I've just finished a solo run through (2 ships) while limiting myself to the X- and Y-wing only. I found that the X-wing is great at mid-campaign, the Y-wing is great early campaign, but neither are particularly good on the later missions. I had enormous trouble with "Revenge" where I was out-Pilot-Skilled and outmaneuvered. Only a well-timed bump saved me. It got me thinking about the other difficult missions - Capture Officer and Disable Sensor Net chief among them. What makes them so hard?

For Revenge is was the extremely focused, high-PS enemy Interceptors, plus the terrible losing condition.

For Disable Sensor Net, t was the waves upon waves of Interceptors that come in during the mid-game. I can't imagine playing with 6 players in such a minefield.

For Capture Officer, I think the main problem is attempting it with early-campaign ships. X-wings and Y-wings just don't have the punch to get through that Jammer + Flight Instructor + Protect Action defense in time. The only exception is when you bring a Y-wing with 2 proton bombs, where disabling happens very, very easily.

What missions did you find hardest, and why?

Capture Officer (out of the very few missions I got to try - long story, bad group) seemed the hardest, of the starting missions at least. Though, I've only played it once.

It's the fact that you have to *clear* the board. Your best chance is a 4 turn window in the middle where no reinforcements come in, but if you miss that... it seems very difficult to turn it around. Granted, when I tried we were down to 2 players for the rest of the evening and we had a ship each - probably not ideal for that mission. Especially with no Y-Wing/turret

I definitely agree about the clear the board aspect of Capture Officer - its certainly the hardest starting mission.

When playing with my group, I've been tempted to change the mechanic. I believe that if no more reinforcements come in after the Shuttle is disabled, the mission becomes much more balanced. Currently, the best early campaign solution is lots and lots of BTL-A4 Y-wings with TLT. Just bring it down turn 1. Even so, my success rate is like 25%

Haven't played Capture Officer, yet. But for me the hardest until now was Cloak and Dagger. First time I lost many turns fighting with the Ties and located the space station on the last turn almost, so failed the mission for running out of time. Second time I played it I ignored the Ties and focused to find the space station asap. Had the bad luck to find it only on the 10th token and I placed the space station in a bad place for myself and for my ships. My B-Wing didn't survived the Ties and the Turbolaser Towers constant attacks, but finished the mission this time somehow

Cloak and Dagger is very luck dependent. I happened to place the Station on the fourth token draw then proton bombed the crap out of the installations until they died. The phantom killed my other ship though, so I immediately had to jump to hyperspace for a slim win. I think thiis is the one mission where A-wings come into their own - a 5 straight + boost + scan gets you those distant tokens really fast.

For new players, Capture Officer as an early game mission can be very difficult. I can't remember what the missions is called, but the one where you have to destroy the Imperial sensor net. The difficult part is making sure your squad focuses on the objective because those sensor nets can end up calling in an insane amount of TIE Interceptors if you're not careful.

Some of the later Phantom missions get rough. They get insane bumps from shuttles or base elements giving such a heavy advantage. The decloak is so random that the Phantoms are rarely optimum killing machines but the guns alone allow them to murder our Rebel fighters. I've yet to try Revenge due to this...

Capture Officer... Yeah, we've only had trouble with the shuttle once... The first time... When we didn't brain too good and went head on. Yeeaaah... It's the room clearing after that is such a nuisance. I think you're right about it being beginner level ships being key.

Last time I played through Capture Officer, it was laughably easy. One proton bomb direct hit = disabled shuttle.

Proton bombs are the way to go - that or Adv. Homing Missiles from an A-wing.

RStan - you're thinking of "Disable Sensor Net" Which is the second mission of the refuelling station arc. I think its a lot harder with 3 or less players, because you don't have enough firepower to stay as a squad, have half you ships killing sensors, and the other half fending off TIEs.

I've attempted Capture officer about ten times now (through several campaigns). Early-campaign, even flying perfectly (Range 1 shots from several ships for multiple turns), bad dice alone can ruin it. My general strategy is to come in perpendicular to the shuttle on the first turn, which gives you at least 3 turns of shots.

For Capture Officer, I think the main problem is attempting it with early-campaign ships. X-wings and Y-wings just don't have the punch to get through that Jammer + Flight Instructor + Protect Action defense in time. The only exception is when you bring a Y-wing with 2 proton bombs, where disabling happens very, very easily.

I've always encouraged ordnance in HotAC games for new players and I often have at least one Torpedo, even on a X-wing. I've never really found that mission to be too hard. Y-wings with TLT's are also good at hitting the Shuttle. Ordnance is pretty strong in HotAC as it can easily destroy a single ship or really disable the one target you need.

I've never seen much trouble disabling the shuttle, clearing the board after is a problem for early ships. With decent dice enemy TIEs can be frustrating to kill, and if reinforcements come in at the wrong location you can waste time trying to knock them out while turns pass and more show up. Even with munitions it can be tough for just a couple low level X and Y wings to knock out the shuttle with the TIEs feeding it evades. Proton bomb getting a direct hit would do it without worrying about dice rolls but needs a little luck.

Yeah, my normal strategy is to get everyone to place diagonally behind the shuttle and 3-bank in towards it. This guarantees 1 turn of munitions fire wthous any heavy return fire (normally just the lead TIE). Plasma torps + Proton torps with either PTL or Predator and guidance chips can come very close to knocking it out. Alternatively, I'll attack the tokenless TIEs and wipe them off before the bomber shows up. Playing the mission on standard difficulty once PS 3 is reached is very doable, as Predator/PTL make TIEs just pop. I've had a BTL-A4 Y-wing with TLT kill 2 TIEs in one turn, with only 1 damage previously on them.

Securing the Holonet Receiver and Capture the Refueling Station, I think are the hardest especially if the concept of co-operation is foreign to some players in your squad. The time constraints, amount of reinforcements and the "hide and seek" of the Holonet requires a sound strategy, good cooperation and some good dice luck.

It's amazing and frustrating how many seasoned players become point hounds when they play Heroes. They treat each scenario as a 100 point death match rather than a step towards a goal.

The biggest one that I remember giving trouble to my group was the mission with the Phantoms where you have to scan clouds and hope that a Phantom doesn't pop out. Mostly due to luck-of-the-draw. Almost every single time, we maxed out on how many Phantoms might show up during the first round of scanning. Our squad was pretty powerful, and shredded most of the low-attack TIE Fighters, but being hit by two range 1 Phantoms at the same time was just ridiculous. For reference, we had 3 X-Wings, a B-Wing, a couple Y-Wings, and an A-Wing in our group. Though, usually we only had 3-4 of the six players at a time, with two of the X-Wings and the B-Wing being the only ones in virtually every mission. We did shockingly well during Capture Officer and many of the other missions that others have mentioned. Honestly, the Phantom mission is the only one I recall being nearly unbeatable for our group.

Well, aside from the couple of custom missions I ran. I really do need to make up a couple posts about those missions one of these days. Suffice it to say, Heroes of the Aturi Cluster got... Epic.

Our crew failed Capture Officer the first time, beat it the second. We've failed Secure Holonet twice. We typically play with a full component of six, so we end up with a ton of ships on the board at the same time. For Secure Holonet both times the HWK has been destroyed, which immediately ends the mission. The first time we identified the channel on our next-to-last try, and the second attempt we identified it right away. It didn't seem to matter much. The second time around the random imperial upgrade was a second shuttle!

Well, aside from the couple of custom missions I ran. I really do need to make up a couple posts about those missions one of these days. Suffice it to say, Heroes of the Aturi Cluster got... Epic.

Do tell! I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate the Reprisal (Star Destroyer) into the campaign, but I get stuck on scale.

We've failed Secure Holonet twice. We typically play with a full component of six, so we end up with a ton of ships on the board at the same time.

I've started playing on +1 player difficulty, which really brings the heat on TIE swarm missions like Secure Holonet. The HWK just doesn't have the agility to avoid all those shots.