I ran this campaign for Warhammer 40K several years ago and after @GhostofNobodyInParticular posted his Happy Friday discussion about mixing different Star Wars games I thought I would convert it over to SW Armada.
This Campaign is for two sides, Revel v Imperials.
Each side has 4 players referred to as Rebel 1, Imperial 3 etc.
The Campaign will take place over 4 rounds with each player taking part in 4 games.
Round 1 consists of four simultaneous games of 1v1 Armada.
Round 2 consists of two simultaneous doubles games of 2v2 Armada.
Round 3 consists of four simultaneous games of 1v1 Armada.
Round 4 is the grand final consisting of one large game of 4v4 Armada.
Forces: Each player has a 400 point Armada fleet of their side's faction. The usual squadron max of 134 points applies. Unique upgrades and squadrons may not be replicated among the 4 players of each side. Players can include initiative bids as normal. For the doubles games and the grand final the players total their bids to determine first player. Missions are not selected when building fleets. They are assigned to each game (more later).
Schedule: You could run the campaign on 4 evenings with one round on each occasion; or over a weekend with rounds 1&2 Saturday and rounds 3&4 on Sunday. There is probably a little much to cram the whole thing into a single day's play but you could give it a go. Allocate each player a number (1,2,3,4) for each faction and check the diagram below for who plays who. Each player will face each of the 4 opposing players in the first three rounds and again in the final.
Missions: Take all the missions from the Basic Set + Corellian Conflict + Rebellion in the Rim expansions and sort them into 3 decks of 12 red, 12 yellow and 12 blue missions. Shuffle each deck. Each campaign round allocate one face down red, yellow and blue cards randomly to each game. The player(s) with the best initiative bid choose first or second player as usual and then turn face up the missions for the second player(s) to choose from. Do not return these mission cards back into the three decks after the games. The next campaign round hand out missions from the 3 decks again.
Game Victories: Each game determine the winner with the usual margin of victory. The winner(s) of each game gets a victory bonus to be used in their next game.
6-5: Before Deployment add a non unique upgrade to one of your ships (for this game only).
7-4: After Deployment add one command token to 3 of your ships.
8-3: Treat your initiative bid as 10 points more than it is.
9-2: Before Deployment add up to 20 points of generic squadrons (this game only).
10-1: Veto one color of mission from bein chosen.
Campaign Victory: Nice and simple. Whichever side wins the final battle in round 4 wins the campaign.
Variations:
Use factions from the Clone Wars - though we may have to wait for a few more unique upgrades to be released for them. Republic v CIS should be ok but Republic v Imperials could be at a disadvantage.
Allow each fleet to have its own three missions to select from rather than the semi random allocation.
Add or remove players. A 6v6 campaign could add more scenarios to each round and maybe limit the fleet size to 300 point for the grand final.
Add or remove campaign rounds to make a longer or shorter campaign. Remove round 3 for a shorter version. Adding more rounds should be done probably the second time you run this campaign. Most campaigns fall apart when players drop out half way through or people sort of loose interest.
Substitute other Star Wars games for a few scenarios in round 1. For example a game of X-Wing or SW Legion representing a special fighter mission or ground combat action. Imperial Assault can conduct a special commando raid etc. Each of these games will need to give an Armada style 6-5 or 8-3 victory level to give bonuses in round 2.
SSD. After campaign round 3 has been completed one Imperial player may retire his fleet (if any Imperial fleets had an SSD included then the retiring fleet must be one of those). The other three Imperial fleets may each cut up to 50 points of upgrades, fighters or small ships and give those points to the retiring fleet player who can then add them to the replacement fleet. This new fleet of up to 550 points must include a SSD Executor-I or Executor-II.
What do we think?...
Player numbers: A six player Campaign can be done by eliminating Game 4 and Game 10 form the campaign schedule diagram and changing say Game 5 to a 1v1 match or Game 5 could be a good opportunity to insert a non armada game.
A four player campaign could be done by each player taking two fleets. A Rebel player takes the role of Rebel 1&2 partnered by his teammate taking the role of Rebel 3&4. The same applies for the Imperial players. So a Rebel player could run a Cracken MSU fleet and an Agate Starhawk build. An Imperial player could take a Sloane fighter list and a Motti big triangle force. This way the doubles games can still go ahead unmodified.
Victory Bonuses: Of course as the campaign organizer you can select whichever you wish to use. I'm not that happy with the one I have for a 10-1 win. Ill have a think about a new one.
I'd be interested to hear other people's suggestions for small, one-shot bonuses you can apply to the next scenario. We could also come up with bonuses if the next game is X-Wing, Legion or Imperial Assault.
A common problem in campaigns is that you get snowballing. Some player gets early wins and so has more economic points to spend on ships while their early opponent had a nasty loss and has to pay a hefty repair bill with his economic points. This snowballs into the later rounds and eventually one side sees which way things are going and throw in the towel.
My bonuses are designed to give a nice treat for winning games but they don't last long and I suppose the worse that could happen in the grand final is that on side has 4 bonuses and the other side has none. Even then 80 points of free squadrons in a 1600v1600 point game is hardly devastating.
Finally I've added another campaign variation to include the larger SSD in the grand final.
That's a great idea! I also love the idea to mix Legion or X-wing in. I really would love to try this sort of campaign. But we had problems to finde 4-6 players for a campaign so it will be near to impossible to find 8.
All boni for winning games are quite a problem for balancing. I like the idea, that you get the MoV from a former game as a bonus to your bid in the next game(s). I would just do that. (You can easily tweak that to fit in Legion and the other way round.)
Very nice! I think if you add games you would add them in later rounds, e.g. Round 2 is X-Wing and Round 3 is Legion. That simulates coming to a planet, beating off the defending fleet, getting air superiority, and then putting boots on the ground. However that being said, the format you laid out is an excellent escalation of fleet conflict, and adding more games takes away from that. Maybe a campaign could be the same 3 rounds repeated with X-Wing and/or Legion for a month of fun.