Earning XP
Experience points (XP) are earned in multiple ways. If you shoot at an enemy and do any amount of damage you earn one XP. If you actually kill the enemy you get 1 XP for the damage + 1 additional XP for the kill. And if the enemy was anything other than a standard TIE Fighter (which are like cockroaches in Heroes, there’s always another batch coming from somewhere…) then you get an additional +1 XP for that too. Finally, if the ship was a large-based ship (Lambda Shuttle or Decimator) then there is an additional +1 XP.
So if you shoot and kill a Lambda Shuttle you get 4XP (+1 damage, +1 kill, +1 non-TIE, +1 large base).
Elite enemies offer bonus XP to every player when they’re destroyed, in addition to the XP awarded to the player with the kill shot.
Completing mission objectives might also award XP. For example, pilots have an additional action called “Protect” which allows them to assign an evade token to a NPC (non-player-character) ship. (This action was introduced in the “Political Escort” mission from the original core set and adopted by Heroes.) At the end of the mission, the pilot who executed the most Protect actions often gets bonus XP.
Spending XP
Once you’ve earned all those experience points, what are they good for?
Well, you want your ship to have goodies. My pilot “Rover” flew a Y-Wing. Y-Wings can carry ordnance (bombs or torpedoes) and also have a turret mount point. Upgrades cost whatever their squad point value is, so when I purchased a Twin Laser Turret it cost me 6 XP. Some zero-point upgrades (BTL-A4 title card for example) come built-in to the ship and don’t have to be purchased.
Another way to spend XP is to upgrade your pilot skill. This costs double the value of your new skill. Remember that all pilots start out at PS2. To upgrade to PS3 costs 6 XP. To upgrade to PS4 from there costs 8 XP and so on. (You cannot jump more than one PS between missions.) Increasing your pilot skill gives you two things. First and most obvious, you’re at a higher PS which has an impact on the game mechanics. Remember lower PS pilots move first and shoot last. Higher PS pilots move last and shoot first. Han always shoots first. 😛 But in addition to moving up the pecking order, each PS you “level up” brings a new slot that you can fill with something. In Heroes your opponents also scale up as your average squad PS increases.
When “Rover” upgraded to PS3 he got to purchase an EPT or Elite Pilot Talent. EPTs can be purchased for double the point cost on the upgrade card. For my first EPT I picked up “Expertise. By spending 8XP I had a persistent Focus token for all of my attacks. (Expertise does not help defense dice.) By combining this with my Twin Laser Turret (6XP) and the BTL-A4 title (free) I could potentially attack 3 times per round and have a Focus available for all of them! (Side note: Expertise is really overpowered in Heroes especially because the Imperial AI doesn’t really do a lot to stress the Rebel pilots.)
Typically you unlock a new EPT / Pilot Skill at odd PS levels. At even PS levels you get an additional modification slot for your ship. Things get crazy when you’re at the higher pilot skill levels! When “Rover” leveled up to PS4 he picked up Vectored Thrusters. Now his Y-Wing could barrel roll. Since Expertise eliminated my need to focus as my action nearly every round, my ship was a lot more maneuverable.
When “Rover” upgraded to PS5 he took on Chewbacca’s pilot ability. At odd PS levels you get a choice between taking a standard EPT upgrade card or getting a pilot ability of a named pilot. The PS of the name pilot has to be equal to or lower than your own PS, so at PS5 I could not take on Luke Skywalker’s ability because he’s PS8. I have a few more levels to obtain before I could do that. The cost of a pilot ability is the pilot skill in XP, so Chewie’s ability cost me 5XP. From now on, if I am dealt a critical hit, I flip the card face down without resolving the text on the card. (We actually handle crits in Heroes a bit different; details later.)
Here’s what Rover looked like at the end of our campaign.
Purchased Equipment
Droid – R5-D8
Twin Laser Turret
Ion Torpedoes
Cluster Mines
Proton Bombs
Pilot Ability / EPT
Expertise
Chewbacca (ignore crits)
Miranda (reduce attack by one die to recover a shield, drop a shield to increase attack by one)
Modification
Bomb Loadout
Vectored Thrusters (adds barrel roll)
Hull Upgrade
Engine Upgrade (adds boost)
Extra Munitions (doubles ordnance carried)
“Rover” was a ton of fun, and ridiculously strong for a single Y-Wing pilot. He could regenerate hull (not guaranteed) with his droid, regenerate shields with Miranda, boost and barrel roll and blow stuff up with his Twin Laser Turret (TLT). That’s part of what makes Heroes so fun. But what about the other side? How do Imperials work? I’ll talk more about that in Part II of this series.
Related Links
- Heroes of the Aturi Cluster Home Page
- List of Missions from X-Wing 1.0
- TableTop Plays X-Wing: Mission 4 Den of Thieves
Note that numerous mistakes were made so don’t take this as a learn-to-play video…