awesome. I've got some great response from my friends on these pics alone. Which has steered them to want to play on Wed.

Unless I'm missing something. I'll be honest I didn't read every word of the new rule set. So I missed a few things ie: lose 1 on the drift but makes sense. The other would be the ships on the targeting spot. I did skim that. I will read it more carefully But ya he got his ships side by side using drift and both ships were able to stop just about next to each other to take the shot. one of the shots should have it.

Also forgot to mention we started the countdown clock after the first full round.

Kudos Dave great job on this mission.

I encourage anyone else out there to play it it's easy , fun and a fun 2hrs this will speed up with more skilled pilots

Dave,

We have not had a chance to play the scenario yet (more ships arriving tomorrow) but I thought I'd share something I've been working on. I took a playmat image I found on BGG and did some tweaking and resizing to fit your scenario. I was intrigued by the diagonal grid placement and thought it might add some variation to the playability. The Imps and Rebs can set up on either side of the map, Rebs behind the red line and Imps on the opposite side behind the green. The measurements are not precisely to the range ruler, but fairly close. The diagonal trench setup will make the approach and entry very different depending on the side you start on. The grids also may help to line up ships during setup. The full-size file is designed to print to a 4' x 4' area.

Let me know what you think, I can do more tweaking on it. If there is enough interest I'll provide a link to the full size version.

Massive props and credit to Steve Toth (ElDiablo01) for doing the original file and hosting it on BGG!

Where is the LIKE button

I'm surprised at the rule that destroying enemy ships results in the countdown timer rising by 1. It seems to me that shooting down TIEs would have no real effect on the Death Star's firing arc or its capability of blowing up the Yavin 4 base. Was this a necessary adjustment to improve play balance?

@Rollins: I was one of the rebel players (Andy) from Sunday's successful DS destruction! Big thanks for a fantastic intro to the scenario and my first actual game of X-Wing! I did realize after our game, that we had 151 pts -- I guess you spotted us one for our first play .

@ziggy2000: I would definitely be interested in the high-resolution final. Looks great.

After only one play of the scenario, here are my observations:

* Incredibly fun. My rebel teammate and I continually commented on how it truly felt like the trench run.

* Timer. I believe the relationship between timer and distance from setup to firing box is a key dynamic. Not sure if it was the stretched 42" map, but it was basically impossible to get from setup, into the trench and into firing position in 6 turns. I think that's perfect-- or close to perfect. This gives the rebels something else that they must do (i.e. take out power nodes). It could almost be stretched to requiring an additional two turns beyond the six.

* Strategy. We basically chose to do things: (1) get into and down the trench as fast possible (3 x-wings, 2 torps), and (2) take out as many power nodes as fast as possible (2 x-wings, 1 y-wing). A small complaint, but none of these strategies involved actually caring about destroying imperial ships. The power node squad basically ignored them and tried to kill as many power nodes as they could. I would like to see more reason to engage the enemy ships… I think I saw that killing an imperial ship extends the timer? That would be a great reason to engage right there.

* Power nodes. I'd consider simplifying the power node destruction result a bit. I liked all the results and that each one had the option to increase the timer instead, but it seemed a little fiddly. Might even be MORE fiddly, but you could make each power node unique and randomly place them on the map. Use icons to indicate what they do when destroyed: advance timer, stress tokens, etc. Would add some randomness to the power node team's setup and attack plan. Also really liked he ion cannon's extra usefulness against turbolasers and power nodes.

* Proton torpedos. Consider keeping which ships contain the torps as hidden information? Would keep more ships in play as "important."

* Potential for early losing conditions? This obviously didn't happen in our game, but I could envision some early losing conditions: (1) ships with torps get destroyed early; (2) lose ability to increase the timer: if surface ships are destroyed or roll poorly; trench ships can't 180 turn to destroy ships and would have to exit the trench to try and increase the clock. Not necessarily a bad thing to lose this way, but result in some short, bad luck sessions.

* Trench entrance. I think this was very easy to understand and Rollins allowed us some pre-planning to map out our approach. I do believe that with further plays there would eventually be one best way to always setup and enter the trench. Maybe consider some random setup variable that forces this phase of the game to be dynamic? Would hate for the trench team's play to eventually be put on rails.

Thanks again to the creators of the scenario and Rollins for a great game and introduction. Couldn't have had more fun, win or lose. Of course Luke getting the final shot/hit was pretty epic.

I'm surprised at the rule that destroying enemy ships results in the countdown timer rising by 1. It seems to me that shooting down TIEs would have no real effect on the Death Star's firing arc or its capability of blowing up the Yavin 4 base. Was this a necessary adjustment to improve play balance?

It provides motivation to attack Imperial ships. Without it, the Rebels don't get anything out of it.

Let me know what you think, I can do more tweaking on it. If there is enough interest I'll provide a link to the full size version.

I like it! I think it'd be more useful without any starting zones printed on it, so folks can use any sort of setup they want. Anyway, carry on!

Hey guys! I'm the other rebel pilot from Sunday (John) and was the pilot in the trench. There were a couple of things I noticed as well.

With drifting, the net result is the same regardless when you align the distance marker to the offset. The current instructions indicate the player should start with the center of the base, then offset on the far end. Since the trench is so narrow with 6 ships in very close proximity, it was often useful to offset first then center the base.

Regardless of the size of the final board, the trench should maintain one specific dimensional quality we observed: starting from the entry line to the exhaust port, the player must use some combination of move lengths rather than just blasting down on 4's. Again, by adding -1 range to drifting, this worked GREAT!

Personally, I liked the narrow width of the trench we played. It was slightly wider than 3 ships, so you *could* fly down 3-wide without basing each other, but 2 + 1 worked much better.

Wedge did not pull out & was destroyed. We briefly considered leaving the ship on the board as an obstacle, but decided against it. Afterwards, I was thinking this could be an interesting addition. Ships that are destroyed could be left on the board for the remainder of the round as an obstacle, or could be used to kamakazie the power nodes, cannons, and even ships in the trench. And taking the ship off the base leaves an excellent crash posture similar to the crash scene on Dagobah.

It was a fantastic game that really did end in classic fashion: Luke dropped into the trench, turned off the computer and rushed forward while the other pilots slowed up (I moved fwd with Luke +4 and Red Shirt Ensign used +2). He made the shot just as Dad fired and missed as the timer counted down … and the store closed.

Can't wait to play it again!

I am providing a link to the full resolution version of my 4x4 Death Star mat for this mission, as described in a post above. I removed the printed setup zones as suggested by DagobahDave, and visually enhanced the trench entry and firing zones. To download the full version, follow the link below to my Smugmug gallery. Hovering the cursor over the large image on the right will reveal a dropdown menu - at the bottom there is a download icon that will allow you to "Save Photo" to your computer:

ziggy2000.smugmug.com/Other/Screens/21882008_HKLN9j#!i=2126520097&k=3ch6Ghn

You should then be able to print the mat using PosteRazor or similar poster-printing software, or send it to the print service of your choice to have them print it. Enjoy!

Ok this is weird, this is the 2nd time I try to post this, the first time didn't seem to work.

I thank Dave Graffam for his rules. I loved playing his scenario, we probably had a run at it about 10 times before changing a few things.

I have an event coming up and I am hoping to use these rules in about 2 weeks, I made changes to his rules and added a few of my own. I really wanted the feel of the exhaust port shot to be a really hard shot to made. I also change a few things that hopefully gave the scenario a more "like the movie" effect.

I can't seem to figure out how to attach a PDF so I am putting the rules here. Sorry

Original Design by Dave Graffam
Additional Rules and modifications by Ricardo Leon
BASICS
Players or teams : 2
OBJECTIVES
Rebel Victory: Attack the exhaust port with Proton Torpedoes, dealing at least 1 CRITICAL uncanceled damage to start an explosive chain reaction.
Imperial Victory: If during any End phase the Rebels have no Proton Torpedoes to fire, or if countdown clock ever drops below 1, the Death Star’s super laser fires and the Imperials win.

MISSION SETUP
1. Set up the trench and dominate teams or players.
2. Each player secretly assembles their squad. The Imperials may spend up to 100 points for each 150 points of Rebel points. The Rebels must upgrade at least 1 of their ships with Proton Torpedoes. Points are shared within a team, and a team may set its own terms for the control of ships and decision-making.
3. Players reveal their squad selections simultaneously.
4. The Rebel player places his ships in his deployment zone.
5. Starting with the Imperial player, the players take turns placing 1 power node (out of 3) in the area to the right of the trench, at least Range 2 from any other map feature (including power nodes, the Imperial deployment zone, the trench, surface turbo-lasers, and the edge of the play area).
6. The Rebel player plays 1 full round without Imperial ships in sight. The Imperial player controls only turbo-lasers during this round. ”We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader. But they're so small they're evading our turbo-lasers!” "We'll have to destroy them ship to ship, get the crews to their fighters”
7. During the End phase of round 1, the Imperial player places his ships in his deployment zone, and all other. End phase activities are performed. “Stay in attack formation”
8. Start round 2. At the end of this round, start the countdown clock.
SPECIAL RULES
Several rules are needed to recreate some of the memorable details of this iconic scenario and the features on the mission map.

COUNT DOWNCLOCK
“Standby alert! Death Star approaching. Estimated time to firing range: 15 minutes”
Moments from now, the Death Star will be in firing range of the fourth moon of Yavin — and the Rebel base there. When the countdown clock is started, place a d6 next to the play area with its 6 side facing up, or write the number on scrap paper. During the End phase, subtract 1 from that number. If this number is ever less than 1, the mission ends in an Imperial victory.
The Rebels have a way to stop the clock temporarily. Whenever an Imperial ship is destroyed, immediately add 1 to the clock. Only Imperial ships count to add more time to the clock, Power Nodes and Turbo Lasers are not consider Imperial ships
The maximum setting for the clock is 6, and excesses do not carry over in any way.

STATIONARY SHIPS
The term stationary ship is used to describe immobile objects in this mission that count as, and otherwise behave like, ship game pieces. Card effects that mention “ships” will also affect the Power Nodes and Turbo lasers.
Stationary ships may not be assigned focus tokens, and are not considered friendly to either player.

ZONES
There are two zones for this battle: the Surface Zone and the Trench Zone. (A map area is not a zone.)
All ships and reinforcements enter play in the Surface Zone, and behave according to the usual game rules. Special rules for the Trench Zone are described in their own section, below.
During play, a ship must be in one zone or the other. It is forbidden to make attacks, grant focus tokens, acquire or transfer target locks and all other abilities if the target ship is not in the active ship’s zone. Treat all ships, turbo lasers and power nodes in the Surface Zone as though they are in separate game from those in the Trench Zone.
Notable Exception: Target locks are not broken just because ships change zones and end up in different zones. However, attacking across zones is still forbidden.

TRENCH ZONE
The following rules apply only to ships within the Trench Zone.
MAXIMUM CAPACITY: Up to 3 Rebel ships and up to 3 Imperial ships may be in the Trench Zone at one time.
Entering the Trench Zone: After revealing your dial but before moving the ship, you must declare that your ship is entering the trench zone otherwise the ship will be consider to be flying above it. To be consider as flying inside the trench zone, the complete base of your ship must be inside the trench zone entry area after your movement and before making the “STRAIGHTENING OUT” adjustment. (See below)
Leaving the Trench Zone : You may choose to leave the trench at any point by following the same rules as entering the trench.

REINFORCEMENTS
During the End phase, the Imperial player receives 1 reinforcement for each Imperial ship that was destroyed during that round. For each TIE Fighter destroyed, the Imperial player may take the Black Squadron Pilot or Obsidian Squadron Pilot as its reinforcement. For each TIE Advanced or TIE Advanced X1 destroyed, the player may take either the Tempest Squadron Pilot or Storm Squadron Pilot as its reinforcement.
Upgrade cards attached to a ship are not lost when that ship is destroyed, and may be assigned to any reinforcement later. However, upgrades that are discarded during play (such as Cluster Missiles or from critical damage) are removed from the game.
Reinforcements are placed in the Imperial player’s original deployment zone indicated on the mission map.

ION CANNON TURRETS
When an Ion Cannon Turret card is used to attack a power node or turbo-laser, replace its card text with this:
Attack: Attack 1 power node or turbo-laser (even if it is outside your firing arc). If this attack hits the target power node, it takes 3 damage.
If this attack hits the target turbo-laser, it suffers 1 damage and it reduces its Primary and/or Secondary weapon by 1.

POWER NODES
These are features on the surface of the Death Star that Rebels can destroy, causing chaos for the Imperials and buying time for their trench runners. Power nodes do not count as obstacles. A power node counts as a stationary ship and may be targeted and attacked as such.

EXHAUST PORT
“Negative, Negative. It didn’t go in, just Impacted on the surface.”
The exhaust port counts as a stationary ship that can only be attacked by Rebel ships in the firing position square indicated on the mission map. To fire a torpedo at the exhaust port, some part of the ship’s base must overlap the firing position and meet all other conditions for making an attack.
The port is ray shielded and may only be attacked using Proton Torpedoes. As usual for that weapon, you must have a target lock on the exhaust port to attack it.
The port is a half hexagon for targeting purposes.
The port starts the game with an Agility of 3 to represent a very small target and difficult shot to make even by the best pilots. Consider these, shields that use the Agility stat and therefore get to roll evades to cancel Damage rolls.
The port has no hull value, and cannot be destroyed. Once its shields (agility dice) are removed, any un-cancelled CRITICAL damage caused by Proton Torpedoes will destroy the Death Star and win the mission. Note that it is possible to destroy enough power nodes to reduce the exhaust port’s agility value to 0.

INTERZONE COLLISIONS
If a ship enters a zone and finds that it is overlapping another ship already in that zone, move the active ship backward along its axis of movement just until it is in base-to-base contact with the other ship.
If there is a second ship in line, you may move your ship to the left or right of the first ship, unless there are only obstructions there. In that case, continue to search for suitable positions to the left or right of the second ship, and so on.
No collision damage results from interzone collisions, but the acting ship skips its Perform Action step this round.

COLLIDING WITH THE TRENCH WALL
If a ship’s movement brings it into contact with the trench wall, that ships kips its Perform Action step this round. Stop the ship’s forward movement and check for damage as though hitting an obstacle. Then, starting with any corner of the ship’s base, rotate the ship’s front away from the wall in the same general direction it was traveling when it collided. Stop rotating as soon as one side of the base is parallel to the wall.
If a ship collides front-on with the wall, or into any of the corners on either end of the trench, it is instantly destroyed.
[OPTION] DEADLY COLLISIONS: Any movement that brings a ship’s base into contact with the trench wall instantly destroys the ship.

DESTROYING POWER NODES
When a power node is destroyed, immediately deduct one dice from the Exhaust Port Agility total.


TURBO LASERS
The laser gun batteries along the inner and outer edges of the trench are treated as stationary ships controlled by the Imperial player. Turbo lasers can be destroyed by Rebel fire, rendering them unable to attack for the rest of the battle. They may also be temporarily or permanently disabled (offline) by destroying power nodes.
“How many guns do you think Gold 5?” “I’d say about 20 guns, some on the surface, some on the tower”
Two types of turbo lasers are used in this mission:
Surface Turbo lasers and Trench Turbo lasers, according to the zones they are found in.
Turbo laser ATTACKS: When turbo lasers roll their attack dice, count only hits and critical hits. (Ignore any attack dice showing focus.)
All critical hits on turbo-lasers are treated as standard hits.
Surface Turbo lasers
A Surface Turbo-laser may attack once per round with its primary weapon* at any Rebel ship within Range 3 in the Surface Zone with a 360 degree line of fire. Surface Turbo-lasers may not attack ships in the Trench Zone.
Surface Turbo-lasers do not count as obstacles nor obstruct fire.
*This means that Surface Turbo-lasers are subject to range combat bonuses (see the Rules of Play, page 10).
Trench Turbo lasers
These cannons are in the Trench Zone, and may only attack and be attacked by Rebels within that zone. The Trench Turbo-lasers are linked, and will fire automatically at anything within their arcs of fire (45 degrees facing towards the Trench entry area). If any Imperial ships are within range and arc of fire of these turbo lasers, they will cease to fire for that turn.
Trench Turbo-lasers do not use range combat bonuses (Rules of Play, page 10) and may not attack ships in the Surface Zone. Trench Turbo-lasers count as obstacles and may obstruct fire.

USE THE FORCE LUKE
“Use the force Luke. Let go. Luke Trust me”
Luke may change 2 results of regular damage to Critical Damage as an action when firing his Proton Torpedoes.

I HAVE YOU NOW!…WHAT!?
“Yahooooo! You are all clear kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home!”
During the last turn of the count down after movement and activations but before combat if there is a rebel ship or more within the firing area of the exhaust port and has proton torpedoes armed with the target lock. The Millennium Falcon will appear and get a free round of combat against any one Imperial ship inside the trench. This combat will take effect before any other combat regardless of Pilot Skill. This combat will be consider to be at Range 1 and will only occur once during the game. Use Han Solo as the pilot inside the Falcon.
You may only use this rule if the Millennium Falcon was not part of the original attack force on the Rebel side.

TRENCH MOVEMENT
STRAIGHTENING OUT
When in the trench, close is good enough. If your approach was a good one, your ship should be nearly parallel to the trench walls as you enter the Trench Zone. If it is slightly misaligned, feel free to make a tiny angle adjustment to make your path parallel to the wall, and assume that your ship will not deviate from that course without executing a maneuver.

TRENCH KOIOGRAN TURNS
“I’m hit! I can’t stay with you”
After a ship in the Trench Zone executes a Koiogran turn maneuver, resolve any collisions that occur in that zone. Then, the ship returns to the Surface Zone and skips its Action Step this round.
This maneuver may result in an in-zone collision and an interzone collision.

FULL THROTTLE
“We are going in, we are going in full throttle, that ought to keep those fighters off our back”
Rebel ships have an additional action available while inside the trench.
Action: You may choose to drop one of your remaining shields to make and additional movement forward of 3. This ability may only be use once per game for each ship.

TRENCH BARREL ROLLS
While in the trench, a ship may not barrel roll in the same round that it uses a drifting maneuver (see below. While you’re at it, see Colliding with the Trench Wall, above, hotshot).

DRIFTING
This maneuver is only possible within the Trench Zone.
To indicate a drift maneuver on your ship’s maneuver dial, push the number as far as it can go to the left or right of the dial, to the point where it may also show a small part of the next number or its arrow, and so that it is certainly not centered and certainly not the next number.
When you reveal your maneuver selection, your actual speed is 1 less than what is indicated (a movement of 4 showing on your dial is actually a 3, for example. This distinction is important when using certain astromech droids).
If drifting to the right, the maneuver template is placed just to the right side of the right guide (the small bump used for fitting movement templates) on the front of the ship base. Then the ship is moved forward until the template is centered directly behind it.
A drift to the left is handled in the same fashion, just moving everything to the other side.
The color of the selected maneuver (green, red or white) does not change when executing a drift.


STATS SUMMARY
Power Node: Agility 1, Hull 3
Surface Turbo-laser: Skill 1, Primary Weapon 2, Agility 1, Range 1-3, Hull 3
Trench Turbo-laser: Skill 0*, Secondary Weapon 2, Range 2-3 and do not use range combat bonuses, Agility 1, Hull 3
Exhaust Port: Agility 3
*This cannon may attack only after all ships and Surface Turbo-lasers.
Note: Agility represents armor plating on the power nodes and turbo-lasers, and it represents the small aperture of the exhaust port. It works just like Agility for ships.


Thanks for your time guys, I hope to hear from some playtesters and tell me how this worked out.

Hey there all, new Xwing player here! The trench run looks like an awesome scenario. I was wondering how people are enjoying these rules? Have you made any adoptions to it? Changes? I've only got a couple games of xwing in so far but would like to run this scenario at a Con in a few months. Any tips?

Hi there! I really enjoyed the rules that he made, the post above yours is teh rules he made plus my modifications and additional rules. I would like to see someone play it and give me feedback, I myself am running a scenario at a convention and I made a 3d trench for it. I hope you get a chance to play it and give me your opinion on the feel of it.

It seems the big difference between yours and his the exhaust ports agility or defenses so to speak. I can’t really comment on who’s I like better. I am hoping to have some additional input here.

[bump.]

In the interests of a Star Wars thematic topic...

and Kudos to DagobahDave...

Mission: Death Star Trench Run - Outworld Studio

www.outworld-studio.com/xwing/pdf/Dagobahs-DSTR-v01.pdf

Giving it a run next weekend, will be including a complete newbie in the game. Any tips?

Stay on target!

This is a necro I'm ok with.

Very fun scenario! I'd maybe give the X-wings Integrated Astromech. I've played this a couple of times and it always came down to a last chance shot by the Rebels. They have always missed.

Dave, what are your thoughts on doubling or tripling the size of the lists for this scenario? 300 Rebel points vs 250 Imperial would look very cool on the table. Problems that you see?

I think it'd get a little crowded, but don't let that stop you from trying.

Some friends of mine and I went off to a mountain cabin this weekend and played this scenario twice! On the first go-through, the Imperials won, as the Rebels did not make it to the exhaust port in time (doh!), and on the second, the Rebels won. I did do a teeny house-rule tweak where Luke Skywalker and ONLY Luke Skywalker did not require a target lock. Shortly after hitting the breaks in the trench and having Vader fly right past him, he made a shot that was nothing short of legendary and killed the Death Star. This is a great scenario!