Okay this is easily the most stupid mission I've seen in the TC compendium thus far. Sure you can end it very easily and quickly after inspecting only one freighter. However, if you want to have a higher score, he is how it works. For inspecting each of the freighter you get a bonus of 2000 points. You could try to blast them as well but keep in mind that they are rigged and blow up more or less after 5 minutes after arrival. I'm not sure if shooting them gives more points than inspecting but I went with the latter approach. All you have to do is drop energy from lasers and shields then mindlessly fly in circles inspecting the freighters. Please DO NOT play this mission on hard difficulty. It adds some friendly Gunboats that start wrecking the freighters around you. Why is this bad? Well first of all you can't inspect what's already blasted off from the sky. Secondly, the AI is stupid enough that sooner or later (at random) one of the Gunboats will happily crash into the freighter... Failing your mission. Yes the mission goals are set to prevent any EH craft loss. Given I managed to inspect roughly 100 freighters in 30 min of gametime you can eaisly calculate how much time you'd need to beat Dempsey's score (nota bene, I admire your patience and dedication on this one!). You'd need to inspect 942 freighters which would take you some 4 hours and 40 minutes. As I noticed having such weird and pointless mission and battle designs seems quite common from Ender mBind. One might wonder if Emperor's Hammer needs a Chief Medical Officer position to keep mental health of its memeber's in check. If this mission was done for TIE-Fighter, I'd possibly give it 1 point. But since in XvT you can't time compress or even pause the game... This mission is worth a quick FCHG point for the one inspected freighter but I don't see it as a competition material.

That mission is exactly what its title says. Blowing crap up. This means the missions is about blowing stuff up and it's pretty crap. There is some goofy backstory to it that I haven't paid much attention to. What is going on it's you in a Missle Boat vs a few squadrons of fighters and some convoy + cruiser to destroy. It's not overly difficult but be prepared to dance with the missiles a lot. It's quite lenghty and not at all interesting to fly. Overall, a 'meh' from me.

Well there is some sort of mystery story in the background but the main feature of this mission is its arcade nature. All you have to do is keep blasting the waves of TIE Fighters and the best way to do it is just lurk about the platform. If you angle it right you can blast entire flight of TIEs even before they can make their first turn. Pretty simple and relaxing mission, fun to fly.

I suppose this one is fairly okay. It's clearly an XvT design (which is likey good in this case!), though I'm not a fan of missions with waves of crafts. Even if they aren't overdone. The plot is relatively solid though all in all I find that there's way too much effort involved in capturing a frigate. Maybe if it was for a MonCal instead. I noticed there's a small issue with the Missile Boat (though I believe it's more a problem with the EH Ship Patch than this battle). Whenever you empty your primary warhead bank (torps) you are unable to switch into your secondary bank even if you have all of the missiles left. Keep in mind to leave at least 1 torp then just fire all the missiles. Otherwise it won't be efficient enough. It's an okay one to fly.

When I saw the title of this battle I expected some sort of weird and goofy story about EH newsletter, getting paper for it or whatever thing that the members had fetish for some twenty years ago. The plot of this battle is actually pretty good and solid though, a pleasant surprise! Where this battle is lacking though is the mission design. As the previous comment states there is quite lenghty introductory period in each single mission. Thankfully that can be easily sped up with time compressinon. You should also use this time to boost your shields to maximum as pretty much all the enemies are missile happy here. Mission 4 indeed featured something I've never seen before. Heavy rocket loaded BFFs that attack the platform as soon as its captured. Sadly the AI is far from perfect and failed to complete this task. I also had to blast my own station just to push the mission forward. I think it needs a more foolproof mechanism to get this station down. In mission 3 and 5 there are capital ships that have starfighter orders to attack you. Since they are missile equipped as well, this resulted in one of the most funny things I've seen in custom missions thus far. A cap ship that is required to get a missile lock on you to fire! :D Overall, this battle is not really overly fun to fly.

So far I've flown this mission for a competition with a certain relatively low target score. For this reason I flew this mission on easy difficulty, which makes it - surprise, surprise - relatively easy. Nevertheless, it was quite enjoyable one. Relatively short and well balanced. I do hope to give it a shot on hard per my usual standards as soon as time allows. It's certainly worth to fly this one though.

It's a pretty good battle with enjoyable plot. On the bonus side I absolutely love to fly an Assault Gunboat. On the negative side, though, the last three missions of this battle focus around large scale encounters which I am not a fan of. Especially for the plot presented I think it would make more sense to keep the whole battle as series of low profile, tactical missions. Perhaps even like family missions in original XWA. I think the biggest challenge in this battle is to actually be in the right time at the right place and get some kills. Otherwise either your wingmen or more likely the Darksabers will just vaporize them leaving you with a crappy score (like mine :P). Stil, it's a nice and enjoyable battle to fly!

Okay this mission proves to be far more challenging than it initially looks it will be. There's not that many, but pretty difficult targets to fend off and some events you have to pay attention to in order not to fail. It might take a few repeats to learn them all. Oh and if you wonder if the T/F (A-9 wannabe) can survive a missile hit to take its shields down... No, it cannot. Lesson learned here the hard way. While I didn't appreciate somewhat goofy plot this mission offers very much, it's still a solid one and worth to fly.

Not too bad, not too good mission. Just perfectly mediocre, too easy quickie. On hard difficulty it's a squad of T/Is vs squad of X-Ws. There is no immediate danger to the shuttle at all. Both the TIEs and X-Wing pilots seem too clumsy to destroy one another as well. You can possibly kill all of the X-Wings by yourself. I imagine the only danger in this mission is accidentally shooting one of the Daedalus platforms and having its AI trigger on you. Otherwise it's just a piece of cake. Okay one to fly.

Fairly mediocre and short mission. Like the previous comment states it's a 'classic' defend the ISD. Not that it makes any story sense for a bunch of pirates with two corvettes and a few of scrap fighters to attack an ISD head on anyway. The bug reported still exists, although I wonder if it was done on purpose in this mission to increase difficulty. There's always a chance you will simply crash onto a wildly wriggling corvette. But hey, it's XvT so in the worst case you will end up in the cockpit of another fighter. Quick FCHG point plus I think the mission has quite a bit HS potential there. I haven't tried to send the wingmen home at the very beginning but maybe someone feels like trying this one out solo. It's an okay one to fly.

It took me a few attemts to get a grip on what's going on and when in this mission, despite it being quite a short one. It's not an easy one. There's plenty of things you have to do right not to get the friendly corvette get blown up in the process. It's pretty solid design too. I did encounter the same problem, however, as is reported in bug section. Hammerhead 4 dies right after mission starts, crashing against the Frigate on hard difficulty. It's a good choice to fly this one!

I suppose I will have to stand out of the crowd and say this battle was pretty... Crap. I can't report this as a bug, but this was a repeating issue for me and it might be for others too. If you have XWA HD mod installed make sure you lower the resolution for mission 1. It was always crashing for me at around 4:00-4:30 minute mark. All other missions work fine with the HD resolution. As for the review itself.. Mission one features a zerg of tugs that you don't really have to shoot down in order to complete. However, you probably have to if you want to get any score above 0 as deaths of the blue force stations count as... Your friendly kills. Even if you do not fire a silngle shot in the mission at all. Given each clean TUG kill gives you 75 points then looking at Bonini's HS for mission 1 and assuming my math is correct there are at least 1512 tugs in that mission. Good luck wasting your lifetime trying to shoot them all down! In mission two, it's much harder to get in fight with the TUGs since T/A has a lower power output. You cannot outrun the tugs and charge your lasers at the same time as you could do in mission 1. During like fourth of fifth attemt to get some decent score I just grew bored of it and decided to pass this battle with a minimum effort. In mission 3 we learn that former Dean of IWATS has a Natalie Portman fetish. Was this knowledge necessary? It just made the plot even more goofy and worse. In mission 4 you can get some dogfight done, probably worth most to go after the B-Wings. All in all, that's a battle probably not worth the effort to fly.

This battle is a mix of being pretty good and quite disappointing. I did enjoy flying missions 1, 2, 4 and first half of mission 5... But missions 3 and second half of mission 5 are just mindless 'wipe them' battles. With the latter one being optional if you want to get a good score with it. It might feel odd you go out to meet the Fleet Commander in a TIE-Interceptor, as some of the previous comments stated. Though I took this as more 'ceremonial' thing. Perhaps no one expected to be ambushed after all. I've had a few retries on mission 3 with a totally random outcome each time.Sometimes Vanguard blasted the cruisers out of the space with ease, sometimes it went down. Then there were the three frigates which sometimes caused trouble. Or one of the cruisers escaped. This one was really a mess that felt was not dependent on what the player does. Overall, you can fly it once then best just forget it.

It was an okay battle. Nothing standing out in either good or bad way, though it could use a little polishing. I have to say that after two first missions I thought this is going to be just more or less mindless 'wipe em all' style, but I was positively surprised. In mission 2 there is no fighter cover for the cruiser at all. Not only it makes the task easier, but it makes it painfully obvious the fighters are going to be there when you are going home. And indeed they are. Mission 3 was very good but with the limitted opposition it could have been a solo or duo one. There's no need for total of four gunboats. Mission 4 was quite frustrating at times given how crap the power management of T/x1 is. I also found it weird how the B-Wings try to focus on one of the VSDs while an INT floats nearby. Given its strategic value bombers should go after the INT, althogh the mission might have been too hard then. Mission 5 was generally okay. Fighters and cap ships die easily. Downing the stations it a couple minutes of jamming your trigger and leeching power from shields to lasers though. It's an okay one to fly.

That's a really solid battle with a good and immersive plot. It surely takes the best from the original XWA family mission style and puts it in EH realia. There are quite a few of plot twists which were executed decently and were enjoyable. Missions themselves are done in a solid way. They can be challenging but none of them are stupidly difficult. I enjoyed the variety of goals, mission craft as well as opposition. One of the better XWA battles out there, clearly worth to fly!

That's an average mission really. It's pretty easy to complete, though there's plenty of flying around as the rebels come from different angles and directions (which is good, given how assaults should work!) Like the previous comment states, it'd be good if the Rebels using imperial IFF weren't known right off the bat as secondary mission goal. I found a small issue with one of the briefing text where it does not fit into the window, but it is not likely worth a bug report. It's an okay one to fly.

Alright this mission is quite chaotic the first time you do it. And don't be surprised to get blasted out of space while you try to figure out what the heck is going on. It might take a few attemts to do properly but it turns out into quite a well crafted, relatively short although sitll quite challening missions. The story for this mission seems quite simple too, and it nicely plays out with each single of the mission goals. I was happy to fly this one!

That was a very short mission with a goofy plot, which I didn't found overly funny. The mission itself seems overly easy as the handful of enemy fighters do not stand a chance against your T/D. I'm not sure what else to say here. Fly it for a quick FCHG point maybe?

Okay I have to admit I started this battle with... Reading previous comments. Despite the high ratings it got in the most recent ones, I had an impression this was just another stupidly overwhelming battle and failed to understand where the hype for it was unti... I tried it for myself! Do not get me wrong, this battle is one huge pile of frustration for every single mission up until you finally learn how that specific mission is supposed to be completed. And even then the frustration does not cease as one random laser flying through space is enough to ruin even the best of runs for you. I still am impressed on how those missions are crafted. They have very much thought given into them and surely they are possible to beat even on the hard difficulty. This battle is what triggers your learning process if only you are eager to learn and not willing to give up. I for sure brought a lot out of this one, but in all honesty I do hope I will never have to do it again. Even on easy, even with cheats enabled! I haven't flied a lot of TIE missions/battle yet but this does seem like a true pearl among them all.

This was pretty decent battle. Mission 1 was perhaps the most challenging one for me, given you are swarmed by fighters as a solo T/I. I found it a little confusing plotwise, how it was required to re-scan the containers between missions 1 and 2. It's not like content can switch places on its own. And that remark the Cruiser 'followed us'. Given the containers do not move on their own, it was obvious where we'd eventually be, no? :P Nevertheless, the battle sports four relatively quick missions without much of bugs. There are fighter orders on a Cruiser I think on mission two but aside for having to be mindful about not getting too close to its weird maneuvers, it does not cause a collision fest. I've had entire flight of T/As crash against one of the cap ships in the third mission though. This failed the bonus goal of having half of them alive. Despite losing only one of the T/Ds in the same manner, the bonus goal for having half of them alive was... not completed. Despite all primary goals being done. Maybe it's dependend on other bonus goals I missed or maybe it's a slight bug. Nevertheless, it was pretty fun one to fly!

The plot of this battle was sort of okay although the battle had its problems visible throughout the battle. It seems impossible (at least on hard difficulty) to complete secondary goals in mission 2 (see bug report). Throughout the battle a lot of capital ships work on fighter orders (see the bug report again). It's kind of funny to see a Calmari Cruiser circle around trying to chase your missile boat. You can of course use it to your advantage, letting it do damage to the platform and vice versa. Please note that enemy fighters tend to bail out when they get damaged too harshly. It's especially annoying with A-Wings when you shoot a missile at them first. It does not quite kill it (7% hull left) but then the A-Wing bails. When it gets close to hyperspace point it just turns immportal and jumps anyway even if you unleash hell on it. Word of advice, damage shields with cannon first then just finish it off with 1 missile. It was still quite a challenging battle to fly, given there's plenty of enemies and each seem loaded with advanced missiles. Having starships dancing around doesn't help. Be ready to crash a lot when dogfighting. Not really fun flying here.

This battle has an okay plot, quite interesting one. I can only regret I'm doing this one out of the blue for competition so I have no idea what was going on in previous battle. Technically this battle is quite crappy though. I found that both the bugs submitted are still valid in 2020. Although in my case of missions 2 the VSDs never colided but started to fire on one another for no reason. I'm pretty sure I saw some of the R-41s fire on their own Frigates too. Primary objectives of mission 1 to 3 are relatively easy to achieve and you can bail out early. Mission 4 does require you to gun down the Cruiser. Mag pulses help a lot but they have a serious drawback too. Equipping whole squadron with them renders your squad mates pretty much cannon fodder to enemy fighters. Your allies will die like flies in pretty much every mission putting you alone vs the rest. That's one tough battle just for this reason. Given how it seems to suffer some 'trigger' problems, I give it a 'meh' to fly opinion.

Well it was a funny one, partly due to a goody plot that... I'm not a big fan of really. I'd appreciate a bit more serious approach to that side of this battle. Otherwise it's a pretty solid, simple and fast battle. I loved the TUG missiles in mission two, they really took me by surprise. But if you figure out what's going on in that one, you can easily outrun them. It feels as if the only real challenge about this battle is the last mission as it's race against your allies in scoring the kills. It's an okay one to fly.

It was an okay battle. It shined in some ways but then it was quite annoying in other. On the plus side I can count its story as well as attention to detail. The number of craft clearly shown how a proper EH battle group looks like. Number of background objects gave quite decent visuals while circling around as well. Technically this was very well made, with one exception. Like the bug report from LC Kodiak Kereban states, mission 3 appears to be broken. The squadron does follow you to the first combat area but leaves pretty much instantly after arriving. This leaves you solo vs horde of fighters. Which is both good (you can pull really decent score) and bad (given this mission is a wrist breaker). Some missions did not really have much for enemy variety. Mission 1 featured only A-Wings and mission 3 had only T- and X-Wings if I recall correct. Other missions did better on that field. I'm also not a fan of large scale engagements either, that's a big minus for me. I think most of the missions would do fine with allied force cut in half. I can't say I was excited to fly this one, though it's still pretty okay one.

This was a pretty fun one to fly in my opinion, certainly somewhat different from the rest. Missions 3 and 4 do stand out for this battle given than in the former you get to fly an advanced torpedo loaded TIE-x3. That makes dogfighting a bit tricky thouhg you can decimate anything that comes out of the frigate's hangar. Just be careful not to shoot too close as you can easily blow yourself up. Flying TIE-bomb I was suspecting something you'd keep piloting them in waves one after other and just ram against target. Using it as reckon ship was a surprise. Still if you want some extra score in this mission, you should ram at least the A-Wings. X-Wings are too sturdy and containers are like brick walls. Calling the reinforcements in this one might pay off. You pay 500 bonus but if you kill all 3 enemy squadrons you get 1500 total. All in all, coming 1000 on top. Other missions were relatively short and easy too, enjoyable to fly. Quite worth it!