Even in Episode IV they could only hit people if they were were stood still in a shiny white corridor, anyone running away was safe! Face it, they were never right impressive. Now the clones on the other hand, they could shoot Jedi!

But if they shot dead the lead characters in Episode IV there would be no more Episodes.

Empire rules, dark side wins, the end.

I agree that the game needs to be as fast as X-Wing and should follow the basic game dynamics: activate a unit, move it, assign an action, resolve attacks, remove casualties. I also like the idea of "Heroes" that could help out and have special abilities such as rallying troops that are stressed or pulling off special attacks.

The idea of having Command Skill or Tactical Skill being like Pilot Skill for initiative is important for deciding who moves and shoots first. All ground based units probably could activate in their own order before any aerial units are activated.

If we want to combine flying and ground units we probably have to use the same relative movement and firing templates. Infantry on foot would most likely have only a move 1 template at best. Therefore maybe a 3" x 3" area is OK for certain battles that do not include onboard artillery or lots of vehicles. Infantry could be based on circular bases to convey their ability to move in any direction.

Factors like cover and terrain certainly need to be taken into account. Infantry especially appreciate these when faced by nasty things like tanks or walkers. Certain terrain could add defense dice or negate hits if they are in entrenchments (like an Armor value if they are in bunkers).

An important difference for infantry compared with controlling individual ships could be that they act as a unit made up of multiple stands (squads) that make up a platoon. This way their combat effectiveness can be shown by loss of bases. Infantry stands then could combine their dice together for attacks but have a fairly fixed defense value that could be modified by terrain consideration. For each uncancelled hit they take they would lose a base. The most likely actions for infantry are focus and evade. Like other units they could only perform these if they are not stressed. Infantry could get stressed by performing red maneuvers or by taking hits or casualties. A stress token would act as a pinning marker and likely force them to remain stationary (green maneuver) to try and recover.

For the most part we probably just want the ground units to be "assets" to protect or destroy as part of a mission. So although it would be cool to have a pure ground combat game I assume most people would want to see them as just one extra part of an X-Wing game.

Even in Episode IV they could only hit people if they were were stood still in a shiny white corridor, anyone running away was safe! Face it, they were never right impressive. Now the clones on the other hand, they could shoot Jedi!

But if they shot dead the lead characters in Episode IV there would be no more Episodes.

Empire rules, dark side wins, the end.

Best. Script. Ever!

Brought a tear to my eye.

Some interesting ideas being thrown around here. One thing you want to avoid is complexity when it comes to infantry combat. It will slow things down. The ideal is to keep the infantry combat short and sweet ( remember these guys will only be 6mm tall at 1/270 scale ). Don't give them hit/health points, once they're hit, they're gone. Armoured vehicles and walkers should be the main event. Any starfighters are likely to be in a supporting role.

Before figuring out the combat mechanic, you need to back up and figure out the game mechanic and how combat fits into it. Is Pilot Skill going to apply to ground units in the same way we're used to? Command Skill instead maybe. That would sort out the order of play to some extent. Morale is something to consider also. Units should not fight to the last man, it just doesn't happen. Hard cover (buildings, bunkers), soft cover (trees, jungle), terrain types (grassland, urban, water), there's lots of extra things to take into account.

The tricky bit is bringing balance to everything. Indeed, an infantry unit shouldn't be able to bring down a walker or a starfighter, but that's where a hero upgrade might come in. Luke did manage to destroy an AT-AT, but only after hacking a hole in it with his lightsabre ( truly heroic action there ).

I would avoid trying to use the ship bases and manoeuvre templates for ground units. The templates dictate fighter moves and ground vehicles just don't move like them. Plus it's a pet peeve of mine about vehicles on bases - don't like 'em, never have. Plus in this scale, some of the vehicles just aren't going to fit on them properly. An AT-AT should work out to about 3" long and high, but 3/4" wide. Stick it on a large base and there's a lot of wasted space there.

You can probably forget about the 3'x3' play area too, it's simply not going to be big enough. I play Epic Armageddon (6mm) on a 4'x8' table and it fits nicely. Lots of scenery and buildings to hide in and around.

Another thing to keep in mind is the size of the battle. If you have too many elements on table it will slow down the game if it's too complex. The success of X-Wing is in it's simple and quick system.

You know, 6mm epic scale would be good for the flight path system and you raise a lot of good points. Let me add, for every two movements a star ship makes, infantry and mechanized units make one. Ships are going to move much faster and relative speed would give ships two turns, this would communicate well I think.

I would also like to see what Epic and Cinematic play are supposed to be; Because, that might add a lot to this idea. That is, if FFG has not already thought of this.

>>>

I still would love to see this as a 1:48 scale skirmish game, Imps vs Rebs vs Cartel vs Mandos. Could you imagine painting highly detailed mini's, the squads and mods, the tournaments, the dioramas it would be re-inventing Star Wars miniatures the way X-Wing has.

Even in Episode IV they could only hit people if they were were stood still in a shiny white corridor, anyone running away was safe! Face it, they were never right impressive. Now the clones on the other hand, they could shoot Jedi!

But if they shot dead the lead characters in Episode IV there would be no more Episodes.

Empire rules, dark side wins, the end.

Best. Script. Ever!

Brought a tear to my eye.

lol

Well I doubt many of the land forces would go in excess of a speed 4 maneuver, and that might be limited to mainly air speeders, so I would expect walkers and infantry to be going about speed 1 and 2.

So lets say for the basic Rebel squad they have say 2 Health, which allows for some shots to miss, and they are able to move with 1 speed maneuvers in any direction be it turns, banks or straights, with a forward 1 and stop being green since stress here is exhaustion. They could then on their action bar have Focus, Charge (Boost forward directions only), and maybe Evade. With possible units being Tantive IV defenders with a Command Skill, now shortened to CS, 2, Yavin Forces CS 3, Hoth Defense CS 4.

Then for Storm Troopers they would retain the armor rating of 1 from my previous post but then would have more limited choices for their movement due to their heavier armor, perhaps less forward green maneuvers and a red maneuver for trying to go backwards. They could then have have on their action bar Focus, Sidestep March (Barrel Roll), and Take Aim (Target Lock). With possible units being Storm Trooper Recruits CS1, Endor Defense CS 3, and the 501st either CS 4 or 5.

As for Platoon combinations where multiple squads are placed together maybe have it so that for every two or three units combined they gain and additional attack or a reroll but at the same time lose some of their evasion as they become a bigger target.

For range it could be treated the same as in X Wing for the most part but with Infantry limited to Ranges 1 and 2 whereas units like walkers and tanks can shoot up to range 3. So range 1 retains it +1 attack dice and range 3 retains its +1 evasion dice. And as an added step when a unit attacks another outside of their firing arc, based off the notion they are focusing on what is ahead of them, that units also gets a +1 attack dice. Though that might have to be limited to infantry.

Finally with terrain it can be treated as in X Wing with shots going through cover giving an additional evasion dice similar to asteroids currently.

I still would love to see this as a 1:48 scale skirmish game, Imps vs Rebs vs Cartel vs Mandos. Could you imagine painting highly detailed mini's, the squads and mods, the tournaments, the dioramas it would be re-inventing Star Wars miniatures the way X-Wing has.

It was a game designed for 25mm figures at skirmish level back in 1991. There weren't any vehicle models back then and Grenadier did the figures. You had all the heroes, all the villains, droids, Stormtroopers and Rebel Infantry. I've still got some somewhere. The only problem with going to 1:48 is the ships get quite unweildly on the table due to the size. An X-Wing is over 10" long which would need a fairly large base to keep it stable, which would not fit in around the troops on the table too well. At 25mm scale it's under 7", which is slightly better.

The flightpath system is good for the starfighters, but I'm not sure I'd use the existing templates. I'd be tempted to scale the turns up a bit otherwise the fighters would be really manoeuvrable over the table.

CURSES!!! You guys have got me thinking about designing yet another game now!

Off topic guys, but the Stormtroopers are actually very deadly - take a look at this interesting image thread

http://imgur.com/gallery/w5MHii8

You see, they were only lacklustre when they *needed* to be. Eh? ehh?

Some interesting ideas being thrown around here. One thing you want to avoid is complexity when it comes to infantry combat. It will slow things down. The ideal is to keep the infantry combat short and sweet ( remember these guys will only be 6mm tall at 1/270 scale ). Don't give them hit/health points, once they're hit, they're gone. Armoured vehicles and walkers should be the main event. Any starfighters are likely to be in a supporting role.

Before figuring out the combat mechanic, you need to back up and figure out the game mechanic and how combat fits into it. Is Pilot Skill going to apply to ground units in the same way we're used to? Command Skill instead maybe. That would sort out the order of play to some extent. Morale is something to consider also. Units should not fight to the last man, it just doesn't happen. Hard cover (buildings, bunkers), soft cover (trees, jungle), terrain types (grassland, urban, water), there's lots of extra things to take into account.

The tricky bit is bringing balance to everything. Indeed, an infantry unit shouldn't be able to bring down a walker or a starfighter, but that's where a hero upgrade might come in. Luke did manage to destroy an AT-AT, but only after hacking a hole in it with his lightsabre ( truly heroic action there ).

I would avoid trying to use the ship bases and manoeuvre templates for ground units. The templates dictate fighter moves and ground vehicles just don't move like them. Plus it's a pet peeve of mine about vehicles on bases - don't like 'em, never have. Plus in this scale, some of the vehicles just aren't going to fit on them properly. An AT-AT should work out to about 3" long and high, but 3/4" wide. Stick it on a large base and there's a lot of wasted space there.

You can probably forget about the 3'x3' play area too, it's simply not going to be big enough. I play Epic Armageddon (6mm) on a 4'x8' table and it fits nicely. Lots of scenery and buildings to hide in and around.

Another thing to keep in mind is the size of the battle. If you have too many elements on table it will slow down the game if it's too complex. The success of X-Wing is in it's simple and quick system.

I agree that infantry rules need to be simple, and a 6mm Star Wars ground combat game should be about the vehicles, not the infantry.

I disagree that vehicles should avoid bases, though. While I realize that many minis gamers don't like bases on vehicles, I think that this is mostly because it isn't traditional - we just aren't used to it. That said, having things on bases resolves a huge number of issues with movement, line of sight, and range that you get with unbased vehicles - ESPECIALLY walkers! The fact that some vehicles won't fit on a standard base is, frankly, a minor issue, since that's also true of almost every ship in X-Wing. You're also forgetting that there is no need for every base to be square; the senatorial shuttle token is already a 40mmx60mm base, and that could work for an AT-AT.

The 3'x3' play area isn't a problem unless you want to play huge battles. A Flightpath-based ground combat system would NOT work with Epic 40k sized armies. I'd expect to see fewer than 10 elements (walkers, speeders, and infantry units) per side in a typical battle.

The movement templates aren't a problem, either, as long as you don't insist on using the exact same templates for ground units as you do for starfighters. Speeders could probably use the starship templates, or something similar, but walkers, hovertanks, and infantry would need a set of shorter templates, possibly with a wider range of turns.

Off topic guys, but the Stormtroopers are actually very deadly - take a look at this interesting image thread

http://imgur.com/gallery/w5MHii8

You see, they were only lacklustre when they *needed* to be. Eh? ehh?

Couldn't put it better myself.

I agree that infantry rules need to be simple, and a 6mm Star Wars ground combat game should be about the vehicles, not the infantry.

I disagree that vehicles should avoid bases, though. While I realize that many minis gamers don't like bases on vehicles, I think that this is mostly because it isn't traditional - we just aren't used to it. That said, having things on bases resolves a huge number of issues with movement, line of sight, and range that you get with unbased vehicles - ESPECIALLY walkers! The fact that some vehicles won't fit on a standard base is, frankly, a minor issue, since that's also true of almost every ship in X-Wing. You're also forgetting that there is no need for every base to be square; the senatorial shuttle token is already a 40mmx60mm base, and that could work for an AT-AT.

The 3'x3' play area isn't a problem unless you want to play huge battles. A Flightpath-based ground combat system would NOT work with Epic 40k sized armies. I'd expect to see fewer than 10 elements (walkers, speeders, and infantry units) per side in a typical battle.

The movement templates aren't a problem, either, as long as you don't insist on using the exact same templates for ground units as you do for starfighters. Speeders could probably use the starship templates, or something similar, but walkers, hovertanks, and infantry would need a set of shorter templates, possibly with a wider range of turns.

As I said about bases, it's a pet peeve of mine . Admittedly, it could work for some elements better than without bases. I haven't ruled the concept out entirely. There was mention earlier of using the existing ship bases, and it's those that might not work too well. Indeed, a whole new base structure could be required to make it all work. The amount of information currently on the bases is likely to be obscured with a model actually on the base, instead of mounted above it like the ships. The arc of fire is what I'm thinking of here, but I have seen templates that fit in front of bases that would solve that issue.

It's fine to aim for small scale battles, but I'm sure a lot of the folks here would eventually up the numbers and this has to be taken into account when designing a game mechanic. It needs to be able to handle a couple of dozen units each side as easily as 5-6 each. The last thing you want as a game designer is for your players to think " it works fine on small scale, but you can't play a big game with it ". That's not to say there shouldn't be a cap on the top end either. You've still got to have limits. I play Epic with 50-150 units, but I wouldn't expect to go anywhere near those numbers with a template based game. Epic is designed as the upscale (numbers-wise) version of 40K. What is being suggested here is something that would meld in with the current starfighter game, which I think is a fantastic concept.

I agree on the templates for starfighters being incompatible with ground units. Their movement styles are too different to conform to a single set. Ground units would definitely need a new set of some sort, but that's part of the design process, isn't it. Infantry shouldn't really be restricted as to direction of movement, they should be able to go virtually anywhere. Hovertanks also have a certain freedom of movement that would be interesting to duplicate. Walkers have very restricted movement and a turning template would be essential. AT-ATs don't exactly turn on a dime.

There's also current concepts that won't translate from space to ground quite the same way. When you overlap in space, you just slide back a bit. If an AT-AT overlaps an infantry unit - squish! But these are all issues to be ironed out during design.

As I said before, the tricky bit is finding the balance. How simple or how complex does it have to be? If it's too simple, you'll lose the flavour of what you're trying to achieve in the game. If it's too complex, you'll drag it down to a crawl. We're trying for a game, not a tactical simulation, right?

What FFG have done is create a fundamentally simple game with their flightpath system, then added complexity and flavour via the cards with abilities and upgrades. Winning combination.

How ground units interact with flying units is going to be a very important consideration to resolve. Ships could be shown as flying low level above the ground by using one peg and therefore be eligible to make ground attacks and be shot at by ground targets. If they are on two pegs then they cannot (unless bombing). If a low level flying ship bumps into a ground unit then maybe the aerial unit doesn't lose their action but can attack the ground target and vice versa.

Most ground units should just have a move rate of 1 to 3, maybe 4 using the straight templates and be moved in any direction and then pivoted to face the desired direction for vehicles with fixed weapons.

It wouldn't be as fun from the Minis standpoint but just marked bases as infantry would allow aerial units to stop "above" them.

As for land vehicles: some units cause damage and "bump" them out of the way. Others "scatter" infantry units (controller moves them anywhere "touching" the vehicle and they gain one stress).

Having aerial units not able to stop "above" land units could be a problem though.

I have just moved around a bunch of minis using the movement templates. I think it works fabulously. I also built up some of my "Alien" vs. Space Marine minis using a similar point formula for ships and it was awesome.

Lastly,

I am for rectangular bases! A Kwing, for example, could be 2 small bases wide: the HWK would have been great as a 2 "long" base. Both options change firing arcs and movement without giving them a worse "dial". A Wide base with a Ywing dial still flys worse than a ywing. Likewise, just making it "long" means it fits in different spaces (or doesn't) and certainly doesn't turn as well. Wide also could mean a larger firing arc... anyway, just other options to "change up" the game without "changing" the game.

I whined about this with SWM, and I whined about it with Axis & Allies, and I'll whine about it here.

Honestly I can't even understand why there's been no attempt to make this happen with any system. What crazy fun it would be!

Of course, on THESE boards, it's pretty all Rebels vs Empire; that's a little limited. The real money for ground combat is Clone Wars.

Which means more ships. And a new Starter.

I like the idea of two separate games that interact with one another through certain elements. Such as:

- Upgrades cards that would allow a ship to attack any ground-based infantry or building or vehicle. And certain ground-based units to attack ships (with certain rules). Meaning every space unit can't attack ground units. So combat interactions are simple and deliberate.

- Objectives such as shutting down a shield generator in ground-based combat which unlocks an attackable unit in the space game for your ships to destroy. And vice versa. This mimics the Endor battle for example.

- The ability for special named characters to transition from ground based unit to xwing unit. For example a 34 point Luke Skywalker starting in ground combat but you are being overwhelmed in space combat so ground Luke would interact with an object to transition to a 34 pt xwing Luke.

- Intermingled phases for both games to maintain the "guess opponents next move" kind of strategy. Space units always move first because they are undoubtedly faster. Space units move then action, ground units move then move, space units attack, ground units attack etc.

Make the ground game mimic as much of xwing as possible. 3x3 play surface, upgrade cards, phases, movement templates and dials, actions etc. Each small unit represents a squad with vehicles being separate. But above all keep it simple. Do not make the rules complex. Use xwing as a guide as much as possible.

Those are great ideas and would certainly be fun to have ships take-off and fly around or land and disembark troops and special characters. The Shuttle would finally get to land and make use of those pivoting wings.

The order in which ground or flyers move could work either way. Ground units are more predictable with their shorter moves so ships need to guess where they are likely to go and not overshoot them. If the flyers move first then the ground units would need movement dials to stop them getting out of the way once they know where the flyer ends up.

If ground units are moved first then they would not need to use movement dials as they would not know where the ships would end up.

Creating a dial for infantry could be a challenge if they can move with 360 degrees of movement so I am still not sure this is necessary. The dial concept works very well for fast vehicles with pilots making snap decisions. For infantry with limited speed they really just need "stay or go" orders.

I liked someone's idea of putting infantry on octagonal bases and simply letting them make a 1straight move in any of the 8 directions. Then use a dial, or something similar, to represent other elements of infantry combat.

Thank you Forgottenlore. I do think that having a 0 green movement with 8 direction 1 movements would be enough to suffice for them. All you'd need is to make sure they're always pointed North or South on the board so that you could plan out their movements. Heck, since there's only 9 movement options for a squad you could even give them cute little mini dials instead of the big ones we have for ships now. :3

I think plotting out infantry moves with dials is something that could cause some weird situations to happen. Imagine 2 opposing infantry units closing with each other. If all moves are pre-plotted then it is conceivable that their moves would cause them to miss each other. That would surely be a odd thing to happen in real-life. However if the lower "Command Skill" unit moves first then higher skilled units can see where they are and adjust their move accordingly. This would make infantry forces more reactive to each other and be more realistic.

There could be special upgrade cards given to units to allow them to perform special actions, these could be "Order Cards" that are bought and discarded when used. Heroes could also affect units. But otherwise the standard action tokens do the best job.

Personally I'd rather not include infantry. I think that would make a really different (slower) kind of game, and I don't like minis of little 6mm squads of men nearly as much as the XWing ships. All I want is to be able to be able to bomb ATATs in my YWing, I think you could do that in the core game just using capital ship style movement for the land units (would need to be a new template of course, since they'd be big ships size (ATAT) and smaller (ATST)).

A full on infantry game could get huge fast, imagine if they included the prequel stuff - all the different land units in those, the droids, their hovering tanks, wheeled things, etc. I can't afford that!!

I think plotting out infantry moves with dials is something that could cause some weird situations to happen. Imagine 2 opposing infantry units closing with each other. If all moves are pre-plotted then it is conceivable that their moves would cause them to miss each other. That would surely be a odd thing to happen in real-life. However if the lower "Command Skill" unit moves first then higher skilled units can see where they are and adjust their move accordingly. This would make infantry forces more reactive to each other and be more realistic.

There could be special upgrade cards given to units to allow them to perform special actions, these could be "Order Cards" that are bought and discarded when used. Heroes could also affect units. But otherwise the standard action tokens do the best job.

I think that infantry would have to work differently than vehicles in a 6mm scale game. They should be much slower, unless they are embarked on a troop transport of some kind, but they should also be much more effective at taking cover. As I said upthread, I imagine that infantry dials would have options like "advance", "run", "take cover", and "aim" - they would usually have to choose between moving and attacking (assuming that most of their shooting on the move is more to provide covering fire than to destroy other units). Their moves would be quite slow, but they wouldn't have to nominate a move direction until they actually carry out the order, representing their relative lack of momentum compared to vehicles.

I imagine that they'd be a little bit like a king in chess - slow moving but very flexible. They should also be good at taking cover in terrain. I imagine that they would not do much damage on the attack, but they should be very hard to destroy.

What about this for infantry:

Iinfantry recieve n die points per base. Each movement of 1 uses 1 die (so 2 dice is 2 moves). Your manoeuver dial reads a distance of move and a number of defence dice and attack dice (where the sum of the three is your total die points). So assume you have 4 die points, you can move 1 and then have 1 attack die and 2 defence dice, or move 1 and 2 attack dice and 1 defence die. If you move you get no action.

Actions would be things like target lock (needed to fire secondary weapons), Hunker Down (a unit which is hunkered down may not fire but receives 2 free evade tokens against all attacks at greater than range 1, you may not hunker down if there is an enemy infantry unit in range 1), Fortify (unit receives gains 1 free evade token against all attacks this turn with fewer than 4 attack dice)

Example movement dials

Rebel Commandos 4
Move Attack Defence
0 4 0
0 3 1
0 2 2
1 3 0
1 2 1
1 1 2
2 2 0
2 1 1
2 0 2
3 0 1
4 0 0

Stormtroopers 4
Move Attack Defence
0 3 1
0 2 2
0 1 3
0 0 4
1 3 0
1 2 1
1 1 2
2 1 1
2 0 2
3 0 1

That sort of dial could work quite well for a pure infantry vs infantry game at a larger scale (15mm). At that scale you can distinguish troop types, different support weapons and still have vehicles and walkers of a reasonable size.

Incorporating ground units with X Wing ships probably needs this level of detail toned down so all we need to know is where are the infantry stands and what is their action status using a token. Their movement will be much more limited and their role will more likely be as targets in defensive positions. Although they can still move and with a range of 1-2 for weapons can still influence a fair amount of tabletop.

I also would like to see Y wings using their ion cannons against an AT-AT! I was thinking it may take 2 ion token hits in a single round to stop the AT-AT. Only 1 ion hit would not persist like on a large ship as by my logic the AT-AT is "grounded" so the charge would dissipate.

I am also thinking about a skirmish level game at 25mm with individual models.

FYI all the old D6 stuff is available in PDF:

http://d6holocron.com/downloads/wegminiatures.html

That sort of dial could work quite well for a pure infantry vs infantry game at a larger scale (15mm). At that scale you can distinguish troop types, different support weapons and still have vehicles and walkers of a reasonable size.

Incorporating ground units with X Wing ships probably needs this level of detail toned down so all we need to know is where are the infantry stands and what is their action status using a token. Their movement will be much more limited and their role will more likely be as targets in defensive positions. Although they can still move and with a range of 1-2 for weapons can still influence a fair amount of tabletop.

I also would like to see Y wings using their ion cannons against an AT-AT! I was thinking it may take 2 ion token hits in a single round to stop the AT-AT. Only 1 ion hit would not persist like on a large ship as by my logic the AT-AT is "grounded" so the charge would dissipate.

I am also thinking about a skirmish level game at 25mm with individual models.

I agree. At 6mm, dials for infantry would become redundant quickly. An old idea from Titan Legions was single-sided order counters. You had Charge , Advance and First Fire . Infantry options in this scale of game would and should be rather limited. The main role of infantry is to take and hold objectives that vehicles can't, so they do have a role to play.

I like the idea of ion cannons on the AT-AT. Could be interesting versus a hovertank too. Fry the systems and how is it going to stay floating above the ground?

As for a 25mm skirmish game, a few years ago the guys I was gaming with all sat down and loosely adapted 40K to Star Wars with quite some success, so anything is possible.

I have seen some other ideas for infantry that I like so I will shamelessly borrow them but give credit to JayRhea on AFewManeuvers for the inspiration:

Infantry Movement

Stationary (green)

1/2 straight move (white)

1 straight move (red)

Infantry Shooting

Range 1-2

Treat range 2 as long range (target gets +1 Defense dice)

Treat range 1 as normal

Infantry Assault

If an infantry stand is in base contact with an enemy ground unit it can still attack with +1 Attack dice.

Infantry Platoon Structure

Infantry operate best in groups, a typical platoon will have 4 bases (squads). The basic stats for Rebels and Stormtroopers could be:

Rebel Platoon (4 stands)

Attack: 4

Defense: 2

Health: 4

Armor: 0

Stormtrooper Platoon (4 stands)

Attack: 4

Defense: 1

Health: 4

Armor: 1

Infantry that occupy "soft cover" gain +1 Defense dice. Infantry that occupy "hard cover" gain +1 Defense dice and +1 Armor. Armor negates a number of hits against the target per attack. Critical hits are not negated by Armor.

Gone to Ground

If an infantry platoon does not move they can declare they have "gone to ground". They may not make any attacks this round but gain 1 evade token.

All infantry bases in the same platoon must attack the same target. All attacks against an infantry stand in the platoon will target the whole platoon. For each uncancelled hit or critical taken by the platoon they must remove 1 stand and decrease their Attack and Health value by 1. This represents each stand contributing 1 Attack and 1 Health to the platoon.

Infantry can combine their firepower against a single target and roll all their Attack dice at once. This can only be done against targets with an Armor value of 1 or less. This is to prevent them ganging up on high Armor targets that they would struggle to hurt normally.

Example:

A platoon of 4 Rebel infantry are dug in along a trench-line (hard cover). A Stormtrooper platoon of 4 stands approaches them and moves within range 2. The rebels open fire and roll 4 dice getting 3 hits. The Stormtroopers roll 2 Defense dice (1 for profile, 1 for range) and get 1 evade result. They therefore take 2 hits but negate one of these for their Armor, so lose 1 stand. The Stormtroopers return fire with 3 Attack dice and hit 2 times. The Rebels roll 4 Defense dice (2 for profile, 1 for range, 1 for hard cover) but only save 1 hit. Fortunately the uncancelled hit is stopped by their hard cover. Both platoons have been hit so gain a stress token (see below).

Infantry Morale

If an infantry platoon is hit (even if it doesn't take damage) by attacks then they receive a stress token. This represents them being pinned down or having shaken morale. At the start of the Planning Phase any infantry platoon that is pinned down can attempt to remove a stress token by making a successful Rally attempt. They can roll a number of Defense dice equal to their Command Skill. On any "focus" result they have recovered and can remove the stress token immediately before their movement.

Troops could also Rally if their stress was due to a red maneuver. Therefore troops could make multiple 1 moves in a row (red maneuvers) by passing their Rally attempts.

Command Skill

This is similar to Pilot Skill and could range from 1 - 5 for most troops with 1 being conscripted troops and 5 being elite commandos. Therefore conscripts that come under fire and are pinned (stressed) will not likely rally immediately but they still can recover by performing a stationary (green) maneuver.

Characters and Heroes

These could be used and would have a Command Skill value equal to their Pilot Skill. So Luke Skywalker would have a Command Skill of 8.

Overview

These ideas are a WIP and are an attempt to integrate an infantry dynamic using the basic X Wing dice and token mechanics on a scale that is compatible with the ships.