Well, hot on the heals of the 'Massive Battles' idea, Darth Sharron and I are engaged in a WAR which is a large scenario thingee. Lemme explain for your enjoyment.

We began by drawing up a list of 2000 points worth of characters, Faction and Fringe, with the limit of only 500 points unique. That's not entirely true as Sharron doesn't have as many folk as I do so I said that he could pick a faction, then bring in other factions at a quarter extra the cost (20pt piece actually costs 25pts now) as per the Ultimate Missions ruling. (That, by the way, has led to him being able to field a coupl'a killer squads with multiple factions and cheapas awesome commanders...) A smarter way to have done it would have been to say 'yes, once you have used your faction and fringe, you can bring in extra characters from those factions that you don't have and we'll pretend you do' (a'la virtual sets).

Check this out though, we have it so that you can choose a unique character in your squad and you get access to all the lower costing variants of that unique! Example: I chose Lord Vader (71pts) and I can use any Vader I chose dependent on what I want for a particular skirmish, as long as he costs less than 71. So, whats happening is I am running a Vader around the country-side, not a Lord Vader. Understand-o?

Armies sorted, we then took 30 maps and arranged them in a pattern, much like two 'playoff trees' next to each other. At either end we selected a 'home' map and then continued to branch out. The widest region of maps is at the centre. We then drew 'roads' between them so they looked much like a great map with different locations where skirmishes would take place. The roads were quite artistically laid out, not just simply this map leads to these two etc. and one location could be quite remote or a hub that led to several others. The only provisor was that we had the same number of maps in our third with the same number of roadways. A central third was one we agreed upon the layout of.

The two ways to win are to wipe out all the gunga... all your opponents characters, or to take their home map.

Once you're ready to start, you move all your pieces into your home map. Then we rolled to start - Sharron won. At this stage, the first player to go moves all his pieces at once, from one map to another. Pieces can stay behind (kinda like activating them without movement) and once all their pieces are moved, it is the opponents turn.

This is where the guessing and the strategy begins. You must always tell your opponent the ammount of pieces moving and the sizes, but you never have to tell them who's moving. I figure its kinda like you are able to scan lifeforms and know that somethings coming but you don't now what. It could be GMLS or it could be a rodian trader... you only know that 1 piece has moved.

The rounds continue like this until someone moves an army into a map where another army is located. It then goes like this. Fellow A has 15 pieces on Death Star, Fellow B moves 20 pieces into Death Star. 'A' is defending so chooses side. Both A and B then declare how many points they have; A has 220pts with his 15 characters, B has 300pts. The skirmish is then set at 220pts - the lower value - and B then can choose 220pts out of his 300pts available. The skirmish then takes place and the winner is the winner. If B loses, he still has another 80pts left so he can (on his next turn) run away if he likes, although A may wish to reengage him on his turn to move all his troops.

You move all your troops but the skirmishes can happen within those movements. B may move his 300pts into Death Star, lose, and then decide to move another 300pts from somewhere else into Death Star and re-engage. You can't move to separate lots from one map into another map though... that's a bit stinkguy. If two armies still occupy a map (after a skirmish) an enemy can't move forward past their opponent closer to their goal, you can only move back (unless, I guess, you were charging forward towards the home map or your enemy, you were attacked from behind from your opponent, and then you, after the skirmish, chose to move your army out of the map continuing towards the home map... maybe).

The one extra rule to this is the Escape rule. You can, at any time, have once character escape a skirmish by leaving the outside of the board. They take no further part in the skirmish but can't be killed!

You carry on in this fashion until victory is had!

We have some extra rules about reinforcements/holograms/force ghosts. We say that a Force Ghost or a Hologram can be brought in to a squad for a skirmish regardless of where he is on the whole selection of maps. Example; GMLS is at the Home Base, but 4 or five maps away the NR are entering a skirmish against whoever so the NR can have Luke's Force Ghost appear at that skirmish! And, the cool bit is, if he gets defeated, he is still not dead in terms of the overall picture - he's still at the home base. Yes? Understand? As for reinforcements/reserves, we say that you can bring in extra characters from the map next to you - they don't have to be on the same map as you when you wander into a skirmish. Although, when they die, they stay dead. If you don't have them either on your map or next to your map, you can't bring them in.

So, that's our WAR. Its really driven around recreating a full scale offensive on multiple fronts. Masses of house rules may apply and you kinda work it out as you go along. Its basically a large-scale framework for fitting lots of little legitimate skirmishes into. Basically, we don't mess around too much with proper rules, but how you form the squads and select the maps is what we do mess wi'.

6 Rounds of Army movement and two skirmishes into it, Sharron and I are enjoying our War... although, he's slightly in the lead...

That reminds me a bit of the Risk/SWM fusion that me and a friend created a few years back. Let me see if I can remember the rules:

1) Setup:
For starters, you need a copy of Risk. A Star Wars version of risk is preferred, but not needed. For each territory, designate 1 or more maps for that territory, and for each map, designate one side as attacker's and the other as defender's.
For armies, each player picks a faction (players can pick the same faction) to use through the campaign.
Set up the map like you were playing a normal game of Risk (divvy out the cards, then place armies). In this game, each army represents 100 points of minis.

2) Play:
Here's where it starts to get different. To speed things up, players all take their turns simultaneously. Everyone reveals either what territory they are attacking and how many armies they are attacking with or they reveal a pass, where they make no offensive action.
Instead of dice rolls to determine the outcome of the battle, you play a series of minis battles. The battles continue until all of one side is defeated or the attacker retreats after a skirmish. If a player chooses to retreat, they may not attack again from that territory that round. Also, as with regular Risk, while the attacker chooses how big the overall battle will be, the defender chooses how big the individual battles will be. The Defender can choose to fight 100, 200, or 300 point battles.
For each 100 points a player's opponent gains in battle, they lose 1 army. This means that even if the battle was lost, a player can still damage their foe.
For example, Player A attacks Player B with 3 armies. Player B chooses to play a 200 point game. Player A wins the battle but Player B earned 130 points. After the battle, Player A loses 1 army, and Player B loses 2. If Player B sill has armies remaining, Player A may continue the battle or retreat.

The battles can be resolved in any order, with one exception: If two or more players invade the same territory, they must fight each other first. If there are more than two invaders, each invader rolls a D20. If there are an even number of invaders, the high roller picks his opponent and the remaining players square off with each other. If there are an odd number of invaders, the high roller picks who is the odd one out while the other players fight (In the rare case of 5 people invading 1 territory, the high roller picks the odd one out, and the second highest who isn't the odd one out picks their opponent).

Battles between two invaders are always the highest points possible. For maps, players can either use the map(s) for the territory being invaded or use any spaceship/station map. Map sides are determined by dice rolls like in normal games.
After a set of battles, any invader can retreat. When only one invader remains, they can either continue the attack against the defender or may get a free retreat (The invading territory may still attack.

Regarding uniques: Players can temporarily lose access to their uniques. If a Unique character is defeated, the player can no longer use that character or any persona of the character for the remainder of the round. A player may save a character though; They can retreat the character by activating them in their starting area and announcing that the character is retreating. When a character retreats, they can no longer be used for that series of battles for that territory, but can still be used later in a round in a different set of battles. Retreating a character is considered the same as losing a character in terms of points in a battle however.

The Attacking phase of a round ends when all players reveal "pass". Each player may then make 1 free move. A player can move as many units as they want from 1 territory to another as long as the two territory are linked by allied territories (As an example using the classic Risk Map, a player could move from Siam to Western Australia, but they would need to control Indonesia as well). Free move choices are revealed simultaneously, like with battles.

After the free move, players are given reinforcements to make (use the standard Risk rules for reinforcements). Players reveal where the reinforcements are to be placed simultaneously.

A player wins when they control the entire map.

While something definitely not meant for a single night, It does make for a great league.