Ogre AAR: Recovering a Relic

I'm getting later and later with these battle reports, but I don't care, 'cause it means I'm doing a lot of gaming on a regular basis. This game involved two sides fighting to recover an immobilized Ogre from a long-forgotten battle.

Have your tried turning it off and back on again?

The dormant Mark III-B sitting in between the two opposing forces would have to either be hauled out or field-repaired and driven away.

Typical weekday morning commute on I-35 in Austin.

But before that could happen, the two sides sped down the freeway to beat on each other in what would turn into a very bloody battle.

To recover the prize, the attackers (gray army) had combat engineer infantry. The defenders (green army) also had an OGREcovery vehicle, in a nice construction orange shade.

Meanwhile, the freeway firefight devolved into overrun combat, which cut the road. I use the round markers to indicate destroyed units. They're made from adhesive stickers attached to one-cent coins and spraypainted brown and black. One of my regular players, Wes, christened these tokens "death pennies."

This roadside brawl left a lot of units from each side destroyed, as you can see by all the dead unit markers.

But each side kept shoving in more tanks, hoping to swing the battle.

Your monthly Monopolis game

We're coming up on this month's Ogre game, so it's time for a report on last month's Ogre game. The scenario was a counterstrike by the besieged Monopolis defenders, who sallied forth to take out the besiegers' command post and supply depot. I actually got to play in this game instead of just referee. My opponent was someone who had seen us playing a couple months ago and expressed interest.

Despite having revetments, the besiegers (a group of mercs calling themselves the Ravagers, whom the main attacking force despises) lost two light artillery pieces and nearly half an infantry company when the Monopolis Volunteer Militia opened up with its artillery on the outskirts of the city. The bombardment was the signal for the city's GEVs to make for their targets. Unfortunately, the Ravagers took out more than a third of the counterattackers, losing just one heavy tank in the process.

The tables quickly turned, however, as the Militia destroyed the attackers' supply dump. No more hot meals on this side of town. With casualties mounting, the city forces fell back, leaving the command post up and running. Meanwhile, the Ravagers headed toward the city, hoping to destroy the Monopolis artillery or laser tower with their own mobile howitzers.

While the besiegers did take out the laser tower, they were unable to destroy the city's howitzers and took casualties among their heavy armor--losing all three superheavy tanks and another platoon or so of heavies, along with one of their mobile howitzers. They wore down the defenders' infantry and GEVs in the process.

In the end, the attackers had to fall back as the city's reinforcements were due to arrive (the scenario ended after six turns). With the attackers losing a supply depot but retaining their CP, and both sides suffering massive armor losses, I called the battle a draw. But I got to play, and I got to get another player to the table, so I consider the evening a win.

Monopolis resupply run

Almost time for this month's edition of my quasi-narrative Monopolis campaign for Ogre, so here's last month's battle report! The scenario this time was an attempt by a convoy with vital supplies to reach the besieged city to help them hold out until allies can arrive. Unfortunately, the transports blundered into an equally unaware occupation force guarding the road.

This was an infantry-heavy scenario: The occupiers consisted of an infantry regiment (27 squads regular infantry and 3 heavy weapons squads), with one howitzer in support, to prevent supplies from getting through. The convoy had two battalions of troops (20 squads regular and two HW teams) with an escort of 10 light tanks--plus the trucks, hovertrucks, and Oversized Pallet Parcel Engineering vehicle to get across the table.

Shout-out to my players, Albert and Wes, who gave me backstories for the forces they commanded. Albert's occupying force was Wayne's Irregulars (mercenary company, traveling circus, fortune tellers--pants optional). Wes's supply convoy was Bane's Blockade Runners (no motto). The convoy entered in waves, with the light tank squadron advancing on the infantry holed up in the small town near the start of a major road. While that infantry was taken care of quickly, the howitzer did a number on the armor units. A couple of turns later, and the last of the convoy entered on another road, mostly out of range of the artillery.

In game terms, the heavy transport had tread units like an Ogre Mark III, plus two antipersonnel guns. It was able to charge through the the infantry without losing too much locomotion, and even though there were still plenty of squads on the map, the enemy couldn't keep up--especially since the way I laid out the map left long, open corridors at both ends. I was thinking that in most of my games, the terrain at the edges never matters because most of the action takes place in the middle. Obviously, I thought wrong, because once they convoy got past the foot soldiers on this side of the board, there was no blocking terrain to allow the occupiers to catch up.

While the convoy lost more than half its infantry and 70% of its tank escorts, all but one of its vehicles made it off the map. The blockers lost less than one-third of their infantry, but overall they failed in their mission. Still the players said they had fun, and they provided helpful feedback on the scenario. Next game I will fix the terrain so that the convoy doesn't have a straight shot, and I will also have the convoy declare the map section the large transport comes in on, so the occupiers have some idea where to set up.

The road to Monopolis

Last week saw the first of what I hope will be a monthly quasi-narrative Ogre campaign. We had six players, including me--and a couple were new to Ogre. The scenario was a holding action by the Monopolis city militia some 100 kilometers from the city. The defenders needed to hold out as long as possible to keep the attacking gray force from driving up the road to Monopolis.

Combat was quickly joined, and devastating to the combatants and the countryside. I had set up a few town hexes. The players quickly learned that city fighting can be brutal. They also learned that overruns in Ogre are even more deadly.

The fighting in this small town grew intense, as the defenders fell back before the advancing Mark V Ogre. Meanwhile, conventional units were racking up their own casualty counts.

The defender's Mark III wasn't able to do much damage to its larger cousin, but it gave a good staredown from one hex over.

In the end, the attackers pushed out the defenders and left the small town in flames. The players remarked on how lethal the game is for armor units. The round counters indicate where tanks and GEVs were destroyed. The playing mat was littered with these tokens at the end of the game, but everyone had a good time.

I plan on running another scenario as a sort of sequel to this one next month. I look forward to playing again, with new and old players.

Hottlandia: Now with Forests!

Holdfast has updated his map of Hottlandia, the home to all our local Hordes of the Things armies, adding some forests to the terrain.

Now, if I can actually get some people together for some HotT gaming...

Everyone who runs a fantasy RPG either creates their own setting or uses a published one.  And some games, like Warhammer, have their own setting as well. But what about for other wargames?Anyone else have a custom campaign area for their battles?

Hottlandia

Awhile back, I suggested that it would be nice if all the local Hordes of the Things gamers would list their armies and generals, and provide names for their homelands as well.  Not for a by-the-book campaign, but just to provide a little more background for when two players have a quick round of HotT.

I got quite the roll of forces, along with names of generals and countries, which are reproduced below.  And local gamer Holdfast took this campaign seed a step further, providing the map above, so we can figure out where our armies lie in relation to one another.  I call this land ... Hottlandia.

ARMY                         TYPE                COUNTRY            
Order of the Scarlet Serpent Ancient Greek       Hellas
Scorpions of Dirz            Confronatation Dirz Desert of Syrharhalna
Sons of Muspel               Fire Creatures      Muspelheim
Spiders                      Giant Spiders       Arachnia
XIII Legion                  Imperial Romans     Nova Roma
Bug Army                     Nature Civilization The World Jungle
Space Invaders               Video Game Badguys  The Arcade
Lost Platoon                 40K Imperial Guard  Sector 53A
Dark Host of Nagarroth       WFB Dark Elves      Nagarrothi Raiders
League of the Scarlet Falcon WFB Empire          Province of Rhosynland
Maroons                      WFB Empire          Barony of Maroon
Middenheimers                WFB Empire          Middenheim
Nordlanders                  WFB Empire          Grand Barony of Nordland
Nulners                      WFB Empire          City State of Nuln
Ostlanders                   WFB Empire          Province of Ostland
Stirlanders                  WFB Empire          Grand County of Stirland
Non-Undefeated Gobbos        WFB Goblins         Drakwald Forest
Warhost of Ulthanas          WFB High Elves      Kindrallah
Nightmare Legion             WFB Skeletons       Necromunda
Crypt Guard                  WFB Vampires        The Black Forest

As you can see, there are a lot of repurposed Citadel armies on this roster, as well as recycled historical figures, prepainted minis, and converted toys. Not only does Hordes of the Things spark creativity, it lets you keep using old armies that were originally intended for other rules.

Now, I'm off to conquer Hottlandia!

Looking back on 2012

It's the time of the season for bloggers to reflect on the previous 12 months.  As the Dreadnought glides through the last hours of 2012, I thought I'd share my take on how the year turned out for me, gaming-wise.  I had a number of wargaming goals for the past year, and I was able to carry out quite a few:

• I attended two game conventions, GuadaComaCon and MillenniumCon, and I ran games of Star Navy at both these cons.
• I ran a starship campaign with strategic moves from online admirals and battles fought on my gaming table with local commanders (which kind of fizzled out after the last big battle).
• I released my own starship combat game, Kill Radius, which even got linked to on Starship Combat News.
• Although I didn't organize a gameday, I did get to play in a Hordes of the Things campaign.
• I painted and based plenty of spaceships, including a new fleet.
• I completed a forest's worth of miniature trees for land combat games.

Not on my list, but a personal goal was to blog on a regular basis.  You're now reading my 288th post of the year, giving me an average of 24 posts per month.  I continued to get my D&D fix with adventuring in the Hill Cantons.  I also got in plenty of gaming with Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy, who (unfortunately for me, but great for him) moved to Arizona in the fall.  All in all, a great year for gaming.

Of course, we all start out the new year with good intentions, and there were a number of objectives that I didn't come close to finishing:

• I didn't even start working on a 28mm scale game board for Search for the Emperor's Treasure.
• I purchased the materials to build a 3'x4' battle board for HotT, Song of Blades and Heroes, and other games, but they're still in the shrinkwrap.
• While I bought waaaaay to many new figures in 2012, I didn't complete even one new army for Hordes of the Things. 
• So much for my idea of scratchbuilding structures for 1:300 sci-fi games--guess it's time to throw out all the plastic lids, old ballpoint pen parts, and other junk I'd collected for that purpose. 

I would have liked to have gamed more in 2012, but I'm sure everyone else would, too.  So I can't complain too much about my gaming accomplishments for the past year.  What about y'all?  Did you accomplish everything (or at least something) you set out to do?

More on the HotT campaign

Our Hordes of the Things campaign continues.  Da Baron is a graphic artist, and he whipped up this nifty little campaign map for all seven kingdoms.  We have, clockwise from the top, the Nightmare Legion (my GW skeletons), the Chaos Kick-Butters (Blake's WFB Chaos figures), the XIII Legion (Johnny's Romans), the Scorpion of Dirz (Da Baron's Confrontation figs), the Defenders of Ulsevf (Hunter's GW Empire), the Warhost of Naggaroth (our host using Da Baron's GW Dark Elves), and the Justice League (Grant's rebased Heroclix minis).  

Our first night, I defeated Blake's Chaos army, which is for sale, then did it a second time, taking his capital.  I even managed to ensorcell his hero, who now leads the Chaos forces as a vassal of the undead kingdom.

Meanwhile, Grant's JLA army tried but failed to defeat the Defenders of Ulsevf.  These were the final battles before winter set in on year 1 of the campaign.  My army will be back at full strength and I will have a definite ally in any invasions I might commence.

I'm looking forward to year 2 of the HotT campaign, which we plan to take up after the holiday.  Here's to conquest!

Sunday Starships: Thinking about Full Thrust

Lately, I've also been reading through the various incarnations of Full Thrust, the space combat game created by designer Jon Tuffley.  I think if I ever do a privateers campaign, I'll use this set of rules.  The rules basically came about as a vehicle for the author's company Ground Zero Games to sell miniatures, but the background quickly captivated fans and took on a life of its own.  The game, of course, is now available for free, as are all the supplements (see the links below):

• Full Thrust: The second edition of the original, hard-to-find rulebook came out in 1992.  It introduced the movement, firing, and ship system displays still in use today.  This book also included a design system for creating your own starships.  However, a lot of the nuts-and-bolts details were superseded by later publications.  The game also gave us the background to the "Tuffleyverse," a future history featuring various Earth factions in conflict with one another.
• More Thrust: The first expansion to FT hit game stores in 1994.  More Thrust included new weapons and other optional rules, expanded fighter rules, and suggestions on interfacing with ground combat games.  This book also advanced the timeline of the background setting, giving the various human factions alien adversaries (with their own unique ship systems).
• Fleet Book 1: This 1998 book provided a vector movement system, increased the number of fire arcs from four to six, revamped the weapons rules, and added more details in the way of ship systems.  It also overhauled the rules for designing starships.  More importantly, FB1 contained official ship system displays of four of the human factions in the Full Thrust universe, as well as examples of noncombatant vessels.
• Fleet Book 2: The second fleet book went on sale in 2000, and it further refined the rules as amended in the initial fleet book.  It also contained official starship designs for the three alien species introduced in earlier supplements.
• Full Thrust Light: GZG released a four-page electronic summary in 2008 containing enough basic rules for a quick game of FT.  There are actually only two pages of game mechanics, the remaining half of this publication contains ship displays for the vessels involved in the introductory scenario.
• Full Thrust Cross Dimensions: This isn't actually a supplement, but a publisher-sanctioned consolidation and revision of the rules from the first four Full Thrust publications.  Written by fan Hugh Fisher, FT:XD (as the kids are calling it) has all the rules and most of the weapons in one place, along with some new systems and tweaks to the game mechanics.  No ship designs, though. 

That's it for official and semi-official Full Thrust material, but there's a ton of unofficial rules and designs and background and scenarios on the internet.  I'm curious: What's your favorite fan-made Full Thrust creation?  What do you recommend I should check out or download? 

Chancellor Campaign: Admirals appointed

The players who signed up for the strategic portion of the Chancellor Campaign have chosen their commands.  Here's who's playing what:

TERRANS

Matgc: Chancellor (super galactic dreadnought)
Prufrock: Noble Knight Prince (galactic dreadnought)

AVARIANS

Gonsalvo: Homeworld Flight (2 galactic dreadnoughts, 4 galactic battlecruisers, 6 stellar cruisers, 21 starbombers, 18 star armored pursuit ships)
Samulus: Interdiction Flight (4 galactic attack carriers, destroyer leader, 4 stellar destroyers)
Dathbain: Gatherer Flight(12 stellar destroyers, 45 galactic transports)

At the local level, we have representatives from the Hill Cantons, Skull Crushing for Great Justice, and Starbase Spartan (as well as some non-blogging games), whom I hope to see take charge of starships on the game board.

I hope to get the first few strategic turns played out by Friday, and I plan on gaming any battles this Saturday. And don't worry, you'll be seeing the battle reports on this blog.

Sunday Starships: Chancellor Campaign rules

BACKGROUND
This campaign takes place at the outbreak of hostilities between the Terran Transsolar Federation and the Avarian United Worlds.  The Terrans occupy the red star systems in hexes 0901 (Northworld) and 0907 (Roadstead).  The Avarians control the yellow star systems at 0008 (Endpoint), 0202 (Median), 0505 (Vertex), and 0703 (Angle). 

The Terrans are massing forces to invade Angle, an important population and industrial center, but their conflict with the Carnivorans on the Eridani Front has prevented the Terrans from making the push.  The Avarians and their allies are shipping troops and war machines to fortify the system and make it too costly for the Terrans to attack.  In order to halt this military buildup, the Terrans launch two of their newest and most powerful ships on a mission to destroy Avarian shipping.  The Avarian Homeworld Fleet and Interdiction Fleet must hunt down these warships before they can devastate Avarian shipping.

HOW IT WORKS
Strategic players will email me their forces’ moves.  Once the campaign begins, you are free to separate your ships into smaller groups or even deploy them individually—the commands listed above are just for starting out.  Just tell me what ships you’re moving, and which hex those ships are entering.  If other ships enter that hex, I will let each side know, and we will play out the battle on the tabletop locally.  After the combat is over, I’ll email the commanders the results.

NOTE
I’m new to this, and I haven’t really playtested the strategic portion of this game.  If it gets really boring or one-sided, I’m willing to tweak the rules to make the campaign more fun and start everything over.

STRATEGIC PLAYERS
The players for the strategic portion of the game may choose which command they want to have.  Players will pick in the order in which they signed up:

1. Matgc 
2. Prufrock
3. Gonsalvo
4. Samulus--I NEED YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
5. Dathbain

TACTICAL PLAYERS
Combat commanders will be local players, I will play one side if needed.  We will try to have the same people (other than me) controlling the same forces in every game.

The Chancellor Campaign: Overview

It looks like we have enough players, both long-distance and face-to-face, to run the Chancellor Campaign.  Here's a printer-friendly version of the strategic map we'll refer to during this game.  Red circles indicate star systems friendly to the forces of the Terran Federation; yellow stands for systems of the Avarian United Worlds and their allies.  The dotted lines represent shipping lanes.  I'll explain the significance of all this in a subsequent post.

I envision this campaign as running for about 10 or 12 turns.  I'll post detailed rules this weekend, but in a nutshell, online admirals will direct their forces from hex to hex on this map via emailed orders to the referee (me).  Admirals don't need to be familiar with the details of the combat rules, just have an idea of the general capabilities of their ships, which they will get from me.  When opposing fleets end up in the same hex, local players will game the results on the tabletop using Starfleet Wars rules, and I'll inform the online players of what happened (as well as posting about it on this blog).

Each side will have political objectives it must meet in order to win the game, and each player will have his own goals as well.  In addition, I reserve the right to reset the game and tweak things if my rules are broken and the players aren't having fun.  My thanks to all those who will be participating in the Chancellor Campaign.  I'm looking forward to see how all this plays out.

The Chancellor Campaign: Players wanted

I've been kicking campaign ideas around in my head for some time now, and I've finally decided to run something.

Although I've covered similar ground in a previous scenario, The Chancellor Campaign is also inspired by Delta's look at the boardgame Sink the Bismark.  Like the historical scenario it's based on, the idea is to have two powerful ships hunting supply convoys and in turn being hunted by a larger number of less powerful ships.

There will be two facets to this campaign:  In the strategic component, participants will order ships from hex to hex on the map above.  During the tactical portion, players will game out any ship-to-ship combat that results from enemy ships entering the same hex.

Since I'm not inclined to run massive play-by-email battles (like those I discovered here and here), I will conduct the starship combat on the tabletop, using my miniatures and the Starfleet Wars rules.  I want to referee these games, and I welcome any San Antonio- and Austin-area players who want to participate.  If I can't find enough players, I'll play one side myself.

For the strategic moves, however, I'd like to give my blog readers a chance to take part.  Therefore, I'm looking for some online players to take the role of the starbase admirals and the various fleets via email.  I need three players for the Alliance forces: one player will be in charge of Material Command and direct the various supply convoys, the next player will command the numerous yet relatively weaker ships of the Homeworld Fleet, and the last player will control the smaller number of powerful vessels of the Patrol Fleet.  On the other side, I need one or two players to direct the massive Chancellor and its almost-as-powerful escort, the Noble Knight Prince.

So to sum it up: I need lots of local players who want to game starship combat, and I need four or five email players who will direct these fleets at the strategic level.  Please leave a comment if you're interested in taking part, either in person or via email.

Sunday Starships: miscellaneous

Rounding out my gallery of spaceship pictures, I have an eclectic group of vessels which gave me a chance to add some variety to my various paint jobs.

These starships are from three different lines of minis:

• Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights: Mars-class starbombers (6)
• Star Frontiers: Federation freighter and scouts (7)
• Silent Death: Muskellenge craft (2)

I haven't had a chance to use any of these models in a game, but I have some ideas: The SD ships would make nice luxury yachts, and the SF minis could make a great recurring group of sometime allies/sometime adversaries.  The starbombers can serve as pirates or, if I ever get my starship campaign up and running, players' ships.

Oh, and I apologize for the lack of visible detail on the lighter-colored ships.  The flash really washed everything out, and my rudimentary photo editing skills (and software) couldn't do much to salvage it.

This might be the last installment of Sunday Starships for awhile; although I have additional spaceships to show you, none of them are painted yet.  And I doubt I'll have time before the South Texas Mini-Con next week--but I should have plenty of pictures from that, so stay tuned!

When Worlds Collide

(or: Starfleet Wars meets D&D)

I've posted before about a campaign game involving starships and space battles, but what about adopting the Five Powers setting to another string of linked combats: a role-playing game?

While Traveller seems like the obvious choice, I think it would be fun to stat up the various starfaring species for Dungeons & Dragons.

In fact, you could derive an entire setting from the SfW background, basing the characters on already-existing classes from the B/X version of the game:

• Terrans: 12" move; no special abilities; use fighter experience table
• Entomalians: 9" move; two weapon attacks per round (they have four arms) + paralyzing stinger; vulnerable to smoke/poison gas; use elf experience table
• Carnivorans: 12" move; +1 strength, +2 constitution; use dwarf experience table
• Aquarians: 12" move (18" in water); amphibious; use magic-user experience table
• Avarians: 15" move; +1 dexterity; use cleric experience table

Since this is a sci-fi mod, all characters are considered proficient with all weapons and armor.  To resolve spaceship combat at the individual character level (e.g., starfighter vs. starfighter), just use that character's to-hit number.

I envision exploring a world that was the scene of a massive battle decades ago; battered starship hulks litter the world, waiting for adventures to recover valuable technology (or plain ol' loot) from within ancient wrecks guarded by unsleeping automated defenses or now occupied by strange creatures from this or other worlds--a high-tech dungeon crawl. 

Would such a world be worth exploring?  What about importing some of the Five Powers to a traditional D&D setting?  I will explore that idea a little more in the coming days.

Wandering monsters--in SPAAAAACE!

In brainstorming for the starship campaign I want to run, I've come to envision it as akin to a traditional roleplaying game.  However, instead of running a single character with numbers describing physical and mental attributes, each player will operate a single starship (with the possibility of acquiring additional ships similar to how RPG characters gain henchmen during the course of a campaign).  While the combat rules will take care of a ship's physical attributes, I devised additional rules to describe the intangible characteristics of the ship and its captain.

This got me to thinking about the background for such a game, which could take the form of a sandbox setting so beloved of many roleplayers.  In a sandbox game, the game master starts out with a map containing some interesting locations (and some idea of what each location contains), gives the players a brief background and maybe a few leads, and lets them wander about the setting in search of adventure.  The Hill Cantons D&D campaign I play in is such a game--our characters started out with a vague idea of their surroundings and wandered around the area stumbling into and out of trouble.

Of course, this kind of play is pretty natural for sci-fi games--Traveller was an old-school SF role-playing game that encouraged this kind of play; Stars Without Number is a more recent OSR offering in the same vein.  But while these games usually start out with each player controlling a single character with maybe one ship between them, I'd like to skip those intermediate steps and start each players out with his or her own spacecraft.  Such a mini-fleet could then travel from star system to star system, in search of loot and glory like its fantasy RPG counterpart.

Which brings me (finally!) to my point: how to adjudicate what the players encounter as they roam the spaceways.  I'm thinking about adapting the order of play from the old Tom Moldvay version of the Basic D&D rulebook (the one with the red Erol Otus cover).

The Moldvay encounter rules play out pretty wargamey for something we've come to associate with a more free-form sort of play.  Here's the steps a referee follows during a turn in Basic D&D:

1. check for wandering monsters
2. party moves, enters room, listens, and searches
3. turn ends if no wandering monsters, otherwise roll number appearing
4. determine distance between monsters and party
5. check for surprise
6. roll for initiative
7. roll for monster reaction
8. determine outcome (talk, retreat, combat)
9. end turn

The Dave Cook version of the D&D Expert rules (blue book with Otus art) has a virtually identical sequence for wildnerness play, with the addition of checking to see if the party gets lost.  These rules for encounters should translate pretty easily to outer space.  However, despite the picture above, I don't think I'll include any spacedragons on my interstellar encounter table.

Thoughts on a starship campaign

While one-off battles are fun (especially if there is some sort of in-game backgroud to justify the fight beyond the usual line-'em-up-and-knock-'em-over), these games often devolve into meatgrinders where players throw all their assets away on the last turn because they have nothing left to lose.  I'd like to run or play some games that reflect "reality"--whether historical or fictional--a little more closely; matches where one side might flee to fight aother day when its commander realizes they are outclassed or where an admiral pulls ships out before they become too damaged because there's another battle looming.

I'm thinking of two approaches for the starship campaign I'd like to run:  The first is a traditional multi-sided affair in which each player allocates a certain amount of ships to attack and/or defend multiple objectives; I envision this type of game will eventually end with one side victorious over the others.  Call this choice the Admiral's Game (an extension of this is a system for shipbuilding, industrial development, and technology research: the Accountant's Game--fun, but too much work for me to actually run).

The second idea is closer to a traditional role-playing game--each player starts as the commander of a small starship and--with time, effort and a bit of luck--can get promoted to, buy or capture larger and larger ships, and eventually lead a squadron or even a fleet.  Such a campaign has no specified endgame, and could run indefinitely.  This would be the Captain's Game.

As I'm not sure which game I want to use for starship combat, I need to make the campaign system rules-independent.  But it should easily translate across rulebooks.  Here's what I have so far: Each player starts with one captain.  Each captain has four attributes: spacefaring, crew, leadership, and luck. 

• Spacefaring refers to all skills: piloting, navagating, electronics, shooting, and so on.  This might affect initial setup, initiative, or other scenario-specific factors, depending on the referee.
• Crew represents the total capacity of the ship's personnel.  This number will start out at 100% and can change during a battle and afterward, depending on a captain's performance.  Note this is an abstract number, as a destroyer at 100% crew has less personnel in absolute numbers than a dreadnought.  Crew percentages below 100 are usually handled by the combat rules; a cew percentage of more than 100 percent will not affect a ship's efficiency, but will help in replacing casualties after a battle or assigning prize crews to captured ships.
• Leadership is what it says on the tin: it affects how a captain recruits and maintains a crew.  It also affects how well subordinate captains in other ships follow orders, as well as influencing negotiations with nonplayer entities.
• Luck stands for karma, fate, or script immunity.  Mechanically, this attribute allows a player to reroll a single die roll, once per game, with a modifier equal to the captain's luck.  Alternatively, once per game a player may reroll the opponent's die roll, modifying it by their luck.

Success in battle can increase these characteristics; likewise, poor performance could decrease them.  Beginning captains are not allowed any vessel of destroyer size or larger; this means a starting player gets a scout, corvete, frigate, starbomber or armored pursuit ship.  Successful missions can lead to promotions and larger commands (including multiple craft), or a captain might reflag a captured ship, leaving a trusted subordinate in command of the original vessel.

What do you think?  Does the Captain's Game sound like something you'd be interested in?

Campaign wishes

I want to run a campaign with battles like this on a regular basis.

Part of what makes spaceship combat gaming interesting to me is the backstories of the forces involved and the setting background.  That's why I like running scenarios--it gives me a chance to flex my creativity, and a story gets players more involved in the game than your typical equal-points-start-on-opposite-sides-of-the-map game.

I'd like to take that a step further and run a starship campaign--two or more players who not only have to make tactical decisions during a battle, but also must implement strategic choices amid a larger arena.  Deciding to hold your fire or release all your missiles at the start of the game is one decision point that can draw a player in.  Having to decide where to send your forces (and whether to split them up) to accomplish possibly mutually exclusive goals with incomplete information (if I were my opponent, where would I send my ships?) would also prove challenging.

I'd like to run a campaign where each player starts off with one small ship and can serve as a privateer, pirate, or patroller.  Players would make strategic moves on the sector map, and when two forces meet, they would play it out on the ol' hex mat.  As the GM, I would run "non-player characters" such as merchant ships or enemy space patrols.  Damage would carry over from game to game, making players possibly more cautious with their assets.  On the other hand, the possibility of loot, or capturing ships as prizes, would bring out the risk-takers.  This would necessitate a lot of bookkeeping, but I still think it would be fun.

I'm sure others have thought of this as well, so I'd like to ask readers their thoughts on a starship combat campaign.  Have you tried something like this before?  How'd it work out?  Any suggestions, examples, warnings?  I await your replies.