Star Wars™: X-Wing – Battle Over Endor Scenario Preview

The Battle Over Endor Scenario Pack adds another exciting narrative scenario to play with your friends. In this scenario, the Imperial player will be fending off Rebel ships as they try to destroy the command bridge of the Super Star Destroyer, Executor. In this article, we will cover some of the unique features of the scenario and give tips on strategies to win.

Both players begin with the same point total, but the Imperial player has four additional Turbolaser Batteries, giving them an advantage in a straight dogfight with the Rebels. Also, the Imperials get to set up in two locations, where the Rebel player is stuck setting up in the middle of the table near the turbolasers. This gives the Imperials a significant advantage over the Rebels, if the Rebels try to ignore the Imperials and just try to go straight for the main objective.

The Imperial strategy for this scenario is to destroy Rebel ships as quickly and mercilessly as possible. You’ll need to have all your ships enter combat on the first round of the game to overwhelm the Rebels quickly, while you still have turbolasers. As a general strategy, the Imperial player will never want to make a defensive choice with their ships, like running away to avoid destruction. Victory for the Empire necessitates the destruction of all Rebel ships, and your tactics should match that goal. Focus fire on ships that are the highest threat to the bridge, and that are easiest to remove from the board, first. Use the bridge to strengthen the turbolasers first, and only start recovering shields once the turbolasers are gone.

Setup will be key to your success. If you can figure out what the Rebel strategy and flight paths will be, getting in the way and shooting down key ships will bring you closer to your inevitable victory. Be careful during setup, so that the Rebels don’t draw too many of your ships to one side of the board and, by extension, out of the fight. While setting up your ships behind theirs may seem like a good strategy, you’ll want to avoid setting up behind their bombing B-Wings! The Rebel squad likely will try to use bombs as a guaranteed way to damage the turbolasers, and you don’t want to get caught in that. Never forget that, even if you lose the bridge, you still have a chance for glory! If the Rebels ignored your ships to burn down the bridge quickly, they still must live through turn 8 to win. If you crush their puny Rebellion, you’ll still win the game.

The Rebel strategy, at first glance, seems simple. Ignore everything else and destroy the bridge. However, if you do that, you’ll lose many of your ships to the Imperial fighters and turbolasers and find yourself running for multiple turns as the Imperials pick off your few remaining ships. Rebel squads will have a hard time succeeding with that straightforward strategy. What we’ve found works best is to remove the turbolasers as quickly as possible, then fight the Imperials for a few rounds, and finally, try to time the destruction of the bridge so that it happens as you close in on round 8.

While you are outnumbered, the Rebels do have one advantage, in that the turbolasers and bridge are at set locations and will not move. The Rebel Standard Loadouts bring a lot of tricks to this fight that can help them win an early edge. For example, Adon Fox can set up such that a proton bomb drop can hit two turbolasers (doing two damage to each!), then bank, focus, and barrel roll to shoot proton rockets at another turbolaser. With the advantage of practiced maneuvers, carefully planned strategy, and a little bit of luck, you can cripple or destroy most of the turbolasers on the first turn and finish them off on the second. Generally, you want to set up ships in one or more of three locations: in between the two turbolasers furthest from the bridge for your ships with bombs, or on the right or left flanks to avoid the other side’s turbolasers while you destroy the closer ones. Your Fire Support markers and wreckage placement will be important to help damage and delay Imperial ships while you do this.

Once the turbolasers are dealt with, you can start working on eliminating Imperial ships. This is likely a losing fight, since the Imperials had at least one turn of combat in which you shot at turbolasers instead of ships. However, the Rebels aren’t necessarily here to win the fight, just remove some of their more threatening and fragile ships. Early on, you’ll only want fire at the bridge if it’s your only option, but that doesn’t last forever. It’s hard to determine the right time to swap over to the bridge, but once you do, stay on it until it is destroyed. You want the game to go the whole eight turns for your best victory condition, so the bridge needs to be destroyed shortly before then, and your ships need to scatter and flee afterwards. Swap to the bridge when you think you can destroy it, or when you hit a wall in combat and you can’t easily destroy more Imperial ships.

Battle Over Endor will be an exciting scenario which can be played many ways. Enjoy trying it out in your local game store!