For those who demo'd this, would a 3D trench (cardstock) work for these rules? You could place X wings in the trenches, avoiding obstacles like overhanging bridges while being shot at by ties and trench turrets, while trying to "focus" on launching torpedos at the target hole?
Meanwhile, at the surface, Y-Wings and secondary Xwings could be fighting ties and bombing strategic targets and turrets?
I haven't demoed it but have a look at that:
I found the link at BGG in the X-wing forum section. Looks pretty cool.
Yea, some mats with a Death Star Trench or A Star Destroyer to attack would be cool.
Or a map of the moon of Yavin and Deathstar in the background!
I am hope they capital ships latter on into the expansions.
Like lots of their other games I would love to see this as a deluxe expansion. A quality gaming mat towers, overpasses, squeezes and tie squad's. NO FALCON INTERVENTION, if you start to fail your run outta the trench clean up the TIEs and begin again or something like that. Just cant wait the tension might actually force (haha) me to reread all of my xwing books just to get ready again
J
jeditimothy said:
I am hope they capital ships latter on into the expansions.
This is something I've been thinking of lately, and the idea of a Death Star trench kinda fits in with it.
How do you feel about setting up a capital ship on either side, one representing a Star Destroyer and the other a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser. The capital ships would have turrets on them that the player can place where they want on that small section of the ship. This is important, the battle only takes place in a small space between the two capital ships, but the whole capital ship is not represented on the playing field. So then the goal becomes knocking out all of your opponent's turrets before they knock out yours, while avoiding enemy starfighters and the turret laser fire as well.
The biggest problem here is that it is more like a mission, not something you could implement in normal skirmishes. Anyway, just some thoughts I had.
I think we would all love to play in that epic struggle between good and evil when the fearless Rebel pilots make their run on the dreaded Death Star. However, I just don't think it will work in this game.
1. Size. You would either need to play on an indoor basketball court, or have a map where the trench turns and winds like it did on the original Rogue Squadron game for Nintendo 64. Playing a trench on the table top is…well, you'd reach the end of it in 3 or 4 turns. Kind of a short game.
2. Bore factor. Yes, I just said the Death Star trench is boring. Why? Because the good guys follow a straight course hoping not to get lit up by the TIEs behind them. No opportunity to shoot, no room to move ("It's no good, I can't maneuver!"). You might as well let the Empire roll the dice until they score enough hits in an allotted number of rolls without moving any of the ships.
3. Balance. I know what you're thinking: "Well it wouldn't JUST be the trench. They'd have to fly along the surface, avoiding the turret fire, and then make their way into the trench." You're right, that does sound more fun. It also sounds impossible for the Rebels to win. Remember, at GenCon the 2:1 ratio of TIEs resulted in an Empire victory every single time. If you add turrets in there the poor little Rebellion doesn't stand a chance.
So those are my thoughts on a Death Star Trench idea. Am I right? You tell me.
Parakitor, I think you are right.
It may be possible to make this both feasible and fun, but only with a ton of special rules. To address the scale issue, you would probably have to have some sort of rule for a scrolling trench. One of the reasons the attack on the Death Star succeeded was because the Imperials took a while to figure out the attack plan. So you would need a rule preventing the Empire from massing squadron firepower above the trench until at least one run had been made. Also, I'm not sure the ratio of rebels to imperials is right; I seem to remember reading in EU literature that the only TIE squadron that engaged in combat was Vader's personal squadron. The rebels had 28 fighters according to the screen shots from ANH. Just how big is an Imperial Squadron, anyway? I was under the impression that it was 24 - I could be wrong. Finally, there would have to be rules for Force usage. Not just individual pilot attributes like Luke and Vader, but (and this is my personal interpretation of Star Wars) for the Rebellion to have an edge, since the destruction of the Death Star was clearly guided by the good side of the Force.
Just my two credits. Seems like it would require a ton of work with not a lot of pay off, when there are so many other scenarios you could dream up. I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
it might be feasable… BUT I cannot start on my trench until I get these things in hand. I'm not sure of the exact size of these planes to know how big to make the surface… including trench and exaust port….
BTW: I have all the parts ready for the trench.. just have to know how big to make it..
EDIT: It might be feasable.. BUT… to make an accurate trench run… you'd need 30 rebel ships… and an equal number of TIES… you're looking at $900 just for the ships!!
I would think it would be feasible.
A couple of suggestions for rules:
1) In order to attempt to launch the bomb/torpedo, the X-wing must travel X amount of distance in the trench area just before launching. And, must obviously be within Y amount of distance of the target hole in order to launch. Distances will depend on the movement templates. The purpose of this is twofold. First, to simulate steady navigation to acquire the target. Second, to provide difficulty for the attacking vessel.
2) Rebels start with all ships on the table. Starting Imperial forces are minimal, but gain reinforcements as the game goes on. These reinforcements also may come in from any direction, including behind the Rebels. Since the TIEs are faster, this shouldn't be much of a problem. It should force the Rebels to guard their rear and sides as TIEs begin to swarm around them, and they need to protect the leading Xwing.
dvang said:
Since the TIEs are faster, this shouldn't be much of a problem.
We actually don't know that TIEs will be faster in this game. I think the movement guides are the same for both teams, but we don't know if an X-wing has the option of moving 3 distance units in a straight line. I think they probably go the same speed in this game for balance, but we won't know until we see the maneuver dials in full.
Funny to come here and find this topic already going. I've been thinking about this very idea all day. Even without special trench/bombing run rules, I'm strongly considering making Death Star surface tiles (1' square each) as an alternative playing surface to the standard space mat. Anyone find out the scale/size of these ships (and their bases) yet?
I seem to recall from the GenCon demo that the TIEs had the options to select movement guides for tighter turns as well as faster straight-away, plus the barrel-roll.
If this isn't the case, it is simple enough to limit the forward movement distance selectable when "in the trench", representing avoiding close obstacles.
YESYESYESYESYES THIS WILL WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORK.
Wow! Necro post from 3 years ago, before the game was even released.
What if you made it so that ships at range 1 of/in the trench can fire into it, and ships already in the trench can only fire at things in the trench or at range one of the trench?
The Death Star surface could be littered with a bunch of turbo laser cannons. They would remain stationary, but they would have arcs and during the activation phase could spin their arcs around at PS 0 or something. The trench itself would have less of them in it to incentivize running the whole trench and not just skimming the outer surface and diving in at the last moment.
Only torpedoes would finish the job. The exhaust port can be TL'ed and has, IDK, 6 defense dice?
Imperials would periodically get a set amount of points every turn that they could save up and use to reinforce from the map edge, to spend on generics. Rebels wouldn't get any reinforcements except for Han, who pops in from the board edge once Vader gets within range 3 of Luke.
You could play on a doubled up table, like ~6 mats should be enough space.
DagobahDave's Trench Run Rules
Also, here is the link to the thread where the rules are discussed more in depth.
I've played this scenario several times, and its quite enjoyable! I've even crafted a playing board using styrofoam insulation panels (shown here). Anyone who is an X-Wing fan should give the scenario a try!
Edited by frbfliYep. I've done it and it's a lot of fun. My thread is here:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/139100-death-star-trench-run/?hl=trench
I know I have another thread out there somewhere, but can't find it.
The couple of times I've done it I found it really balanced. Two times it came down to one last ship in range and firing on the port. If they roll well, they win. If they roll bad, they lose. They lost both times!
I was thinking of running it again tonight. All depends on what the local gang wants to do.
I printed out the death star on a work printer and taped it all together. I ran out of time and couldn't really get it all lined up and dind't have the space to really make it look awesome. So...I just glued vario sections together and it looks good enough. I used a free PDF for paper turrets and they are fine. I found those little tables inside of pizza boxes to prevent the lid from crushing the middle of the pizza. I turned them upside down and put a ping pong ball in the middle for the power node.
My list I'm thinking about is:
Luke w/ R2-D2
Garven Dreis
Biggs Darklighter
Rookie Pilot
2 x Gold Squadron w/ Ion Turret
vs
Darth Vader w/ Adv Targeting Computer (a little early) and Predator
Mauler Mithel
Dark Curse
Backstabber
Night Beast
2 x Black Squadie
Here's a link to a variant of DagobahDave's original Trench Run scenario that was run at GenCon 2015:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/120061/death-star-trench-run-v08