Tuesday, May 31, 2011

BFG: Star Wars Campaign

Hey Folks,

The Space Table is Complete, Rebel Fleet finished and the Emperors Lap Dogs motley collection of mass produced and inferior ships amassed.

We are kicking off our BFG games with a campaign as the BFG campaign system is awesome.  Its slightly modded with the rules from this post on the Dakka Dakka forums by Cruentus.  We are battling over The Chiss Ascendancy.  This is an area of space just within the Unknown Region governed by the red eyed and blue skinned alien Chiss.  The Wookiepedia Article is here but they are famous for being the birthplace of Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Timothy Zhan series of books.

The premise for the campaign is entirely non-cannon but the idea is that the Rebel Alliance has dispatched a task force under the Mon Calamari Line Admiral Mari'Nara to attempt to sway the Chiss to the Rebellions cause.  Imperial Intelligence has detected this and a punitive expedition has been sent by the Empire (under a yet to be named Commander) to prevent this and "remind" the Chiss of the Empire's displeasure.

I lifted a map online and then modified it with Publisher.  Here is the Map after the 2nd Campaign Turn and the first battle:


In the First Campaign turn the Empire started at Naporar and moved towards Sposia, capturing the system.  The Rebels started at Rhigar and moved to the Capital system of Csilla on a peaceful diplomatic mission. 

In the Second Turn the Rebels heard of the Imperial task force at Sposia and decided to move to intercept them before they could stamp down on the peace loving Chiss.  The Imperials moved towards the Csilla intent on stamping on some Aliens and the Fleets met in deep space.

As you can see above (and I will blog the battle report soon) the Rebels didn't fair to well. Their commander lapsed into a n00b state and committed a tactical blunder or two.  The Rebels were forced to retreat back to their start point while the victorious Imperials moved on Csilla, capturing the system and started to persecute the aliens.

Campaign wise my Rebels lost their captured Escort Carrier, an Assault Frigate and some Nebulon B frigates while the Dreadnought was heavily damaged.  My one planet only had sufficient repair capacity to rebuild the 3 Nebulon B's.  The Dreadnought was so heavily damaged it had to sent out of the sector to be repaired so will miss the next game.  Alliance Command granted my appeal for reinforcements so a new Assault Frigate was added to my task force, but its crew are untrained so only LD 6.

The Imperials now have three planets, and while they lost an Enforcer light cruiser they have more then sufficient capacity to repair their crippled Dreadnought. Their Commander was promoted to Battle Group Commander for his increased Renown after his victory so now gets an extra re-roll.

So its time to make our next moves,  but word has reached us that Chiss Reactionaries are massing and perhaps a third player will enter the scene?

7 comments:

Jamie said...

The Imperial Commander is no 'big name' and is a simple Line-Captain temporarily detached to command this taskforce: Gilad Pallaeon

Reading through the actual rules this morning - we played asteroid fields wrong (no shooting torps through and they block LOF) so I'd sure have played out that battle differently. I would have stuck with my original plan and relied on the asteroids to shield the rear of fast retreating LCs and Escorts, while I dropped a cloud of bombers behind me (they can take shortcuts through the field) to gobble up your ships if they decided to come around that way. This would have been better for your ships on that flank (assuming you decided that bombers are best avoided) and much worse for the ships in the middle. However, the two pairs of battleships might well have got to tangle up close.

I guess it as just a very light field, which my SD commanders had not the nerve to navigate!

I must remember to roll up my stuff tonight.

Unknown said...

Hey Jamie,

Well, that would have made a diffrence. I still was a n00b though so I am sure you would have pulled it out anyway!

Your Dread will drop a LD point (should make it easy to defect I think, we may have those rules wrong) but you may get improvements to the rest of your ships. I assume you will be doing a "reinforcement" appeal to get a replacement enforcer?

Jamie said...

It might well have been worse for those ships. I was always shooting through the field at maximum penalties, when I should have been pouring that fire into the ship that managed to disengage, while devoting my ordnance (aside from a small fighter screen)to wearing down your flank ships. As it was, I got tempted away from using the lights in the old 'bait and switch' and actually used lights in a firefight, which lost me an Enforcer :(

Also - BFI requires a Ld test but you test anew to put it on each time a new ship shoots at you.

I really need more cruiser models.

Cheers

bikewrench said...

Cool write up of the campaign, as well as a cool campaign idea.
I like the fact that it makes you play more 'realistically' because you might need those forces next game etc.
PS Rebel fleet looks dope!

Than said...

The Chiss will not allow these violations of their territory to go unanswered!

Admiral Than (full name Jonna'than'nuruodo) is gathering a fleet, it should be in striking distance of the rebels tomorrow night.

Unknown said...

Cheers Adam,

Campaigns are super fun, and add an elemt you dont get in one off pick up games. They usually are quite hard to do though as they are hard to keep going but the BFG campaign rules are nice and easy with clearly defined victory conditions.

Looking for to taking on your Chiss Than, remember the Alliance are the "good guys" and your people will beneift from the re-establishment of the Republic!

Jamie said...

The Rebellion are a motley assortment disgruntled 'nobility', the same corporations that were a cancer eating away at the Old Republic, and smugglers and freebooters. They are the enemies of peace and stability, and stand only for the freedom of a privilaged few to further their own base interests.

But fear not, this brief policing action shall see the continuation of the Imperial Order.

And I'm looking forward to tangling with Shiss renegades as well. Pity there aren't more fleets, for more players in the campaign!