Rebel Tanks

I always wanted a Star Wars real-time strategy game. During the period of my life in which I cared at all, only two came out: Force Commander and Galactic Battlegrounds (yes, Empire at War came after I stopped caring). Although it was widely trashed, I actually did enjoy Force Commander quite a bit. I thought the single player campaign was entertaining and had a good story, even if multiplayer left something to be desired. So I built these LEGO vehicles...

Of course, I enjoyed Galactic Battlegrounds even more. It was basically like a dream game for me, since Age of Empires II was already my favorite strategy game of all time (and remains so to this day), and Galactic Battlegrounds (GBG) is basically just a Star Wars re-skin of AOE2. Many of the following vehicles appear in both games.

Hover Tank (2/4/2001)

Since very few (if any) Rebel armored ground vehicles were ever shown in the Star Wars movies, LucasArts basically had to make them up for the video games. In Star Wars: Force Commander, the Rebel Hover Tank was a light armored unit very good against infantry, also armed with an anti-air torpedo launcher. The screenshot on the right above is from Force Commander. The vehicle also appears in Galactic Battlegrounds, this time as the "Mech Destroyer" unit for the Rebel Alliance that can be constructed at the Mech Factory. The GBG version loses the torpedo launcher and all anti-air capability, and is now better against other armored vehicles instead of infantry (a task now reserved for the Strike Mech... but I'll get to that one later). I originally built this LEGO Hover Tank based on Force Commander only, and I later built two of them so that my brother Ryan and I could wage wars with more than one tank.

Attack Tank (2/4/2001)

The Attack Tank appears in Force Commander as a separate unit from the Hover Tank, with its own capabilities. It carries a larger gun than its hovering companion, which is better against armored vehicles than infantry. On its "shoulder" rides a proton torpedo launcher, but this one is for use against buildings, and the Attack Tank does not have its smaller cousin's anti-air capability. In Galactic Battlegrounds, the Attack Tank is no longer an individual unit, but instead simply an upgraded version of the Hover Tank. When you upgrade your Mech Destroyers to Heavy Mech Destroyers at the Mech Factory, all of your Hover Tanks become tougher and more powerful Attack Tanks (again, without the torpedo launcher).

After building my two hover tanks and the attack tank, Ryan and I had quite a little army going. We used to play out wars between these guys and my Imperial Artillery, Transports, and Walkers...

(the Imperial Light Artillery shown here are based on units in Force Commander)

Hover Transport (2/15/2001)

In Force Commander, the Rebel Hover Transport could be used to carry up to six Rebel soldiers from your base to the nearest bunker (since a key factor in the game was capturing supply bunkers) quickly and safely. The vehicle does not appear in Galactic Battlegrounds, instead being replaced by the Air Transport, Sea Transport, and/or Assault Mech for troop transportation purposes.

Combat Speeder (12/3/2001)

When Galactic Battlegrounds came out, I was pleased to discover that the Rebel Hover and Attack Tanks still existed in it, so I would not have to tear mine up to make a collection of  GBG vehicles. I did, however, decide to expand my set a little bit with some vehicles that only appeared in the newer strategy game. The first of them was this, the Combat Speeder. It's basically a Landspeeder like Luke Skywalker's, only armed with guns and with a pilot protected by a canopy. In GBG, these function as the Rebel Alliance's Strike Mechs, good against infantry... and infantry only.

Here's a fun fact for you: Galactic Battlegrounds makes several of their units say the name of the previous game, "Force Commander," when you click on them. It's done so many times that I'm sure it has to be intentional. Darth Vader will say "Good show of Force, Commander." and the Jedi Knight units say "I'll use the Force, Commander." etc.

Assault Juggernaut (12/3/2001)

The Juggernaut is actually an existing vehicle from Star Wars EU, which appeared in several EU sources and was actually based on an original concept design for the AT-AT! According to the EU, the vehicle is old, and originally served in the days of the Old Republic. In a surprising move, Lucasfilm actually confirmed this as canon by making the vehicle appear in Star Wars: Episode III, fighting alongside the Clone Troopers of the Republic (although from what I hear, it was called the "Clone Turbo Tank"?!?). Anyway, the Juggernaut that appears in Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is slightly different; less boxy and more rounded. It functions as the Rebel Alliance's Assault Mech (the Rebels' counterpart to the AT-AT), good against buildings and nearly all ground vehicles, with the ability to transport soldiers, making it one of the best vehicles in the game. (NOTE: The reason one of the rebel soldiers is a skeleton is because that was the sig-fig of a member of a forum I went to at the time). The Juggernaut was the last in the set of Rebel ground vehicles I made, and completed the Rebel army my brother and I had been building (although the Hover Transport was destroyed by this time):

Combat Airspeeder (5/19/2001)

And just for fun, here is the Rebel Airspeeder unit I made from Galactic Battlegrounds. In GBG, the Airspeeder is the Rebel Alliance's unique unit, constructed at their Fortress. It is the best unit available for taking down the Empire's awesome walkers, and you're better off building these than Attack Tanks to deal with an enemy armor squad. It's called the "Airspeeder" because according to the background info on the Snowspeeder, it was actually just a civilian airspeeder vehicle that was modified to a heating system (those fin things on the back). The GBG version lacks the heating system and replaces the tow cable gun with a quad laser cannon. I also made my LEGO version with all-red highlights. Why LEGO chose to use orange on all of their official Snowspeeder models (the original, the re-make, AND the UCS set) is beyond me. They certainly didn't look orange in the movie...