The best approach to ensure victory without luck is to destroy the other two CRVs (1 and 3), then destroy the turrets on CRV 2 (allowing the Gunboats to disable the CRV)

But the fact that your mission critical ship regularly is destroyed by collisions with other ships because of bad order assignment is proof that this mission should not have been released in its current form.

I am generally not inclined to give any of the base campaign missions anything less than a 5. They are the foundation, the basis of which all our custom works are founded upon.

However...

The last mission of this battle - a version of the momentous flight through the second Death Star to destroy the core reactor - is, I think, the worst thing ever created by the X-Wing Series team.

There's nothing in the first three missions to really comment on, although the use of the Death Star laser in battle is kind of neat (albeit completely undermined by the fact that you just saw that happen in a cutscene moments before). But the last mission is just so far from the base game experience that it really defies belief.

It's quite opposite from the original X-Wing, which was able to produce what I think is the best version of the Death Star trench run to date. I recognize there's ways in which the second Death Star attack is more complex. But there was no need to take what was shown in the movie and add greater obstacles, events, and problems. All of that leads for an experience that is completely unlike the base game, and isn't helped when you've also made it 1) surprisingly punishing, and 2) pretty buggy to boot.

A single mission vs. 4 mission battle with a simplified Death Star II run would have made for a much, much better experience, in my opinion.

Final compliant unrelated to the mission: You've also left the family drama unresolved. I understand the desire to end on the Battle of Endor, but we know how that story ends. The story around the characters you've been building up isn't finished here, and never will be. Just a little extra salt to throw into the painful wound you get when flying this mission.

I always think of this Tour of Duty as "Grain Wars", but that's really just one of three storylines compiled together in this Tour of Duty and first ever expansion for an X-Wing series game.

No new craft in this expansion (which made it "totally lame" back in the day), but it's a very well made campaign that I appreciate more now then I did back in the day (when I was more interested in seeing something new or flashy vs. solid gameplay)

This is also the ToD that introduces branching missions, where pilots get a choice on which of two missions they will fly a few times. Admittedly this isn't a feature that made it out of X-Wing, and I'll admit it's not all that effective when 1) your choices have no consequences other than which mission you fly in that moment, and 2) most of the time when you do get a choice between two missions, they're very similar. But all the same, it's still a pretty nifty feature to look on and appreciate, and makes flying this particular campaign a unique experience.

Definitely the best Tour of Duty of the original base X-Wing game... and probably the best one including the expansions as well.

It's all a lead-up to the final Death Star mission, which remains to me the best version of the trench run in any Star Wars game, period.

I'm definitely not inclined to mark the original campaign anything lower than awesome. After all, this is where it all began!

This one is trickier than the first ToD - in fact I think it's more challenging than ToD #3 as well. But it also has the quintessential "Destroy the Star Destroyer" mission, which has always stood out to me years and years later as one of my favorites

Look, I'm loathe to knock the original games in any way, shape, or form. And this is the original battle! The very first! Where it all begin!

As such, it definitely has a bit of a tutorial feel at times, in a way some of the other games don't. And I actually think that's to it's benefit - you are definitely eased into the game in a more gentle way than any of the rest (at least when it comes to playing the campaign proper).

Does it mean a lot of waiting around if you know what you're doing? Sometimes yeah, but considering the context, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

You're going to have to laser down some asteroid bases. No fun!

GOOD: Kamikazee X-Wings
BAD: Invincible Gunboats

Would be much better without the invincible ships (which are almost always a bad idea)

With a title like a "Kill Admiral Ackbar", your expectations should already be fairly low.

Lower them more.

That fast-moving shuttle that appears as soon as the CRS explodes and has to be destroyed within seconds can make this a pretty miserable mission

A must fly for any KOTOR fan! Not just my favorite TFTC battle at the moment, but one of my favorite battles in the compendium!

I think it's an interesting dogfight with a lot of fun 90s fighting game references that will hit hard for certain folks from a certain era. All the other zaniness going on worked well for me, so no complaints there. And, of course, the theming of these missions continues to be bonkers and wildly creepy...

It's a Missile Boat battle that uses the ship the way it's intended to, with a couple clever twists that keep it from feeling too same-y. It's also very well implemented with gorgeous backdrops and fun audio. But what I really appreciate the most is the documentation of EH history in battle form, which in my heart of hearts is what I love to see added to the Compendium the most. So all around, a terrific battle that was a blast to play!

On its own, this is a terrific battle, well designed with a fantastic plot to boot (some occasional timey-wimey confusion aside). But from a remaster standpoint, it's particularly special, especially considering the TIE Praetor, which flies like a dream and has never looked better. This is absolutely one you don't want to miss!

There's a lot of talk about blasting 120 T/Fs, but... you absolutely do not need to do that! Disable the platform, protect the transport. Keep the T/F numbers low if you want to make protecting the transport easier. Inspect and take out the shuttle after it arrives. Easy peasy.

Mostly a showcase for the D/CRV, and there's nothing wrong with that. Not sure how many good missions are in the compendium that involve flying a Z-95, but this is definitely one of them.

Fun plot, fun missions, well worth a play-through!

Fairly inoffensive and simple mission about capturing booze and destroying Rebels

Gunboat poorly armed with missiles and 4 waves must destroy a CRS and some X-Wings and Y-Wings. Goal is unnecessarily obscure (it's destroy 75% of all Rebels, if you're curious).

Oh boy. Mission #1 is a snoozefest, just one of the longest wait time missions in the compendium. I personally sent my wingmen home at the start of the mission as I preferred to face 12 X-Wings myself rather than risk the AI destroying one and forcing me to restart.

Mission #3-5 are progressively more and more cap ships you need to laser down to finish the mission.

I can't give it a 0 as it's not completely broken. But it's definitely pretty bad!

Inconsistent is definitely the word I would use to describe this one. In short, we have...

M1) A standard inspection mission
M2) A surprisingly brutal capture operation
M3) Attack one ship and then wait around for 10 minutes
M4) Destroy a single satellite
M5) Standard large battle where you'll mostly protect your M/FRG and then probably end up lasering down some cap ships to get the rest of the mission to finish up (and then probably wait around)

Granted I opted for Easy considering the reported difficulty issues, and it does have some areas lacking polish beyond that, but all in all it's a decent battle, and something of a relic of the old Fear vs. Warspite beef. It's a kooky one but I did find it amusing, and appreciate it was a quest for caf as opposed to alci (although the latter may have better explained some of the actions of the Warspite...)

Destroy a healthy amount of X-Wings and Y-Wings, triggering the withdrawal win condition for the cap ships. That's it. I don't like that the Gunboats are seemingly ordered to take out the cap ships but aren't armed for it at all.

Incredibly straightforward destroy-a-CRS mission. Attack against the Alliance indeed.

On the plus side, a shieldless TIE Interceptor. On the downside, can be done in 90 seconds. Just a bit too simple here.

It's a bit of an odd duck, but it plays well enough