Ashes of Rebellion (or AoR for short) is a one on one campaign for the X-wing Miniatures Game set in the final years of the Galactic Civil war, after the second Death Star's destruction. The game is designed to offer a break from the endless 100pt v 100pt Tournament Style game play that X-wing is known for and to add an additional strategic layer to the already great tactical game play.

The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Empire is in disarray, and the newly found Republic is gaining ground. Do you lift up the banner and save the mighty union of the Empire before it crumbles or look to a new government that promotes democracy and peace? The war has reached a tipping point. No longer is the band of freedom fighters a small menace to the Empire, it is a highly coordinated war machine. Only the bravery and skill of your pilots will gain the upper hand. Who will win the war for the future of two ways of life?

Preface:

X-wing is one of those games that I just can't get enough of. The rush of one on one combat in a table top game that is balanced and absolutely a blast to play or watch is second to none. Moving those little pieces of plastic glory around the table made me fall in love with board gaming all over again. I have played a lot of games at my FLGS but there has been something lacking. It seems to be a repeat game each time and I have lost my urge to go out to play. I enjoyed playing the in-box missions with my fiance more than going out and checking out what everyone else had going on. The missions give variety to the mundane 'just shoot everyone' philosophy and allow for more interesting squad builds to suit the mission. With this philosophy I decided to start working on a grand campaign of missions to allow players more variety, a strategic level, and honestly more fun from the X-wing game. Missions are intended to be dynamic and changing each time to allow a greater variety of options to the player. The result of those missions will offer players advantages in future missions. The AoR campaign will offer a reward system called Salvage, that will benefit you based on the ships you destroyed during the previous missions. Salvage will offer the player a new strategic level to worry about. As this is all very early in development, any advice or comments are completely appreciated and encouraged. Please keep in mind here that everything I am discussing is a work in progress and is subject to change.

Core Objective:

To create an ongoing 1v1 campaign with an Imperial and Rebel player that will offer variety other than the simple Tournament style play. Players will be able to gain benefits from wins to help in future battles and help their side ultimately win the war. Using the campaign's Salvage system, ships will be able to 'break the rules' by retrofitting existing ships, purchasing new ships, or hiring Scum mercenaries to fight along side them. Trying to keep all types of players in mind, the campaign will focus on limiting overall mission design to assume that each faction can A) construct a squadron of at least 150 points per faction (without the use of one large base ship from their collection), B) can provide at least one single Large ship per faction (in addition to their squad total), C) the group has at least two core sets combined between the two, and D) the group has availability to print components provided by the campaign. After release, if the desire is high enough, a future supplement featuring Epic style battles with huge ships and larger engagements will be added to fill out the existing campaign. Victory points will be awarded for missions completed

Mission Types:

AoR will provide at least 6 different types of missions for their squadrons to carry out.

Escort – In an Escort mission, the objective is for one team to protect a ship until it is able to leave the field of battle. The opponents will be trying to destroy or mis-direct that ship.

Assault – In an Assault mission, the primary objective is to destroy or interact with some key object. Assault missions are straight forward with one team attacking and one defending.

Skirmish – In a Skirmish, the point is to simply eliminate the opposing force. This is the traditional tournament style game play. With any luck, we will unbalance it enough that it will make things interesting.

Capture – In a Capture mission there will be an object that one team must take and bring to another point. Kind of like capture the flag or king of the hill.

Command – Control multiple points on the map. This is a conquest based game play where each point on the map is a critical objective and the position of your fighters will matter.

Multi-stage – A multistage mission is the most complicated of all and may include parts of each other mission type over the course of the battle or even over multiple missions.

Continuity:

One question posed is that given the current time line, can you use pilots that have deceased or pilots that have not been born yet, or ships that have not been created yet. The answer is yes. X-wing is a game designed around versatility and limiting certain ships or pilots will definitely hinder game play. In terms of the ships, all of those included in the galactic civil war would still be viable during this time period. Using ships outside of this scope (ie. Force Awakens releases) can be considered early prototypes. Pilots that have either died during the course of the films or that have not been born yet are allowed and it is encouraged that players create a new name for the pilot. It will not only breathe new life into the world, but allow players a chance to make a new character. For all intents and purposes of the gameplay, all statistics remain the same for that particular pilot; however, each 'crew' card that shares a title with that is now renamed to the new pilot as well. X-wing is about tactical combat and has not been tarnished so far in tournaments by having Darth Vader fight Poe Dameron, so this campaign should not be treated any differently. The New Order is in development now and could be producing new technology.

Components:

Mission Book – The mission book will list all of the branching missions during the campaign and try to progress everything to culmination.

Fleet Sheet – The fleet sheet keeps track of your ships, salvage points, and victory points.

Retrofit Cards – Retrofitting is one of the most powerful aspects of the AoR campaign, allowing you to use Salvage points to 'add' new components onto an existing ship. Want to increase your attack dice by 1 using the 'Enhanced Cannons' addition? Sure! But just remember that it may come with side effects and an increased squad cost.

Event Cards - Events will offer an ever changing galaxy and complicate matters for each side by offering optional secondary objectives to each mission.

Fleet:

At the beginning of the campaign, each player will designate a 100pt 'Starting Squadron'. This will remain the same during the course of the campaign. During the campaign, players will be able to purchase new ships to add to their fleet. They may also lose ships from their fleet as well. All ships lost must be repurchased; however, the Starting Squadron ships are permanent can can not all ever be lost. Any pilots from these ships may be used as long as they are not 'injured'.

Injury:

So your X-wing blew up, you're not going to be in the best of shape. Pilots in AoR have to deal with injury. When a ship is destroyed, that pilot must make an injury roll. The pilot has ejected from their ship but may have sustained injuries from the event. They may range anywhere from superficial, allowing the pilot to continue on the next mission, to severe, immobilizing the pilot for the foreseeable future. Injury may last for one or many missions and can effect which pilots you bring into battle on your next sortie. For all intents and purposes of the campaign, no pilot may be permanently killed for the sake of game play.

Salvage:

Salvage is a key mechanic introduced in AoR. Each ship you damage or kill leaves behind debris that can be used to enhance your cause. Salvage will be the key economic for the campaign, being a war of attrition. Salvage can be used to:

1. Buy Retrofits (powerful enhancement upgrades)

2. Hire Mercenaries (Add Scum ships to the mix)

3. Recruit (Add Squad points to next mission)
4. Sabotage (Reduce Enemy Squad points to next mission)
5. Purchase new Fleet ships (add new ship options to your fleet)
6. Speed Recovery (Get an injured pilot back into the action)
7. Set Engagements (Choose a different next mission)
8. Convert (Convert Salvage into Victory points)

First Retrofit

Victory:

Each player is working towards victory points. Victory is the overall objective of the game. Accumulate enough Victory points and you win the game. Victory can be gained by winning missions or converting salvage into Victory points. Because of this, it is possible (however, less likely) that a player who has lost a majority of their matches could still come out on top.

First Post Remarks:

So I spilled a lot of ideas out here and while some may be vague I do have an idea in mind on how to implement everything. The mission building and balancing will be the hardest part but getting the ball rolling is the first step (which I hopefully accomplished with this post). Unfortunately, I am alone in my efforts currently. I have some great ideas for a well-rounded campaign here, but I need your help. In the coming months, I will try to release some card art, rules, and ideas that will need to be play tested, balanced, and picked apart. If you are interested in this campaign, please give me a shout-out on here. If not, please at least tell me why. This project's future defiantly depends on you, as I wont proceed if it is a worthless endevour. I thank you all for reading this far and hope this might be something that you are looking forward to. May the force be with you!

FAQ:

(Will edit upon further comments)

Community:

So here it is, the call out to all you pilots out there! Do you have a mission out there on X-wing Mission Control? Do you have a great idea for an X-wing mission? By all means, say so now! Creating balanced missions for an entire campaign is difficult, so if yours is up-to-snuff, then post it! Any missions posted may be implemented into the grand campaign. I really need help on this, as it's a one person operation. I want to provide the most variety available so you help is key! Fly casual my friends, and thank you!

Sounds like an awesome campaign!

First of all, awesome graphic and campaign name!

....Missions you may be interested in:

CAS

Satellite control

Surgical Strike

Dogfight

Recon Run

Junkyard

Intimidation tactics

Fleet Engagement

Caught Refueling

One area I would be careful in is the mission rewards for winning and the salvage system. If you have a system that strengthens the player that wins, then you may create a situation where one player goes from strength to strength while the other gets continually weaker. I call that a 'steamroll' effect. I recommend eliminating material benefits for victory (victory points should be enough incentive to want to win missions).

For a ton of thoughts from me and others on how to set up a PvP campaign: PvP Campaign Metagame Theory

Sounds like an awesome campaign!

Thanks bcons, thats what I'm going for.

One area I would be careful in is the mission rewards for winning and the salvage system. If you have a system that strengthens the player that wins, then you may create a situation where one player goes from strength to strength while the other gets continually weaker. I call that a 'steamroll' effect. I recommend eliminating material benefits for victory (victory points should be enough incentive to want to win missions).

For a ton of thoughts from me and others on how to set up a PvP campaign: PvP Campaign Metagame Theory

This is the part I'm working on right now. I'm really trying to develop a system that will allow for a losing player to have a moment of glory. It's either going to be a counter to the Salvage system or simply a matter of making the missions more difficult for the aggressor (winner) as if they are moving into enemy territory and meeting more resistance. At the current moment, I'm looking into developing harder missions for the 'attacker' (the winning player) but if you have any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate them.

Balance can be tricky, for sure. I think your starting squadron which can't be destroyed is a good measure to make sure players don't run out of ships, for one thing.

You could simply give the loser something extra every time they lose, creating an anti-steamroll effect where victory makes things harder for the victor. That isn't very thematic though.

I'm working on a campaign myself, where the players are working towards making attacks on each other's bases to win. An unsuccessful attack opens yourself up to an attack on your base. So if you are losing, you have a chance to win in the end if you can pull two big wins in a row. I'd recommend something more like that, with a naturally climactic finish to the campaign rather than victory by VP count.

One idea you may be interested in is forcing the winning player to complete a series of missions without any losses in order to win. for example, a recon mission, then an attack on a supply dump, then an attack on a sensor station, and then an attack on the enemy base. In order to win, you need to win all 4 in a row. Or something like that. It should be challenging to pull 4 wins in a row... although you would probably not want players to be able to start on that 4 mission track right at the start of the campaign. Just something to think about, I guess.

Balance can be tricky, for sure. I think your starting squadron which can't be destroyed is a good measure to make sure players don't run out of ships, for one thing.

You could simply give the loser something extra every time they lose, creating an anti-steamroll effect where victory makes things harder for the victor. That isn't very thematic though.

I'm working on a campaign myself, where the players are working towards making attacks on each other's bases to win. An unsuccessful attack opens yourself up to an attack on your base. So if you are losing, you have a chance to win in the end if you can pull two big wins in a row. I'd recommend something more like that, with a naturally climactic finish to the campaign rather than victory by VP count.

One idea you may be interested in is forcing the winning player to complete a series of missions without any losses in order to win. for example, a recon mission, then an attack on a supply dump, then an attack on a sensor station, and then an attack on the enemy base. In order to win, you need to win all 4 in a row. Or something like that. It should be challenging to pull 4 wins in a row... although you would probably not want players to be able to start on that 4 mission track right at the start of the campaign. Just something to think about, I guess.

My primary idea was for an escalation in squad points. If Winner (A) won against Loser (B), then the next mission would see A with 100 squad points vs B with 110. If A won again, it would become 100 sq vs 120 on the next round. This would continue until it was 100 vs 150 (the max at the scale), allowing for a definitive advantage vs the winning player. Missions are separated into a 1 to 5 category, depending upon the offset. This would be thematic in being that A is moving deeper into enemy territory and encountering more resistance. It's a sliding scale as well, so it player B has lost three matches against A, they can get 130 points. They win the match, and next turn they would get 120 points instead. It is still a work in progress but this is the general idea.

You mentioned event cards. If you weight those in favour of the loser and give them powerful effects then you maybe balance it that way. You could even use the event cards to include the points increases you mentioned as a one time use only effect, that can be saved and accumulated or spent for the next mission.

Maybe make them cumulative, winner gets one card, loser gets 2 cards plus one for each match they lost since last winning. Maybe cap the number of cards kept in hand. You could make the cards have multi effects too, like discard them for VP's based on given conditions.

Just an idea.

Hi Riptide. Do you know the name of the artist of your posted AoR Cover Art? It's quite brilliant.

Simply awesome

For the record, the AoR acronym is confusing if you also play the Role-playing game Age of Rebellion.

While not a fan of acronyms at all, you might consider changing the name, or at least put a "The" before, so the acronym is TAoR. At the very least to avoid confusion, if someone is looking for this through google.

Please keep up the excellent work. Much needed, FFG seems unwilling to publish such a real campaign book so its up to fans. Well done.

So, while designing I came up with an a question that I can't seem to answer, so I'd like to refer it to all of you, the prospective players. If you are not familiar with The Heroes of the Aturi Cluster I highly suggest you check it out. In it, each player takes on a 'Hero' character in a co-operative game to fight AI Imperials. While Ashes of Rebellion has no intention of being a co-op, the idea of having each player make a 'hero' that is up gradable has come to mind. In order to reduce an overly complicated Strategic level, this may mean less focus on the Salvage portion previously discussed (although it may exist in some fashion or another, as I really like the idea of 'hiring' scum mercenaries), and more of a focus on pilot upgrades to each faction's hero player. As an X-wing gamer, would you prefer (1) stock pilots with a deep strategic level economy or (2) a customized, up gradable hero pilot flying along stock pilots with a lighter strategic level? Please note, I am not trying to make one sound better than the other, as each are enticing; however, I have a feeling that juggling what I call 'strategic level economy' to buy ships, upgrade ships, buy mercenaries, AND upgrade a custom pilot all together might become too tedious. Then again, I could be wrong. Again, this is all a work in progress, so any feedback is not only encouraged, but highly appreciated. Thank you all, and fly casual.

Balance can be tricky, for sure. I think your starting squadron which can't be destroyed is a good measure to make sure players don't run out of ships, for one thing.

You could simply give the loser something extra every time they lose, creating an anti-steamroll effect where victory makes things harder for the victor. That isn't very thematic though.

I'm working on a campaign myself, where the players are working towards making attacks on each other's bases to win. An unsuccessful attack opens yourself up to an attack on your base. So if you are losing, you have a chance to win in the end if you can pull two big wins in a row. I'd recommend something more like that, with a naturally climactic finish to the campaign rather than victory by VP count.

One idea you may be interested in is forcing the winning player to complete a series of missions without any losses in order to win. for example, a recon mission, then an attack on a supply dump, then an attack on a sensor station, and then an attack on the enemy base. In order to win, you need to win all 4 in a row. Or something like that. It should be challenging to pull 4 wins in a row... although you would probably not want players to be able to start on that 4 mission track right at the start of the campaign. Just something to think about, I guess.

My primary idea was for an escalation in squad points. If Winner (A) won against Loser (B), then the next mission would see A with 100 squad points vs B with 110. If A won again, it would become 100 sq vs 120 on the next round. This would continue until it was 100 vs 150 (the max at the scale), allowing for a definitive advantage vs the winning player. Missions are separated into a 1 to 5 category, depending upon the offset. This would be thematic in being that A is moving deeper into enemy territory and encountering more resistance. It's a sliding scale as well, so it player B has lost three matches against A, they can get 130 points. They win the match, and next turn they would get 120 points instead. It is still a work in progress but this is the general idea.

When I started playing with my children I took only 66% of their squad points. I had to quickly scale up to 75%, as it was more or less hopeless. 100 vs 130 or even 150pts will be very difficult to pull off for the disadvantaged player.

Another idea might be:

The more one player is sliding towards defeat, the more low quality stuff he can field. Simulating that you running out of competent pilots fast, and have to press unexperienced, hastily trained into their cockpits and scramble them away. So more generics, less aces, low PS, less high tech. However for the last attack on the HQ the defender might have all the good stuff available again as it is the last stand.

So, while designing I came up with an a question that I can't seem to answer, so I'd like to refer it to all of you, the prospective players. If you are not familiar with The Heroes of the Aturi Cluster I highly suggest you check it out. In it, each player takes on a 'Hero' character in a co-operative game to fight AI Imperials. While Ashes of Rebellion has no intention of being a co-op, the idea of having each player make a 'hero' that is up gradable has come to mind. In order to reduce an overly complicated Strategic level, this may mean less focus on the Salvage portion previously discussed (although it may exist in some fashion or another, as I really like the idea of 'hiring' scum mercenaries), and more of a focus on pilot upgrades to each faction's hero player. As an X-wing gamer, would you prefer (1) stock pilots with a deep strategic level economy or (2) a customized, up gradable hero pilot flying along stock pilots with a lighter strategic level? Please note, I am not trying to make one sound better than the other, as each are enticing; however, I have a feeling that juggling what I call 'strategic level economy' to buy ships, upgrade ships, buy mercenaries, AND upgrade a custom pilot all together might become too tedious. Then again, I could be wrong. Again, this is all a work in progress, so any feedback is not only encouraged, but highly appreciated. Thank you all, and fly casual.

One of the best features a campaign can have is customizable pilots. I'd definitely go with any option that makes that feasible. Personally, I love customizing pilots, and don't balk at letting the players customize more than one or two pilots. We already do this, after a fashion, during standard list-building with upgrade cards. I don't think adding a customizable pilot or two will make the campaign system feel more tedious.

In the system I'm working on, which has been coming along nicely the past few weeks, all pilots have the capacity to level up. I ran a ~8 game test run of the campaign with friends, and far from feeling tedious, I think the pilot customization was some of the most fun I had - and I was handling like ~20 pilots in a spreadsheet.