Ground Assault Game

By Felswrath, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Everyone's talking about. Everyone seems to want it. But what do we want it to be like? My ideas:

1. Should have multiple modes/scenarios one of which should be walker assault from Battlefront

2. Core set vehicles should include ATAT, ATST, Tie Fighter, X wing, Y wing, and Air Speeder (alternatively we could have a rebel ground vehicle. Maybe the ones from Pandemics original Battlefront).

3. Should be two types of attack dice: blaster (better chance of hit) and explosive (lower chance of hit, but higher damage if it does hit)

4. Two classes of infantry: regular who are heavier in blaster, and heavy who are heavier in explosives

5. 4 Maps: Yavin 4, Hoth, Geonosis, and Sullust.

6. Maps should use hexes, but be divided into 4 quadrants

7. Star fighters move by placing them in any hex in a quadrant they did not occupy at the beginning of their activation

8. All other units move x number of hexes equal to their speed

9. Objective pieces would be shield generator and comm tower

10. Expansions would be for more copies of units and new units (one of which should be turrets)

11. Scale is optional

Ok, I haven't played Armada, but I look at it a bit like Armada. I don't think Tie Fighters and X-Wings should be included as miniatures. I think there should be attacks that simulate air strikes. I do think there should be heavy unilts, like AT AT and light, scout units like AT ST. I think there should be squads units, i.e. stormtroopers, rebel commandos, etc. Among those can be heavy weapon units, and anti-armor units. I completely agree on hexes. I do like playing X-wing, and I do like the measuring sticks, but it all becomes a bit much sometimes. But, like X-wing, players should have to announce movements before making them, and then their can be some kind of attribute that determines who goes first. I don't think you need pilots like in X-wing, but you should be able to have more elite version of certain units. Squads could be represented the same way as they are in squadrons are in Armada, but 3 figures, but in this case, three figures in slightly different poses. Obviously an AT AT will be bigger than a squad of troops, but we can't expect exact scale. Snow speeders, I think those should be units, as that seems to be the way the rebels choose to do scouting and close-air support. I definitely think speeder units are must, maybe represented by two speeders per unit.

I get why you're leary of ships from X Wing (I think I do at any rate). X Wing is for fighters not every other game FFG makes. But I disagree! I believe Armada did a better job of portraying these fighters than X Wing (in my opinion)! I'm told that a fairly competitive list could (at one point) be made largely with naked Tie Bombers. But how often do you think they would actually go into battle without munitions if it wasn't a game? This is what Armada did for the fighters, it gave them purpose! Y wings bomb. Hoards of Tie Fighters provide screens for their carriers. The three fields of war do coincide quite often. Therefore, X wings and Y wings would have plenty of reason to be in this game. Plus Rebels are a little low on vehicles as it is haha!

The problem is how fast these vehicles are. And yes, I agree, Y-Wings would be doing the lion share of work on any ground game. They are going to streak by and drop their munitions and be off the battlefield in 1 turn. If you are running company level ground attack. I don't want to have to work out air superiority, which would be worked out in space most likely anyway, and fight ground vehicles. My personal opinion is it is just better to have a unit that points a laser at a target for an air strike. Snow Speeders, or air speeders as I call them, are perfect for simulating battlefield air assets, similar to helicopters. I would imagine the two schools of thought are Empire: Heavy armor, heavy weapons, slow. Rebellion: Speed, speed, speed. They would have their own lightly armored, for lack of a better word, land speeders with a mounted blaster and possibly an anti-armor misile, like a modern day TOW system.

Imperial assault was a remake of descent, this would be a remake of Battlelore.

The scale of it is the thing for me. X-Wing takes place at a very short range, which all takes place within the engaged range in Armada.

A ground assault game could use speeders, I think, but actual fighters would be better off as bomb drop tokens and attacks from off the map.

I felt the same way in Battletech. Vehicles were fine, VTOLS were fine, but aerospace/aerotech fighters and bombers moved too quickly to really have a place in the Battletech-scale game. They were perfect in Battlespace, though, because of the larger scale of the battles.

Y-Wings are slow, but they should be much faster than your troop transport speeders and speeder tanks. it would make it problematic for the tabletop.

The scale of it is the thing for me. X-Wing takes place at a very short range, which all takes place within the engaged range in Armada.

A ground assault game could use speeders, I think, but actual fighters would be better off as bomb drop tokens and attacks from off the map.

I felt the same way in Battletech. Vehicles were fine, VTOLS were fine, but aerospace/aerotech fighters and bombers moved too quickly to really have a place in the Battletech-scale game. They were perfect in Battlespace, though, because of the larger scale of the battles.

Y-Wings are slow, but they should be much faster than your troop transport speeders and speeder tanks. it would make it problematic for the tabletop.

I agree with this assessment. Man, you brought back some memories talking about Battletech and aerotech.

This type of game is the one area/scale of SW not represented or covered by FFG's line up of SW games.

So I can totally see it being predicted and maybe a GenCon announcement? But I'd wager that if they did do it, it'd have to be more of along the lines of Standalone boxed set and a few expansions rather than waves and waves of stuff like Armada/X-Wing/IA.

Because not only would they be at risk of it just not selling much - many people are into and buying at least 1 or 2 of those systems. They'd be at risk of cannibalizing their own player base/sales. But also because, even with the vastness of the SW universe and the new movies, is there really that much stuff to take inspiration from?

- Various types of troopers for both Rebels and Imperials

- AT-ATs

- AT-STs

- Speeders

- And...?

This type of game is the one area/scale of SW not represented or covered by FFG's line up of SW games.

So I can totally see it being predicted and maybe a GenCon announcement? But I'd wager that if they did do it, it'd have to be more of along the lines of Standalone boxed set and a few expansions rather than waves and waves of stuff like Armada/X-Wing/IA.

Because not only would they be at risk of it just not selling much - many people are into and buying at least 1 or 2 of those systems. They'd be at risk of cannibalizing their own player base/sales. But also because, even with the vastness of the SW universe and the new movies, is there really that much stuff to take inspiration from?

- Various types of troopers for both Rebels and Imperials

- AT-ATs

- AT-STs

- Speeders

- And...?

As for variety, we have all of the stuff from Rebels and Rogue One. Plus FFG has never been shy on using Legends in the past and even making their own content! But I do agree, it would be a mistake to go overboard with yet another SW game!

This type of game is the one area/scale of SW not represented or covered by FFG's line up of SW games.

So I can totally see it being predicted and maybe a GenCon announcement? But I'd wager that if they did do it, it'd have to be more of along the lines of Standalone boxed set and a few expansions rather than waves and waves of stuff like Armada/X-Wing/IA.

Because not only would they be at risk of it just not selling much - many people are into and buying at least 1 or 2 of those systems. They'd be at risk of cannibalizing their own player base/sales. But also because, even with the vastness of the SW universe and the new movies, is there really that much stuff to take inspiration from?

- Various types of troopers for both Rebels and Imperials

- AT-ATs

- AT-STs

- Speeders

- And...?

As for variety, we have all of the stuff from Rebels and Rogue One. Plus FFG has never been shy on using Legends in the past and even making their own content! But I do agree, it would be a mistake to go overboard with yet another SW game!

Empire:

AT AT ; AT ST ; speeder bike ; A modified version of the troop carrier in the clone wars (which looks like a Hind helicopter); The single-seat walkers, repulsor tanks (as seen in IA); Squad units: Stormtroopers. Elites Stormtroopers. Named Stormtroopers (i.e. Havoc, 501st); Scout snipers, Anti-armor troopers, Special ops troopers (storm commandos who can paint targets for air strikes, do interdiction, etc).

Rebels

Large rolling heavy armor (similar to Clone Wars), speeder bikes, air speeders, and more different repulsor tanks. Squad units like Rebel Marines, Rebel Commandos, heavy weapon units. Mostly you can look through Star Wars miniatures for examples.

Also, fixed fortifications like the Hoth turrets.

I think an appropriate direction to go would be the following:

-3x3 playing surface marked off by large hexes (large enough to fit one AT-AT and a couple of smaller things or roughly a platoon of troopers)

-The game is focused on asymmetrical play featuring the Empire on the offensive and the Rebels on the defensive as the Rebels would never initiate a full engagement since they lack the manpower and resources to do so repeatedly. A game of this scale would represent the moments when there is no other option, otherwise we'd be dealing with the domain of Imperial Assault

-The Rebel player would be focused more on defenses, probably even being the one to set up the battlefield and place fortifications and points of interest, following certain setup rules to do so in the interest of keeping things fair

-The Imperial player would employ the full arsenal of the Empire, AT-ATs for destroying key fortifications, AT-STs for taking point and also defending the AT-ATs, and regular troops for things like taking and holding objectives

-Cards could be used to differentiate specific units of the same type like Storm Troopers of differing legions or even unique/champion units) and could also be used to call in airstrikes, bombardments, reinforcements, grant bonuses or debuffs, etc, typical card stuff.

Campaigns similar to the one we're getting for Armada would work perfectly with this style of game, but as stated above, it would be wise to not expand too vastly on the game, and in all honesty, the game wouldn't need it. There aren't really THAT many ground combat units in Star Wars. Most of them have already been mentioned. The key thing is to ace the theme and provide a game that's deep in strategy, and that's actually much easier to do when there is less variety in vehicles and troops across the board and more variety in the amount of things you can do with those units.

Realistically, a core box could contain every different unit that you'd ever need and expansions could just be campaign books, different terrain mats, and individual unit/vehicle boxes of the vehicles that are in the core box.

The sad thing is, as has already been made clear in above posts, Rebels really don't have much in the way of ground vehicles so they'd rely on airstrikes and immobile turrets way more. Makes preparing defenses and utilizing airstrikes at the best time way more interesting though.

If they pull from Rebellion (PC game), Empire At War, Forces of Corruption, Battlefront, and Galactic Battlegrounds the Rebels gain quite a few vehicles, likewise for the Empire. Then add in stuff from the films coming out it could be very viable as a game. As for the set up I think it should be set up like Armada where they have an objective system, but the ground game could have an objective and planet system. That way one player, decided by points and initiative bid, decides the objective of the match whilst the other sets up the planet's terrain.

I can't say enough how highly I rate Rebellion as a game of its time. I spent many, many hours with friends playing that game.

Great ideas everyone.

I just don't think it fits in with the OT very well, FA or prequel eras would be a much better fit.

I just don't think it fits in with the OT very well, FA or prequel eras would be a much better fit.

Why? Because it wasn't in the movies? Where was the giant vehicular ground battle in Force Awakens? If you look at what Animewarsdude pointed out, Empire at War, Rebellion, and Galactic Battlegrounds, and Battlefront have all demonstrated OT mechanized warfare and its wild popularity among fans. I think the OT is the perfect place for it.