So I've spend some free time writing up the battle of Endor, but rather than just one large battle, the idea is to run it as a few narrative missions in a row, each focusing on a different aspect of the battle which will effect the next and provide the player with bonuses and ships provided they can accomplish certain objectives and keep ships alive. Please note that these have not yet been play tested and are no way meant to be competitive, rather just something fun to play with a bit more of a story element to it, and its the most realistic way i could thing to do the battle of Endor beyond buying 20 ISD models. I'll be adding to this as i write phases and if you guys like the idea, any suggestions/ recommendations welcome. So here we go

THE BATTLE OF ENDOR: AN ARMADA CAMPAIGN:

"The Emperor has made a critical error and the time for our attack has come..."

PHASE 1: IT’S A TRAP!

The Rebel Fleet has arrived at Endor from hyperspace intent on destroying the Emperors new super weapon. However as the rebel fleet turns away from the shielded battle station, the Imperial fleet closes in behind them, with swarms of tie fighters quickly overwhelming the off guard rebellion.

SETUP:

Setup is as the Hyperlane raid. The Empire is first player.

SPECIAL RULES:

“hold here, we are only to keep them from escaping”

The Imperial player may not deploy beyond speed 1.

“There’s too many of them!”

When a non-unique Imperial squadron is destroyed, place it aside. During the command phase, the imperial player may select up to 4 previously destroyed squadrons and roll a red die for each one. On a double hit result they may be deployed within base contact of an imperial ship.

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

The Rebel player must get two or more of the following within distance 5 of the Imperial board edge at the end of turn 6. Otherwise the Imperial Player is victorious.

Home one, Redemption, MC80 Battlecruiser.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

"Sabotage that superweapon!":

If the rebel player ends the movement of a CR-90 corvette within distance 2 of the rebel short edge, they may remove this ship from play. If so, the Death Star laser fires in turn 5 rather than turn 4 in Phase 2.

“They are headed for the medical frigate!”

If the Redemption survives the battle, the Rebel player may add one unique pilot that was killed during the campaign to their final battle reinforcement pool.

END BATTLE:

Both Players may add all surviving unique ships and squadrons to their end battle reserves.

RECOMMENDED FORCES:

REBEL ALLIANCE:

MC80 Command Cruiser 106

Admiral Ackbar 38

Home One 7

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate 57

Redemption 8

MC80 Battle Cruiser 103

CR90 Corvette A 44

GR-75 Combat Retrofits 24

Wedge Antilles 19

Han Solo (stand in for lando) 26

Norra Wexley 17

Gold Squadron 12

Rogue Squadron 14

X-wing Squadron × 1 13

Y-wing Squadron × 1 10

Total Points 498

EMPIRE:

Imperial II 120

Admiral Konstantine (Stand in for Piett) 23

Avenger 5

Imperial II 120

Imperial II 120

TIE Interceptor Squadron × 3 33

Saber Squadron 12

TIE Fighter Squadron × 3 24

TIE Bomber Squadron × 3 27

Gamma Squadron 10

Black Squadron 9

Total Points 503

I think, that's a very interesting idea, to split the battle up into parts! There are many cineastic highlights to inspire different set ups and objectives.

But I'm afraid, this first set up will be a very boring and disappointing ... battle ... experience. The best strategy for the rebels is: turn and run. The rebels are able to deploy their ships in about 30 to 60 degrees, depending how far away from the center they put them on the table. With speed three for CR90 and two for all the others and spamming navigate, you can turn them the first round. The ISDs follow slowly, because they start with speed 0. They need three rounds to be faster than the fleeing MC80 but can never catch up with it and even less with the faster Nebulon, Transports or CR90. The rebels can avoid coming in range of the three ISDs until game round 6. (I tried this!) If they don't shoot first they can wait until "round 8."

There will be only a little bit of squadron fighting. Rebels will be in favour, because the empire must fight far from the squadron command and anti-fighter range of their ships. The Imperial player has 6 useless rounds flown his ISDs straight forward, watching his TIEs go down and bringing them back to play. The Rebel player made a little maneuvering, throwing antisquadron dice and will probably win, because he killed more TIEs. But even, when squadron play went bad for him, he can easily achieve the two secondary objectives.

Maybe you should think about letting the ISDs starting with speed 1 or 2 and letting fall the rule, that an ISD cannot open fire at long range. The rebels would be forced to regroup earlier. But I'm afraid, the best strategy would always be to flee and to hope the Home One can withstand the fire until round 6. You will at least always get your secondary objectives.

Perhaps this would be more interesting if the Imperial player got more points to play with than the Rebel player, can attack at any range, but all his capital ships are locked to speed 1 for the entire battle. Perhaps even speed 0. Then force the rebels to engage by allowing the Deathstar to blow up a single random rebel ship that isn't within red dice range of at least a single Imperial ship every turn after the second.

Thanks for the thorough feedback! If I am completely honest this was mostly written from a thematic mindset and less so mechanical, I will be sure to run through one or two dummy battles of the following battles to iron out any kinks before posting. That said I have edited the layout based on what you have said. The set up is now as per the hyperlane raid, and the rebel player must try and engage the Imperial forces to achieve their objective. I have also changed it so the star destroyers may start at speed 1. The CR-90 side objective is more a choice for the rebellion, in that do they want an extra activation and attack dice to contribute to the battle, or to "sacrifice" it to pay off in the next round. Hopefully this achieves mechanically what i was going for thematically: the frantic rush of the rebel fleet into the Imperial lines with Lando and Wedge taking on swarms of tie fighters.

11 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

Perhaps this would be more interesting if the Imperial player got more points to play with than the Rebel player, can attack at any range, but all his capital ships are locked to speed 1 for the entire battle. Perhaps even speed 0. Then force the rebels to engage by allowing the Deathstar to blow up a single random rebel ship that isn't within red dice range of at least a single Imperial ship every turn after the second.

That's a neat idea. This phase of the battle I'm essentially going for the initial section of the battle before the rebellion knows the death star can activate. The idea is the second phase is the liberty and its battle group, with it being destroyed in round 4 by the death star (round 5 if the CR-90 sabotage side mission is achieved). I am toying with the idea for one of the late phases to allow players to deploy much closer, and implement a rule like "every second turn, the imperial player may destroy a rebel ship beyond medium range of an imperial ship"