{"id":924,"date":"2020-03-22T10:06:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T15:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/?p=924"},"modified":"2020-03-22T10:10:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T15:10:03","slug":"heroes-of-the-aturi-cluster-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/22\/heroes-of-the-aturi-cluster-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Heroes of the Aturi Cluster (Part II)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Heroes<\/a>
Heroes of the Aturi Cluster<\/figcaption><\/figure>Wow, I completely forgot about this. A long time ago (in a galaxy right here) I wrote a post about “Heroes of the Aturi Cluster”<\/a> which is a fan-made campaign expansion for X-Wing Miniatures Game<\/em>. I talked about my Y-Wing pilot “Rover” and the abilities he had by the end of the campaign. What I didn’t talk about was how the Imperial side worked, and I’ll address that now, as well as talk about the overview of how the campaign works. <\/p>\n

Imperial AI<\/strong>
\nThe Heroes campaign is designed so that you can play solo, with friends, and with or without a GM or Game Master. The Imperial forces almost always outnumber the Rebels, which means if there was an actual brain behind their movements they would almost certainly win. Instead the Imperials select targets and move based on AI or Artificial Intelligence cards. An Imperial TIE Fighter (or squad, at least initially) will select a target based on a set of rules. Once the target is selected the next step is to determine the movement. This is done by rolling a d6, determining the approach vector and range, and picking the resulting maneuver off of a chart. That’s it. Trust me, with as many as 20 TIE Interceptors on the board at one time, if you had to stop and think about the moves for each individual ship you would never get anything done! \ud83d\ude2f<\/p>\n

Here’s what the AI movement card looks like for a basic TIE Fighter. The movement selection is based on whether the closest target is in arc or not, and from there what vector the TIE Fighter would have to select to approach the target. There is a different move option based on whether the target is approaching or fleeing, and what the initial range is. Once the movement is selected and executed there is a flow chart that walks you through the ship action options (barrel roll, focus, evade).<\/p>\n

\"TIE
TIE Fighter AI Card – Heroes of the Aturi Cluster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s a very elegant solution and 95% of the time makes relatively intelligent moves. Every now and then you roll something completely crazy which serves to completely mess up the Rebel fleet plans…and I’m okay with that. \ud83d\udc7f<\/p>\n

Each different type of ship (TIE Fighter, TIE Advanced, Lambda Shuttle, etc.) has an AI card specifically designed for their typical moves, all based on the actual maneuver dials that come with the ships. There are plenty of fan-made cards for ships that were not included in the initial Heroes materials as well.<\/p>\n

But that’s not all…what about elite ships? Ships with special pilot abilities? Heroes offers that too! TIE Fighters are most likely to be basic pilots, but more advanced ships like the TIE Advanced or TIE Interceptor can have special elite abilities. Here’s a sample of what one of those cards looks like.<\/p>\n

\"TIE
TIE Interceptor Elite Card – Heroes of the Aturi Cluster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When a TIE Interceptor ship (or squad) is encountered, there are six different elite cards to pick from. I may have picked one of my favorite ones to show here. \ud83d\ude09 In this case every TIE Interceptor in this squad has a Stealth Device. Combined with their native 3 evade dice this makes them extremely difficult to hit! But wait, there’s more! If the encounter rules call for an “elite” opponent, the Game Master will determine the average pilot skill of the Rebel forces and include every option on the card that is appropriate. Suppose the Rebels have an average pilot skill of only 3 because they are just starting out. The TIE Interceptors would have a pilot skill of 4 and both Autothrusters and Predator. If the average Rebel pilot skill was 4 or higher then the TIE Interceptors would be PS 6 and include not only Autothrusters and Predator but also Rexler Brath’s special pilot skill. By creating this mechanic the game grows with you. As you gain in levels, so do your opponents. It’s simple, and it’s brilliant. I love it.<\/p>\n

How does all of this come together?
\n<\/p>\n

Campaign<\/strong>
\nThere are five different objectives in the campaign, each with at least three different missions. When you start you create a mission deck with stage one of each of the objectives. Draw a card, fly that mission, and then do what the card tells you based on whether you completed or failed the mission. In many cases if you fail a mission the card goes back into the deck and you can try again. In at least one case if you fail you still remove the card and replace it with the next one for that objective.<\/p>\n

\"\" Here’s an example of a starting mission card. The story arc is called, “Refueling Station” and the first mission is called, “Rescue Rebel Operatives.” In addition to the standard Imperial forces (and of course whatever Rebel ships the players are flying) this mission calls for six asteroids and an NPC (non-player-character) HWK-290. In the introductory story the Rebel pilots are being scrambled to escort a damaged HWK-290 back to base and protect it from the Imperial forces that are out to destroy it. Some AI (Imperial) ships might have the “Attack” AI meaning they will simply attack the most appropriate Rebel target as previously outlined. But others might have the “Strike” personality, meaning they are after the HWK even if other targets are closer and\/or in arc and would normally be chosen. This is part of the fun of having a GM run your campaign as you would not have any way to know this ahead of time. It would be one of the surprises that is revealed over the course of the mission.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Disable Sensor Net – Heroes of the Aturi Cluster Mission Card<\/figcaption><\/figure>This particular mission takes place in Neutral territory (which impacts what happens to a Rebel pilot if they are shot down) and is allowed to run for a maximum of ten rounds. At the end of those ten rounds if the Rebels have met the victory condition they remove this card from the mission deck and replace it with “Disable Sensor Net.” The new mission builds on the success of the Rebels; the intelligence brought back by the HWK-290 is used to set up the next mission. If the Rebels happen to fail…the HWK is destroyed and this card is returned to the mission deck and can be attempted again later.<\/p>\n

When I ran the campaign as a GM I would have the Rebel leader randomly draw a card from the mission deck at the end of each session. That gave me a week to prepare (and make sure I had all of the supplementary materials required). The Rebels would find out what their next mission was during the briefing at the beginning of our next session, have a sort planning period, and then off we would go!<\/p>\n

As mentioned above, each story arc contains three (or in one case four) missions. If you complete a complete story arc successfully then the Rebel Forces score a point. At various points if you fail a mission the Imperial side gets a point. I’ve played through the entire series three times now, and we never worried about winning as the Rebels, we finished every mission we could. It’s just that fun. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The mission deck never has more than five cards in it. As you complete an objective, the mission deck shrinks. It’s a great mechanic that means you don’t always fly missions in the same objective which adds variety.<\/p>\n

Readers may have noticed that I have several times mentioned running the campaign as a Game Master. Is that required?
\n<\/p>\n

Game Master: Yes or No?<\/strong>
\nI really liked running Heroes as a Game Master. It allowed me to keep things secret and allow the Rebel pilots to discover them on their own, rather than everyone already having the knowledge that they shouldn’t shoot the cargo bins because they might explode. \ud83d\ude08 I would provide a mission briefing, let the pilots discuss strategy, and then I would roll all of the dice for the Imperials. I had fun, and honestly I think the other players had more fun that way too.<\/p>\n

We started playing Heroes at a local game store. The table presence is fantastic, and the excitement of the players as they shot down the Imperial hordes was palpable. We got more and more attention and interest…to the point where I ended up recruiting a second GM and we had two concurrent campaigns going. (Yes, I own that many TIE Fighters. No, I’m not proud of that. Wait, yes I am.) At the most active point we had 12-14 people involved in the dual campaigns. <\/p>\n

But the specific question is: Do you have to have a GM?<\/p>\n

No, you absolutely do not. You could even play the campaign solo. (Ha, I said “solo.”) If you do, I would suggest that you run at least two or three ships as a single ship just doesn’t have the firepower of the proper magnitude to get the job done. As you advance you levels (pilot skill) you would find that a variety of ships brings more capabilities to your team. Just like a D&D squad works best with a couple of fighters, a mage, and a cleric…a Heroes squad probably works best with a couple of X-Wings, maybe an A-Wing, and a Y-Wing dropping bombs and plinking the opponents with a turret. <\/p>\n

What ships do you need to run the campaign? Of course you need whatever Rebel ships you want to fly (the original Heroes was released very early in the existence of X-Wing<\/em> so they prepared for only the basic ships). The FAQ for Heroes suggests that you need two TIE Fighters for each Rebel player, and one of each other ship (TIE Advanced, TIE Interceptor, TIE Phantom, and so on) per two Rebel players. Certain missions call for a GR-75 Rebel Transport but you can print out just the base of the ship and use that; you do not require the actual model. (I have two, just in case.) There is an NPC HWK-290 as well as a YT-2400 that shows up periodically. On the Imperial side you need a Decimator at some point. (I have three, just in case.)<\/p>\n

House Rule<\/strong>
\nOne of the main rules that even the creator of Heroes suggests using is to pool (share) XP. I covered XP (experience points) in my first Heroes post<\/a>. In theory XP progression should balance out naturally. Higher PS pilots shoot first (Han!) and hopefully damage a ship, leaving the lower PS pilots to clean things up and gain the XP for the destruction of the ship. However, it doesn’t always work out that way. Plus the A-Wing pilot who is flying along drawing the TIE Fighters off on a wild goose chase never gets to kill anything, while the Y-Wing who bombs an entire squad of TIE Fighters into space dust scores several.<\/p>\n

The answer to this is to add up all of the XP earned during a mission and then split the total among the active pilots. Any extra can be awarded to the lower PS pilots to help them level up. By doing this, players do not always have to focus on making their ship the most powerful offensive weapon. In one campaign we had a support HWK that was dealing out focus tokens left and right, could boost and barrel roll and had a stealth device. They never killed anything but were a major help in completing multiple missions.<\/p>\n

X-Wing 2.0<\/strong>
\nIt is appropriate to mention at this point that Heroes was designed before X-Wing 2.0, so a number of things have changed that have various degrees of impact on the game. For example, in X-Wing 1.0<\/em> (or X-Wing<\/em> as we called it) pilot skills ranged from 1-9. In the updated version they range from 1-6. Some pilot abilities were changed, some were combined, and some were removed altogether. Bombs and missiles changed in 2.0 as well. What does this mean for Heroes?<\/p>\n

There are a couple of options. You can play Heroes under 1.0 rules, with 1.0 ships, and have a blast. Trust me, you will have so much fun you won’t care that you’re not using Force abilities and chained actions and stuff like that. Or you can read up on the Heroes Facebook group, where an enthusiastic group of folks is working to update Heroes to the 2.0 framework. It’s not as simple as you think! And the difficulty simply reinforces just how good of a job that Josh Derksen did with his initial design<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Force is strong with this one…<\/strong>
\nI have mentioned previously that I have spent a metric ton of cash (almost) on X-Wing<\/em> and accessories. Let’s pull a round number out of the hat and say over the last four years I have spent $2,500 on the game. What the heck, let’s round up to $3,000. During that time I have spent at least four hours every week being entertained by the purchase. How does the math work out?<\/p>\n

4 hours a week * 52 weeks a year * 4 years = 832 hours
\n$3,000 \/ 832 hours = $3.60 \/ hour<\/p>\n

The net is that I have paid less than the cost of a movie per hour for the entertainment. That’s right in the sweet spot I mentioned during one of my posts about Terraforming Mars accessories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Heroes of the Aturi Cluster is a huge part of that, and it’s free to download and play. If you are a fan of the game and haven’t played it yet, do yourself a favor and try it out. Fly with 1.0 rules, or check out the Facebook Group<\/a> where people are working to update to 2.0. Either way, you’re in for a load of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, I completely forgot about this. A long time ago (in a galaxy right here) I wrote a post about “Heroes of the Aturi Cluster” which is a fan-made campaign expansion for X-Wing Miniatures Game. I talked about my Y-Wing pilot “Rover” and the abilities he had by the end of the campaign. What I … Continue reading “Heroes of the Aturi Cluster (Part II)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19,18],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews","tag-hotac","tag-x-wing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}