So we all know by know Star Wars Rebellion is almost out (if not already). Now this is for another topic but I would say the TIE Fighters and X-wings models in the game look familiar. But other than that would it make a good campaign map. Or Could you play a Armada battle with each Rebellion space battle and using Imperial Assault for the ground battles.

Well the latter might be asking too much since there is no room for AT-ATs and SnowSpeeders. But again will you be trying to combine these two games?

In theory you could do some kind of epic tourny over a long time where factions battle for control of the galaxy, couple planets at a time

I think so. But I'd really need to look at the mechanics of it.

Assuming you could come up with a fair way to represent the abstracted fleet sizes in Rebellion, you could theoretically play Rebellion and determine fleet battle outcomes with a game of Armada, ground assaults with Imperial Assault, and just to be extra thorough you could resolve Armada squadron engagements with a game of X-Wing.

Each turn of a round would take half a day to complete, and the game would probably go on for months, but you clearly just don't love Star Wars if you aren't willing to do this...

On a slightly more serious note, the Rebellion map could be used in the way you describe, but my experience with trying to use X-Wing battles to 'unabstract' Armada squadron engagements is that it totally removes the focus from the main game (in this example: Armada) and makes it difficult to recall what you were doing since there's so much time in between turns. I imagine the same would be true using Armada to 'unabstract' Rebellion's fleet engagements.

My suggestion, if you were determined to try this, would be to make sure that fleet engagements happen on different days from Rebellion days. Play Rebellion til you have a handful of fleet engagements (some alterations to how turns play out in Rebellion will be necessary) then play out the fleet battles in Armada the next time you meet. This saves players having to change gears midway through the game and helps reduce mental fatigue.

The same ideas would apply to integrating Imperial Assault. Though personally I'd stick with standard ground assaults in Rebellion, this way not every engagement in Rebellion gets deferred to another day. This allows for some sense of immediacy and resolution in Rebellion proper.

It won't be satisfying as a campaign experience without a large scale ground battle game. Imperial assault used to determine the fate of a world feels kinda weird IMO...

It looks to still be'in development', so I'm not expecting it anytime soon.

The short answer to your question for me is 'yes, but...'.

I have to know more about the naval aspects of the game, but I think the best option for game integration is to do it by narrative only. I already do this with Armada and X-Wing (occasionally Imperial Assault as well), and it's fun. I take the results of my games and infer a story. Occasionally, I'll set up the story, and let the games provide the outcome. Those outcomes get written up on my blog (see sig.). But otherwise, the games don't influence one another.

I think he means just more as a map for armada campaign. Not to play armada in between rounds of rebellion.

Basically it's a known and set galactic map you can deal with.

I think he means just more as a map for armada campaign. Not to play armada in between rounds of rebellion.

He's asking both (see after the 'or' clause).

Basically it's a known and set galactic map you can deal with.

For Armada campaigns, I prefer sector-level campaigns, rather than galactic ones.

Using the map and pieces as components for a campaign that uses a different ruleset is totally possible. You would just need to create a campaign ruleset with that in mind.

Using Armada to fight out the space battles in a game of rebellion, that is a bit trickier, but there are some things going for it that using other games doesnt have.

For one, rebellion is only 2 players (we'll ignore the bolted on team thing for now). So if the two of you break to fight a 2 hour long amada battle in the middle of a round, you aren't leaving 4 other people twiddling their thumbs like you would if you were trying this with twilight imperium.

The combats in rebellion appear to be totally self contained. Sometimes in other big games like this you fight a round of combat, then go do more stuff in the campaign, then next campaign turn you come back to the combat and right another round. Such systems don't work to break away and resolve the fight with a different game. From what we know of rebellion, though, the fights are entirely self contained, when a combat happens the rest of the rebellion game stops until that combat is fully resolved. Essentially, combat in this game is its own little mini-game with its own super simplified rules. That means you can substitute a completely different set of rules (like Armada) for their simplified mini game rules and the only thing that changes is the time needed.

Note, this is why resolving armada squadron engagements with x-wing games doesn't work, unless you willing to have the armada game and a separate x-wing game for each engagement cluster all set up simultaneously and cycle through playing a round of each.

If I were to do this, I would want to find a 6mm mass battle game to use for the ground combat in rebellion, and then use imperial assault to resolve the various missions that leaders are sent on. Play an IA game using a force consisting of Han and some generic troopers deployment cards when I send my Han Solo leader on a sabotage mission in Rebellion, for example.

It won't be satisfying as a campaign experience without a large scale ground battle game. Imperial assault used to determine the fate of a world feels kinda weird IMO...

Well when taking a look at the battle of endor the ground combat element was definitely Imperial Assault scale. So lets take a look at all the battles and scale in episodes 4-7. and the three games we have for them.

For games we have

• X-wing Starfighter combat and small convoy operations
• Imperial Assault Squad Size Ground Combat and individual dual/skirmish
• Armada Space combat

Now for which scale to use it is obvious you want to get as low as possible to get most of the action and details because the higher you go up the more abstract the combat and mechanics become. However you can't just house rule in stuff from higher scale because that will also add to the abstraction and could make for unreasonably longer games that no longer become fun after a few hours or days.

So now for the movies

Episode 4

Final flight of the Tantive IV:

• Armada (a bit uneven and restricted on the map)
• Imperial Assault.

Business at Mos Eisley

• Imperial Assault (of course)
• Armada (but you would have to include some special rules for Capital Ship vs Squadron so rebels don't auto-lose)

Escape from the DeathStar

• Imperial Assault (two simultaneous but separate runs you have the obi wan sabotage the tractor beam then end with a dual with vader and the break out from detention block)
• X-wing (Don't forget the Falcon Vs TIE Fighter theme)

Battle of Yavin Trench Run

• X-wing (duh)

Episode 5

Wampa Attack

• Imperial Assault

Evacuation of Hoth

• for the walker assault there are no FFG games. Star Wars Miniatures from Wizzards of the Coast has some rules for AT-ATs and snow speeders.
• X-wing (I know I said going down scale is bad but the thing is the rebel transport has a scenario already. Teh Star Destroyers got zapped and as of now there still are no Transports in Armada)

Fleeing through Asteroids

• X-wing (Star Destroyers act more like obstacles than ships)

Occupation of Cloud City

• Imperial Assault (Much like the escape from the deathstar)
• X-wing (another falcon vs tie fighters but the bespin mat should be neat)

Episode 6

Rescue of General Solo

• Imperial Assault (and nothing else)

Battle Of Endor

• Imperial Assault (for both the throne room and the bunker)
• Armada (for the downfall of the Executor)
• X-wing (for the Attack run)

Episode 7

Search on Jaku

• Imperial Assault (when the inevitable Disney merchandise comes out)

Recovery of BB-8

• Imperial Assault (same as above)

Starkiller Base

• X-wing (boy that Resistance fleet looks puny in comparison to the rebellion fleet. What happen they were the victors after all).

But as you see Imperial Assault would fit the majority of the confrontations in the Star Wars movie. There is only one engagement that right now is left out and that is the Walker Assault on Echo Base for the Battle of Hoth. Yet it is a isgnificant enough gap from Imperial Assault to X-wing to be noted.

I would disagree with your assessment that the ground battle on endor is IA. At least 3 AT-STs, something like 2 dozen rebel troopers, including several heroes, and maybe a hundred ewoks vs what looked to be AT LEAST 50 stormtroopers. That's way beyond the scope of an IA game.

Plus, all those things you mentioned, heroes escaping from DS, heroes rescuing compatriot, capturing a rebel hero, sabotaging the DS tractor beam... These are not the things that ground combat in rebellion is meant to represent. Those things are represented in Rebellion by the various missions you send leaders on. The ground battles in Rebellion are all about actual battles like Hoth, fighting for control of a planet, all the assorted battles that were assumed to be taking place behind the scenes in the movies, but not shown that often because the heroes were busy doing their own thing.

Well it might not be a standard scale battle much like how the Trench Run will not be a 100 point battle as 12 X-wings and named pilots is more than 100 points. But Endor can still be used in Imperial Assault. You can make reserves/reinforcements for the 20+ storm troopers with only a dozen Imperial models. You could have 2 AT-STs and then have another in reserve so yeah Battle of Endor can easily be done in Imperial Assault. Might not be like a full scale no reserves line but it will fit fairly easy when compared to Walker Assault on Hoth Base.

As for the heroes doing objectives well Imperial Assault will easily fit that and you don't have to make objectives mutually exclusive. For example boarding of Tantive IV for the imperials it could be capturing the rebel leaders but for the rebels it would be securing the plans and getting the droid to an escape pod. Come to think of it unless you go with the EU there was very few battles like the ones at Hoth. As far as we know the Evacuation of Yavin base was complete before the Imperials could return with the Executor Fleet.

Now going to the prequels yeah there is no ground combat game, but then again that is also where I say the prequels faltered focusing too much on the ground combat between the clones and droids and not the space combat. But the rebellion did its best to avoid large scale battles like armada and Hoth unless it was absolutely desperately necessary.

Now for Star Wars Rebellion yeah there is in the scale where Imperials can make a walker assault on every planet but I am certain that the game design would put the rebel player at a disadvantage in those combats giving the rebels an incentive to avoid set piece battles when completing missions.

As for the heroes doing objectives well Imperial Assault will easily fit that and

Which is why I suggested it.

use imperial assault to resolve the various missions that leaders are sent on. Play an IA game using a force consisting of Han and some generic troopers deployment cards when I send my Han Solo leader on a sabotage mission in Rebellion, for example.

But Endor can still be used in Imperial Assault. You can make reserves/reinforcements for the 20+ storm troopers with only a dozen Imperial models. You could have 2 AT-STs and then have another in reserve so yeah Battle of Endor can easily be done in Imperial Assault.

And your going to design a dozen such custom IA scenarios to cover all the ground battles the game is likely to generate? Adapting an existing mass battle ruleset to the SW setting would be a lot easier.

It would also distinguish the IA governed missions from the ground battles in the combat phase, making each a distinct entity.

As for the heroes doing objectives well Imperial Assault will easily fit that and

Which is why I suggested it.

use imperial assault to resolve the various missions that leaders are sent on. Play an IA game using a force consisting of Han and some generic troopers deployment cards when I send my Han Solo leader on a sabotage mission in Rebellion, for example.

But Endor can still be used in Imperial Assault. You can make reserves/reinforcements for the 20+ storm troopers with only a dozen Imperial models. You could have 2 AT-STs and then have another in reserve so yeah Battle of Endor can easily be done in Imperial Assault.

And your going to design a dozen such custom IA scenarios to cover all the ground battles the game is likely to generate? Adapting an existing mass battle ruleset to the SW setting would be a lot easier.

It would also distinguish the IA governed missions from the ground battles in the combat phase, making each a distinct entity.

For Rebellion no and I guess it drifted a little off topic but the point I was trying to make is that Imperial assault does follow most of the OT fairly well and you can easily make a bunch of cinematic scenarios to play thorough the entire trilogy.

Back on topic yes I agree with you that Imperial Assault would not fit Star Wars rebellion that well. not for the ground combat. However Star wars Rebellion would not follow OT hence the entire point of the hidden rebel base. (I doubt anyone would chose Yavin or Hoth as those would be the first choices).

So question is still what about Armada for space combat?

If you and a friend were both willing to really commit to it, I don't see a reason it couldn't be done. Like has been mentioned, it would take an extraordinarily long time (difficult to say how long since we don't really know the rules for rebellion yet, my guess would be several months, at least). You would have to keep the rebellion game set up for all that time.

If you were willing to do all that, you would need to come up with some sort of conversion system to translate the rebellion pieces into armada fleets. You could just assign some number of armada points to each type of rebellion unit, or you could make it as complex as you wanted, all the way up to creating a partial armada list for each rebellion unit produced and keeping track of it from round to round (this Star Destroyer board game piece represents 2 Vic 2's with these upgrades, while this Star Destroyer board game piece represents an ISD and 2 raiders, and so on).

The hardest part might be figuring out how to handle damaged armada units once the fight is over. The simplest solution would be that all units are fully healed after each battle, but I'm not sure whether that would negatively impact how the players approach each battle. It might discourage an outmatched player from fighting at all, or it might encourage suicide runs.

Of course, armada doesn't have any rules for SSDs or Death Stars. For the SSDs you might be able to get away with just making them very large armada fleets and ignoring the fact that there us supposed to be an SSD present, but I don't think that would work for the DSs.

Rebel squadrons with no capital ship support would need some house rules.

A scenario for armada that involved transports trying to land troops through a blockade would be nice, but probably not necessary.

You would probably want to set some point where a battle would be so lopsided that it is better to just resolve it with normal rebellion rules instead of an armada game. 3 ISDs vs a lone cr90, for example, may not be worth playing out.

All of this is, of course, theoretical until we actually get a chance to read the rules and PLAY rebellion a couple times. There may be factors we don't yet know that would screw up the whole concept.

these guys got it early ><

Has anyone considered porting Star Wars over into a more traditional wargame like Bolt Action or Flames of War or 40K?

Has anyone considered porting Star Wars over into a more traditional wargame like Bolt Action or Flames of War or 40K?

There has been a traditional star wars table top game. I don't remember what it was called but it had AT-AT minis snowspeeders and 4 trooper square bases.

I'm starting to warm to the idea of using Rebellion as the structure for a narrative framework on which to build a campaign.

However, I'm still leery of tying the fortunes of one level of war to another, or, for that matter, one battle to the next too much. The games we play need to stay exciting, and when outcomes are too determined ahead of time, they lose that excitement. However, I do think there are certain elements to recommend Rebellion:

The imbalanced nature of the Empire vs. the Rebel Alliance

Essentially, the imbalance that we would be afraid of in a traditional map & resource style campaign is already baked into the cake, and the game has a peculiar way of dealing with it. Instead of a race for resources, it's a race for/against the turn-based clock.

It's hero-based

Like a good SW-story, it's hero-based. Characters matter, and the heroes tend to be represented in X-Wing and Armada. Instead of fighting for more points to use in one battle or the next, the wins/losses could be the right to use or not to use certain characters. The overall points values can remain the same, but the scope of choice could be limited. That gives real stakes, but not enough to seriously imbalance the game.

There are still a lot of things that would have to be worked out, and any way of working this out would depend on the structure of any particular gaming group hoping to have a campaign.