This is probably way early but has anyone heard if AOR will include rules for mass battles? I know the description mentions flying in a squad of X-wings but that could just be a single X-wing with narrative battles. Does anyone know if there will be actual mechanics for big battles?

Thanks.

No idea yet.

I'm just dreaming and hoping. I have no clue.

I hope if they do that they use the minion rules as a base. I like using the base systems in place for added rules, not an entirely new rules system to learn.

If we are talking about mass combat in a direct way I would agree with Sturn that it would be a version of the minion rules. Heck, following that idea we already have them.

If you mean mass combat raging around the players without direct involvement, then that gets a little more tricky. I wrote up something that seems to work pretty well until they give us official rules. http://fanggrip.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/quick-dirty-cinematic-warfare/

The minion rules and vehicle scale combined make a good start for mass combat.

Make the basic unit a 10 man squad so take an individual soldier and use the same stats as an individual but now the stats are at vehicle scale. Then minion rules can allow you to add more soldiers to the basic unit. For example, 60 stormtroopers would have an attack at YYYGG and a WT of 30 at vehicle scale.

One complication could be armor/soak. Maybe vehicles with armor of at least 1 would be immune to units with personal scale weapons and vehicle scale weapons would ignore soak on groups of individuals.

Expanding on this could make for some nice mass combat scale rules.

I like the idea, except I'd change it slightly. First off a squad of 10 stormtroopers would have vehicle penetrating weapons, at least one. So for abstraction let each group of 10, so 1 unit, cause 1 point of damage on a vehicle, ignoring armour, no more except of Triumph/critm which deals another hull damage. Of course this could vary between units, anti-vehicle units could deal more damage, or even have vehicle scaled weapon damage, but with penalties when facing infantry, like increasing combat check difficulty to hit. Like a larger silhouette attacking a smaller

Vehicles would do vehicle damage, but I'd let squads have up to 1 armour, as a tactical boost. Other than that, your outline is nicey!

Good point on armor for infantry. Maybe round their soak to the nearest 10 (minimum 1) for infantry armor value.

On the infantry ith breech weapons. Maybe assume each squad of 10 has a missle tube (or similar weapon with breach -- AoR will probably expand that selection) so each squad can do 2 damage to vehicles with breach 1.

Infantry would be handy to provide obstacles to PCs trying to get close to the vehicles to breach them with lightsabers or set explosives on them.

Sounds like no mass combat included.

Since there is such a demand, I went ahead and wrote one up. You guys were great inspiration to use minion groups. Thank you, for some reason that completely slipped my mind.

http://fanggrip.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/quick-dirty-mass-combat/

I will take a look. Thanks.

I will take a look. Thanks.

You're welcome.

Those quick and dirty rules are awesome. Exactly what I was looking for. Good thing too, because I take it rules like this are not in the AOR book.

Thanks!

Those quick and dirty rules are awesome. Exactly what I was looking for. Good thing too, because I take it rules like this are not in the AOR book.

Thanks!

Thank you very much. If you want something more cinematic in nature, take a peek at the Q&D Cinematic Warfare article.

These are nice, but what the hell where was my name at the bottom? I had the first post above mentioning use of minions!!

I really don't need my name added, I didn't contribute other then mentioning use of minions, just giving you heck.

It would be nice to incorporate Leadership and a Knoweldge (Tactics) skill into your rules. Perhaps Leadership could somehow limit how many groups of minions the player can easily control? A setback penalty for the actions of your minion groups if their "leader" is controlling a number of groups beyond his Leadership skill? Knowledge (Tactics) can be used in place of Vigilance or Cool for initiative rolls in mass combat.

I have no idea what you are talking about, your name is there.

...now.

Thank you very much. I plan on leaving skill uses up to the situation and the GM to decide. I find that cinematic games such as EotE and Fate work best with a guideline and then left to the group. That and different people want to alter and homebrew various parts of any rules, just take a look at all of the different ideas about Military HIstory and Tactics on some of the other threads. If you would leave a comment about your ideas about leadership, that would be fantastic.

I would use leadership/tactics as an opposed roll by the two captains and give the winner the chance to change one pc/npc int slot or two with a triumph.

But thats just my two-cents.

I think as a GM I would be inclined to just break it down into smaller chunks. A couple of PC's versus a couple of minion groups. Maybe you pass an NPC into the "scene" and then out if the players need help, or have the players help an NPC in trouble.

I think overall playing a miniatures game makes the action rather concrete, we know what is happening in too much detail and therefore the GM no longer has the ability to craft or shape the narative. Which in turn makes triumphs and despaires far less useful or meaningful.

Think of Jar-Jar Binks from Ep1, surrounded by driods, yet the action still involves him and is centered on him. Which is exactly as it should be for player characters, I think one job the GM has is to make the players feel like they are at the center of the action, like the director of a movie, you don't move your camera away from the main characters, you keep the spotlight firmly on them.

To me at least I think a detailed system will detract from that.

Amanal, I believe that the minion rules (and in particular the fact that the minion rules can be used for opposing vehicles or small, single-pilot starships as well) cater to the vision that you're describing for "mass" combats.

Exactly!!

Why on earth would you want to diminish the effects of the narative tools you have to constrain and limit your imagination?

In fairness, even the quick and dirty mass combat rules linked by FangGrip are generally not impeding what you describe in that it's not nearly as "crunchy" and structured as the "cinematic warfare" rules also found on that blog, which are more in the vein of stereotypical/usual "mass combat" rules.

I believe the issue that leads to some people wanting more detailed mass combat rules in the first place is that they want rules for combats bigger than the squad vs. squad-level or fire team vs. fire team-level (i.e. the usual "four players versus four stormtroopers" example) that the minion group rules seem to be optimized for, and they seem to view simply "bigger minion groups" as an insufficient or inappropriate solution, to say nothing of capital ship scale combat, and maybe some way for a "commander" player to affect such a larger-scale outcome as opposed to merely the immediate area and a few enemies in close combat?

Mind you, at one point I believe the Saga core rulebook outright said that in the case of PCs in small starships versus Star Destroyers, the latter shouldn't even be a normal combatant but it could/should be a combat encounter between the players' starship(s) and TIEs with the battle being set around or "on" the Star Destroyer itself, Trench Run-style.

Re: Minion groups and group skills, my understanding is that they too are limited at the same skill cap of 5 as players are and that they reach this point at six members, with any additional members simply being a "buffer" in terms of members who can be incapacitated due to number of wounds dealt to the group without affecting the group's skill. Also, as far as starship and vehicle combat, EotE CRB page 238 outright says that multiple small single-pilot starships and vehicles can be combined into minion groups just like NPCs, while capital ships would have minion gunners and thus that the weapons themselves can be treated like minion groups, albeit with incoming damage being dealt to the vehicle itself and not the minion group.

In the most recent order 66 podcast AoR lead developer Andy Fischer said the plan to implement rules to simplify capital ships with a lot of weapons. Something like all guns in one arc would be resolved through a single roll. He said it would probably be part of he beta updates.