"Suggested Tailing Rules for X-Wing" Topic

I think "Tailing" rules are a good idea.

Perhaps not for competitive play, but would be useful for various scenarios.

For that, I can see that the tailed fighter should have to let the tailing fighter know his general maneuver, but not the exact one, if he cannot shake his pursuer.

This is only a valid tactic for pilots in the rear 90 degree arc of their target, and if the target is in their front 90 degree arc, at Range 2, or less.

Each pilot rolls a D10, and adds his appropriate pilot skill to the result, for a final "advantage" value. If the pursuer ties, or rolls higher than the number his target rolls, then the tailed pilot must show his pursuer his plans before the maneuver dials are locked in, e.g. left, straight, right, or 180 maneuver.

Example of the above, a Y-Wing pilot with a Pilot Skill rating of 2 rolls 1D10 to avoid being tailed, and rolls a 7. His final "Tailing Advantage Number" is 9. A Tie pilot with a rating of 4, attempting to pursue the Y-Wing, and in the right arcs rolls a 4, so his final "Tailing Advantage Number" is 8. He is unsuccessful, or otherwise distracted, so does not get the tailing attack bonus mentioned below, and the Y-Wing doesn't have to mention anything about his general maneuver plans for the next turn.

If the Tie pilot had rolled a 5 on the D10, he would've been able to force the Y-Wing pilot to let him know (and only him), his general maneuver plan, but not the exact one, e.g. turn right, left, fly straight, or pull a 180 degree turn, since they would have tied.

Play then proceeds as normal.

Any fighter being pursued by another in the Death Star Trench, and at a range of 2 or less is considered "tailed" automatically, if the pursuer is behind, and in the trench too. Note, if the "target" plans to leave the trench, then follow the rules for tailing, as specified above.

Perhaps, if desired, the pursuer gets an extra attack die due to successful tailing.

If you think that is too powerful, then remove one of the Defender's Evade Dice instead(but never less than 1).

Almost exactly the idea that I had! ("I can't shake him! I can't shake him!")

I would give the tailer perfect information to allow him to simply follow the target around.

If you want something more amusing, allowing the tailed pilot to state either speed or direction.

I don't think you need a die roll at all-- that's outside the basic way the game is played. Simply make it like CY6-- if you are within a certain range, in his rear arc and he is in your front arc (I would say within shooting range band one) your tailed opponent has to declare left, right, or straight. How fast is up to them, and it could include a Koiogran Turn if your ship can do that. Also a great use for a surprise barrel roll action to break the tail!

Well, not perfect, since you need to guess the speed he will choose, but at least a good idea of where he is maneuvering to. He just won't know if you are doing a hard or an easy turn, or the speed with which you will do it.

I like the idea of the tailed pilot occasionally getting the better of his pursuer.

Remember Maverick in Topgun?

He was an expert at that.

Of course, a barrel roll at the last second might help with that too, so perhaps that maneuver is the sole one that shouldn't be telegraphed to the pursuer, since it is a snap maneuver.

Take the rule from WoG, the tailee must tell the tailer left, right or straight.

Keep in mind the Immelmann is a straight

Yep, sounds good Mr Elmo.

Also, if you don't want to add in any extraneous dice rolls, then the tailing pilot only gets a one additional Red Attack Die bonus if he hasn't performed a Red maneuver to get in the target's six o'clock position, and is within the Range 1 band.

I would advise that whatever method for tailing you choose, use a very light hand. The game already makes it pretty easy to keep an enemy in front of you by way of the 45-degree targeting cone, that provides a huge margin for "error." As the defender, having an enemy in your rear quarter (and you in his targeting cone), puts you at a tremendous disadvantage. Unless he's right on top of you, your only real option (aside from a koiogan) is to turn inside him, and he knows this.

If you are not sure what your tailed opponent is going to do, back off the throttle a bit, go straight (or shallow-turn toward the target if he is off your 12:00). The idea is to keep him in your front targeting arc, and get him to commit.

If your target goes straight, he's toast. If he turns, he is now commited, and you can be pretty confident of what he is going to do next.

In Summary, the super-wide 45-degree targeting cone is sort of an abstract way of creating a tailing advantage. That, and backing off a notch will force the target to commit, and once he does that, you have him.

Keep in mind that since WWII, the turning dogfight has not been the norm. Most air kills (before missiles) are the result of hit-and-run type of attacks.

Quite true.

I've been thinking about trimming that down to a 30 or 45 degree angle (total, e.g. 1/3 or 1/2 of the current 90 degree cone), just for fun, and for friendly games.

Keep in mind that since WWII, the turning dogfight has not been the norm. Most air kills (before missiles) are the result of hit-and-run type of attacks.

The fighter combat in Star Wars is based on WW2-era dogfighting, though, so that would seem like the ideal period to take inspiration from.

Some good Ideas. I was thinking of using a D-6 rather than a D-10. Need to play a few to see how it works out.

I also think an advantage for flying in flight formation, two or three fighters is worth a look. I did so for Snowspeeders in my Hoth scenarios.

VR
James Mattes

Tight formations give the advantage to the enemy, as in WWII.

Fighters in tight formation get a firepower advantage already, e.g. for their Range 1 attacks, but will suffer from all being easily targeted themselves.

Anything to break up those formations, and to keep multiple fighters from targeting one craft in the same turn seem like a good idea to me, hence the tighter firing angles. To limit the above though, we probably need to get down to a 15 degree shooting angle, or only directly in front of the fighter, to the width of its base.

Multiple targets converging on the same target should be at risk of either colliding with one another, and/or shooting each other down.

I imagine most people playing X-Wing won't want to go to those extremes, but seems reasonable to me.

Well there are Star Wars Padawans and then there are Jedi Masters. Most who play the game will never take it to the next level (altitude being the most obvious) and other advanced rules and doing so runs the risk of breaking the system. I am gunning for the more Wargame savy crowd who attend conventions. So too many advanced rules would be unworkable at that type of a game. But more flavor to the system is doable IMHO.

VR
James Mattes

I was also thinking about tailing recently and came up with this idea:

Tailing Eligibility
At the start of the Planning Phase players can determine whether any of their ships can attempt to tail an opponent. To be eligible to tail a target the ship must meet the following conditions:
1. The tailing ship must have a Pilot Skill value greater than or equal to the target ship.
2. The tailing ship must have the target ship completely within their front fire arc and both of the rear corners of the target's stand must be closer to the front two corners of the tailers stand than any other corner of the target ship's stand.
3. The ships must be within range of the shooting ruler of each other.

If these conditions are met then the tailing ship can declare their intentions of tailing a specified target ship and place a FOCUS token next to their ship. All ships then select their maneuvers as usual.

Tailing
Before any ships are moved any ship that has been selected to be tailed must attempt to lose it. They will roll a number of defense dice equal to their Agility value and can add an extra die if the tailer is only at range 1. Only count EVADE results, but every two FOCUS results can be converted to one EVADE result. The tailer then rolls a number of attack dice equal to their Agility value and adds an extra die if they are at range 3 and an extra die if they have a Pilot Skill value that is 3 or more than the target. Only count HIT results, but every two FOCUS results can be converted to one HIT result. A CRITICAL counts as two HIT results.
If the tailing ship rolls more HIT results than the target rolls EVADE results then they have maintained their tailing position. Any other outcome results in the target losing their tail and movement is conducted as normal. The tailer must keep their FOCUS token as an action this round.

Example:
Biggs Darklighter (Pilot Skill 5) has an Academy TIE fighter (Pilot Skill 1) directly in front of him at range 2 in a tailing position. At the start of the Planning Phase Biggs declares his intention to tail the "eyeball". The TIE fighter chooses a speed 1 LEFT BANK while Biggs chooses a speed 2 RIGHT TURN. The TIE fighter attempts to lose the tail by rolling 3 defense dice (their Agility) while Biggs rolls 2 attack dice for his Agility and another one for being more experienced.

The Academy pilot rolls a "blank", FOCUS and an EVADE result to get a score of 1.
Biggs rolls two FOCUS and a CRITICAL so scores 3 and tails the TIE.

If the tail is maintained then the target must reveal the turning orientation of their selected manuever to the tailing ship. This would be either left, right or straight as follows:
Left: LEFT BANK or TURN
Straight: STRAIGHT or U-TURN
Right: RIGHT BANK or TURN
The speed of the manueuver or the degree of turn is not revealed.

If the tailing ship wants to they can then spend their FOCUS token to change their manuever dial as desired, in effect this is their action and they would not get another action once they move, they were "focussing" on tailing after all. Once the dials are finalised normal play resumes.

Example cont'd:
The TIE fighter reveals they are turning LEFT to Biggs. He decides to spend his focus token and change his maneuver to do a speed 2 LEFT BANK.

This is only a theoretical idea at the moment. It is inspired by the idea of dogfighting and getting on your opponent's 6 o'clock and having a good chance of following them. The idea is that if you are tailing at only range 1 you have less reaction time to maintain a tail on an opponent while further away you can more easily track them.

I like DB Draft's ideas. These seem like the best ideas for tailing rules in X-Wing I've seen so far.

While complicated, that is not a bad idea.

Xin

Thanks for the feedback, I think there is room to improve the concept and Mako11's idea allows less experienced pilots to tail which is good. Basically there needs to be a chance of getting the tail based on relative Pilot skill and Agility. I've tried to include the basic game components and mechanics to do this. I like the use of the FOCUS token to tail as every fighter will have this ability and if you lose the tail you at least have the focus action still available. How a big difference in pilot skill should be factored may need some tweaking.

I suggest actually playing the game before making such suggestions.

The game doesn't need them. Frankly, I don't see what they would really add except to make things slower and more complicated.

The game works fine for most gaming but to take it to the next level there are many ideas out there that are well worth looking at for the "serious" miniature wargamer. Why play checkers when you can play chess?

VR
James Mattes

I've played the game quite a bit and I think some simple homebrewed tailing rules would be a great addition to the game.