Edge of the Empire/Age

of Rebellion

To

X-wing Miniatures

Conversion Rulebook

By Mikayla Donaldson

PART ONE: WHEN TO SWITCH

The debate about whether or not to com-bine the tactical X-Wing Miniatures game with the narrative Edge of the Empire game has been disputed ever since Edge of the Empire was released. While the merits of the built-in system shouldnt be in doubt, the abstract na-ture of narrative storytelling tended to frustrate some, after all, who could resist the image of starfighters hurtling through space at break-neck speeds, spitting laser fire as they hurtle at their targets on your tabletop?

When I decided that I produce a conversion rule set, the first and foremost thing I wanted to incorporate was as little adjustment to ei-ther game as possible. I admired the fact that the narrative storytelling of Edge of the Em-pire allowed for fast and loose playing that focused on the action and story and not on the dice rolling and rules, but I also felt that the X-Wing Miniatures game captured the feeling of hurtling through space in a life or death battle for superiority that sits unrivaled in its smooth rules and cinematic feel. I saw the two as natural compliments to full immer-sion at the table.

After all, when watching the Star Wars mov-ies, I was always subtly aware that the flavor of the movie was different when you moved from Space to Ground. You may notice that theres a change in everything: music, tempo, camera angles, color choices. When thinking about the movies, you can cleanly split them between great space battle movies and great action movies. A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith, all these movies have epic space battles that are fundamentally different in tone than the others, both in scale and in severity. While the Millenium Falcon flees Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, it serves as an accent to

the story, not the pivotal moment.

It is with this in mind, that deciding when to switch is as important as what hap-pens when you do. The rules for X-Wing Min-iature Battles complement the story greatly when youre fleeing from T.I.E. fighters intent on your destruction, but it doesnt benefit the mood when youre avoiding gravity wells and collisions in an asteroid field. In these situa-tions, the cool and skill of the pilot is far more important than the steely nerves of a gunner, or the jury-rigging of a mechanic while the pi-lot performs insane maneuvers to keep the enemy at bay.

For this reason, these rules should only be used if the Players find themselves in ship to ship combat. Drawing parallels from the movies, we can say that the following would be times when the conversion rules are appropriate:

Assaulting the Trade Federation Star-ships

Tailing Slave 1 to Geonosis

Assaulting Grievous Flagship

Fleeing from the T.I.E. Fighters after escaping the first Death Star

Assaulting the Thermal Exhaust Port to destroy the first Death Star

Assaulting the Second Death Star

Situations where you are flat out flee-ing, however, and not engaging in combat, maybe better completed by using the narrative rules. These examples are better resolved this way:

Escaping Naboo

Fleeing Hoth into the asteroid field

Fleeing Cloud City

CHAPTER I: WHEN IS X-WING THE RIGHT MOVE?

In these examples, combat wasnt the point of the encounter. The deadliness of sit-uation was in not running. Usually, in situa-tions where you cant shoot back, the best thing to do is to handle it narratively, building on the drama and intensity.

Should some of the PCs be in escort craft, capable of fighting, and others in un-armed vehicles, then combat can be engaged and tactical rules used. As a general rule, if no PC is going to shoot at an enemy, theres no need to handle the battle tactically.

Its important to remember that just because you have ships in space, doesnt mean that you need to pull out a space map and go for tactical battle. Consider X-Wing to be another tool in your storytelling tool-box, use it when it accentuates the mood, but nev-er force a situation into something that doesnt fit the story.

In most games, the timescales switch from narrative scale to combat scale when the Initiative order is established. Theres that distinct moment when the scales have been tipped, and negotiation is no longer an easy solution. This same idea can lead to the tran-sition betwixt narrative and tactical combat.

When the weapons power up, the sen-sors get jammed, and the throttles get opened to fullthats when the systems switch. The fist sneak attack might be handled narratively, but when everyone gets involved, thats when you should switch over.

Likewise, once the firing stops, go back to narrative. Even if still in the star field of play, Let the narrative system cover weav-ing through the broken wrecks of starships, and hurtling around the asteroids. If no one is shooting, you dont need to be tactical.

Likewise, if you have many things go-ing on at once, such as the PCs in the cargo

hold wrangling a Wompa that broke free of its cage while the Bounty Hunters working for the Black Sun Vigo you stole it from are trying to vaporize your starship, you can easily switch back and forth between narrative and tactical by remembering that 1 turn (all phases of a turn) in the X-Wing tactical game is the same as 1 round in the narrative game.

Transitioning from one to the other is of vital importance to maintain something for the whole party to do, but more than that, it serves as a means to blur the lines between the two different systems and bring a more natural feel to the whole thing.

CHAPTER II: HOW DO I TRAN-SITION TO THE FIGHT?

PART TWO: STARSHIP ROLES

In some situations, a group of PCs will be operating as a squadron or flight, and therefore each have their own starfighter to operate. In other situations, they will all be on a single transport operating different aspects of the ship, and in still others, theyll fulfill dif-ferent roles on different ships, some single seat fighters, others crew-able.

In cases where you are in a starfight-er, you are assisted by HUDs (heads-up dis-plays) and fly-by-wire controls that allow you operate many functions of the ship at once. Some fighters even have astromechs equipped to serve as mechanics, assisting in the jury-rig and repair of minor systems. In these cases, you are both pilot and gunner. You will take all the actions for your starship through all the phases. The inherent down-side to this, is that you are very restricted in the actions that you can take. You cannot do anything not included in your ship profile.

When you are part of a crew on a larg-er ship, a space transport or even small capi-tal ship like a corvette, you fulfill one or more starship roles. You might be the pilot, the gunner, or even operate the ships computer systems. As part of the crew, you have the advantage of being able to perform many ac-tions each round, prolonging the lifespan of your ship and maintaining a fighting trim long after a snub fighter would be overwhelmed.

Below are the roles that need to be filled on a crewed starship:

Pilot: This is the person responsible for maneuvering the vessel through combat. She controls the dial and de-termines the initial order of action.

Co-Pilot: Designed to assist the Pilot,

the Co-Pilot watches for complications that arise and acts as a back-up should the Pilot be injured. The Co-Pilot also monitors the ships shield settings.

Gunner: The gunner (or gunners if the vehicle has multiple weapon banks) operate the on-board weapon systems of the starship. The gunner fires weapons during the combat phase.

Navigation Officer: The Navs officer is responsible for charting Astrogation calculations.

Communications Officer: The Comm officer is responsible for both external communications and also for manning the sensor suites on the starship.

Engineering: The engineering crew consist of one or more crewmembers who monitor damage and repairs of the ship during spaceflight.

Depending on the exact nature of the craft, some of the above positions may not exist. Any positions which are not supported by the starship default to the pilot. This often is assisted by electronic systems that simply the data and extrapolate the pilots requests into automated responses. This often will re-duce the flexibility of the actions available, and, more significantly, reduce the amount of actions that the pilot can perform.

This is the reason why freighters and corvettes are still utilized in small engage-ments alongside starfighterstheir versatility and dogged endurance are a credit and serve as irreplaceable command and control ships, as each crew member gets an action during each turn, the number of coordinated actions a fully crewed starship can perform is daunt-ing to the enemy.

CHAPTER I: ORGANIZING YOUR CREW

1. Planning Phase: Each Pilot involved in combat secretly chooses one maneuver for his ship using its maneuver dial

2. Activation Phase: Each ship moves and each crew member performs an action.

3. Combat Phase: Each gunner performs one attack.

4. End Phase: Pilots remove unused actions tokens from their ships (except target locks) and resolve any End Phase abili-ties.

Planning Phase

During this phase, each Pilot uses the maneuver dial to secretly choose one maneu-ver for his starship. The selection on the dial dictates how his ship moves during the next Activation Phase. Pilots must assign a dial to their ship. After choosing a maneuver and assigning it, continue to the Activation Phase.

Choosing a Maneuver

After discussing the strategy for the turn with the crew (provided the Pilot is in-clined to do so) the Pilot rotates the faceplate of the ships maneuver dial until the window shows the desired maneuver. He then as-signs the maneuver to his ship by placing it face down beside his ships base.

Activation Phase

During this phase, each ship is activat-ed one at a time. Starting with the ship whos Pilot has the lowest Pilot Skill, resolve the Ac-tivation Steps in order.

To determine the Pilot Skill of a PC or NPC, take the number of skill ranks in Piloting (Space). Then, for each rank in the Skilled Jockey talent that the character has, add 2 to the Pilot Skill. This final number represents the Pilot Skill for the PC.

Reveal the first Maneuver Dial

Once the order or the Activation has been established, the Pilot with the lowest Pi-lot Skill reveals his dial and performs his ma-neuver. Should two Pilots have the same ma-neuver, Pilots with Co-Pilots are considered to have the initiative over than those without and move second. Should there still be a tie, then an opposed Cool check will determine who has the initiative. Should this also result in a tie, then the Imperial player has the initiative.

Co-Pilot plots enemy Movement

Once the dial has been revealed, if any ships have a dedicated Co-Pilot, they may at this time choose to forfeit any further actions to interrupt and allow their ship to immediately move instead. This represents the additional attention that a Co-Pilot can de-vote to monitoring the battlefield. By plotting the trajectory of the ships, he can identify if his Pilot will be putting them into poor position (causing them to possibly collide with an ene-my or over shoot an objective due to their op-ponents maneuvering).

Set Template

Once the ship that is moving is deter-mined, the Pilot selects the template that re-lates to their ships move and executes the chosen maneuver.

PART THREE: THE TURN SEQUENCE

CHAPTER I: TURN OVERVIEW

CHAPTER II: TURN DETAIL

Check Pilot Stress & Overlap

If the Ship just executed a maneuver that resulted in it physically overlapping anoth-er ship, the Pilot must immediately make a Piloting (Space) check. The difficulty is al-ways set at Average, but for each ship or oth-er hazard within Range 1, add an obstacle die to the roll. Should the test be passed, then resolve the maneuver as per the rules pre-sented in Overlapping Other Ships on page 17 of the X-wing Miniatures rulebook, but do not stress the ship.

If the overlap includes obstacles like asteroids or other hazards, and the Piloting (Space) check is failed, roll one attack die for each obstacle die included in the Piloting (Space) check and apply the appropriate dam-age.

If the Pilot chose to execute a red ma-neuver or failed to make the Piloting (Space) check and overlapped a starship, then place one stress token next to the ships base. If the Pilot chose to execute a green maneuver, then remove one stress token from the ship (if any).

Clean up

Once the ending location of the ship has been determined, remove the dial from the table.

Perform Crew Actions

One the ship has completed moving, its crew may perform any available actions to them as defined below. Remember, these actions are only available if the appropriate crew spot is filled. Any crew member may take an action to change his station on board. This is considered to be their action so they may not take one at either the former or new stations (though some Talents may reduce the time this takes and allow an action).

Each action includes a number of al-

ternate stations that can perform the action. Should any of these stations be occupied, the Crew at such station can perform the action themselves. In cases of single-seat starfight-ers, most actions can be performed by the pilot, but not all (as outlined below).

Repair Damage

Who: Engineering Only

What: Flip one face up Ship dam-age card to face down, or remove one face down damage card com-pletely

How: Successful Mechanics check

Treat Injuries

Who: Anyone onboard

What: Flip one face up Pilot dam-age card to face down

How: Successful Medicine check

Switch Deflector Shields

Who: Co-Pilot, Pilot

What: If any Shields remaining, restore 1 Shield point.

How: Successful Mechanics check

Calculate the Jump to Hyperspace

Who: Navigations, Co-Pilot, Pilot

What: Complete 1 round of astro-gation calculations

How: Successful Astrogation check. The total time needed is covered later under Feeling the Pressure of Lightspeed in the Per-mutations chapter.

Hail or Hack Nearby Systems

Who: Communications, Navigation, Co-Pilot, Pilot

What: Make contact with local per-sons, send Hyperspace messages, disable or access enemy systems.

How: Successful Computer check. The check, even if successful, may require additional rolls on future rounds to complete the Hack or convince the listener to assist or accept surrender. These are han-dled narratively on a 1 Round to 1Turn basis

Escape

Who: Anyone onboard

What: Escape via Escape Pod or Ejection Seat

How: Successful Cool check

Use Action Bar

Who: Gunner, Co-Pilot, Pilot

What: Designate one action from the Action Bar to be performed

How: Available action. The Pilot and Co-Pilot (provided that they have taken no other actions) can each pick one action from the ac-tion bar to activate for that turn

Pass

Who: Anyone onboard

What: Forego their action and do nothing

How: Declare only

Combat Phase

During this phase, each Gunner may perform one attack against one enemy ship that is inside its firing arc and within range. Starting with the ship that has the Pilot with the highest Pilot Skill (resolving ties in the same order as above, with Initiative now going first instead of second) each gunner on board the ship (or pilots on ships with no gunners) resolves the following steps in order.

Declare Target

The attacker chooses which enemy ship he wishes to attack. Gunners on board the same ship are considered to be in con-stant communication, and as such, may coor-dinate their attacks however they wish, firing in whatever sequence they would like.

Roll Attack Dice

The attacker rolls a number of attack dice equal to his ships Primary Weapon Val-ue (red number), unless using a secondary weapon, in which case he uses the profile in-cluded for that weapon instead.

Modify Attack Roll

Players now spend action tokens and resolve abilities that re-roll or otherwise modify attack dice results.

Roll Defense Dice

The defender rolls a number of de-fense dice equal to his ships Agility Value (green number).

Modify Defense Roll

Players can spend action tokens and resolve abilities that re-roll or otherwise modify defense dice results.

Compare Results

Players compare the final attack and defense dice results to determine if the de-fender was hit, and how much damage it suf-fers.

Deal Damage

If the defender was hit, it loses shield tokens & gains Damage cards as appropriate.

End Phase

During this phase, pilots remove all evade and focus tokens assigned to their ships and return them to the action token sup-ply. Target Locks and Stress tokens remain until certain conditions are met.

Certain card abilities or missions may require players to resolve certain effects dur-ing the End Phase. If this is the case, then do so at this time.

At this point, the turn is over. If nei-ther side has destroyed all of his opponents starships, a new turn will now begin, starting over with a new Planning Phase.

PART FOUR: CHANGING THE GAME

The X-Wing Miniatures game and the Edge of the Empire (Age of Rebellion) Role-Playing Game are very different in their focus, mechanics and play style. This naturally leads to some rules not making sense in the context of the others. We have (up to this point) discussed how the X-Wing rules are interpreted based on Edge of the Empire ac-tions, so now we must talk about the Edge of the Empire rules and how they are interpreted into the X-Wing Miniatures game.

Feeling the Pressure of Lightspeed

In the Edge of the Empire RPG, the time needed to make a calculation to hyper-space is included primarily in the difficulty of making the roll. This is done to reduce the down-time and keep the action and narrative moving along.

Normally, the difficulty is determined to be Easy with an additional challenge dice based quick calculations. Any additional scores would then reduce the time taken for the calculation and increase the accuracy of the jump. The end function of this is to make a single roll encompass many minute calcula-tions and re-calculations in order to keep the action moving.

In X-Wing Miniatures, time matters. It matters a lot. As each round goes on, dam-age piles up, and so the difficulty according to the Edge of the Empire RPG would keep get-ting more extreme. The easiest way to bal-ance these competing factors is to use the following rule;

Calculating a basic route requires 5 turns of work. Each turn shaved from this basic time adds 1 but only 1 is required per turn taken to launch into hyperspace.

In this way, the Astrogator is banking on having more of his successes reduced by the increase in challenge, effectively the same as using those successes to reduce calcula-tion time. Hasty calculations, while they can be successful, are rarely as accurate as ones taken carefully.

If, however, one wants to play it safe, one will have to spend up to 5 turns calculat-ing the route, but can accumulate many suc-cesses while doing so. After using her 1 to make the jump, others can be used to in-crease accuracy or otherwise improve the jump.

Power Sockets and Datajacks

One of the actions the Comms Officer can perform is slicing the systems of an ene-my ship. This can be done to sabotage weap-ons systems or defenses, jam communica-tions, or even steal information from their sys-tems (such as Astrogation Maps and coordi-nates, or other sensitive information). Comms officers can also scan for enemy ships hiding using Stealth devices or determining the pres-ence of planetary defenses like shields and powered weapons batteries.

When doing this as part of an on-going space battle, a few adjustments need to be made to the basic Computer skill. Again, the skill use states that may be used to reduce the time required for the desired slicing action. In the X-Wing Miniatures game, it is easiest to institute a rule that;

A single action of espionage or sabo-tage may be performed for each achieved.

The lists of espionage and sabotage actions are detailed on the adjacent page. Each of these would require 1 action to per-form unless successes allowed multiple ac-tions to be achieved.

CHAPTER I: PERMUTATIONS

Espionage Actions

Access ship Databanks

Download 1 file accessed

Scan single range bracket

Scan single Ship System

Upload single file in accessed Da-tabase

Sabotage Actions

Access enemy systems

Turn on/off 1 system

Overload 1 system

Defeat 1 security gate

The Ship Card

Determining the ship Card for the group can be accomplished using the follow-ing conversion rules;

Pilot Skill Value: Take the number of skill ranks in Piloting (Space). Then, for each rank in the Skilled Jockey talent that the character has, add 2 to the Pilot Skill.

Pilot Name: The name of the character Piloting the starship. It is often appropri-ate to use the callsign or handle of the character.

Ship Type: The classification of the ship will determine the dial that the ship uses.

Faction Icon: This is determined based on the allegiance of the group.

Primary Weapon Value: The Primary Weapon Value is determined by dividing the damage value of the weapon used in half (rounding down). Each gunner will have their own PMV based on the weapon

they are using.

Agility Value: This is determined by sub-tracting the Silhouette from 4 and adding the Handling (to a minimum of 1).

Hull Value: This is determined by taking the Hull Trauma and dividing it by 3 (rounding down).

Shield Value: Shield Value is total De-fense value among all arcs.

Ship Type Icon: Determined based on Hull Type.

CHAPTER II: CONVERSIONS

Upgrade Bar: This lists the available up-grades on the starship. For PC ships, this can be ignored, as the upgrades will be handled narratively, and will already be included where in applicable.

Pilot Ability: This is where applicable abili-ties from Talents can be listed.

Action Bar: This is where available Pilot actions are listed.

Squad Point Cost: This is ignored.

Why Ignore Squad Points?

A large number of values are changed in the conversion to make the systems smoothly mesh. This means that the inherent balancing mechanic of Squad Points isnt ac-curate any longer. This is okay! The differ-ences are more weighted towards a heroic narrative than a gritty tactical game. The PCs starship is more durable, while the Impe-rial starfighters are slightly more crunchy. The balance comes in that when rival and nemesis starships appear, they too gain a more durable edge.

Using squad points to create scenarios is a hopeless gesture, as the PCs ship will defy normal point calculations. As such, its probably better to just ignore the points in fa-vor of establishing a narrative and storytelling balance to the encounter.

The PCs (through clever role-playing and wit) will probably be able to handle any encounter you through at them, but just as you do when setting up encounters ground-side, if they PCs look overwhelmed, tone down the enemy forces until an exciting bal-ance can be established.

What good is Gunnery, anyway?

Its not an accident that the Gunnery skill wasnt used as to determine the Primary Weapon Value. The truth is, Gunnery is best

used to accomplish other things than it is to determine damage to an enemy. Remember, Primary and Secondary Weapon Values are related to damage as well as not just accura-cy. As such, Gunnery is better used passive-ly, for such actions as Acquiring Target Lock or warming up the weapons to begin with.

Unlike the Target Lock action in X-Wing miniatures, any gunner can acquire a target lock using his targeting computer by activating the Target Lock action on the Action bar. This will allow any other gunner (himself included) to use a secondary weapon that re-quires the target lock in the combat phase.

To acquire a target lock, the gunner rolls his gunnery skill. The difficult, just as in Chapter VI of the RPG rulebook, is deter-mined by the range to the target as below.

Engaged models are those in base contact with another starship. Youll note that silhou-ette isn't included here. This is also intention-al, as the effects of silhouette are included in the Agility of a vessel, it is unnecessary to in-clude it here. Also, a targeting computer is less dependent on the size of a target to de-termine a hit than it is the strength of the ships sensors, which make distance a more applica-ble difficulty. This is supported by the movies in the fact that the X-Wings had to penetrate the trench to a certain distance for the target-ing computer before firing.

The targeting computer locked onto the exhaust port regardless of its size, but the size of the port (its silhouette) eventually re-sisted the torpedo itself; an action represented by the PMV of the Torpedo being beaten by the Agility Value of the target (3 - Silhouette 0+ Handling of 0 gives it an Agility Value 3)

Talent Conversions

Many of the talents as written in the Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion books dont work quite as intended in the con-fines of X-Wing Miniatures. As such, use the following conversion rules for determining the effects of these Talents.

Barrage

When attacking at range incre-ments 2 or 3, you may re-roll any blank results

Brilliant Evasion

As an action, make an opposed Piloting (Space) check against a target opponent; if successful you may cause him to skip his Combat Phase for a number of rounds = to your Agility

Dead to Rights

As an action, you may add +1 to a single Primary Weapon Value at the cost of 1 Agility Value

Dead to Rights (Improved)

So long as your target has no fo-cus or evade tokens, you may add 1 stress token for +1 to a single Primary Weapon Value

Defensive Driving

As an action, you may increase you Agility Value by 1/rank until the end of the round

Field Commander

As an action, choose 1 friendly ship at range 1 or 2 who has a low-er Pilot Skill; this ship may immedi-ately perform 1 action

Field Commander (Improved)

After using a focus token, you may place it next to any friendly ship at Range 1 or 2

Fine Tuning

As an action, make a Mechanics check to remove 1 stress token from your ship

Fire Control

You may change 1 result to a and all remaining to results

Form on Me

All friendly ships at range 1 may use your Pilot Skill for initiative

Full Throttle

Gives your ships Action Bar the Boost Icon

Full Throttle (Improved)

As an action, execute a white 1 or 1 maneuver, then receive a

stress token

Full Throttle (Supreme)

Treat all 1 and 2 speed maneuvers a green maneuvers

Full Stop

Instead of revealing a maneuver when your dial is flipped over, you may instead declare your ship to have made a 0 movement and place a stress token next to your ship

Hold Together

As an action, choose one of your Ship damage cards and flip it face down

Lets Ride

A crew member with this talent may switch between crew stations as an incidental move, allowing her to perform an action at either her old station, or her new station

Master Pilot

Once per round, after performing an action, may add 1 stress to per-form a second action

Natural Pilot

You may perform actions even with a stress token

Overwhelm Defenses

When attacking, may reduce the defenders Agility Value by 1

Solid Repairs

Remove 1 additional face down damage card per rank when using Mechanics to repair damage

Tricky Target

Gives your ships Action Bar the Evade Icon

Equipment Conversions

Certain pieces of equipment need to also be updated to reflect their impact on the X-Wing Rules.

Advanced Targeting Array

Gives your ships Action Bar the Target Lock Icon

Reinforced Shield Generator

Each mod will increase the Shield Value by 1

PART FIVE: EDGE OF THE EMPIRE SHIPS

PART SIX: AGE OF REBELLION SHIPS