X-Wing Miniatures Mission 5: Preystalker

"Boba Fett? Boba Fett! WHERE?"


Conscripts Kevin and Frederick have also been bitten by the X-Wing bug, and have picked up some ships.  Last weekend, on Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be With You!), FFG announced the 3rd wave of model releases, namely the HWK-290 (Kyle Katarn's ship from the old SW video game), a Lambda-class Shuttle, a Rebel B-Wing starfighter, and an Imperial TIE Bomber, all scheduled to arrive in the third quarter of 2013.

With all this Star Wars goodness, this past Thursday Kevin and I put on a night of Star War: X-Wing Miniatures Game.

Mission 5: Preystalker
A larger Rebel force (150 pts) is being chased by Imperial forces (90 pts). One of the Rebels has a bounty on his head. It is an asymmetric scenario, with different goals for both sides.

Objectives:
Imperial Victory: Destroy the ship with the bounty.
Rebel Victory: Destroy all Imperial ships.

Imperial Forces:
Pilot: Boba Fett
Firespray-31 (39)
Upgrades: Determination (1), Concussion Missiles (4), Slave-1 (0)

Pilot: "Mauler Mithel"
Tie Fighter (17)
Upgrades: Marksmanship (3)

Pilot: Academy Pilot
Tie Fighter (12)

Pilot: Black Squadron Pilot
Tie Fighter (14)

Rebel Forces:
(the Bounty) Pilot: Lando Calrissian - YT-1300 (44)
Upgrades: Expert Handling (2), Millenium Falcon (1), Nien Nunb (1)

Pilot: Biggs Darklighter - X-Wing (25)
Upgrades: R5-D8 (3), Engine Upgrade (4)

Pilot: Tycho Celchu- A-Wing (26)
Upgrades: Squad Leader (2)

Pilot: Arvel Crynyd - A-Wing (23)

Pilot: Green Squadron Pilot 1- A-Wing (19)

I ran Biggs` X-Wing. Below are the rest of the Rebels; Kevin ran Lando (the bounty!) and Nien in the Millennium Falcon, Frederick ran the flight of 3 A-Wings.



Jim ran a flight of three TIE Fighters, and Mike ran his favourite bounty hunter (Boba Fett) in Slave-1. We used a Space Station Game Mat that from Gale Force Nine that «i purchased at GameKnight.



Note the cool turn record sheet in front of Mike. It shows images of the ship and upgrade cards, with space to write orders for speed and maneuvers; a much cleaner option than all the cards and dials. He used outputs from the following online HTML generators we found to make the images, and a Word doc I provided for the turn record sheet:
Rebels - http://home.comcast.net/~jason.fuller/rebels.html
Imperials -  http://home.comcast.net/~jason.fuller/empire.html

The Rebels had to set up in the middle of the board, facing south. They also all had Stress tokens, simulating the desperate flight they were undertaking. The Imperials set up to the north, in pursuit.  Below is a photo taken just after the first turn. All the Rebels save Biggs have maneuvered so as to reduce pilot Stress. Biggs moved to cut off the TIEs. The Imperials have scored a couple of hits on the Millennium Falcon`s shields.



Next turn, the A-Wings started to come around. The Force was with Biggs as he Target Locked Mauler Mithel, and fired a burst that utterly destroyed the latter`s TIE Fighter! Biggs lost all his own shields and took a couple of damage points in return.



Boba Fett Target Locked Lando, hoping to use his missiles next turn. The A-Wings peeled off a couple of Slave-1`s shields.



Kev, in a sneaky move, managed to Barrel Roll away from Boba Fett, also breaking the Target Lock. R5-D8 managed to repair some of the damage on the X-Wing. Concentrated fire burned through Slave-1`s shields and caused a lot of damage to its hull.



The two remaining TIE Fighters made fast Koiogran Turns, coming about 180 degrees to face the Rebel starfighters. In the ensuing exchange, one of the A-Wings and a TIE Fighter were destroyed. Meanwhile, Lando and Boba continued their duel, with Slave-1 reduced to a single hull point!



Mike maneuvered Boba Fett right in tight behind the Falcon. He rolled hot, inflicting a regular hit and three critical hits on Lando and his ship! The Millennium Falcon now had only two hull points left, and Lando, wounded, was reduced to a Pilot Skill of 0.



However, Lando and Nien Nunb returned fire, reducing Boba Fett`s ship to tiny dust particles. As JamesC would say, "Boba always loses".



The Last TIE Fighter maneuvered smartly, despite only having Pilot Skill 1, pulling the Rebels along in a daisy chain of ships. It took a couple of turns to corner him, whereupon he pulled around sharply for a point blank shot at Lando, who (with Pilot Skill 0) would fire after the TIE Fighter...



...however, all the other Rebels had a greater Pilot Skill than the erstwhile Imperial. The combined fire of three Rebel starfighters destroyed the TIE just as Lando came into his sights.



Just for fun, Jim and Kev made opposed rolls to see what would have happened if the TIE Fighter had been able to fire. The Falcon missed all its defense rolls, and would have taken enough damage to be destroyed. This alternate ending ended up on the cutting room floor, and Lando survived to fight another day.

Result: Rebel Victory

Again, another fun, furious game of X-Wing Miniatures. It really has the cinematic feel of the Star Wars dogfights. I look forward to playing something like a large, fighter on fighter dogfight next time.