X-Wing Miniatures: Heroes of the Aturi Cluster Co-op Campaign - Mission 3: Tread Softly (again)

Preface

This weekend was the Extra Life charity event, and as one of our many games of the day, we decided to get in an extra round of our X-Wing campaign. 

This time our friend Lawrence was able to join us, and he chose to jump into a Y-Wing, while Tyler took out a B-Wing for the first time, and they both turned out to be great assets. We gave Lawrence his starting XP plus our lowest total gained XP, so he was a little closer to our average than a brand-new pilot would have been.

We ended up pulling the Tread Softly mission again, so we decided to jump right back in for round 2 and it worked out pretty well, and it's amazing how much better this mission goes with player-appropriate opposition!! 

There are a lot more action shots in this update, and so a lot more individual photos as well. Let me know in the comments if you like this style, or if I should stick with the summary "Start-Activation-Combat-End" photos.

Players & Pilots

Dave: PS3 (5) X-Wing with BB-8, Stealth Device, and Veteran Instincts (3 XP floating from previous missions)

Josh: PS3 X-Wing with BB-8 and Stealth Device (9 XP floating from previous missions)

Martin: PS2 Y-Wing with BB-8, Ion Torpedo x2, Extra Munitions, Twin Laser Turret, and BTL-A4 (4 XP floating from previous missions)

Lawrence: PS2 Y-Wing with BB-8, Ion Torpedo, Extra Munitions, Twin Laser Turret, and BTL-A4 (4 XP floating)

Tyler: PS4 (6) B-Wing with Heavy Laser Cannon, Veteran Instincts, Experimental Interface, and Squad Leader (0XP floating from previous missions)

The Game

Setup

As before, this encounter consists of 3 minefields per player (so 15 this time) spread across the field, with a unit of 3 TIE Bombers as a Mine-Layer squadron (again, proxied with an Advanced and an Interceptor, more on that at the end) on the far board edge, and a unit of 3 TIE Fighters on the right board edge.

This time we learned from our lesson last go-around, and all focused our deployment and firepower on the TIE Fighters first, with me on the right board edge, Tyler right next to me, Lawrence and Martin staggered next to him, and Josh covering our left flank near the middle of the board edge.

Setup

Turn 1 - Blood in the minefields

The TIE Fighters jumped forward to engage us, but chose a 3-bank maneuver instead of a tighter turn, anticipating our maneuvering towards the middle of the board

Turn 1 - TIE Fighters on the move to engage the players

The TIE Bombers pushed forward with a 4-straight, looking to get Josh in range, but falling just short.

Turn 1 - TIE Bombers rushing forward

Tyler and I rushed forward with our fastest straight advances, while Josh, Lawrence and Martin were much more tame and BB-8-rolled into a tight formation.

Turn 1 - We leap into the fray

Tyler used his Squad Leader to great effect throughout the game, and opened up on Turn 1 with Martin picking up a Focus action to go with his Target Lock on the lead TIE Fighter.

Turn 1 - Squad Leader for fun and profit

Tyler and I put a small amount of hurt on the flanking TIE Fighters, but their Evade actions kept our effectiveness down.

Turn 1 - Shots fired!

Josh engaged the minefields quickly, remembering that we barely touched our mission objectives last time.

Turn 1 - Josh versus the Minefields

Lawrence had a great first turn, finishing off a minefield and damaging another.

Turn 1 - Lawrence kills a minefield...

Turn 1 - ... and TLT's another

And then Martin let the first of his Ion Torpedoes off the hook.

Turn 1 - Ion Torpedo Away!

The hit didn't kill the lead TIE (due to its Evade token), but thanks to the Focus action Tyler had Squad Leader'd onto Martin, we got a hit and ionized the whole group of TIE Fighters.

Turn 1 - Martin likes Ion tokens. I'm serious.
Just wait. You'll see.

Turn 2 - Ionization is a good thing!

The ionized TIE Fighters had no choice but to drift forward, targets ripe for the plucking.

Turn 2 - TIE Fighters drift forward

The TIE Bombers were rightfully intimidated by this opening round, and chose to cruise in on a slow 2-straight maneuver...

Turn 2 - TIE Bombers cruise forward...

...which they followed up with a Barrel Roll action to get long-range shots on Josh.

Turn 2 - ... and barrel-rolling to get a shot

Tyler decided that it worked well the first round, and granted the already-focused Martin a free Target Lock on the newly-in-arc TIE Bombers. I bet you can see where this is going!

Turn 2 - Love that Squad Leader!

The wrath of a B-Wing knows no range bracket, and even at long range Tyler's Heavy Laser Cannon ripped into the trailing TIE Fighter and blew him out of space.

Turn 2 - Tyler's cannons fell a TIE Fighter

My higher-than-normal-speed maneuvering got me into a perfect range 1 shot of the flanking TIE Fighter, and he fell to my guns shortly after his buddy.

Turn 2 - TIE Fighter #2 falls to Dave

Josh managed to wipe out a minefield in a single hit, clearing more of those dangerous mission objectives from the board.

Turn 2 - Josh one-rounds a minefield

Lawrence cleared the minefield he had damaged earlier, and then used his TLT to finish off the last TIE Fighter.

Turn 2 - Lawrence clears another minefield,
and the last TIE Fighter too!

And Martin, in what was to become an epic fusillade of ion-y goodness, launched Ion Torpedo #2 into the TIE Bombers that had been so gracious to barrel roll into arc...

Turn 2 - Ion Torpedo Away, into the TIE Bombers!

Resulting in another fully ionized enemy squadron.

Turn 2 - I told you about that Ion thing, right?

Turn 3 - You get an Ion token! You get an Ion token! ...in fact, Everybody gets Ion Tokens!!!

Ion tokens can be a real downer, and those TIE Bombers got no respite from their effects, drifting forward right into our sights.

Turn 3 - Drifting TIE Bombers

Our maneuvering worked well for getting everyone in position to engage the TIE Bombers... except for whatever the heck Josh is doing here...

Turn 3 - Maneuvering to engage.

Tyler's HLC downed the damaged lead TIE Bomber...

Turn 3 - More Heavy Laser Cannon goodness

And I got a nice Direct Hit critical on his wingman.

Turn 3 - Dave scores a nice critical hit

Josh's crazy maneuvering turned out to not be signs of Space Sickness, and he kept up a strong trend of damaging and clearing those mission objective minefields.

Turn 3 - Josh's strange maneuvering turns out great,
and he scores some damage on the minefield
in the corner behind us

While Lawrence engaged more minefields, Martin just couldn't let go of his new favorite button, and popped yet another Ion Torpedo into the TIE Bombers. I think at this point they should have just comm'd us to surrender... Oh, wait, their radios were down too. Crap. Sorry, man.

Turn 3 - Is that...? Yes, it's more Ion Torpedoes!

I love the smell of Ions in the morning.

Turn 3 - I bet those TIE Bombers are starting to
smell like bacon on the inside...

Turn 3 ended with us in pretty good position: the TIE Fighters were already down, one third of the minelayer squad was gone and the other two were feeling the hurt (and ionized, did I mention the ion stuff?), and we already had a nice clear space in the minefields to maneuver within. Go team!

Turn 3 - End of a round, not bad for the first 3rd of the game

Turn 4 - Bye, Bye Bombers

The TIE Bomber pilots were probably not the most comfortable of folks, dancing spontaneous Irish jigs in their cockpits, but they drifted forward none-the-less.

Turn 4 - TIE Bombers on ionized auto-pilot

We had made the decision not to try for another round of ionization and closed in to finish them off.

Turn 4 - Closing in for the kill

Tyler's B-Wing once again put some serious heat on heavy targets at long range...

Turn 4 - "...I've seen TIE Bombers on fire off
the shoulder of Orion..."

... and I managed to finish off the close one with a sharp quad-linked blast to the back of the engines.

Turn 4 - Death to the TIE Bombers!

Josh cleared yet another minefield...

Turn 4 - Josh clears the corner minefield

... and the Y-Wing Duo cleaned up the last of the Mine-Layer squad. One bonus mission objective complete!

Turn 4 - The Y-Wings clean up shop!

At the end of Turn 4, we had a TIE-free board... but that wouldn't last long.

Turn 4 - End of the turn with a TIE-free board!

Turn 5 - Papa Bear ain't happy

Turn 5 saw the Elite Bomber appear from our right board edge, and he locked on to Tyler and closed in to follow him.

Turn 5 - An Elite arrives...

We were caught a little out of position, and didn't have a lot of great options, so we ended up a little out of position for this turn.

Turn 5 - Well those maneuvers turned out... awkward.

Tyler wasn't able to get around to engage the Elite, so he tore into a minefield instead...

Turn 5 - A minefield falls to the HLC might!

...And then his Threat Acquisition alert went blaring, as the new Elite threat launched an Assault Missile at him.

Turn 5 - An Assault Missile is launched!

Tyler lost a shield to the hit, but he had been able to maneuver out away from the crumpled-up pile of Y-Wings and X-Wing that was half our squadron, so his sacrifice caused the missile to have minimal effect.

Turn 5 - Deft maneuvering results in
zero collateral damage

The Y-Wings removed more minefields, while the X-Wings maneuvered for better firing solutions.

Turn 5 - More minefields go down!

At the end of Turn 5, we had already killed enough mines to count this as a victory, but we wanted not just revival from our previous failure, we wanted absolution... we wanted revenge...

Turn 5 - End, with victory already complete: The
rest is just icing on the Experience Point cake...

Turn 6 - An indictment of our dice rolling

The Y-Wings chose to close up in formation, and maneuvered to continue to clear the minefields

Turn 6 - Y-Wings in close formation

I pulled in a tight turn and brought my quad-linked laser cannons to bear on the Elite...

Turn 6 - Dave turns in to target the Elite

...Tyler executed a timely Koiogran Turn (which we still have no idea how to pronounce), lining up his Heavy Laser Cannons on the Elite...

Turn 6 - 2-length Koiogran Turns are awesome!

... and Josh closed in to begin following the Elite to its doom!!

Turn 6 - Target in sight!

Our Y-Wings, at least, were effective at dealing with several of the minefields.

Turn 6 - There were a lot of mines in this one...

But other than that, all of our combined firepower barely scratched Papa Bear.

Turn 6 - Mine! No, Mine!

Turn 7 - Like moths to a flame...

So when Papa Bear radioed back that we had wiped out all of the Imperial forces in the area, apparently the local commander decided to send more fodder for us to feast on.

Turn 7 - More TIE Fighters arrive

The TIE Fighters valiantly attempted to engage our forces, screening their Elite against our most vicious fighters.

Turn 7 - The TIE Fighters advance on
our plucky heroes...

Josh decided he wanted to continue to pound away at the Elite TIE Bomber, so he took a very risky maneuver by punching straight in front of the oncoming mini-swarm.

Turn 7 - Josh punches the accelerator

The Y-Wings kept up their formation flying, continuing to engage the minefields with gusto.

Turn 7 - Y-Wings turning in formation

Tyler and I Maneuvered to split the fire of the TIE Fighters by closing in on them, forcing them to split up on targets, and relying on my Stealth Device to stay intact through the incoming fire.

Turn 7 - Tyler and Dave split their fire

I managed to land a critical hit on one of the lead TIE Fighters, damaging his stabilizers.

Turn 7 - Close range critical

Lawrence and Martin popped more Mines, Josh landed a few more hits on the Elite, and Tyler and I weathered the mini-swarm's fire quite well.

Turn 7 - End

Turn 8 - Someone make that man a Bear-skin pilot's seat!

The beginning of this turn's maneuvers showed one of the minor problems that happens when you're PS1 and the enemy is fairly close in front of you: the now-infamous PS1B, or "Pilot Skill 1 Bump", as all of the TIE Fighters piled into each other after the first bumped me on the way forward.

Turn 8 - Pilot Skill 1 Bump... the bump is real!

Our maneuvers worked well to close in our kill box, with Tyler doing his second 2-length Koiogran Turn of the game, me throwing a 4-length "K-Turn", Josh closing on the Elite TIE Bomber, Lawrence throwing out a brave 4-length K-Turn to engage the Elite, and Martin stoically continuing his mine-clearing run.

Turn 8 - Closing the kill box...

My quad-blast dropped another TIE Fighter, and Tyler landed a couple of hits on one of the flankers

Turn 8 - Another one bites the dust!

Josh dropped the Elite with a masterful hit, and Martin damaged a few more mines.

Turn 8 - Josh drops the Elite!

Josh's dogged pursuit of the Elite did have one... minor... side-effect: he took the full brunt of the remaining TIE Fighter's firepower, losing both shields and a hull to the hail of lasers.

Turn 8 - DUCK AND WEAVE!!!

This turn saw the end of an Elite, and left us with complete and total victory in sight!

Turn 8 - Ending with one last minefield

Turn 9 

While the TIE Fighters turned to anticipate Josh's maneuvers, the Y-Wings banked in to pour their considerable firepower into the fight.

Turn 9 - The Y-Wings turn back into the fight

Josh managed to avoid their clever trap, however, K-Turning to engage them head on, while Tyler and I closed in from behind.

Turn 9 - We've got 'em bracketed

Tyler's HLC cannons once again reached out to touch someone (hard, like really hard), and another TIE silhouette got marked on the side of his B-Wing...

Turn 9 - BWANG!!!

... while I dealt what was to be the last Critical Hit of the game, blinding the poor lead TIE Fighter...

Turn 9 - One final critical hit

... who never saw his buddy get gunned down by Lawrence's TLT.

Turn 9 - Y-Wing wrath!!!

With no target worthy of an Ion Torpedo (that's right, you have to earn it), Martin finished the last of the Minefields off.

Turn 9 - No more mines! Yay!

Somehow, nobody quite knows how, that one lone TIE Fighter with one remaining hull survived in to the final turn...

Turn 9 - End, and one TIE Fighter left...

Turn 10

... but he only recovered his sight long enough to see his death wrapped all around him.

Turn 10 - Wrapping it all up

He barely escaped Tyler's HLC shots, but my quad-linked laser blast caught him square in the cockpit, and the mission ended with a clear board and perfect score.

Turn 10 - And that's a clean board!!!

Final Thoughts

This mission went much better than the last one, not only because we weren't screwing up by the numbers, but because we also had our 5th player. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed the game, and we're getting really excited about this campaign rule set.

The Ion Torpedoes were amazingly awesome, and reinforced an age-old axiom: crowd-control wins crowded fights. We're definitely loading up on those, and their effectiveness definitely gives Y-Wings some serious legs in our campaign plans.

B-Wings and HLCs are very effective, mostly because they're equally effective at all 3 range brackets and because the HLC is a secondary weapon, it denies the enemy their bonus defense die at that range as well.

This should be our last game with proxy models! I had a birthday recently, and like a little kid, I spent the giftcards and money I was given on more toys, so I now have a full set of Phantoms, Defenders, Bombers, Lambdas, and all that. Yay! I'm looking forward to our next game, so stay tuned for more updates!