Tactical Operations Briefing: Rebel

XvT, Single Player Exercise: Rebel Capture of Corvette Near ISD

Skill Level: Hard
Flight Group: Y-wing Green (Slot 3)
Craft: B-wing
#Craft: 1
#Waves: 3
Armament: Heavy Rockets (8)
Countermeasures: Flares

At mission start, set your ELS to 0/0, close to a comfortable range, and dumbfire all your heavy rockets at the ISD Illustrious. Make sure you're being targeted by T/B Eta (who will be nine or 10 klicks away still at this point), then hyperspace out for a new craft. Eta seems to get distracted from their attack on the Y-wings using this technique.

In your new craft, with ELS still at 0/0 close in again in the ISD. A word of warning: Fly past the Y-wings making their approach to the Illustrious before you dumbfire your rockets again; if you don't, there's a chance your warheads will hit and kill a friendly Y-wing.

Once you've emptied your second batch of rockets into the ISD, set your ELS for dogfighting (the author prefers 100/50 in this instance) and begin engaging TIEs. Use your [E] and [R] keys to identify targets and fire at will. You won't find yourself under heavy fire here as there is lots of help from the Top Ace pilots from Rogue Squadron. Order your wingmen to attack the Illustrious; they'll take it down without any more help from you.

Once the Illustrious is history, CRV Assassin will launch from its hangar bay. Order your wingmen to attack it, and they'll typically disable it in short order. ATR Wraith will then arrive to board the Assassin, while STRKC Hermes and VDS Achilles arrive and begin launching fighters.

The only real threat to the Wraith comes from the T/Bs launching from Hermes. Set ELS to 0/0 and intercept all 12 bombers from Omega group. You'll be fighting in the shadow of the Hermes, so your main opposition is the STRKC's turbolasers. While fighting the bombers, cycle through the enemy list occassionally using [F3] and order your wingmen to attack any T/Is targeting the Wraith. The T/Is, though, don't seem to pose much of a threat and usually don't get a single shot inon the Wraith.

When all of T/B Omega is destroyed, head back toward the Assassin and destroy any TIEs along your way. This typically is the most dangerous part of the mission as far as your own survival is concerned. Use flares liberally, and if you're overwhelmed, set ELS to 0/0 and run.

Continue checking [F3] for TIEs targeting the Wraith, and use your wingmen to engage. Once you're comfortable the Wraith is safe, hyper out for your third and final B-wing. You might want to wait until you get a mission complete to jump out, but the Wraith is in virtually no danger at this point.

In your final craft, dumbfire all your heavy rockets into the Achilles. If they haven't already destroyed it, order your wingmen to attack the Hermes. Once the Hermes is gone, order your wingmen to attack the Achilles and join in the assault, using flares to keep any straggler TIEs at bay. You'll get 5,000 bonus points for downing Hermes another 10,000 for killing Achilles.

Hyperspace home to claim your Blue Ribbon and an all-too-easy Top Performance. Using this method the author typically scores over 90,000 points.

Author:  Josh Caton (Nova - Blue Squadron)
Strategy: Josh Caton