Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is something I've been tinkering with, the goal is to create a campaign system for pickup games that works for most small skirmish games though I'm mostly thinking of Star Wars minis. The points in the system assume a usual 100 point game.

The rules should be short, clear, have minimal book keeping but still have groups that evolve over time and force tough choices for players. Missions should also require players to do more than "kill kill kill".

So... for your consideration I present my Star Wars Miniatures campaign system. It is UNTESTED so please chime in with thoughts.

SWM Campaign System

Before the battle

Choose a squad of 100 points as normal or use your continuing squad.
You do not have to use all of your models in every game.
Models may flee off the field, departing from your deployment area. They can be used again next game.

Roll for mission

1-5 King of the Hill
6-10 Capture the Flag
11-15 Checkmate
16-20 All Out War!

King of the Hill – Place 3 objectives on the board, at least 12” from any deployment area and 12” from each other. Winner is whoever controls the most objectives after 10 turns. Total victory if your opponent never controls any.

Capture the Flag – Players must get characters into the opponent’s deployment area. The player with an unopposed character (i.e. one of your characters and no opposing ones) in his enemy’s deployment area wins after 10 turns wins. Total victory if you get your entire force into your enemy’s deployment area.

Checkmate – Designate one character as your ‘king’. The character must either be unique, have a command effect, or be the highest point value character in your squad. The first player to kill his opponent’s king wins. Total victory if your king kills your opponent’s king. Game ends after 10 turns.

All Out War! – Play for 10 turns, player with the most points left wins. Total victory if you wipe your opponent’s force OR if you take no losses.

If both players or no players fulfil the victory conditions the game is a draw.

Roll for casualties

1-5 Dead, may not be used again
6-15 Disabled, may not be used next mission, reroll after the next mission
16-20 Full recovery, may use again next mission
May reroll once for each character with healing.

Rewards

50 points Total victory!
30 points Winning
20 points Draw
10 points Losing
0 points Wiped out

Modifiers

Your force is 10% of your opponents’ x10
Your force is 25% of your opponents’ x5
Your force is 50% of your opponents’ x2
Your force is 200% of your opponents’ 1/2
Your force is 300% of your opponents’ 1/5
Your force is more than 500% of your opponents’ 0

Spending rewards

You may use reward points to:
• Buy new models (pay the point cost)
• Move a model off of disabled list (25% model’s point cost)
• Hire a mercenary for the next battle (25% of a Fringe model’s point cost, model disappears after battle)
• Promote a model to a better version (difference b/w current points and new points)
• Drop a model from your squad (you recover 50% of its point value)
• Save the points for the future

Note on promotions: Star Wars Minis will have several versions of most characters. For example Luke Skywalker – Rebel, can be promoted to Luke Skywalker of Dagobah and later to Luke Skywalker – Jedi Knight. Similarly a Storm Trooper can be promoted to a Heavy Storm Trooper or an Elite Storm Trooper and then to a Storm Trooper Officer. It might be necessary to adjudicate whether or not a promotion is allowed, for example can a Storm Trooper be promoted to a Snow Trooper or Scout Trooper? I’d say in that case no because there are plenty of Storm Trooper variants out there.

I don't know much about Star Wars minis, but what you have there seems like a pretty well-thought-out system. If you want to add more scenarios, perhaps look at the wealth of Necromunda scenarios. Also, Blasters and Bulkheads, the Goalsystem "not-starwars" game has a 4 scenarios and a well developed campaign system.

Most of the games I play have a built-in campaign system, but it's also easy to borrow scenario ideas and campaign mechanics from other systems and adapt them to your game of choice.

My favorite example is they guy that took every scenario from Mordheim and Warhammer Skirmish and rewrote them for Song of Blades and Heroes. We had a great time with some of his scenarios in our SBH campaign.

I'd like to see a book of generic sci-fi scenarios. Sort of presenting the reader with basic setup, force compositions and objectives and letting them fit it to their game.

I had high hopes for the "Battle Missions" 40k book and while it did add some variety, it didn't stray much from regular force compositions/balance, objective mechanics or turn structure as laid out in regular 40k missions.

I like it, though my biggest complaint against it is that a lot of the models in the SW minis game are massively unbalanced. Rules like these would be great if they were restricted to things like commons or at the very least "no named characters". If I remember correctly Luke, Vader, or any of the more famous Jedi could mow through twice their points value in "troopers" without breaking a sweat.

Looks good, though it also seems like a couple of defeats will royally screw up a player to a point of not being able to recover...

Eilif wrote:I don't know much about Star Wars minis, but what you have there seems like a pretty well-thought-out system. If you want to add more scenarios, perhaps look at the wealth of Necromunda scenarios. Also, Blasters and Bulkheads, the Goalsystem "not-starwars" game has a 4 scenarios and a well developed campaign system.

Thanks, but for the moment I want to keep it to just a few missions which can be explained in a line or two. SWM actually has a book or two of movie-based missions but they're hideously unbalanced.

I'll take a look for Blasters and Bulkheads, do you have a link though?

econtutor wrote:I like it, though my biggest complaint against it is that a lot of the models in the SW minis game are massively unbalanced. Rules like these would be great if they were restricted to things like commons or at the very least "no named characters". If I remember correctly Luke, Vader, or any of the more famous Jedi could mow through twice their points value in "troopers" without breaking a sweat.

True, but SWM made up for that by having a wealth of support peices. Sure Luke could rip through a dozen stormtroopers, but no one would ever field a force of pure stormies, you'd have a few stormies and then an officer who buffed their stats, or a beatstick of your own.

There were unbalanced pieces there, but since the game is OOP we'd just be playing with my collection so it's not as big an issue.

The missions are meant to make up for that somewhat, I'm trying to avoid games that are just a big scrum in the middle. Most of them require spreading out somewhat.

Maybe I should add to each game a few 'treasure counters' scattered around the board so there's more reason to spread out and less incentive to just thrown down 1-2 major guys and win through firepower.

Azazelx wrote:Looks good, though it also seems like a couple of defeats will royally screw up a player to a point of not being able to recover...

Yeah that's a problem I'm wrestling with. Especially since you only have a 25% chance of a 'dead' model being available next game. I think the multipliers make up for it somewhat since if you're seriously outnumbered you can lose but still get more points than the winner.

I think I'll have people start at 300 points, but encourage them to only use 100 at a time.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Eilif wrote:I don't know much about Star Wars minis, but what you have there seems like a pretty well-thought-out system. If you want to add more scenarios, perhaps look at the wealth of Necromunda scenarios. Also, Blasters and Bulkheads, the Goalsystem "not-starwars" game has a 4 scenarios and a well developed campaign system.

Thanks, but for the moment I want to keep it to just a few missions which can be explained in a line or two. SWM actually has a book or two of movie-based missions but they're hideously unbalanced.

I'll take a look for Blasters and Bulkheads, do you have a link though?

Sure thing.
http://www.wargamedownloads.com/item.php?item=983

Being "Goalsystem" it shares basic mechanics with Supersystem, Chaos in Carpathia and others. One notable feature is the division between heroes who function alone and mooks/henchmen who function in a squads who degrade as they take casualties. It's hard to explain how it differs from individual-and-squad mechanics like 40k, but it does, and it's a neat mechanic that really fits well in the star wars setting.

 Eilif wrote:

Sure thing.
http://www.wargamedownloads.com/item.php?item=983

Being "Goalsystem" it shares basic mechanics with Supersystem, Chaos in Carpathia and others. One notable feature is the division between heroes who function alone and mooks/henchmen who function in a squads who degrade as they take casualties. It's hard to explain how it differs from individual-and-squad mechanics like 40k, but it does, and it's a neat mechanic that really fits well in the star wars setting.

I have Supersystem but never played it, it seemed like a good ruleset.

And I'm tempted to pick it up just so i can find out what happened to this guy's left arm.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


And I'm tempted to pick it up just so i can find out what happened to this guy's left arm.

Don't hold your breath.
Also, they never tell you how he manages to lay a lightsaber safely across his shoulder...

Neat set of rules though.

 Eilif wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


And I'm tempted to pick it up just so i can find out what happened to this guy's left arm.

Don't hold your breath.
Also, they never tell you how he manages to lay a lightsaber safely across his shoulder...

Neat set of rules though.

Phrik shoulder pads!

@Kyoto: I'd be a bit hesitant to include "death" for minis in a campaign system for pickup games. It's a bit moot as it's an OOP game but if someone buys in with just a starter in their collection and does badly they may not be able to use their minis for a second game depending on the outcome. Also, on the same note, I probably wouldn't allow even in a campaign battles where the points total is more than 20% off of an opponent's. If your goal is to just have a campaign system to use amongst friends with large collections, ignore the above. If it's something you want to use with strangers (like at an open store league), I'd take a close look at the two points above as they can severely curtail the fun a new player would have.

Game 1: New guy fields his small starter force against a guy with 2x the points and is wiped out
Game 2: New guy doesn't have the points to bring any of his figs "back from the dead"
Game 3: Never going to happen..