2nd pass of our Heroes of the Aturi Cluster scenario. Still just balancing a bit and using the thematic pilots but it's working. I need to fine tune a few things...

The good - players challenged, had fun, and the AI didn't flip out.
The bad - deployment zones need some adjusting and need to make some subtle improvements on how I manage over flies of the trench.

The really bad - I can't figure out pictures on here so uh... enjoy?

https://goo.gl/photos/WHmXm9WWRKzfisTAA

7 Rebel fighters attack vs 9 AI Black Sqdn TIE Fighters plus a special squad of trench defenders - Vader, Mauler Mithel, Backstabber.

The Rebels do manage to score a desperate and costly victory sacrificing many pilots to allow Garven Dreis a free shot at the exhaust port. Biggs, Dutch, Unnamed Gold Squadron Pilot and Wedge will all be missed.

The Death Star is a 6' long by 3' wide setup, with a roughly 2.5" deep trench. We've got some clear acrylic plates (not enough yet) so ships can overfly the trench. Tonights problem with this is that ALL the TIE Fighters and half the Rebels tried to cross all in one spot, while a few ships flew beneath. Very tricky work moving things around. In some cases we marked a plate and lifted the acrylic tray with all fighters out of the way in order to move fighters in the trench.

I want to touch up the rules a bit and I'll add a link to it here... need a place to store it first.

Oddly enough - both times I've run this Porkins turns out to be the hero in dealing with Vader... This time he's caused interference in the trench that slowed up the dark Jedi.

Wow... I took a long time on this...

So, Revision C of the rules is complete with updates made based on the second run through. Hoping that in a few weeks I'll get a chance to run this through again with the changes in starting positions. That's the biggest area of concern right now.

I currently do not have a dropbox or anything like that, so well... pictures of the rules works well enough. Link below for google pictures.

https://goo.gl/photos/CnT7sASUDiHLrc5ZA

If I can baseline the balance, we may start trying our actual HotAC pilots in this for fun. It's definitely something my group has expressed interest in.

Thoughts?

Thematic Rules - minus deployment picture... blah. It seems to have vanished but it was low quality anyway. Hope this formats ok.

The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the star fleet. Its defenses are designed around a direct, large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense.

An anaylsis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. But the approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It’s a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you’ll have to use proton torpedoes.

The Trench

During the activation phase, after moving, a player flying parallel over the trench may enter as their action. The fighter is placed inside the trench with the same heading and location. A k-turn executed from inside the trench will end outside above the surface. Fighters inside the trench may not attack fighters outside the trench area, however may be the subject of attacks from outside if the targeting ship is over the trench area with arc.

Trench AI Modification

While Imperial forces are in the trench and targeting a Rebel fighter completing their attack run, all maneuvers are considered STRAIGHT. Use the roll to determine speed only.

The Target Shaft

The Exhaust Port has 2 Evades on every shot due to its small size and rolls 1 Agility die. Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction so only a critical damage will destroy the Death Star. The shaft is ray shielded so players must use Proton Torpedoes.

Delta Squad

The turn following the first Rebel fighter to enter the trench, Delta Squad arrives on the map already in the trench and following the Rebel fighters. It’s composed of Darth Vader and his wingmen. The entire squad resolves on Darth Vader’s PS 9 while in formation.

The formation will target the nearest Rebel fighter in arc flying in the trench as priority. If there are no Rebel fighters actively attacking the exhaust port, they will attack other Rebel fighters using the standard Attack AI.

Darth Vader can complete two actions, so may continue down the action list to complete a second action when appropriate. Start second action with target lock if none available from beginning of movement.

Turbolaser Towers

The turbolaser towers were designed to defend against a large scale attack. This makes the weapons ineffective against small one man fighters, however if they strike the results could be devastating. Each tower has one attack (red) and fires between ranges 2 – 5. If the attack hits, cancel all results and instead deal three critical damage. Turbolaser resolve fire at the end of the combat phase and may rotate 90 degrees to track the nearest Rebel fighter after firing. The towers have 3 Hull points and resist attacks with 1 Agility die.

Treat towers like epic cruisers... If overlapped at end of maneuver roll one red die and resolve results.

And our first run with Heroes of the Aturi Cluster pilots.

Ok, we'll call this HotAC pilots chart release 0.01.2... Made a minor tweak. Our trio of ships were hardly the overpowered squadron typical of late campaign pilots, and we may have got a shot off had we hit the trench in a different order... This is definitely hard mode!

If anybody actually tries this out, let me know how it goes. Any feedback would be helpful in further balancing this mission.

Boost action is unavailable while in the trench!

Deployment:

• Alpha - Deploys range one from the far corner from the exhaust port - across from the Rebel deployment zone
• Beta / Charlie - Deploys Range 6 from the same corner (if using two FFG maps - range 3 away from the center line)
• Gamma - Deploys at Range 9 from the corner (if using two FFG maps - the center line)
• Delta - See main rules for Delta special deployment

Legend:

• H = a TIE Fighter - yes, I wanted something visual without actually opening a graphic program. For an additional challenge to late campaigners, convert the TIEs to PS3.
• Adv = TIE Advanced
• @ = elite pilot
• 6| = Average pilot skill of 6 or greater

way cool.

Are you trying to stick as close to NH trench run as possible without using the MF???

Just now, Ghostrider58 said:

Are you trying to stick as close to NH trench run as possible without using the MF???

Pretty much. I didn't see a key trigger that would be effective without being too effective. New Han Solo's ability might simplify the problem though... Just deploy him at a trigger or turn... I could also have stolen from Dagobah Dave's scenario or something, but because my objective was different I decided to keep things original.

I'm open to experimentation and suggestions, but it's something I can only try out once a month or so.

Another Heroes run complete. New findings...

• Boosting in the trench is broken. Well, that should have been obvious due to Dagohbah Dave's experience. New rule, no boost while in the trench.
• Five player average PS 7 might be too easy... Maybe. Without boost it might actually be balanced. Only changing the boost rule to be certain.

1 hour ago, LagJanson said:

Another Heroes run complete. New findings...

• Boosting in the trench is broken. Well, that should have been obvious due to Dagohbah Dave's experience. New rule, no boost while in the trench.
• Five player average PS 7 might be too easy... Maybe. Without boost it might actually be balanced. Only changing the boost rule to be certain.

Perhaps boosting in the trench carries the daredevil penalty. Roll 2 attack dice and suffer damage.

4 hours ago, LagJanson said:

Another Heroes run complete. New findings...

• Boosting in the trench is broken. Well, that should have been obvious due to Dagohbah Dave's experience. New rule, no boost while in the trench.
• Five player average PS 7 might be too easy... Maybe. Without boost it might actually be balanced. Only changing the boost rule to be certain.

This was beautiful! I have to ask. Where did you get the mats, overlays or whatever they are called for the Death Star? The set up is friggin' awesome!

11 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Perhaps boosting in the trench carries the daredevil penalty. Roll 2 attack dice and suffer damage.

I think a Y-Wing, or more frightening, a B-Wing with engine upgrade would take that risk repeatedly. They can take a beating and rolling two red is much less frightening than having Vader, Backstabber and Mauler Mithel behind you taking shots. Last night we watched a Y-Wing with engine upgrade leave the TIEs way behind and was uncatchable.

I floated the idea last night of getting a stress for boosting, which thematically could be argued as appropriate... (Re: Biggs' concern about pulling up in time) but the general consensus with the players was it would likely be still too powerful.

8 hours ago, Stoneface said:

This was beautiful! I have to ask. Where did you get the mats, overlays or whatever they are called for the Death Star? The set up is friggin' awesome!

Thanks! It's a simple/cheap setup with wood pressboard, some 2 foot lengths of pine hobby boards, and some wood glue obtained from Home Depot for likely less than $25 CDN. It's basically a "F" pattern where the long edge is the playing surface so that all the pieces can be packed away tightly for travel. The mats... one of the guys decided my paint job wasn't sufficient (it wasn't) so picked up the mats online and had them printed...

http://www.dracolupus.co.uk/Deathstar_Surface/p3680198_17246533.aspx

While the linked is the image we used, this is NOT the site he got it from. I can't find the link he sent me, I swear it was off boardgame geeks or something, but it was a google search and a trip to Staples. The interesting thing is that rolled dice just come to a stop on it's surface. Some things just stick like glue to it. The only complaint is a bit of glare from the lighting due to the glossiness of the print.

43 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I think a Y-Wing, or more frightening, a B-Wing with engine upgrade would take that risk repeatedly. They can take a beating and rolling two red is much less frightening than having Vader, Backstabber and Mauler Mithel behind you taking shots. Last night we watched a Y-Wing with engine upgrade leave the TIEs way behind and was uncatchable.

I floated the idea last night of getting a stress for boosting, which thematically could be argued as appropriate... (Re: Biggs' concern about pulling up in time) but the general consensus with the players was it would likely be still too powerful.

Thanks! It's a simple/cheap setup with wood pressboard, some 2 foot lengths of pine hobby boards, and some wood glue obtained from Home Depot for likely less than $25 CDN. It's basically a "F" pattern where the long edge is the playing surface so that all the pieces can be packed away tightly for travel. The mats... one of the guys decided my paint job wasn't sufficient (it wasn't) so picked up the mats online and had them printed...

http://www.dracolupus.co.uk/Deathstar_Surface/p3680198_17246533.aspx

While the linked is the image we used, this is NOT the site he got it from. I can't find the link he sent me, I swear it was off boardgame geeks or something, but it was a google search and a trip to Staples. The interesting thing is that rolled dice just come to a stop on it's surface. Some things just stick like glue to it. The only complaint is a bit of glare from the lighting due to the glossiness of the print.

I did a double take looking at the set-up. At first I thought the boards were flat. It wasn't until I watched the video that I saw the trench depression! Beautiful work! This must be a blast to play on!

Updated posted rules in the thread here. Changes marked with underlines.

Completed another cinematic run tonight with the most lopsided Rebel battle ever... Every TIE was shot down. Vader did shoot down a Gold squad Ywing and Dutch/Biggs both died in heavy fire from turrets... The Imperials were totally thwarted by Biggs though. So much interference. Dutch shot down Vader as the Advanced TIE pulled out of the trench to go for the second wave.

Almost all remaining torpedoes were fired, but Wedge managed to score the direct hit on the exhaust port on the final turn... Barely!

So, well, it's been a bit since I've added anything to this. There's been a few releases that have changed how this scenario could be run, and there are more coming. I thought I'd get started on an update here and maybe revisit after Saw's Rebels later. I'm also trying to make this more playable for player vs player scenarios. Dagobah Dave's scenario exists and is quite good, but I'm trying to keep things closer to the cinematic movies.

1) Trench run observations - The exhaust port has been hit more often than it has been missed when a torpedo has been fired. There is some luck involved, which might be an negative player experience if the dice bomb out. I don't want to include guidance chips because I think it would weigh too much in Rebel advantage so I'm open to some feedback here.

2) Trench run observations - Rebel players making their attack run tend to be less actively involved in play. There were thoughts of included turrets at the far end to add some dice rolling, but I'm not sure that's the answer. I'm honestly not sure there's much to add here. Vader and company have been quite lethal so the Rebels have enough to worry about. I have an untested idea that maybe I can extend the starting point to make their attack run out to the first 3' instead of 2', but that raises an issue with Vader actually being able to catch up.

3) The turrets - Actually, these are running well. It's a 50% chance of even making the Rebel player roll dice, and they only hit a target maybe once in every two games. That said, those rare hits are devastating enough that the Rebel players have been actively trying to destroy the turret emplacements. No change at this time!

4) Imperial forces - No change at this time. I've played with various deployment options with the HotAC AI and as long as the fighters aren't crammed too close or spread across 6' they seem to be pretty good.

5) Rebel forces - Yeah, there are changes here, but not as many as people might expect.
a) Flight Assist droids, Integrated Astromech and Guidance Chips: Keep in mind that the Imperial ships are not top of the development curve. The Rebels don't need these upgrades to stay competitive, so these are unnecessary.
b) There has been a lot of requests to add the Falcon into the scenario. It was too complicated before, but with the new Han Solo deployment options have been simplified to just timing - more on this after
c) I'd like to work on a variant where both Imperial and Rebel sides are human controlled. We tried it out with the current setup and it was a massive Imperial victory. Let the balancing commence...

Player vs Player setup

Overview:

Points:
126 9 Black Squadron TIEs (deploy after Rebels have deployed)
??? 6 Turrets
066 Vader with ATC & Predator plus Mauler Mithel and Backstabber*
192 Total (plus unknown turret values)

Points:
201 5 Red Sqdn and 3 Gold Sqdn each with one Proton Torpedo
045 New Han Solo*
246 Total

*Special Deployments
Vader and his wingmen still deploy the turn after the first Rebel fighters enter the trench. They can deploy within Range 1 of the edge of the map, behind the Rebel fighters, and face directly down the trench.

Han Solo I'm less... sure about. Deploy turn 9? Deploy if Rebels are reduced to two or three fighters? Create something more random that increases odds of Solo showing up as the game gets later? Anybody?

I'm actually looking at running this on a weekend to break up the tournaments a bit. Prizing would be:
1) MVPs for both Rebel and Imperial factions (as voted by the players)
2) A Rebel who succeeds in making the shot
3) Participation prizes

This scenario is ridicoulusly gorgeous.

Ok... it's official, I'm running the Death Star scenario as a team vs team event at the local shop on May 13th. Prizes and everything. I've refined things to a workable state, I think, but could use some people to poke some holes in what I think I've got. @Babaganoosh @heychadwick @Biff - got a sec?

I'm making cards for the turrets and exhaust port so people don't need to flip through a rule page to find what they need. It's also easier to spread out the towers between players if they have a matching number of cards to the towers themselves. I could use a second set of eyes to check for unintended consequences of my wording... I've already picked up on a couple of minor mistakes, so what I've posted here is actually more accurate than what I have on my draft copies of the cards.

Exhaust Port

When defending add 2 evade results.

Ignore any uncancelled hit results. Ignore all damage from primary weapon attacks.

Agility 1

Hull 1

Turbolaser Tower

If attack hits cancel all results and deal 3 critical damage.

May turn 90 degrees at the start of the activation phase.

PS 0

Attack 1 (range 2-5)

Agility 1

Hull 3

As to scoring, I'm undecided. I could seriously use some input here. I want to encourage team play but reward those who do an outstanding job, while discouraging the "I wanna live, so I'm going to run and hide" routine you sometimes see. We'll call that player Brave Sir Robin, eh?

1. Simplicity - I was thinking simple scores, the team that wins gets +2 points each and players get +1 point per kill. Grand score will be low without much gradient.
2. Standard Point Costs - +50 for players on the team that wins, and players get points equal to the ships they destroy. If I go this way I need to appropriately cost the turbolaser batteries and probably the exhaust port as well.
3. I need some sort of tie breaker. We're drafting prizes, and first and second will be already filtered out through the MVP voting scheme, but I'd like some way to determine who drafts next. Survival is one. I need another...

Total distraction as FFG just used the Death Star in Alderaan...

On 5/1/2018 at 10:10 AM, LagJanson said:

Exhaust Port

When defending add 2 evade results.

Ignore any uncancelled hit results. Ignore all damage from primary weapon attacks.

Agility 1

Hull 1

Turbolaser Tower

If attack hits cancel all results and deal 3 critical damage.

May turn 90 degrees at the start of the activation phase.

PS 0

Attack 1 (range 2-5)

Agility 1

Hull 3

As to scoring, I'm undecided. I could seriously use some input here. I want to encourage team play but reward those who do an outstanding job, while discouraging the "I wanna live, so I'm going to run and hide" routine you sometimes see. We'll call that player Brave Sir Robin, eh?

1. Simplicity - I was thinking simple scores, the team that wins gets +2 points each and players get +1 point per kill. Grand score will be low without much gradient.
2. Standard Point Costs - +50 for players on the team that wins, and players get points equal to the ships they destroy. If I go this way I need to appropriately cost the turbolaser batteries and probably the exhaust port as well.
3. I need some sort of tie breaker. We're drafting prizes, and first and second will be already filtered out through the MVP voting scheme, but I'd like some way to determine who drafts next. Survival is one. I need another...

Exhaust port - You may want to consider specifying when the 2 evades are added to the defender's roll result. At the start of the compare results step? As a dice modification (after the attacker modifies the defender's die roll)? Immediately after rolling before any modifications? When those two are added can have a huge effect on the durability of the port. Are you allowing the port to take damage from bombs or other non-attack methods (splash damage e.g., Ruthlessness). Depending on your answer, you should consider adding more attack types that should be ignored or specifically state which attack types can be made against the port.

Turbolaser Tower - Can the turret rotate less than 90 deg? "May turn up to 90 deg...". Is the tower a primary or secondary weapon (for range bonus effects)?

Scoring - I like #2 better than #1. Is the +50 point idea go to teams that destroy the port? If so, I'd recommend lowering this. I like the idea of giving extra points for achieving victory conditions, but wouldn't want it to be the determining factor in who wins the overall event. I'm thinking of cases where perhaps early in the game it becomes clear that the port can not be destroyed, so if there is no chance of being a winner, why keep playing? As for tie breaker - what about assists? Otherwise, I'd recommend ship kills.

My god... This is how I would want to play X-Wing. Kudos to you for doing this and thanks for making the rules available. I may never play it, but it makes me happy just knowing that it exists.

Firstly, Biff, thanks for getting back to me in this busy time of 2.0 news, panic and craziness. I had my doubts anything is getting noticed at all.

40 minutes ago, Biff said:

Exhaust port - You may want to consider specifying when the 2 evades are added to the defender's roll result. At the start of the compare results step? As a dice modification (after the attacker modifies the defender's die roll)? Immediately after rolling before any modifications? When those two are added can have a huge effect on the durability of the port. Are you allowing the port to take damage from bombs or other non-attack methods (splash damage e.g., Ruthlessness). Depending on your answer, you should consider adding more attack types that should be ignored or specifically state which attack types can be made against the port.

You raise a good point here on when the evades are added. HotAC things get broken very fast, so the timing is going to matter a lot. For the sake of the scenario run next week though, there are no bombs or EPTs to mess around with timing, so I'm pretty safe. I don't think I'm going to make any grand quality cards right now while I decide my next steps in this 2.0 world, so I may leave this relatively unchanged.

45 minutes ago, Biff said:

Turbolaser Tower - Can the turret rotate less than 90 deg? "May turn up to 90 deg...". Is the tower a primary or secondary weapon (for range bonus effects)?

Good catch!!! Yes, it's a primary weapon. Defenders get an extra green die at range 3+, but as the gun can't fire close in, there's no bonus at range 1.

46 minutes ago, Biff said:

Scoring - I like #2 better than #1. Is the +50 point idea go to teams that destroy the port? If so, I'd recommend lowering this. I like the idea of giving extra points for achieving victory conditions, but wouldn't want it to be the determining factor in who wins the overall event. I'm thinking of cases where perhaps early in the game it becomes clear that the port can not be destroyed, so if there is no chance of being a winner, why keep playing? As for tie breaker - what about assists? Otherwise, I'd recommend ship kills.

Yes, it was +50 points to the Rebels if they destroy the Death Star or +50 to the Imperials if they defend it... I think I see your point there. Thankfully, though we've had some battles go pretty lopsided, there's always been an opportunity for either side to win right down to the end... Does +10 points sound more appropriate here?

I like 10 points, but could see how you may want to adjust this a bit based on more playtesting.

Finished our HotAC campaign and still two weeks to 2.0 so we finally gave the trench a run with our HotAC pilots again.

• 2 Xwings
• 1 Ywing
• 1 Bwing
• 1 ridiculous ARC
• Combined PS average between 7 and 8

I was worried when we lined up five fighters vs five TIE Fighters and so I swapped the PS 8 requirement Advanced Ace with the PS 4 so that it would show up. I was also short an Advanced so a single Interceptor showed up on turn three with the ace.

Turns out I needn't be concerned.

What initially looked like a rout turned quickly into a close game and then tilted heavily toward Imperial victory. With two turns to go, our Rebel heroes were reduced to a single Xwing and the Ywing, both racing toward the exhaust port with half the Imperial starfighter wing chasing them down. So the Rebels made their first shot count.

Balance for five high level players looks pretty good!

Overall super cool Lag, biggest thing I’m taking from it is the clear paths on different levels. OMG would xwing be cooler instead of playing tournament bumper cars having different lanes in a maze arrangement to provide over-under passes. Pure brilliance sir, pure brilliance.

I haven’t read your rules yet all the way through but do you cover if a ship flies off an upper ledge? Do they drop to the lower or is it a fly off the board egde scenario? I’m thinking t-roll drifts from one upper layer to an adjacent one. Style and substance ?

3 hours ago, LordFajubi said:

I haven’t  read your rules yet all the way through but do you cover if a ship flies off an upper  ledge? Do they drop to the lower or is it a fly off the board egde scenario? I’m thinking t-roll drifts from one upper layer to an adjacent one. Style and substance ?  

I have clear acrylic sheets I picked up at Home Depot that are placed over the trench for fly overs. A ship can go in as an action which means aligning the ship to the movement template on the lower level. You can see a bit of that in the YouTube link.

So yeah... Tycho ability would allow a tallon roll into the trench. Great style points, not sure tactically!