Good morning gamers,
We’re starting a new series on
custom campaigns, where we’ll show you how to use the side missions you already
own to make the campaign game more fun (so you don’t have to play the same. Campaign.
Over. And. Over. Again). While we won’t be providing any campaigns today, we’ll
go over the general rules for these short campaigns and the rules of thumb for
them.
Short Campaigns: The Fantasy Flight Games Rule
Short campaigns were released by Fantasy
Flight Games (FFG) in the Twin Shadows
and Bespin Gambit expansion boxes.
All of the missions included in these two expansions are side missions, joined
together with story text (and a different rewards section), and united around a
common theme and location. The general layout of a short campaign according to
FFG is as follows:
·
Pre-game:
o
Rebel players receive cash/hero and XP/hero and
resolve a Rebel Upgrade stage (access to basic gear);
o
The Imperial Player (IP) receives XP and may
purchase upgrades (but doesn’t get any Influence to buy Agenda cards);
·
Mission
1: GREEN Side Mission
o
Regardless of which side wins, both the Rebel
heroes and the IP each gain the same XP;
o
If Rebels win, they get access to the hero in
the GREEN mission, but if the IP wins, a Villain that was present in the
mission is awarded to the IP;
o
Rebels get cash/hero, IP gets a tiny amount of
Influence;
o
Rebels can purchase basic/medium gear, IP can
now purchase Agenda cards;
·
Mission
2: RED Side Mission
o
Both Rebel heroes and IP gain XP – winning side
gets +1 XP;
o
If the Rebels win and the hero that the RED
mission is for is present in the group, that hero receives their reward card
(per usual) – otherwise the heroes get additional cash/hero. If the IP wins,
additional Influence is received;
o
Rebels get cash/hero, IP gets a tiny amount of
Influence;
o
Rebels can purchase medium gear, IP can purchase
Agenda cards;
·
Mission
3: GRAY Side Mission
o
Both Rebel heroes and IP gain XP – winning side
gets +1 XP;
o
If the Rebels win, one hero receives the GRAY
reward card (per usual), but if the IP wins, additional influence is received;
o
Rebels get cash/hero, IP gets a tiny amount of
Influence;
o
Rebels can purchase advanced gear, IP can
purchase Agenda cards;
·
Mission
4: Imperial Agenda Deck Mission
o
Win/Lose the Campaign (per normal for campaign
finale)
If you’ve played any campaign game
for Imperial Assault (and as should be visible above), you know that the Rebels
get a lot out of their credits – they buy gear and stuff to make them better
and kill things faster. The balance for the IP is that they receive Influence,
but for whatever reason, the short campaigns starve the IP for Influence (while
not starving the Rebels for credits). This is the only thing I draw issue with
for their short campaigns (and something I’ve changed in the rules below).
Without further ado, here are the rules for creating a custom campaign
according to Tiberius from the Wretched Hive blog (specifics highlighted in green for
Rebels and blue for the IP):
·
Pre-game:
o
Rebel players receive 300 credits/hero and 3 XP/hero and
resolve a Rebel Upgrade stage (access to T1 gear – draw half the cards rounding up).
o
The IP receives 3 XP and 3 Influence and resolves an Imperial
Upgrade stage.
·
Mission
1: GREEN Side Mission
o
Rebel players receive 300 credits/hero and 2 XP/hero (cumulative of 5 per hero). If the Rebels win the mission, they
are awarded
the Ally from the mission to use
in future mission (if there are no other allies included in that mission).
Rebels can purchase T1/T2 gear – draw half the cards rounding up.
o
The IP receives 3 Influence and 2 XP (5 total). If
the IP wins, he is awarded a Villain from the mission
OR a Villain of his choice based from the faction that had the majority of the
deployment cards in the mission if no Villain was present (e.g. if the IP used
4 Imperial deployment cards and 3 Mercenary deployment cards, the IP would
choose an Imperial Villain and not a Mercenary Villain).
·
Mission
2: RED Side Mission
o
Rebel players receive 300 credits/hero and 2 XP/hero (cumulative of 7 per hero). If the Rebels win the mission, they
are awarded +1
XP/hero (cumulative of 8 per hero) and either a) the reward card for the mission if the hero associated with the
mission is being used, or b) 100 credits/hero otherwise.
Rebels can purchase T2 gear – draw half the cards rounding up.
o
The IP receives 3 Influence and 2 XP (7 total). If
the IP wins, he receives +1 Influence and +1 XP (8 total).
·
Mission
3: GRAY Side Mission
o
Rebel players receive 300 credits/hero and 2 XP/hero (cumulative of 9-10 per hero). If the Rebels win the mission, they
are awarded +1
XP/hero (cumulative of 10-11 per hero) and receive the reward card for the mission. Rebels can purchase T3 gear – draw
half the cards rounding up.
o
The IP receives 3 Influence and 2 XP (9-10 total). If
the IP wins, he receives +1 Influence and +1 XP (10-11 total).
·
Mission
4: Imperial Agenda Deck Mission
o
Campaign finale – the winning side wins the
campaign!
We’ve tried to correct the
Influence-starving of the IP: even if the IP loses every mission leading to the
finale, he will receive 12 Influence,
which is on-par with what he’d receive in a long campaign. One of the big
problems with starving the IP for Influence is that you can’t get through the
cards that are in your Agenda Deck, making it incredibly difficult to find
anything that you want in it. With a reasonable amount of Influence, the IP is
actually able to compete with the Rebel Heroes (which is pretty hard to do in
most side missions once the Rebels get access to Tier 3 weapons). If you want
to view our rules at-a-glance, check out our short campaign page here on the blog! With the basic rules
understood, let’s look at the heart of a short campaign: the theme.
Short Campaigns: Finding A Theme
Anytime you string independent
things together, you run the risk of not having a cohesive story. Since side
missions are meant to be interspersed within a long campaign, there isn’t a lot
of unity between them (at least as far as planets, characters, etc. are
concerned)…or is there? I’ve found that there are several ways that you can get
a story to gel cohesively:
·
Center it
around certain characters: Some missions (especially in the Core Set) involve
the same Villains/Allies – usually based on those available in the
core/expansion set. While this doesn’t help you very much for waves where there
were only Ally/Villain packs included, you’ll find side missions for Agenda
decks that were released in/alongside expansion packs using the same
villains/allies, providing you a cohesive story.
·
Center it
around a planet/location: The Twin Shadows/Bespin Gambit campaigns have the
advantage of occurring on the same place, but you’ll find missions on Tatooine
scattered all over the place. If you make it more generic and stick to locale
types (forest, desert, interior-nice, interior-dingy, snow), you can ignore the
printed planet and weave into the story that you’re located somewhere else.
·
Center it
around the themes of the missions themselves: In many side missions, you’ll
be asked to steal something (supplies, secret plans, prototype hardware) OR
perhaps you’ll be asked to destroy something. What if you can find multiple
missions from the various side mission types and allow your players to do a
mass smuggling operation (or sabotage campaign)? Want to rescue prisoners or
hunt down bounty hunters? There are PLENTY of missions for you to choose from
if you work based on theme.
However you want to set up your
campaign, think about what you want the characters to do: do you want to follow
the lives of an ally/villain that you hate? Is there a super-secret project
that you’re running to ground? Are you stuck on a lonely planet waiting to be
rescued (and picking up odd jobs along the way)? Pick a theme and run with it –
writing up the blather between the missions can be fun and it adds a weight to
the story that your Rebel players will enjoy.
Short Campaigns: Stream-lined vs. Alternative Missions
With all that said, there is an
aspect of the short campaign that you can skip altogether if you want it to be
simpler: Missions 2 and 4 have alternative options based on whether the Rebels
win/lose Missions 1 and 3. I’ve found that this is generally unnecessary – you
can change the blather based on the outcome if you want (celebrating victory
vs. licking wounds), but the actual missions need not change. Those longing for
additional complexity (or who have created a short campaign, walked through it,
and want to make some changes for variety and re-playability) are welcome to
use it, but the short campaigns you’ll be seeing here won’t have that in them.
That said, if you don’t like one of the missions included in my set (or just
think there’s a better one), do a quick substitution – I won’t be offended.
Short Campaigns: Starter List
Here are the first six campaigns we’ll
be viewing over the next few weeks (as a means of helping you get started at thinking about your own campaigns) - I've ordered these from least required number of purchases to the most number of purchases (purchases required in brackets):
·
Balance
of the Force: Homecoming, Temptation, Sympathy For The Rebellion, Dark
Obsession [Core]
· Sabotage: Brace For Impact, Brushfire, A Simple Task, Means of Production [Core, Rebel Trooper]
· The Solo Story: Sorry About The Mess, High Moon, Imperial Entanglements, Wanted [Core, Han Solo]
· Valuable Supplies: Precious Cargo, A Hero’s Welcome, Luxury Cruise, Impounded [Core, Jabba’s Realm, Alliance Smuggler]
·
A
Smuggler’s Life For Me: The Spice Job, Shady Dealings, Perilous Hunt,
Breaking Point [Core, Twin Shadows, Jabba's Realm]
·
Allies In
Kashyyyk: Brute Force, Indebted, Celebration, Back-Room Bargains
[Core, Chewbacca, Wookie Warrior, Hired Gun]
I hope you get some great ideas
for how to work these campaigns into your gaming sessions – until next time,
happy gaming!
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