I got promoted to Admiral, though I haven't done much this month to deserve it. On top of family celebrations earlier in the month, the sewer decided to give us issues late in the month. Understandably, this problem has Mrs. Sienar in quiet a fit and thus has been dominating my time. This should be resolved soon, allowing me to return to a normal workflow... and water-flow. :P

You may have heard of my offer to buy X-Wing Alliance for anyone not already owning a copy. This is due to it appearing on the $1 tier on the latest Star Wars Humble Bundle. I urge everyone who hasn't already to check it out. It's a cheap way to get ready-to-play versions of many EH platforms and other Star Wars games; and a portion of your purchase goes to charity. (I bought it just for the LEGO game. :P) But if all that interests you is XWA, contact me at tac@emperorshammer.org. I will be making the purchase the day before the Bundle ends, so if you have opted-in but decide to buy a higher tier; let me know by Saturday night.

In a surprising decision, the also newly promoted, VA Hawkins decided that he wishes to do additional polishing on his "X-Wing in TIE Fighter" series and will be starting from the beginning. This means the entire series must be retested once completed. The testing should also include full custom audio. Anyone interested in testing the polished version of this already outstanding series, contact me at tac@emperorshammer.org.

A couple weeks ago, FA Montte approached me about taking over grading of the various mission creation courses. After a couple weeks of figuring out the transfer on the database, I was finally able to grade those courses. Congratulations to LT Milo Antu and VA Hawkins on completing the first courses past my desk. I hope to soon see some missions from both of you in the platforms you tested in. (Or after XWiTF is done, in Hawkins's case! Priorities!)

The Seven Year Glitch is nearing a close and we still don't even have enough entries to accommodate all the medals! You still have two weeks to get your files submitted, so pencil in an hour or two (provided you remember to use Alt-T) for former SCO Ender's wild ride delivering financial papers across the EH territories.

Early this month another of HA Dempsey's TIE-FREEs cleared testing. TIE-FREE 294 "Hammer Reports - Intercept Intelligence" details the capture of Kester slicers by the crew of the ISD Hammer.

We also had the first battle to be turned down during my tenure. TIE-FREE "Starfighter Histories: TIE Fighter" did not have any crippling errors, but its plot did not fit well with the actual history and developmental purpose of the ship. Hopefully it gets resubmitted after some touch ups. I do like the idea of going through the background of each Imperial craft. The devs did it in X-Wing, but not in TIE Fighter; so it's nice to see a member taking this concept on.

Competitions

Ace of the TIE Corps

Every Single Player mission flown wins a point, whoever has most points at the end of the month wins.
Each mission only counts once for the year, but missions flown in previous years can be reflown. The Kill Board statistics on the TC website are final.
IS-GW/SW/BW for top 3 monthly, at the end of the year the top 4 pilots win IS-PW/GW/SW/BW.

January Winners
IS-GW: AD Mark Schueler
IS-SW: GN Coranel Both
IS-BW: LT Milo Antu

Coranel Both returns, in second place this time, among new challengers.

The Seven Year Glitch
It has been 7 years since the TIE version of "CDNG: Paper Round" was submitted to the TAC Office. Now, seven days after their release, member of the TIE Corps can compete for the top seven scores in a competition lasting seven weeks.

Until March 21st, simply fly both of the newly released TIE-CD 1 and TIE-CD 2, and submit your pilot files as usual. Winners will be determined by their combined score across both battles.

The top laserless score earns an IS-GW, second earns an IS-SW, third through seventh will receive an IS-BW.