So, I'm not sure if this has been discussed already or is included in the AoR rules, but I'm trying to devise a way to implement a larger fight going on around my PCs in my EotE campaign.

The setting is as follows: the PCs are in the middle of a trade deal with a group of rebels at a hidden rebel base when suddenly the base is stormed by an imperial attack force. The PCs have to either help fight off the attack or reach their ship and escape, but either way will put them in the line of fire. There are about 30 soldiers on either side.

My question is how to simulate this encounter, at first I considered just treating squads (10 man) of soldiers as a single soldier on a planetary scale, (streamlining the fight as the two large groups fight as though they were both just 3 man minion groups) this works in squad vs squad combat but not if the squad attacks the PCs, as they will do 10x damage and have ridiculous levels of soak. So I'm not quite sure how to proceed...

Thanks in advance for any advice or alternatives offered

Personally, I would make a lot of this narratively cinematic. Describe the drama involve the players if they prefer that style but don't get bogged down in dice rolls and mechanics. Find several chokepoints or objectives they need to achieve in the middle of the fight and roll dice for that and then proceed with the narrative battle.

Take the large scale battles in Lord of the Rings... you don't focus too much on the thousands of soldiers fighting around the main characters, they just provide an atmosphere of battle. You'll have blasters going off and explosions. Feel free to describe things happening around them that they react to, but keep the mechanical aspect focused on several key story / plot driven attack points. If you let them describe it all, they will spend four game sessions taking out every last minion in the group. Don't let them get to be able to do that. If you have several objectives they can look for or assess on site then they can feel like they are directing some of the action. Put them in the path of action and let them revel in the glory of the battle without being bogged down by stats and wounds of 60 minions on both sides.

It will take some thought and planning on your end. Stand up when you are describing a lot of this and lean into the table to make it more exciting. Make the action count and get out of there before the whole place explodes!

If you really really want this to be a long laborious process, I'm sure someone will have some rules you can use to calculate out the last trooper's health.

Mass combat rules, Onslaught at Arda I.

Check out Arda and the AoR GM Kit, Arda has mass combat, GM kit has squads and squadrons.

Short version of how these work: The GM divides the battle up into a series of key encounters run at manageable levels. The scale of the encounter can be increased with the addition of squads that allow special bonuses for the players while keeping rolling and dice pools manageable. At appropriate points the players make a "Mass Combat Check" with dice pools based on things like the troop quality of each side, leadership, ect. The outcome of this check can then effect the encounter string/tree of the battle.

Long version example:

So the players might get something like "Hold the bridge." They'd each get a handful of Rebel troopers to Squad with, giving them bonuses and increased durability, while allowing each player to represent the activities. The Imperials would have a similar situation, showing up with something like four minion groups of 10 and a support rival or two and that's it. The players would run that encounter for 3 or 4 turns or until the GM felt the bridge was either defended or not. At that point a mass combat check would be made and the encounter modified, or the battle moved to the next encounter in the tree/string. So say they are failing defending the bridge, and the mass combat check comes out... failure with 3 advantage and a despair. The Next encounter the rebels realize the the bridge is lost, and blow the dam upstream (3 advantage), but some Imperial Gunships arrive (Despair). So the next encounter is a Chase with the players trying to get to the evac point while losing the gunships.

Thanks each of you for the replies, I think the narrative road is the best option, as the entire point of the thread was dealing with the encounter without bogging the game down, in fact I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of it beforehand. I might however look into the official rules down the line if my players keep siding with the rebels.

My recommendation for how I would run this encounter would be to borrow from the venerable WEG D6 Star Wars. I know this was in 2nd edition revised and expanded, and I am pretty certain these rules weren't in the first edition, so they might have initially cropped up in 2nd edition, but I can't find my 2nd ed book to confirm. (Also just saw GhostofMan's post... I don't have the AoR GM Kit or Arda, so... Hey FFG has some rules for this!)

Basically think of the big battle as a backdrop that is going to happen regardless of the players actions, then build a couple of important encounters that the players will be participating in. Let's use the battle of Hoth as an example. For the set up we'd have a vastly superior Imperial fleet showing up with Star Destroyers and AT-ATs and troops far to numerous to count, and the plucky rebel defenders consisting of a couple of squadrons of snowspeeders, a bunch of troops on the ground, some artillery and a few starfighters and enough big ships for the evacuation. The empire's goal is to destroy all the rebels, while the rebels just want to get the heck out of dodge with a minimal loss of life. Without any player character action taken, i'd figure the Empire is going to win pretty handily, so the worst possible outcome is going to be the rebels suffer over 75% losses, though some escape to fight another day.

Now, the big encounters! The first big encounter in the battle of Hoth would be for our speeder pilots. They've got to figure out how to deal with the massive AT-ATs being flanked by some AT-STs. There are also snowtroopers that may be a distraction from the main objective. The "rebels win" scenario for this first encounter is they figure out how to take out say... 3 of the AT-ATs. and maybe some of the AT-STs. The stormtroopers are superfluous to the objective here. Give your pilots a maximum of say... 8 to 10 round of combat to figure out how to trip up the AT-ATs and take them out, and be sure to allow for your hero Luke rolling some bad dice and getting shot down to think outside the box to get the mission accomplished even without his airspeeder thanks to some quick thinking.

If the Empire Wins, the second encouter will have more AT-ATs for the ground troops to deal with, if the rebels win, 12.5% or so more rebels will survive the battle of hoth. If no AT-STs survive this phase, there are none to complicate encounter 2.

Encounter 2 will be for your ground forces and some artillery gunners, and again is on a timer. They need another 8 to 10 rounds to hold the line! If the speeders lost the encounter start them off against a wave of 2 AT-ATs, followed by 4, then 8. if the speeders won, half the size of each wave. Each wave is one range band behind the other and always moving towards the rebel shield generator. For your infantry to contend with, the snowtroopers are going to be running demolitions teams to try and blow up the artillery, so have your guys on the ground try and cover the big guns while your big gunners deal with the AT-ATs. AT-STs that survived will also be harassing troops and taking pot shots at arty. For every turn between turn 5 of combat and 10 that the shield generator holds, the rebels will have 10% more survivors, and for turns 9 and ten, if the shields are still up, rebels will get a morale boost die for the third encounter.

Envounter 3 will happen and give a chance for your pilots and ground pounders a chance to form up together. Again, figure another 10 or so rounds of total combat. The first three or so are spent loading up the transports while the infantry provide cover for the troopers that have made it in to Echo Base. Once every one is in their ride, it's time to run the gauntlet! it will take about seven rounds of flying to get from the ground to where you can safely jump to light speed. Your pilots should be flying cover for the transports, maybe give them some minion packs of TIEs to intercept to keep the transports safe, let your gunners man turrets on board the transports to help clear out fighters or shoot down incoming missiles, and someone should get to fire a BIG HONKIN' ION cannon to shut down the ISD so people can escape. If the players can keep their transport alive and fully loaded, the rebels get an additional 12.5% survival rate, for a maximum total of 75% rebel survival as opposed to 25% survival if they fail all the encounters.

Either way, the rebellion lives to fight another day, and the better your players do, the more people who owe them their lives, and their could be medals, promotions, and other rewards as you see fit.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for explaining how the rules from Arda and the Age of Rebellion GM Kit work Ghostofman. Sounds like I need to add those to my shopping list (intentional on my part to add this segment last).

Thanks for explaining how the rules from Arda and the Age of Rebellion GM Kit work Ghostofman. Sounds like I need to add those to my shopping list (intentional on my part to add this segment last).

I've run a couple big battles, no major issues so far other then the usual "how do I interpret THAT roll?"

I do like how it allows full focus on the players while still giving them a certain level of interaction and control of the larger fight. When it comes to the larger campaign it can get really neat as you can have Adventures and Encounters leading up to a large battle able to manipulate the Mass Combat Pool.

"Ok, if we get the locals to help we'll boost our numerical advantage and lower the difficulty, but also lower our average troop quality and reduce positive dice. On the other had if we spend that time planting signal jammers we can keep Gen. Mannix from commanding the battle and that'll be a lot fewer Red dice of doom on those mass combat checks with the Generals Leadership ranks out of play"

I do a mix between narrating the battle and handling the characters actions with Squad rules from AoR GM kit.