#hotac

A day late, but here goes, the first report of the adventures of Wild Squadron in Heroes of the Aturi Cluster! A thing i should note, were getting a bit wacky in this play-through of the campaign, we started off as imperial defectors (fitting, given the first mission i’m covering). The way we are representing this is we all started off in an imperial ship instead of a X-wing or Y-wing, but following some suggestions on the HotAC Facebook group we restricted ourselves to ships that do not appear as enemies in the campaign (mostly to avoid mix-ups) and ships that dont have both 3 agility and 3 Attack at the same time (to maintain the ghost of balance). Also, since we are originally Imperial pilots, we decreed we be taking Imperial pilot abilities instead of rebel ones. Upon a player first death they do not need to roll on the ejection table, but in stead lose access to the ship they were flying and must take a rebel ship instead, an X or Y wing for free or for 5 XP they may upgrade to a different rebel ship. The system specifically names  B-wing, A-wing or HWK as the 5 point upgrades, but we also allow the ARC-170 and as you’ll see we are experimenting with the U-wing on a 2.0 edition medium base  (things with large bases tend to get targeted too hard by the AI, so were hoping the medium base helps).

This is the squad stands right now, The punisher is missing during this mission and the next because she could not join us this session, fortunately the system scales well for number of players and differing pilot skills. 

Wild Squadron (from left to right)

Sarlac - Uwing

Sarlac started in a TIE Reaper, the adaptive ailerons got him in trouble one too many times, so now flies a U-wing. Sarlac uses a primarily support build using fleet officer and and system officer to dole out tokens to the squad, and Major Stridans ability to extend the range on them.

Rathtar - A-wing

Rathtar started out in a TIE Striker, 4 Hull and 2 agility was not a great combo for facing legions of TIE fighters, now flies an A-wing. Typically flies out ahead of the squadron, breaking up formations of TIE fighters, handling objectives, and flanking.

Zillo - Alpha-Class Starwing

Zillo is a primarily cannon based build, either Heavy Laser cannon for kills or Ion/Flechette cannon for objectives and when using SLAM maneuvers. He also keeps some assault missiles on hand for those juicy splash damage shots.

Wampa - Spec Ops First Order TIE Fighter

Wampa is a general brawler, sticks himself square in the middle of battle and spits lasers from both ends. Recently picked up Snap Shot, cause why settle for two shots a turn when you can have three.

Rancor - TIE Punisher 

Rancor is the primary ordinance carrier, her healthy mix of bombs and torpedoes makes a mess of elite enemies and squads of TIEs alike.

Hello World! I’ve made this blog mainly to try and log and share some of my adventures in tabletop gaming, so here we go!

This past Saturday my group and I played our next installment of our Heroes of the Aturi Cluster Campaign! Always lots of fun, I’ve been through 2 full runs through the campaign (both successful) but this group has only been through once so far.

For those who may not be familiar with it, Heroes of the Aturi Cluster is a fan-made co-operative system and campaign by Josh Derksen for the X-wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games. The system is available online, for free from http://dockingbay416.com/campaign/ . All you need really it to print out and cut out the cards and special terrain/obstacles and own a healthy collection of empire ships and rebel ships for the X-wing miniatures game 1st edition (particularly TIE fighters, lots and lots of tie fighters). I’d say you also need friends to play but you can easily play this by yourself, though its a bit lonely that way ( I've experimented with this on Table-Top Simulator).

The story has 1-6 players take the role of a rebel squadron running daring hit-and-run raids on imperial forces throughout the systems of the Aturi cluster. Each mission is an attempt to complete a specific objective before the local Imperial Star Destroyer catches on and shows up to ruin the fun, portrayed through a series of timed scenarios, typically with 10-12 turn time limits. As you play, each pilot gains experience points that you can use to purchase upgrades and generally become stronger.

The system plays mostly with the usual X-wing rules, but with some key changes that turn it into a coop RPG of sorts. The biggest part of this is the Imperial AI system, that fully and neatly controls the enemies you face in your battles against the empire.

These AI cards do a good job of automating the enemy and taking most of the oppositions decisions out of player hands, so you can focus on enjoying the battle and don’t feel like your just playing against yourself.

Currently we are playing the main campaign created by Josh, and its solely in the 1st edition of X-wing, but there are more campaigns, scenarios, new rules and a 2nd edition conversion being worked on by the lovely people on the Aturi cluster Facebook group.