Essential Guide #1: Can YOU beat the Yuuzhan Vong?

You can’t miss the RELAUNCH of Age of Legends: The Essential Guide. In this 1st weekly newsletter, find out how YOU can beat the Vong, how to use your SSDs, and what’s in store for the weeks ahead.

So You’re The Ace?

“So you’re the ace?” the Senior Flight Instructor inquired, his green lekku twitching with suspicion.

“That’s right. Two tours on the Remonda with Polearm Squadron. The second as a flight group leader,” replied Lieutenant Dessin Yulehra. “Four kills,” he added, with satisfaction.

“Against spacers?”

“Pirates,” Yulehra replied at once.

“Flying Uglies?”

“Flying Preybirds,” the pilot answered coolly. “Armed with state-of-the-art concussion missiles.”

“Hm,” the Instructor said. “Alright, well, see what you make of this Lieutenant. It’s a new Hostile, engaged in an action on the Outer Rim, in the New Territories two weeks ago.”

“No problem.” Yulehra had no idea why he’d been sent twenty-five parsecs from his squadron’s base to sit in a simulator, nor why it was classified. The Galaxy had been at peace for years; for the entirety of his military service. “A one-on-one engagement?”

The Instructor nodded.

Lieutenant Yulehra frowned. Even stranger. He cracked his knuckles and sat down, putting on his standard flight helmet, connected now to data feeds from the simulator, itself an old T-65 cockpit stripped out of its original craft and grounded. The visual display filled his vision and he found himself at the more familiar controls of an RZ-1 A-wing, the blue-painted hull and New Republic starbird beneath the view of his virtual cockpit.

He flicked his lasers to twin-fire mode and diverted power from shields to engines: better to be missed with low shields than hit with high. That was the A-wing flight jock philosophy, drilled into them on the Fortressa Training Base. It hadn’t done him wrong so far. He eased into the simulation, snaking his craft around dense asteroids and clouds of debris. Then, closing suddenly from two kliks, a unknown craft, coloured yellow, marking ‘Presumed Hostile’. No ID.

Outside the simulator the Instructor checked his chronometer. Thirty seconds to make contact. Two seconds to engage. Two seconds to finish the… The simulator hatch opened. The smile had been wiped-off the Lieutenant’s face.

“What was that?” he gasped, looking back at the simulator in confusion, as if it had somehow tricked him.

“That, was a Coralskipper. We’ve yet to find a pilot to beat it first time.”

“How can anyone beat that?”

***

That’s the question from Discord user Green, who writes: “I'm still unsure of how to fight the Vong”.

In early scenarios set in the first years of the Invasion, the Yuuzhan Vong have superior technology. Their dovin basal gravity wells can strip the shields from your capital ships, while intercepting a percentage of all incoming weapons fire. Their fighters are superior to even the best available starfighters: TIE Defenders or E-wings can struggle to engage Coralskippers 1v1.

But the Vong can be beaten.