I'm running a Jedi campaign right now in the end days of the republic, soon it will lead up to the clone wars and i want that part of the campaign to be a more warlike style where the players play jedi generals.

But the scale of the republic, the separatists and the galaxy is enormous. How should i make it reasonable. The players will be watchmen of one sector, the Auril sector in the outer rim.

But here comes the thing, how big is the navy, army and the enemy? I don't really care how big the Grand army of the republic really is, a few million clone troopers from Canon is bull crazy stupid. One country could muster that manpower here on earth, no way they could win a galactic war...

I want the main fighting body be the clones VS separatists but on a local/regional scale of the sector. Whats a reasonable fighting force in a sector ? How many soldiers? How many tanks? How many ships of different sorts and so forth. I want the players to make strategic decisions about allocating their resources to different battles in the sector and I don't want it to be so abstract. In the same way I don't want them to have thousands of star destroyers to their disposal but i don't want it to be ten ships either.

Any tips here would be welcome, i want a reasonable size army without it becoming ludicrous either way.

If you want to figure out how to roll army fighting army there used to be a system with forgotten realms back when it first came out but if you are looking to have the PCs command dureing play I would assign them around 5 to 10 clones a piece and treat said clones as minions. During big battles the narrative is all you need. Be descriptive with what's going on in the background. When you think about it in the movies and the shows it is normally just the Jedi interacting with a handful of clones or soldiers.

It's not really the the rules or interaction part i want information about, but the size and numbers of clones, ships, and other war material. I want my players and their PCs to be the strategically involved in the war in their sector. So i want to know what would be reasonable numbers of different warships and manpower at their disposal. If they send 10% of their military capabilities to defend one planet and 2 Venator class star destroyers go down, have they lost them all, 2% 10% or something off their Venators and the military capability they have in the sector.

I want my PCs to be in command of the fleet and army in their sector first hand, and be jedi leaders on the ground second hand.

I think you can just make up numbers honestly. I would say somewhere in the 10 to 15 star destroyer range for the sector though

Wool IE PED I a has some articles on the Grand Army.

Track down the old WEG Imperial sourcebook. (D6 Holocron is a good place to start looking). In that book it talks at length about how the Empire organizes it's forces. While it says that the Republic was different and the Empire is all amazing now, if you read between the lines you can actually see how the establishment of the GAR could be identified as the point where things change and the new "Imperial" format actually began. Anyway, in that book it goes into excruciating detail about unit composition and strength should be exactly what you're looking for.

Some useful points:
On the Army:
The Army is composed of units broken down by function. A "Sector Army" is composed of 2-4 system armies and is commanded by a "Surface Marshall" This organization covers all troops in a given sector and will run you roughly 1.6 million soldiers. (For a frame of reference the entire US army, including reserves and national guard is only about 1 million strong)

Depending on your sector, the strategic value of it's systems and such that may be a bit much. A small "Army" composed of 131,000ish troops commanded by a General might be more manageable.

Remember that it'll all vary a bit depending on the actual mission. Some sectors may require massive number of troops to hold, other not so much. Likewise the force that deploys will (ideally) be configured to match the location. If you've got a sector with lots of planets that are predominately open (Ice fields, grassland, dune deserts, ect) then your Army will probably be composed of armor and repulsor regiments. If your sector has lots of sprawling hive cities, you'll probably want less armor and more infantry and special mission groups. and so on.

On the navy:
In the book it basically says a naval unit will be whatever the commander needs it to be.

The heart of Navy doctrine is the mission detail. The commander at every level can create temporary organizations called "mission details" which violate the standard OB. The concept behind the mission detail is simple for a commander to carry through:
1. Evaluate the mission.
2. Assign a detail which would best accomplish the mission.
3. Retain sufficient ship strength to meet other "expected obligations."

It then goes on to break down the "official" OB into units like squadrons, fleets and so forth.


Something that the book discusses a bit, but I'd like to point out a little more is that the Republic and later is the Star Destroyer. This ship is part of what makes the OB so wonky. The SD is essentially an entire fleet rolled into a single ship. It's a carrier, battleship, planetary assault ship, orbital support ship, the works, all rolled into one. So a more conventional battlegroup might be composed of a carrier, a battleship, 2 cruisers and 2 frigates supported by an assault group of a couple frigates and assault ships. A Star Destroyer equipped force might deploy three Star Destroyers and a light cruiser to conduct the exact same operation.

In the Clone Wars cartoon you actually see this a bit, with the battlegroups of the republic usually shown as being 2-5 Venators, a few Acclamator assault ships (to transport and land troops), and a handful of other corvette sized support craft and not much else.

On the flipside the Seps seem to run a slightly more conventional force, with their battlegroups being a single Providence carrier/destroyer supported by a few battleships, a few cruisers, a few frigates, and some smaller support craft.

On the ground though they act (roughly) the same with perhaps the biggest difference being the Seps running much larger formations of troops, especially infantry. This leads to different tactics (mostly march in formation toward the expected enemy location) but then repairing modular "dumb" battledroids is less of an issue then healing a "smart" clone. Similarly supporting a battledroid force is easier too. You need to get them plenty of ammo, oil, and generators, but not much else. Where clones will always need food, water, medical supplies and casualty evacuations on top of what the droids need. In the end the two probably balance out though.

Wool IE PED I a has some articles on the Grand Army.

Seems interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean with the contractions. Could you please spell it out i would be happy

Thank you Ghostofman, this is exactly the things I'm looking for. Great info and I'll check out the Imperial sourcebook right away! Really good reading.

Another question on the topic. I know that frigates and corvettes and so forth have different rolls in the military campaign. Could someone explain the main roles of the different kind of ships and what these are expected to do or point me to some nice reading? (military and naval tactics in modern / sci fi setting is not my strongest card, medieval on the other hand.)

pgs. 391-395 of Age of Rebellion should take care of you.

Alliance Fleet:

Element: 1 starship

Section: small # of starships

Squadron: 3-4 Sections

Battle Group: 2-4 Squadrons

Fleet: 3-6 Battle Groups

Sector Force:

Squad: 8 troopers 1 sergeant

Platoon: 4 Squads

Company: 4 platoons

Battalion: 4 companies

Regiment: 4 Battalions

Brigade (Legion): 4 Regimens

Corps: 4 Brigades

Sector Army: Several Corps

Another thing to check out would be the Star Wars Essential Guide to Warfare. While some parts of it are now basically part of Legends, most of the Clone Wars material would still be considered canon.

As for handling a campaign like this, really Age of Rebellion's resources are where you need to be, rather than Edge of the Empire. Rank wise, Jedi Knights were functionally Generals, while combat-trained Padawans had the rank of Commander. Separatist forces depended upon who was in charge, but for the most part, the battle droids outnumbered the Clones 10 to 1 in many places. The naval forces may have been a bit more even.

Inquisitor Tremayne, that's really nice also, I've totally forgotten about that in AoR. That's a good source, thank you

When I did my Padawans in the Old Republic game, I kept the numbers vague. There was never any need to nail down specifics, even though my Jedi were running as generals in the military. Throw in as many as each situation calls for, outnumber them when it's dramatic, and don't sweat the details.

Agatheron I'll try get a hand on that. I thing a friend of mine has it. Well most of the good stuff in Star Wars are now Legens

I've been thinking about using the Duty mechanic from AoR towards my players, but I think it would be more appropriate to just use what makes sense in the narrative.

When I did my Padawans in the Old Republic game, I kept the numbers vague. There was never any need to nail down specifics, even though my Jedi were running as generals in the military. Throw in as many as each situation calls for, outnumber them when it's dramatic, and don't sweat the details.

Yeah i could keep it abstact if i wanted to, but as I've said. I want the PCs to have strategic command as Jedi generals. They kinda needs to know how many ships they have at their disposal. Especially when the Separatists attacks multiple systems and they need to split their forces and such. Reinforcements will be scarce and it will take time, so the PCs must decide on whenever it's safe or not to sacrifice a part of the navy or army for a specific task.

Wool IE PED I a has some articles on the Grand Army.

Seems interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean with the contractions. Could you please spell it out i would be happy

I think he meant to say Wookieepedia

Wool IE PED I a has some articles on the Grand Army.

Seems interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean with the contractions. Could you please spell it out i would be happy

I think he meant to say Wookieepedia

Hahahaha now i feel stupid... Of course

Wool IE PED I a has some articles on the Grand Army.

Seems interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean with the contractions. Could you please spell it out i would be happy

Oops, supposed to be wookiepedia

Another question on the topic. I know that frigates and corvettes and so forth have different rolls in the military campaign. Could someone explain the main roles of the different kind of ships and what these are expected to do or point me to some nice reading? (military and naval tactics in modern / sci fi setting is not my strongest card, medieval on the other hand.)

You may want to check out the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook as well, as that one talks about ship design and intended roles.

Ahh ! WEG stuff ... good ol' days!

Still the best source for certain info. The stuff that has come since has better artwork and design, but for raw fluffy information pretty much everyone has just paraphrased, modified, and cut down something that originally appeared in a WEG book at some point.

Yeah WEG is still the only source I know of that discusses Alliance officer training AFAIK.

One thing of note the frieghters listed in the picket line are supposed to be freighters converted into small gunships or maybe customs ships. I imagine the Republic navy would use small gunships, and probably Consular, maybe even Arquitens class vessels in that slot.

Chapter 8, Page 81, is the start of some reading for you. An entire chapter discussing a detailed breakdown of the components of the Imperial Army and Navy.

You can give the party finite military assets with fixed values without worrying about the fine numbers of what makes up those assets.

Just give them units with colourful names and abstract strength values.

For Example:

The 3rd regiment of the 83rd clone trooper legion is renowned for use of close in heavy artillery support during assault actions. Well equipped and experienced, each soldier is worth 10 enemy troops on the battlefield. Unfortunately their numbers are heavily depleted after extended campaigning in the outer rim. Unit strength: 6

The 1st Auril Sector volunteer corp, the "bloody hawks", is a massive infantry formation with dedicated modified civilian interstellar transport craft. While brave and with great morale, they are poorly equipped and their training isn't up to regular standards. Unit strength: 6

Two vastly different units with different numbers and equipment, but by quantifying them abstractly with unit strength, actual numbers don't matter any more.

This is very similar to the mass-combat rules used in the Rogue Trader adventure The Frozen Reaches. When I ran that module (heck, it became a mini-campaign, not just an adventure!) the abstract number to rate the strength of each formation worked out great.

I don't know how much of the ...bookkeeping... should be handled by the PCs. Maybe the NPC superiors should handle the logistics and general strategy, leaving the fun, intense battlefield decisions to the PCs.

In a typical TCW episode, the heroes get one carrier and a sensible number of clones and starfighters. They also get a mission. Usually, they will not be able to get reinforcements right away because the Republic forces are spread too thin. So they need to be smart about how to spend their resources. But things will not always go as planned, and the heroes need to make do with what they have, even though the plan just blew up in their face - the heroes need to find a creative solution on the fly.

I think WEG may have gotten their ship sizes mixed up (e.g. a Star Destroyer probably isn't 1,600 meters long), but they did make some good products, especially in the early days.

Though my thought is based around the actual set size of the movies, and the fact that I doubt that they were getting too much specificity from Lucasfilm about the details of stuff.