I've put over 100 hours into this project, and it's nearly a complete overhaul of the CC campaign.

The Vision
I enjoyed CC quite a bit, but I wanted a much tougher, longer campaign where the players feel more like the commanders of their fleet. I intend for this system to be difficult and brutal. If you make a mistake, you will pay for it, which is exactly how it would be today in the real world. The military isn't smashing their troops into the meat grinder. They are strategic in their engagements and commit only when they know they can complete the objective. That's how I want players to be thinking when they are deploying fleets and engaging their opponent.

The Rules

The campaign will be played in rounds. Each round is broken into 4 phases: Move, Combat, Resupply, and Purchase.

Move Phase

• You may move a fleet to a planet within a sector. Document all fleet movements with the fleet code name.
• Exchange fleet movements with the other team. If both teams are on the same planet, reveal the point costs of the fleet and proceed to the Combat Phase .
• If you move to a friendly shipyard, you do not reveal your movement.
• To move between sectors, you must move to the exit. Next turn you can move to any planet in the new sector.
• Stand By
  • Instead of moving a fleet, you may set it so "Stand By". This designates the fleet as being ready to intercept an enemy fleet that is attacking a planet within your system.
    • If an enemy fleet attacks a mine or shipyard, you may move your fleet or fleets in Stand By to the besieged planet.
      • You may move a fleet to a friendly controlled planet or to a friendly fleet to support in an attack/defense.
    • If no enemy attacks occur, the fleet remains in orbit of the planet it is on.
  • Only 1 fleet per player is allowed to be on Standby.
• When moving fleets, only 2 friendly fleets are allowed at the same planet.
  • 3 friendly fleets are allowed to assault a shipyard, and only 2 friendly fleets are allowed to defend a shipyard.
  • A maximum of 1000 points per side is allowed on a planet when moving fleets. This is raised to 1500 if you are assaulting an enemy shipyard.

Combat Phase

• Assign Fleets
  • Before a battle would be played, you may reassign ships and squadrons to a different commander also present at the planet.
    • For exmaple: JJ and Vader are commanded by the same player and are both 500 point fleets. Both fleets move to a planet and encounter 2 other fleets, likely 1000 points. The player decides to shift 2 ISDs under JJ to Vader for control, and 2 Raiders under Vader to JJ. This is a temporary change of command only for the battle.
• Initiative
  • The side with less fleet points chooses who is first or second player.
  • Second player has the opportunity for last activation in a round.
    • When the second player has 1 ship unactivated left, they may force the first player to activate another ship. This can be repeated until second player wants to activate or must activate because it is the last unactivated ship.
  • During set up, only ships and squadrons are revealed. All upgrades are hidden, except titles.
    • Upgrades are revealed when they are used.
• Deployment
  • Squadrons are deployed after ships are deployed.
  • A ship may only carry squadrons equal to its squadron value.
    • Select a ship and place X amount of squads within range 2, where X is the squadron value of the ship. (You do not need to track which ships carry which squadrons.)
  • If an objective would alter Deployment, follow the objective instead.
• Objectives
  • Each fleet will have a pool of 3 objectives to choose from as normal.
  • At the end of a game, if an objective would score you extra points, instead, divide the objectives points by 4. Add this to your resource pool.
• Disabled
  • A ship is disabled once it receives damage equal to its hull. Continue to deal damage after the ship is disabled.
    • Example: An ISD attacks a CR90 and deals 8 damage and an Acc. The Redirect cannot be used, so the CR90 reduced its front shields by 2, and suffers 4 hull damage. The CR90 is disabled and continues to suffer all the damage from the attack, receiving another 2 hull damage. It now has a total of 6 hull damage, and 2 more will destroy the CR90. The CR90 is now disabled.
  • A disabled ship discards its command stack. It does not gain commands during the command phase.
  • A disabled ship loses all shields, cannot attack, and must move forward 1 at the end of the ship phase.
    • If it overlaps another ship, only the disabled ships receives a face down damage card.
    • Players alternate moving disabled ships.
  • A disabled ship cannot be activated.
  • A disabled ship cannot hyperspace retreat, even if it declared a retreat earlier in the round.
  • If a disabled ship receives damage equal to twice its hull, it is destroyed. (There is no scarring).
    • You may attack your own disabled ships.
    • A destroyed ship is removed from the fleet roster. All unique content is removed from the game.
  • If a disabled ship survives a battle, it must be taken to a shipyard to be repaired. Until it is repaired, it’s hull value is reduced by half rounded down. Give the ship a scarred token to represent this.
  • Flotillas are destroyed instead of disabled.
• Boarding
  • Ships may be captured with boarding parties.
    • Boarding Troopers, Boarding Engineers, Jyn Erso, Darth Vader (the 3 cost one), and Cham Syndula.
  • A ship must be disabled to be captured.
  • When a ship boards a disabled ship, put a victory token on the ship card equal to the command of the boarding ship. Once a disabled receives victory tokens equal to or greater than its command value, the ship is captured.
    • All non-crew upgrades and non-unique squadrons are retained on the ship.
    • Captured squads can be added to fleets.
• Hyperspace Retreat
  • During or after round 4, a ship may declare a retreat to hyperspace before it reveals a command dial.
    • The top command dial is discarded. No commands may be resolved.
    • The ship cannot attack.
    • The ship does not move.
    • The ship is removed from the game at the end of the round.
  • Ships can be prevented from Retreating under the following conditions:
    • A ship is targeted by Phylon-Q7 Tractor Beams and the ship is forced to reduce speed.
    • A ship is targeted by G-8 Experimental Projector.
    • A ship starts is activation at 1-2 of a G7-X Grav Well Projector token. If the retreating ship is at 1-2 of the token after the ship moves, the ship still retreats successfully.
    • Disregard the CC Interdictor Rule where Interdictors prevent retreat at range 5.
  • Squadrons at range 1 of a retreating ship may board and retreat.
    • Up to 2 enemy squads at range 1 can attack the retreating squadron for free with dice modifiers.
    • Squadrons that do not retreat in a ship are not destroyed if you lose the battle. They return to their fleet.
  • Ships that successfully retreat are returned to a friendly shipyard in that sector. If no shipyard is available, select a planet instead, and tell the opposing team of the movement.
• Team battle
  • It is possible to have 2v1, 2v2, etc. during a battle. The players alternate activations as normal. All ships/squads in a faction are considered friendly to each other. Commander effects do not extend to teammates.
• End of game
  • The game ends at the end of round 8. The player who scored more points is the winner, and the loser must retreat from the planet.
  • The game may also end if there are no enemy forces at Range 5 of any ship or squadron AFTER round 7. The player who scored more points is the winner, and the loser must retreat from the planet.
• XP
  • After the battle, XP is given to the ships and squads that earned them.
  • 3 XP is also granted to the fleet and distributed among the ships and squads. Limit 1 XP per ship or squad in this fashion.

Resupply Phase

• At the start of this phase, you gain resource points.
  • Shipyards produce 50 RP.
  • Mining Bases produce 10 RP.
  • RP carry over every round.
• Disabled ships are repaired. This does not cost anything.

Purchase Phase

• You may spend resources points to buy upgrades, ships, and squadrons. These appear in the fleet that you choose to put them in. The cost is the price on the card.
  • 1 command, upgrades, and squads -instant build
  • 2 command – 1 turn
  • 3 command – 2 turn
• If you purchase a 2 or 3 command ship, you must wait 1 or 2 rounds, respectively, and during the Purchase Phase of the respective round for the ship to appear in a fleet of your choosing, or create one by giving it a code name so long as the total fleet points is at least 100 points.
  • Example: On round 3 of the campaign, I purchase an MC80. On round 5, during the Purchase Phase, the MC80 will be available for me to use in the next round. I can attach any upgrades I bought, or transfer upgrades from ships at the shipyard to the MC80. The MC80 will be assigned to a fleet or given a code name. During the Move Phase in round 6, I can now move the fleet to a new planet.
• You may move upgrades between ships and fleets so long as all participating parties are at the same location.
• You may combine fleets. Assign a new code name to the fleet.
• If there is a situation where you have an upgrade but cannot equip it, it is kept in the stock pile, which is at your shipyard.
  • Each shipyard has it's own stock pile.
  • You may purchase upgrades in anticipation of a ship being added to your fleet.
• Mining bases can be purchased on an empty planet where one of your fleets are located.
  • Mining Base – 10 RP
  • You may purchase 1 mining base per round in your home sector without a fleet.
• Ships may be swapped to another variant of the same class by paying the difference in point cost with RP.
  • The ship must be at a friendly shipyard.
  • Any upgrades that does not have a slot are put in the stock pile.
  • Example: An ISD I may be swapped to an ISD II for 10 RP. An ISD II may be swapped to a Cymoon for 8 RP.

Fleets

• Fleets fall into 3 categories.
  • Flotilla
    • 100-199 points. No commander.
  • Task Force
    • 200-349 points. Generic commander.
  • Armada
    • 350+ points. Unique commander.
• The minimum fleet size is 100 points. You may purchase a fleet for 100 points from your shipyard.
• Once a fleet has 201 points, it gains a generic commander for free.
• Once a fleet has 350 points, it gains a unique commander for free.
• A fleet cannot lose its commander if it drops in points, unless the ship the commander is equipped to is destroyed.
• Commanders must be equipped to the largest ship in the fleet.
  • Commander abilities only work on the fleet they are equipped to.
    • Dodonna's effect still works on asteroids.
• If a player combines 2 or more fleets during the Purchase Phase, they must document it and reveal it during the Move Phase in the next round.
  • Example: A player has 2 150 point fleets on their shipyard. They decide to create a single 300 point fleet. Both code names are removed from the roster, and a new code name is given to the fleet, all during the Purchase Phase. New ships may also be purchased and added to the same fleet at this time. During the next Move Phase when fleet movements are revealed, also reveal a fleet merge has occurred with the new code name.
• A fleet may not contain more squadrons than 1.5X its combined squadron value.
  • Independent Squads: The following squadrons do not count towards the squadron limit.
    • HWK-290, YT-1300, YT-2400, Scurrg H-6 Bomber, Aggressor Assault Fighter, YV-666, Firespray-31, JumpMaster 5000, VT-49 Decimator, Lancer-Class Pursuit Craft, Mandalorian Fighter, and VCX-100 Freighter.
    • Squadrons do not count against squadron value cannot make up more than 1/3rd of the total fleet points, not including other squadrons, rounded up. If ships are destroyed that alter the total points to the point that rogues amount for more than 33% of fleet value they do not have to be removed, but no more rogues can be added until the fleet total allows for sufficient space.
      • Example: You're fleet is 200 points. 50 points consist of 5 Y-Wings. Since the point total not including squadrons is 150, you may add 50 points of squadrons of Independent Squads.
• Flotilla ships
  • Limit 3 per fleet.
  • Flotillas are destroyed instead of disabled.
• There is no maximum points for fleets.
  • Commanders, titles, except Exodus and 7th fleet, and the additional cost for an ace above the generic do not count towards your fleet total.
• Titles
  • Exodus and 7th Fleet must be purchased and cannot be bought with XP.

Unique Characters

• There may not be duplicates of any unique character or titles in all players fleets.
  • There is only 1 Luke Skywalker, Yavaris, Madine, Tempest, etc,. for the entirety of the game.
• If a unique character is destroyed, it is permanently removed from the game.
• Unique upgrades, except commanders and titles, may be purchased from a shipyard.
  • Titles must be bought with XP tokens.
    • Non-unique titles may be bought at a shipyard when the ship is completed, or during the following Purchase Phases.
  • Unique squads must be bought with XP tokens.
  • Commanders are assigned when a fleet exceeds 350 points.
• The following unique upgrades are limited 1 per fleet, and can be purchased in multiple fleets even if they are destroyed.
  • Strategic Officer, All Fighters Follow Me, Intensify Firepower, Shields to Maximum, Entrapment Formation, G-8 Experimental Projector, Grav Shift Reroute.

Squadrons

• Squadrons at range 1 of a retreating ship may board and retreat.
  • Up to 2 enemy squads can attack the retreating squadron for free.
• Squadrons may be deployed 2 at a time up to the squad value that's currently on the table, instead of placing a ship. Independent squads may by any ship.
  • Squads are deployed from their respective ships. You cannot place all your squads at Range 2 of a Gozanti if there is not another ship that overlaps that area.
    • For example: A Quasar with EHB is the fist ship placed by the Imperial player. Next deployment he places 2 squads, and then another 2 squads. With a squad value of 5, he must place a ship because he cannot place 2 squads. He places a Raider. Next deployment he places 2 more squads, but 1 must be placed from the Raider, and 1 from the Quasar.
• Unique squadrons must be upgraded from a generic squadron. They cannot be purchased.

Experience

• Ships earn XP when they destroy an enemy ship.
• Squads earn XP when they destroy an enemy squadron or an enemy ship.
• Place a veteran token on the ship or squadron after they earn XP.
• At the end of each battle, you earn 4 XP if you win, and 3 XP if you retreat/lose. XP is given to ships and squadrons in the fleet.
  • You may not give a ship or squadron more than 1 XP in this way.
  • XP earned in this fashion may be given to ships or squads that already earned XP during the battle.
• Veteran tokens can be exchanged for the following permanent upgrades:
  • Ships
    • 1 token – Gain a command token when you activate.
    • 2 tokens – Gain a title
    • 3 tokens – Increase your anti-squadron armament by 1 blue or 1 black.
    • 4 tokens – Gain an upgrade slot of your choice except Experimental Retrofit OR increase the armament of the front/back or left/right by 1 blue die.
    • 5 tokens – Increase the armament of the front/back or left/right by 1 red die OR double the effect of all command tokens.
    • 6 tokens – Increase the armament of the front/back or left/right by 1 black die OR gain a defense token you already have.
    • 7 tokens – Gain damage reduction 1 – before you suffer damage, reduce the total by 1
  • Squads
    • 1 token – Reroll 1 die while attacking.
    • 2 tokens – Upgrade to a unique squadron.
    • 3 tokens – Increase your anti-squadron armament by 1 blue die OR gain or remove a keyword.
    • 4 tokens – Increase your anti-squadron armament by 1 black die OR gain 1 hull.
    • 5 tokens – Increase your anti-ship armament by 1 blue die OR gain 1 speed.
    • 6 tokens – Gain 1 defense token (Scatter or Brace)
• Exchanged tokens are returned to the pool.

Shipyard

• Shipyards produce all the content for players.
• If you are defending a shipyard during the Combat Phase, you are second player and the attacking player is first.
  • No objective is selected for a shipyard defense.
• If a shipyard is defending during the Combat Phase, it has the following stats:
  • 15 hull
  • 8 shields
  • Ship armament: 3 red dice, 3 blue dice, 3 black dice
  • Squadron armament: 1 blue, 1 black
  • Instead of activating a ship, you may activate the shipyard and attack.
    • An attack targets 1 ship in range, or all squads in range.
    • Shipyards have 1 hull zone.
  • During set up, do not place the station. After obstacles are placed, the defending player places the station beyond distance 5 of both players edges in the set up area.
  • Treat shipyards as ships when damage is resolved. Critical effects may be triggered while attacking a shipyard.
    • Assault Concussion Missiles does not deal additional damage since there are no adjacent hull zones.
• Defending shipyards also have a garrison.
  • Add 200 points with of ships, squadrons, and upgrades to your forces. Mark these with an objective token to designate garrison forces.
    • You may add any non-unique character to the garrison. Squads are limited to 1/3 of the garrison force.
    • Before deployment, you may select any Garrison Forces to be "docked" at the station. Set these ships and squadrons aside. Any Garrison Forces not set aside are deployed as normal with the rest of the fleet.
      • When the shipyard activates, it may deploy 1 set aside ship at range 1 of the station or 2 set aside squadrons at range 1 of the station.
    • Any upgrades in the Garrison Force must be assigned to Garrison ships. You may not equip Garrison upgrades to your other fleets.
• If a shipyard is destroyed, they cannot be repurchased. Defend them at all costs!
  • If the attacking player is able to destroy a shipyard and does not win the battle, the shipyard is still counted as destroyed.
  • A shipyard is destroyed once it reaches 15 hull damage.

Map

• The map contains 3 zones. Imperial Core Worlds, Contested Planets, and Rebel Outer Rim.
  • The Imperial and Rebels zones contain 24 planets.
  • The Contested Planets contain 50 planets.
  • Hyperlane Routes allow for movement between the Contested Planets and home sectors.
    • Shipyards protect the hyperlane routes.
      • A hyperlane route is connected to both of your friendly shipyards.

Hidden Information

• Fleet composition is hidden. Code names are given to a fleet, and the ships are revealed at the beginning of a battle. Upgrades, except titles and commanders, are hidden until they are used. Squadrons are hidden until they are deployed.
  • Fleet movements are hidden if you move to a friendly ship yard. All other movements are reflected with the code name.
  • Players may document their opponents fleet as it is revealed.
• Shipyards and mining depots are hidden until they are attacked.
  • Players may document their location when they are found.

Victory

• Victory is achieved when all shipyards of the opposing team have been destroyed.

Start of Game

• For each contested sector, a pair of opposing players alternate claiming planets in their contested sector.
  • Once all planets are claimed, each player secretly designates one to be a shipyard.
  • At the start of the first round, all planets are declared unclaimed and players do not reveal where their shipyard is.
• Select a planet in your faction sector as a shipyard. Do not reveal its location.
• Each player creates 2 200 point fleets with a generic commander.
  • Both fleets start at the shipyard in the contested sector.
• Each player should have 2 fleets and 2 shipyards.
• Start the first round with the Move Phase.

Edits are in red so it is easier to track.

The Map

Still a work in progress. I'll add it once it is completed. I believe my friend is taking the galaxy and splitting it into 9 sectors, with the Empire in the core systems, and Rebels in the outer rim. Contested sectors are the areas in between.

In the mean time, you can either create your own map, or use a really generic system:

1. Label each sector with a number 1-9.
2. Label each planet with a number 1-14.
3. During the Move Phase when fleet movements are exchanged, you designate the code name with the numbers.
   1. Example: Code name Black Shadow moves to 4-12.
      1. This represent Black Shadow has moved to planet 12 in sector 4.

Fleet Roster

I made a G-sheet fleet roster where you can document all your fleets and fleet movements. Everything should work when you enter in point costs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x1RR8tQCTkFZQEcykYgszu5TDiUI9Dx9nA49KmNxcrc/edit?usp=sharing

This is my first time sharing a Google doc like this, so I'm not sure if the link works or not, or if there is any access issues.

Edit: There might be some sharing issues where I need to give people access. Anyone know how to give open access so anyone can use it without editing my own copy?

Errata

Interdictor

• An Interdictor equipped with G7-X Grav Well Projector gains the following, in addition to the normal effect:
  • During your activation, you may remove the Grav token and place it anywhere in the play area. This token cannot be moved except by you.
  • Any ship at range 2 of the Grav token cannot successfully retreat.

Dominator

• While attacking at close-long range, you may spend up to 2 shields from any of your hull zones to add that number of blue dice to your attack pool.

Gallant Haven

• While a friendly squadron is defending, reduce the total damage by 1 before defense tokens are spent to a minimum of 1.

Redemption

• When a friendly ship resolves a Repair command, it gains 1 additional engineering point.

Independence

• Squadrons you activate have +1 Speed. You cannot equip Fighter Coordination Teams.

Point-Defense Reroute

• While attacking a squadron, you may add 1 Crit icon to the damage total.

Rapid Launch Bays

• When you reveal a squadron command dial, you may place a number of squadrons equal to your squadron value within Range 2. These squadrons are unactivated. You may activate the squadrons you placed, or different squadrons.

Engine Techs

• Exhaust this card when you overlap a ship.

NK-7 Ion Cannon

• Blue Crit: While attacking you may exhaust this card and spend a Blue Crit icon to force the defender to discard 1 of his defense tokens.

High Capacity Ion Turbines

• 5 points
• Normal card text.

Spinal Armament

• 7 points.
• Normal card text.

Enhanced Armament

• 7 points
• Normal card text.

Heavy Turbolaser Turrets

• While attacking a ship, add 1 damage to the total.
• Only Medium and Large ships.

Rapid Reload

• 6 points
• Normal card text.

Expanded Launchers

• 8 points
• Normal card text.

Sensor Team

• While attacking, you may exhaust this card to change 1 die to an Acc.

Fire-Control Team

• You may not resolve multiple crit effects from the same Crit icon. Multiple Crit icons must be present.
• Reverse the FFG FAQ ruling.
  • APT, XX-9, and the standard crit can stack.
    • An APT can give a face up card, and the first damage dealt will also deal a face up card.

Redundant Shields

• 5 points
• Normal card text.

Cluster Bombs

• After a squadron performs an attack against you, even if you are destroyed, you may discard this card to roll 2 blue dice at each squadron, including friendly, at range 1. Each squadron suffers damage equal to the number of Hit and Crit icons rolled.

Generic Commanders

Pick one effect (one bullet point).

Command Token

• At the start of the ship phase, you may exhaust this card to put a command token on a friendly ship.

Command Dial

• Before a friendly ship reveals a command dial, you may discard this card to change the top dial to another command. Gain a command token matching the command and place it on a friendly ship.

Squadron

• When a friendly squadron is activated with a Squadron Command, you may exhaust this card to allow the squadron +1 speed.
• At the start of the squadron phase, you may exhaust this card to give a friendly squadron Rogue.

Attack

• While a friendly ship is attacking a ship or squadron that has already activated, you may exhaust this card to add 1 die to the attack pool. The die must be a color already present in the attack pool.

Defense Tokens

• At the start of the ship phase, you may discard this card to give a friendly ship a defense token it has discarded.
• During a friendly ships activation, you may exhaust this card to ready a defense token on a friendly ship.

Maneuver

• When a friendly ship resolves a Maneuver Command, you may exhaust this card to give +1 yaw to any joint.

Let me know what you think. Feel free to ask questions if something is unclear, like the Errata section. I didn't want to retype all the cards, so I hope people can understand what my intent is. Regardless, if you need clarification, don't hesitate to ask.

I have not play tested some of the mechanics. Here are some things that might need to be changed:

• Initial fleet size and fleet ranges.
• Amount of RP generated per shipyard and mining base.
• XP and it's upgrades.
• Amount of planets per sector.
• Generic commander abilities.
• Erratas

Let me know if something needs to be tweaked.

This campaign is meant to be fun and provide a more thematic experience for Armada. To accomplish that goal, don't cheat. There are so many ways to exploit the rules and I don't have an effective way of mitigating that, with the exception of having a GM manage all the data. If you are interested in doing that, here are some things to do instead of the normal rule set.

1. All fleets and associated code names must be sent to the GM. All changes must be documented by the GM.
2. Fleet movements are sent to the GM instead of the opposing team. The GM will compare all fleet movements and alert players of any battles. Fleet movements are still revealed to players after GM review.
3. All mining bases and shipyards must be documented by the GM.
4. The GM has the final word on rule questions and card interactions.

That's a lot of work for 1 person. Each starts with 2 fleets, which makes for 8/12/16+fleets at the start, and you can purchase more fleets. I suggest you get a group of friends together and have fun with the game. It's up to you how to proceed if someone is found cheating. Just don't do it.

You can play this as is, or add your own ideas. Feel free to share these rules among your communities and on whatever media you own.

You're back! =)

Cool stuff.

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

You're back! =)

Cool stuff.

Just in this thread, and over in the Legion forums. I've nothing else to add to the discussions here anymore. I feel like I've learned all I can from reading other peoples ideas and I'm already set in my own opinions. I don't feel like I have much more growth in this community, with the exception of custom content.

Just now, Undeadguy said:

Just in this thread, and over in the Legion forums. I've nothing else to add to the discussions here anymore. I feel like I've learned all I can from reading other peoples ideas and I'm already set in my own opinions. I don't feel like I have much more growth in this community, with the exception of custom content.

Well, I understand what you mean.

Nifty take on it. You play through any of it? Or was it all pretty much theoretical?

3 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Nifty take on it. You play through any of it? Or was it all pretty much theoretical?

I have not had the time nor players to set up a campaign. I think we are waiting for wave 7 to drop, but that seems to be farther and farther away. I decided to post the rules in the mean time and let other people test it out.

The majority of the things I have tested myself, but I am obviously biased since I made the rules by myself based on what I think is balanced.

I really like the idea of uneven fleets. I think there's a lot to build on with the mechanic of trying to maneuver your powerful fleets into positions where the enemy only has a weak force, or trying to chase down an enemy that is wounded.

However, it seems like there's room for players to be left without a game to play, which isn't very conducive to how most communities play these things ("Tuesday is Armada night"). This is very different from the CC, in which every round is 1v1 matchups with no way to avoid fighting. In your GCW campaign, it's totally unknown whether your movement will give you a game of Armada to play, or whether you'll be chilling on an empty planet. Nine sectors times 14 planets in each sector means a lot of empty planets, and a lot of turns that don't lead to a combat. In other words, you don't force players to engage each other, whereas the CC does. That could make for some awkward planning.

Consider a scenario like this: It's Armada night, and the group gathers at the game store to play out the campaign. They don't know how many rounds they'll get through, since a round of the campaign could take 5 minutes or 2 hours depending on whether or not a battle ensues. During the first round, all fleets execute movement, but none come into contact with the enemy, so there's no battles. The groups deliberate for another five minutes, and then resolve the second round. In the second round, two opposing fleets come into contact, so those two players do a game of Armada. Everyone else has nothing to do, so they go home.

I think it all comes down to the magic number of board positions versus number of fleets in play. The best solution might be to have the board start with only a few sectors in play, to force conflict. Perhaps a certain event triggers new sectors to become accessible, such as by destroying one shipyard.

Another solution might be to have the campaign include some backup matches for players to do when their fleets aren't fighting. Maybe this the GCW's equivalent of the CC's special assaults. So, if my Black Shadow fleet and your Phoenix Fleet are on opposite sides of the map, and we don't have anything to do while Bob and Joe play out their match, then we randomly select one of the war scenarios to play out. Maybe the scenarios give you one-off fleets to run with, or maybe you quickly throw together a fleet without any unique upgrades. They can affect the larger war in a smaller way, by awarding resource points.

for consistency sake & to stop a 'free' scatter against single damage attacks the gallant haven shoud have a minimum damage

Gallant Haven

• While a friendly squadron is defending, reduce the total damage by 1 before defense tokens are spent. to a minimum of 1

6 hours ago, Nostromoid said:

I really like the idea of uneven fleets. I think there's a lot to build on with the mechanic of trying to maneuver your powerful fleets into positions where the enemy only has a weak force, or trying to chase down an enemy that is wounded.

However, it seems like there's room for players to be left without a game to play, which isn't very conducive to how most communities play these things ("Tuesday is Armada night"). This is very different from the CC, in which every round is 1v1 matchups with no way to avoid fighting. In your GCW campaign, it's totally unknown whether your movement will give you a game of Armada to play, or whether you'll be chilling on an empty planet. Nine sectors times 14 planets in each sector means a lot of empty planets, and a lot of turns that don't lead to a combat. In other words, you don't force players to engage each other, whereas the CC does. That could make for some awkward planning.

Consider a scenario like this: It's Armada night, and the group gathers at the game store to play out the campaign. They don't know how many rounds they'll get through, since a round of the campaign could take 5 minutes or 2 hours depending on whether or not a battle ensues. During the first round, all fleets execute movement, but none come into contact with the enemy, so there's no battles. The groups deliberate for another five minutes, and then resolve the second round. In the second round, two opposing fleets come into contact, so those two players do a game of Armada. Everyone else has nothing to do, so they go home.

I think it all comes down to the magic number of board positions versus number of fleets in play. The best solution might be to have the board start with only a few sectors in play, to force conflict. Perhaps a certain event triggers new sectors to become accessible, such as by destroying one shipyard.

Another solution might be to have the campaign include some backup matches for players to do when their fleets aren't fighting. Maybe this the GCW's equivalent of the CC's special assaults. So, if my Black Shadow fleet and your Phoenix Fleet are on opposite sides of the map, and we don't have anything to do while Bob and Joe play out their match, then we randomly select one of the war scenarios to play out. Maybe the scenarios give you one-off fleets to run with, or maybe you quickly throw together a fleet without any unique upgrades. They can affect the larger war in a smaller way, by awarding resource points.

What I dislike about CC is the forced engagement. The purpose of the campaign is not to fight battles every round, but rather to fight battles on your own terms.

At the start of the game, each player will have 2 fleets, and there will be 2 players per Contested Sector, which has 14 planets, 2 of which are shipyards, so that means you only have to explore 13 planets. 4 fleets moving around and you have knowledge of where they are, means you can narrow down where your opponent will be. I fully anticipate players having down time in the campaign, and I think it's actually needed. In CC, the player who gets tabled will have a huge disadvantage in the next round, where as now you can go and repair and regroup. It keeps players in the game.

I don't see this as a huge issue because I'd expect a group of players to be in contact with each other outside of Armada night. This way they can coordinate everything before they show up to play, and can already have game pairings. That's how we did our CC, and I know some other groups did that as well. This means players with down time can play standard games. Also, with the smaller fleets at the start, games will be much shorter. I'd expect players to finish games in around an hour, which will speed the early rounds up, and maybe let players do 2 or 3 rounds per session.

I could change the sector movement rules, to what you have. Destroy the shipyard in the Contested Sector to gain access to the Faction Sector, and I did think about that for a while. As it is, I think players would be crazy to skip the Contested and jump into their opponents Faction Sector because they would severely hamper their efforts in the Contested Sector, and likely can't bring down a shipyard in the early game. It's really a small change.

The triggered events is an interesting idea, and it's something I wanted to do but couldn't find an easy solution. I think the best thing would to have thematic missions for your fleets. So you find yourself with no battles for this week with your opponent, so you roll off on a chart to determine a mission and get to send a team to the mission area, much like we see in Rebels.

Example: While your forces await new word on enemy movements, you receive word of a prisoner transfer in an asteroid belt near your location. Capturing the shuttle and freeing the prisoners will help your efforts against the Empire, but should you fail, the Empire will be able to interrogate the prisoners and gain vital intel to use against you.

• Objective: Capture the Lambda shuttles and retreat. The Rebel player has initiative, and deploys after the Imperial player.
  • Special Rule: When a friendly ship activates at distance 1 of a Lambda shuttle, you may remove that unit from the game. Gain a victory token if the ship successfully hyperspace retreats.
  • Special Rule: During set up, do not place the station, and add 3 asteroids.
  • Special Rule: At the start of round 5, the Imperial player may deploy an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer beyond range 5 of both players edges.
    • The ISD may be equipped with any upgrades allowed on the ship card.
• Fleets:
  • The Imperial player constructs a fleet of 200 points that must include a Victory-Class Star Destroyer. You may not include an Interdictor, Phylon Tractor Beams, or Lambda shuttles. After the fleet is made, add 3 Lambda shuttles.
  • The Rebel player may take 200 points from one of their fleets, and add 125 points to it following the Garrison rules.
    • Mark the Garrison forces to distinguish them from your fleet. All Garrison forces that survive are removed from the game after the battle finishes.
  • Each fleet will have a Generic Commander.
• End of Game:
  • For each Victory token earned by the Rebel player, they may add a non-unique crew upgrade to their fleet (Officer, Weapons Team, or Support Team).
  • For each Victory token earned by the Imperial player, they may add 10 RP to their pool.

This is just a quick pass at a mission, but I think it feels pretty thematic. You have the generic Empire with no emotional attachment, being attacked by the Rebels, which the player has emotional attachment and is risking their forces to rescue some prisoners. I like it, but it will take some time to come up with a list of these to play.

Me likes it a lot...

General throughts on squadrons

- How do you treat dead squadrons? If it dies is it gone forever or do you have some way similar to ships that you can save downed pilots?

- I really, really, like how you can keep track and upgrade generic squadrons. To be able to follow a lowly Tie Fighter as it gains experience to become this awesome force to be feared over the course of the campaign really appeals to me. I have very fond memories of games like Mordheim where you get to watch you individual generics grow over the course of a campaign.

- I would be inclined to give an XP point to squadrons that just survive the battle in addition to kills.

- I get what you're trying to do with limiting squadrons to squadron value but I feel it unfairly penalizes cheaper squadrons like the tie fighter. Why would I take generic ties when I'm limited to only 4 on my ISD when I can take 4 defenders? I need a lot of tie fighters for them to be effective. 4 isn't going to cut it.

- Do bombers get XP for hitting or downing ships? I'm inclined to think that hitting a ship would give a bomber too many XP points through the campaign while downing a ship would give too few and even if you did something like giving XP equal to the hull value of the downed ship to the bomber would make things incredibly lumpy.

- I'm inclined that it would be better to lower the cost of gaining tokens but then implement a tiered structure. You have to buy a brace but once you have a brace it can be upgraded to a scatter later. You could even add evade in there too as I dont see any reason why evades wouldn't work for squadrons. Cancel a long range die and re roll medium range dies. Just spit balling but 2 token max on a squad and it would cost 3 XP to gain/upgrade a token starting with Evade -> Brace -> Scatter. To the incredibly good scatter would cost 9 XP. But building up too it doesn't leave you completely exposed with a generic squadron with 5 XP but no benefit from the combat vet experience.

- I'm also biased from playing lots of Mordheim and believe the uniques are what they are and cost what they cost and can never be upgraded with campaign experience upgrades as combining these types of experience upgrades with with their printed text abilities could protentially create a monstrous obomination thats not much fun to play with or against. Think luke with 3 bomber dice, 2 scatters, and no escort keyword. It also creates a bias for players to look toward generics over uniques... which I think is a good thing.

Like what I'm reading. If you ever want to test this out over vassal let me know. I'd be interested.

6 minutes ago, PartyPotato said:

Me likes it a lot...

General throughts on squadrons

- How do you treat dead squadrons? If it dies is it gone forever or do you have some way similar to ships that you can save downed pilots?

- I really, really, like how you can keep track and upgrade generic squadrons. To be able to follow a lowly Tie Fighter as it gains experience to become this awesome force to be feared over the course of the campaign really appeals to me. I have very fond memories of games like Mordheim where you get to watch you individual generics grow over the course of a campaign.

- I would be inclined to give an XP point to squadrons that just survive the battle in addition to kills.

- I get what you're trying to do with limiting squadrons to squadron value but I feel it unfairly penalizes cheaper squadrons like the tie fighter. Why would I take generic ties when I'm limited to only 4 on my ISD when I can take 4 defenders? I need a lot of tie fighters for them to be effective. 4 isn't going to cut it.

- Do bombers get XP for hitting or downing ships? I'm inclined to think that hitting a ship would give a bomber too many XP points through the campaign while downing a ship would give too few and even if you did something like giving XP equal to the hull value of the downed ship to the bomber would make things incredibly lumpy.

- I'm inclined that it would be better to lower the cost of gaining tokens but then implement a tiered structure. You have to buy a brace but once you have a brace it can be upgraded to a scatter later. You could even add evade in there too as I dont see any reason why evades wouldn't work for squadrons. Cancel a long range die and re roll medium range dies. Just spit balling but 2 token max on a squad and it would cost 3 XP to gain/upgrade a token starting with Evade -> Brace -> Scatter. To the incredibly good scatter would cost 9 XP. But building up too it doesn't leave you completely exposed with a generic squadron with 5 XP but no benefit from the combat vet experience.

- I'm also biased from playing lots of Mordheim and believe the uniques are what they are and cost what they cost and can never be upgraded with campaign experience upgrades as combining these types of experience upgrades with with their printed text abilities could protentially create a monstrous obomination thats not much fun to play with or against. Think luke with 3 bomber dice, 2 scatters, and no escort keyword. It also creates a bias for players to look toward generics over uniques... which I think is a good thing.

Like what I'm reading. If you ever want to test this out over vassal let me know. I'd be interested.

1. Destroyed squads are destroyed. Could probably do a disabled squadron where you can save your aces with a ship.
2. I'm not sure how the balance for squad XP is right now. Simply surviving would make it very easy to stack XP.
3. I'd figure the difference between Tie/F and Tie/D is the aces and cost. You can get 2 Tie/F for 1 Tie/D, and you can pump them out very quickly. And Tie/F arguably have the strongest synergy for Imperials, but you also have to contend with the other players for them. Adding in new unique, non-ace squadrons could remedy the problem and make players want to take the less effective squadrons.
4. I totally forgot about bombers haha. I'll change that so squads earn XP on ship or squad destruction.
5. My fear of lowering XP cost for defense tokens is the vast amount of defense tokens that would be in a game. It would be annoying to have a bunch of generic squads with Braces and Scatters, which is why it's so expensive. The easiest way to get them is to grab an Ace. I'm also not sure on the balance of the XP system, and I've already changed it 3 times.
6. I kind of what some crazy powerful squadrons. They would be few and far between, but I think it would add a new dynamic to the game. Trying to keep it alive until it has earned 10 or 12 XP will be very hard, but extremely rewarding. It forces players to play conservatively, especially when you need to score a kill to earn XP.
7. Changing XP to points destroyed might be better. That way you can't pop 4 Tie/F in a single game and rocket your way up. Maybe 15 squadron points for 1 XP, which means you can't farm XP very easily. Still 1 XP for destroying a ship.

We could get a group together and play it out. Trouble shoot and get feedback. I had intended for the campaign to be played on Vassal as well, because sometimes you don't want to get together to play a 200 point game, so Vassal provides and easy alternative.

If theres no mechanism to save downed pilots then a lot of the problems of over powered squadrons go away. Maarik Steel... ya he's going to get murdered round 1. D-E-D... Dead.

And in that case then I would almost think it makes sense to err on the side of too much XP for squads. From my experience 50-100% of my squads die... every... game.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the campaign every named character in the Star Wars cannon is dead. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing. As long as every one is fully aware going into it that squadrons are almost like 1 offs if you play them like you would in a standard armada game.

Again these are just the thoughts of a potato... who listens to a potato?

16 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

While attacking a squadron, you may add 1 Crit icon to the damage total.

Pls explain

4 minutes ago, Jabby said:

Pls explain

Let's say your Raider is attacking an X-Wing and rolls 1 hit/crit and 1 hit. You may add 1 crit to the damage total, which means you deal 3 damage instead of 2.

Or your Victory is attacking an X-Wing and rolls 1 blue crit. You add the crit to the damage total for 1 damage even though you didn't roll a hit.

Oh so 1 of the crits you roll counts as a hit?

3 minutes ago, Jabby said:

Oh so 1 of the crits you roll counts as a hit?

Yes

I like the ideas you have here, if only I had this game and a good community to play it with. If i got armada id probably be the only person in the whole country along with my brother

I am working on an narrative/role campaign but maybe I take some stuff from here to build up some master rules.

Loving this!

Q: Is a shipyard disabled at 15 damage and destroyed at 30 damage?

Is there a limit to added/removed keywords for a squad using the XP or not?

17 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Loving this!

Q: Is a shipyard disabled at 15 damage and destroyed at 30 damage?

Destroyed. It will remain on the table and provide obstruction. If it is destroyed and you don't win the battle, it still counts as destroying a shipyard.

I updated the OP to reflect this.