This seemed like the best place to post this (great to see the painting / mod forum given a space, that's awesome, nice one FFG
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A while back, after a large casual skirmish with a couple of mates, we chatted about doing something narrative led with Armada. These guys recently got me into tabletop gaming malarkey with their awesome home-brew game "
Zombocalypse
" pieced together from multiple games, miniatures and systems. We all agreed a campaign for Armada would be sweet, so, when I've had the time, I've been brainstorming some ideas for a narrative led campaign.
And being a graphic designer by trade, I **** well worked up some visuals to try and put across what I'm thinking...
(I later amended the name, but can't change the topic title...)
- - - - - T H E F O L L O W I N G I S A W O R K I N P R O G R E S S - - - - -
(These are my initial thoughts on a fan made, not for profit, casual play campaign.
I look forward to any ideas on exploring cool new ways of play this brilliant game).
There may be bad math (some of this was done VERY late at night ha!) typos, contradictions, and ideas that need balancing, stuff I meant to change but totally forgot to do due to laziness or being distracted by something shiny.
Any thoughts, advice, ideas are more than welcome. I would love to get a narrative campaign worked up for me and my friends and get it out there for anyone else how may be interested in playing it. I know one of my friends for example found Armada a great system, but wanted a more narrative led experience out of it, much like the awesome aforementioned zombie game he and some of my friends have out together.
So I thought what better place to get fellow players ideas or help to get it done, get it balanced and start conquering the Galaxy, one mission at a time.
Big shout outs to my friends and their homebrew inspiration, Heroes of the Aturi cluster (which I have not played would very much like to if i ever got the chance) and R2EQ at
http://dockingbay416.com
(for his thoughts and work on Rogue as an upgrade).
I've grabbed what I can to piece together basic mission set ups, unique pieces (which I intend to scratchbuild - but can be proxies with use of obstacle and objective tokens for example), thoughts on the mission structure, the amount of point increase balance between mission.
I hope people get a kick out of it and would like to get involved or help offer any brain power to this endeavour
All the following have been from random late night sessions, and bits of time here and there, guessing at point costs and balancing, how players would level up, etc. Adding fate dice in case things start swaying badly for the player side (I see it as myself vs 3 players. DM'ing the enemy, much as my friend does for zombies), and at the end of the day, I want my friends to have a laugh playing an epic Armada campaign, slowly building their ships, then their fleet, eventually leading to each player leading a large battle group into a climatic crazy point battle, with a few surprises thrown in.
Rather than standard Armada objectives, specific mission objectives and secondary bonuses to achieve, all the time gaining points from kills.
Mixing up the the way phases/activation would work. Stuff like a fighter attacks as phase one (squadron led, abilities like Rogue/Rogue Leader helping the odds). Then a capital battle as phase 2, onto a base attack etc etc.
Things like:
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Squadron hit and run missions
(no capital just a squadron based bombing run mission against heavy TIE reinforcements.
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Ambushing Elite fleet
(enemy has a massive damage boost and hull)
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Factory attack
, destroy the station Fighter Wave + AA Emplacements > Capital and TIE reinforcements > Base run (gain intel) > Retreat to hyperspace!
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Fighter Horde
(last stand) 5 wave fighter survival mission, protect the ISD while it repairs its engines!
-
Attrition
Lead Darth Vaders battlegroup in a mission of Imperial retaliation.
All of this following a narrative path, (with alternative outcome routes maybe?) leading the two factions to a major confrontation against the backdrop of a top secret Imperial Project. The players unique heros upgrading their squadrons hull, firepower and Rogue activations.
The basic set up (I'm thinking) would be around a 105 pt (details below).
Players pick a unique squadron pilot, and fighter type. Each player will have a small fleet like below. (Player Heroes CAN die. Permanently. They will pick a new character with a lesser level I.e. If the player died at Lv3
Rogue Leader
he would come back as a different Lv1 Hero He would then have to outweigh the choice of either spending his next amount of campaign points, upgrading his ship or getting his Hero Fighter back to Lv3. Further into the campaign, players will be able to create a custom Admiral to join their fleet.
Ships would also be upgradable, increased shields (making use of those 6's!) hull points etc. To help make those starting corvettes a bit tougher as they face more overwhelming odds. (Maybe handicapping their speed at first, having to unlock for sweet speed 4):
This is my general rough idea of the campaign (some I have redacted to keep, what I hope will be a surprise / or would be spoilers as to the main Imperial threat the Rebel fleet will face. Rough idea of point income for missions:
My altered take on
Rogue
abilities, ones that would be incredibly overpowered in the normal game, but here tooled to create an odds evening effect of facing countless TIE fighters and Imperial arrogance (again massive thank to you R2EQ for his work and article of how this could be applied as an upgrade):
My rough overview of the first mission I conceived. Get Han to the station, get that Secret upgrade intel if he can, but mostly blow that station to hell and smash those TIE swarms and AA turrets:
Initial thought for the fighter horde survival mission, each player flies a fighter wing (one with a raider) holding off against 5 waves of escalating pirate attacks (The ISD's engines have failed i the middle of Scum Space, and need to time to repair)
, Players will be able to upgrade fellow squadrons with better weapons, health of additional squadrons. All player squadrons have counter 1, and have
Comrades
ability, the ability to spread out incoming damage across all fighters present within distance 1 of the attack.
(This help balance out the sheer amount of attacks and damage incoming from the waves and reinforcements. I have brainstormed and played a few run throughs by myself, and against my weekly battle buddy who liked how it worked, and felt the pressure of deciding to either upgrade, gain health, add squads to survive (or when played as part of the campaign, selfishly cling to the points to spend in the next mission. All I can say is investing per rounds helps. Adding a black anti squad die to you TIE fighter buddy for 13pt? well worth it!
Base template for stationary AA quad turrets, stationed on asteroids (which I will make!
):
Base template for station. (Which I built to replace my station token - finally, it will get the stand it deserves! ) Shields would be an overall cover effect, represented by 6 X-wing shield tokens. Arc armament and AA dice. Is able to fire a ship and AA shot from same arc (shout out to
https://armadashipyards.com/
for the XQ base tokens I based these on. Many thanks!):
So yeah, I hope this appeals to some folks and would love to hear your thoughts!
- - - - - - - - U P D A T E 1 - - - - - - - -
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Initial draft for mission 1. Again, this has not been play tested or checked for balance, just wanted to get something down and start developing it... (pdf attached to main post) aiming to play a first run through with my group in about 2/3 weeks.
(Also I re-titled the campaign after posting, but can't update the topic title)
- - - - - - - - U P D A T E 2 - - - - - - - -
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Initial ideas for Fate Dice, in the interest of keeping the game fun and balanced for all players
- - - - - - - - U P D A T E 3 - - - - - - - -
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NEW ATTACHMENT PDF.
MISSION PACK 1-5 (WIP)
Ok, a rough draft of what I'm thinking for mission 1-5.
WARNING: Nothing has been playtested yet, the special rules and rogues etc, are an attempt to balance everything out, but I foresee tweaks and change etc. The Hero Corvettes themselves will gradually be upgraded to become monstrous, fast killing machines, but this will be balanced out again, but enemy buffs etc. This is all done in aid of create tougher, large point spends into fleets and squadrons (Rather than me having to buy more stuff as the point bracket increases!
Anyway, I'll try and get more thoughts, tweaks and corrections down as I go
SWA Campaign - (Mission 1-5) Draft WEB.pdf
Edited by 54NCH32
