Way back in the 80's when I used to play microarmor, I went to DalCon and got to play in a wargame hosted by the US Army. The game had two identical boards setup on opposite sides of the room. I think there was about 10 4x8 boards per side to allow a massive double blind game. I could continue drooling over the details but the key for this discussion was the command structure. Each side had a full command staff, from general all the way down to company commanders. The general knew the starting units, strengths, and positions of all his units. He had no direct control over them. He issued orders to underlings who passed them on to the next level and so on. Finally, the company commander got the watered down order and decided how to implement them. The results got filtered back up. All the while, the enemy is doing the same thing.

My thought is not really that in depth but similar. Grand admiral issues orders to fleet admirals who in turn issue orders to squadron commanders. No direct communications between grand admiral and squadron commanders/ship captains to add that little fog of war twist. I am talking about a big game. Correllian Conflict final scale but more of a true command structure with confusion and screwed orders. Give each squadron commander maybe 250-300 points so he can build one maxed out capital ship with fighter support or a slew of corvettes or carriers and full fighter support. Objectives would be unique for each side. Fleets and objectives are unknown to both sides until placement begins

At the start of the game, all players on each side confer and this would be he only time all players get to talk to each other directly.

Help me flesh this out guys. Its a one shot game, not a campaign. I need ideas for objectives, command structures and restrictions, special rules. Maybe a hyperspace reserve, although raddus makes that interesting too.

OK I'll have a stab at how I would run a game like this.

Use a large table, 6x8'. Draw a planet in one corner, a big one, 12-18" radius from the corner. Place 8 or so asteroids in a ring around the planet in an arc 30" from the planet surface. Place 8 debris counters spread randomly - anywhere on the table. Other objectives could be the space station in close orbit 15" from the planet surface. A collection of stationary freighters (1 shield all round, 8 hull, small base, one brace token each and a blue flak dice) in high orbit beyond the ring. An armed defence platform protected by 6 mine counters (see minefields scenario) far away from the planet. 6 civilian shuttles (Lambdas or VCXs that don't move but do fire back) widely distributed throughout the table.

The attacker will be first player and need to achieve as many objectives as they can such as:

• Bombard the planet - Obscured shot (atmosphere), 5 points per crit caused to the planet.
• Posses the station in close orbit - as per the Contested Outpost scenario.
• Destroy the freighters - 25 points each to the attacker if they are destroyed or to the defender if they survive.
• Capture the spy - He is on one of the 6 shuttles. Get a ship to spend a squadron command/token at close range from each one and roll 1D6 - on a 6 it's him. Blast him! (If you have eliminated all the other 5 from your enquiries then it is definitely the last one left.) 50 points if attackers catch him, 100 points to the defenders if they don't. Any shuttle destroyed without being checked out means a loss of this objective.
• Most wanted - Each side can select one ship to victimise (not the grand admiral's ship) as per the MW scenario. Worth double points.
• Intel sweep scenario - as it is such a large game use 9 tokens throughout the table. Spread them out good and proper. Rather than one objective ship, any ship with a commander on board (including grand admirals) can grab the tokens. 150 points to whichever side has the most at the end.
• Destroy the defence platform - Use an armed station from the CC mission and add 4 Tie-F or 4 Z95s to it for free. Worth 100 points to the attackers if it is destroyed or 100 to the defenders if it survives.

Forces
5 players a side. 4 fleet commanders and 1 grand admiral.

The grand admiral gets a commander representing himself and one tooled up large ship worth 200 points total (he could add a squadron or two to fill up the points). He gives the benefit of his commander's rule for his own flagship and all 4 of his subordinate fleets. His flagship may add one defence token of any type it already has one of. So an ISD could add a brace or contain but not a third redirect. This should stop the overall grand admiral's ship being too easily destroyed.

Each fleet takes a commander who only benefits his own forces. So for example if Tarkin is the grand admiral he gives tokens to all Imperial ships but Motti is in charge of 3 VSDs and only they get the extra hull. Dodonna only affects face up cards inflicted by his forces unless he is the grand admiral.

The 4 fleets must be:

1 Raiding force - 350 points. Small ships only, 75 points max squadrons.
1 Battle line force - 450 points. Large & Medium ships only, 50 points max squadrons.
1 Carrier force - 400 points. Must have 125 to 150 points of squadrons, any size ships.
1 Mixed force - 400 points. No restrictions other than the usual 134 points max squadrons.

Deployment
Planet is in the North East corner. Attackers Place 4 entry point tokens along the West and South side of the table each touching the edge and at least 18" apart from each other. Defenders place 6 tokens anywhere on the table each at least 18" from any other entry point and more than 12" from a table edge. All these are placed alternatively starting with the defender, you can use the double sided rebel/imperial tokens for this. When complete the attackers can flip over one of the defender's tokens for their side representing a hyperspace in tactic.

The attacking grand admiral nominates one of his subordinates to deploy his flagship completely within distance 1-3 of one of their entry tokens. The defenders then do the same and this alternates until all sub commanders have deployed. No ship may deploy within distance 1-5 of an enemy ship. Once an entry point is claimed by a commander no other fleets can use it (friends or enemies). Next all commanders each add a ship to their entry point, repeat until all ships are deployed. Finally the Grand admirals can deploy their ships at distance 1 of any friendly ship anywhere on the table but outside 1-5 of any enemy. When all ships are deployed you can place squadrons within the usual 1-2 of your ships (not an ally ship).

Activations
It is the Grand admiral's job to dictate overall strategy and to enthuse his team. This should be done before the command phase. He should avoid giving specific advice on dials, manoeuvres etc. Leave that to the sub commanders except that.....He may also once per turn offer specific advice on game play to one subordinate during one ship's activation such as: picking a manoeuvre, which ship to fire at, when to exhaust the intel officer or "Don't brace now look what's coming later in the turn". If he does this more than once a turn his opponents can shout and jeer at him and force his flagship to take a face up damage card. (maybe a yellow card warning the first time.)

It is also the Grand Admiral's sole responsibility to pick which ship activates next. It's a large game with lots to keep track of but the admiral only has a single ship to look after. He will make mistakes but the sub commanders must follow the orders and may not try to talk him out of it, make suggestions or beg to go next. Deal a face up damage card to the largest ship in a sub commander's force if he does so. If the grand admiral's ship is destroyed his commanders benefits cease but the player continues in this command role for the rest of the game as a ghostly apparition who tells players to "Use the force..."

Game Length
Probably want 8-9 turns as there is a lot of table to cover.

Reinforcements
Optional bringing in other ships using the ruled for the final battle in the Correlian campaign. Grand admirals make the decision who comes in where.

Is that what you were thinking?

How about we start with Corellian Conflict, with a Grand Admiral and X Commanders on each side (I think you’d want 3 or 4), plus at least one judge/gamemaster. I think you’d want to start with 200-point Task Forces instead of larger fleets (for shorter games, which will make sense in a minute) but maybe each side starts with a single 400-point fleet and the rest are 200 points.

Each Grand Admiral issues orders for his Commanders: Attack this location, go to this location and hold, etc. Two Commanders can be sent together to the same location — make sure you’re clear about who is in charge!

The Commanders then go into a seperate room where both sides give their orders to the judge, who determines if any battles will be fought. If opposing fleets end up at the same location, the one with the lowest point total decides who is first and second player, unless one fleet was holding there, waiting to defend it (then that Commander decides who is first or second). If two commanders from the same side are together in a battle, they are treated jointly as “first player” or “second player” but each commander handles his own units.

The commanders who have no one to fight get sent back to their Grand Admiral, who can the issue them new orders. A base may be built by a fleet at an unopposed location (the Grand Admiral orders the Commander to do that, who informs the judge).

If battles ensue, the involved commanders go set up a game. If both fleets are under 300 points, play it “Task Force” style; otherwise play it as normal. When the battle is resolved, the commanders report the outcome to the judge. The loser must pick a location to retreat to. Then, they are sent back to their Grand Admiral for more orders.

Yes, the campaign has a “real time” element to it.

The “Management Phase” of the campaign is handled on the hour by the Grand Admirals and the judge.

It's definitely a cool concept, but the trick would be doing a double blind... needs a double blind to work, and That's difficult to do without identifying features on the table to work with.

What you would want is two tables. 10x6 would be Cool, but might drag the game out a little long. You're probably going to want to stencil a grid onto each table (helps with placing ships) and you might want to fix up an extended range ruler to represent scanning distances. (I would go with double the standard length, and divide the extra length equally between "visual range and "extreme range")

I would say that you would have one grand admiral per side, and 4 commanders, each probably in charge of about 300 points (although this is purely discretionary and dependant on the size of the play area). You will also probably want at least 2 admin staff per table to make checks and move things. And you are going to need to double up on all the ship & fighter models in the fleets.

With all that out of the way, what will happen is that admin staff will set up terrain so that it is identical (or as near as possible) on both tables, and arrange some scenario specific objectives. Players will have a little pre-game conference, and then deploy their fleets on their own tables.

One player on each team is the grand admiral, and one is the vice-admiral. At the start of each turn, the vice admiral will make an admin supervised visit to the grand admiral and relate the state of the board, the grand admiral will then issue orders.

The vice admiral will then return to the table, and will take the other players a short distance away from the table to relay those orders to them. All players will then return to the table and proceed with the turn (communication should be kept to a reasonable minimum after this point).

Now, here's where the double blind comes in: after a ship has moved, admin will check the grid squares that are within scanning range and if an enemy ship appears within range it is duplicated on the other team's board. Ships at extreme range are represented only by the plastic base, ships (and squadrons) at visual range are represented properly (ship, plastic base, & cardboard base).

It's worth noting that it may be a good idea to have all ship movements handled by admins (to minimise any discrepancies in ship positions.

The restrictng of information in combat might be difficult. Obviously shields, command tokens, and defence tokens need to be known, but I would prefer to obscure the ship condition slightly (perhaps replacing it with some kind of a token to represent moderate/heavy damage). Upgrades on ships should also be kept blind (as much as possible) for extra surprises.

Don't get me wrong... this would be a real headache to run, but it would be an experience.

Ok. Loving the suggestions. Not everything fits the fuzzy image trapped in my head but a lot does and there are other parts are totally new ideas that I want to incorporate.

The real world has conspired to steal my time right now but I will mush all of this together tonight hopefully and come up with a revised set of "rules". In my head, this is likely to be a one shot deal just because of complexity and such but I think it will be an amusing twist on the game. Keep supplying more ideas. I hope to turn this into the big brother to the task force game found in another thread.

I love these grand scale format ideas. Sounds like an amazing weekend experience.

grand scale deployment like this must involve at least some role playing. commanding officers always want to get promoted fast, and have their peers or superiors commit blunders so they can supersed or replace them. Superiors are aware of this, and are shy of having subs getting out of hand.

so even if the good execution of orders need every rank to have the good level of information, info is power, and through power I gain freedom...no, wait, that is the Sith anthem.... throught info control superiors control their unruly subordinates, and throught info leaks subordinates can weather blunders in their superior's orders.

besides, officers are often not happy to be / to have have to cope with others above or under. Or there may be misplaced (or not) admiration for a (stupid?) commanding officer, that may go against the experience of the executing officer (that order is clearly stupid and may cause my death, but my superior is a genius, what if he has erred for the first time around? do I follow orders to my demise or do I interpret it, maybe marring a Grand Plan that I am just a part of?) think of the relation between Pellaeon and Thrawn....

comms can be jammed, preturbated in some way, too Receiving a partial urgent order is worse than not receiving it.