Repairs, fuel, and weapons all get pretty expensive. How’s a nice young Rebellion or smuggling crew to get the money to keep the ships running? Well, the Empire surely wouldn’t miss one little train loaded with valuable proton warheads, would they?

This scenario gives you, a scummy smuggler or hopeful Rebel commander, the chance to hijack one of the Empire’s repulsor trains, providing you with valuable goods and a hell of a story to tell at the cantina that night. The train heist is about as classic as stories get, and it looks like we might be getting one in the upcoming Solo movie! And now, for the details.

The heist-meisters can choose to be either Scum or Rebellion, while the opposing player must be Imperial.

REBEL ALLIANCE/SCUM

100 pts total, which must include:

At least (1) Large-based ship

At least (1) Ion Cannon or (1) Ion Turret

THE EMPIRE

160 pts total, which must include:

Academy Pilot (TIE Fighter) x 2

Hover Train

Set-Up

The scenario is to be played on a 3’x6′ surface, preferably with a planetary appearance. The Rebels/Scum will be assaulting the train in a twisty canyon pass where the train can’t maintain its top speed, so we’ll be using some terrain to represent the canyon walls, as well as tokens and props for the train and track.

The hover train can be represented multiple ways; Three shuttle tokens from the core set would work well, but anything of roughly that size and dimension could do. Of course, we’ll go over some cool scratchbuilding options for it in a few days. The track itself can be drawn on, or simply a string or a series of tokens to represent the track’s stanchions. Of course, model railroad is a perfect choice, especially Z or N scale. For a really premium option, check out the monorail from Dropzone Commander. Pricey, but really cool. For the terrain, anything vaguely terrain-like will do: wargaming terrain, petstore lizard rocks, or the classic stacks of books with a bed sheet on top.

Edit: Like the poor salesman I am, I forgot that I had actually modeled a train based on the one present in Rogue Squadron 64 and the upcoming Solo Movie. Check it out, it’s kind of badass, and absolutely gigantic.

The Imperial Player’s deployment zone is the grey shaded top area, while the Rebel Player deploys to the orange rectangle on the lower left. The hovertrain starts at the lower left corner of its path. The Rebel Player has initiative.

Example of set-up:

The grid represents 1′ squares, the blue line the path of the train, and the dark splotches vertical terrain/canyon walls.

Special Rules

The hovertrain (cards below) uses a 3 speed template (whichever contour fits the track on a given turn) to move along its track, and all 3 segments must remain in contact and move as one. For the train to be slowed by ion tokens, the ion tokens must have been assigned to the front compartment. The train compartments count as a large ships, and any one compartment may mount one modification — meaning one modification total, not per compartment. (*cough* Anti Pursuit Lasers *cough*) Two ion tokens assigned to the rear compartment will prevent it from attacking that turn. All ion tokens are removed from all compartments at the end of the train’s turn.

If a ship ends a turn with its base overlapping terrain, it receives one face-up damage. If the ship ends with its base entirely overlapping terrain, the ship is destroyed. We have suggestions for general ground combat rules, but we tend to take them on a case-by-case basis, and use those as guidelines.

To steal the cargo, the hovertrain’s middle compartment must have no remaining shields, and a Rebel/Scum large ship must spend one turn within Range 1 of the middle compartment (to drop off their team of expert bandits), wait at least two turns (during which the ship can be wherever it wants to be), and then spend two consecutive turns within Range 1 of the middle compartment (to retrieve the cargo & team).

Armor: the armor stat replaces agility for ground units. Armor cancels damage up to its value per attack, crits before hits.

Player Objective

For the Rebel/Scum Player to win, they must steal the cargo, and the ship that steals the cargo must flee the battle.

For the Imperial Player to win, the train must reach the far end of the board with its cargo safely aboard (or all bandit ships destroyed before the cargo is stolen), or the cargo — whether aboard the bandit ship or the train — must be destroyed.

This is a tough one. It’s often unforgiving and lethal (depending on your terrain layout and piloting ability), and a challenge to fly and coordinate for all players. We’ll talk about different variants, as well as fun props/builds for this scenario in the coming posts. If you play it, let us know how it goes, and what changes you made/would advise for others!