The Battle of Hoth and an Introduction.

Introduction, I have been fascinated some say obsessed with, The classical (It was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far far way, Like Indiana is from here in Illinois) battle of Hoth since my oldest son became a Star Wars fanatic when he was 9 or so. We must have watched those movies over 100 times. We started collecting a few Star Wars figures. We even had a Star War Theme Christmas. He is now into Vietnam and has still some interest in Star Wars, about as much as he had for Sharks. Oh those were the days.

About five years ago I started to read some of his Star Wars technical manuals. I wondered what it would be like to do Hoth battle. We had gotten him DVD collection (or was it CDs) and I had taken him and his brother to a big wargame convention several times. I decided after talking with some on TMPers I was going to take on the challenge.
Well here it is five years later and I still have the dream. I have written several sets of rules and refined them over time, about a year or so.

I did not even think about writing the Hoth rules until I got the Battle for the Death Star written (My other Star Wars project). I got side tracked on it but now getting back on track with that as well. Well most of Christmas and part of the Spring I think I got it right. I have play tested them several times and am going to post the first draft on my Blog.

There is a lot of chrome such as an illustrated version of the core rules for the game. I am also working on Individual Battle manuals for the players based on what I would think they would know of each other’s capabilities, Order of Battle, and attack formations and a ton of Images I have taken off of Wookiepedia and other sites and official Star Wars books. I have lots and lots of notes to include in the gamemasters book as well. Much of my notes from development of the rules. Anyway I ramble.

I have one other task to do since I finally found on line the rules for the wargame “Battle of Hoth” by West End Games. I read the initiative rules in the book and like the card based sequence in the game. I have separate phases but outside of the initial roll it is pretty structured. More to follow.

I am going to wait to work on my Death Star game rules until I see what the “X-Wing” rules are like. I do not think they will have the same approach to altitude and aircraft position as what I have finally cracked but there might be something I want to incorporated into mine. I expect mine to be much more complex as I an writing for myself and other hard corps wargamers not the general public.

VR
James Mattes