As above - obviously, it's easy enough to play 'king of the hill' or 'hunters' (see sig) type missions with multiple players, but the level of 'Star Wars theme' in those missions is...let's just say... not high .

Curious what players could recommend for a good 3-player mission, that really captures the Star Wars theme, and provides balanced objectives for all players.

(And for purposes of my specific question - Epic play is fine, I've got the ships. However, play areas of 3'x6' are not - I can only do 3'x3')

Hmmm...that's a tough one.

I would say have the rebels and scum duke it out and deploy the empire half way through to ensure an imperial victory but I digress...

Thematic I really don't know...

The best gameplay suggestion I have would be to roll a 6 sides die each round to detriment initative and maybe have one player come in (with only half the points of everyone else) once a certain number of points have been destroyed (say 130 to 150 pts in a 300 pt game)?

Rough situation though.

EDIT TO EXPOUND:

you have 3 sides at 100 pts

The Righteous and glorious empire

The filthy rebel terrorists

The stupid suicidal pirates.

It is determined the the duly rebels and stupid pirates will rock the initial deployment and deploy 100 pts as normal. The game begins. The stupid pirates get a leg up on the filthy rebels as they are distracted and dirty by their filth...and several ships are destroyed on both sides. Once 150 PTA are destroyed the imperial player chooses half of his list warps in (or gets dropped off by a nearby isd or tie carrier) and lays the Beatdown on the survivors.

This keeps each side more or less equal and if one player got lucky in the beginning he needs to watch out...it also encourages each side to engage and keep the others from becoming too strong.

Well, there were a few ways to do it "thematically" - ideas like:

• Have one player build a 200-pt list around a Rebel Corvette and escorts, other two players have 100 pt lists and are Empire and Bounty Hunters (of some variety - will be easier with the Scum faction out, but not that hard even now). Theory is that the Empire is trying to stop a Rebel ship, and the local governor insists he can do it without the 'Bounty Hunter scum' - while Vader thinks otherwise and sent them. Rebel wins if he survives, Empire wins if the Rebel ship is destroyed and they did more damage to it than the Bounty Hunters did (and vice versa for them).
• Bounty Hunters/Scum, Empire, and Rebels all build a 100 point list and have to rescue escape pods from an asteroid field - maybe some Imperial cargo ship crashed in it, and the Empire wants to recover the valuable cargo while the Scum and Rebels want to steal it. This one is a bit more of a 'free for all', though, but still has three distinct sides and comes off reasonably thematic.

...but as just ideas kicked out there, I have no idea how they'd work. What kind of changes need to be made to balance it? Is it fun for all sides, and do the victory conditions work equally? etc...

You could always just do 200 v 200 too...with 2 players taking one side and splitting the points

Interesting problem... I am on the case.

You could always just do 200 v 200 too...with 2 players taking one side and splitting the points

This is the easy solution, and I've done it. It worked pretty well.

For a more detailed and involved setup that would work better as a true 3-player, 3-team game, you might consider going for a complicated objective.

Rebels: Deploy a Senator's Shuttle token along your board edge. You must keep the shuttle moving and intact, with the goal being to have it move off the board on the opposite side. The shuttle moves at PS0 and always does a 2 forward (counts as green) and takes an Evade action.

Empire: You must kill as many Rebels as possible. If you destroy all Rebels and then move a ship within Range 1 of the shuttle, you capture the shuttle. Whichever ship does so then needs to leave the board on the Empire's side to escape with the prisoner.

Third Party (proxied Scum, or alternate Rebel/Imperial group representing traitors or pirates): Your goal is to Ion the shuttle. If the Third Party Ions the shuttle, it begins to move to the Third Party's side of the board (after resolving the Ion maneuver as normal). This represents a highjacking. The Third Party wins if they get the shuttle off the board on their side successfully.

In the event that the shuttle dies, all players lose.

I don't know if the above rules are workable, but they give each player a different objective.

I really like the idea above...but who do you force to have the ion cannons and do they have to pay cor them? Maybe some sort of special shot w infinite ammo that can only be used on the shuttle?

I'd be interested in seeing what happens here.

I wouldn't be surprised if some scenarios come with Most Wanted also. It's hinted that the Raider mission will be against Scum.

Well, there were a few ways to do it "thematically" - ideas like:

• Have one player build a 200-pt list around a Rebel Corvette and escorts, other two players have 100 pt lists and are Empire and Bounty Hunters (of some variety - will be easier with the Scum faction out, but not that hard even now). Theory is that the Empire is trying to stop a Rebel ship, and the local governor insists he can do it without the 'Bounty Hunter scum' - while Vader thinks otherwise and sent them. Rebel wins if he survives, Empire wins if the Rebel ship is destroyed and they did more damage to it than the Bounty Hunters did (and vice versa for them).
• Bounty Hunters/Scum, Empire, and Rebels all build a 100 point list and have to rescue escape pods from an asteroid field - maybe some Imperial cargo ship crashed in it, and the Empire wants to recover the valuable cargo while the Scum and Rebels want to steal it. This one is a bit more of a 'free for all', though, but still has three distinct sides and comes off reasonably thematic.

...but as just ideas kicked out there, I have no idea how they'd work. What kind of changes need to be made to balance it? Is it fun for all sides, and do the victory conditions work equally? etc...

I really like the second one, I may try that sometime.

Seems like there should be a capture the flag style mission, using a transport as the flag. And I think there are rules in one of the missions for towing.

Put the transport on a 3x6 and let the fun begin!

I like the idea of coming up with some kind of point-based formula for the Imperials and the Rebels to both bid for the Scum to come in on their side as mercenaries; it would be two teams, but then whoever has the largest percentage of their squad left (of the three players) at the end is the single victor. ...However, I'm having a hard time thinking of how such a bidding process would work or how the points would be broken down.

The IG-2000 comes with Rebel, Imperial, and Scum tokens. I'm hoping it also has the first official three player scenario.

Working on two concepts: "conflict of interests", and "honor among thieves".

Both thematic, 3 player missions that should be balance-able within reason. Details to follow when I get on a real computer. Expect to publish on MC within a week.

Combine missions six (Lambda Shuttle) and nine (Rebel Aces) The rebels are trying to bury the evidence through their shooting of the disabled ships, the imperials are performing rescue operations for their intel both from mission six. Meanwhile the pirates want to steal the actual ships using the "Jumpstart the Engines" rules from mission nine.
Give the ships a few bonus HP so they can be stolen even when all personnel on board have been taken away.

• Bounty Hunters/Scum, Empire, and Rebels all build a 100 point list and have to rescue escape pods from an asteroid field - maybe some Imperial cargo ship crashed in it, and the Empire wants to recover the valuable cargo while the Scum and Rebels want to steal it. This one is a bit more of a 'free for all', though, but still has three distinct sides and comes off reasonably thematic.

...but as just ideas kicked out there, I have no idea how they'd work. What kind of changes need to be made to balance it? Is it fun for all sides, and do the victory conditions work equally? etc...

I'd like to see something like this but with cargo containers. You would have to be within 1 range and use an action to capture it. It should require the ship that grabs the cargo to drag it behind them at 1 distance using only green maneuvers. If a red or white maneuver is used, or the ship/cargo collides, then the cargo is no longer under the control of the ship that grabbed it.

This would make ions effective, and make ramming pretty useful and fun.

Here's the basic idea for the upcoming " Honor Among Thieves " mission I am going to be putting on mission control:

The Rebels are attacking an Imperial supply point in orbit around a planet. They want to steal some equipment, but don't have the forces to pull off the attack by themselves, so they're using hired guns to help out. These mercenaries (scum & villainy) have found out what equipment the Rebels are after, and have decided they would rather have the cargo than their paycheck. The Rebels don't know that the mercenaries plan to betray them, so the mercenaries will have the element of surprise when they betray the Rebels - the Rebels can't attack the mercenaries until the mercenaries have attacked them.

Although the Imperial defense forces are initially outnumbered, help is on the way. If they can hold on long enough, by out-flying the attackers or playing them off one another, reinforcements will begin to arrive and they will have the upper hand. (not sure if I want the reinforcements to be more ships, or access to turbolaser attacks, representing the arrival of a larger ship).

The premise for "Conflict of Interests" is going to be a little different.

Everyone will have more different mission objectives than in the other mission I'm writing. The Rebels are trying to trash an Imperial installation, the Imperials are trying to stop them, and the Scum player is trying to use the chaos to score some bounties for Jabba the Hutt (pilots on both the rebel and Imperial sides have bounties on their heads).

Instead of studying, I cranked out the first version of " Honor Among Thieves ".

It'll probably change a little after a playtest or two, but I think the basic mechanics are sound.

At the risk of threadomancy, here is the second scenario I cooked up for three factions: " Conflict of Interests ".

This is a 3-player scenario featuring the Scum and Villainy faction. The Imperials and Rebels have been manipulated into battle by Jabba the Hutt for his own purposes.