Quick X-wing Star Destroyer Model for Terrain - And Our Massive Battle

Hi everyone,

This weekend we got thinking about having a quick X-Wing battle.  We were just thinking of 3 of us playing different squadrons of Rebels -- against some common Empire ships.  But -- that's not the way it turned out :)

First of all, we got the idea to build a Star Destroyer background terrain piece.

We started with cardboard from a box -- and cut it into long triangular pieces.  (Our idea was that this was just one side of the start destroyer.)  We were planning to make two layers -- with a gap in the middle -- and then mount our turbo laser turrets between the layers.  (It always looked as if the edge of a Star Destroyer was about as loaded as weapons as a Death Star Trench to us....)

Cutting the cardboard for the Star Destroyer

Once we had the cardboard pieces cut, we cut up some pink foam to make the gap between the top and bottom layers of cardboard.  (By the way, we made the top and bottom out of two layers of cardboard -- didn't want it to be too flimsy.)

Pieces are cut - ready to hot glue in place

Then we used hot-glue to glue all of the layers together.  We put a 4-inch wide strip on the facing edge of the pink foam.  We had learned during our Death Star Trench experience that if we didn't do that it would be hard to glue our terrain sticker material to the pink foam.

All glued together!

With that done, we attached our sticker paper.  This is the same stuff we printed out when we made our Death Star Trench a while back.  We had several sheets left over -- so we didn't even need to wait to print these :)

[Here's our Death Star Trench write-up:  Building Death Star Trench from Cardboard Box and Pink Foam]

Here we are attaching the pieces of sticker paper to our Star Destroyer model

To make it seem (more) realistic we aligned the sticker paper with the business edge of the Star Destroyer.  That made for a little bit more waste, but did seem to help with the look.

Zooming in on the Turbo Laser Turrets.  Fit in there very nicely!

We have been working on the game table plans -- and so we were playing X-Wing in a different room.  Lots of sunlight!  Made it a bit difficult to see the black of space on our mat.  So, we put another box behind the Star Destroyer - and that helped a great deal.

[Here are links to our write-up about Turbo Laser Turrets:  Trying to Build a Turbo Laser Turret -- and buying nice ones made by JR MINI]

Our Star Destroyer terrain piece ready for action :)

The Battle!

Like we were saying, we started out small.  But, then we got talking about making a quick drive to Gator Games to look for K-Wings.

What ended up (after our trip to Gator Games) was a more Epic Scale battle -- with well more than 100 points on either side (we weren't counting).

Battle about to start!

Early on, it really did seem that the Star Destroyer terrain was looking pretty cool :)

Our Star Destoyer with the Imperial ships!

But, one problem is that when you looked at the view from the Rebel side of the table, it really disappeared behind all of the ships.

View from the Rebel cockpits!  Empire forces dead-ahead!!

So, this has given us some ideas for Star Destroyer Version #2....

• Why not make the Star Destroyer run the whole way along one side of the game board?  Then you'd see it very clearly the whole way.
• Lift the Star Destroyer up by 1/2" or so with some clear plastic.  Then, you'd see space under and behind it.  Also, this would put it looming up a bit above the large ships!
• And, the Star Destroyer top and bottom pieces should be angled.  It was quick and easy to make them flat and parallel, but doesn't quite give the "Star Destroyer" feeling as it could if those were sloped.
• Maybe even including some features of a bridge would help?
• And, lastly, need to think about the scale.  Do the Turbo Laser Turrets really fit?  Or are they too big?

 For us, managing the battle become tedious pretty fast.  It sort of felt like trying to manage our first large Battletech battle.  

[Here's a link to our attempts to manage a large-ish scale Battletech Battle.]

Several turns into the battle.  Things were starting to get messy.  Lots of movement plans which didn't work out!

We should have thought to something like putting tokens onto the cards of the pilots who had fired -- or something like that.  Regardless, with this many pilots it got very hard to keep track.  And, keeping track of everyone's unique upgrades was even more challenging!!

And, by the way, we really like the Raider model!  Also really like the TIE Punishers.  Normally we are pretty much fans of Rebel ships.  These two new ships are very cool additions.  :)

We are really looking forward to the arrival of the Imperial Gozanti Class Cruiser as well -- since we have been using one of those in our FFG Edge of the Empires campaign.  [Here's a link to a write-up from our Quest for the Juggernaut our last session.]

Found a Turbo Laser Turret - Looking forward to another session of X-Wing with our Death Star Trench!

Hi everyone,

We were browsing in the scenery section at Game Kastle on Friday night and stumbled across something we had been searching for -- a Death Star Turbo Laser Turret!!

In our most recent post about the X-Wing Death Star Trench model we had made a first attempt at building Turbo Laser Turrets using pink foam.  Several issues:  They were too small; they weren't nicely symetric; they were super light and jiggled around easily.  Bottom line -- it's not easy to build a Turbo Laser Turret!

[Here's a link to our earlier posting.  <-- We have notes here on playing X-Wing with a Death Star Trench as a cooperative game.]

Here's our first attempt at a pink foam Turbo Laser Turret.  Pretty humble.  It got a little bit better with nails poked in to create the barrels of the turbo lasers.

Here you can see our first-pass Turbo Laser Turrets at work.  Not much to look at....  Also a bit small compared to the models.

So, this is a very exciting discovery.

The box with the picture :)

The TLTs come from JR Miniatures (JRMINI) here in the Silicon Valley area.

The box -- in case anyone would like to see the details!

Here's a link to the product page for the Turbo Laser Turret

And, here's a quick look at our model.

Here is our first Turbo Laser Turret :)

Game Kastle had one left over from a holiday X-Wing session they had run.  So, we bought that one -- and ordered more (for a fully populated trench)....

Here is the Turbo Laser Turret next to an FFG X-Wing.  Great scale -- just what we were hoping for!

We'll post more as soon as we get some paint on our turrets and try the Death Star Trench Cooperative Game once more :)

Game Day #2 at Meeples (Seattle)

Hi everyone,

This past weekend we flew up to Seattle to have a Game Day at Meeples -- the great game store in West Seattle.  Here's a quick write-up on our visit :)

Background:

• Meeples (http://meeplesgames.com/) is in West Seattle.  At the corner of Charlestown and California Ave's.
• It's on the 2nd floor -- so there is a LOT more space than we are used to having for a game store here in California :)
• It's a "Gaming Cafe".  This means that you can play games, order (lunch/dinner/etc) and eat food.  Perfect!
• We had visited back at Thanksgiving time - and had a blast playing games, hanging out, having lunch.  Here's our write-up from that visit.  http://battlegaming1.blogspot.com/2014/11/battle-gaming-one-seattle-visit-meeples.html

Our day in Seattle (this past Saturday):

• We had coordinated with friends and family to meet-up there
• Were not sure what people would want to play -- so we packed up two modest 40K armies (some Orks and some Space Marines); packed up X-wing; packed up D&D; and packed up ourselves.  Then, made the quick trip north

We ended up playing a D&D card/miniature game (was new for us -- cool way to quickly play somethink like D&D 5e); X-wing; and a fun game called Telephone Pictionary.

Ravenloft D&D Card/Miniature Game

The Ravenloft board game we played :)

We borrowed Meeples' Store copy to play....

This turned out to be quite a bit of fun.  Hadn't known that the miniatures in the game were so detailed.

What we liked about it was that out of the 6-7 people in our group, a good half of the group had not ever played D&D (of any edition).  So the "board game version" let everyone start playing really quickly.

A few turns into the D&D session.  We had killed a Kobold and were taking on a Skeleton.  Still learning how to help each other out.

It helped that we had one person in the group who had played some of the board games before.  We were a little bit slow to catch on to the game mechanics.  Then he helped us understand how to "activate" bad guys -- and also how to understand who would "operate them"....

The one thing we missed was that when we folded up the game, that-was-that for those characters.  No real way for them to continue on.  Heard that in the Pathfinder board game this isn't the case -- and that you can keep treasure you find -- and progress your character from session to session.  Will have to check that out :)

Also missing was the fun social part of the game.  Those of us who had played enjoyed that part of the game -- "getting into character" is always fun.

Lastly, another really positive part of the game.  The miniatures are great -- and lots of them.  Would be lots of fun to work on painting those!!

Also -- great way to learn some gaming basics, "Don't Split up the Party!!!"


Star Wars X-Wing

Two of us took a quick break during the D&D session and played a game of X-Wing.

Here's where the size of the Meeples store is great.  There was a Magic tournament going on while we were there.  Did they still have a free table we could use for X-wing ??  No problem!

We played a quick game -- sort of 5 on 5 -- with the Rebels outgunning the Empire ships by a little bit.  (It was Luke and 4 of his pals against 5 Academy Pilots).  [We weren't trying to create a fair battle -- instead trying to show the people in our group how to play.]

"Hey, Luke -- I think we can take them!"

That ended up working out pretty well.  Got to explain the game dynamics in a situation which wasn't too stressful.  (Is it easier to learn a game when you're winning??)

Learning about the movement dials in X-Wing (while clobbering Academy Pilots)

Everyone had fun learning how to plan out the moves for the Rebel Fleet.  (And, the one of us who was playing the Empire went into the other room to check-out the progress with Ravenloft while the Rebel planning session was going on.)

Last, we played a session of Telephone Pictionary   

How to play....

Need a set of sheets of paper (something like 10) which are bound or stapled together.

The game starts with each player WRITING a phrase or sentence on their pad of paper....

Then each pad is passed left or right (keep it the same once selecting).  And, the receiving person reads the phrase or sentence -- and then DRAWS their impression of what is written.  AND, the sheet with the writing is folded over....

So, when the pads are passed again, the 3rd person to see that pad can only see the drawing (not the writing).  AND, then they WRITE their version of a phrase or sentence of what they see in the drawing.

And, so on....

Eventually, what happens?  You see your phrase come back again (only now it is changed)!!!

Everyone hard at work during the DRAWING phase....

It was lots of fun -- everything changed.  

After several passes, a storm trooper turned into fire fighters putting out a fire.  Ducks with a postman turned into a mechanic attacking a bird with a wrench.  A tractor hitting a dog turned into a dog chasing a tractor and back to a tractor running over a dog.  And, porcupines turned into kittens :)

X-Wing Death Star Trench Cooperative Game -- Version #2

We took another shot at our Death Star Trench Cooperative Game this weekend.  Wanted to share how that went!
TurboLaser Turrets

First of all, we started working on TurboLaser Turrets.  That turned out to be tricker than we had thought.  Had seen some really nice ones built up by others - and we were inspired to try the same.  Our idea was to make them out of pink foam -- with little rectangles glued on to make them look like actual Death Star construction.

Well, that turned out to be easier said than done.  We had a really hard time making ours come out square!  So, we did make a couple of them, but not very happy with the base foam yet.  So, going to try this again -- with more detailed cutting method to try to hit 90-degree corners a little bit better.

Not too happy with the appearance of our TurboLaser Turret "pieces" -- going to have to use a different method for cutting!

Another thing we didn't like (when all done) is that they certainly seemed too small.  So, going to think about making them out of 3-4 layers of pink foam instead of just 2.

 Here are our prototypes in the trench.  Now that they're in there they look WAY too short.  Going to make the next round 3-4 layers of pink foam tall.

Next we worked on our rules....  

Here is the set of rules we used.  We took careful notes as we played - and made a note when we found that a particular rule wasn't working well....  Also - you'll see that we're calling this the "Easy Version."  Our goal was to make this fun - but not super hard.  We want to tune this for a younger group of X-Wing players who want to experience the thrill of blowing up the Death Star first-hand :)

Easy Version of Trench Game

1)      Each player gets a Rebel squadron

a.      Red, Gold, Rogue

b.      Rebel squadrons will be 3 fighters each

c.      Players can choose whether these 3 fighters are X or Y-wings

2)      The players work as a team and decide when they will enter the trench

3)      One squadron of Empire fighters will enter the trench 2 turns after each Rebel squadron

a.      In the easy version, there will only be Darth Vader plus 4 TIE fighters in a single squadron

4)      Empire operating rules

a.      Empire ships target the closest squadron regardless of strategic value

b.      The Force is with the Rebels.  In the easy version, the Empire squadron will always target the pilot with the lowest piloting skill first.

c.      Empire ships fly straight down the trench at top speed, avoiding red maneuvers.  The do not use any turns in the trench.

5)      The Falcon

a.      One turn after the last Empire squadron, the Millennium Falcon joins the battle

b.      The Falcon enters the trench right behind Darth Vader’s squadron

c.      The Falcon will focus on Darth Vader’s squadron and will operate with the actions which are the consensus of the team of players

6)      Darth Vader

a.      If Darth Vader reaches only 1 hull point, he leaves the game, being hurled from the area out of control

7)      Turbo Laser Turrets

a.      There are Two Turbo Laser Turrest placed half-way down the Trench in the Easy Version of the game.

b.      Rebel ships receive double their normal number of defense dice against the Turbo Laser Turrets.

c.      The Turbo Laser Turrets will always target the closest Rebel ship.

d.      Turbo Laser Turrets have 0 shields and 10 hull points

e.      Turbo Laser Turrets have 0 defense dice (because they cannot move)

f.       Turbo Laser Turrets have 5 attack dice

8)      Exhaust Port

a.      The Exhaust Port can only be hit with a Proton Torpedo

b.      Because the Force is with Luke Skywalker, he may have one extra attack die when firing on the Exhaust Port

c.      The Exhaust Port has 1 hull point (because a single hit is all that is required to start the chain reaction)

d.      The Exhaust Port has 6 defense dice (because it is tiny)

9)      Trench Walls

a.      Any fighter which hits a trench wall is destroyed

The Battle of Yavin!

So, we set up with one of us playing Gold Squadron Y-Wings and the other playing Red Squadron X-Wings.

We agreed that our strategy would be to have the Y-Wings go first -- and the X-Wings cover their their backs -- knowing that Darth and the TIE fighters would be closing in shortly after we entered the trench.

Gold Squadron in the trench -- full throttle toward the exhaust port!

With the Y-Wings approaching the TurboLaser Turrets, shooting started in turn #3....  And, we started thinking about our first rule modification.

 Gold Squadron scores a hit on the TurboLaser Turret!

• TurboLaser Turrets need to have a Pilot Skill -- and we decided that it should be 0 in the Easy Version of our game.
• One TurboLaser Turret put 5 hits on Y-Wing Pilot #2.  That seemed really extreme -- so we started worrying that we had the number of attack dice too high.
• And, in the same wave of attacks, the Y-Wings had only scratched the TurboLaser Turrets - so we also worried that the number of Hull Points was too high.

In Turn #4, Darth Vader and his squadron enter the trench and start firing away.  With our Force is With the Rebels rule -- plus with Biggs' card rule -- they're all shooting at Biggs.  Amazing rolling of the dice - he escapes damage....

"I'm on the leader...."

 

The Gold Squadron uses its Ion Cannons on the TurboLaser Turrets.  And, we realize that we hadn't anticipated this possibility....  So, time to think about rules again.

• If a TurboLaser Turret is hit with an Ion Cannon -- it is unable to "move" and this means that it cannot aquire a target and fire.  [Realize that this is different than the rules for fighters in X-Wing - but it seems fair since the only "moving" they actually do is rotation and elevation changes.]

The Red Squadron tried something bold (and non-movie like) -- a K-turn in the trench.  (We had said that it was off-limits for the Empire in the East Version -- but hadn't said so for the Rebels.  Note of caution:  What a mess!  3 X-wings flying straight at 5 TIE fighters with very little room to spare.  There was some bumping -- and not all of the K-turns worked....

Han and Chewie entered in Turn #6 -- zooming in from the right-hand side.  At this point, all the fighters are still alive in the trench.  

The Millennium Falcon zooms in....

But, the Y-Wings are really close to dead.  Time to think about the rules again.  Especially because without a change, when the Y-Wings go to fly past the TurboLaser Turrets -- they would be at Range 1 and get one additional damage die!!!

• TurboLaser Turrets have a range of 2-3.  They cannot fire at Range 2.  (This seems fair since they are big and slow in comparison to the fighters -- plus seems in-line with how many of the really large weapons are treated on the fighters themselves.)

 In Turn 8 things are becoming exciting....  The Y-Wings are in-range of the exhaust port -- and all survive the turn long enough to fire....  But, they all miss!!!  The Falcon and Wedge do some damage to the TIE fighters.  Darth is down to 1 hull point and is slung from the trench; one of the other TIEs is wiped out.  But, with three TIEs still in hot pursuit, will the Y-Wings live through Turn 9 to have another shot ???

Our favorite line:  "You're all clear, kid!"

Turn 9!  Yes, they do survive (only just barely, though).  And, they fire....

It's a little bit of a nail biter because Dutch misses.  Then Gold Squadron Pilot #2 misses.  Then, on the last chance, lowly Gold Squadron #1 hits -- and BLOWS UP THE DEATH STAR!

Post Game Analysis:

Was it fun?  Well, about half-way through it started having a tedious feeling.  So, we're thinking about how to speed the game up.  Basically, if it could last 5 turns we think that would be about right (for the easy version)....  We have several ideas in mind....

• We start the Rebels closer to the end exhaust port.  [This makes some sense because it's kind of like in Movie #4 when the fighters drop in to the trench exactly where they want to.]
• Move the exhaust port closer to the fighters.  [This might make sense - but it kind of bugs us because we feel that the exhaust port really *should* be at the end of the trench.]
• Increase everyone's movement.  [Maybe this makes sense because in the trench they are all really going fast ??]

All-in-all, it was fun - and beyond that - great to have one more way to blow up the Death Star.  We're going to try to mess around and make some new versions of these photos with special effect :)

X-Wing -- Managed to Win a Battle With Two Phantoms

Hi everyone,

It's been a little while since we've played X-Wing -- and we had a chance to play against our friend Mr. M over at Game Kastle in Fremont this weekend.

Mr. M was using the Scum faction -- which we'd not ever played against.

We spent a while chatting with Mr. M about our upcoming 40K Campaign -- and our plan to play some GW Battlefleet Gothic [we'll be blogging about this soon....] we realized that X-Wing was going to be the game to play.  But, RATS, we hadn't brought along our X-Wing models.

So....  We went with the idea which we'd seen work so well when we played in our first (and only) tournament up at Gator Games.  (Here's a link to the blog posting where we describe our fun time being schooled by X-wing masters....)

1) We quickly bought two Phantoms and a TIE figher.  [We wanted another TIE fighter to use in our Death Star Trench anyway.  And, we had wanted to try out two Phantoms.

2) We set up Echo and Whisper with the Advanced Cloaking Device -- just like the guys at Gator Games has done.  (That thing is only 4 points, but allows for a crazy amount of movement flexibility!)

3) We also set up Howlrunner figuring that the Range 1 bonuses would be pretty nice with the TIE Phantoms.

4) We ended up needing to give them every add-on we had (to get to 100 points).

Here are the models from our list -- Whisper, Echo and Howlrunner

The Battle

Mr. M set up a force of a Z-95 Headhunter, a Y-Wing and a pair of Interceptors.  And, he came after us early in the battle.   We were a little bit worried that he would be able to cut-off Echo or Whisper and take out one of our Phantoms very early.

We had a little bit of luck though and got multiple fighters lined up to fire on the Headhunter and were able to take it out of the battle.

Mr. M's forces heading at us.  Worried that it was a good idea - but we split up our units in three directions early on....

And, a little while later in the meeting we were able to line up all three of our fighters on the Y-Wing.  This is what we had needed to really cause damage there.

We got really lucky and managed to have all three of our ships lined up against the Y-Wing...

At the end of the battle, Mr. M was down to one Interceptor -- and we had lost Echo.  But man-oh-man was it difficult to take down that Interceptor!!!  Howlrunner would try to shoot at the Interceptor -- would fail to cause damage -- and then Mr. M would have one extra evade to help for when Whisper fired on the Interceptor.  Turn after turn!

Finally, we lined up shoots and simply had Howlrunner pass on his shots -- and only had Whisper fire.  This worked - but worthy of note to see how challenging that Interceptor can be to deal with.

The very challenging chase of the Interceptor underway..

Here's a look at that challenging rule on the Interceptor card which Mr. M had at the end of the battle....

Check out that rule - if you miss, your next shot is even harder!

And, an acknowledgement for our opponent:  We have played quite a few battles -- have had some people helping us with how to build an Empire list.  And, have had some trial and lots of errors dealing with asteroids.  Mr. M on the other hand (pretty sure) has not played very many times - but dealt with the asteroids with no issue!  We still managed to fly into one despite our practice :)  Pretty sure this means that when we play Mr. M next time we are in for some trouble....

- Three Phantoms better than Two?

We also did some reading on where the TIE Phantom came from....  Didn't realize that there was so much drama around making cloaking devices using Stygium crystals -- or that the Rebels had stolen a TIE Phantom only to have the self-destruct blow it apart.  There is a pretty nice write-up on Wookiepedia -- Link here.) 

And, though we won our first battle, it was not without some errors on our side.  We weren't sure what to do when there was the potential of re-rolling misses (the help from Howlrunner and the help from a target lock).  Got it clear now that you only get to re-roll an individual die one time.  Pretty sure we got this wrong at least once in the battle -- so likely things were a little bit worse for Mr. M that they should have been.

Mr M mentioned that he is thinking of ways to modify his list -- not put quite so many points into his Y-Wing, for example.  Our plan is to play the same list so that we can have a clean rematch next time.

But, one thing we're wondering is whether 3 Phantoms (drop Howlrunner) would be an even better list than 2.  Fluff-wise this seems a little bit odd -- because it sounds like TIE Phantoms are supposed to be very rare.  But, it might be fun to try :)

X-Wing -- Death Star Trench -- A Cooperative Scenario?

Hi everyone,

Today we had a chance to test out our Death Star Trench a little bit.  All in all, it was quite a bit of fun.  And, we do have some adjustments to make before the next game.

[Here is a link to our posting on building our Death Star Trench.]

But, all in all, we are wondering if this makes a good cooperative scenario for X-wing?  We can probably figure out how to balance the rules well - but since everyone knows that the Death Star blows up - making that a cooperative goal might be a fun way to play.

The other reason we're wondering about the cooperative game idea is that for those of us who are a little bit younger, playing a game of X-Wing where you charge down a trench with TIE fighters shooting at you turn after turn can become a little bit stressful.  And, if main tactic is to sacrifice your Biggs X-Wing pilot to draw fire from Luke, that can become a little bit grim.  But...  if the game were cooperative, then you'd have your teammates to commiserate and cheer with as you go....

Here's how our test went:

1)  Turbo Laser Turrets.  We didn't have these ready.  This made the game more simple - but looking forward to having them as part of the game.

2) Modified Rules.  We got from help on the Fantasy Flight forum page)....

- Start from one end - headed for the exhaust port (at the other end)

- Points.  If this was a cooperative game, you could say we played on "easy".  We had something like 150 points for the Rebels, and about 100 points for the Empire.

- Rebels:  X-Wings - Luke, Wedge, Biggs; Y-Wings - Dutch, Gold Squadron Pilot; Falcon - Han

- Empire:  Darth, Mauler, 3 Academy Pilots

- Empire places ships at the end of Turn 3, gets to move in Turn 4.  [We at first tried after Turn 2 -- that is too early given the speed of TIE fighers.]

- Millennium Falcon joins in Turn 5.  [That seems to early as well - but we were eager to have fun.]

- Proton Torpedoes - we loaded all of the snub-fighters up with these to attack the Exhaust Port.

- Turbo Lasers.  Something like 4-5 attack dice - but snub fighters get double defense dice against these clumsy attacks.

- Using the Force.  We played that Luke got 2 extra attack dice when shooting at the Exhaust Port.  Seems that Darth should also get bonus attack dice when shooting at anyone other than Luke and Wedge.

Our First Test Battle:

In the first turns it became clear that keeping X and Y wings in formation was tricky - because of the greater speed of the X-wings.

Snub fighters in the trench - making their run!

By turn 3 the X-wings were a fair bit ahead.  In fact, far enough ahead that the Biggs special rule (of you can only target Biggs) wasn't going to be helping the two trailing Y-wings at all.

In Turn 4 the empire started shooting - with lucky saves by the rebels.  However, the shields were removed from the Gold Squadron Pilot.  Otherwise, not very eventful.

In Turn 5 all 5 empire ships and the two Y-wings could exchange fire.  And, the Falcon joined the fray.
- The Falcon hit and removed shields from Darth's ship
- The Y-wing "ion" cannoned a lead TIE fighter
- The empire hit the Y-wing ships a couple of times, but spending focus tokens saved the day

Darth:  "What!!!???"

In Turn 6, Luke, Wedge, Darth and Han shot early.  Wedge hit the exhaust port.  But, we were giving it 5 defense dice.  (Not sure if that works or not....)  So, he didn't cause any damage.  Luke, though, using the force (with our force rule), did hit the exhaust port - and got through the defenses.

"You're all clear, kid!"

So - the Death Star blew up!  (We had been giving the exhaust port only 1 hit point.)

Key Take-aways for Playing as a Cooperative Game

- If we were to play this as a cooperative game, thinking about the following rules to make it more of a scenario....  Break the game into two phases.

"Phase 1:  Snub Fighters vs. Turbo Lasers."
- No empire ships, just the Turbo Laser turrets
- The rebel ships make their run -- Luke is not allowed to shoot or use the force (yet -- Ben hasn't told him to!)

"Phase 2:  Enemy Fighters."
- As soon as the rebel ships take their shots at the Exhaust Port, they fly off the board and a second run starts
- Empire enters the board on turn 3
- Falcon enters the board on turn 5
- Use the Force rules for Luke and Darth apply

Difficulty:
- Harder = closer to a point balance
- Easer = farther from a point balance

Team play:
- With more than one player, divide ships into squadrons or pilot+wingman....

Empire run rules:
- Flying the Empire TIE fighters gets pretty easy - very few decisions to make unless you select more advanced ones.  But, clearly to play a cooperative game you need to define what they'll do....  "Empire ships fly forward at full speed, and fire upon the nearest ship.  Empire ships always take Focus and spend Focus at the earliest opportunity."

We'll post again after we've tried this a few more times....