The idea for this sprang out of a discussion in chat one day about what, exactly, the Rebels could have done better on Scarif to change the climax of Rogue One from a suicide mission into something vaguely resembling a proper raid.
Star Wars has never been what one might call a masterclass on tactics or strategy. The average battle plays out like kids with action figures throwing everything they have in a jumble to see who comes out on top. The good guys win (mostly), the bad guys lose, and the in between is often a confusing mess of explosions and shouting geared more towards visual impressiveness than anything resembling realism.
That's not a bad thing, because no one wants to see a montage of staff officers filling out paperwork, mechanics performing PMCS on equipment, or engineers planning out defensive emplacements. War is 99% boredom, punctuated by moments of pure terror. Expecting Star Wars to give us a realistic picture of that is asking a bit much, at the end of the day, for a series that boils down to space wizards with glowsticks fighting over religion.
We want our good guys to be underdogs, fighting against impossible odds. We want our battles to be epic, with ships pounding away at each other from point blank range while fighters flit about, pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. That gets the blood flowing and the heart pumping. It puts us on the edge of our seats, and makes us want to come back for more.
Unfortunately, that approach really doesn't work so well for roleplay. In order for a battle to work in an RP environment, we need to get into the nitty gritty of how things work, if only a little bit.
The goal of the Chaos War College isn't to pick apart every little detail of Star Wars. You don't need to know how to properly log maintenance faults on your landspeeders. Instead, over the coming weeks, I plan to look at a few key battles and give you some idea of what went right, what went wrong, and what lessons you can take from them to leverage into your own stories.
Off the top of my head, I can think of a few battles that bear examination. More may be added to this list at a later point, but off the top of my head, we have:
Battle of Hoth (ESB)
Battle of Scarif (R1)
Battle of Theed (TPM)
Battle of Endor (ROTJ)
As I said, others may be added to the list, and that's not necessarily the order in which things come out. If anyone has any particular requests, by all means, feel free to post below. We may dive into a couple of Chaos battles too, if anyone can provide an example that doesn't involve wading through mountains of salt to find out exactly what the hell went wrong.
Star Wars has never been what one might call a masterclass on tactics or strategy. The average battle plays out like kids with action figures throwing everything they have in a jumble to see who comes out on top. The good guys win (mostly), the bad guys lose, and the in between is often a confusing mess of explosions and shouting geared more towards visual impressiveness than anything resembling realism.
That's not a bad thing, because no one wants to see a montage of staff officers filling out paperwork, mechanics performing PMCS on equipment, or engineers planning out defensive emplacements. War is 99% boredom, punctuated by moments of pure terror. Expecting Star Wars to give us a realistic picture of that is asking a bit much, at the end of the day, for a series that boils down to space wizards with glowsticks fighting over religion.
We want our good guys to be underdogs, fighting against impossible odds. We want our battles to be epic, with ships pounding away at each other from point blank range while fighters flit about, pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. That gets the blood flowing and the heart pumping. It puts us on the edge of our seats, and makes us want to come back for more.
Unfortunately, that approach really doesn't work so well for roleplay. In order for a battle to work in an RP environment, we need to get into the nitty gritty of how things work, if only a little bit.
The goal of the Chaos War College isn't to pick apart every little detail of Star Wars. You don't need to know how to properly log maintenance faults on your landspeeders. Instead, over the coming weeks, I plan to look at a few key battles and give you some idea of what went right, what went wrong, and what lessons you can take from them to leverage into your own stories.
Off the top of my head, I can think of a few battles that bear examination. More may be added to this list at a later point, but off the top of my head, we have:
Battle of Hoth (ESB)
Battle of Scarif (R1)
Battle of Theed (TPM)
Battle of Endor (ROTJ)
As I said, others may be added to the list, and that's not necessarily the order in which things come out. If anyone has any particular requests, by all means, feel free to post below. We may dive into a couple of Chaos battles too, if anyone can provide an example that doesn't involve wading through mountains of salt to find out exactly what the hell went wrong.
