommended, we also played the "local trouble" mission three times just so that everyone got to play it. This means that some of us have played that mission multiple times, so our pilots are a little more advanced than would be normal for the start of a HotAC campaign.

Our first run at the mission was Straif, Magnet, and Hammer Time running the scenario unmodified (es we had to play with it later). I'll skip the blow by blow to keep this first post short, but we lost magnet (and his Ion turret) during the mission.

Next up we had Strafe, Magnet, Hammer Time, Slice, Dice, and Sunshine Bus, although Sunshine turned up late so we added the extra TIEs that should have been in the first wave to the last wave Again I'll skip the blow by blow, but we lost Slice to massed TIE fire (3 of the late arrivals) and nearly lost Hammer Time and Magnet (down to 1 hull each)

Last run through the "local trouble" scenario was the whole squadron, yes all 7 on the same table, we changed the scenario for this one.

Using the pattern for adding ships to each squadron we added an additional TIE to Beta and Delta squadrons. We all survived this one! Just. We didn't manage to kill all of the Imperials, and Magnet and Hammer Time were both down to 2 hitpoints.

At this point everyone had manged to survive the scenario, so at the end of the session we picked our first campaign arc, and we are off to recuse a rebel operative (the refauling station campaign arc)

Over the course of these three games the biggest gains have been Dice - who is now rocking a shiny new TIE defender - and Strafe - who is at PS4 and very close to the 10exp needed to upgrade to a large based ship (probably a scum firespray)

as we keep playing I will keep this tread up to date. We are planning on mixing some Scum Z95's in to some of the scenarios just so that the staunchly imperial Dice feels better about killing something other than Imperials, but we don't want to mess about with the campaigns too much (honest)

Strafe, Signong off

Ok, so a little update for my pilot (strafe) as I had some exp to spend after our initial games.

After game two I upgraded to PS3 and bought the "wingman" EPT (none of the scum pilot abilities at PS3 appealed)

This seems to work quite well supporting magnet and hammer-time on a flank, and after the third game i had enough exp to hit Pilot Skill 4, bank 7 out of the 10 exp needed to get a large-based ship (yes I've been warned that it might make the AI a bit weird) and pick up guidance chips in the hope that my thread tracers might actually hit something for a change.

Just so its clear, I'm trying to fill the squadrons support/utility role, with Scum ships. This probably means I'm going to be bringing a firespray or YV666 to the party when I upgrade (although the jumpmaster and lancer haven't been ruled out just yet). If anyone has any thoughts on Scum support HotAC builds I'd be interested to see what you can come up with, at the moment I'm pretty sure manaroos ability is a must have, maybe along with Palob's and Old Teroch's

Regards

Strafe

Glad you are having fun with it! It is pretty interesting to play a bunch of mercenaries. I'd like to hear more.

Glad you are having fun with it! It is pretty interesting to play a bunch of mercenaries. I'd like to hear more.

Interesting is definitely the right word for it, its quite entertaining having the mix of ships we currently have - from the lumbering Y and K wings to the super-agile Interceptor and Fang.

If you have specific questions ask away, I'd be happy to answer.

Regards

Ok, so I've heard several people suggesting that planning your HotAC build ahead of time is a good idea, so I've started theory-crafting up to PS5 from Strafe.

At the moment I have two builds in mind, and I really can't pick a favourite, so I thought I'd see if more season players can provide some critique.

Build 1 - support firespray 15exp to complete the build

Firespray with:

Slave 1 title, tractor beam, ion bomb, weapons engineer, seismic torps, treadtracers, hot shot blaster, guidance chips, wingman ept, extra munitions, and Latts Razzi's pilot ability

Build 2 - support Lancer 8exp to complete the build

Lancer class pursuit craft with:

Shadowcaster title, weapons engineer, burnout slam OR BMST, hot shot blaster, gyro targeting, wingman, tactical jammer, Latts Razzi

Now i want to be clear, I'm aiming for a support build not a strike build (otherwise I'd be looking at jumpmasters and aggressors), but I still want to have a degree of flexibility to the ship, so the hounds tooth doesn't really fit the bill (unless someone has an awesome idea, as I do have a soft spot for the bus)

Regards

Strafe

Ok so I was watching the worlds on twitch and started doodling with possible builds for HotAC.

Here was the most sensible one of the weekend, as with the above o ly planned to PS 5.

YV666

Hounds tooth title, weapons engineer, K4 security droid, Gonk, hot shot blaster, tractor beam, tread tracers, guidance chips, wingman, tactical.jammer, Latts Razzi

So now I have 3 large base support builds I'm considering, and I'm also going to have a look at the mist hunter to examine my small based options.

Any thoughts on any of my ramblings?

Regards

OK so we ran the first two missions of "refueling station" tonight, AND we welcomed the eighth member of the squadron "Imp-poster" in his TIE advance prototype

Now we ran rescue rebel operative with the original 7 members, and we managed to get the hawk off the table at the start of turn 7 with 1 hit point left

Then we had a quick round of upgrades, the highlight of which was Strafe upgrading to a Lancer class pursuit craft, with a burnout slam, tactical jammer, and the shadowhunter title.

Then we went for the "Destroy the sensor beacons" mission. We played with the full squadron, counting the large large base as two ships. This one was fun and slightly manic. We went maximum aggression, with strafe, slice, and dice all screaming up one flank to try and takeout the furthest beacons (we had 14 to clear as we ran out of room) while the rest of the squadron cleared the nearest ones, unfortunately we managed to summon a squadron of TIE interceptors right infront of Strafe (leading after a SLAM 10 straight ahead) which proceeded to reduce the Lancer to 1 hull. Then we managed to summon a squadron of 4 more interceptors in a perfect position to flank Rek at the rear of our squadron, AND an elite TIE defender right next to Imp-poster. Thankfully Rek managed to get clear of the interceptors arcs whilst taking out one of the 4 remaining beacons, then the rest of the squadron managed to take down the final three beacons before the defender could ambush Imp-poster.

In the end it was close, and had we taken one turn longer we would have had 9 interceptors, 8 tie fighters, and an elite defender to handle, with three ships on low health.

In two weeks we attempt to capture the station, and who knows how that will go as we are going to scale the table up to 4x4 due to the effectively 9 strong squadron ( and yes we tweak the AI ship numbers as well)

Photos coming once I work out how to get them uploaded.

Regards

Strafe

I'm Rek!

I didn't get completely clear of the Interceptors! 2 of them still had me in arc (along with 2 normal TIEs) so I'm so glad we managed to destroy the last of the sensor beacons and bug out before I had to try and weather a hail of fire.

Took a couple of pics, both from the second game -

Before first movement - http://i.imgur.com/HinS36g.jpg?2

At the start of the last turn - http://i.imgur.com/u9xbK0x.jpg?2

After the last mission I have 6 XP to spend and a spare elite talent slot so think I'm going to go with Predator to get 'dem re-rolls. After that, I was planning on upgrading to a B-Wing but I think the E-Wing or ARC-170 might be the way to go (and keep our diverse squadron).

More Mods?

OK so one of our squadron (slice) has been looking at his possible builds, and he's a little underwhelmed by the options open to his Fang Fighter.

So I put my GM/game design hat on and did some thinking - using the Pilot Abilities as an inspiration.

So my solution, make more options for the Modification slots. Now here is the meat of what I'm proposing;

Make title cards available as (expensive) modifications.

So the how - all titles remain faction specific (if the ship is in more than one faction, so is the title) and if they are for a small based ship they can only be out in a small ship (large are large only as well). As for cost, I'm currently thinking 2x or 3x base cost (minimum of 2 or 3 for those 0 point upgrades).

These rules do not change how Titles work on the ship they are intended for.

So what do you all think? We have just under 2 weeks until our next HotAC session so id welcome some discussion here to guide our final choice.

Regards

I'm Rek!

I didn't get completely clear of the Interceptors! 2 of them still had me in arc (along with 2 normal TIEs) so I'm so glad we managed to destroy the last of the sensor beacons and bug out before I had to try and weather a hail of fire.

Took a couple of pics, both from the second game -

Before first movement - http://i.imgur.com/HinS36g.jpg?2

At the start of the last turn - http://i.imgur.com/u9xbK0x.jpg?2

After the last mission I have 6 XP to spend and a spare elite talent slot so think I'm going to go with Predator to get 'dem re-rolls. After that, I was planning on upgrading to a B-Wing but I think the E-Wing or ARC-170 might be the way to go (and keep our diverse squadron).

At last, someone else from the squadron surfaces, I'd forgotten you were still in arc right at the end - things were a little chaotic during that missing.

I'd say bring the arc to the party.

Regards

Strafe

So I've had think and come up with a toned down version of the titles as modifications idea above - same setup as above in terms of points cost and faction/base size limits - but you can only convert 1 modification slot in this way, so you can't stack really crazy combos

So we had our HotAC session last night, and ooooh what a session.

The whole squadron was in attendance, so 8 ships including a large base.

First off we made a decision on the "title cards as a mod" idea, and we have decided you can only use 1 mod this way, and ot costs 3x the printed cost (with a minimum of 3pts)

Then we began the "capture the refuelling station" mission - anyone who is worried about the changes we have made affecting balance, you can stop worrying now, this scenario had a very good go an kicking our arse.

I'll get into the detail in a follow-up post (or maybe Rek will as he took a load of pictures of the maybe unfolding) but here is the summery of what we got up to.

To start with we had to scale the scenario up to our squadron, so we moved to a 4x4 board, added 2 more turbolasers to the station, added an extra shield and fuel tank to the station, and then worked out the AI ships. We ended up with 5 TIE fighters and 4 TIE interceptors on the table at deployment, we then had two squadrons of TIE bombers arriving later in the game (10 bombers total!), and finally our late-game ACE turned out to be a pilot skill 5 Phantom with Gunner, advanced cloak, fire control system, and Backstabbers ability. So 19 ships vs our 8 (and the yt1300)

By the end of it, well lets just say it was a hell of a game.....

Back later

Here's some of the pics I took, plus a bit of a play by play.

As Surak said, we'd added a couple of extra modules to the station to expand past the existing scaling and boy did we pay for it!

http://i.imgur.com/hf9KTzt.jpg

That's how the board looked after the first movement phase, we'd all moved ahead as fast as we could to try and thin out the defenses and get into position to take out the shield generators and allow our boarding party to land. We were facing a 5 strong TIE squadron and had a 4 strong Interceptor squadron skulking around the back of the station (not to mention all the station's turrets which have a range of 2-4).

http://i.imgur.com/fzaFKQb.jpg

A couple of turns later and things were already starting to go wrong (especially for me!). Our transport was hanging back waiting for the shields to drop as planned but the shield generators were taking more fire than expected to take down (one of the extra modules was an extra shield generator, giving the whole station 3 defense dice). In my eagerness to get the far right hand shield generator, I'd moved too far forward and made myself the primary target to the squadron of interceptors, I survived the encounter but in the pic you can see my poor little x-wing being found to be in range and arc of one of the turrets. I was removed from play very shortly after the photo was taken .

http://i.imgur.com/6HUwiex.jpg

Turn 4, things were going from bad to worse! The first squadron on Bombers arrived, we still hadn't taken down any of the shield generators, nor had we managed to finish off the TIE squadron.

http://i.imgur.com/AST37Bo.jpg?1

Things did not improve during Turn 5 when the second bomber squadron turned up (we had to use the coloured A Wings as proxys). Magnet had bitten the big one, Dice (in his TIE defender) was doing a brilliant job covering the transport but also wasn't long for this world and we STILL hadn't taken out the shield generators. Things were looking grim!

http://i.imgur.com/E3oXQQn.jpg?1

A turn later and we'd lost Hammer-Time, The Sunshine Bus and Dice and the bombers were targeting the boarding party transport... BUT we took out all of the shield generators in a single turn! There was hope, albiet a slim one!

http://i.imgur.com/Cbedljw.jpg?1

If you can figure out what's going on here, you are doing better than me! And I took the photo! Straif had the attention of the second wave of bombers and the transport had taken a beating, thankfully the scenario gives it an extra shield per player and we needed every single shield! Also working in our favour was the turrets have a minimum range of 2!

http://i.imgur.com/31UeGeJ.jpg

Turn 8! The last of the enemy reinforcements arrived (thankfully in the best place possible, the other side of the board) and with Straif getting blown out of the sky and the transport docking, it was up to Slice and Imp-poster to stay alive long enough for the boarding party to reach the command centre and take over the station.

http://i.imgur.com/mCJ01pc.jpg

4 turns and a series of miraculous escapes later, with the final dice roll of the game the boarding party took the command centre and were able to turn the stations guns on the imperials, forcing to them to quit the field! Slice and Imp-poster manage to stay alive, saving us from the jaws of defeat.

Despite getting shot down right at the start, I escaped with just the loss of my most expensive upgrade (proton torpedos) and still netted an extra 20 XP to spend.

It was an immensely tense and fun scenario, I cannot wait for our next mission in a couple of weeks!

Great write-up mate,

Was one heck of a close game, now I've had a week to ponder how I'm going to spend the spoils of the last game (incidental I lost my hot-shot blaster due to blowing up) here is what I've come up with;

Lancer

PS 5

Latts Razzi ability

Weapons engineer

Wingman

Shadowcaster title

Gyro targeting

Burnout slam

I'm trying for a support-type build that doesn't slow down the rest of the squadron, so if anyone has better ideas let me know (I've got 18pts to spend, and you need to take the PS down to 4, and loose weapon engineer and latts Razzi ability to get to my end-of-last-game build)

Regards

Strafe

Quick update, our mission next week is "secure holonet receiver"

Misfit squadron took to the skies once again yesterday evening. Unfortunately Hammer Time and Dice were unavailable so we were down to 6 ships. We played the first mission of the Defector arc, "Secure Holonet Receiver".

As we are enjoying tinkering with the ruleset, we decided to add in some Scum adversaries to spice things up. We reasoned that as our squadron exceeds the standard scaling, the imperials would need some help dealing with us and hire in some mercs of their own.

The other thing to note was that we were using the X-Wing AI app (it's in beta test and available on iOS here - http://x-wing-ai-testflight.herokuapp.com/ ). It really sped up moving the AI ships and when I got home I saw an update that makes switching ships even quicker, really impressed and really recommend you check it out.

We unfortunately ran out of time to play the full scenario, we spent too long setting up and talking about our various upgrades but here's how it went -

Starting on the board was a 5 strong squadron of TIE bombers and a 5 strong squadron of TIE Advanced while waiting in the wings were 2 squadrons of Interceptors (4 strong), a squadron of Scum Y-Wings (x5) and a lambda shuttle.

Turn 1- Was pretty uneventful, there was a Satelite Relay just outside our deployment zone that was quickly ion'D ready to be scanned, Imp Poster and Slice peeled off to the left to take on the Advanced while me (in my new ARC-170) and Surak went right in to deal with the Bombers (packing flechette missiles), Sunshine bus blasted ahead with his Slam drive to ion bomb the Sensor array while Magnet hung back to babysit the HWK-290.

Turn 2 - Once again, I'd plowed ahead without thinking things through and made myself the primary target of the bomber squadron but I weathered their opening volley only losing a single shield. In return we blew one of the bombers out of the sky. First blood to Misfit Squadron!

Turn 3 - At the beginning of turn 3 things looked like this - http://i.imgur.com/SVp47FU.jpg

The satelite relay proved to be a dud and Imp Poster and Slice quicky discovered they were in danger of being outgunned. Surak and I went on to inflict heavy damage on the bombers (though they did knock out the rest of my shields) and Sunshine Bus ioned the Sensor Array before swinging round to help with the TIE advanced.

Turn 4 - Disaster struck! The first squadron of Interceptors arrived in the worst place possible, right next to our HWK-290 http://i.imgur.com/1dvNDM5.jpg?4

There was a moment of panic but cooler heads prevailed and we had a plan - http://i.imgur.com/KpYixl0.jpg

After movement, the HWK was safe and the interceptors were in trouble, magnet left behind a present! BOOM! Slice, Imp Poster and Sunshine Bus were tearing into the advanced while I was making good use of my rear firing arc to inflict more damage on the Interceptors! The second relay proved a dud as well but we were making progress thinning out the opposition.

Turn 5 - http://i.imgur.com/0h98e6b.jpg

Another turn of hammering the imperials without finding the holonet channel. We definitely had them on the ropes and would be ready for their re-inforcements in 3 turns but we ran out of time. A pity as I think this was our strongest showing so far, we'll get them next time!

My ARC-170 build -

ARC-170, Pilot skill 4 with Proton Torpedos, R2-D2, Tailgunner, Alliance Overhaul, Predator, Extra-Munitions.

Nice report,

We had quite a nice combo running on our flank, Latts Razzi's ability and a weapons engineer has made quite a difference to the support ability of the shadowcaster.

Roll on the next attempt at this after Xmas.

Hi,

really enjoyable reports. How did you desided, what stats the scums ships should have? Do you have stat sheets for this ships as well? I'm planing on playing the campaign and would love to fly the fang fighter. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the link to the AI app, I didn't know such a thing existed!