Black Market - Ship to Ship - The Alpha-Class XG-1 "Star Wing" Assault Gunboat

“We’ll have to destroy them ship to ship.”

-Darth Vader

Alpha-Class XG-1 “Star Wing” Assault Gunboat

The XG-1 Star Wing, or simply the Assault Gunboat, is one of the most versatile Imperial starfighters available in the Galactic Civil War Era. It also offers Game Masters numerous interesting ways to challenge their PCs. Found on page 54 of Fly Casual, the Smugglers Sourcebook, This sturdy vessel comes fully equipped with shields, a powerful arsenal of weapons and most importantly a hyperdrive.

The stats for the Assault Gunboat are largely similar to those of the venerable Y Wing, with a few key differences. The Gunboat has a drastically increased cost and rarity compared to the Y Wing, no doubt to reflect the fact it is an advanced Imperial starfighter currently in service and not a Clone Wars era bomb truck, ubiquitous on the second hand market. The Gunboat also has a poorer handling rating than the Y Wing, with a -2 rating, finally the Y Wing boasts a slightly higher system strain threshold.

In a side by side comparison then, the Star Wing seems inferior but honestly that doesn’t really matter. The Empire does not utilize the Y Wing, but it does fly the Star Wing in appreciable numbers and uses them in a manner drastically different to most TIE series craft. What the Star Wing really does offer is options for the Game Master. Are your PCs tired of blowing away thinly armoured TIE Fighters? Then throw in a squadron of Assault Gunboats loaded with concussion missiles and make them sweat when they hear the tone of a missile lock coming from their consoles. Maybe your crew of smugglers have made a habit of fleeing from Imperial customs patrols, confident their YT-1300 can outrun the standard customs corvette. Completely confident their crack shot gunners can make short work of its TIE escorts while they plot their jump to hyperspace. But when Assault Gunboats begin to line up strafing runs with their Ion Cannons and threaten to blow your ship apart with Proton Torpedoes unless you heave to immediately, your PCs might have to rethink their strategies.

The Assault Gunboat’s voluminous ordnance bays and hyperdrives make them incredibly dangerous and unpredictable opponents. Perhaps your PCs have to scramble to protect a convoy from torpedo attacks by a flight of Gunboats only to see the XG-1s launch flights of missiles at the defending starfighters instead. Meanwhile a second flight of Gunboats jump into the fray and begin launching Mag Pulse warheads at the transports, seeking to disable them and capture the crews and supplies so vital to the Rebellion’s survival.

Though threatening, the Gunboat is still a poor dogfighter and a dedicated Ace should be able to handle them without too much trouble. They represent a serious challenge increase over the standard TIE fighter but do not represent such an extreme escalation as the deployment of TIE Advanced, Defenders or Phantoms. Because the Assault Gunboat is such a durable craft its also perfect choice to give to a particularly skilled enemy ace. One who can either choose to utilize their crafts impressive survivability to press the attack long after a pilot in a less sturdy craft might be force to flee or, they might use that same survivability to deny a hotshot ace the kill shot. Fleeing before a PC can land the final blow, perhaps taunting them over the comms channel just before escaping once again.

The fact the Star Wing has two customization hard points should also not be overlooked. Perhaps the PCs keep coming up against a squadron of gunboats customized to carry out devastating raids on Alliance support elements that always manage to slip away before the Alliance fighters can scramble.

To represent such a customized strike force I present Echo Squadron, a Special Operations Squadron equipped with customized XG-1 Star Wing Assault Gunboats. Each Gun Boat is equipped with Nightshadow Coating and Whisperthrust Engines.

Found on page 63 of Fly Casual, Nightshadow Coating reduces the range of of passive sensors attempting of detect the craft by 1, and can be further modified to reduced the ship’s silhouette by 1 in Combat (Which as an elite Squadron within the Navy’s Special Warfare Division the squadron has undoubtedly had such modifications carried out). The second attachment, Whisperthrust Engines (Fly Casual p.63) increase the difficulty of checks to detect this vessel by 2, provided it is moving at speed 3 or lower.

These two modifications turn the Star Wing from a lumbering attack craft into something more akin to a submarine, launching devastating strikes from hiding then withdrawing before a counter attack can be mounted. Perhaps PCs will have to jury rig more powerful sensors onto their craft in order to detect these stealthy killers, or set a trap for the Imperials, creating a target so tempting the Empire will have no choice but to attack, while the PCs lie in wait. Remember however, it is all to easy for the hunter to become the hunted, and even as the PCs’ trap is sprung, it is all too easy for more XG-1s to jump into the fray, using brute force to accomplish what stealth could not.

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Brett Bambridge

New to writing, but a long time fan of pushing plastic figures around and making pew pew noises. Brett hopes to convert as many people as possible into wargames enthusiasts, if only because he's tired of being told to stop making explosion noises.