So, that’s how the Bicsay campaign ends.

If you’re finding that this ending is too negative, then here are 2 points you might find helpful.

1) It’s very Star Warsy. The harsh reality of the Star Wars universe is that the Empire is in control and secrecy is the only way to fight them. The Rebel Alliance has a long history of running from one hidden base to the next, even when they technically win the battle. Hoth and Yavin 4 are the prime examples here.

2) It’s easier to take if you don’t see the campaign as being its own complete story, but rather an origin story. After all, we all play 400 point battles. And we often take CR90As. From here on out how often will the player refer to one of their CR90s by whatever name they gave their ship in the campaign? And when they do, will they smile and drop a hint that this ship has a long and proud past that they know so intimately? I look forward to the day when someone, somewhere, playing in a major tournament refers to an (untitled) Nebulon-B as the Morning Ridgeline (ok, that’s never going to happen due to the perceived reliance of Nebs on their titles, but I can dream).

So, what did you think? Was the ending too much of a downer?

Also, if you ever try this campaign and find it’s going too long for you, I’d be inclined to drop either Chapter 6 or 8 or both. I’ve had serious doubts about whether they should be included as they can distract a little from where the campaign is headed.

Finally, where to from here? First up I’m going to tidy this campaign up. While I won’t change any of its substance, its formatting does leave something to be desired, so I’ll give it a dust up.

After that…

I’m toying with the idea of doing either a sequel campaign or an Imperial campaign.

Let me know if you’d be keen to see either.

Or even if you’re keen to help me work on either 😊 .

very good campaign canvas, which can be adapted to several scales

the end is very Star Warsy IMHO, as a rebel commander you should have 2 objectives:

-don't be to "noisy"

-don't be too successful

else the Big Bad Empire WILL take time and resources to trample you to dust, even if it is only temporary. Here we get an "end of battle of Scarif" vibe. Tactical victory has been achieved, but withdrawal ls the only option that has you not ending dead ....

@Flengin

This campaign is incredible and I really like that it is geared towards teaching a child how to play and be involved in a narrative. I have children in the same age range and I think I will try to play this out with them.

I hope that you continue working on future campaigns like this! An imperial version would be really cool. I have often tried to think of a way include rules or narrative that would allow a rebel player to capture a small imperial ship which might be an interesting campaign plot as well. Thanks for the hard work and creativity that you have put into this campaign and I hope you keep it up in the future!

This was an exemplar night time read. I've been meaning to do a campaign like this! for the same reasons, to teach people who would otherwise not learn to play a game like this how to do so, very creatively too.

Was a wonderful achievement.

---

As someone who built simple, non-overly-ruled campaigns for Xwing, I will say that campaign/1-player scenarios are tricky to balance and do require as you found, a game or two of plain testing. Your most inspiring innovation was definitely: don't add more to the story than is needed.

My personal preferences are to avoid letting things drag on for too long. I understand also that in this campaign, the enemy ships are meant to follow a certain script, which is helpful for story. I would probably try not to have as many go on indefinitely. I find also that players can sometimes lose interest or focus.

Writing "failure" missions IS the crux of making good campaigns, and they are also the crux of the problem. As you've used also, one of the solutions is to make the objectives for success not-correlated/different for each side.

If you don't mind, I may try and add a campaign as maybe a side-story or an optional part of your story. Writing up a universe of campaigns that somewhat tie together would be a great community resource for the game. And that's one thing I love about Armada models: they're so different in size and so detailed, you can't help but let your imagination wander beyond deathmatches.

On 4/30/2020 at 7:19 AM, Redleg101 said:

@Flengin

This campaign is incredible and I really like that it is geared towards teaching a child how to play and be involved in a narrative. I have children in the same age range and I think I will try to play this out with them.

I hope that you continue working on future campaigns like this! An imperial version would be really cool. I have often tried to think of a way include rules or narrative that would allow a rebel player to capture a small imperial ship which might be an interesting campaign plot as well. Thanks for the hard work and creativity that you have put into this campaign and I hope you keep it up in the future!

Thanks @Redleg101 !

I am thinking of working on an Imperial counterpart before the year is out. I'll post it up when I'm happy with where it's headed. It'll have a lot of differences in story line and scenarios to this one, but will keep the general feel of 'starting out small and building up'. This is trickier to pull off with the Empire then with the Rebellion, but I've got some ideas.

Your idea of capturing a ship has hit a spark with me. Fortunately, the old X-Wing/TIE fighter computer games features numerous ideas to blatantly steal for how to pull this off.

On 4/30/2020 at 8:26 PM, Blail Blerg said:

This was an exemplar night time read. I've been meaning to do a campaign like this! for the same reasons, to teach people who would otherwise not learn to play a game like this how to do so, very creatively too.

Was a wonderful achievement.

---

As someone who built simple, non-overly-ruled campaigns for Xwing, I will say that campaign/1-player scenarios are tricky to balance and do require as you found, a game or two of plain testing. Your most inspiring innovation was definitely: don't add more to the story than is needed.

Thanks @Blail Blerg !

On 4/30/2020 at 8:26 PM, Blail Blerg said:

My personal preferences are to avoid letting things drag on for too long. I understand also that in this campaign, the enemy ships are meant to follow a certain script, which is helpful for story. I would probably try not to have as many go on indefinitely. I find also that players can sometimes lose interest or focus.

I hear you on this one. Actually, one of my attempts at balancing the 7th chapter (it was initially too hard) was to increase the size of the board to 6'x3'. But this ran the risk of letting the game run on for 50+ turns as the player took advantage of the very limited range of the empire ships to simply fly in, do some damage, then fly out, repair, rinse and repeat. Which would have been boring, to say the least.

You'll find that most of the chapters that have unlimited turns also have a natural - and often very visual- clock to them. For example:

Chapter 2) The VCX's can't afford to sit around. So they're either getting shot to pieces or running for the table edge.

Chapters 4, 5 and 9) The Icon acts as a natural clock. It has the added bonus of causing the tension to increase as the game progresses.

Chapter 7 ) This one relies on hoping the player has a natural desire to grab the objectives as quick as possible. Once their ships are in token grabbing range the damage they should be receiving will be incentive enough to grab what they can and get out as fast as possible. The thing that will keep them at the table is the tension of damage control vs trying to get as many tokens as possible.

Chapter 6) This one can go wrong. It didn't when we played it (it went for about 5 or 6 turns). As a GM you'll want to set up to make sure that you can take down both stations if you need to, which will end the game before it drags on too long.

Chapter 8 ) This relies on the player having a natural desire to clear the table as quick as possible. It doesn't hurt that they are out gunned and more reinforcements are 'on their way'. Sure, the last few turn will probably be not much more than the player making the final distance to the finish line. But you can play those quickly. And if you build the story right it'll feel more like a triumphant dash to freedom.

The bigger problem I have is that it feels like the campaign itself might drag on a bit too long and players will lose interest there. I'm not quite sure what to do about it. Maybe take out chapters 6 and/or 8?

On 4/30/2020 at 8:26 PM, Blail Blerg said:

If you don't mind, I may try and add a campaign as maybe a side-story or an optional part of your story. Writing up a universe of campaigns that somewhat tie together would be a great community resource for the game. And that's one thing I love about Armada models: they're so different in size and so detailed, you can't help but let your imagination wander beyond deathmatches.

Sure. I'd be interested to see what you come up with. Keep me in the loop.

For the record, I'm also just about to go back and rework this campaign. I won't change any of the substance of it, just tidy up its formatting and add the odd rule that I missed.

15 hours ago, Flengin said:

For the record, I'm also just about to go back and rework this campaign. I won't change any of the substance of it, just tidy up its formatting and add the odd rule that I missed.

It’s great.

btw these are great reads. In case you want to write some excess of story just for reading sake.

I am going to necro this thread here at the end of the forum's time, because the Campaign that @Flengin put together is a great tool to teach young kids how to play Armada in a well constructed SW story, it deserves recognition one last time.

Thanks @Cap116 ! I'm really touched by this ❤️

I'm going to go through and make a few changes in the next few days. Mostly just formatting stuff but now that I'm playing through with my older son I've discovered that one of the scenarios is actually way too hard 😝 (apparently I played it to lose against my first son)

I'll repost it at the end of this thread rather than change what's already written, so collecting it should be a bit easier.

I'm also going to post it on the Facebook Armada page for anyone that's interested.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Flengin

15 hours ago, Flengin said:

Thanks @Cap116 ! I'm really touched by this ❤️

I'm going to go through and make a few changes in the next few days. Mostly just formatting stuff but now that I'm playing through with my older son I've discovered that one of the scenarios is actually way too hard 😝 (apparently I played it to lose against my first son)

I'll repost it at the end of this thread rather than change what's already written, so collecting it should be a bit easier.

I'm also going to post it on the Facebook Armada page for anyone that's interested.

Since the FFG forums are going away, could you consider copying the completed campaign to Board Game Geek as well? Be a shame to see the work lost when the forums die.

Please note that due to the nature of this forums, no pictures have come through. I could add them, but it'll take longer than is worth it given the forum's imminent demise. If you want a copy that has pictures then DM me and I'll email you a pdf.

The Bicsay Campaign

A narrative campaign for Star Wars: Armada

Version 1.2

Last updated 14th January 2021.

© D J Huxley

The premise

Imagine you were living in the Star Wars universe during the Galactic Civil War on a planet in the rim, that is ruled by the Empire.

And you discovered a secret underground base.

Nobody else knows about this base. You’re the only one.

Exploration of the base reveals:

- It’s pristine. It was evidently constructed for use, but never used. It has been maintained by maintenance droids.

- It is well stocked for all of its uses.

- It has no exterior shields or exterior weapon emplacements. It survives on stealth alone.

- It has a mess hall, stocked kitchen/food stores, communications array, sensor array and sleeping quarters.

- It has a stocked armoury, but only with personal weapons and explosives.

- It has nothing to indicate who built it or why. No insignia. No records on its computers. Excpet…….

- …..it has an underground hanger. And 13 ships. And 12 of them do give away who built the place. X-Wings. While many of the Rebel Alliance ships are taken from wherever the Alliance can get them, X-Wings are the first exception, used almost exclusively by the Alliance alone. The other ship is a CR90. All of them are brand shiny new.

- Stocks and ability to rearm, repair, restock and refuel all of the ships.

That’s the premise for this campaign. We’re going to come back and explore this some more in a bit. But first, let me do proper greetings and an introduction/explanation of this campaign.

Welcome everyone!!!!

This is my very own homebrewed story-based campaign for Star Wars: Armada.

Before we get into it, I thought it would be good to cover what this campaign actually is, who it is for, as well as a bit about how it came to be.

What is this campaign? A general overview.

This campaign is not like a typical game of ‘tournament’ Armada. Nor is it even like the two official campaigns released to date (the Correlian Conflict and Rebellion in the Rim).

It’s much closer in feel to a computer game or a one player, pencil and paper, role playing game.

While it does take two people to play it, only one of these people is ‘The Player’. The other person is the Games Master (GM for short).

This campaign is organised into a number of ‘chapters’. Each chapter begins with some story, followed by the scenario to be played, and ends with some more story.

The Player experiences this Campaign the way they would read a book or the way they’d play a computer game. That is, they play through it sequentially, never quite sure of what’s going to happen next, but enjoying things as they unfold and doing their best to overcome each chapter as they reach it.

The GM, on the other hand, knows everything. They’ll have already read through this entire document and it’s through the GM that The Player experiences the campaign. The GM will take them through the story and will set up and explain each of the scenarios to The Player.

It’s important to note here that while the GM controls all of The Player’s opponents in the scenarios, the GM themself is not The Player’s opponent. Rather, the GM simply controls everything that The Player does not (which will sometimes include The Player’s allies). The Player is trying to beat the campaign (or the Empire, if you’re really getting into the story side of things). They are not trying to beat the GM.

This is important as it allows you to play the campaign together, rather than against each other (which is really important to some people).

Who is this campaign for?

First up, this type of campaign is not for everyone. I’m going to freely acknowledge that here.

People who are more likely to enjoy this campaign are:

- People who want to play asymmetrical, thematic battles. Others might disagree with me here, but I think that this campaign delivers this in spades.

- People who want to mix a bit of role playing with their Armada. How you present the story in this campaign is up to you. So, it could easily lean towards being a roleplay style. As a fan of the BBC’s Hornblower series, I love to imagine I’m a captain on the bridge of a Star Wars capital ship, yelling orders at my crew as the game progresses. You can too!

- People who want to spend some time getting back to playing really basic Armada. This campaign doesn’t use much in the way of upgrades or diversity of squadrons. The scenarios are as simple as I could keep them, while still giving great depth. Where complexity does arise, I’ve tried to put it on the shoulders of the GM rather than The Player. If you long for those early days many of us played where it was just a handful of ships and squadrons, enjoying the sublime beauty of the ruleset that is Star Wars: Armada, then this is for you.

- People who enjoy solving puzzles in an Armada format. With very limited resources at The Player’s disposal, they must figure out how to command their ships and squadrons to achieve objectives that are a little different to what we’re all used to. Some scenarios are harder, some are fairly easy. Regardless, if you’re the sort of person who loves to sit down and try and think your way through a challenge, then this is for you.

- Finally, for people who aren’t yet ready for full blown Armada. This campaign gives them a way to get their feet wet, without getting overwhelmed in the process. Which leads me to my next section.

How this campaign came to be.

In 2019, my then 6-year-old started playing Armada with me. He had a good enough grasp of enough of the game concepts to make it enjoyable for both of us in casual games, but not enough to really play in any serious way (i.e. playing to try and beat me).

Things he didn’t have a handle on:

- List building

- Upgrades in general

- Most defence token effects

- Forward thinking/planning

- Obstacle effects

- Half the commands (he had navigate down pat)

- All of the squadron keywords

- Pretty much every part of the attack step

- Objectives

- etc.

Which sounds like he couldn’t play the game at all. But this wasn’t true. He actually had a good grasp of most parts of movement and enough knowledge of the rest of the game to play it on reminders. In short, he needed me to tell him what his options were (and, sometimes, what he needed to do) but he was quite capable of carrying them out himself.

Of course, this meant that trying to play a game where we were genuinely using all of our cunning and ability to beat each other to stardust wasn’t going to happen for a little while (though he was learning quite fast).

So, I figured that in order to keep both of us engaged and enjoying the experience in the meantime I was going about the whole thing in the wrong way.

Rather than try and play standard ‘tournament style’ games, what we should be doing is playing a story driven campaign. I would set up the campaign and control all the NPC’s (every ship/squadron that wasn’t his). This way it would feel more like we were playing together, rather than against one another. It would allow us to start simple (list wise) and stay simple while keeping everything fresh and exciting each game. In turn, this would later give him an appreciation for the more powerful elements available to him in list building (upgrades, large ships and ace squadrons) when we did (re)start playing standard Armada, by giving him a baseline to measure against. Plus, stories like this do wonders in getting people attached to their ships.

We started playing in late 2019. It is now very early 2021 and he hasn’t finished yet. There are two main reasons for this. First, because we would often take a break for a few weeks or even months at a time. Second, because he will get stuck on some of the harder chapters.

Which is fine as it has allowed him to get a grasp of the game in one of the best ways possible. By having fun failing.

Many, many times.

Now, given that….

Wait…

Are you The Player or the GM?

Players stop reading here!!! GMs only past this point!!!

No, seriously, if you’re someone who would really love to play this campaign rather than host it, then I advise you to stop reading here. This campaign has many twists and turns and it’s far better to discover them while playing instead of just reading through them here. Go and find a willing victim to play the part of GM, then enjoy the ride.

Right. Have all The Players gone?

Good.

Two things before we get started.

First, one of the principles that I will keep coming back to again and again is to avoid spoilers for your Player. Spoilers come in all shapes and sizes, so I’m going to be pointing them out as often as I can.

Ok, if you’re playing with an adult, not much of what is in this campaign is going to ‘surprise’ them. What I’m advocating for here is that you avoid spoilers so as to allow the story to unfold at its own pace. This’ll add a lot more tension and end up being way more fun! 😊

Second, appendix A (at the end of this document) includes a list of all the components you’ll need to play this campaign.

And…

Wait for it….

Here’s my first spoiler warning. Don’t let The Player know what’s in that list. It will give them a very, very good idea of what to expect in the rest of the campaign.

So, all good now? Let’s get on with things!

Background

Every good story driven campaign has a story.

The question is, how much.

The answer for this one is: not much.

Or, more precisely, only as much as The Player wants.

When I played with my son, I led the way and made sure that we hit all the necessary plot points to make the story work. But beyond that, I let his curiosity dictate how much story we went into. If he wasn’t interested in it, then it didn’t matter how many hours it had taken me to come up with it, it didn’t get a mention.

For you guys, if you’ve got a full-on role player who wants to explore every aspect of the story that they can and you’ve got the chops for that sort of thing, then I say go for it. I’ve tried to include as much of the expanded story as I can, though you’ll obviously have to make up a lot more to fill things out.

If you’ve got a player who… well, let’s put it this way. I’ve included a short backstory here, but some players will need only the knowledge that they’re a Rebel with a secret base fighting to free their planet from the Empire and they’re ready to jump to the action RIGHT NOW!

In which case, go for it! Your player doesn’t need any more story than that to enjoy themselves.

So…background story.

Bicsay. Located in the rim, a quiet planet in a quiet subsector.

Temperate, with a population of roughly 2 billion (98% human), Bicsay is self-sufficient and doesn’t generally have much to do with the outside universe.

While the vast majority of Bicsay’s population has never been off world, the one glaring exception to this is the small number of employees and contractors to Geonsotec, the lone mega corporation of the planet. Geonsotec’s main source of revenue is interplanetary trade and over 90% of the meagre number of vessels arriving at Bicsay do so flying Geonsotec’s colours.

During the Clone Wars, Bicsay was basically ignored by both sides as holding little-to-no strategic value.

When the Republic transitioned to the Galactic Empire, new governors were installed and new taxes put in place, but nothing much more than that.

The new governors didn’t demand much and the new taxes were not truly a burden.

Slowly, quietly, the new Imperial bureaucracy crept in, taking control. And without ever truly noticing, the people of Bicsay became the people of the Empire.

Which was perfectly fine with them…

For a while…

It began, as it usually does, with the non-humans.

They began to disappear.

No one knew why or how or where.

Little did the population know, but the Empire had started it program of non-human subjugation that it was enacting on thousands of other planets throughout the known galaxy.

Because of how quietly this program was run, at first it wasn’t really a matter of much public concern. It was only a few non-humans, and their stories never made it into the public news feeds. So, no one at first saw any kind of pattern forming.

The police, now firmly an arm of the Imperial government, “investigated” these disappearances of course. But the investigations almost never turned up anything.

None of the disappearances were ever seen or heard from again.

As time went on, the rate of disappearances remained steady, and soon frantic family and friends started to pick up the threads of the pattern.

Non-humans, slowly but steadily, were disappearing. And the police would almost never turn up anything.

Non-humans went again to the police demanding answers. But none were forthcoming.

When they went to the public, seeking support, they were mostly ignored.

However, as the months and years passed and the disappearances continued, they were harder to ignore. Humans may not have been losing family, but they were losing friends.

Slowly, humans began to join the ranks of those seeking lost loved ones. Small groups were formed and the intensity of questioning towards the police was ramped up.

Still no answers were coming from the police, so demands of answers turned to demands to see the reports of the investigations. This was flatly denied.

And as non-human numbers continued to dwindle at a steady rate, the first insidious seeds of thought were planted that maybe the police weren’t giving any answers because they weren’t doing any investigating.

From a thought like that grew a movement.

Isolated groups began talking to one another and within a matter of weeks had coalesced into a determined organisation several hundred strong.

Having no other plan and nobody else to go to for answers, this new organisation planed and staged a protest outside the central government installation, demanding action and accountability from the authorities.

The Empire reacted by showing its true colours.

They broke up the protest. Arrested every protestor they could catch. And declared all such organisations to be unlawful.

Everyone who was arrested that day, both non-human and human, were never heard from again.

Friends and family pleaded for information about them, but all requests were denied.

However, this protest and the Empire’s response had an unintended effect.

It brought the disappearances to public knowledge and word of them, as well as the Imperial response to them, spread like wildfire through the population.

Before this, the population had dutifully accepted the rule of the Empire. Now the usually isolated people of Bicsay began to see the Empire as the ‘other’, the ‘outsider’ from far away.

Everyone was talking, though carefully, and almost everyone seemed to have a theory as to what was going on.

Almost all theories pointed at the Empire as having kidnapped those who’d disappeared. From there the theories split. There was talk of disintegrations, talk of them being used as experimental subjects, talk of them being sent off planet to some slave labour camp and the like.

This near universal accusation against the Empire seemed only to be confirmed over the next few weeks as others who had been at the protest continued to disappear. Mostly this was without a trace. But occasionally there was the whisper of the person last being seen being bundled into an unmarked government vehicle.

Though now illegal, the organisation that had staged the protest continued to meet in secret and discuss what their next move was. They never really had much of a chance to make their next move, however. One by one, their secret meeting places were raided, arrests made, and more people were ‘disappeared’.

One step at a time, the organisation was dispersed, scattered, arrested and shutdown until it simply ceased to function. Those few who managed to escape in the end lay as low as they could, some going into outright hiding.

But this was not all. In the wider population, anyone who had been associated with anyone known to be part of the organisation was arrested and heavily interrogated. Most were released again, but many were not.

The public sentiment had heavily turned against the Empire, but the greatest shocks were still to hit them.

As public conversation turned to dissatisfaction, the Empire made its ultimate move.

Over the next month, hundreds of arrests were made. But this time it wasn’t just protestors, or people seeking answers. Now it started to be anyone who voiced any sort of discontent with the Empire at all, even in seemingly private conversations.

Though the reality was far different (their actual ability to monitor the citizens of Bicsay was vastly under resourced), the Empire managed to use the public surveillance systems, undercover agents, snitches and their tiny supply of patrol droids to completely pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Bicsay and succeed in convincing them that the Empire had eyes and ears everywhere, that nowhere was safe, and nothing should ever be spoken against it, no matter how small.

In the course of that month, the Empire had managed to completely change the climate of the population. The hot anger of the Bicsay people had turned to cold fear. The mutterings and seditious talk ceased. And no one spoke about the disappearances at all, for fear that they would be next.

Well…

Almost no one…

A small core of resistance had survived. And despite all the odds their numbers were growing. They later became known as the first Bicsay rebellion.

It should be noted here that these have nothing to do with the Rebel Alliance, the army that would eventually triumph over the Empire. Though it indeed existed and was active at this point, and many of the citizens of Bicsay had heard somewhat of its exploits, it had had little-to-nothing to do with sleepy Bicsay.

Suffice to say that this Bicsay rebellion was as inexperienced, ill equipped and unprepared as it was passionate about its cause.

Now, some geography.

Bicsay is ruled from a central Imperial Governor’s office, located in the planetary capital city.

As well as this, there are 6 other planetary garrisons located around Bicsay’s globe. Each garrison is staffed and also includes about forty soldiers, three AT-STs, a number of heavy weapon emplacements, an armoury and half a dozen transports (unarmed but capable of atmospheric flight).

In desperate need of munitions, it was against such a garrison that the first Bicsay rebellion launched its initial attack.

The raid against the garrison was well planned and caught the Imperial forces by surprise. Rebels broke into the armoury and stole copious amounts of weapons and explosives.

However, the rebels’ shambles of a retreat plan and underestimating the true strength of Imperial soldiers was what undid them.

Though suffering heavy losses initially, the garrison managed to rally. The resulting counterattack destroyed the first rebellion and left less than a dozen of those rebels alive.

It would be twelve full months before the second Bicsay rebellion.

The survivors from the first rebellion learned their lesson well. If they were going to attack, they needed somewhere that they knew was safe to retreat to.

In the end they settled on the idea of a fort. Built in secret, it was half subterranean, heavily armoured (by civilian standards), with as much ingenuity as they could put into its defences. The only thing it lacked was real weaponry.

The second Bicsay rebellion’s initial attack was much more successful than the first. Raiding weapons, supplies, explosives and (best of all) heavy weapons that could be mounted and used in defence of their fort, the rebels were in high spirits, almost looking forward to the coming counterattack by the Empire.

Once again, it was the simple naivete of the rebels of Bicsay that was their undoing.

Never having been a star-faring people and none of the rebels ever having been off world, they never thought to look up. The idea of an Imperial Navy was completely foreign to them.

They had no weapons or defences pointed skywards.

So, in the end there was no second battle.

A day after the raid, two TIE fighters descended through Bicsay’s atmosphere. Twelve minutes later there were no survivors left from the second Bicsay rebellion. The fort had been reduced to molten slag and left as a testament to what happens to rebels.

And it worked.

No one dared to stand up to the Empire after that. No one dared to even say a thing against them.

That is…

Until one day….

And that’s our background.

Let us now return to our premise, for that is where our story really begins.

Revisiting the premise

Important notes included

Imagine you were living in the Star Wars universe during the Galactic Civil War, on Bicsay.

And you discovered a secret underground base.

Nobody else knows about this base. You’re the only one.

At this point, we can let The Player’s imagination dictate the course of things a little. ‘What does the base have? How is it accessed? How did you find it?’

The short of it is that The Player has some license to imagine what the base is like, but not complete license.

To reiterate and expand on what was above, the following is set:

- It’s pristine. It was evidently constructed for use, but never used. It has been maintained by maintenance droids.

- It is well stocked for all of its uses.

- It has no exterior shields or exterior weapon emplacements. It survives on stealth alone.

- It has a mess hall, stocked kitchen/food stores, communications array, sensor array, some version of a central command room and sleeping quarters.

- It has a stocked armoury, but only with personal weapons and explosives.

- It has nothing to indicate who built it or why. No insignia. No records on its computers. Except for the X-Wings, of course.

- The bases’ generators are at 99%. But they are of a type that could run at full output for 2 years before being depleted. The base, however, won’t require them to be used at above 10% output at any given time and refuelling them is cheap and easy. Also, they’ve only been running on standby mode until The Player arrives, so this gives no clues as to how long the base has been there.

- It has an underground hanger with 13 ships. 12 X-Wings and a CR90. All of them are brand shiny new. The hanger has no space for any more ships than these.

- Stocks and ability to rearm, repair, restock and refuel all of the ships.

- The base isn’t big. But (obviously) isn’t tiny either. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that it’s ‘the minimum needed to operate the 13 ships plus a little bit extra’.

- It will be situated far enough from civilisation to so as to allow the ships to launch without being observed.

So, let The Player use their imagination, but don’t let them go overboard. For example, how does the hanger launch the ships while remaining hidden? Does the hanger entrance raise above ground during launch/landing? Is there a hologram disguising the hanger entrance? (we ended up going for the old ‘hanger entrance behind the waterfall’ setup) Or, what kind of internal defences are there? Are there rec rooms? A med bay? Etc.

At this point, I’d like to make a plug for using visuals in your campaign. Some people find pictures in this sort of thing very helpful. Others will not be able to bond at all without something to look at.

For us, we drew some basic maps (included in chapters 1 and 3), which we used any time my Player went anywhere. The visual reinforcement gave him a much better sense of where he was and where things were happening.

We would also use Uncle Google to dredge us up some nice pictures, whenever relevant. As Armada is not very good with scale (it helps if you can get your hands on some 1/7000 models from Mel’s Miniatures on Shapeways), this was particularly helpful in setting the scene. For instance, it quickly became apparent that my son had no idea of the true size of a CR90, thinking it was only a little bigger than an X-Wing. So, we found the picture from the original Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections book (we later acquired the book itself) and also used real world examples for how big the ships are (a CR90 is about twice the length of our driveway, while a Victory class Star Destroyer is about the distance across our valley).

On that note, let me encourage you to draw a picture of The Player’s base. Or, if you have the skills, make a scale model of it. Feel free to go and play the original X-Com (I haven’t played the more recent versions of it) and play a few base defence missions to get a feel for underground bases. Or get one of the Star Wars cut away books for pictures of Echo base and Base one for inspiration.

Even though The Player’s base itself isn’t a setting of any of the action, this sort of thing helps them feel some ownership.

Here’s the ones we used in our two campaigns.

Basic pictures. But they do the job. We used them whenever my Player would launch/land to help ground him in the story a bit more.

The bottom line is, do what you can to get them attached to their base and ships.

Or, you know, skip all of these suggestions if you find they aren’t working for you at all.

One other thing about the base. There is another curious clue that it offers as to its origins. The base is lockable but isn’t locked. Nor are any of the ships. When The Player enters the CR90, it starts to come online. Upon entering the bridge, the ships systems boot up, immediately designates The Player as its captain and offer to run tutorials/simulations designed to teach the officers/crew how to run ship. It even has a basic combat simulator so that the captain can practise tactics against a small selection of ships.

Similarly, the base is set up so that training simulations can be run from the cockpits of the X-wings.

The whole situation gives the feeling that someone built this base, intending to use it, but then had to abandon it and knew that they wouldn’t be coming back. So instead they took a gamble that anyone who isn’t the Empire who stumbled upon it would inevitably use it to fight against the Empire.

Now, before we go on, there are two things we have to cover. The first is the real significance of this whole premise. To put it another way, why is this base so important?

The answer is that it has the two things that are needed in order to fight the Empire in any real way:

1) Ships. With hyperdrives. While there is something to be said for planet side resistance, without ships the ability to fight the Empire is so limited as to be laughable. In short, ground resistance is only really effective when it’s assisted by, or in assistance of, ship action. The second Bicsay rebellion proved this. Without air cover, or any way to strike at the source of the Imperial air power, such a rebellion is doomed from the start. With ships equipped with hyperdrives, The Player has the ability to strike at targets that were previously untouchable.

2) Secrecy. The Empire is so powerful that if you give it the opportunity to hunt down The Player’s fleet, it’ll be only a matter of time till it succeeds. Unless, of course, The Player has somewhere safe to retreat to. As there’s nowhere fortified enough to withstand the Imperial navy, the only other option is secrecy. While deep space is an option, it’s extremely limited. Especially for 12 poor X-Wing pilots with only a CR90 to dock to.

So, the short of it is that the ability to strike at the Empire that this secret base provides is too good to pass up.

Now this brings us to the Two Great Rules that you must inform The Player that they must play this campaign by. To show how important it is that you impress these upon your player, I’m going to give them their own heading.

The Two Great Rules

They are:

1) The Player must never allow the Empire to discover where their base is. Otherwise, the Empire will come and destroy it and The Player won’t be able to stop the Empire from doing so. And if that happens the campaign will be over. Actually, what The Player doesn’t know is that this campaign provides no way for them to (accidentally (See the final chapter)) let the Empire discover their base. But this ‘rule’ sets the feel for the campaign, that they are playing guerrilla warfare against a vastly superior opponent.

2) They must never lose their flagship. Because they are on it. And if they die, then they can’t fight the Empire anymore.

Final notes on the premise

It should also be noted here that just because The Player is becoming a rebel, using Alliance material, doesn’t mean that they are part of the Rebel Alliance, have any contact with them, would know where to find them or how to get into contact with them. The Player is on their own. Nobody will come to help them or rescue them.

Final note. The Player has to name their CR90. The do not get a choice, they must do this.

My son named his Commander Boom

He was 6.

And, admittedly, the name did kinda grow on me.

But just as I came to like it (halfway through our campaign), he decided he didn’t like the name and changed it to Swift Command , which is a play on his regular codename.

Chapter structure

GMs EYES ONLY!!!! Even just knowing the following information could spoil many a surprise for The Player!

There are 9 chapters in this campaign. But don’t let The Player know this. Tell them there are about a dozen chapters so that they know roughly how long they can expect to be playing this campaign for while still leaving a bit of uncertainty. This will help them to look to the story for its natural conclusion rather than an arbitrary number (ie. “We feel like this campaign must be close to finishing because we’re well and truly on the way to victory!” rather than “This campaign is almost over because we’re on chapter 8.”)

Each chapter is divided up into a number of sections.

Intro story blurb. Each chapter will have the story that leads into the scenario. The blurb here is general and is to set the scene. Though you can if you want to, the blurbs are not designed to be straight up read to The Player and I’d encourage you to put them in your own words instead.

Fleet lists. Exactly as you expect, this tells you what models you and The Player will be setting up/deploying at the start of the scenario.

It does not include any ships and squadrons that will enter the battle after initial setup. These will be detailed in the ‘Scenario special rules’ section (see below).

The Player will always control the Rebel fleet in this section, unless the scenario rules state otherwise.

Setup and deployment. This section details any special rules the scenario uses during setup. It can be read to The Player before deployment.

If a standard setup rule is not overridden in this section, assume that it still stands. For example, if a scenario doesn’t dictate that ships/squadrons must be setup in a particular way, then assume the GM and The Player must take it in turns to deploy either one ship in the appropriate deployment zone or 2 squadrons within distance 2 of a friendly ship, just like in standard games.

In most chapters I’ve included a setup diagram to give added clarity.

Stated objective. This section is the objective as The Player perceives it to be and should be read out before deployment.

It is not a rule, as such, and has no impact upon the game. ‘Achieving’ it will not always cause the scenario to end, nor is it always a requirement that The Player achieve it in order to progress to the next chapter (though don’t let The Player know any of this!!!).

Scenario special rules. This section will detail all the additional rules for the scenario.

It will include things like how long the scenario will go for, what the conditions for passing the chapter are (usually just survival), what ongoing effects the outcome of this chapter might have, and all the special rules required to run the scenario.

Please note: No scenario in this campaign automatically ends at the end of 6 turns or if one player has no ships in the play area, unless it is specifically noted in this section. Many of the scenarios will specify that they go for an indefinite number of turns. But don’t let this scare you. Most scenarios will have fairly simple fleets, so it won’t be hard to get 15+ turns into an hour of gameplay. Also, most scenarios will have elements that will act as a sort of natural clock that prevent the game from going on for very long.

Some chapters will have an additional subsection in their Scenario special rules , titled Hidden rules . While you are free to read most of the scenario rules to The Player, rules in the Hidden rules section are to be kept a strict secret. You aren’t even to reveal that there are rules you’re keeping from The Player. They are only to be revealed when you use them.

Chapter story conclusion. This section gives the story detailing the aftermath of the scenario and usually has some sort of cliff-hanger or story hook to help The Player look forward to the next chapter.

Notes. These are extra notes for the GM which are meant to clarify how the scenario is supposed to be played.

Story notes. These are all the extra story elements.

Note that just because a story element is included in this section doesn’t mean that there is a way for The Player to ever discover it. Some of these elements have been included solely for completeness of worldbuilding and for the GMs entertainment. So, use some discretion and don’t tell The Player anything that they couldn’t find out in the campaign itself. Leaving a bit of mystery is much better storytelling than just spilling every last detail. Once the campaign is over, feel free to answer any lingering questions they have.

Also, note that players will often ask for things that they either couldn’t know, aren’t part of this campaign or are a part of the campaign that they aren’t up to yet. See Appendix B at the end of this document for helpful suggestions on how to answer such questions.

Three final notes

First) I make no apologies for all the ways that the old X-Wing and TIE fighter computer games have influenced some of the chapters of this campaign. For any of you who used to enjoy those games, feel free to give a shout out if any of these scenarios hit you with some nostalgia.

Second) One of the conventions of the old X-Wing and TIE fighter computer games was that as soon as you’d completed your primary mission objectives, the game would suddenly stop whatever music track it was on and blast you with the Star Wars opening song (Which was just as well, because in some missions it was pretty hard to tell when you’d completed them otherwise). This was the signal that it was safe to make the jump to hyperspace without failing your mission in the process. And in the middle of a tense battle, it was always a strange mix of relief with excited rush to hear that music announcing your victory and calling you to get out of there before you could be pounded to dust.

It’s a tradition I’ve kept in in my running of this campaign. If it looks like my Player is heading towards victory, I get out my phone and load up the song ready to play for the moment when victory is achieved.

Last) As the GM, don’t go easy on your player. While some scenarios are harder than others, all of them should be completable by the Player no matter how hard and well you fly. So give it everything you’ve got. Then you can legitimately celebrate alongside your Player when they triumph.

And don’t forget to have fun!!

Let’s get started.

Chapter 1 - Hide and Seek

The Player is about to take their CR90 out on their first major exploration of their solar system.

As they explore the solar system, they have run into 2 things. An asteroid field, that they had decided to take a closer look at. And a Victory class Star destroyer, named ‘ Icon’, which has detected them and is closing in, demanding that they power down and prepare to be boarded .

There is a plan for survival, but it’s risky. Escape into the asteroid field. Use the CR90’s superior speed and manoeuvrability to dodge the VSD (and asteroids!), let the field hide them from the VSD’s sensors and escape out of it, back to their base (and safety)!

It’s time to run!

Fleet lists:

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons (optional)

Imperial fleet

- Victory I-class Star Destroyer

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x3’.

Place obstacles as normal, removing the station and adding the extra set of asteroids and both dust clouds from the Corellian Conflict or Rebellion in the Rim campaign box (this should total 10 obstacles). Place obstacles anywhere in the play area, beyond distance 2 of the edges of the play area and beyond distance 2 of each other.

Deployment

Rather than the fleets having an edge, choose one corner to be the Rebel fleet corner and one of the adjacent (not opposite) corners to be the Imperial fleet corner.

Deploy as usual. But, deployment zones are within distance 1-3 of that fleet’s corner. Ships may not be deployed overlapping obstacles.

Stated Objective: The objective is to survive for 6 complete turns.

Scenario special rules:

The game lasts 6 turns.

If the CR90 is still alive at the end of the 6 ^th turn, The Player wins.

Any other outcome is a loss and the scenario will have to be replayed until a win is achieved.

Take note of any X-Wing squadrons that are destroyed in this scenario as they won’t be available for the next chapter.

Chapter story conclusion

Your ship successfully escapes.

First into the asteroid field.

Then, later, when the Icon has well and truly lost you, back home to your base.

Except…

…while you were in the field, your ship’s sensors picked up something.

Something that isn’t normally in an asteroid field.

Your ship doesn’t know what it is or even where it is, but it picked up enough data to figure it out.

Once it finishes processing that data, that is.

Pentiums.

You should have bought a Mac.

Oh well...

5 more hours.

Then it’ll have your answer.

Notes.

Take this opportunity to further set the tone of the campaign. In this case they are being hunted, dancing with life-or-death danger, so play into that a little bit.

Remember that even though you are not The Player’s opponent, you should still play the Empire to win. About the only way there is any chance of the Icon being destroyed is if it repeatedly hits obstacles, so it’s best to avoid this. Besides this, play cat and mouse and do your level best to hunt the CR90.

This scenario should not be particularly hard for The Player to win, unless they make some critical mistakes. As this will provide some excellent learning opportunities, ruthlessly punish them for any such mistakes.

If they repeatedly lose this scenario then I suggest you sit them down and take them through the following 2 exercises (depending on what issue they’re having).

Threat zones.

Sit your player down and tell them you are going to be talking about threat zones. Threat zones are how likely your ship is to take critical damage based on where it is on the table relative to enemy ships.

Get them to take a look at the VSD’s front firing arc and ask them how strong it looks.

Place the CR90 in the VSD’s front arc at long range, then go through the motions of performing an attack, including using defence tokens (though it’s probably best not to use the evade discard rule in this exercise). Do this 10 or so times. Draw attention to the pattern that most of the time the CR90 suffers little or no damage and, even in the worst case, damage never hits its hull.

Next, repeat this exercise at medium range. Notice the difference. It’s more painful on average, but not by much.

Finally, repeat at close range. While under the new 1.5 rules this will be far less punishing than it was, they should hopefully still get the point that being at close range of its front arc is kind of a death wish.

Next, repeat the exercise far more quickly for its side and rear arcs.

The point that should be communicated through this is that the one place on the table that you want to avoid at all costs is close range of the VSD’s front arc (the only place worse is close range of its front and side arcs at the same time).

You can then repeat this exercise, if you want, with the CR90 as the attacker. This’ll demonstrate that, while it is somewhat weaker at long range, the CR90’s attack power is identical at close and medium range. As such, the CR90 has no business being within close range of the VSD at all if it can help it.

Navigate Command.

Place the CR90 on the table and set its speed to 4. Notch the straight manoeuvre tool into it.

Then, without moving the CR90, make two clicks at the fourth joint. Note to The Player that while the direction of the ship has changed, its position is virtually identical.

Next, make one click at the first joint. Note to The Player how one click at the first joint makes a massive difference in the ship’s final position.

Note to The Player that a CR90 doesn’t have a click at the first joint at speeds 3 and 4, unless they are using a navigate command.

Finally, to bring the importance of all this home, combine this with the previous exercise by placing the VSD on the table in such a way that a straight manoeuvre will bring the CR90 into close range of the VSD’s front arc but a single click at the first joint will allow them to avoid it.

There’s also something to be said for taking the time to teach The Player the dodge where you approach an enemy at speed 2, then when you are close enough, using a navigate dial plus token to speed up to speed 4 and skip past them.

Story notes :

Ok, so bridging the gap between the background/premise and this chapter.

The Player will need crew and pilots to fly their ships, which will come from other Bicsay citizens. How does The Player find them (It’s not a very important question so feel free to just ignore it if that works for you)? Are they family, friends, remnants of the organisation, etc? Feel free to come up with some sort of story between you, but it’s best to avoid anything that gives the pilots/crew ties to either the Rebel Alliance or the Imperial Navy as that’ll tread on the toes of later story elements. Anyone who does join will need to remain on base. No going home for them. We can’t have anyone accidentally giving away the location of the base.

It takes over two months to properly train the pilots/crew. That’s before they even take their first real flight.

The first flight in the CR90 is simple. Take off. Fly up above the atmosphere. Then return to base. Simple. And entirely exhilarating.

The second flight is quite a bit longer. A ten-hour exploration of the Bicsay system.

While the CR90/X-Wings/base has basic hyperlane/system maps, it lacks any information about each system. This even includes what planets are in each system.

So, time to explore Their native system!

At this point The Player has an option. Do they want to take their X-Wings along with them? If no, then they won’t be available during this chapter (which won’t make an ounce of difference to the outcome).

Things that The Player will find:

- 2 geostationary space stations on opposite sides of Bicsay, as well as two more positioned close together at the entry/exit to the Bicsay hyperlane. These are all owned by Geonsotec, are unarmed and are used in the conducting of their interplanetary trade business. The Player avoids getting too close to these. Best not be spotted yet.

- The occasional freighter moving between the hyperlane and Bicsay. Once again, didn’t get too close.

- Two other planets, Orh’neon and Opia. Opia is a gas giant. Orh’neon is a lifeless ball of dust. Neither is inhabited in any way.

- An asteroid field on the far reaches of the system.

Yes, it’s a very basic map. It still did the job of grounding my players in the game.

The Player decided to explore the edges of the asteroid field, skimming in and out of the edges of it.

It was during one of these skims this that The Player runs into the Icon . Because of all the interference from flying in amongst the asteroids, The Player didn’t detect the Icon until they ‘skimmed’ out of the asteroid field and found themselves staring down an Imperial ship at a range far closer than they would like.

Other options they can’t take:

- The Player can’t hyperspace out as their ship is too close to the asteroids.

- They can’t turn around and outpace the VSD. It’s too close and will catch them as they come about.

- They won’t be able to pass themselves off as civilians. Even if they didn’t bring their X-Wings on this mission, the VSD is requesting to board them for inspection. As they have no legal papers for running a ship of this class they’ll very likely be detained as probable smugglers. And things would only go downhill from there.

Luckily for The Player, the VSD has no TIEs, either in escort or onboard.

It is worth emphasising to The Player that if they attempt to destroy the VSD things aren’t likely to go well.

Chapter 2 – Flying Cover

The ship’s computer has the answer.

There’s a small Rebel (Alliance!) base hidden in the asteroid field!

The bad news is that during the pursuit the Empire also discovered the base and is on its way there to attack it.

The Rebels there have no choice but to perform a hasty evacuation using the only ships available to them.

Even this evacuation is sure to fail, unless you intervene.

Time to fly cover!

Fleet lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons (minus any that were lost in the previous chapter)

Imperial fleet

- Icon - Victory I-class Star Destroyer

- 6 x TIE fighter squadrons

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment.

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x3’.

Place the largest asteroid obstacle in the center of the play area and place 2 objective tokens on it. Place other obstacles as normal, removing the station and debris fields and adding the extra set of asteroids and both dust fields from the Corellian Conflict campaign box (this should total 8 obstacles, including the asteroid with the objective tokens). Place obstacles beyond distance 3 of the edges of the play area and beyond distance 1 of each other.

Deploy

Deploy as usual. Deployment zones are within distance 1-3 of that player’s edge.

Stated objective. The objective is to have both of the VCX-100s move off any edge of the play area (they don’t have to be moved off the same edge).

Scenario special rules.

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends at the end of a turn in any of the following have occurred:

1) There are no VCX-100s and objective tokens left in the play area.

2) The CR90 is no longer in the play area.

At the end of the Status Phase of the 2 ^nd turn, remove one objective token from the asteroid obstacle and place a single VCX-100 upon the asteroid with its activation slider set to blue.

At the end of the Status Phase of the 3 ^rd turn, remove one objective token from the asteroid obstacle and place a single VCX-100 upon the asteroid with its activation slider set to red.

The GM has control of the VCX’s, though they are on The Player’s ‘side’.

The Player may not use Squadron commands on the VCX’s, nor use their Relay ability.

The VCX’s activate at the end of the squadron phase, after all other squadrons have been activated.

They will prioritise attempting to escape. As such they will:

- Fly towards perceived safety and away from perceived danger. In other words; towards the CR90 if it is in a position to help with flak fire; towards X-Wings; away from the Icon/ TIE squadrons.

- Use obstacles to avoid engagement.

- Attack the most damaged TIE squad they are engaged with.

- Move out of range rather than attack if obstruction gives them the choice.

- Otherwise move with all haste towards the nearest edge of the play area.

They will not use their Strategic ability.

Any VCX that moves out of the play area is considered to have escaped.

The VSD cannot increase its speed above 1.

The Imperial forces will prioritise using their TIE squadrons to destroy the VCX’s.

TIE fighter squadrons may not overlap any obstacle that has objective tokens on it.

If the CR90 leaves the play area for any reason and/or if both VCX are destroyed the scenario ends in a loss for The Player and must be retried. Any other result is a victory.

Due to the liaison with the Rebel Alliance that The Player will have after this chapter, any lost X-Wing squadrons be replaced for each chapter from here on out.

Chapter Story Conclusion

The rebels have escaped.

They take with them the assurances that they will recommend to Rebel Alliance command that you be allowed to join the Alliance.

In the meantime, they’ve given you a whole heap of critical information about your local sector.

Including the target for your first real attack against the Empire.

Notes.

This chapter is considerably harder than the last one but is also lots of fun. If flown well, it can be consistently beaten. Even a few fairly substantial mistakes can be redeemed, so encourage The Player not to give up if they make some missteps.

The difficulty from the GM’s point of view is that you’ll be playing both sides and trying your hardest to win with them at the same time.

Also, here’s another helpful exercise to do with any new player before going into this chapter

Squad focus exercise.

The point of this exercise is to demonstrate why focusing the attacks of squads is generally better than having your squads attack different targets.

This exercise can be played using pen and paper, or by using armada squads.

Each player begins with three identical squads. Each squad has 3 hit points and when it attacks will do exactly 1 damage.

Each squad may attack any enemy squad each round.

The game is played in rounds and continues until one or both sides have no squads left.

At the start of each round both players declare the target for each of their squads’ attacks that round.

Then, all damage from squads is resolved simultaneously. Squads that have taken 3 or more damage are destroyed.

And it’s a simple as that.

Well, almost. At the start of the exercise, instruct your student to always focus the attacks of their squads on a single target each round. On the flip side, the squads you will be playing will never focus their shots, attacking a different target each. By the end of the exercise, despite the fact you started with identical squads and had dealt simultaneous damage each round, they should have 2 squads left (One with 2hp the other with 1hp) while you will be wiped out.

My son likes this exercise because he feels like he ‘wins’ it every time.

I like it because it works. His selection criteria for what to attack in a squad scrum is very good now (at least in an X-Wing vs TIE Fighter brawl). Go for the wounded targets!

Story notes.

The Rebel base is small. It’s basically a glorified safehouse built on a large asteroid. It has a small hanger (containing the VCXs), a moderate reactor power source, small artificial gravity generator, reasonable communications and sensor abilities and a small number of cramped prefab rooms jammed together to form what is generously called the ‘installation’.

It has no shields, no weapon emplacements and has made no attempt to hide its existence from visual inspection. It has survived due to the fact that no one comes into the asteroid field. It does have a reasonable tractor beam array, usually used on asteroids to stop them from hitting the installation (this was what The Player’s ship had detected).

When the base was built, it was intended to be a safehouse as well as a staging area for insurrection, agitation and recruitment purposes in the local subsystem. However, as the Rebel Alliance has had other priorities, it had fallen into almost complete disuse. At the time of the two Bicsay rebellions there was only a single human present at the base. By the time that they noticed each of the rebellions, it was far too late to help in any way. The two rebellions, however, convinced Alliance High Command that Bicsay was worth throwing a few more resources at. Over the past 2 months 4 new operators have taken up station there, with over 50 other personnel having passed through it in that time.

By the time of this chapter there are 18 Rebels present. None of them have any knowledge of The Player’s base or its origins.

During the battle, the VSD isn’t able to increase its speed beyond 1 due to the rebels overclocking the base’s reactor and turning the tractor beam on the VSD. A lone droid stays behind to coordinate the array. It’s a short-term strategy (the reactor and tractor beam wouldn’t be able to do this for long) but desperate times call for desperate strategies. And it does give them some much needed breathing space.

The Base is rigged to blow once the VCXs have made a proper escape.

The Rebel Alliance will only send X-wings (no Y-wings, A-wings, etc) and will only replace what was lost. So no having more than 4 squads of X-wings.

Also, the Alliance is not giving The Player a way to contact them. The Alliance will send reinforcements every week or three but are unwilling to trust The Player with more than this.

Chapter 3 – First Strike

The Imperial dockyards for the entire area is located in the one of the neighbouring systems to Bicsay.

This is the place where all the Imperial ships in the area are serviced, refuelled, rearmed and repaired.

Rebel spies report that while it is armed and usually has some TIE fighters stationed there, it’s mostly left unguarded.

Time to hit the Empire where it hurts!

Fleet lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

Imperial fleet: N/A

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment.

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x3’.

Place two station obstacles, roughly in the center of the play area, exactly distance 1 from each other. One station is an Armed Station . The other is an Unarmed station . Place an armed station card and an unarmed station card near the Imperial ship cards. Place a victory token on one of the stations to designate it as the armed station. Place no other obstacles .

After placing obstacles, place an objective token a range ruler length from one of the stations. Place it in the direction of the Imperial board edge.

Deployment

Deploy as usual (though the Empire will have nothing to deploy). Deployment zones are within distance 1-3 of that player’s edge.

Stated objective.

The objective is to destroy both stations.

Scenario special rules

The game lasts for 6 turns.

Once per round, after the CR90 activates, the armed station will perform a single attack. It will prioritise attacking the CR90 over the X-Wings. Remember that the ship and squadron armaments on the Corellian Conflict Armed Station have been misprinted and will need to be switched.

The rebel player’s ship and squadrons cannot resolve either stations’ effect to discard damage cards or recover hull points when they overlap it.

If the CR90 is destroyed (as opposed to merely leaving the table) the scenario ends in a loss for The Player and must be replayed. Any other result is a victory.

Hidden rules

At the end of the first turn, advise The Player that his hyperspace scanners are detecting an incoming ship.

At the end of the second turn deploy the VSD at distance 1 of the objective token.

At the end of the third turn deploy 3 TIE fighter squadrons at distance one of the VSD (activation sliders set to red).

At the end of the fourth turn deploy 3 TIE fighter squadrons at distance one of the VSD (activation sliders set to blue).

Chapter Story Conclusion

You got away again, jumping to safety. But it was close.

Best not to try that again in a hurry. They’re more likely to be ready and waiting for you next time.

You’re going to have to find a new target. One they won’t be ready for.

Notes.

This scenario is odd in that it is designed to have The Player ‘fail’ in their objective. It’s more here to tell a story rather than give them a challenge to complete.

The idea here is that The Player is launching a surprise attack against the station, but the Icon intervenes and chases them off. This, once again, reinforces the idea that the Icon is a real threat, and that when it shows up, they don’t really have much other choice than to run.

As such, it’s important to play your cards close to your chest. Tell them the objective (destroy the stations) but don’t tell them that all that they have to do to win is survive. Give them no indication that you will even have ships in play at some point (except that you may start with some TIE fighters from the station). I want to emphasise this. Don’t even get out the cards/models etc. Make The Player believe that all they’re up against is 2 stations, only one of which is even armed.

If they do manage to destroy both stations (a difficult feat without TRCs) then this is ok. The Icon should still manage to complete its purpose and drive them off. It’ll just highlight a VSDs weaknesses further (that they are slow).

Remember that the Icon’s main purpose is to protect the stations. Don’t be afraid to:

- Have it barrel in at first then slow down to camp the stations.

- Use lots of squadron commands.

- Use concentrate fire commands.

Story notes.

The dockyards are located in the Suiko system. Maps of the subsector and Suiko system below.

There are no TIEs aboard the station because the subsector has a general shortage of them. The same is true of its ships as well. There are only a handful of Imperial capital ships operating out of these dockyards.

The dockyards are old and a little decrepit, which is largely the same as most of the Imperial ships in the area. The area isn’t near any area of space that has seen meaningful Rebel fleet activity. And while there’s the usual spies, smugglers and instigators, there’s nothing close to warranting a reinforcement of Navy assets. With the Imperial Navy’s attention focused elsewhere, this area is very low on its list of priorities.

The Icon jumping in so soon after The Player’s fleet arrives is coincidence.

The Naval Commander in charge of the subsector is Admiral Glenview . He is usually stationed either at the dockyards or aboard the Icon , which he uses as a flagship.

The Player has just jumped in at the beginning of turn 1. The Player’s hyperdrive takes 6 full turns before it can make another jump, hence the reason why this scenario lasts for 6 turns despite The Player’s desire to jump out sooner (though flying off the edge of the play area will still count as a win).

The Rebel Alliance has not yet given any indication as to whether they will accept The Player into the Alliance.

Chapter 4 – Intercept and Destroy

Once again, the Rebel Alliance provides you with the info needed for you next target.

Turns out your attack on the dockyards has had some negative consequences. The Empire hasn’t been sending any new ships to the area due to a lack of rebel fleet activity. Now that there is some (yours), they’re starting to send new ships through to deal with you.

The good news is that Rebel spies have found out the time and place that these reinforcements will arrive in the sector, as well as what they are. A pair of Gozanti class cruisers, carrying some TIE’s. There will be a short window of opportunity between them emerging from hyperspace and when they hook up with the rest of the Imperial fleet. This will be your chance. If you execute your attack just right, you might be able to take them out before they reach safety.

Time to ambush!

Fleet lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

Imperial fleet:

- Icon - Victory I-class Star Destroyer

- Nokton flotilla – Gozanti-class Cruisers

- 2 x TIE fighter squadrons

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x6’.

Place no obstacles

Deploy

Take turns deploying as normal with the following exceptions.

The Icon deploys within distance 1-3 of one of the short table edges.

The Rebel deployment zone is within 2 range ruler lengths of one of the corners on the opposite short table edge.

Nokton flotilla deploys within distance 1-3 of the other corner of the same short table edge as the Rebel player.

The TIE Fighter squadrons deploy within distance 1-2 of Nokton flotilla.

Stated objective. The objective is to destroy Nokton flotilla.

Scenario Rules

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends when either:

- Nokton flotilla and/or the CR90 are no longer in play.

Or

- At the end of any turn that Nokton flotilla has an objective token on it.

Whenever Nokton flotilla reveals a command dial, if it is at close range of the Icon , place an objective token on Nokton flotilla.

If the CR90 is destroyed (as opposed to merely leaving the table) the scenario ends in a loss for The Player and must be replayed. Any other result is a victory.

Nokton flotilla will endeavour not to fly off the edge of the play area.

If Nokton flotilla is destroyed it will not be available for any future chapters.

Chapter story Conclusion

Imperial forces are ramping up in the sector.

But that’s not the worst of it. You can deal with flotillas and TIE’s.

No. It’s the Icon that’s the real problem.

You’re going to have to find a way to deal with it.

You need a plan. But more than that, you need a way to find more firepower.

As luck would have it, ‘more firepower’ is just about to find you.

Notes.

The Icon will fly as quickly as possible to rendezvous with Nokton flotilla. Nokton flotilla will attempt to preserve its own life however it can (except by flying out of the play area).

Once again, achieving the ‘objective’ isn’t necessary for The Player to proceed to the next chapter, though it will have an ongoing effect on the following chapters ( Nokton flotilla will or will not be present as appropriate).

At this point I would actively start to offer The Player the chance to replay chapters they’d completed but failed the objective to.

Story notes.

This battle takes place in the Ghazen system.

Indirectly, this chapter should cement in The Player’s mind that the Icon is the real threat. Theoretically, everything else The Player has run into so far can be destroyed, if there is enough time.

Though The Player doesn’t know this for a fact, they will have started to rightly guess that though there are other ships operating in the subsector, none of them are as big and powerful as the Icon .

And so, the way to liberate Bicsay is very straight forward. Find a way to destroy the Icon , then start picking off any other Imperial ships, one by one, striking from the safety of The Player’s base. Finally, with no navy to protect them, the Imperial garrisons would be vulnerable to a combined land/air assault, with Bicsay insurgents forming the ground forces and The Player’s CR90/X-wings forming the air assault.

Then Bicsay will be free.

The one hurdle in all this is that The Player doesn’t yet have a way of tackling the Icon . Either way, this is the direction that you should be directing The Player’s thoughts, as it’ll point them towards a natural, story driven conclusion to this campaign that they can easily monitor themselves (ie. How close do I feel I am to being able to take down the Icon ?).

The Rebel Alliance has not yet given any indication as to whether they will accept The Player into the Alliance.

Chapter 5 – The Morning Ridgeline

You’re receiving a distress call.

An Alliance fleet was ambushed. One of their frigates, the Morning Ridgeline, managed to jump away, but not before it received catastrophic damage.

It fell out of hyperspace in the Bicsay system, but is now dead in the water with Imperial forces closing in.

This might just be the opportunity you’re after.

Time to be a protector!

Fleet Lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

Imperial fleet:

- Icon - Victory I-class Star Destroyer

- 3 x TIE fighter squadrons

- 2 x TIE bomber squadrons

- Nokton flotilla – Gozanti-class Cruisers (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployement

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The GM will control the Morning Ridgeline during this scenario and make all decisions for it. Place a Nebulon B Support Refit card on the GM’s side of the table, along with all of its components. This is the Morning Ridgeline .

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x6’.

Place obstacles as normal, excluding the station, beyond distance 5 of each short play edge and beyond distance 3 of each long play edge and beyond distance 1 of each other obstacle.

Deploy

Begin by placing the Morning Ridgeline entirely within the distance 4-5 bands, measured from a corner of the play area, and facing it towards the diagonally opposite corner. Set its speed dial and all its shield dials to 0. Deal it 4 facedown damage cards.

Take turns deploying as normal with the following exceptions.

The Imperial deployment zone is within distance 1-3 of the short table edge opposite the Morning Ridgeline . The Imperial squadrons do not have to deploy within distance 2 of a friendly ship, but rather may deploy anywhere within 2 range ruler lengths of the Imperial short table edge.

The Rebel deployment zone is within distance 1-3 of the long table edge opposite the Morning Ridgeline and at least 2 range ruler lengths from either short table edge.

Stated objective. The objective is to have the Morning Ridgeline exit the play area via the same long table edge as the Rebel deployment zone.

Scenario Rules

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends at the end of any turn in which the Morning Ridgeline and/or the CR90 are no longer in play.

At the end of a turn in which any TIE squadrons are destroyed, place a new squadron of the same type at full hp at distance 1 of the Icon . Throughout the course of the game, there may be no more than 3 TIE fighters and 2 TIE bombers placed in this way. This will mean that the total number of Imperial Squadrons that can be present throughout the course of the battle is 6 TIE fighters and 4 TIE bombers, though a maximum of 5 Imperial squadrons will be in play at any time.

The Morning Ridgeline must set command dials and activate as usual. It will activate after all other ships.

The Morning Ridgeline may not change its speed, recover shields or attack. These restrictions are removed the first time it removes its final damage card. If it gains more damage cards later during the game, it does not regain these restrictions.

The Imperial ship(s) will move as quickly as possible to intercept the Morning Ridgeline.

The TIE bombers will move as quickly as possible towards the Morning Ridgeline, avoiding engagement with rebel squadrons.

The TIE fighters’ top priority is to protect the TIE bombers. They will engage rebel squadrons to lock them down/destroy them as a first priority but won’t do so mindlessly. They will still have some basic self-preservation tactics and will also attack ships as the situation calls for it.

If the CR90 is destroyed (as opposed to merely leaving the table) the scenario ends in a loss for The Player and must be replayed. Any other result is a victory.

Only if the Morning Ridgeline exits the table via the same long table edge as the rebel deployment zone it will be present in future chapters.

Chapter story conclusion

Captain Lithgow of the Morning Ridgeline has agreed to join you (along with his ship!) in your rebellion, at least until the Alliance recalls them.

But it presents some challenges.

The Morning Ridgeline’s hyperdrive is irreparable. That alone means that it has taken 2 days for it to limp to Bicsay. And until it gets a new one, it will not be possible for it to launch attacks anywhere meaningful.

Also, it’s way too big to fit into the base, so it has to hide in very high orbit. Keeping it secret is going to be…nerve wracking. Once again, until it gets a new hyperdrive.

The good news is that some of the crew hail from Bicsay and have ties to the planet’s large mega-corporation, Geonsotec.

Geonsotec has agreed to secretly back your rebellion and, while they don’t have access to any ship class weaponry, they have managed to procure a replacement hyperdrive.

It’ll take two weeks to fully repair the Morning Ridgeline.

Two weeks…

And then…

Let’s just say that it feels good to have your firepower doubled!

Notes

This one is directly inspired by the old X-Wing computer game. There are a few missions in it where a large Imperial ship would sit off in the distance, throwing out fighter and bomber squadrons that you’d have to intercept before they reached whatever you were trying to defend. Fun times! Basic computer AI and the X-Wing’s great jousting ability meant you could beat the odds if you stayed sharp and didn’t let anything slip past you. In this chapter, the Icon is still a legitimate threat, but will reach the Morning Ridgeline too late to stop it from escaping. So, it’s forced to send its squadrons out ahead to try and get in some early damage. The Player, in turn, has to play interceptor to the imperial squadrons.

Don’t let The Player know how many reserves the Icon is carrying. This creates a sense of uncertainty.

If you have enough squads, I found it handy to place the destroyed TIE’s on their squadron card and replace them with new stands. This way I could see at a glance how many reserves there were still to deploy. It also gave my son more of a sense of accomplishment.

You also have a subtle way of dictating the difficulty of this scenario. Deploying the Icon on the left side of its deployment zone will increase how hard it will be for the Morning Ridgeline to escape (This will also increase the tension of this scenario). Deploy on the right and it’ll be a bit easier for it slip away without having to dodge the Icon in the process. Regardless, this scenario shouldn’t present a major challenge to The Player.

I’ll take it as granted from here on out that this scenario ends in a success for The Player. It’s the first chance The Player has to add something tangible to their fleet and is just the thing they are looking for to help even the odds against the Icon . If they fail this scenario the first time, encourage them to try it again till they succeed.

Also, please note that while the GM controls the Morning Ridgeline during this scenario, The Player will control it from here on out.

Story notes

The Morning Ridgeline and its crew have only recently defected to the Rebel Alliance. While this might seem like a minor detail, it’s key to the reason of why the Morning Ridgeline will become a permanent part of The Player’s fleet from here on out. A captain who had been serving in the Rebel Alliance for some time would be very unlikely to 1) Stick around. They would attempt with all haste to re-join the Rebel Alliance’s main fleet rather than help The Player fight their tiny side rebellion in an out of the way part of the galaxy. 2) Submit themselves under the command of The Player if they did stick around. A ship of recent turncoats, however, is green enough to submit to The Player’s ‘experience’ and plans. At the same time, they’re still idealistic enough to see the value in standing up against the Empire wherever that may be.

The Morning Ridgeline’s hyperdrive is damaged beyond repair. In order to make back to Bicsay without being followed by the Icon , The Player’s CR90 has to play the ‘wounded rabbit’, leading the Icon away in the other direction while staying just out of range until the Morning Ridgeline is out of sensor range.

The Morning Ridgeline has no way to directly contact the Rebel Alliance as they have had, to date, only ever had direct communications with the other ships in their former fleet. With all those ships gone, they don’t know who to talk to in order to get a message through. They do, however, have a set of rallying coordinates where they could potentially meet up with other elements of the Rebel Alliance. These coordinates are more than a week’s travel by hyperspace, however.

The Rebel Alliance has not yet given any indication as to whether they will accept The Player into the Alliance.

Chapter 6 – War Crimes

The Morning Ridgeline’s new hyperdrive is up and running, but you have a new problem.

The Empire has managed to track you to Bicsay!

Though they don’t know exactly where, they do know that your base is somewhere on or near the planet.

They’ve been putting pressure on Geonsotec to help them track you down, but Geonsotec has refused.

In retaliation the Imperial navy is attacking the company’s stations.

Time to defend your allies!

Fleet lists

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

- Morning Ridgeline – Nebulon B Support Refit (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

Imperial fleet:

- Dart 1 – Raider I-class Corvette

- Dart 2 – Raider I-class Corvette

- 2 x TIE bomber squadrons

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x6’.

Take the 2 stations and place 1 at distance 5 of one of the short table edges and at distance 4 of the rebel long table edge. Place the other at distance 5 of the other short table edge and distance 4 of the rebel long table edge. These are unarmed stations.

Place no other obstacles.

Before deploying fleets, the GM places 3 objective tokens in the Rebel’s deployment zone. Place 1 token near each station and the third somewhere in the centre of the deployment zone.

Deploy as normal, beginning with the Imperial player.

Place the two unarmed station cards next to the rebel player’s ship cards.

Stated objective. The objective is to ensure that both stations survive.

Scenario special rules

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends when the CR90 is no longer in play or at the end of a turn if both stations are destroyed.

The Player may declare a hyperspace retreat at any time. If they do the game ends at the end of the current turn.

Imperial ships ending a manoeuvre on a station do not discard a damage card.

Imperial squadrons ending a move on a station do not restore a hull point.

If the CR90 is destroyed (as opposed to merely leaving the table) the scenario ends in a loss for The Player and must be replayed. Any other result is a victory.

Hidden rules

Dart 1 and Dart 2 will attempt to go after a different station each.

If a Raider ever receives one or more damage cards, remove it from the table at the end of that turn (it’s jumped into hyperspace).

At the end of the first turn inform The Player that their hyperspace scanners are detecting an incoming ship.

At the end of the second turn deploy the Icon at distance 1 of one of the objective tokens. If Nokton flotilla has survived all previous chapters, deploy it at distance 1-2 of the Icon.

At the end of the third turn deploy 3 TIE fighter squadrons at distance 1 of the Icon. Set their activation sliders to red.

At the end of the fourth turn deploy 3 TIE fighter squadrons at distance 1 of the Icon. Set their activation sliders to blue.

It is possible, though unlikely, that The Player might get the best of the Icon in this scenario. If it ever looks like the Icon might be in serious danger, hyperspace it out. It’ll still work with the storyline of the next chapter.

Chapter story conclusion:

It was a trap!

The whole thing was a trap!

You got away again, but this was the last straw.

Attacking innocent civilians to try to draw you out? The Icon is going to burn!

The question is, even with the Morning Ridgeline, do you have enough firepower to take it down?

You’re going to need more than just firepower. You’re going to need a trap of your own.

It takes some time to sneak back to your base. But when you get there, the Rebel Alliance has a nice surprise waiting for you.

The Icon’s days are numbered.

Notes:

This was a hard scenario to design.

The first problem I was having was that it’s another chapter that is designed to have The Player fail. Which, storyline wise, is important but as we’ve already done one of these before I don’t want to make The Player feel like they’re not actually playing their own campaign.

The solution to this was to have it be a scenario where the real object for The Player is mere survival, without neglecting the ‘attack on the helpless stations’ story that is also going on.

Which led to problems about how long the scenario should go for, what should trigger the Icon’s arrival and where it should be placed when it arrived. The above is the only solution to these three questions that satisfies me.

The hyperspace retreat rule is problematic as well as The Player can jump out at just about any time. I included it mostly because I couldn’t think a way of leaving it out that made sense in the context of the story.

So, in order to make the scenario work, you’ll have to play on The Player’s natural desire to preserve the stations. (Their recent increase in firepower and desire to test it out might also help to keep them fighting as long as they can.) As such, it’s important that when you place the Icon you do so in a way that ensures it can both launch maximum damage against a station while still actively pursuing The Player’s forces. Don’t be afraid to have it leave a TIE or 2 behind to finish off a damaged station.

Also, remember that if The Player declares a hyperspace retreat the stations are considered destroyed. Play this to your advantage. If The Player seems bent on jumping out early, talk with them about the consequences for the stations. If The Player seems intent on preserving the stations against all odds, remind them about the hyperspace retreat rule.

On another note, this scenario is a considerable step up in the way of strategic complexity for The Player. In this scenario The Player will have to deal with their first command 2 ship, as well as multiple friendly activations vs. multiple enemy activations. I would have preferred to have The Player’s first multiple friendly activation game be against a single enemy ship, but I’m fast running out of chapters and it was more important to keep the pace and focus of the campaign. The climax and finale will be the inevitable clash between The Player and the Icon and I haven’t yet come up with a way for adding such a scenario without distracting from that.

One other thing. My son picked up on the oddity with the ‘conditions that that end the scenario’. Notably, that destruction of the Raiders wouldn’t result in the scenario ending. He didn’t cotton on to the implications of this and just thought it was an error. If this ever arises for you, you could probably just add that the scenario ends if there are no Imperial ships in play. Given that if you start the Raiders off slow (a good choice regardless) they shouldn’t both be destroyed/fled before the Icon arrives.

Story notes.

The repairs to the Morning Ridgeline are slow, partially because it has to stay a long way out to avoid detection. Getting the hyperdrive to it is an exercise in trust as the CR90 has to rendezvous with the Geonsotec supplier, before the CR90 takes the hyperdrive to the Morning Ridgeline.

While the Empire has put together enough clues to figure out that The Player must have a base and it’s probably on or near Bicsay, they don’t have the resources to set up the kind of surveillance required to track down the base itself. Hence, they approach Geonsotec for help. Geonsotec is the largest corporation on Bicsay, and the only organisation on the planet that might be able to carry out this kind of surveillance. The Empire isn’t aware of the connection between Geonsotec and The Player.

Geonsotec refuses outright to help the Empire, which might seem odd. Why not simply agree to help them, then just continuously tell them that they’ve not found anything? The reason is that the Empire isn’t asking for a report from them, but rather that Geonsotec allows Imperial officers to be present and monitoring the situations at Geonsotec’s information hubs. Once again, this raises the question of why not allow this and just make sure that any potentially leading information has been filtered out before it reaches those hubs? Well, The Player hasn’t told Geonsotec anything about the location/nature of their base. So Geonsotec isn’t sure what information could potentially lead the Empire to locating it. Given these problems and that they were itching for a way to show some backbone against the Empire, they instead elected to outright refuse the Navy, citing that they are a civilian organisation and not required to assist in military matters. Whether or not this is entirely true, it’s what they used. If only to gain time. As the days passed and Geonsotec continued not to budge on the matter, the Imperial navy grew increasingly frustrated up to the point that they decided to launch the attacks of this chapter against Geonsotec assets.

These attacks are intended to accomplish two things. First, Geonsotec’s resistance would either crumble or the, in the very least, the Navy could make an example out of them. Second, it might draw out The Player. In which case the Icon would be held in reserve to ambush them from hyperspace.

The Raiders hit the 2 Geonsotec stations in orbit over Bicsay first. The Player had no time to intervene there.

The two stations in the chapter are a little further out and are strategically positioned at the exit/entrance to a hyperspace lane that most shipping to Bicsay uses. Hence the Icon is able to drop out of hyperspace in a good ambush position without too much trouble.

The stations are manned. This is a civilian massacre. If you think that this is a little too dark for your player, don’t mention this and just let it fly over their head.

I should take some time here to outline the Imperial perspective on things. Just a bit over a month ago, Bicsay and its four surrounding systems, all under the jurisdiction of Admiral Glenview, was a quiet command. Although under resourced, there were no major threats to battle. It was all just patrol and inspection work. Sure, they had to suppress the occasional uprising, but anyone could count on one hand the number of times that had happened. And besides, that only took a handful of TIEs and a few stormtroopers. Hardly what you’d call taxing or even all that exciting. With the appearance of The Player, all that has changed.

In a little over a month The Player has:

- Evaded capture or destruction time and again.

- Helped Rebel Alliance forces to escape twice.

- Launched attacks against both Imperial ships and an Imperial installation.

And now they’ve survived a trap set for them. From the Imperial perspective, frustration is on a high. The Navy’s hierarchy doesn’t look favourably upon failure, especially failure to eliminate a vastly inferior opponent who is this brazen. To this end, all focus is now bent on eliminating The Player. The failure of the trap to accomplish this is the catalyst for what occurs in the next chapter.

On the rebel side of things, I don’t need to go into so much detail. The Icon is the largest ship in the jurisdiction. If it falls, then it’s only a matter of time before The Player will be able to pick off every other ship in the area. With no Navy to give them protection, the local Imperial governments would become vulnerable to groundside insurrections, especially with air support from The Player. Between this, the now longstanding rivalry of The Player and the Icon, and the desire to avenge the Geonsotec massacres, all The Player’s focus is now bent on destroying the Icon . This is the other catalyst for what happens in the next chapter.

Even after this chapter Geonsotec continues to refuse the Imperial Navy any assistance.

The Rebel Alliance has not yet given any indication as to whether they will accept The Player into the Alliance.

Chapter 7 – Upgrades

Rebel Alliance spies report that the Empire is retrofit upgrading the Icon at the Suiko dockyards.

While it’ll be too heavily guarded to attack the Icon directly, it does provide you with an opportunity.

Many of the new parts will be scattered around the dockyards, awaiting installation. Amongst them will be some new Imperial decoders.

These could let you listen in on Imperial transmissions, allowing you to plan a trap for the Icon . As well as this, who knows what other military tech will be scattered around for the taking!

If you can pull this off, Captain Lithgow knows a place where you’ll be able to have the new tech installed.

Time to do some raiding!

Fleet lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

- Morning Ridgeline – Nebulon B Support Refit (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

Imperial fleet:

- Dart 3 – Raider I-class Corvette

- 2 x TIE fighter squadrons

- Icon - Victory I-class Star Destroyer

- Nokton flotilla – Gozanti-class Cruisers (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

There are no upgrades (including commanders) or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment.

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x3’.

Take the station and place it in the centre of the play area. This is an Armed Station.

If no stations were destroyed in chapter 3, place a second station at distance 1 from the first station. This is an Unarmed Station . Place an imperial victory token on the armed station so as to keep track of which one it is.

Place the appropriate station cards near the Imperial ship cards.

Place no other obstacles.

Before deploying fleets, the GM places 3 objective tokens. Place them at distance 5 ( not distance 1-5) of the armed station, beyond distance 5 of each other objective token and beyond distance 5 of the rebel table edge.

Place the Icon at distance 1 of the armed station and set its speed to zero.

Deploy as normal. The rebel deployment zone is within distance 1-3 of their table edge. The imperial deployment zone is within distance 1-5 of their table edge.

Stated objective. The objective is to capture as many upgrade parts (represented by the objective tokens) as possible before escaping.

Scenario special rules.

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends when there are no rebel ships in play or if the CR90 is destroyed through damage (as opposed to merely leaving the play area).

Any Rebel ship that flies out of the play area is considered to have escaped.

The Player may declare that any of their ships are declaring a hyperspace retreat at any time after the 5 ^th turn. If they do, remove that ship from the play area at the end of that turn. It is considered to have escaped.

Rebel ships ending a manoeuvre on a station do not discard a damage card.

Rebel squadrons ending a move on a station do not restore a hull point.

When a rebel ship at distance 1 of an objective toke reveals a command dial, The Player may remove that token from the play area and place it on that ship’s card. If they do, immediately decrease that ship’s speed by 1. The CR90 cannot hold more than 1 objective token. The Morning Ridgeline may cannot have more than 2 objective tokens.

A ship with one or more objective tokens has its maximum speed reduced by 1.

While attacking, the Icon cannot gather or add black dice to its attack pool.

The Icon cannot increase its speed.

Once per round, instead of activating a ship, the second player can perform 1 attack with the armed station.

If the CR90 escapes and at least one escaped rebel ship has 1 or more objective tokens, the scenario ends in a victory for The Player. Any other result is a defeat and the scenario must be replayed.

Hidden rules

At the end of the first turn, place 3 TIE fighter squadrons and 1 TIE bomber squadron within distance 1 of the armed station. Set their activation sliders to red.

If The Player is victorious, then after this chapter concludes The Player gains some permanent rewards based on the number of objective tokens they’ve captured.

After you’ve concluded this chapter’s story present The Player with the following choices.

1 objective token captured:

- The Morning Ridgeline is now a Nebulon-B Escort Frigate.

2 objective tokens captured:

- The Morning Ridgeline is now a Nebulon-B Escort Frigate.

and

- The Player chooses either a Defensive Retrofit upgrade card or a Turbolaser upgrade card to equip to the CR90.

3 objective tokens captured:

- The Morning Ridgeline is now a Nebulon-B Escort Frigate.

and

- The Player chooses either a Defensive Retrofit upgrade card or a Turbolaser upgrade card to equip to the CR90.

and

- The Player chooses a Turbolaser upgrade card to equip to the Morning Ridgeline .

If the Morning Ridgeling has been destroyed, then instead The Player just chooses either a Defensive Retrofit upgrade card or a Turbolaser upgrade card to equip to the CR90.

For my son, I had an additional restriction. He had to be able to both read and explain to me any upgrade cards that he chose.

Chapter story conclusion:

You’ve got away with the loot!

And you got a decoder!

Once it’s online, you will be able to listen in on every Imperial transmission!

Now it’s just a matter of getting everything installed.

The place you have in mind to get the work done isn’t close. It’s a space docks, about a days’ travel by hyperspace, called the Twilight Expanse .

You’ll need to make multiple jumps to make it. And you’ll need to leave your X-Wings behind so as not to raise suspicion.

But it’s worth it, because this place isn’t under Imperial control.

Just a few more weeks and you’ll have both the firepower and the ability to plot a trap…

Notes:

First thing’s first. Don’t lose the Icon . Repair like crazy. Only once it becomes apparent that The Player won’t try to take it out can you start switching to other commands. Even then I wouldn’t make more than 1 in 3 commands anything other than repair.

This scenario should be fairly easy for The Player to pick up two tokens. The third is where the tension really is.

Keep in mind that the position of the tokens and the Icon can also have a large impact on the difficulty of getting the third token. A token placed near the Imperial edge with the Icon’s nose pointing towards it and the Raider guarding it will be nearly impossible to grab.

I’ve tried to simulate the Icon’s upgrade process in the restrictions placed upon it. It’s having its ordnance tubes replaced with lasers/ion cannons (hence no black dice) and, as such, is in pieces (hence no moving or it would take catastrophic damage). The Empire is wary of an attack by The Player, so has done what they can to keep the Icon’s shields and turbolasers operational.

In a similar way, the only upgrades The Player can expect to gain from such a raid are hardware ones. So, no Support Teams or Officer upgrades floating around in cargo containers.

Also, due to the nature of this campaign (more turns in a game, as well as points and the modification restriction both being irrelevant), there are some upgrades that don’t usually get a look in that are worth considering. Foremost amongst them is Redundant Shields, though there’s also an argument for Enhanced Armament.

Story notes:

The parts for upgrading the Icon come packaged in cargo containers. These containers are unmanned and have no propulsion system. They are designed for ease of handling (see the old X-Wing and TIE fighter computer games for some likely pictures).

It’ll take 5 days after receiving the news before the actual parts for the Icon will arrive. Then another few days before The Player can be sure that the upgrade operation is sufficiently underway that the Icon won’t be able to move. Then there’ll be a window of a few weeks before the Icon is fully operational again.

This is all largely moot point though as it’ll take some time for The Player to properly jury rig capture devices to the CR90 and the Morning Ridgeling . These devices consist of repositioned tractor beams (to pull the containers in), as well as quick capture strapping and holding claws. These last two need only to be able to hold the containers for a short time, enough for the raid and then a short hyperspace jump. After this they can be properly secured for the much longer jump to the Twilight Expanse . Needless to say, neither ship is designed for this sort of work (hence the speed problems encountered in this scenario), and the CR90 in particular is restricted in the amount of contraband it’ll be able to pillage.

Reaching the Twilight Expanse will require The Player to use 5 different hyperlanes. There will be two transitions between lanes where The Player will have to leave hyperspace and use sublight engines to fly the short distance to the next hyperlane. These pass without incident.

The Empire isn’t expecting this kind of raid, but rather has taken precautions against a direct attack against either the dockyard or the Icon .

Now, to clear up a few bits and pieces about the Twilight Expanse .

To an outsider, the Twilight Expanse gives the appearance of being a black-market dockyards in the outer rim, that has multiple independent ‘businesses’ operating out of it that offer goods and services for ships that tend to be of an illicit nature. Actually, while the businesses that operate there are indeed nominally independent, the whole operation is really under the control of 3 men who both own and oversee the whole setup.

The Trio run things this way as a basic business tactic. When it comes to the sorts of goods and services that are offered at the Twilight Expanse , most customers want everything checked by at least one other organisation that they perceive to be independent, as it brings a level of confidence that there hasn’t been any unwanted tampering. The reality is that the Trio keeps a very close eye on everyone who works in the Twilight Expanse. While they want to give the customers the illusion that they can have the protection of ‘independent checks’, they also genuinely want to supply goods and services that are free from all unwanted influence.

And it works. The Twilight Expanse enjoys a very good reputation as somewhere ‘safe’, which in turns ensures a constant stream of underworld and low-profile customers, most of whom are quite willing to pay twice. Once for the service. And once again, to get it checked.

The Empire, on the other hand, is aware of the existence and location of the Twilight Expanse, but tolerates it for a number of reasons:

1) It’s a good source of information for the Empire. The Twilight Expanse attracts a constant stream of all sorts who don’t want to deal with authorities but need the goods and services that can be found in such places. The Empire has 2 agents embedded within the organisation of the Twilight Expanse who feed information that both helps the Empire to track persons of interest and sometimes even brings them to the attention of the Empire in the first place. Given that the Empire’s greatest rival (the Rebel Alliance) also makes copious use of the Twilight Expanse and other places like it, it makes it a prime spot to gain leads on the Rebellion

2) While in principle the Empire doesn’t like what goes on in the Twilight Expanse, it knows that if it does crack down on the Twilight Expanse , the smugglers and black-market services will simply spring up elsewhere. While an elimination of the Twilight Expanse is always something that the Empire has on the cards to do at some point (after all, there are only so many dockyards available to the black-market), they will most likely put that off till after the Rebel Alliance is eliminated. In the meantime, it’s better to have a black-market outlet that you do know where it is rather than one where you don’t. It’s useful now and much easier to eliminate later.

From the viewpoint of the Trio in charge of the Twilight Expanse , things are like this. They know that the Empire is aware of them. They rightly guess that the real reasons the Empire hasn’t shut them down is because the Empire is using them for information.

So, they have to make the hard decision on what their official policy is towards the Empire.

Given that 90% of their business is because the Twilight Expanse has a solid and well-founded reputation of being outside of the Empire’s influence, the Trio have adopted a policy of extreme prejudice against any Imperial sway. They accept no bribes or blackmail, allow no Imperial ship within a certain distance of their yards and terminate anybody with reasonable suspicion of being an Imperial agent.

They aren’t naïve. They know that there are Imperial agents in their ranks (though they don’t know who). They know that the existence of these agents is the one big reason the Expanse still exists. But they also know that business is business. So, in a dockyards with a number of smaller businesses under them, they run a tight ship. They both screen and monitor their own people, as well as their tenants. Intensely.

And it has worked.

To date, the Empire has made 134 attempts to embed agents within the Twilight Expanse. Most failed. The only two that have currently made it took over 3 years each to get embedded. And they aren’t even aware of who each other are.

Meanwhile, the Trio continues to count on two things.

1) The Empire has such high calibre agents that not all of them will get caught by even the most intense of screening and surveillance.

2) When the Empire does finally decide that enough is enough, the Trio and their higher executives all have contingency plans in place to ensure their own survival.

Geonsotec has agreed to quietly fund the upgrade services The Player receives at the Twilight Expanse . Fortunately, Geonsotec is recognized as being good credit.

The Rebel Alliance has not yet given any indication as to whether they will accept The Player into the Alliance.

Chapter 8 – Homeward Bound

The upgrades are complete!

The Icon has no doubt finished its own upgrades as well. Now it’s time to return to base and start planning a trap for it.

The journey will once again require you to travel over a day in 5 hyperlanes with two sub-light crossings.

The first crossing passes uneventfully.

During the second one, as you’ve almost made it to the final hyperlane, two Imperial ships and a number of TIE squadrons emerge from hiding (you wish you had your X-Wings flying cover right now).

Your stolen Imperial decoder shows its value, letting you know that the lead ship has just sent a long-range transmission requesting reinforcements.

Well, it’s now or never. You’ll have to slip past these ships to make it to the hyperlane before those reinforcements show up.

Time to run a blockade!

Fleet Lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- Morning Ridgeline – Nebulon B Escort Frigate (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

- Any upgrades that The Player won in Chapter 7

- The Rebel player has no squadrons in this scenario

Imperial fleet:

- 1 x TIE bomber squadrons

- 2 x TIE fighter squadrons

- Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer

- Raider I-class Corvette

There are no commanders or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Rebel player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x6’.

This scenario uses the Short Player Edges Setup from the Corellian Conflict Campaign Guide.

Place obstacles , excluding the station, beyond one range ruler length from the rebel player’s edge, beyond two range ruler lengths from the Imperial player’s edge, beyond distance 2 of any other edge and beyond distance 1 of every other obstacle.

Deploy as normal. The rebel deployment zone is within one range ruler length of their table edge. The imperial deployment zone is within three range ruler lengths of their table edge. Imperial ships may not be deployed overlapping obstacles.

Stated objective. The objective is to escape via the Imperial table edge.

Scenario special rules

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends when there are no rebel ships in play or if the CR90 is destroyed.

Any Rebel ship that flies out of the play area through the Imperial player edge is considered to have escaped. If the CR90 escapes while the Morning Ridgeline is still in play, the game does not end until the Morning Ridgeline leaves play.

Any Rebel ship that leaves the play area through any other play edge is considered destroyed.

When the game ends, if the CR90 has left the play area through the Imperial player edge then this scenario ends in a victory for The Player. Any other result is a loss and this scenario will have to be replayed.

Hidden rules

The GM must have the TIE bomber launch an attack against the CR90 at least once

The first time the TIE bomber squadron attacks the CR90, cancel all attack dice before rolling the attack pool (This is the TIE bombers launching the homing device. But don’t tell The Player this. It’s a surprise for the next chapter).

Chapter story conclusion:

You made it, slipping past those ships before making the jump to safety!

A few hours later you’re safe and sound, hidden away in your base. In the morning you’ll be able to start the work of figuring out how to take the Icon down once and for all. In the meantime, your decoder will be listening to every Imperial message within spitting distance of Bicsay.

7 hours later your decoder picks up the most important message it’ll ever receive.

Which you would think would be good news…

But it isn’t…

Notes:

While no reinforcements will show up during this scenario, there is no reason to let The Player know this. Play your cards close to your chest and let the tension do its thing. Remember, they don’t even know which hyperlane the reinforcements are supposed to be arriving from, so may ‘turn up’ either in front or behind them. Of course, they can check their hyperspace scanners but these will consistently turn up nothing.

Feel free to add some dramatic flair when the TIE bomber squadron launches its homing device. Ie. Go through the motions. Make sure you have The Player’s attention as you move the TIE bomber in, announce the attack and pick up the attack dice. Then stop, look The Player dead in the eye as you coldly, ominously state that the TIE bomber rolls no dice. When The Player asks why, just tell them (as ominously as you can) ‘Yes. What was that? It was on its attack run. But it didn’t attack.’. When they press further, just continue to respond with ‘Yeah, why didn’t they attack?’. I found that this really unnerved my son.

Story notes.

The question arises as to why The Player doesn’t take this opportunity to completely upgrade their ships with whatever black-market goods that they can. After all, CR90s and Nebulon-Bs are fairly common ships, so it can be expected that a place like the Twilight Expanse would be brimming full of nice shinnies to install onto The Player’s ships.

The reason is that Geonsotec has to be careful about how much money it can funnel to The Player at a time. Too much and it might be noticed by the Empire. At the moment the Empire doesn’t suspect Geonsotec and Geonsotec wants to keep it that way. Geonsotec has no experience with doing this sort of thing and so they aren’t sure how much they can get away with. While they could ask around for advice, doing this too much would be the modern-day equivalent of Googling ‘What’s the best way I can give lots of money to the Rebel Alliance without the Empire noticing’.

In the meantime, Geonsotec is careful and doesn’t push the boundaries. So, The Player’s budget is limited. Enough to install the stolen parts. Even enough to do a little more than that. But not nearly enough to fully deck out their ships.

While The Player has an Imperial decoder, the actual codes are changed around every now and then, rendering it useless. This is especially true in this case as the Empire knows that The Player has stolen a decoder, so it has taken pains to have all the codes local to Bicsay and its surrounds changed ahead of schedule.

But many things can be bought at the Twilight Expanse .

The Player is lucky. This is a rare case where the latest codes are for sale. Geonsotec’s budget can stretch to cover the cost and neither of the Imperial agents manage to detect the sale.

The Player is wary about Imperial interference during the upgrade process, either sabotage or the planting of homing devices/explosives. They have their men watch all work done. After it is complete, they inspect the entirety of both ships as well as conducting thorough scans. They also end up using three of the independent companies to triple check both ships. While one of the Imperial agents does indeed work on their ships, there is no tampering detected because there is none.

The agent does, however, successfully report to the Empire the presence of The Player, what work has been done and when The Player departs the Twilight Expanse .

Hence there are two imperial ships waiting for The Player at the second crossing. The Empire considers this far enough away that The Player will consider it a coincidence.

The Imperial agent could attempt to sabotage or plant something aboard the ships. It could even potentially plant explosives that would destroy the ships while they were still at the Twilight Expanse.

The reason why the agent doesn’t is because doing so would almost certainly blow their cover.

And while this is still an option that the Empire would consider, getting agents embedded into the Twilight Expanse is so difficult that the Empire values them too highly to lose one on a prize this small.

Most of the hyperlane changes can be navigated without exciting hyperspace as they simply intersect with each other or are a smaller one splitting off from a larger one. The two changes where The Player is required to leave hyperspace are where two ongoing lanes come very close together (a few hundred kilometres) without touching.

There are actual reinforcements on the way, but for the purposes of this scenario will arrive too late to help.

The TIE bombers launch homing devices on their first attack run, aiming to hit the side of the CR90’s engine block.

These devices are housed in a torpedo casing that uses reverse thrusters to slow almost to a stop just before hitting their target to allow them to pass through the target’s shields. When they pass through the shields, they then fire their second stage. This consists of a small amount of ‘goop’, the homing device itself, then a larger amount of heat resistant ‘goop’.

The ‘goop’ covers the device and acts as an adhesive, allowing the device to stick to the target’s hull. The goop then quickly hardens. This both causes the device to be secure during rough travel (and hyperspace) as well as providing a reasonable amount of heat protection in case of a rapid atmospheric re-entry. It is also chameleonic, adjusting its colour to that of the surface it’s adhered to.

The homing beacon is designed to locate an enemy base. It lies dormant until triggered, so as not to be detected before reaching the base. The primary trigger is a heat trigger. When the device cools below a certain temperature, it activates its beacon. The reasoning behind this is that a ship in space will have its engines firing, keeping the device warm (Hence why they are attached to the engine block). A ship that has landed or docked will shut down its engines, which will then slowly cool until the triggering level is reached. When the device triggers, it transmits its location across a very wide spectrum.

Alternatively, the device can be triggered remotely. This is so that if the primary trigger doesn’t set the device off (most likely because the ship has never shut its engines off), there will still be a way to track the tagged ship.

Chapter 9 – Hour of Reckoning

There’s an Imperial transmission originating from within your base.

Worse, it’s sending its exact co-ordinates.

You track its signal to find what’s sending it, a homing device attached to your CR90. While you make short work of the device, it’s too late. The Empire knows where your base is.

You’re not going to give up your base. Not now. Not after you’ve come so far and are so close to final victory. Freedom for Bicsay!

There’s nothing else for it. You get your ships into space and hook up with the Morning Ridgeline .

This is it. Your ragtag fleet against whatever the Empire will throw at you.

But with cold certainty you already know what they will send.

Two hours later the Icon emerges from hyperspace and sets course for your base.

The hour of reckoning has come.

Time to finish this!

Fleet lists.

Rebel fleet:

- CR90 Corvette A

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

- Morning Ridgeline – Nebulon B Escort Frigate (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

- Any upgrades that The Player won in Chapter 7

Imperial fleet:

- Icon – Victory II-class Star Destroyer

- 6 x TIE fighter squdrons

- Nokton flotilla – Gozanti-class Cruisers (only if it has survived all of the preceding chapters)

There are no commanders or objectives in either fleet.

Setup and deployment

Set up and play as usual with the following exceptions.

The Imperial player is the first player .

Play area is 3’x6’.

This scenario uses the Short Player Edges Setup from the Corellian Conflict Campaign Guide.

Place no obstacles .

Before deploying fleets, the GM places one objective token entirely within the distance 2 band (not distance 1-2) of the Rebel player edge and beyond distance 5 from each long table edge.

Deploy as normal. The rebel deployment zone is within three range ruler lengths of their table edge. The imperial deployment zone is within distance 1-2 of their table edge.

Stated objective. The objective is to destroy the Icon before it reaches the objective token.

Scenario special rules.

The game lasts for an indefinite number of turns.

The game ends when either:

- The Icon and/or the CR90 are no longer in play

or

- At the end of any turn in which the Icon has an objective token.

When the Icon reveals a command dial, if it is at speed 1 or less, and is at distance 1 of the objective token, it must remove the objective token from play and place it on its ship card (When it does so, inform The Player that the Icon is about to commence its orbital bombardment).

While the Icon has an objective token, it may not gather red dice into its attack pool (This represents the Icon preparing to use its turbolasers to bombard the base).

Hidden rules

There are 3 ways this scenario can end.

1) The CR90 is destroyed, in which case The Player must replay the scenario.

2) A turn ends with the Icon having the objective token. In this case The Player’s base is destroyed from orbit. The Player has no choice but to abandon the Bicsay system and seek out the Rebel Alliance. The (Bicsay) campaign ends here, though The Player may attempt this chapter again.

3) The Icon is destroyed. In which case The Player has won the campaign. Give them a few minutes to celebrate, but don’t let them pack anything up. After you’ve allowed them to bask in the glory of their achievement, inform them that their hyperspace scanners are detecting an incoming ship. Let them play through one more turn (with no Imperial ships in play), then, at the end of that turn, place the Reckoning (an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer) within distance 1-3 of the Imperial player edge. Immediately after doing so inform The Player that the Reckoning is launching TIEs, then end the game. The campaign concludes here.

Campaign story conclusion:

Naiveté and hubris and nemesis

Naiveté

Destroy the Icon and it’ll only be a matter of time until you can free Bicsay and all the surrounding systems.

As if it were going to be as simple as that. Destroy one tired old ship and you’ll win the whole war.

Naiveté

Because today is the day you came to realise how small your vision was and how unimaginably huge the Empire is. The Icon may have been powerful in the Bicsay system. To you and billions of others it might have been the symbol of the ultimate authority of the Empire. But to the Imperial Navy it was little more than a forgotten shadow of yesterday’s greatness, stationed to an out of the way sector where nothing ever happened. Today was the day that you learnt the awful truth, that to the Empire the Icon was nothing more than a tired old horse.

Hubris

Because today was the day you thought yourself great, standing up to the Icon as it relived for one last time the glory it had once held, charging into battle. Today was the day you cut it down forever and you took too much pride in your imagined felling of a tyrant.

Hubris

Because today was the day you exalted over your fallen enemy. Boasted in your triumph, in your supposed great strength and cunning. Only to learn that nemesis follows hubris.

Nemesis

Because today is the day that you learnt that the merest twitch of the Imperial Navy’s hand is impossibly greater than anything you had before imagined.

Nemesis

Because today is the day of defeat.

Your campaign to free Bicsay has failed.

Not because you failed in anything you did. But because you had set yourself to do that which is impossible…

The fight against the Icon had been the most intense experience of your life. When finally the fatal shots had hit home and the Icon was at last no more, there was only relief. Then exhausted jubilation.

Your ship was battered, but not broken. Strained, but triumphant.

It was in these few precious moments that you really thought you’d won.

When the Reckoning emerged from hyperspace a few minutes later, you first disbelieving thought was that the Icon was somehow back from the dead. When that cleared, the much more staggering realisation was the sheer size of the Reckoning, dwarfing even the massive Icon .

You had heard from the captain of the Morning Ridgeline about Imperial class Star Destroyers. But their reality had never sunk in.

Now you stare at it, dumbfounded, before realising that it’s bearing down on you much faster than the Icon ever could.

Even if you hadn’t just come through your biggest struggle yet, you know that your fleet could never take on a monstrosity like that.

You give the order for all ships to retreat.

It’s only in the quiet of the cold blue of hyperspace that you finally come to see the full truth.

Thousands.

The Empire is said to have thousands of Imperial class Star Destroyers.

There’s no way you can win against that. No way you can even fight against that.

Well.

Almost no way.

Because you know who can.

It’s time to find the Rebel Alliance.

Notes.

This is a boss fight.

Make sure it runs like one.

Spam Repairs, the occasional Squadron command and a single Navigate. You could use Concentrate Fire, but repair makes for a more dramatic fight. Besides, the Icon has inevitability on its side and it knows it.

Don’t let the Icon deviate from its course towards the objective token by more than 2 clicks in either direction. Also, don’t let it overshoot the objective token and fly off the board.

Also, please note the differences in this scenario. Namely that the Imperial player is the first player and that the Icon is now a Vic 2.

The final question is: should you use boss fight music?

I don’t, but mostly because I find it distracting. If you can find one that resonates with you without distracting you then go for it.

If I were to go for one it’d either be the 2 part backing music at the end of Phantasy Star 4 or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO4jWC2vTQo

Though this last one I’d use before the battle rather than during it. Just imagine a video of The Player discovering the device, launching their ships, hooking up with the Morning Ridgeline and waiting for the inevitable Imperial attack.

Story notes.

The Imperial response to The Player is multipart. The upgrading of the Icon and the homing device were two of these parts. The Reckoning was one of 4 ISDs sent to the area. One other was sent to Bicsay’s asteroid field and the other two were sent to another two of the four systems in the area. These were to limit The Player’s viable options after their base falls.

The Icon attacks the base, even though it knows that the Reckoning is en-route, for two reasons. First, because the officers and crew know that their recent failures mean that they are standing on the brink. While the Icon itself isn’t likely to be decommissioned so soon after being upgraded, they will receive no such grace from Navy Command. Being discharged is a real danger for them at the moment. They need to demonstrate that they can control their jurisdiction. Second, because they have something to prove. It’s an old ship with an old captain. Many of the crew are getting on as well. Though the Imperial Navy looks at the Icon and sees a has-been, many of them have flown with the Icon for decades and have pulled through a lot of fierce action in that time. They love their ship and have a melancholy fondness for the days that were. So, when they don’t receive any direct orders not to attack, they decide to take the opportunity.

The above are also the reasons that the Icon doesn’t retreat during this battle, no matter how bad things get for it. They will finish this fight or go down trying.

The Icon doesn’t bring any other ships (apart from Nokton flotilla if it’s still alive) because all of the other garrison ships in the area have been sent to guard Imperial assets. Namely the dockyards and each of the Imperial government headquarters in each system. They don’t want any needless losses from this operation.

The heart of the reason why The Player lost their base was because it was never intended as a tool to be used to free Bicsay. At least, not in isolation. It was intended to give the owner the power to raid the Empire with impunity. To disrupt Imperial shipping. And allow them a safe staging area to strike at vulnerable targets before fading from view for a few weeks or months. The Player’s fault was to be too active, to attract too much attention. In truth, it was probably the rescue of the Morning Ridgeline that was what pushed them up to the edge of being too visible (thought there are cases to be made for the ambushing of Nokton flotilla as well as the attack at the shipyards so soon after rescuing the Rebel agents). Attempting to intervene in the Geonsotec massacre was what catapulted them well over the edge. After this, it didn’t take much to convince Imperial high command to devote the resources necessary to eradicating The Player. A few upgrades, a homing device and an ISD later…

The Player still hasn’t officially joined the Rebel Alliance. If the Morning Ridgeline survived this chapter, then the captain will know how to join up with the Alliance again. If not…well, that’s another adventure, isn’t it?

The base is evacuated just after The Player launches their ships.

While it would take more than a single turn of shooting to completely destroy the base, any amount of orbital bombardment would cause irreparable and critical damage to the hanger. Hence the scenario ends if the Icon even starts to bombard the base.

So, that’s how the Bicsay campaign ends.

If you’re finding that this ending is too negative, then here are 2 points you might find helpful.

1) It’s very Star Warsy. The harsh reality of the Star Wars universe is that the Empire is in control and secrecy is the only way to fight them. The Rebel Alliance has a long history of running from one hidden base to the next, even when they technically win the battle. Hoth and Yavin 4 are the prime examples here.

2) It’s easier to take if you don’t see the campaign as being its own complete story, but rather an origin story. After all, we all play 400 point battles. And we often take CR90As. From here on out how often will The Player refer to one of their CR90s by whatever name they gave their ship in the campaign? And when they do, will they smile and drop a hint that this ship has a long and proud past that they know so intimately? I look forward to the day when someone, somewhere, playing in a major tournament refers to an (untitled) Nebulon-B as the Morning Ridgeline (ok, that’s never going to happen due to the perceived reliance of Nebs on their titles, but I can dream).

So, what did you think? What worked for you and what didn’t? Where were the bits where things were a bit ‘thin’?

Also, if you ever try this campaign and find it’s going too long for you, I’d be inclined to drop either Chapter 6 or 8 or both. I’ve had serious doubts about whether they should be included as they can distract a little from where the campaign is headed.

Finally, where to from here?

Well…I’m toying with the idea of doing either a sequel campaign or an Imperial campaign.

If you’re at all interested in being in on these then drop me a line and we’ll see what we can do.

Appendix A

This section contains a reference list of all the Armada components required to play this campaign. It is assumed that you have access to a playing surface that can be easily divided and sectioned off, as well as all the basic gameplay components that come with a Core/Starter set. As usual, don’t tell The Player what this section contains because spoilers.

Rebel forces:

- 1 x CR90 Corvette

- 1 x Nebulon B

- 2 x VCX-100 Freighters

- 4 x X-Wing squadrons

Imperial forces:

- 1 x Victory class Star Destroyer.

- 2 x Raider class Corvettes

- 1 x Imperial Assault Carriers (Gozantis)

- 1 x Gladiator class Star Destroyer

- 1 x Imperial II-class Star destroyer

- 6 x TIE Fighter squadrons

- 2 x TIE bomber squadrons

Total obstacles (including any that come with the Core/Starter set):

- 2 x Stations

- 2 x Dust fields

- 6 x Asteroids (2 copies of each)

- 2 x Debris fields

- 1 x Armed station card

- 2 x Unarmed station cards

Upgrades:

- As wide a selection as possible of Turbolaser and Defensive Retrofit upgrade cards.

Appendix B

What do you do when your Player asks questions about stuff that either won’t enter into the campaign or will enter into it, but not until a later point?

There are two good ways to respond to these questions.

The first is an old Games Masters’ technique I used to use that we called ‘Rule number one’. (There was also rule numbers two and three, if you’re interested)

Rule number one is: You must not believe the GM in things pertaining to the future.

In other words, if a player asks the GM about things that are going to happen in the game, under Rule number one, the GM is allowed to respond with whatever outrageous yet vaguely believable rubbish they want. And if The Player believes the GM, well, it’s on their own head. Examples from fantasy role play would be questions like ‘What will happen if I go with this person?’ or ‘What will happen if I try to pick this lock with my dagger?’ or ‘What will happen if I try to smash this (locked) chest onto the ground to open it?’. To which (for this last example) the GM might reply something like “Well, you’ll probably smash the dragon egg that is inside. And then its mum will fly into the room and burn you to a crisp.” And when The Player responds with a “What?!?” the GM simply replies “Rule number one”. (there was no dragon egg inside the chest)

The other way of responding to such questions is with questions of your own.

For instance, a common question that The Players is likely to ask at some point is “When will I get more ships?”. The counter questions to this would probably go something like:

GM “Good question. How do you think you could get more ships?”

P “Maybe I could buy them?”

GM “That’s a good idea. Where could you buy them?”

P “At a spaceship shop. Can I go to a spaceship shop?”

GM “Do you know of any spaceship shops?”

P “Well, I don’t know! Do I?”

GM “You haven’t seen or heard of any spaceship shops. So I guess you don’t know where to find one.”

The advantage of this approach is that it allows The Player to passively explore the setting of the campaign while letting them feel as if they are really part of it.

© D J Huxley 2021

This has been an awesome read, followed from the start. I hope you're bringing this over to one of the other Armada sites out there. PMed you for a PDF.