Irregular squadron HOTAC season 3 kicks off with a distress signal being received from a rebel cell on a remote outer rim planetoid. A patrol investigating a derelict imperial mining facility discovered that it was active and heavily defended! The only ships in range to assist the patrol are the members of Irregular squadron, in standard t65 xwings, testing new high-yield proton torpedoes designed specifically for use against emplacements and ground-based vehicles. Woefully underequipped and devoid of their usual starships, the Irregulars nonetheless race to the aid of their fellow rebels in the hope that they can arrive in time and rescue the doomed patrol!
The mission objectives are to destroy the shield generator in time for a local rebel hammerhead Corvette to perform an orbital bombardment of the facility to cover our escape and to save at least one of the z95 headhunters in the rebel cell! The z95s are flying with strike ai against any tie fighters and are bone stock. The Irregulars xwings are loaded with experimental, high-yield proton torpedoes that can only be used against ground targets, but have 4 dice rolls at up to range 5, and if any hits land, then all of them do. The shield has 30 HP and always has a reinforce token at the beginning of each round. Our rules for atmospheric flight are that any ship can perform a 90 degree turn at the end of a maneuver if they roll two attack dice and the two results are different, if they're the same, then the ship takes 2 damage and doesn't turn.
The academy tie fighters primary goal was to destroy the z95s, while the emplacements targeted the Irregulars. The at at's were static and could only hit things that fell into their bullseye arcs, but could shoot at unlimited range. We decided out of the gate that the best course of action was to reduce the number of ties by a max of 3 (once 4 died, they would form a new squad that would spawn at one of the jump in points on the table randomly) and then to focus all our fire on the shields.
Our opening Salvo saw one each of the ties downed and the loss of one z95. After flying fully upgraded custom ships for so long, it's easy to forget how squishy base ships can be!
Irregular 1 making a run against the shield generator!
Between our z95 and some overzealous Irregulars, we killed enough ties to trigger a respawn next turn. Whoops!
First damage on the shield!
Respawn triggers and somehow the gm manages to roll all of the ties into the same vector. Absolute madness!
"I think I'll use a force token to turn around..." (all pilots roll at the beginning of the game and are allowed a certain number of force tokens that allow them to cheese things within reason, and any spent tokens go to the gm to use for enemies)
Enough damage has been dealt to the generator to trigger the arrival of the elite TIE Hunter Widowmaker Squadron Pilots! These are some absolutely nasty ships that were designed to present a real challenge to our normal super powered hotac ships. Our xwings stand little to no chance against them, especially in their damaged state. To make matters worse, one of them spawned directly behind the z95s!
A Widowmaker Squadron Pilot licking their lips at these easy pickings...
Torpedoes doing work on that shield! Almost halfway there!
This is about to be one dead xwing. When a pilot dies, they can assume control of an ai friendly ship on the field. Keeps everyone playing even when they lose!
At at bringing out the heavy ordinance LOL
Lieutenant Dan and Toucan Sam were imperial agents this whole time!?!?
That xwing is sweating after his buddy got turned into space dust, but man what a maneuver!
It comes down to this... Will the hunters kill the z95s before a single final point of damage can be dealt to the shield!?
She's down to a single hit point, but the hunters get to fire first!
Hammerhead Corvette in place above the battlefield!
Success! The hammerhead performed a low orbit surface strike that allowed for the surviving pilots to escape! It was a hard won victory, but a great way to get back to the table and a nail biting start to season 3 of HOTAC!
