So far the battles I've seen either happen in space or in the midst of a slug fest between capital ships.

Anyone ever thought of planetary scenarios where our "planes" engage in close ground support or ground attack role? Like strafing run or armour column destruction missions ala WW2 post Normandy or early war campaign style?

OF COURSE you must be willing to OVERLOOK the scale difference between the "planes" and the toy tanks that you use.

The idea just struck me after getting a B wing.

I've seen a set of rules for the battle of Hoth where the person used I think Micro Machines AT-ATs and used regular x-wings and TIEs. http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/893968/mission-battle-hoth This might be something worth looking into if you want to do that kind of stuff and keep it in a Star Wars environment. I haven't tried the scenario though but it looks pretty good.

The issue is you'd need new rules for atmo flight because tie fighters arnt exactly as nimble when dealing with gravity and cross winds.

In my opinion (for what it's worth) working out rules for gravity and stuff is a little too in depth, and probably not worth it. From the Rogue Squadron Books that I've seen and the Rogue Squadron games I've played they never delved into it, so me personally I wouldn't worry about that, but to each their own.

I thought about reducing agility for atmospheric flight for ships with no lift and control surfaces...

But then i thought, nah its star wars, it doesnt need accurate physics and in essence you'd be putting penaltys on everything other than A wings, X wings and shuttles..

So if its -1 agility across the board you may as well not bother

I heard that at some point this game will get dragons too. Oh wai....

I was thinki g of disregarding things like crosswind and what ever physics.

The planes atill stick to their normal movements and stats. Except that if they're like at 1 or 2 MR (straight movement ruler) to vehicles they cant attack since they'll be pulling out at high G. But if they choose todo so, 2 or 3 stress token

Star wars fighters don't suffer g forces they have inertial dampness that totally negate those potentially lethal effects.

One of the SW Rebels trailer show's a TIE Fighter flying SIDEWAY in the streets. Also look at those destroyers slowly soaring inside a planet atmosphere with only rear engines.

Is Star Wars, the ships never learned physics laws so i doesn't apply to them.

It's called repulsorlift and it's a very common technology in star wars.

It would allow ties to fly in atmo but would not grant the same agility they have in space.

This would be an interesting basis for a scenario. The Z-95 is mentioned somewhere as having been used for ground support, and the bombers would obviously be pretty relevant. You could do a scenario where ground forces are fighting a battle, and you earn victory points for blowing up valuable targets like heavy vehicles or supply depots. Maybe there are also AA guns that can attack you, so you have to balance between taking out enemy bombers, protecting your own, hitting AA guns, and actually earning victory points. Maybe extra VPs are awarded when you kill so many of the enemy bombers, but you have a limitless number of the cheapest option and you play until the victory point limit is reached.

Hm. Might need to examine this further at some point. Or get distracted by Civilization V, one of the two.

Thinking of trying ground assault during a long weekend. Trying out with column destruction first. But the thought of putting victory points is interesting

The issue is you'd need new rules for atmo flight because tie fighters arnt exactly as nimble when dealing with gravity and cross winds.

I don't see any reason to complicate things. It's not like Star Wars really simulates actual space physics, and that this game actually does well simulating Star Wars "physics".

I don't know why more people don't play similar missions. Not every battle in SW revolves around 6 rocks adrift in space.

But...the scale....THE SCALE!

Are those AT-ATs from the Titanium Micro Machines line? If they are, then they should be a 1/336 scale.

I don't know why more people don't play similar missions. Not every battle in SW revolves around 6 rocks adrift in space.

Because playing more involved missions requires more work. Not everyone has reasonably scaled at-ats or snow speeders to use, and it needs to look good because the visuals are a big part of the appeal. Playing a scenario like that requires that the participants have appropriate extra pieces, that someone needs to have done the work to create the extra rules needed, that everyone involved agrees on all the new rules, and even if you might be able to pull all that together, there is always the subconscious suspicion that the scenario won't be balanced and will end up not being fun to play, so a good scenario is assumed to require a lot of play testing to get right.

Given all that work needed, it is easier for most people to simply go with the "official" default scenario which they already know is going to be fun and which doesn't require any extra work.

Check out the star wars miniature stuff. I have the AT-ATand AT-ST from that and they are huge. They are actually too big. They alreay have a solid rules and ground combat system. I have several golan infantry turrets and a couple of ATGAR cannons, as well as many snow troopers and hoth troopers. scale is off but on the large side. This game is sadly OOP but the stuff can still be found. I'll try to post a few pics of my stuff when I get time.

"Too much work" ...never uttered by a real enthusiast.

I don't know why more people don't play similar missions. Not every battle in SW revolves around 6 rocks adrift in space.

Because playing more involved missions requires more work. Not everyone has reasonably scaled at-ats or snow speeders to use, and it needs to look good because the visuals are a big part of the appeal. Playing a scenario like that requires that the participants have appropriate extra pieces, that someone needs to have done the work to create the extra rules needed, that everyone involved agrees on all the new rules, and even if you might be able to pull all that together, there is always the subconscious suspicion that the scenario won't be balanced and will end up not being fun to play, so a good scenario is assumed to require a lot of play testing to get right.

Given all that work needed, it is easier for most people to simply go with the "official" default scenario which they already know is going to be fun and which doesn't require any extra work.

I'm sorry but I disagree. It doesn't have to be the battle of Hoth with ships you don't have, it can be anything. It does require a little work but honestly not that much. I've created my own death star and death star 2, and have set up several different objective missions and you really don't need that much to do it. Play testing can come in to play, absolutely but that's part of the fun, changing things up and fine tuning everything so that it's a great battle. My friends aren't that big on the regular 1 on 1 dogfight so I've had to be creative and set missions and that's pretty much the only way that they'll play, but it's worth it every time.

Play testing can come in to play, absolutely but that's part of the fun, changing things up and fine tuning everything so that it's a great battle.

For you (and me for that matter) but for a lot of people that is simple drudgery. If you only get to play once or twice every 2-3 weeks you are not going to want to risk having an unfun night testing a new scenario, assuming the people you play with can be talked into it in the first place.

I've created my own death star and death star 2, and have set up several different objective missions and you really don't need that much to do it.

Yes, you do. You just happen to enjoy what you need to do to do it. I started work on the stuff for a death star trench run as soon as I started playing more than a year ago. Still don't have it done because there is a lot of stuff that needs doing.

If you do want to run a death star trench scenario, I and several other people I've seen have used this http://www.rpgnow.com/product/106202/Warscapes%3A-Star-Base-Trench-Run you can just print it out and place the pieces how you see fit. It took me maybe an hour to create the whole thing. Might be something worth looking at if you want to make the board but don't want to spend a lot of time doing it. There's also a couple different rule sets out there for it that people have made. Boardgamegeek has a bunch of stuff for it.

Your first point is pretty valid though, for just play testing it can be a pain in the butt for people who aren't as interested as you or I.

Ground Attack variants are certainly possible, and I have tried these myself:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105371-dont-hassle-the-hoth/

I just dug out my at-st's, at-at,s and snowspeeders from the micro machine line to work up stuff for a Battle of Hoth scenario....looks to be fun for all!