Have you guys tried three player skirmish on the four player maps and is this possible or will one player be starting between the other two and get shredded?

My IA experience is rather limited, I learned from other Tabletops that it should be possible.
Maybe you have to adapt the Maps, as you want to split it into 3, so that everyone starts with the same space between each players squadron.

I'd say try it out and adapt.

Use the 4 player Hoth map. Free for all. Alternatively, one player can control two armies and play against two other people 2 vs 1.

In my experience of 3 player skirmish on the Hoth map, the player in the middle gets crushed, as you thought. I would like to try to alter the map a bit to have more equal starting points, but it would take work.

My advice for three player skirmishes is to do the 2v2 Team Skirmish and have one player play two armies. It's the most balanced and requires no modification of the scenario or map.

It's the problem of the triad and the reason that makes it very difficult to design symmetrical 3-player (with conflict). Either two players crush the third or they assure mutual destruction to the point where the third player will win.

I like the idea of playing one player play two armies in a Team Skirmish. Depending on skill levels of the different players you might in- or decrease the squad points for the single player (bearing in mind the single player will have an advantage in coordinating but might be disadvantaged in playing all his troops effeciently).

You could always implement a rule where you can only get points from kills against one other player.

In a three-way, if everyone can only get points from the player to your left you end up in an attack to your left/defend to your right scenario.

And attacking/killing your non-target would only give points to your target. Hardly ideal...

Yea so it is as I thought then.

The big problem is that only I have IA among my friends so so both miniture-wise and command card-wise its hard getting it up to 4 players. 3 is a stretch but could work.

Could the middle player split his forces between two zones?

I've done this and it SORTA worked. You need a scenario with a single, central goal so that two teams won't just gang up on the third. Capture The Ship works for this, off the top of my head. Then you have to build a custom map that's more or less an equalateral triangle, with the same distance between each deployment zone from every direction.

So it requires some effort, but it's doable.