{"id":73,"date":"2018-09-12T15:05:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T20:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/?p=73"},"modified":"2019-10-11T20:56:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-12T01:56:30","slug":"heroes-of-the-aturi-cluster-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/12\/heroes-of-the-aturi-cluster-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Heroes of the Aturi Cluster (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Heroes<\/a>
Heroes of the Aturi Cluster<\/figcaption><\/figure>A few years ago my younger son came home from a visit with a friend, and he told me about this new game that let you play Star Wars on a tabletop. Now I’m as big a geek \/ Star Wars fan as the next person, but I couldn’t see how a tabletop version of a space fighter game would actually work. A few weeks later, I dropped him off at a local game store for X-Wing Night and checked out the game. It seemed really fiddly to me. There were so many tokens and moving parts. I got over it. \ud83d\ude42 In fact you can read a review of X-Wing<\/a> that I’ve previously posted to hear the rest of that story.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a few years, and I now have invested in dozens of ships and user-created materials and storage cases and game accessories. The primary reason? Heroes of the Aturi Cluster. <\/p>\n

The standard X-Wing configuration has two people sitting on opposite sides of a table with 100 points worth of ships (each) and six obstacles (asteroids, debris fields, or other). This format is sometimes called 100\/6 for the 100 points and 6 obstacles…which doesn’t make sense because there’s either 200 points for both players, or only 3 obstacles per player. So it really should be 100\/3 or 200\/6 but that’s just the math geek in me coming out… \ud83d\ude2f<\/p>\n

Anyway, while I do enjoy the squad building and flying (and blowing stuff up) the potential is there for so much more. Enter Heroes of the Aturi Cluster. In this framework there are five different story arcs, most with three (one with four) missions. Some missions you repeat until you win, and some you only get one shot at.<\/p>\n

Missions for X-Wing was not exactly an original idea. The X-Wing core set includes a mission called “Political Escort” and other large-based ships (or aces packs) typically also include missions. Some epic ships include a campaign (collection of missions with consequences). For example, here’s the campaign (called “Will of the Empire”) that comes as part of the Imperial Raider package.<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/a>
Will of the Empire Campaign Structure<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The core set mission assumes you don’t have any other ships available. It requires one X-Wing pilot and two TIE Fighter pilots which gets all of your ships on the table. There is a cardboard token for the Senator’s Shuttle (I’ve seen some cool 3D printed versions too). The goal of the X-Wing \/ Rebel side is to escort the shuttle across the board. The goal of the TIE Fighters is to blow up the shuttle, and if necessary, the X-Wing. ‘Cause stuff gets blown up in X-Wing. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Missions in later packages allow a semblance of squad building. For example, Mission 6: Undeniable Assets<\/a> awards the Rebel side 100 points but the Imperial side gets 120. Asymmetrical conflict presents a more interesting challenge! But the point is you get to use whatever ships you have in your collection as long as you follow the point restrictions.<\/p>\n

What makes Heroes unique from anything provided by Fantasy Flight is the concept of “leveling up.” Each player character (or PC as they are often called) starts out as a rookie pilot of pilot skill (PS) two. As the players accomplish things (like damaging an Imperial opponent, blowing up a TIE Fighter, helping a fellow Rebel pilot, accomplishing a mission objective) they earn experience points (XP). XP can be used to upgrade their ship or to increase their pilot skill or even to take on pilot abilities of named pilots. For example in my last campaign I had a Y-Wing (call sign: “Rover”) who combined the regeneration capabilities of Miranda Doni with Chewie’s ability to ignore critical hits.<\/p>\n

Yes, he was ridiculously overpowered, but that’s essentially the intention of Heroes. \ud83d\ude00
\n
\nEarning XP<\/strong>
\nExperience points (XP) are earned in multiple ways. If you shoot at an enemy and do any amount of damage you earn one XP. If you actually kill the enemy you get 1 XP for the damage + 1 additional XP for the kill. And if the enemy was anything other than a standard TIE Fighter (which are like cockroaches in Heroes, there’s always another batch coming from somewhere…) then you get an additional +1 XP for that too. Finally, if the ship was a large-based ship (Lambda Shuttle or Decimator) then there is an additional +1 XP.<\/p>\n

So if you shoot and kill a Lambda Shuttle you get 4XP (+1 damage, +1 kill, +1 non-TIE, +1 large base).<\/p>\n

Elite enemies offer bonus XP to every player when they’re destroyed, in addition to the XP awarded to the player with the kill shot.<\/p>\n

Completing mission objectives might also award XP. For example, pilots have an additional action called “Protect” which allows them to assign an evade token to a NPC (non-player-character) ship. (This action was introduced in the “Political Escort” mission from the original core set and adopted by Heroes.) At the end of the mission, the pilot who executed the most Protect actions often gets bonus XP.<\/p>\n

Spending XP<\/strong>
\nOnce you’ve earned all those experience points, what are they good for?<\/p>\n

Well, you want your ship to have goodies. My pilot “Rover” flew a Y-Wing. Y-Wings can carry ordnance (bombs or torpedoes) and also have a turret mount point. Upgrades cost whatever their squad point value is, so when I purchased a Twin Laser Turret it cost me 6 XP. Some zero-point upgrades (BTL-A4 title card for example) come built-in to the ship and don’t have to be purchased.<\/p>\n

Another way to spend XP is to upgrade your pilot skill. This costs double the value of your new skill. Remember that all pilots start out at PS2. To upgrade to PS3 costs 6 XP. To upgrade to PS4 from there costs 8 XP and so on. (You cannot jump more than one PS between missions.) Increasing your pilot skill gives you two things. First and most obvious, you’re at a higher PS which has an impact on the game mechanics. Remember lower PS pilots move first and shoot last. Higher PS pilots move last and shoot first. Han always shoots first. \ud83d\ude1b But in addition to moving up the pecking order, each PS you “level up” brings a new slot that you can fill with something. In Heroes your opponents also scale up as your average squad PS increases.<\/p>\n

\"\" When “Rover” upgraded to PS3 he got to purchase an EPT or Elite Pilot Talent. EPTs can be purchased for double the point cost on the upgrade card. For my first EPT I picked up “Expertise. By spending 8XP I had a persistent Focus token for all of my attacks. (Expertise does not help defense dice.) By combining this with my Twin Laser Turret (6XP) and the BTL-A4 title (free) I could potentially attack 3 times per round and have a Focus available for all of them! (Side note: Expertise is really overpowered in Heroes especially because the Imperial AI doesn’t really do a lot to stress the Rebel pilots.)<\/p>\n

Typically you unlock a new EPT \/ Pilot Skill at odd PS levels. At even PS levels you get an additional modification slot for your ship. Things get crazy when you’re at the higher pilot skill levels! When “Rover” leveled up to PS4 he picked up Vectored Thrusters. Now his Y-Wing could barrel roll. Since Expertise eliminated my need to focus as my action nearly every round, my ship was a lot more maneuverable.<\/p>\n

When “Rover” upgraded to PS5 he took on Chewbacca’s pilot ability. At odd PS levels you get a choice between taking a standard EPT upgrade card or<\/strong> getting a pilot ability of a named pilot. The PS of the name pilot has to be equal to or lower than your own PS, so at PS5 I could not take on Luke Skywalker’s ability because he’s PS8. I have a few more levels to obtain before I could do that. The cost of a pilot ability is the pilot skill in XP, so Chewie’s ability cost me 5XP. From now on, if I am dealt a critical hit, I flip the card face down without resolving the text on the card. (We actually handle crits in Heroes a bit different; details later.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Here’s what Rover looked like at the end of our campaign.<\/p>\n

Purchased Equipment
\nDroid – R5-D8
\nTwin Laser Turret
\nIon Torpedoes
\nCluster Mines
\nProton Bombs<\/p>\n

Pilot Ability \/ EPT
\nExpertise
\nChewbacca (ignore crits)
\nMiranda (reduce attack by one die to recover a shield, drop a shield to increase attack by one)<\/p>\n

Modification
\nBomb Loadout
\nVectored Thrusters (adds barrel roll)
\nHull Upgrade
\nEngine Upgrade (adds boost)
\nExtra Munitions (doubles ordnance carried)<\/p>\n

“Rover” was a ton of fun, and ridiculously strong for a single Y-Wing pilot. He could regenerate hull (not guaranteed) with his droid, regenerate shields with Miranda, boost and barrel roll and blow stuff up with his Twin Laser Turret (TLT). That’s part of what makes Heroes so fun. But what about the other side? How do Imperials work? I’ll talk more about that in Part II of this series.<\/p>\n

Related Links<\/strong><\/p>\n