OK, so If I understand right,...

Presuming I want a TIE Ace Pilot to to 'lead' a squadron of TIEs, if they enter an Attack Formation, the TIE minions in the group, no longer get an attack.

But the Ace gets his attack, with a Boost, and can basically use the Minions as ablative soak?

Can more than one Minion group join a Squadron?

Would it be game breaking if the Minion groups within a Formation, get a shot as well?

Would the Squadron leader get any other benefit for being in a Formation?

Do the minions take wounds as normal? Or does a "wound" on the leader, "kill a minion"?

Seems abit weak, giving up an entire attack from a group of TIEs, to simply gain a single boost and some 'more wounds'

Yes, the TIE minions give up their attacks to join the squadron, and yes, the leader adds Boost to his attack and gets to pass damage off to the minions, which immediately destroys them. They do not take damage as normal.

You can have up to eleven minions in a squadron. Once they join the squadron, they're no longer considered a minion group and get none of those benefits.

And yes, it's utterly game-breaking to let the minions in a squadron get their normal attack. I tried it in my last session, and the PCs got wrecked by four TIEs plus an Ace. Their ship got shot down and it took an Impossible Piloting check to save them from death... and they still ended up in Imperial custody.

Seems abit weak, giving up an entire attack from a group of TIEs, to simply gain a single boost and some 'more wounds'

Remember, squads and squadrons are primarily meant for two cases: PCs and nemesis-class NPCs. In general, if it's a nameless enemy ace, you should just have them go separately and have the minions form a group on their own. It's more book-keeping, but it keeps things balanced: the crew can split their attention between the single but highly dangerous foe or a group of individually laughable enemies.

It just seems... putting a single Rival, in a TIE, on his own... pointless, since TIEs are so weak.

I think most of the time, you're only want to give your bad guys one or two minions in their squad. It won't keep them alive forever, but that's not what you want. You want to have them live long enough to get off one or two attacks, making your PCs say, "****! We're in a tight spot!" His minions eat up a couple attacks, then he's space dust. The rest of the minions he brought to the fight make up their own groups and get their own attacks.

A house rule some people use is a little like the Parry/Reflect talents that lightsaber monkeys get. Basically, when a ship takes a hit, the pilot can choose to take 3 strain, to both himself and the ship, to reduce the damage by his Piloting skill plus the ship's Handling. This represents a hard juke that actually makes quick ships harder to destroy, but is very hard on the system. As written, you could only really use it with PCs and Nemesis pilots, but I don't think it would be game breaking for a Rival to willingly take wounds.

Presuming I want a TIE Ace Pilot to to 'lead' a squadron of TIEs, if they enter an Attack Formation, the TIE minions in the group, no longer get an attack.

But the Ace gets his attack, with a Boost, and can basically use the Minions as ablative soak?

Correct.

Can more than one Minion group join a Squadron?

Yes, though they all count as only one squadron, and when they do things like attack on their own they count as one minion group. You can only have a Squad/Squadron of 11 minions attached to you, no higher.

Would it be game breaking if the Minion groups within a Formation, get a shot as well?

RAW it requires the squadron leader to expend a Triumph to allow the group to attack in addition to his roll. They don't get to do it on their own for free.

Would the Squadron leader get any other benefit for being in a Formation?

Depends. The other formations aren't bad (Skilled Navigator is pretty good actually, it's not really about just navigation). Also the squadron counts as 1 highter Sil then it's largest member, not exactly a good thing, but worth mentioning...

Do the minions take wounds as normal? Or does a "wound" on the leader, "kill a minion"?

A "Hit" on the leader can be diverted and remove a minion. So all those linked and Auto-fire weapons will be more valuable then high damage ones in this case since they allow you to apply more hits instead of more hull trauma. When it comes to squadrons Quadlasers>Missiles. I'd stay clear of those Lancer frigates. Also note 2 Threat can be spent to negate this ability, so watch out when attacking targets and pulling maneuvers that are likely to generate threat...

On the personal level this is pretty handy too. A minion group of Rebel troopers taking fire from an AT-ST can be obliterated in one blast form the chin gun. A squad taking the same hit would only lose 2 members at most.

Seems abit weak, giving up an entire attack from a group of TIEs, to simply gain a single boost and some 'more wounds'

It has it's ups and downs. A character with a high leadership can really benefit from Skilled Navigator or mission specialist when it comes to actually accomplishing a mission outside the Search and Destroy box. And you're not giving up an attack if the leader has sufficient skill to generate Triumph. The "more wounds" is an important thing though, when talking TIE fighters especially. A good Rival or Nemesis level character in charge of a squadron can do some serious damage, and giving the players that option can allow them to take on much nastier threats then normally possible, allowing the Y-wing squadron to take on a Star Destroyer and survive the occasional stray Turbolaser blast, where running them normally would allow a single hit to wipe out several craft at a time.

But the Ace gets his attack, with a Boost, and can basically use the Minions as ablative soak?

I think it is more accurate, in the narrative, that the SQUADRON gets the attack, while the Ace is the one that rolls for it. So, while you're making one attack roll, it might be Green 7 and not Green Leader that might get the hit on the opponent.

Where are these Squadron rules found? They seem like a great alternative to my woes of mass fighter combat.

Where are these Squadron rules found? They seem like a great alternative to my woes of mass fighter combat.

AoR GM Kit.

Last couple of pages of the booklet.

And yes, they can certainly add a punch. Tried them last night, and it turns out a TIE Ace, leading an Attack Formation of 4 TIEs, is a nasty combination.

I think if you wanted to depict a large space battle, with 4 PCs and 4NPCs, leading a Squadron of 11 fighters each, you can do it without massive dice rolls!

Cool. I was actually thinking of running a warship game, with the players filling the Star Trek command positions on a frigate, and wanted to leave room for a squadron leader. I was worried that he'd get vaped like nothing, regardless of fancy talents, to say nothing of the fact that managing fighters on capital-scale combat would be a nightmare. The squadrons, however, seem ingenious.

They certainly give more room for flexibility. While there are not huge amounts of options, they do give your PC what essentially amounts to "more wounds"

I think most of the time, you're only want to give your bad guys one or two minions in their squad. It won't keep them alive forever, but that's not what you want. You want to have them live long enough to get off one or two attacks, making your PCs say, "****! We're in a tight spot!" His minions eat up a couple attacks, then he's space dust. The rest of the minions he brought to the fight make up their own groups and get their own attacks.

A house rule some people use is a little like the Parry/Reflect talents that lightsaber monkeys get. Basically, when a ship takes a hit, the pilot can choose to take 3 strain, to both himself and the ship, to reduce the damage by his Piloting skill plus the ship's Handling. This represents a hard juke that actually makes quick ships harder to destroy, but is very hard on the system. As written, you could only really use it with PCs and Nemesis pilots, but I don't think it would be game breaking for a Rival to willingly take wounds.

I /really/ like this rule. Last campaign our ace was wary of A-Wings because they're so fragile compared to X-Wings, and he didn't see the handling boost as enough to justify it. This "Juke" incidental makes it a lot more worthwhile.

I think most of the time, you're only want to give your bad guys one or two minions in their squad. It won't keep them alive forever, but that's not what you want. You want to have them live long enough to get off one or two attacks, making your PCs say, "****! We're in a tight spot!" His minions eat up a couple attacks, then he's space dust. The rest of the minions he brought to the fight make up their own groups and get their own attacks.

A house rule some people use is a little like the Parry/Reflect talents that lightsaber monkeys get. Basically, when a ship takes a hit, the pilot can choose to take 3 strain, to both himself and the ship, to reduce the damage by his Piloting skill plus the ship's Handling. This represents a hard juke that actually makes quick ships harder to destroy, but is very hard on the system. As written, you could only really use it with PCs and Nemesis pilots, but I don't think it would be game breaking for a Rival to willingly take wounds.

I /really/ like this rule. Last campaign our ace was wary of A-Wings because they're so fragile compared to X-Wings, and he didn't see the handling boost as enough to justify it. This "Juke" incidental makes it a lot more worthwhile.

Just clarifying, this would be different on different ships correct? Cause doing a "Juke" in, say, a YT-1300 would be alot different than an A-Wing.

The fix is rather easy. The man said "3 strains", so make it "silhouette strain", 3 being the default for starfighters

Edit: thinking about it, we could make some formula involving the difference between the ship's speed and silhouette. I can see a Sil4 Skipray make that hard dodge, but a vanilla YT-1300? Waaay harder.

To clarify: this wasn't my rule, but one of the guys from The Order 66 podcast. I might not have it exactly right. Here's the thing, though. Assuming two pilots of skill 3, the A-wing will get more out of the juke than the YT-1300, because you add handling. So the YT would only reduce the damage by 2, while the A-Wing would reduce it by (6? 7? What's the handling on that guy?). The A-Wing can only do it a few times before system strain becomes a big problem, while the YT could handle a lot more, especially with a good mechanic keeping all the systems in order.

I should also note that some folks prefer to use basically the same rule, but use Shields to reduce damage instead of handling. Either way works pretty well. I prefer this one because it involves less tinkering with the rules, and benefits those who need more survivability, namely, PCs and Nemeses in fragile starfighters.

Sorry to drag this one outta the grave, I have one question regarding the Squads, not the Squadrons.

What does it mean for a Squad of stormtroopers + sarge to have a silhouette of 2 when targeted by silhouette 1 fighters?

Also take into consideration your PCs. Every point of damage to their hull costs 500 credits to repair. TIE's are in effect, glass canons. They blow up like no-one business, but they hit like a MF.

Personally I think 2 groups of 3 TIEs with minion pilots are frightening, and if your PCs are not frightened by even 2 groups of 2 minions, you aren't doing it right.

Sorry to drag this one outta the grave, I have one question regarding the Squads, not the Squadrons.

What does it mean for a Squad of stormtroopers + sarge to have a silhouette of 2 when targeted by silhouette 1 fighters?

Silhouette affects difficulty. A sil 0 creature attacking a sil 2 creature would have its difficulty reduced by 1. Vice Versa. A sil 2 creature attacking a sil 0 target, increases its difficulty by 1.