RACING THE BOONTA EVE CLASSIC (X-WING MINIATURES GAME)

Alan Kael Ball
Little Plastic Soldiers
5 min readOct 24, 2017

“It’s a warm summer’s eve and the pilots are on the grid: racing for glory, credits and the entertainment of his most Munificent Excellency, Jabba the Hut. Get ready for the Boonta Eve Classic!”

The X-Wing Miniatures Game is such a well thought out game that custom game types are easy to come up with: whether it’s search and destroy, escort missions, take and hold, patrols or any other of a myriad of ideas for epic dog fighting action, X-Wing can accommodate.

So we thought we’d add another dimension: a race. One circuit of the Mos Espa raceway.

Racers on the Starting Grid!
Tuskans on Begger’s Canyon, taking pot shots at the racers
A guest pilot, with a funny dog on the Tail Guns
Tight positioning early on
A-Wing races away
Under the guns…
Racers who fall into the the Pit of Carkoon are slowly digested for a 1000 years by the mighty Saarlac

On a custom race mat produced by Andrew Horeckyj, players would have to manoeuvre their way around a deadly course — complete with Tuskan Raiders camped out in Begger’s Canyon and a loop-de-loop around the Great Pit of Carkoon — all the while trying to avoid being shot at by their fellow racers.

“The idea is to keep the racers together” Andrew noted as he explained the rules: If ships are destroyed, or crash off the course, they return to the last checkpoint they crossed, or the starting grid. This added a fun dynamic where ships that were in the lead, but hurt, would suddenly be at the rear with guns bearing down on the new leaders.

There was a great mix of different ship loadouts — some when with small, fast but fragile ships such as the A-Wing, others loaded up slow but powerful gun boats like the Y-Wing.

The opening was fast and furious, ships veering off into canyon walls, shields being zapped, and hulls taking damage almost immediately. One adventurous TIE Interceptor pilot got so fed up with being shot at on the opening straight that he K-Turned to face his assailant head on.

As the field spread, it became about individual battles for position — some chose to fly max speed as much as possible, others attempted to hinder other players by doing moves that would course collisions.

In the end, it was the A-Wing Pilot Jake Farrell who was victorious, using his boost and barrel-roll ability to maximum effect. Kavil’s Y-Wing came in second, disrupting other players with his Ion Cannon. Another A-Wing, flown by Tycho, just pipped Sabine’s TIE and Turr Phennir’s Interceptor to third.

Jabba was pleased.

THE RULES

For Up to 8 Players.

The course is 3 ships wide (as far is practical), with a grid area and a mix of left and right turns.

If a ship ends it’s activation phase (after any actions that move a ship such as barrel roll, or boost etc) entirely off the track, or in the Saarlac pit, it is removed. Removed ships (either by poor piloting or having been blown up) start the next turn at the last check point (or starting grid) and with 1 stress token.

Black Edges: Can’t be overlapped else there is a penalty: the ship’s next move must be a 1 (a ship that overlaps an edge can always move 1-straight-forward even if it doesn’t have it on its dial, or any other 1-move that it has). Can partially cut the corner with the template, as long as the edge is covered completely on one side.

You can’t do this on a black edge…
… But you can do this.

Coloured Edges: Can be overlapped, and cut with the template.

This is totally fine on a coloured corner.

Brown Edges on the Pit of Carkoon: If ships overlap the edges of the Saarlac loop at the end of the activation phase (after any actions etc), the ship is turned 180-degrees to face the opposite direction!

Fuzzy Brown Edges of the desert sand storm affect the ship’s navigation computer…

Ships cannot shoot through a corner — it completely blocks line of sight.

Tuskan Raiders shoot at any ship that ends its activation in their firing arc — 1 shot at Range 1–3. Players may spend their action on re-orientating 1 Tuskan raider (it must point at the track in Beggar’s Canyon).

Preparing for the game: 1 Small ship only, max 45 points. Only upgrade card that we recommend is restricted is ‘Lone Wolf.’

Staring grid — draw lots to randomly place players on the grid.

1st Turn — for the first turn, activation takes place in grid order. Place one goes first, place 8 goes last. There is no combat phase, and no bombs are mines etc can be activated.

2nd turn onwards — Normal activation and combat order.

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Alan Kael Ball
Little Plastic Soldiers

Photographer, Film Maker, Learning Technologist and Red Panda Enthusiast