In the aftermath of playing the Erasmus Campaing (cf. previous post about it), I was trying to design some own scenarios for X-Wing which were able to tell a story. My idea was to put more focus in an interesting scenario than in a balanced one.
However, while I was pondering how to implement my not-so-clear ideas into a working set of scenarios and their story line, I ran into several questions concerning dimensions and time (read game rounds) involved in a typical game; such things like how many rounds will take a certain ship to go from point A to point B and similar technical issues. As I was not having my core set with me, I tried to find some of the info I needed on the web, however, I was not able to find all the info I wanted out there so later, when it was again possible to me, I measured it myself, make some pictures and thought a bit about the metagame issues involved.
Before I go amok in this post, let me warn you. I am not a guru nor an expert on the game, on the contrary, I am a beginner, maybe very enthusiastic, but still a beginner; so look to whatever I say with this in mind. Maybe some things I say are sound, maybe some are silly or obvious, maybe totally wrong. If you do not agree or have a (better / different) opinion, please, be my guest, let a comment and discuss it :)
Ok, let's take a look to the dimensions of the game components.
Normal ship base
The normal ship base is 4 cm by 4 cm, which is exactly the same as the length of the maneuver template straight 1. Each straight maneuver template is also exactly 4 cm longer than the previous one. So the maneuver template straight 5 is 20 cm long, the straight 4 is 16 cm long and so on.
This implies that any normal ship will move a minimum distance of 8 cm (4 cm for the template plus 4 cm for the base), a maximum distance of 24 cm (4 cm for the base and 20 cm for the straight 5 template) and always in 4 cm (or one ship base) increments (due to the increment of 4 cm from one straight template to the next one).
How translate this into useful information for you?
Well, it depends on your ability for eyeballing distances on a boardgame table, of course, but if you look to the gaming table and you see where you normal 4 cm base ship is, it should not be too difficult for you to guest a distance based on the size of the base of the ship. My point being that your reference template (straight 1) is already on the table in the form of the base of the ship.
This also applies to the barrel roll action, although in this case you do not need to eyeball any distance as the barrel roll is an action which can only be performed if legal and as the rules say and the FAQ confirms, measuring distances is not allowed during the Planning phase (cf. page 6 of the rules); however barrel roll take place during the Activation phase wherein not nothing is said about pre-measurements. Also, on page 8 of the rules says that you may measure the barrel roll before committing to it.
Range ruler
The range ruler goes in 10 cm increments. So, range 1 goes from 0 cm to 10 cm, range 2 from 10 cm to 20 cm and range 3 from 20 cm to 30 cm.
Target Lock allows you to measure the distance (read range) to a target before committing. Also, in the Combat phase, you can measure the distance (read range) to any other ship before declaring it as target (cf. rule book page 10, right column).
If you try to remember that distance from the Combat phase for your next Planning phase, you will have a very good (read accurate) guest of the real distance in centimeters between those two ships, which you can use to choose your maneuver.
Large ship base
I just opened my Slave I expansion pack only to measure the base, which, surprise, surprise, is 8 cm long. Same story than with the normal base. Do you have a large ship on the board ? then, look to its base and start guessing how much afar another ship is.
Some meta-gaming thoughts / facts
The standard playing area is 3' to 3', or 90 cm to 90 cm.
A normal ship touching one border is 86 cm away from the other border.
The maximum distance this ship will move is 24 cm per round with a straight 5 (if able to use this maneuver of course, currently only the A-wing is this fast for the Rebels, whereas only the TIE bomber is not so fast for the Empire). If you move straight ahead at this maximum speed, the front of the ship's base will be at 28 cm from the starting border at the end of round 1 (4 cm for the initial position of the base, 20 cm for the template straight 5 and again 4 cm for the base), at 52 cm at the end of round 2, at 76 cm at the end of round 3 and at 100 cm (and totally outside of the playing area) at the end of round 4.
At a speed of straight 4 (maximum speed of the TIE bomber and all the Rebel-Wings except the A-Wing), a ship will move "only" 20 cm per round; therefore it will be at 24 cm at the end of round 1 (4 cm for the initial position of the base, 16 cm for the template straight 4 and again 4 cm for the base), at 44 cm at the end of round 2, at 64 cm at the end of round 3, at 84 cm at the end of round 4 and at 104 cm (again well outside the playing area) at the end of round 5.
A large ship touching the starting border is only 82 cm from the other edge.
The YT-1300 (aka Millennium Falcon) and the Firespray-31 (aka Slave I) can move at speed straight 4 (which we know is 16 cm long), which amount to 24 cm per round which is as fast as a normal ship at straight 5 speed (!).
Therefore at the end of round 1, the front of the ship base will be at 32 cm from the starting border (8 cm for the initial position of the base, 16 cm for the template straight 4 and again 8 cm for the base), at the end of round 2 it will be at 56 cm, at the end of round 3 at 80 cm and outside of the playing area at the end of round 4.
The Lambda Shuttle moves "only" at a maximum speed of straight 3, which amounts to 12 cm for the template and 8 cm for the base resulting in a total movement of 20 cm, again as fast as the second best speed of a normal ship, the straight 4 speed.
Therefore the front of the Lambda's base will be at 28 cm from the starting border at the end of round 1, at 48 cm at the end of round 2, at 68 cm at the end of round 3, at 88 cm at the end of round 4 and outside of the playing area at the end of round 5.
In short, flying at maximum speed from one side to the other takes 4 rounds for the fastest ships and 5 rounds for the second fastest ships; the size of the ship (normal or large) does not matter.
I tried to make a nice table with the straight forward movement of the ships but the outcome does not look so nice :( although the info there is fine.
For normal ships (4 cm base) the movement table looks like this
For Large ships (8 cm base) the movement table is
On the tables, the starting position of the ships is NOT taken into account; they only show how many centimeters will a ship move in a straight line if it keeps doing the same maneuver every round. I stopped the table at 120 cm as it will be more distance than the length of any gaming table.
Hope you find it useful.
I will post this now, but will keep adding things in the next few days.
Happy gaming !
Before I go amok in this post, let me warn you. I am not a guru nor an expert on the game, on the contrary, I am a beginner, maybe very enthusiastic, but still a beginner; so look to whatever I say with this in mind. Maybe some things I say are sound, maybe some are silly or obvious, maybe totally wrong. If you do not agree or have a (better / different) opinion, please, be my guest, let a comment and discuss it :)
Ok, let's take a look to the dimensions of the game components.
Normal ship base
The normal ship base is 4 cm by 4 cm, which is exactly the same as the length of the maneuver template straight 1. Each straight maneuver template is also exactly 4 cm longer than the previous one. So the maneuver template straight 5 is 20 cm long, the straight 4 is 16 cm long and so on.
This implies that any normal ship will move a minimum distance of 8 cm (4 cm for the template plus 4 cm for the base), a maximum distance of 24 cm (4 cm for the base and 20 cm for the straight 5 template) and always in 4 cm (or one ship base) increments (due to the increment of 4 cm from one straight template to the next one).
How translate this into useful information for you?
Well, it depends on your ability for eyeballing distances on a boardgame table, of course, but if you look to the gaming table and you see where you normal 4 cm base ship is, it should not be too difficult for you to guest a distance based on the size of the base of the ship. My point being that your reference template (straight 1) is already on the table in the form of the base of the ship.
This also applies to the barrel roll action, although in this case you do not need to eyeball any distance as the barrel roll is an action which can only be performed if legal and as the rules say and the FAQ confirms, measuring distances is not allowed during the Planning phase (cf. page 6 of the rules); however barrel roll take place during the Activation phase wherein not nothing is said about pre-measurements. Also, on page 8 of the rules says that you may measure the barrel roll before committing to it.
Range ruler
The range ruler goes in 10 cm increments. So, range 1 goes from 0 cm to 10 cm, range 2 from 10 cm to 20 cm and range 3 from 20 cm to 30 cm.
Target Lock allows you to measure the distance (read range) to a target before committing. Also, in the Combat phase, you can measure the distance (read range) to any other ship before declaring it as target (cf. rule book page 10, right column).
If you try to remember that distance from the Combat phase for your next Planning phase, you will have a very good (read accurate) guest of the real distance in centimeters between those two ships, which you can use to choose your maneuver.
Large ship base
I just opened my Slave I expansion pack only to measure the base, which, surprise, surprise, is 8 cm long. Same story than with the normal base. Do you have a large ship on the board ? then, look to its base and start guessing how much afar another ship is.
Some meta-gaming thoughts / facts
The standard playing area is 3' to 3', or 90 cm to 90 cm.
A normal ship touching one border is 86 cm away from the other border.
The maximum distance this ship will move is 24 cm per round with a straight 5 (if able to use this maneuver of course, currently only the A-wing is this fast for the Rebels, whereas only the TIE bomber is not so fast for the Empire). If you move straight ahead at this maximum speed, the front of the ship's base will be at 28 cm from the starting border at the end of round 1 (4 cm for the initial position of the base, 20 cm for the template straight 5 and again 4 cm for the base), at 52 cm at the end of round 2, at 76 cm at the end of round 3 and at 100 cm (and totally outside of the playing area) at the end of round 4.
At a speed of straight 4 (maximum speed of the TIE bomber and all the Rebel-Wings except the A-Wing), a ship will move "only" 20 cm per round; therefore it will be at 24 cm at the end of round 1 (4 cm for the initial position of the base, 16 cm for the template straight 4 and again 4 cm for the base), at 44 cm at the end of round 2, at 64 cm at the end of round 3, at 84 cm at the end of round 4 and at 104 cm (again well outside the playing area) at the end of round 5.
A large ship touching the starting border is only 82 cm from the other edge.
The YT-1300 (aka Millennium Falcon) and the Firespray-31 (aka Slave I) can move at speed straight 4 (which we know is 16 cm long), which amount to 24 cm per round which is as fast as a normal ship at straight 5 speed (!).
Therefore at the end of round 1, the front of the ship base will be at 32 cm from the starting border (8 cm for the initial position of the base, 16 cm for the template straight 4 and again 8 cm for the base), at the end of round 2 it will be at 56 cm, at the end of round 3 at 80 cm and outside of the playing area at the end of round 4.
The Lambda Shuttle moves "only" at a maximum speed of straight 3, which amounts to 12 cm for the template and 8 cm for the base resulting in a total movement of 20 cm, again as fast as the second best speed of a normal ship, the straight 4 speed.
Therefore the front of the Lambda's base will be at 28 cm from the starting border at the end of round 1, at 48 cm at the end of round 2, at 68 cm at the end of round 3, at 88 cm at the end of round 4 and outside of the playing area at the end of round 5.
In short, flying at maximum speed from one side to the other takes 4 rounds for the fastest ships and 5 rounds for the second fastest ships; the size of the ship (normal or large) does not matter.
I tried to make a nice table with the straight forward movement of the ships but the outcome does not look so nice :( although the info there is fine.
For normal ships (4 cm base) the movement table looks like this
| Round | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| Template | |||||||||||||||
| 1 | 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 | 40 | 48 | 56 | 64 | 72 | 80 | 88 | 96 | 104 | 112 | 120 |
| 2 | 12 | 24 | 36 | 48 | 60 | 72 | 84 | 96 | 108 | 120 | |||||
| 3 | 16 | 32 | 48 | 64 | 80 | 96 | 112 | 128 | |||||||
| 4 | 20 | 40 | 60 | 80 | 100 | 120 | |||||||||
| 5 | 24 | 48 | 72 | 96 | 120 |
For Large ships (8 cm base) the movement table is
| Round | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Template | ||||||||||
| 1 | 12 | 24 | 36 | 48 | 60 | 72 | 84 | 96 | 108 | 120 |
| 2 | 16 | 32 | 48 | 64 | 80 | 96 | 112 | 128 | ||
| 3 | 20 | 40 | 60 | 80 | 100 | 120 | ||||
| 4 | 24 | 48 | 72 | 96 | 120 |
On the tables, the starting position of the ships is NOT taken into account; they only show how many centimeters will a ship move in a straight line if it keeps doing the same maneuver every round. I stopped the table at 120 cm as it will be more distance than the length of any gaming table.
Hope you find it useful.
I will post this now, but will keep adding things in the next few days.
Happy gaming !
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