Preface
So a while back I got super excited about the X-Wing Miniatures Game from Fantasy Flight Games, and I've loved the sculpts and the basic game rules ever since I first got to play with them. But my gaming group of friends is very competitive and kind of small (there's 4 of us that can meet consistently), so playing my 100 points versus your 100 points, every couple of weeks, would get really boring and really antagonistic fast.But then I discovered the amazing wonder of the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster campaign from Docking Bay 416, which is an incredibly well-done implementation of two key details that were missing from X-Wing: automation of the opposing forces, and an experience point system to allow for more than just one-off games.
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the Imperial ships is very clever and often does exactly what I would do as a player (and has actually taught me several new ideas to use next time I play Imperials), so it does a great job of providing a good enemy force for us to play against.
The campaign system allows for each player to play a specific pilot and ship, and to acquire Experience Points (XP) for actions such as damaging/destroying an enemy ship or assisting an ally in evading damage. This XP can then be spent on new abilities, making for pretty awesome 'super pilots' that are not balanced with the normal game.
The campaign makes up for the superiority of the super pilots and the limitations of the AI's tactics by forcing the players to battle against superior odds, and it very intelligently scales to support any number of players from 1 to 6, and even at multiple skill and XP levels.
What follows is a record of the campaign as played by my game group!
Players & Pilots
Dave: X-wing with BB-8 and a Stealth Device
Josh: X-wing with BB-8 and a Stealth Device
Martin: Y-Wing with BB-8, and a Twin Laser Turret
Tyler: : Y-Wing with BB-8, Twin Laser Turret, and BTL-A4
The Game
The battlefield consists of 6 asteroids placed near the middle of the field, and a simple setup for the opposing force. We're faced with two groups of TIE Fighters: one of three, set up opposite the right side of our deployment zone, and one group of two, set up opposite the left side of our deployment zone. We chose to deploy all of our forces near the left end of our deployment zone to concentrate our fire on the smaller group of TIE Fighters, so Josh and I deployed in close formation near the left edge near the middle of our deployment zone, Martin just to the right of us and slightly forward, and Tyler to the right of all of us (nearing the middle of the map, directly opposite the smaller group of TIEs) on the forward edge of our deployment zone.
Our strategy for the early turns was to move slowly forward to engage the smaller group of TIE Fighters, while dragging the larger group through the asteroids, hoping that they would take a few points of damage in the process and possibly break up their formation into smaller chunks.
Turn 1 - A Slow Approach
This turn was singularly uneventful, as the TIEs powered towards us and we slowly crept forward, but nobody had range to establish a target lock or take a shot, so nothing much happened.
Turn 2 - Blood in the Vacuum
This turn the two-man TIE group split up due to an asteroid in their path, which proved to be a fatal mistake for one of their group, as he ended up in range 2 of most of our force and was gunned down quickly. This is where we began to discover the wonders of the BTL/TLT Y-wing combination which we would affectionately begin calling the Warthog Configuration, as the sequence of multiple attacks proved quite effective against the focused or evading TIEs by stripping their defenses and whittling them down to size very quickly.
When the TIEs were able to fire back, we were all at long range so their pitiful fire was no match for our defensive skill!
By the end of turn two, one TIE was down, and the other group had already begun to split up to avoid the asteroids, while we were still in tight form together, so our plan was working rather well!
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| End of Turn 2 |
Turn 3 - Knife Fighting In An Asteroid Field
As we were sticking with our plan of moving very slowly through the asteroids, this gave us lots of opportunities to exploit BB-8-powered barrel rolls, so the two X-wings were able to scoot just inside the asteroid in front of us and turn in to face our enemies, while the Y-wings continued their implacable 1-speed plod of doom across the map.
The enemy TIEs turned in to attack us, but with our pilot skill advantage we were able to gun down another TIE (this time from the group of three) before he was able to get off a single shot. We did take one close range shot from his wingman, but even a close range TIE is no match for an X-wing with a fully functional Stealth Device! The other incoming fire was equally ineffective, and we managed another turn of destruction with no losses!
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| End of Turn 3 |
Turn 4 - The Menace Appears
While it did mark the arrival of our most fearsome foe, two TIE Interceptors directly behind the X-wings, this turn passed quickly with almost no damage done by either side, as the TIE Fighters maneuvered wildly to avoid our arcs of fire, the X-wings performed mighty Koiogran turns to re-engage the fight (sparking 15 minutes of great debate over how you pronounce "Koiogran" before we finally to just pronounce it "Immelmann") with the Interceptors, and the Y-wings began barrel-rolling and jockeying for position to maintain fire.
The dice gods were unimpressed by our maneuvering, and the 3 remaining TIE Fighters escaped this turn undamaged, but fortunately they were also unimpressed by the Interceptors and we lost only one shield (and a Stealth Device) on one X-wing.
Turn 5 - Divide and Conquer
This is where the AI makes the one major mistake that I'm pretty sure a human opponent would not have made, and the two TIE Interceptors divide to avoid running into an asteroid.
While we weren't able to capitalize on that mistake this turn, the Warthog was able to gun down another TIE Fighter and we dinged another Fighter with a point of damage, while getting one point of damage past the considerable defenses of the lead Interceptor.
We ended up perfectly positioned so that there was no return fire of any kind, catching the Interceptors completely off guard.
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| End of Turn 5 |
Turn 6 - Michael Bay Would Be Pleased
With the enemy split and heading in all different directions, we decided to divide our own forces and hunt them down in detail. The X-wings, still in perfect flying formation, broke off to engage one of the Interceptors, while Martin's Y-wing continued his 1-speed, BB-8 rolling madness into the center of the board (his poor co-pilot had to be blowing chunks all over the inside of that cockpit at this point), and the Warthog's perfectly-timed Koiogran not only sparked another 5 minutes of pronunciation debate but placed him ideally to have shots on both the Interceptor and one of the remaining Fighters.
The combined fire of two X-wings at close range is nothing to be laughed at, and the poor Interceptor who was on the receiving end never stood a chance of making it out of this turn. His separated compatriot joined him in the big Star Destroyer In The Sky mere seconds later under the combined weight of our Y-wings, and the TIE Fighter he was attempting to rescue died right in front of his very eyes. Not a good day for the Empire... but a great day for us!
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| End of Turn 6 |
Turn 7 - FEED ME, SEYMOUR!!
Turn seven saw the arrival of the last of the Imperial reinforcements, two TIE Fighters arriving opposite where the Interceptors had arrived earlier. While I'm sure they were expecting to arrive as the hammer to the TIE/I's anvil with us in between, what they saw when they arrived was four very alive Rebellion pilots and a large amount of grey-and-black scrap metal.
Nevertheless, they charged fearlessly into the battle, the X-wings continued their roll hard left and brought their combined fire to take out the last of the original TIE Fighters, and the two Y-wings maneuvered to bring their glowing gun barrels to bear on the fresh meat that had just been delivered to their grind house.
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| End of Turn 7 |
Turn 8 - Concentrated Firepower
The TIEs advanced, the X-wings kept turning left, the Warthog barrel rolled to one side and back just enough to put the enemy in his Range 2 sweet spot, and Martin's free-turreted Y-wing rolled out of the line of fire.
When the ionized smoke cleared, two more TIE Fighters had joined the scrap pile, and Grey Squadron emerged victorious on the field of battle.
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| End of Turn 8 |
Final Thoughts
BB-8 is overpowered and is almost the only astromech worth taking, the Warthog configuration Y-wing is crazy powerful at pushing damage through evade/focus defenses, and paired X-Wings with Stealth Devices in close formation can survive and put out some seriously awesome firepower.
Massed shots from TIE Fighters can be scary, as can Interceptors at Range 1 (we spent a good 20 minutes in planning our maneuvers for Turn 5 to avoid Tyler having to take the full wrath of two Interceptors in the face at Range 1, time well spent).
This mission was a fun intro to the campaign game, and I'm very excited and looking forward to playing the other missions over the next few months!
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