I am just getting back into the game after about 2 1/2 years out - and have grown to hate TLT with a vengeance !!

Imperial Assault Partner Mission:  Aftermath
 
Armada Setup: 
               
            Fleet Build:  Core Set 180pt
            Imperial Setup:
     Victory II Star destroyer:  85 Pts
                                                Captain Jarre (Grand Moff Tarkin):  25pts
                                                Enhanced Hangers: 5pts
                                                Gunnery Team: 7 pts
                                4 Tie Fighter Squadrons:  32pts
           Rebel Setup                                               
                CR90A:  44 Pts
                                Electronic Counter Measures: 7pts
                Nebulon B Escort Frigate: 57pts
                                General Dodonna: 20pts
                3 X Wing Squadrons:  39pts
                1 Lambda Class Shuttle (Luke Skywalker Squadron*): 13 Pts
 
                Setup Area:  3 x 3 with 5 Debris Fields to represent Death Star Debris
 
Mission Briefing:  The Death Star has been destroyed but the fight is not over.  The Imperials are still mounting resistance and engaging the rebel forces on Yavin.  On the ground an imperial beacon has been detected nearby the rebel base potentially leading to a security breach for the rebel forces.  They have dispatched a small elite force to silence the beacon but the rebel wants to ensure that their elite forces are able to complete the mission unhindered.  In order to distract the Imperials during the insertion, a small force of rebel ships has been tasked with distracting the imperial fleet which appears to be using a small star destroyer on patrol over the area where the beacon is located.  Sensor’s indicate this Star Destroyer to be the “Ascendency” a refitted Victory II Star Destroyer led by Captain Jarre.  The Rebel’s dispatch a Corellian Corvette and a Nebulan B Frigate to distract the Ascendency while 3 squadrons of X-wings escort the insertion force’s shuttle to the insertion point.
 
Imperial Victory Conditions: Destruction of the Shuttle (Major Victory) results in the Rebels crash landing the shuttle, losing surprise on the assault and failure of the mission.  Destruction of the Nebulon B Escort Frigate normal victory, Destruction of the CR90A Minor Victory.
 
Rebel Victory Conditions: Survival of the Shuttle through turn 6 minor victory, elimination of both waves of tie fighters normal victory, or defeat of the Victory II Star Destroyer will result in major victory.
 
Special Rules:
                Luke Skywalker Squadron:  Lambda Class Shuttle:  Remove the wording Escort from the card description, all other stats remain the same.
                Imperial Reinforcements:  Turn 4, the Imperial Player can launch 3 new Tie Fighter Squadrons from the Ascendency to join the fray.  Focus will be on the X-wings as the captain has determined the fight was a distraction from the escaping shuttle, unless the Ascendency is close to death where the tie fighters will aid in defending the capital ship from destruction.
                Captain Jarre:  Works similar to Moff Tarkin but only can choose either a Navigate or Squadron Command Token at start of the round.
 
Rewards: Reinforcement Points, to be used in future Armada Missions:
                Minor Victory:   15pts
                Normal Victory: 30pts
                Major Victory:   45pts

Lol, I gotcha, I was just in serious harcore mode I guess  Rules are serious business!

I wasn't really suggesting that - hence the bazinga tag....  

We are at a tournament on Saturday and it seems a bit daft this hasn't been clarified as it is probably going to come up. 
 
I doubt the shop TO will have much of a clue as I imagine they haven't had time to play many pointed/objective games yet. So recommended course of action is... 
 
 
Also taking the 'there' is no range dice just colours argument to an extreme - it would mean you could add 2 dice to any shot at any range as it doesn't specify a range. SO shooting 2 black dice across the table would be fine (Bazinga...)

Yes but this time the dice do not have to be in the attack pool already but all the dice have a 'range' shown on the marker - so they could add black dice but they will not be in range etc. Or so it seems to us. 

I suspect that is why the numbers are card chits and not molded onto the ruler - I have a second set and the ruler is shortened for VSD use  

We have played an awful lot in the last 10 days or so and obviously am playing a different game than MWard if he finds the Rebels to have an easy time of it !!!

I am going to write a campaign system which combines all three I hope - soft RPG following the action from the eyes of a couple of heroes of the empire/rebellion and will involve all three systems. Going to be a summer holiday project for the final write up I think.

SG-1 anyone?

There are rules for using a weapon in each hand, harder to hit full stop (in the sense that you take the worst of both to make the pool) and then you need advantages to be able to hit with the one in the off hand. PAGE 210

Looks like you got a rare copy there... 

Bonus so long as no pages are missing!

If you have got close enough to hit the object, a good agility is not really going to help it. Whereas good dodge is
Think of it this way maybe - Usdain Bolt and Bruce Lee are probably as 'agile' as each other, if I was standing next to Bolt ready to hit him his agility is not really going to stop me, if I am standing next to Lee or say Ali their blocking, slipping, ducking and weaving are going to make it a LOT LOT harder for me to hit them... In game terms they have good skills in Dodge, prepared stance etc etc.
 
I was a bit peeved at the 2 purple dice defence in all melee when playing the Beginners game and when this carried over to the Core book at first I was concerned and bought the question up for the D20 Radio Order 66 podcast guys - who then put me onto the talents that would help. Now I see how well it covers everything - Brawn (and being a a good brawler) is not going to make them harder to hit, just harder to damage- think Gorilla; Agility is not going to help once one is in their mixing it already - think Ballet dancer. So characteristics are no good to use as defence; brawl skill is no good on its own, I have a lot of good big mates who get into brawls on the rugby pitch often, they are pretty hard and come off best most of the time, but it is their ability to take hits (Brawn/soak) not the fact they dont get hit. SO... It is left to talents to come to the rescue if you want that Jackie Chan type martial arts master.
 
More I get into the system the more depth it seems to be throwing at me; hence very happy bunny.
 
Rich

If you have got close enough to hit the object, a good agility is not really going to help it. Whereas good dodge is
Think of it this way maybe - Usdain Bolt and Bruce Lee are probably as 'agile' as each other, if I was standing next to Bolt ready to hit him his agility is not really going to stop me, if I am standing next to Lee or say Ali their blocking, slipping, ducking and weaving are going to make it a LOT LOT harder for me to hit them... In game terms they have good skills in Dodge, prepared stance etc etc.
 
I was a bit peeved at the 2 purple dice defence in all melee when playing the Beginners game and when this carried over to the Core book at first I was concerned and bought the question up for the D20 Radio Order 66 podcast guys - who then put me onto the talents that would help. Now I see how well it covers everything - Brawn (and being a a good brawler) is not going to make them harder to hit, just harder to damage- think Gorilla; Agility is not going to help once one is in their mixing it already - think Ballet dancer. So characteristics are no good to use as defence; brawl skill is no good on its own, I have a lot of good big mates who get into brawls on the rugby pitch often, they are pretty hard and come off best most of the time, but it is their ability to take hits (Brawn/soak) not the fact they dont get hit. SO... It is left to talents to come to the rescue if you want that Jackie Chan type martial arts master.
 
More I get into the system the more depth it seems to be throwing at me; hence very happy bunny.
 
Rich

If you have got close enough to hit the object, a good agility is not really going to help it. Whereas good dodge is
Think of it this way maybe - Usdain Bolt and Bruce Lee are probably as 'agile' as each other, if I was standing next to Bolt ready to hit him his agility is not really going to stop me, if I am standing next to Lee or say Ali their blocking, slipping, ducking and weaving are going to make it a LOT LOT harder for me to hit them... In game terms they have good skills in Dodge, prepared stance etc etc.
 
I was a bit peeved at the 2 purple dice defence in all melee when playing the Beginners game and when this carried over to the Core book at first I was concerned and bought the question up for the D20 Radio Order 66 podcast guys - who then put me onto the talents that would help. Now I see how well it covers everything - Brawn (and being a a good brawler) is not going to make them harder to hit, just harder to damage- think Gorilla; Agility is not going to help once one is in their mixing it already - think Ballet dancer. So characteristics are no good to use as defence; brawl skill is no good on its own, I have a lot of good big mates who get into brawls on the rugby pitch often, they are pretty hard and come off best most of the time, but it is their ability to take hits (Brawn/soak) not the fact they dont get hit. SO... It is left to talents to come to the rescue if you want that Jackie Chan type martial arts master.
 
More I get into the system the more depth it seems to be throwing at me; hence very happy bunny.
 
Rich

I bought this up over at the D20 forums and it was discused in the excellent Order 66 podcast. Basically the expert defence nature of a martial arts master/ swordsman come from the abilities/talents rather than being inherent in the skill. So once a player starts taking these they become a lot harder to hit. Even level one Dodge makes a big difference over the course of a melee.
It was felt the using brawl skill as the opposed difficulty would on the whole throw up strange events. Take a real fierce big beast - they need a good brawn/brawl to be effective when charging in and swiping. But they can't really defend themselves from taking hits. If you used their brawl dice as negative dice when they get hit they would be very hard to hit.
What it took time for us to really take in is that your level 2 melee beginner character is not really an expert martial artist they can just hit hard. They need to train up to be good blockers.
In the end I think the system mirrors learning martial arts fairly well a low to mid rank exponent can normally hit pretty well but still gets hit. Higher level exponents tend to avoid getting hit until you get to the expert level slipping attacks with little movement stage - which you can with the talents.
Hope that helps

And that's why we love this game. Never had a module run as it 'should' yet!

And that's why we love this game. Never had a module run as it 'should' yet!

We found once we had a few sessions with the dice they were actually so much better than the normal d20 system.  But it did need a few sessions to get used to it especially as GM.