So I've been spending some time today looking at the capital ship combat options in the AoR Core and at the mass combat rules in Onslaught at Arda I. I've played around with a few die rolls just to see how combat might look under each system.

I feel like the whole point of Age of Rebellion is for the PCs to take part in epic battles and to play a role in influencing the outcome. Presumably, a party of PCs can eventually develop a high enough contribution rank to qualify for at least a small capital ship. And there is even an entire career specialization expressly devoted to capital ship combat. So the game ought to be able to accommodate those scenarios.

And it seems to me that both the capital ship rules and the mass combat rules are designed to help with that, but I also feel like they are not sufficiently fleshed out. Also, I don't see a lot of chatter - in forums or on the Google - about the mechanics of how these encounters are worked out.

So here are some of the things that seem to be missing to me:

(1) In capital ship combat, rolling for multiple batteries of weapons on capital ships and multiple squadrons of fighters seems really tedious, since most of them are going to be NPCs. Sure, you can get the players to roll for their allies, but that is still a lot of rolls to be making during the course of a single turn. Don't get me wrong, FFG has given us the tools to make sense of all those rolls, and to make them interesting from a narrative standpoint, but there is an awful lot of dice rolling going on if you actually play out - say - an encounter between an ISD, a full complement of fighters from the ISD, and similar forces from a Liberty Cruiser.

(2) On the other hand, I feel like the mass combat rules - while they work much more quickly - need a little more detail to be fully implemented. I get the idea of how you go about building a pool for the acting force, but it seems to me like relative size is not the only factor to consider when setting the base difficulty. Shouldn't the strength of the forces play some role as well? Six squadrons of TIE fighters might "helplessly outnumber" a Liberty Cruiser, but I don't think it justifies five difficulty dice for the Cruiser's check.

Possible solutions are...

(1) Just handle the battles narratively, and only concern yourself with dice rolls where the PCs are involved (this seems to be the most popular approach)

(2) Only implement aspects of capital ship combat where it directly concerns the PCs - for example, if the PC ship passes across an ISD's port, then the battery on that side will take a shot at it, but then the ISD is ignored on turns where it can't or chooses not to interact with the PC ship. (Presumably, the PC ship can still do damage to the ISD when it chooses). This seems to sort of fit the advice to only involve aspects of the Capital Ship that are "pertinent to the ongoing encounter" on AoR Core, p. 244.

(3) Use a single mass combat roll at the end of each round of combat, but - when necessary - be a little more fluent about how the pools are built than what is set out in Onslaught.

(4) Some combination of 2 and 3.

I am leaning toward option (4) in my upcoming sessions, but I'm curious to hear how some of you are handling it. Has anyone actually tried to implement some of the Capital Ship rules and/or the Onslaught mass combat rolls?

I've just completed writing out a mass combat for an upcoming adventure.

TL:DR - A good mass combat takes some serious planning in advance.

The background is that an army of about 5000 Rebels is assaulting an Imperial outpost, with roughly 10,000 army soldiers (1 legion). To simplify things I removed most vehicles. The Rebels have decided to engage the Imperials on two fronts, dividing Imperial forces.

The battle is played out over three mass combat phases.These phases represent 15 minutes of time on the personal scale. Each phase has a small effect on the players and also has an effect on continuing mass effect phase. Players have 2 mass combat phases (30 rounds) to finish their objective. If they succeed they modify the dice for the phase 3 roll. Whomever wins phase 3 wins the battle.

Players are given their choice of 1 special forces missions, there are 3 in total. Each of these missions has an impact on the third and decisive mass combat check. Should all three objectives be successfully completed, the Rebel chance of success goes up to about 80% for phase 3.

Below are the battle and objectives dice.

Mass Combat Dice

Northern: GYYYPRRRb (40%)

Southern: YYYPPRRb (35%)

Special Forces Objectives:

Special Objectives should be rolled at the end of Phase II. Each successful objective has Rebel benefits for Phase III as listed in their entries. Objective bonuses are stack-able with other objectives. For example, if both HQ and Communications are successful, downgrade 2 Imperial dice on both fronts.

If an objective fails, none of its bonuses are added to the roll.

DO NOT ROLL the objective that the PCs choose.

Headquarters: GYYYRRRbb* (44%) -- Hard

*Adds 1 upgrade (35%) to the check if Phase I on Southern Front is lost.

Success: Downgrade 1 IMP die on both fronts, Remove P on both fronts, add B to both fronts; shield generator destroyed.

Disable Communications: GYYYPRRbb (49%) -- Medium

Success: Downgrade 1 Imp die on both fronts, shield generator destroyed.

Vehicle Flanking Maneuver: GYYYRRbb* (60%) -- Easy

*May add b (53%) if PCs do not destroy the Imperial troop shuttle in Disable Communications Objective (Round 2: Imperial Shuttle). If PCs did not choose that objective, do not add b.

Success: Add BB to Southern Front, negate b on Southern Front.

I believe the Order 66 guys will be discussing Capitol Ship combat in tonight's episode.

As long as the PCs are not directly involved in, nor reliant on the outcome, one thing that I've encouraged is the following:

If you have a number of snub fighters attacking each other, let's say 20 TIEs and 20 Y-Wings each divided into 5 groups of four flights. Now determine the dice pool for both sides, but instead of each minion, base it on each group.

First Round

Let's say for a Y-Wing pilot it is GGG. and the TIE pilot would be PPP. Now for each group left, Upgrade the pool so since there are 4 groups beyond the first, the resulting pool would be GYYY and PRRR.

Roll the bones...

For every un-cancelled success, remove that many GROUPS of TIEs. For every un-cancelled failure, remove that many GROUPS of Y-Wings.

For every un-cancelled advantage, remove a lone TIE, for every un-cancelled threat, remove a Y-Wing

Triumphs and Despair can be used by the GM to "steer" the battle. A Triumph might be used to wipe out an additional flight, or maybe signal reinforcements have arrived. The same is true in reverse. As a GM, be creative and/or ask you players for suggestions. Maybe add a boost (if Triumph) or setback (if despair)

Let's pretend that we have 1 success leftover, and 2 threat and have a Triumph.

We remove 1 flight of TIEs, and 2 Y-Wings from a flight. For the Triumph, I'm going to give the Y-Wings a Boost to represent the fear the TIEs are facing.

Second Round

We now have 4 flights of TIEs, and 4.5 (rounded up to 5) Y-Wings. So the Dice Pool for the Y-Wings is still GYYY and the TIEs Dice Pool is now RRR (upgraded only 3 times). I add in the Boost from the Triumph previously... so my total Dice Pool is GYYYRRRB

Say I rolled 2 Success, 2 Threat, and a Despair.

So I remove two more flights of TIEs (taking the total flights down to 2). I remove two more Y-Wings (taking the total flights to 4). With the Despair, I say that a new squad of TIEs has entered the fight! (bring the total back to 3 flights)

Repeat until one side is eliminated or has to run.

I know that the Triumph in round one probably should have been used to wipe out an additional flight of TIEs, but as the GM, you have to make the call on what to do that's best for the story.

This could be adapted for Capital ships as well. I'd just change it so that Triumphs and Despairs take out a capital ship, Success/Failure does damage, and Threats/Advantages gives boost/setback. If snub fighters are involved in the fight as well, the Threats/Advantages could remove fighters from the mix instead of boost/setback representing the batteries from the Capital ships targeting fighters et al.

When there are swarms of fighters and capital ships, you'll make two sets of rolls, roll for the snub fighters first (using first set of rules above), then roll the Capital ships (using the second set). This is a simplistic way, and the Order 66 GMs may have a better method... It makes the round go faster and is still abstract.

Because of the way the dice work (that is the exact odds), I'd make the side that you want to win the G and Y dice, and the side likely to lose P and R.

I have also toyed with the idea of throwing a Force Die with the pool. The Force Die can be used to represent the effect on the force. For each light side pip, flip a failure to a success and flip a threat to an advantage (or the opposite if dark side).

I believe the Order 66 guys will be discussing Capitol Ship combat in tonight's episode.

\Mr Burns "Eeeeeeeeeeexcelent..."

We haven't done any capship actions in FFG yet but for the big battles we usually just focus on a small part of the battle the party is in, give the party a goal and roll that section of the battle out. Then once that's done the GM narrates how the the party's success or failure is effecting the overall battle. Sometimes he or she will also give the party a new objective as part of the narration as well.

Go for narrative. But if they get to close to a ship than the ship may turn its cannons on the PCs. Usually the fighters engaged thee fighters and or bombers making runs. The bigger ships handled bigger ships and the small batteries handled the fighters or bombers that for to close. So play it that way. If the PCs are in their freighter or fighter ships they will be ordered to engage the other fighters or bombers or escort bombers to a specific ship. I like the escort because your job is so dangerous. Keep the fighters off the bombers for enough time to let the bombers to get in range...seems nerve racking.

If for some reason the PCs are controlling a cruiser or a big honkin ship than they will most likely engage another ship within the fleet. I'd assume there would be a general or admiral in command of them so issue orders for them to engage X target and bring it down. Within their ship they will make final orders as well as issue orders to their squadrons. So they can pick a target and duke it out. Despairs can generate 'threat from another cruiser or battleship to begin to engage them or perhaps a bombers squadron is on course to them'

Red five standing by...