Three years ago it was easy looking after my nephew. We would watch two episodes of Star Wars Rebels and then we would get the toys out for a one hour pew-pew session.
Now that he is eight - he wanted to play properly. So I modified the rules for a basic game to get him a flavour of space combat...
Forces : We used 4 ships a side of roughly equal points. A Star Cruiser, AFII-A, Hammerhead-Torp, Nebulon-Sup against a VSD-II, VSD-I, GSD-I, Arquitens-CL
No squadrons, upgrades or commanders.
No defence tokens. For this reason flotillas die very easily so aren't recommended.
Initiative : Each turn initiative is drawn from a bag containing 3 brace tokens and 3 redirects. If a brace is drawn the Rebels get first activation this turn. If a redirect is drawn then Imperials go first this turn. Do not put these tokens back into the bag.
Commands : These are not used but at the start of the game each ship gets 1,2 or 3 command tokens depending on its command value. These each give a once per game bonus. Command 1 ships get a Nav token. Command 2 ships get Nav & CF. Command 3 Ships get Nav, CF & Repair.
- Nav: Discard token to get one extra point of yaw and one extra point of speed changing.
- CF: Discard token to add 1 dice to a shooting attack.
- Repair: Discard token to discard one damage card.
Shooting : As normal. As there are no defence tokens, accuracy results on dice count as a miss.
Damage : Crits count as normal but explain that roughly half of the face up damage cards have no effect in the basic game. Flip useless crits face down.
Movement : As normal but each ship when it activates can change speed by +/-1. Each ship also has a nav token (see above) for a once per game extra point of yaw and extra speed control. This is very useful in avoiding tears when a star cruiser overshoots after an attack run and goes off map.
Obstacles : We started off on a 3x3 table with 2 asteroids and 2 debris (no base). Normal rules for damage for overlapping, obscured shooting etc.
Mission : No scenario rules as both sides get initiative half the time. Just Fly-Fly, Pew-Pew, Boom-Boom!
After two games of the above you will want to add some squadrons so here we go…
Fighters
Add 1 X-Wing, Y-Wing, A-Wing and B-Wing to the Rebels
Add 1 TIE-A, TIE-B, TIE-Int and 2xTIE-Ftr to the Imperials
Squadron key rules like swarm, counter, heavy, escort and bomber are used as normal.
Usual squadron phase after the ship phase but alternately activate one fighter at a time rather than the usual two. There are no squadron commands but all fighters have the Rogue rule.
Edited by Mad Cat