Bake Travnor scanned the empty patch of space in front of him and looked at the sensors of his T-65 snubfighter. The screens showed no threats, but the leader of Whiskey Squadron didn’t trust them. He and his wingman, Glenn Sundowner, were flying old X-Wings and the electronics were as temperamental as a drunk Wampa.
“Whiskey Two, what do your sensors show?”
“Nothing, all clear,” Sundowner reported back.
The duo were returning to the Steamline Space Tavern after escorting a shuttle carrying the previous week’s band out of the dangerous space near the Aturi Cluster, the disputed area where the Tavern Wars raged. Whiskey Squadron flew for Lew the Hutt, the Steamline’s owner, and had to be wary of ships hired by Elmer, the Argy’s Tavern boss and Lew’s rival.
Bake slowly rolled his head side to side, still hungover after finishing off the Steamline’s last bottle of Whyren’s Reserve Whiskey the night before with the band – a shoegaze rock trio from Scarif who easily matched the grizzled old pilot drink for drink.
“Aaah, incoming!” Sundowner shouted over the comm system. “I’m hit.”
Bake’s X-Wing shook violently as well as his rear shields took direct fire. He spun his head around and saw several Tie Fighters closing fast.
“I knew these sensors were off,” he said to Sundowner. “Bank right and I’ll bank left. These are Argy’s ships and there are probably more. We’ll have to out fly and out run them. Good luck. Last one back to the Steamline buys the first round.”
Mission Set Up
Steamline (Whiskey Squadron): 50 squad points for two small ships. (Update for Second Edition: 100 points for two small ships).
Argy’s: 75 squad points on any combination of small ships. (Update for Second Edition: 125 points for any combination of small ships).
The Steamline player places ships directly in the middle of the 3’ by 3’ gaming area. The Argy’s player places vessels just outside of range 3 directly behind the Steamline squad. The Argy’s place three asteroids anywhere on the play area, so long as they are outside Range 1 of the edge of the mat and outside Range 1 of another asteroid and outside of Range 2 of the Steamline ships in the center of the battle mat.
Steamline victory: Have at least one vessel remaining at the end of the 50-minute round (or, obviously, destroy all the opponent’s ships).
Argy’s victory: Destroy the all Steamline ships.
Special rules:
The Steamline player uses Whiskey Squadron special rules. Whiskey Squadron pilots are pretty relaxed, as they’ve often come straight from the Steamline. This helps them during evasive maneuvers. Players who choose to fly missions under the Whisky Squadron banner may, before each defense roll, roll one defense dice. If it comes up as an evade the player may add one extra defense dice to the subsequent defense roll.
X-WING TAVERN WARS 