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Made in us
Guarding Guardian



York, PA

With the addition of Legion to the FFG family of SW games, I’ve been thinking of the possibility of a cross-system campaign (e.g. legion representing ground battles, X-Wing for smaller ship-to-ship dogfights, etc). I’m thinking that if it can be imagined, FFG has a game covering close to any type of battle which could occur (in the civil war era, of course). Has anyone heard anything of, or started, a similar campaign? I have (unfortunately for my wallet) bought into Legion, X-Wing, and Armada so it’s not outside the realm of possibility for me. I would love to GM something like this for my younglings when they get a bit older.

Let me know your thoughts, experiences, etc. Anything will help as I map this out.
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







Battlefield Gothic had something like this. You could play a planetary assault game and each transport you got to the surface gave you points in either an epic or 40k battle.

For Armada yo7 could do.something similar. Any fighter to fighter engagement you play out in xwing. Boarding actions and ground actions you use legion.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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Made in us
Douglas Bader






Three problems with this kind of system:

1) The scale is completely off. For example, an Armada game will have several dogfights between fighter squadrons. So each time you engage those squadrons you have to set up an X-Wing game, play it out, and then apply the results to the Armada game. That means playing a bunch of X-Wing games while the in-progress Armada game sits on a table for a week. So you're going to need a lot of space to have a campaign like this, and a lot of patience for the sheer amount of time required to resolve events. And god help you if you try to have something like an Armada game determining how many orbital bombardment attacks a player in an in-progress Legion game gets, where you have to synch up the turns somehow and have double the playing space for two separate games.

2) Linking outcomes has a significant balance effect on the games. For example, abilities in Armada that buff fighters become worthless if you're using X-Wing to resolve your squadron combat. Or your character who is great at flying fighters becomes a huge liability in a Legion game, assuming that you don't let characters be gods of combat and great at everything.

3) The snowball effect is a huge problem and one-sided games are easy to generate. For example, in Armada you might send a single a-wing squadron into a blob of bombers to tie them up and delay them long enough for your capital ships to win the game. In Armada this is fine, combat is resolved quickly and nobody feels bad about the one-sided slaughter of that a-wing because it's a minor piece of the game and the a-wing player is winning elsewhere. But do you really want to play out a "game" of X-Wing where a single a-wing fights 200 points of enemy ships? Of course not. Or to borrow that BFG example, let's say the transports get through the blockade in the Armada game and deliver reinforcements, a win for the rebel player. Now the rebel player in the following Legion game has a significant points advantage and wins easily, gaining benefits that will help them win the game after that. You can very easily get into a situation where winning leads to more winning, and events in one game turn the rest of the games into a boring slog to resolve the outcome that everyone already knows is inevitable.

It just isn't worth trying to come up with a formal linked campaign system. Play a bunch of games of whatever you feel like at the time, and have fun. Maybe you can write some fluff to tie it all together in the same setting, but making rules for it is far too likely to end up making the game less fun.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/06/10 11:44:16


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Made in gb
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Wales: Where the Men are Men and the sheep are Scared.

I think it could be really fun and interesting for everyone involved however it’s probably best if you make the outcome of previous battles more for fun and flavour than massively effecting the next game.

For it to work you would need to have someone essentially DMing the campaign like you would an RPG.



 
   
Made in fr
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





France

I would advice you to avoid writing precise rules for that,it'd be too complicated and most probably flawed in the end. Just define what you would like to represent with each game, then discuss with your opponent(s) the details of the scenarios.

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Made in us
Guarding Guardian



York, PA

Thanks for the inputs. I was thinking I would probably be DMing with my little guys running each side, with the ability to step in as a “scum” faction for balancing if need be.

With larger Armada battles I agree I don’t think I would have the patience to integrate/resolve rounds of X-Wing to represent those dogfights. I could imagine stand-alone X-Wing battles within the campaign, similar to the battle at Eadu in Rogue One. I could imagine multiple systems affecting one battle, but it would require some advanced thought and a way to produce a satisfying resolution.

I also agree that snowballing is a major concern that requires a mechanism to limit. Would using an open map, like one in the Coreilla Conflict box, help with that? That way wins on one planet won’t necessarily translate to another, but the victor still gets some kind of (maybe even a decisive) bonus.

The additional benefits of using a map like that allow for so much more flexibility for the players and what can be done in game. There could be resources, space stations which could repair ships, etc. If you wanted to get really hardcore, you could track loyalty, like in the video game Star Wars Rebellion. If there is a DM, fleet and ground force positioning could be kept secret until information reveals positions or they run into one another. There could be secret moves, spies, “scum” factions, etc. Additionally, neither side necessarily needs to have the same objectives during this campaign, so maybe both sides could “win”. Maybe there are key planets to be held, characters that need to be captured/assassinated/protected, particular tech that needs to be destroyed or acquired, the possibilities are only limited by the imagination.

Thoughts?
   
Made in fr
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





France

If you want to organise sucha campaign as DM you need to clearly define every objective. The bonuses need to have charts to be easily refered to, and you would need to talk and register each person's troops and plans in turn so the other side can't know what they'll be doing.

The main problem lies in all those details you must think bout for it to play smoothly.

If you need to rebalance the campaign, maybe don't go in yourself with a scum faction, in case you win it will even more snowball. just allow the dude to have some reinfrcements in any kind. However noramlly there should be little such interactions and jokers if you go for a tightly ruled system, because it would get the competitive level out of it and be frustrating for the winner if there's a come back based on some free voucher bonus.

Also, don't be afraid to sound simple: don't try to cover every possibility and stay quite generals when writing the rules, otherwise you'll lose yourself in a mess.

40k: Necrons/Imperial Guard/ Space marines
Bolt Action: Germany/ USA
Project Z.

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Made in us
Storm Trooper with Maglight





Denver

Being the DM and actively balancing results to keep things interesting is one approach.

If you want it to be a little more predetermined (winning at x gives you y) I would try and get a copy of the old Warhammer Siege book from around 5th edition fantasy (I think). There was a great system for a linked campaign playing different scenarios where winning or losing for each side had an outcome on the final battle. The concepts and ideas could be a great match for what you are trying to achieve.

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Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

This sounds like a job for a simple ladder campaign.

Game 1= Armada bash as the fleets get into the system and duke it out.

Game two= X-wng game where the loser defends as the winner tries to do X.

Game 3= Legion game where the winner of the previous game does x and the loser has to stop them

Rinse and repeat as often as you want.

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Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






I don't think I'd want to break down each fighter engagement in Armada into an X-Wing game (that'll take forever, even if you simplify it down to one X-Wing fighter per Armada squadron), but I'd certainly consider narratively linking the games. Whether that's as a pre-plotted tree campaign or something a bit more free-form - you can just see how each game plays out and use that to inspire the next game. If you want, you can throw in a survival mechanic for named characters (roll an attack die for each one that's destroyed during a game - blank or focus = OK, hit = can't be used in the next game, critical = dead, can't be used for the rest of the campaign).

For example, let's say the campaign is something like an Imperial squadron attacking a Rebel-held system. The first game might be the Imperial fleet arriving in-system. That would be an Armada game using appropriate mission objectives (you could get together and choose them, rather than the usual competitive blind method). If the Imperial side wins, then you could say the next mission is a scouting mission by Imperial fighters to identify which planet the Rebels are on. This could be one or a series of X-Wing games where Imperial fighters have to identify a Rebel base. Start with TIE Fighters or some other appropriate recon ships (check Wookieepedia, and ISTR flying a few such missions in Assault Gunboats in the TIE Fighter computer games) If the Rebels win a couple of these, then you can start adding heavier escort ships, while if the Rebels lose a few or the Imperials discover their bases, then you can send in bombing runs with TIE bombers or Assault Gunboats. If that fails, or you decide the base is of significant size, then fight out a boarding action using Legion or Imperial Assault.

Etc, etc. If the Imperials lose the initial match, then the next game might be some probing attacks by hyperdrive-capable Imperial ships (Gunboats, TIE Advanced, that sort of thing). If it goes really wrong for the Imperials, the Rebels might even manage to salvage some of their ships - give the Rebels a captured Star Destroyer in an Armada game, for example! (or give the Imperials access to frigates and blockade runners. Sure, there'll be some balance issues, but I'm sure they're not insurmountable).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/13 09:09:57


 
   
Made in us
Been Around the Block







While I do think that this would be a pretty cool thing to pull off, I agree with Peregrine that this would cause a lot of issues. Perhaps FFG could make multi-system campaigns a thing in future editions by having the rules accommodate such a thing as optional or something along those lines.
   
 
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