Table 4-1 Spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat and Despair during squad and squadron combat

To create a squad or squadron, a character makes an Easy Leadership check as a maneuver. (Outside of Combat, forming a squad should not normally require a check.) If successful, the character can lead up to ten allied minions already within short range (at personal scale) or up to ten starfighters or caomparable vehicles piloted by minions at close range (at planetary scale). Individual crew members on board vehicles are not valid minions to form a squadron.
These minions are now memebers of the character's squad or squadron and no longer receive a turn in combat, and therefore cannot take independent actions or perform maneuvers or incidentals, and do not generate initiative slots (any initiative slots they previously generated remain available for their side). They are otherwise treated as a minion group for all purposes. A squad or squadron's silhouette is 1 higher than that of its largest member. A character can lead only 1 squad or squadron at a time.
While they are within short range of their squad or close range of their squadron, a leader may redirect any successful attack targeting them to their squad or squadron. This may represent troops actually leaping in front of blaster fire, or simply the chaos of battle.
A leader can order their squad into a formation by making an Average Leadership Check as a maneuver, though combat conditions, morale, or the squad's willingness to follow orders may alter the difficulty or add (Threat). If the targeted minions possess Discipline as a group skill, add (Boost) to the check.
Success indicates that the squad or squadron transitions into the new formation, and applies all listed effects while it remains in that formation. Whether the check succeeds or fails, the squad or squadron loses any benefites from the previoius formation. Nor check is required to maintain an existing formation.

Squad Formations

Dug in The squad assumes a defiensive posture to increase its ability to weather heavy fire. Effect: Add (Setback) to any attack targeting the squad or its leader.
Skirmish The squad oberlaps fire arcs to scan for enemies. Effect: Add (Boost) t any Vigilance checks and Perception Checks the squad leader makes. Enemies must spend one additional (Advantage) to activate the Auto-fire or Blast weapon qualities when making attacks targeting this squad or its leader.
Support Fire The squad lays down fire to support the leader's attacks. Effect: Add (Boost) to attacks made by the squad's leader.
Comm Silence The squad deactivates its comlinks to move into position undetected. Effect: Add (Boost) to all Stealth checks the leader makes. This formation ends immediately if the character or a squad member uses a comlink or similar device.
Search Party When running enemies to ground or locating units lost in the field, squads work efficiently and cover more ground through the use of seach patters, grids, and divided areas of responsibility. Effect: Add (Boost) to any Survival checks to track a target and to all Perception checks.

Squadron Formations

Attack Formation The squadron concentarates fire to penetrate even the thickest defenses. Effect: Add (Boost) to attacks made by the squadron's leader
Evasive Maneuvers Squadron members juke and corkscrew alon a wide path while still maintaining the same general heading, confounding target locks and manual firing alike. Effect: Add (Boost) to checks the leader makes to gains the advantage, and add (Setback) to enemy attempts to gain the advantage on this squadron or its leader. Enemies also must spend an additional (Advantage) to activate the Auto-fire or Blast Weapon qualities against this squadron or its leader.
Running Dark The squadron disables transmitters, transponders, active sensors, and running lights to avoid detection. Effect: Downgrade the difficulty of Stealth checks the leader makes, but upgrade the difficulty of their Leadership checks once.
Sensor Sweep The squadron fans out so that each vehicle can direct its sensors and visual scanning to a unique arc of reponsibilityto effectively look in all directions simultaneously. Effect: Add (Boost) to any Vigilance checks by the squadron leader and to Computers checks to detect targets.
Screen Formation The squadron members arrange themselves in tight formation to put the full strength of their shields or heaviest armor to best use. Effect: While in this formation, add 1 to ship defense in all zones. If the squadron entering this maneuver does not have shields or has lost them for any reason, upgrade the difficulty of the leadership check to use this formation once.