So, essentially a weird idea that won't leave me alone; me and a friend were discussing epic battle scenarios we'd like to try in Epic 2.0, and LotR came up, specifically the pelennor fields battle in Return of the King.
This spawned a whole discussion on how we'd do LotR with Xwing, and I thought I'd share it here. This'll be my, like, 3rd post on the forums so i apologize if its too Off-Topic for this, but since the fellowship by itself is 9 ships, Epic seemed like the right place.
The ground rules we established early on was that we'd try to keep factions separate where possible, to allow multiplayer battles and the like, and that as characters in the series do occasionally get equipment upgrades, we'd try to reflect that with the the ship upgrades. Additionally, I've tried to use the force as a substitute for magic, so there aren't a huge amount of force users present currently.
- for example, Strider at weathertop (naked Wedge) should be weaker than at the black gate, where he's got Anduril (ProTorps) and the elfstone (R2).
The general factions so far break down like this:
The Fellowship -Rebels
Men - Republic (N-1s for Rohan, Torrents for Gondor, Arcs for rangers, Jedi for the dead)
Other 'good' Races - Resistance (Awings for Elves, Pods/Transports for dwarves, T70s for Eagles, Starfortresses for Ents)
Mordor - Empire (TIE LNs for orcs, v1s for nazgul, TIE sas for trolls, Decimators for Oliphants)
Isengard -FO (TIE FO for uruk-hai, Kylo for Saruman)
Moria -Separatists (vultures for goblins, Hyena for the Cave Troll)
Monsters/Neutrals - Scum (Hounds Tooth for the Balrog, Firespray for Shelob, Mining Tie for Gollum)
Since LotR has such a wealth of named characters, I've tried so far to give all the named characters individual pilots, though I'm not actually super-versed in tolkien Lore, so there're a lot of spaces for further people to be defined.
The current fellowship stands as:
Hobbits - Rebel TIEs
Frodo -Ezra: the only pilot with the force, to sub in for the ring. I guess he'll get a stealth device too, for the invisibility/Mithril Armor, and perhaps sense (for Sting)
Sam -Rex: suppresive fire seems like a good way to represent Sam's role in keeping frodo safe.
Merry -Sabine: mostly helps him keep up with the Rohan chaps he rolls with in the last films, and sets up..
Pippin -Zeb: Despite being a poor fighter, and generally less talented than his friends, somehow avoids death repeatedly throughout the series.
Aragorn -Wedge: though the case could be made for Luke, with his dunedain(sp?) heritage, Wedge just feels right. as stated before, gets multiple upgrades as the series progresses.
Legolas -Corran Horn: should probably be an A-wing like the rest of the elves, but the ship ability just works so well with his elf-eyes.
Gimli -Either of the i4 B-wings. Not sure which is better, but as the slowest, tankiest of these 3, B-wing seems best. Also ties into the resistance faction, with the links between the B-wing and the resistance transport
Boromir -Probably Biggs, as the more defensive of the two humans in the party, though I am tempted to go with garven dreis in the Arc, to represent his ties to Gondor (clones)
Gandalf the Grey -Dutch, with luke gunner and ion turret. Luke gunner gives him the force, the ion turret lets him beat people with the staff rather than stabbing them, and dutch's ability gives him a good supporting role for the party
Gandalf the White) -Esege Tuketu, with luke gunner again and Advanced SLAM: still gets his support ability, but also SLAMs for shadowfax, and gets a firepower upgrade for his more combat-oriented role.
In terms of the rest of the characters, things are much looser:
I've got Odd Ball down for Faramir, since he shows up as both a soldier (torrent) and ranger (arc). god knows with Denethor, (but he doesn't do much so maybe not important)
The Rohan characters map to named N-1's quite nicely, with Ric for Theoden, Ani for Eomer, Padme for Eowyn, and Gamling/Grimbold as handmaidens.
After that, I don't know. very open to suggestions for the rest of the characters, or to swapping about some of the race breakdowns (especially in resistance)
In terms of Scenarios for Epic, loads of scenes would make for good starting points: the flight from Balins tomb to the bridge of Khazad Dum, with the fellowship at one end of a long board, a loaded Bossk at the other, and a butt-load of vultures in between would be great.
Likewise, the final aim I guess would be the pelennor fields, with millions of TIEs in the middle swarming the torrents, before N-1s turn up on one flank, Decimators on the back, and Wedge/Corran/Braylen on the other, supported by a bunch of generic jedi.
****, Weathertop even fits in a standard 200-pt game, with Wedge and the 4 named rebel ties vs Grand Inq and 4 generic inquisitors.
Anyway, that's all the rambling stuff I've got so far, suggestions for other scenarios, characters or equipments very much appreciated!
Apologies if this is a stupid idea that belongs elsewhere.