Your mission, should you choose to accept it.....

Evening all.

Well, I've just had a customer service complaint ding-dong with my supermarket, and I'm in the mood for some hobby happiness to balance out the negatives of the day.

Missions, and designing them. That's what I want to do. See at the moment, we're somewhat spoilt for gaming choice. From Kill Team to Apocalypse, with numerous stops in between, we've never had choice like it. Stronghold Assault is a particular favourite of mine, and Escalation can be fun too, though I find it helps to be forewarned you'll be facing a honking great war machine or indomitable redoubt!

With all the expansions in mind, I want to do something new with mission design. I'm envisaging a map of a warzone, ala Planetary Empires, with each hexagon informing force selection for the attacker and defender.

Add in a hit of Dawn of War, Dark Crusade, and when conquered, the owning player can raise a Bastion or other defensive position permanently. Well, until some spoilsport comes along and blows it up in the process of taking that hex off you.

It's big, it's ambitious, and it's very, very me :p

Here's some opening thoughts for how things could work.....

1. As above, the owner of a Hexagon can spend some sort of campaign points to raise permanent fortifications on a given hex. The more campaign points sunk into it, the bigger the points allowance granted with which to fortify. This could include a garrison force (say along the lines of the usual allies allowance, so 1 HQ, 1-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack (maybe none at all), 0-1 Elites, and 0-1 Heavy Support.

2. Super Heavies and other big stuff are allowed, but are either irreplaceable once lost, or will require severe campaign point expenditure to repair/replace. Points allowing you can field them whenever. The risk of losing them should be serious enough to curtail overly frequent usage. (say needs 1 campaign point per hundred (or part thereof) points the unit costs? So lose something worth 650 points, and you'll need 7 campaign points to ressurrect it?

3. Optional, but potentially good fun.....got no airfields left? Then no fliers (not counting Flying Monstrous Creatures on account of narrative and common sense) for you chum! Taking a sneak from the Red Alert C&C games, number of fliers available restricted by the number of airfields in some way. Player capitals will always contain an airfield, so invading forces can field Fliers without the need to go capture one! Lose your capital, and it's associated airfield goes with it. If you have no other airfields, then back to no fliers!

4. Fortified hexes can be attacked via a Kill Team game. Essentially, Kill Team v Garrison and any emplaced weapons (including the really big nasty stuff). Kill Team could be equipped with equipment of an advantageous nature via expenditure of Campaign Points. Kill Team raids can be launched prior to your main assault, so it's possible that the Kill Team might be able to take out say, the Macro Cannon prior to the main game, denying it's use to your opponent, or perhaps sabotaging the VSG, meaning your opponent must fight without their benefit. As long as the games are conducted one after the other (not necessarily same gaming session, but same campaign turn), no attempt to repair the defenses can be made until the main assault is resolved.

Now then....those campaign points. Yeah, pretty much just a concept at the moment! Perhaps one for every VP you score in a game in excess of your opponent score? So if I bag 4 VPs, and you bag 3 VPs, at the end of the game, I gain 1 campaign point, which can be spent on pretty things.

So, thoughts, critique, additions, that sort of thing please! Feel free to weigh in with ideas on possible mission parameters etc.

It's a good start. I particularly like the garrison idea, and the flyer/airfield limitation.

I suggest having key locations (mining/manufacturing facilities, spaceports, population centers; things where supplies and reinforcements would come from) award Campaign Points, as well. That way, even if you lose some battles, you can still build up your forces. It would also give the players targets to move their forces toward and important areas to defend.

True that, on the campaign points.

Depending on how they're used, I'd like their availability to vary.

For instance, if used to repair/replace Escalation class units, they should be fairly tricky to come by. If they're mainly used to set defensive positions and potentially purchase Garrisons, perhaps have them easier to accrue.

If applied to an actual campaign, I'd like to see a definite 'point of no return' for the players. Lose enough concurrent games, and your capital, and that's it. You have no supply lines left, and no way to replace further losses. I'd then leave it up to the players to decide whether such forces retire from the campaign, or remain as Reavers and general pains in the butt to the remaining players, perhaps conducting small scale (Kill Team and 40k in 40 minutes style) assaults on certain locations. Maybe, allies matrix allowing, have them act as mercenary type units which can be hired by those still in contention?

I like it. I always thought Planetary Empires was a great way to narrate a campaign.

First thought was allow "Hull Points" to be repaired at a cost or carried over damaged to the next game.
Maybe certain hexes allow for a one time full repair if it has a manufactoreum or something on it.
I like Ris' idea about structures awarding points for reinforcements

Maybe if a super heavy dies in a square and it hasn't fully been destroyed, it could be a mission objective to go back and capture or steal.

Ideas ...ideas everywhere!

First, I think we need a win condition. Sure, you can do it by conquest, but that gets very boring and lopsided as one side builds up steam. Ideally, I'd like to see two or three. I propose (1) total conquest, (2) first to reach X campaign points (I really like this one as it forces you to choose between keeping points for victory or spending them to hold onto your lead), and (3) most campaign points by turn X.

Secondly, figure out resources that will be unique to each territory that makes deciding to go for hex X or Y a non-obvious decision. (combining with others' ideas here)
-Airfields for flyer availability
-Manufacturing facilities to repair hull points more quickly between turns (maybe a default 1 hull point restored per vehicle per turn with no facilities; destroyed vehicles are just available for next mission at 1 hull point)
-Set strategic point per turn value for each hex (major population centers can just be high campaign point producers, but not have any other benefits)
-Spaceports for deep strike availability and/or ability to strike at non-adjacent hexes
-Supply centers that affect maximum number of army points that can be stationed in any given hex
-Terrain benefits for defender or attacker or perhaps hostile to both

Thirdly, mechanics of hex-to-hex invasion
-Each hex can be occupied by an army; effectively you have an armylist for each hex, the size of which is limited by how many supply centers you control (e.g. 5 supply centers let you field two 2000-point armies and three 1500-point armies - those of you who played the Game of Thrones Board game can tell where I'm borrowing this mechanic from)
-If a 2000pt army invades a 1500pt army hex or vice versa, the smaller army gets strategem cards to make up for it (as I believe it works in Apocalypse as well)
-Units from adjacent hexes to the hex being fought over can reinforce the battle, but must arrive via reserves and count towards figuring out which side gets strategem cards
-Can spend campaign points for a kill team mission to (1) reduce fortification AV/incapacitate weapons for a certain turn, disable void shields for first turn, (2) reduce hull points on superheavies/force them to be stunned on the first turn, (3) reduce reserve rolls for reinforcements from adjacent hexes

If you have the Mighty Empires set as well, use the mines for extra income, say 1 for River and 2 for Mountain. Also the Keep could be SA fortification multipliers, you know where you can take what is effectively a multiple fortification for the relevant points costs.
Cities could allow maybe mercenaries? Or a 2nd FoC? Something along those lines. As to super heavies, maybe you can 'only' field them if you have a manufactorum.
Void shields could be limited to having a shield generator on your tile perhaps.
Power stations could give you a bonus to your setup and steal the initiative rolls.

As to Empire/campaign points, I agree with what was said, force people to choose between spending and banking them towards victory. I have a set of rules I downloaded and edited a bit. I also tend to include the Crusade of Fire to some extent, mainly the Grand Warlord Traits, which can add some flavour; even created my own for the different factions involved.