What can I say? Among the best battles I ever played, on par with Impact! free mission, Hammer & Anvil, most of Colonel Beef's stuff and other few pieces of fine art. The plot is splendid, it's quite innovative in many ways (yes, a TIE battle which is innovative in 2012! Those LA guys never actually used the true potential of the game engine they created), it's *VERY* funny being those animated briefings the best I've ever seen (beware the adult only stuff! ;P), it involves knowing a few gimmicks of the TIE engine in order to complete it, it's completely bug free and... its best feature: it restores all glory to the shieldless TIE line where it is due! Could we actually ask for more? Sincerely, if you don't fly this one while being able to do so and/or don't like it there's something really wrong with you and you're different and strange. All your friends think LotT is great (DooM II dixit). Thank you, Lt. Colonel Tempest, you did it again you bastard! ;D

Ouch... if not for those 2 impossible and 1 near-impossible missions I would give there a 4. This battle is very well built and it actually manages to provide you the feeling of being doing something which makes sense (couldn't say the same for many others) while you follow the orders of a deranged Admiral who thinks she can handle a whole civilization all alone for the glory and the whistles in her poor Picket Ship (I'm still wondering what was doing all and Admiral commanding that thing. IMHO a simple Rear or Vice Admiral Commodore would have fit much better in a 1-ship "taskforce").
Anyways, the plot is very well driven and only one question remains: why on earth those Draxxen dudes decided to attack EH all of a sudden while we were trying to help them to recover some stolen material? The final debriefing after the final mission couldn't be any other... ;P
So in the end here you have an excellent battle that would only need a couple of AI fixes here and there to make missions 2-4 more playable on Hard difficulty. Besides, it has an additional feature. No, wait, an additional *FEATURE* it is! You'll fly the unparalleled T/F in ALL missions! :D Gotta love it! GOTTA LOVE IT!!!

Overall it was a very good FREE mission. Carefully designed, bug-free, heavy action, splendid briefings and debriefing, challenging. Not to mention the usage of the TIE X1 which is, if not yet up there with the T/A, an excellent fighter with insane shields and perfect cannons position. Then we got a little bit pessimistic debriefing, but hey! Even the TAC can be found drunk on her own command bridge once in a while! ;D In the end, if someone is kind enough to follow at least a couple of my suggestions to lower the extreme difficulty this one wouldn't deserve less than a 4.

No other word could describe this FREE mission better than EASY. Squared. Actually, chances are that if you complete the first objective on Region 2 quick enough and pick the RIGHT beam and warhead choices you'll pass the rest of the mission contemplating how your buddies take care of the rest of the battle. Add here the ridiculously short animated briefing and the senseless plot and... oh well, I gave it a 2 because it's almost bug-free and because I don't want the efforts of the mission creator to go unrecognized.

Nothing special on this one, to be honest. And the lack of a detailed plot doesn't help. The mission itself is bug-free and quite challenging though, with opportunities to get yourself some bonus points, so I give it a 3. But then again, I don't like FREE missions so damned difficult on Hard, and since I usually fly on Hard... What amazes me is that anybody could reach Imperator FCHG with the likes of Dempsey and Ender plotting evil there... ;P

Pffff... no bugs. Funny plot. Funny messages and super-funny animated briefing. And since you fly a shieldless TIE Fighter vs. The world and I found it funny I give it a 3.
And I've been so damned kind here that I'd prefer not to explain the 3 any further (I couldn't).

See... ummm... I kinda liked this battle, and I'm pretty sure it will be much better when it gets completed with its second chapter (at least the names of those other 2 missions ring the epic bell to me). It's quite challenging, the plot seems interesting and it involves The ISD Challenge!! And mission 5 is just my kind of mission, that's not a secret. However, animated briefings and Officer's briefings are very short and simple for my taste (even when my humble persona is mentioned in one of them; thanks a lot, Ma'am! :D) and it lacks originality which is something I'm always looking for in everything I fly.

So far, with these battle series completed it could be a 4 or even 5 rating but only having the first piece of the cake and taking in count what I wrote above I give it a 3 (maybe a 4 if it's finally released along with the second chapter at the same time).

This little FREE is splendid, quite funny and difficult enough as to be a challenge for any experienced TC pilot, not crossing the subtle line between VERY hard and almost impossible; despite you're facing some of the best starfighters ever manufactured by the Emperor's Hammer Science Office like the Tactical Gunboat or the TIE Praetor, that YT-2000 seems quite solid (or at least solid enough as to provide your arse with an escape route). Besides, the final fight is quite intense and it comes with the additional (never well pondered) feature of seeing former and current Tactical Office staff killing themselves. Sadly, without risking my dirty life messing with spoilers I can't reveal all details; just... FLY IT! You won't be disappointed. Only a suggestion: DON'T miss Win Debriefing! "Total Plutonic Reversal"... Master, I take my imperial officer's cap off; you're the best!

If they ever fix those booooring tasks at first 3 Regions for them to be fulfilled in no more than 3 or 4 minutes I'll give this one a 5 rating. For the time being it's a 4.

Nice battle we have here! While I must admit I haven't played any battle from the Void Raptors series before, this one somehow managed to immerse me in the main plot. Completely bug-free (at least for me) and with all its missions being coherent with the plot itself (which couldn't be said for many battles out there), this one was quite funny to fly. Mission 1 was all a score fest with an overpowered T/D and mission 4 got on my nerves with so many goals to achieve and way too many dangers to avoid flying a poor GUN... with... well, you know: IONS! >:J On the other hand, and while I perfectly know chances to change it are very limited, its mission structure isn't way too original. And it doesn't use original TIE starfighters (though this makes sense given its timeline). Then on missions 3 and 4 your wingmen just refuse to use their warheads for some reason; not even their lasers, no, they try to be useful by just using their ion cannons, something that only the player can enjoy properly, and it also forces you to use your own lasers more than it's wise to do under laserless rule.

Mmmmm... sorry but THIS is not a battle, it's a scoring orgy. I won't say I didn't have my funny time going against, let's see... about 100 X-Wings and A-Wings on a shieldless T/I (true story) but I think the appropiate word for this battle is 'Mess'.

First of all, sick number of craft, maybe more than a single starship would be able to hangar. Then comes the second mission and the possibility of vaping opponent's targets to make your score going skyrocket for they were not friendly craft yet they still count as your team's loses on debriefing (besides, your opponent T/D shows up an excellent performance as he sees all a challenge to catch a few X-Wings in 5 minutes). Additionally, target spawning lacks from any organization and you'll find yourself waiting for your next wave while your opponent is still trying to deal with a lonely B-Wing or something. The third mission features a bug involving a CRS and 2 VSDs, no less, with starfighter orders medical condition that will trample you unless you're flying 5 clicks+ away, and you better be on your toes because they won't hesitate chasing you to hell (obviously this is a bug and it's been reported). Finally, mission 4 comes as yet another scoring fest with a CRS providing wave after wave of endless enemy fighters while the entire TCBG waits Palpatine knows what to give a hand until you've destroyed the Calamari heressy.

I'm giving this one a 3 because it was funny as hell and also because I consider that Mission 3 bug will be eventually fixed. A few less design flaws and it'd be a 4 for an excellent training exercise.

Quick and to the point! Excellent work, Demps! I'd say it may seem a little bit repetitive with the classic 'Stop-those-pirates!' plot we've seen a million times since LA decided those putrid rebels were just way too nice to force us to only kill their specimens, thus making us to go after CPT Sparrow more often than it'd be healthy to tell. BUT! Please take note that this one was quickly made for a special competition from the Tactical Office where you were asked to MATCH TAC's score as much as possible, and poor Admiral Dempsey was forced to create and release them for playing about 1/1,000,000 the time LC Tempest needs to delight us with one of his art pieces (hey, Temps! ;P). The bad news? For some reason TIE Fighter Workshop must have been behaving strangely back at the time, for it seems it locked the enemy starfighter choice on deadly A-Wings featuring adv. missiles surprises on poor Demps! And having to deal with such nastiness she just decided to bit the bullet and put there a ton to better balance your odds of going back to the hangar alive. xD

Sure! I'd be more than pleased to PAR (Post A Review) for such a great mission as XvT-FREE 200 is I tell you. Too bad that some doofus messed up reviews completely and MY review, the one from May 9 2007, goes now under the name of poor LCM Shado Fenn, as half of the Compendium. It's almost as if he'd be the only dedicated pilot this Fleet has ever had and the rest of us wouldn't give a damn and it's not even HIS fault.

OK, IF that nasty bug of XWA crashing at Region #2 can be fixed I must say this mission is excellent! Quite a challenge, even for experienced pilots; without Decoy it'd be just impossible unless some weirdo teaches you how you and your 3 T/A pals are supposed to deal with DOZENS of Z-95s while also trying to stop DOZENS of Cloakshapes from destroying your capship in some torpedo orgy of sorts. In the end, and if you wisely pick the Decoy as your beam option, it's just the kind of hard stuff I'm used to and actually expect to see in such an elite Fleet. Well done, Demps! You did it again, and may the adventures of A/FRG 'Illustrious' keep pleasing us with their epicness.

Just two advices for the eventual player:
- Be careful with STRKC 'Hermes' for there're some Supas that will ruin your life if you don't stop them quickly enough right when you think you're done with damage control.
- Inspect those containers quickly as soon as the Bulk Cruiser is destroyed, otherwise STRKC 'Hermes' will hyper out along with its HLFs and they won't be retrived thus screwing up the mission. HLFs themselves can hyper out after the Hermes but they must be already there to retrieve the cargo, and if the Bulk Cruiser is still around they're toast.

Outstanding!! One of the best escort missions I've ever flown and according to my Combat Record I've flown *MANY*. High Admiral Dempsey gave us the perfect bug free escort mission for XWA: no silly hyperjumps from one section to another just to make it cool, no long waits for actual events to happen, superb attack/raid pattern for those silly ubiquitous pirates, no crazy superfighters fest... It features tight difficulty on Hard yet a little bit on the easier side if you pick Decoy and spice it with some adv. torpedo runs on those Supa Fighters formations which won't even strike back. I just couldn't ask for more in this kind of mission except maybe some more originality. Nevertheless this free mission is so good that I'm gonna make an exception here and give it a 5 instead my classic 4 for usual classicism.

Easy, smooth free mission, then again featuring The Emperor's Hammer raiding some poor pirate convoy because we're such nice chaps. It's not that hard (not even on -Hard-) if you know how to deal with those adv. missiles and it even allows you to get a PERFECT score if you pick the GUNs and put those ions to do what they do best... as disabling some T/As to start with... *ahem*. You'll also need to be quick on dealing with a few X-Wings trying to screw up your work in the last minute. In the end it's just another of those free missions, nice to fly and straight to the point for you to not waste more neurons than strictly necessary on planning, and I gave it a 3 for it's almost bug free except for that speedy animated briefing. It just lacks originality. Oh, btw, please note those previous 3 reviews above, supposedly by LCM Shado Fenn. Can you read 'em? Right: NONE OF THEM were submitted by this pilot, being the first by CM TK-9780, the second by COL Gunman and the third by LT Blackrage. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear...

See my review for TIE-TC 241, which is the TIE version of this one. Enough to say that this "Director's Cut" version surpasses it in almost every aspect exploiting the goodies of XWA engine as much as possible and, except a few starfighters trying to hyper out with no hyperdrive, it's 100% bug-free. Then again, Conker, wherever you may be: EXCELLENT WORK!! And thanks for your wink at Mission Hints (you know what I mean ;)) And now that I think of it, chances are that those crazy TIEs trying to hyper out were featuring bourbon-sponsored pilots after all...

Well, what can I say? It's a "Dark Hammer" so you can't expect much more than a million dogfights with little sense for you unless you were there back in 2000 playing what it seems to me a splendid wargame from a better past long gone. The conversion is nicely done and the Bulk Cruise patch works perfectly. However, other craft patches like the Lancer Frigate and Firespray Ship could have been included, but I suppose this one was done before those were available so not a big deal here. In the end it's a fun battle and it even includes the original Operation: Dark Hammer website ZIPped into "MISC" folder, which was just superb. Sadly it lasts way too long for a single battle and it definitely suffers when converted to TIE no matter the quality of the conversion itself, for this one is much more suited to the much faster laser action of XvT and XWA. Therefore, well done but it's not the same and I give this one a 2.

Excellent battle, definitely worth a 5 score for it's soooo nice to see The Emperor's Hammer expanding itself by conquering a whole sector and killing innocent civilians while we're at it. Not to mention the splendid use of a full task force, even if it's only for you to see how BIG could we be if only we could get people enough as to fill all those ships... :P. Then there's Mission 5 which is a splendid full-scale battle featuring no less than 2 ISDs being useful. Truly impressive, Admiral Dempsey, excellent work! However, I just cannot stand the bug at Mission 3 for it almost ruins the entire mission; it was already reported by PRT Kodiak Kereban on April 5 2011 but it seems it never got fixed. Therefore, and feeling quite sorry for it I downgrade the score to 4 'till it gets fixed.

Nice battle we got here! It doesn't involve the EH at all but it's a nice story to tell, yet I'm still wondering why someone who kills his family for money spends 20 years looking for vengeance in behalf of a friend. All 5 missions are very well built and almost bug-free and craft patches work excellent with the retro feeling (20+ years BBY). Definitely excellent and refreshing, especially considering that BoP is among our less used game platforms. BUT! It's somewhat difficult flown on Medium and almost impossible on Hard due to crazy "Ace" AI, which in XvT/BoP means instant death if you're forced to face it alone. And that's what you get; you're fighting almost alone through the entire battle and I'm not counting the Firespray for you're actually supposed to protect it which only adds... more trouble. In the end I was forced to play 3 or 4 missions on Medium and I don't like when I don't have a chance. So far, this one would be worth a 4 on Easy/Medium difficulty but for a weirdo highscore hunter like me, used to play on Hard no matter what, I find necessary to lower it to a 3. Some FGs appearing only on Hard with "Officer" or "Veteran" AI and mirroring those on Easy/Medium should be enough.

Excellent battle! Splendid work by Ender I tell you! At last we got this silly Combat Record gap filled thanks to the competition High Admiral Dempsey came up with in order to do so. The battle is quite well built, no bugs on sight, superb balance of forces though a little bit on the easy side for Hard difficulty. And, maybe the most important, this is one of those very few battles which make GOOD use of the ship patches; this time they don't seem to be there just to be cool. Nope, this time the Phalanx Interceptor Gunboat and that broken TIE Dragon are just what you need to keep on with the mayhem. Thanks, Ender, I was gonna give you a 4 because it wasn't exactly what I'd call innovative but then that funny pic of Havok's baby at the Battle Room and the "Havok's Diaper-Medal" came to mind.

Maybe one of the last battles made by Conker and it was definitely fun to fly. No, wait, it was *VERY* fun. Wait! A shuttle full of hookers and booze to exchange for weapons? Ok, Conker you drunkard, I don't know how on earth did you make this one to pass under TACcy's moral radar but I hail you! xD You were among the best and we're gonna miss you; your battles will remain forever.

Absolutely outstanding conversion of this TIE classic to XvT, including inflight speech!! It works flawlessly and I almost felt I was there again. Definitely better than half of the current XvT Compendium but we could expect no less from Ender. A big FAT THANKS, Admiral, for making it possible for us to enjoy again this splendid battle on XvT steroids! And I don't give you a 5 just because, you know... originality... :P

Outstanding battle from Ender, with even an excellent wavpack featuring which is maybe the most spooky voice you'll ever heard (with Mr. Vader's permission). All missions are carefully built for them to fit perfectly into the plot and the final one deserves a special recognition; assaulting the TV!! Now that was something new indeed! :D On top of all this, the battle was quite challenging and if you play your cards well you'll find plenty of oportunities to get insanely high scores given the excellent flying performance of the A-9b and its little yet handful ion cannon, not to mention the myriad of possible Bonus Goals. No less than a 5 for this little jewel! ^^

Excellent idea that of using different enemies featuring different warhead ordnance depending on the difficulty setting and craft choice you pick, and even award Bonus points if you happen to be worthy enough to pick the shieldless ones! :D Not necessary to mention I flew a TIE Fighter!! Best craft EVAH!!! And if I didn't give it a 5 it's because the mission itself was not that innovative but just another classic one.

What can I say? I mean, what can I add? This is the first TIE Battle, a classic worth of being among the best battles ever and that's it. Having said that only remains to mention that our SCO crazy Ender the Gender-B... errr (ejem) did an excellent work here porting the battle to XvT engine. Actually, he did much more than just that to overcome the obvious differences between the 2 game engines and now you can play this battle on XvT exactly the same as you did on TIE and with the same difficulty (±) considering XvT engine AI increment. Apart from that he tried to keep everything there, made a special doc with all Mission Hints and Debriefings (XvT lacks both dammit), made a Battle Medal pic using the original one and maybe the best of all: he used the original LA voice acting from TIE!! Definitely, if you don't like this battle you're strange and dangerous and someone should take care of your... freedom... >:)
So in the end, although Ender will never ever get the Golden Tug to the best battle plot nor to originality with this stuff, he did an excellent work, exactly what he was supposed to do and brought us the perfect way for new Trainees to complete their training the best way possible (with true battles and not some silly mission mess) using another game platform and not only TIE. A 5 comes well deserved here.