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X-Wing Miniatures Game
(c) Fantasy Flight Games |
Introduction
After falling away from Fantasy Flight Games' X-Wing Miniatures Game for a few years, myself and a group of friends are looking to play on a semi-regular basis again - but we wanted to do something that would give our battles a little more depth than the one-off battles affairs we used to play. At the same time, we didn't want to do anything that required much book-keeping or would cause us headaches if we wanted to drop in and out of play as life's pressures dictated. Thus we put together the Galactic Civil War Campaign Rules. They are written with 1st Edition in mind but there's nothing I'm aware of that would prevent these rules being used by 2nd Edition players (feedback welcomed if this is not the case). I hope you enjoy them!
The Galaxy Map
Using the board from FFG's excellent Star Wars Rebellion boardgame, this map shows all of the key systems across the galaxy - and which factions control them. When the campaign begins, the hidden Rebel base is on Mon Calamari and the Empire's Death Star at Coruscant. The number of symbols on each location dictate the size of each game of the X-Wing Miniatures game to be fought (more below).
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The Galaxy Map
(c) Fantasy Flight Games (game board for Star Wars Rebellion) |
Campaign Aim
The players are aiming to either destroy the enemy base or liberate/control the majority of the galaxy's systems, whichever happens first. At the start of the campaign, one faction requires to occupy 17 of the 33 systems to ensure victory.
Campaign Turns
During a Campaign Turn, one player picks a system to attack and both players then fight a battle of the X-Wing Miniatures Game as normal. The winner not only takes control of the system, but they also increase their faction's Renown in the process. Increasing Renown unlocks new Ships and Pilots for their faction to call upon in future battles - and brings the player closer to victory as their spies search for the enemy base! More on this later...
When starting the campaign, players flip a coin. The player who wins the coin toss has control of play for Turn One. The other player has control of play in Turn Two, before the first player has control again in Turn Three, with play alternating between players each Campaign Turn. No player ever gets two turns in a row.
Turn Sequence
The Turn Sequence is as follows:
1. Choose a system to assault
2. Pick forces
3. Play a game of the X-Wing Miniatures Game
4. End Phase
1. Choose a System to Assault
The player in control of play picks any neutral system on the board to assault. Players may not attack systems which already belong to the enemy faction - the one exception being to launch attacks on the enemy base as detailed in the Renown section. Although armies of the Empire and Rebels clash on the ground, it is in the dominance of space, that systems are won and lost.
While a game of X-Wing may not encompass the full scale of planetary assaults or even the huge fleets of ships engaged involved, for the purposes of the campaign, it does represent a microcosm of the overall battle - in that whoever wins the scenario takes control of the system and widens their Renown!
When picking a system to attack, the number of symbols on the selected system dictates the size of the battle. If there is a clear hexagonal symbol on the system being attacked, the attacking player can decide whether this symbol counts as one symbol or none (thereby influencing the size of the battle). Once this is determined, players can pick forces.
No. of Symbols Size of Scenario (Points)
0-1 100
Note: It will be easier to play larger games once your Renown has risen a little. Depending upon the size of your collection it may be tricky to play a 300 point battle with only Pilot Skill 1 ships at your disposal!
Note: if players only have sufficient forces for 100 point battles then there is nothing to stop them from playing small encounters in every scenario for the duration of the campaign. The intent though is for there to be larger games both to mix up the scale of encounters and to allow more opportunity to use huge ships in some of the battles. We feel that this gives the campaign more variation and an epic sweep - but play with what you've got!
2. Pick Forces
Players pick their forces as normal with a the following minor but significant restrictions:
- Only pilots with a Pilot Skill equal to or below their current Renown can be selected. Both factions start the Campaign with Renown of 1, meaning that only Ships with Pilot Skill of 1 may be selected on both sides for the opening battle. Factions need to conquer/free systems to increase their Renown, thereby unlocking more Pilots and Ships as they do so.
- Unique ships/characters etc are indeed unique. Once a unique Pilot or Ship is killed/destroyed, they are gone forever - or at least for the duration of the current campaign. You therefore cannot select them for future battles. They may be one with the Force but they can't directly help fight the Galactic Civl War any longer.
3. Play a Game of X-Wing Miniatures Game
Players may play a standard battle to the death or - at both players' agreement - play scenarios (or even campaigns, there's no reason why campaigns within this campaign can't be played!) from the X-Wing Miniatures Game and supplements.
Whichever scenario is played, run it as usual with the following additional rule:
"Get clear Wedge, you can't do any more good back there!"
Unique pilots/ships may flee the conflict at any point during a battle by exiting any board edge. This represents the ship taking the time to make the calculations for the jump to hyperspace to escape, or to return to the safety within the range of a nearby allied convoy of Star Destroyers. This gives players a chance at least to keep their unique ships and pilots available for future encounters. Even heroes don't hang around if it means it might get them killed!
Note that while unique pilots/ships which flee survive for the purposes of the campaign, for the purposes of victory conditions in any given scenario, they count as having been destroyed (as is usual when a ship exits the board).
Once the victory conditions are reached in a game, players may wish to play on until all unique ships have vacated the battlefield or simply call it there with all remaining named ships assumed to have escaped, whichever players mutually agreed beforehand.
Base Attack: If the faction is launching an assault upon the Death Star or the hidden Rebel base, a 300 point battle will be fought (or as large as players' model collections will allow). If the attacking faction wins such a battle, they destroy the enemy base and win the campaign! If the assault was unsuccessful, the base will be relocated (see below in End Phase).
4. End Phase
There are several things to be updated in the End Phase of any given turn:
Campaign Map: mark or reflect on your Star Wars Rebellion board which faction now controls the system just contested. If one faction controls/has liberated the majority of systems or if they have destroyed their enemy's base, they have won the campaign! Expect a medal ceremony!
If an attack on a base was unsuccessful, the base should be moved to a neutral system to be contested at a later point in time. Note that moving the base into a neutral territory does not mean the system has been taken over by that faction; rather they have been forced into a hasty retreat and are looking to lie low in their new system after coming so close to losing the entire war. They will remain there - and the system will remain neutral - until such time as the enemy faction finds them to launch another base assault. If there are no neutral systems left, place the base on any system under the faction's control.
Campaign Roster: Note down any unique pilots/ships that were killed/destroyed. As mentioned above, these may no longer be used for the rest of the campaign. Note that the crew/upgrades on unique ships can completely change from battle to battle. This is to save on bookkeeping, to keep builds unpredictable, and to reflect that factions will want to calibrate their ships in different ways for different conflicts.
Renown: Renown is a critical aspect of campaign play. It reflects the faction's current standing in the galaxy, which pilots they can attract to their cause, and the effectiveness and extent of their spy networks who are trying to find the Death Star plans or the location of the hidden Rebel base.
As mentioned above, both players start with a Renown of 1 and can only select ships with Pilot Skill equal to or less than their current Renown. After a battle has been fought, the winning side increases their Renown by 1, while the losing side's Renown remains at its previous level. This means that to unlock all of the Pilots, players need to raise their Renown to 10, winning 9 battles in the process!
Another aspect of Renown relates to the faction's strength in spying and subterfuge as their agents seek the destruction of the other's base of operations. Once Renown reaches 10, the faction has discovered the location of the enemy base and, on their next turn, may opt to attack it. The faction will keep discovering the new location of enemy bases for every 2 Renown thereafter, namely when Renown reaches, 12, 14, 16, 18 (because base systems can be lost due to a Factional Major Victory, it is possible to have Renown of 17 but not hold 17 systems).
And that's it! Fly casual - and have fun!
Advanced Rules:
Special Recruits
Each faction assigns 5 unique pilots to flavourful systems before the campaign starts. e.g. Luke on Tatooine, Chewie on Kashyyk, Lando on Bespin, etc. These territories are considered neutral until they have been contested.
These characters cannot be taken until they are unlocked, even if they would usually be unlocked by an increase in Renown. Once they are unlocked, they become available both as pilots and as crew as desired. It goes without saying that they may not feature in a single battle as both pilot and crew - and that the usual rules for unique characters being killed apply.
The chance to unlock iconic characters becomes available when the faction's Renown raises to 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15; once this has been achieved, the faction may - in their next turn when they control play - launch an assault on relevant system and, if they win the battle, in addition to taking control of the system as usual, may add the unique character to their campaign roster. Note that such characters may be fielded in a future squadrons for battle even if this breaks the established rule of not being able to field anything with a pilot skill higher than current Renown. If they fail to win the battle, the character is permanently locked for the remainder of the campaign as systems cannot be contested a second time.
Example: Having reached Renown of 3 in a previous turn, the Rebel player manages to win the battle for Bespin and Lando becomes available to his forces for the remainder of the campaign. The Rebel player's Renown rises to 4 but even though Lando's pilot Skill is 7, he can be fielded in any future forces from hereon in (for as long as he survives that is). Remember that Lando can be selected as either pilot or crew in a given scenario.
Note that an enemy faction may attack a system which potentially unlocks a character for their foes at any time. If they lose the battle, their opponent will gain access to that character as normal so there's no obvious reason why they'd want to do so!
Faction Major Victory
If one faction wins three successive victories in turns in which they control play or wins three consecutive victories across a mixture of turns during which they and the enemy control play, they are considered to have won a famous victory over the other faction and are rewarded with a Faction Major Victory. To clarify, a faction receives no FMV for winning 3 battles only on 3 consecutive turns where the enemy controlled play.
In the case of the Rebels, they encourage an uprising which sees Imperials thrown out of the nominated system, to become permanently neutral (it cannot be reclaimed). For the Empire, they can destroy a Rebel-held system with the Death Star - although it is treated as being permanently neutral. In both instances, the faction who won the Major Victory declares the target system and the effects are immediate, applied without any need to play a battle of X-Wing. Scum faction would apply the same success as the Rebels would, only they'd achieve it by hiring mercenary scum to drive the Empire/Rebels out of a system. Only systems which have been contested and won by the opposition may be targeted for an FML. Base systems may not be targeted.
Once a FMV has been applied, the faction is considered to be back at 0 wins; they must win another 3 battles as set out above to enjoy another FMV reward.
Note: FMVs alter the number of systems required to end the campaign: remember that one side only has to control/liberate the majority of systems for a win. Keep an eye on this once you start overthrowing enemies or destroying worlds! If for any reason a faction does not want to take advantage of a FMV, they are not obliged to do so. If both factions finish the campaign with an equal number of systems, both fleets amass for one final climactic battle - play one final game for as many points as you choose! Winner takes all!
Unable to apply a FML? It may be the case that, in the early stages of the campaign in particular, one faction does not control any systems other than its home base which cannot be attacked. If so, note that the FML was lost and count the faction's status as being back at 0 wins as is usual. However, should the enemy faction subsequently win a FML result, their FML result is cancelled by the one that their opponent lost. Note that to prevent one side unfairly losing out, this is cumulative.
i.e. The Rebels start the campaign with 6 consecutive victories. The Empire has no systems so - on two occasions - the Rebels forfeit their chance to liberate an Imperial system. But then the Empire strikes back, winning an incredible 9 consecutive victories! Normally they would have won 3 FMLs but these are offset by those lost by the Rebels, meaning that the first two are lost with the Empire only able to apply the last the FML result.
Other Potential Advanced Rules
You can certainly add rules for experience and keeping track of upgrades to ships but we felt that had the potential to unbalance the game and bog us down in bookkeeping - at least this way scenarios should be easy to jump in and out of and be finely balanced; one side may have access to many more pilots but a swarm of basic fighters has as much chance as two experienced and upgraded freighters of winning a battle!
A problem we've found in other gaming systems' campaigns is that experience bonuses / other rewards for success is that one side inevitably ends up overpowered and before long the fun falls out of the campaign as the outcome becomes inevitable. We did kick about a few ideas about awarding experience but nothing we came up with addressed this issue - but feel free to apply your own experience rules if you have them!
These rules rarely refer to the Scum faction because we wanted to play with classic Rebels v Imperials but it makes no difference to playing the campaign if Scum replaces either the Rebels or Imperials.
There's the potential for having all 3 factions fighting for dominance of the galaxy but we'll maybe have a think about that for another time...
Coming soon... Campaign log for the Galactic Civil War!
