As my current Armada campaign group is moving into the 2nd half of our 2nd campaign, some of our players expressed interest in finding ways to mix things up for the next campaign, perhaps by mixing in other FFG Star Wars games, like Imperial Assault. As the resident Imperial Assault expert of the group and as someone who's been musing about ways to adapt Armada's head-to-head style of campaign into Imperial Assault, I already had some ideas kicking around in my head. However there were some guidelines I was told I should follow.

1. Most of our group weren't IA players and didn't own the game. We would have to be able to make do with just my collection (single core set, all expacs, a few duplicates).

2. There were a couple of players in our group that weren't interested in playing IA at all. That meant the IA component would have to be an opt-out thing where players were not forced to play if they didn't want to. This meant that benefits and consequences for those who were willing to play IA had to be minor, but still tangible enough to feel meaningful.

So here is my first draft at an Imperial Assault add-on to the Armada Campaign system. It basically keeps the main action focused on Armada, but has Imperial Assault skirmishes supplementing the campaign by determining initial sector control and giving players ways to earn a small boost in resources, changing which Armada missions are played and turning off certain system perks. It also avoids forcing uninterested players in engaging in the IA component by making the IA lists agnostic to any one player and managagable by any of the team members.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4izPKI4wrZZaks0ODBjeUozTjg

Please let me know what you think of my first draft, I'd like to get the community's take on this.

I had written a campaign system about 2 years ago that incorporated IA, X-Wing and Armada into one massive campaign (I think we had 20 people?). Quite frankly: it was awesome. I did not require players to have one constant fleet that they played (it was far more team-focused than individual-focused), but rather had minor battles that helped setup major battles where one side had more/less points than another. It also allowed people to play multiple different games and have them all count for something. We ran this during the summer when the individual leagues are all usually a little sparser on players.

Core document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oEi2RdXrUhwJssxqtIYyuvJyOP46NpCBMR2ia6L9V6A

Planet list (as the game ended, I had graphics too): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VYUJmXquYgGk2ciDUqAArbhaDFc9aNAmzS9C6BAeiLg

Example weekly newsletter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wt7sEoiwYJ-jGfAgpVfel5Ra03aBOM9BOA0lmi4Yg1k

Final match tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tdwoODpIXnWGfoHg9O3TUeMfKvdrg5upvIb9eSlx5-w

Just a thought if you want to make IA less penalty I suggest IA be used before a base assault as a sabotage team.

- Team point = resources points

- Skirmish play

- Success missions bonuses:

+ Base defense: Armed station--> Can't fire/reduce the rate of fire. Ex: can only fire once every other round or just once per battle

+ Base defense: Fighter wings--> bonus squadron points reduced by half 20pts

+ Base defense: Ion cannon--> Can't fire/reduce the rate of fire

A little bonus and a little meaning for carrying out a sabotage team and minor consequence. Well you may lose your resources though but that can be a motivation to win the IA so that every points worth the paid.

On another note, if you a a good IA player this way can drain up the other team's resources.

On 7/5/2017 at 8:44 PM, Peter Hoang said:

Just a thought if you want to make IA less penalty I suggest IA be used before a base assault as a sabotage team.

- Team point = resources points

- Skirmish play

- Success missions bonuses:

+ Base defense: Armed station--> Can't fire/reduce the rate of fire. Ex: can only fire once every other round or just once per battle

+ Base defense: Fighter wings--> bonus squadron points reduced by half 20pts

+ Base defense: Ion cannon--> Can't fire/reduce the rate of fire

A little bonus and a little meaning for carrying out a sabotage team and minor consequence. Well you may lose your resources though but that can be a motivation to win the IA so that every points worth the paid.

On another note, if you a a good IA player this way can drain up the other team's resources.

So I actually had it where a particular base defense mission can't be chosen, but your approach is interesting. So if the IA battle is won then all 3 base defense missions would be compromised?

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

So I actually had it where a particular base defense mission can't be chosen, but your approach is interesting. So if the IA battle is won then all 3 base defense missions would be compromised?

Yeah. If the mission is successful all 3 missions are compromised. How much damage depends on what you set out e: reduce rate of fire, etc... Personally, I suggest not to think too much detail about the type of base defense will be affected from an IA's sabotage team. The fact is that CC only tells that there is a base but don't tell you which base defense until you draw it from the mission objective deck, correct? Sorry I don't have the CC here the price quite high due to supply shortage at the moment. In stead you can set out level of damage as objective for the IA mission. For instance, a mission have 3 terminals and the damage accumulated depending on how many terminals the rebel team sabotaged I think you can come up with something better like how to sabotage a terminal instead of just taking an action try thinking about a minigame... but don't make it too complicated. Armada is the main focus IA is just a little spices to it. This way the objective card draw rule of CC is preserved.

The sabotage missions works both way for Imperial and Rebel alike. The damage results are the same. Just my opinion it is your call.

For Base Defense objectives, the defending player chooses which objective will be played before the game starts, it is not done randomly. I will take this idea into consideration, it removes some complexity but adds it in other places.

I'm dyslexic thought this was going to be about artificial inteligence in armada.

8 hours ago, Khornight said:

I'm dyslexic thought this was going to be about artificial inteligence in armada.

That also would be cool. I think it's possible, but highly unlikely to be able to be implemented. As @Drasnighta showed a while back, just figuring out all the possible movements for a CR90 results in around 100 possible moves, depending on speed, nav dial/token, which joints are notched and how far. . . it's really just that that prevents it, I think. Which dials to give, which squads to activate, which ships to attack and when to use upgrades can all be made into if-else statements that don't require too much processing (manual or otherwise). But the movement thing would be a killer.

It may actually take longer to write than to use though, so it's still possible. Who knows? Maybe some brave soul is trying it now, or will sometime soon.