The lambda and hwk-290 are all well and good for 100 point battles, but I think were these guys will shine the brightest will be in missions.

I really want to play a scenario that would include the Moldy Crow, piloted by Jan, having to drop Kyle Katarn (represented by the Saboteur) off at an imperial installation so he can plant explosives. I have the basic plot of the mission laid out, but I just can't seem how it could be balanced for the rebels. Below are some ideas I have cooked up. Feel free to suggest changes/destroy all together.

1. Rebel forces must include Jan Ors with Moldy Crow title and Saboteur, representing Kyle.

2. Moldy Crow must get to Imperial side of map, lose an action and attack to drop Kyle off. Saboteur card is then removed from Moldy Crow.

3. 3 or so rounds must pass for Kyle to complete his mission

4. Moldy Crow must pick Kyle back up and flee off the rebel side of board.

As you can see, this mission would be very hard for the rebels to complete (perhaps impossible?) because the imperial player would only need to destroy the hwk-290 to win. I have no idea how to balance the remaining rebel escort and the imperial forces. .

Maybe you could say that the Moldy Crow has a stealth device that allows it to slip by unnoticed, and the imperial player must destroy all rebel escorts before it can attack the Crow? I really have no idea, but I would love to get input from the community so that this scenario could work. Savage any of my ideas if need be, it won't hurt my feelings.

Thanks in advance guys.

I think the thing to do would be to have a threshold for the imperial player. For example the Imperials are unaware that the Moldy Crow is attempting sabotage until ????? That way the rebel side (who are aware of the plan) can play with the sabotage goal in mind while the imperial player has to wait 3-4 turns or until the sabatour is planted maybe to attack the HWK.

Something like that.

A few of Kyle's missions were long-term. I think it's a bit much to expect the Moldy Crow to hang around in combat while he does his thing. Perhaps start off just with the 'plant the saboteur' part and play a few times to see how it goes.

SheepDog also has a great idea. What if the Moldy Crow cannot be targeted if it is within Range 1 of an asteroid (because it's hiding), and no asteroids can be within range 3 of the Imperial edge. Just brainstorming here. It would be nice to hear some other triggers.

Both of these ideas are cool and really got me thinking. I like the idea of splitting it into multiple scenarios. Also, perhaps you could have the main rebel forces come from one side of the board to distract the imperials, and the Crow come in from another, undetected. However, the imperial player could have a field of listening devices (satellite tokens from the core set) that the Crow had to navigate through. Get within range 1 of a satellite and the Crow becomes fair game!

3. 3 or so rounds must pass for Kyle to complete his mission

My gut reaction to this is to consider how much time three rounds of fighter combat actually represents.

Perhaps breaking it into multiple parts with it's own limitations and goals would be the way to go.

MIssion 1: Infiltration

120-ish points of small Rebel ships must make an approach with Jan/Crow/Sabateur. Rebels can use the "Protect" action as described in the shuttle escort mission in the main rule book.

50-ish points of TIE-whatevers are on routine patrol around the station

I like the hiding behind asteroids rule, maybe that could be worked in. Empire deploys all of it's ships FIRST, in some semblance of a patrol formation (not scattered willy-nilly).

Rebel ships deploy second and can use the asteroids as cover, as above. Alternatively, if they can keep an asteroid between themselves and the Empire's line-of-sight (forward firing arc, extended to the ends of the field) at the end of all movement phases, then they remain undetected and the Empire must continue it's patrol. (This gets a little silly, but it's something I might like to try, so...)

Once the rebels are forced to break cover, the Crow has to dock on the station. Rebels win if the Crow can dock and they still have at least one escort. Empire wins if they destroy the Crow.

Mission 2: Sabotage

The Rebel forces have been detected. While the main Imperial force is still scrambling to their fighters, the next closest patrol arrives.

Rebel forces get whatever remains of their initial squad. Any action-based repairs can be considered having been completed (R2D2, that hull-fixing droid, whatever else I may be forgetting) but all remaining damage/effects are still in play. Any Rebel ship that had been destroyed is gone, all ordinance that has been deployed is gone, etc. Rebels can use the "Protect" action as described in the shuttle escort mission in the main rule book.

Empire gets an identical patrol as in Mission 1. Empire deploys from a single edge of Imperial space.

The Crow remains docked, but still must be protected.

Victory conditions as in Mission 1.

Mission 3: Escape

Again, using the same Rebel force, still just as banged up as they were (with field-upgrade repairs being done again), they must now escape to the same side of the field that they entered on in Mission 1, but now there's no hiding.

Empire gets a new squad of 60-ish points as the Alert Fighters have deployed.

Rebel forces have to escape with the Crow intact to their hyperspace jump point - the edge that they entered from. (If the Empire destroys the Crow they can figure out whatever was done to their station from the wreckage and undo any damage - or whatever.)

Imperial forces have to destroy the Crow.

This might well be hideously unbalanced, as this is my first attempt at scenario planning, but it sounds like fun in my head.

NotBatman's ideas sound fun and more fleshed out, but a simple idea I had was just to give the Imperials a small force but with reinforcements against a fixed Rebel squad. Once Kyle's dropped off the Imperials have some number of turns to stop him, which they could do by getting 2 or 3 criticals at range one. If they enter from the far side of the map this means the rebels would have to either destroy them or work on blocking their movement at the risk of getting out of position. If you wanted to include escape you could say the Crow has to get within range 1 of him to pick him up in turn 6 or he blows up with the target. I'm not sure if the turns would go more quickly than in free-form dogfighting for this sort of mission.

A few of Kyle's missions were long-term. I think it's a bit much to expect the Moldy Crow to hang around in combat while he does his thing. Perhaps start off just with the 'plant the saboteur' part and play a few times to see how it goes.

That's actually a good point. Usually Jan would drop him off and leave until he either got back or reached a new extraction point. At the end of Dark Forces, she's not there at all. He hijacks a smuggler ship, travels to his destination using a cargo hauler, and ends up ultimately escaping on a Lambda Shuttle.

You probably don't actually need an extraction element to this mission. The Rebels should have to protect the Crow until it drops Kyle off, maybe give the Imperials a few turns to try to stop him, and if they fail, the Rebels win. Of course in the story in would be devastating, but for a balanced fan-mission, the Crow doesn't even have to be important once Kyle is dropped off.