Force Commander gives us many real plots and events to play through in the game. However, there are fictive elements in the game, yet it gives us incredible feelings and perfect experience for the gamers and fans, not to mention those vital data and information, that we can also gain while playing. In our article today we will examine the ewok traps in the game, that will be compared with those traps, that we could watch in the movie during the battle of Endor. Also, you can check out a great Endor diorama, and an ewok who sets and activates a trap, that will be displayed after the article, at the bottom of this site.

I think this is the first time when general Brashin wants to get rid of Brenn Cantor during the game. Brenn and Dellis Cantor are brothers, and both of the are officers of the Empire, but after they realize how the evil Empire sacrifice its own men, including their father, they get disappointed in the Empire. Dellis gets “missed in action”, said to be dead, but it gets clear that he was only prisoned by Brashin on Coruscate. And the General sends Brenn into a dangerous battle here on Endor first, thinking he won’t be victorious, yet Brenn somehow win it. So Brashin try it again, second time on Abridon, leaving Brenn alone, without radio connection, arrests him, and imprisons him. But Brenn’s loyal men, his troops, let’s say his friends don’t let him down, and rescue him, leaving together, and joining the Rebel Alliance as former imperial storm troopers and a former officer. But this time let us focus on the Endor events.

Brashin sends Brenn to the sanctuary moon of Endor to scout some possible locations for a shield generator base. So he is transported there with 1 (ONE) AT-ST, and 7, I repeat, with seven storm troopers, then the shuttle takes off, leaving them in the dark forrest. They are afraid, they cannot see anything, because of the dense forrest. They hear weird noises, and they do not know what to expect. But soon they realize. A smaller ewok scout party find them, and attack the intruders. But the imperials kill them all, because they had the advantage of firepower, and the battle was in an open area, where they are no match in the galaxy, 8-10 ewoks with spears and slingers were no match at all. However, they had to get deeper in the forrest, where this advantage disappears, and the ewoks have the upper hand. Brenn informs Brashin that the natives are aggressive, because they probably fight for their homes, and for their territory, but they seemed civilians, not soldiers, so Brenn feels uncomfortable slaughtering them. But Brashin orders him to continue, not to disobey a direct order, clear designated area of indigenous life, and destroy all ewok villages. He gives 3 target villages, as a potential base for a future shield gen. He wants to see all three before he would decide, which is the best. Wow, thanks. Brenn has to destroy 3 villages with this “army”? He tells Brashin that they are a little bit short of men and vehicle for the mission, so Brashin gives a favor, and sends 3 more AT-ST, and 3-4 stormies, and 4 speeder bikes, so all together the squad has some 14-15 troopers and 4 armored vehicles, wow, plenty enough to burn the half Endor. Great, thanks Brashin. But nothing to do, the order is order.

Brenn’s squad slowly start advancing to the target areas. He sends the scouts forward, and the rest of the team slowly follow them in the dark forrest. The biker scouts are motorized scouts, who can lighten up the war of fog in the game, which represents they have discovered the zone. But suddenly one of the scout disappears. The team soon find him dead near an ewok trap. There is a rope between two thick trees, the scout very probably ran into it, the rope tore him almost two, as he raced into it. The scout felt down from the bike, died immediately, the bike crashed into the tree. New plan is needed, because there are such ewok traps in the forrest. Brenn orders the squad to slower down, and to be aware of the rope traps. But a new danger appears, as some ewok gliders fly above them, bombing them with large rocks. They shoot them down, but some troopers suffers bruises, or fractures. So Brenn orders the biker scouts back, and to get off their bikes, they won’t be needed anyway, and all hands are needed against the new treat, the ewok gliders. So the scouts grab some blasters, to be able to fire into the air, where they are not able to shoot from their bikes. That is how they continue to the direction of the first ewok village. But now a new disaster happens, two large trunks, two logs suddenly crash into the head of an AT-ST from two sides, they hit it so strong, so the walker explodes. Well, that's great! Two little Ewoks are at the spot, they have small tools which they used to cut the ropes that stretched or berthed the logs, which destroyed the AT-ST. The troopers shot the trap ewoks, but anyway, a walker is now missing. This is worrying. They are on Endor only for a few minutes but they have losses. Under normal circumstances, one speeder bike, and an AT- ST loss is not a big deal, but usually we have a large army under control, but here when we have barely only a half dozen people, so two destroyed vehicles and a few injured people is a serious drawback. So what shall we do now?

Brenn divides his "army" into two, the storm troopers are in front, scouting ahead, watching the sky, watching the woods as far as possible, and the valuable armored vehicles follow them from a safe distance, slowly. But suddenly a giant tree falls on one of his men, the storm trooper dies. This is simply cannot be true! Of course some little Ewoks are behind the tree trap, they were waiting for the right moment when they able to send the tree in the direction of the advancing enemy. The squad shoot them, they begin to see no longer the friendly puffballs, the civilians in the ewoks who “only protect themselves” but because of the losses they are starting to feed real passions against them, anger and hate. But now they know what things (traps) they need to pay attention to. They have no mercy from now they discover all the traps and shoot all of them from far away to smithereens. The Ewoks attack them in small teams from time to time, the squad is having smaller losses continuously but now they irresistibly moving forward. They discover the first area, which is actually an Ewok village indeed. Among tall trees hanging bridges are running above them, rope ladders, a small wooden hut are everywhere. Brenn’s squad destroys the village, in the game it has two small wooden houses, and the hanging bridge wooden structure at the top of the trees. Of course, the Ewoks attack them, they do not want to let their home to be destroyed, but no mercy. They have to kill them, no longer for Brashin, no longer for the orders, but in order to stay alive. The war ideology ... kill or you’ll be killed. Yes, but the small ewoks have catapults, such stone drills that in our military history was the Onager. Their range is quite long and they throw heavy stones to the direction of the storm troopers and to the walkers. Of course, little Ewok gunners are operating those catapults. Brenn burn and raze the whole village. But there are two other villages, and Brashin drives them forward, come on, come on, move ahead.

And so was going on, two more villages had to be disposed of the same way, and of course, on the way to the next villages the imperials had to clear the forrest from the lot of traps or to avoid them. In fact, there is a fourth village, which is a secret village, it has not got a flashing red dot on the map to refer to it, Brashin did no mentioned it, and the darkness hides it in the forest.

We have to do all of this in the Force Commander game with four walkers and a dozen storm troopers which is a sensational experience, which shows the true face of Brashin, and also the Ewoks motives and weaponry, as well as their traps. Also, we get to know the human nature, and face of the war.

By the way, the little Ewok villages are also present in another great Star wars game in Galactic Battlegrounds, where the traps are not involved, but the Ewok warriors including Wicket himself can be controlled for example, and we get ewok gliders as well. (These ewok gliders will be available for us later in Force Commander, too, after Brenn changes side to the Rebellion and he returns to Endor, he will get ewok catapults, ewok gliders, as well as the good old spear, bow, slinger infantry ewoks.)

These traps are all realistic, we met them in the films, like the falling tree, the catapult, the ewok gliders, the stretched rope traps, etc, these were all shown. In fact, the film had even more Ewok traps. Let’s see some of them!

Perhaps we remember a scene where a fallen tree was on the ground, and some troopers were just tried to run through it. Then suddenly little Ewoks swung toward them, using their bodies like little bowling balls trying to knock the Imperials down from the tree, who fell to the ground and a couple of Ewoks rushed them, hammering them seriously with wooden weapons. This is a trap, I think the fallen tree was prepared there on purpose, and these Tarzan-like ewoks were waited for this moment.

Or there were a few Ewok who not permanently stretched a rope trap, but they wanted to stretch it manually when the time comes. That might have worked well against a speeder bike, but there was a scene where they were trying to trip an AT-ST. This was clearly a mistake, because the walker is big and strong, it tore the small ewoks and dragged them on the ground for a while, it was clearly visible, as the Ewoks desperately held the rope, but they only weltered in the dust, it was not possible to trip the AT-ST.

But they were successful with another trap which have been deployed later. They prepared a pile of tree logs on a hilltop, and when a walker arrived at the hill, an Ewok cut the ropes, and the lot of logs rolled straight down under the legs of the AT-ST. The vehicle is tall, so it’s center of gravity is high, it’s legs were making funny movements while trying to keep the balance, but it failed, the AT-ST was tripped by the logs, then fallen and exploded. The latter I do not understand, it is okay that is spectacular, but neither incoming tree logs, nor falling down to the ground should not make an armored vehicle to explode. In any case, it collapsed and exploded, thus the ewok trap worked.