Doing a short trial combined Battlefleet and Epic senario.

A previously unremarkable planet has be discovered to have a few deposits of very rare and valuable materials. Valuable enough to draw the attention of all races in the area. Its become a race to claim the planet, retrieve its bounty and escape before the fighting gets too thick. The system is a lonely planet circling a small red dwarf star. Large asteroid belts have previously detered visitors from surveying the resource rich planet on an inner orbit. One small zone seems to be constantly free of the spinning asteroids and would make for an excellent site to deploy a small relay station. Hey every little advantage helps.

Playing: 1000 point BFG followed by standard tournament senario 3000 point epic battle.

System (4 ft x 4 ft) is a single planet around a small star with a sizable asteroid belt . Very small specfic zone for safely deploying a small orbital station. Each fleet gets a free standard transport. The space battle is 5 rounds.

How you do in the fleet battle will give bonuses to your army on the ground:

1. Destroy all enemy ships = auto win.
2. Get +2 to your strategy rating in the first turn if your transport survives.
3. If you destroy your opponents command ship you get a free 1x MW 3+, TK (D3) pinpoint attack or 4BP MW orbital bombardment on turn 2.
4. If you control the orbital station zone in the sector you get +300points for Epic tie breaking.

The senario is fairly simple and should be less than 6 hours.

Input appreciated. Will post pictures and hopefully a Bat Rep.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

I like the idea.
I know #1 is logical, but its a little harsh - you probably don't want to have the possibility of the epic battle precluded all together. Maybe give the winning player a free orbital bombardment for 3 turns? Or free aerospace units (bombers?)?

Is this a tournament scenario? one on one?

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

I figured it would be quite difficult and unlikely to beable to table your opponent in 5 rounds. But the option would affect how the game plays out to keep the battle interesting rather than both fleets throwing themselves directly at eachother.

One on one for now, and yeah I could potentially be used as a tournament scenario. This time its a test game for the bigger campaign we are planning.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Ok so after some discussion we decided to go a different way for our trial. My original plan go put on the back burner in favor of using and ammended version of the BFG Campaign scenario "Planetary assault". With the following rules:

The attacker gets 2 transports per 500 points rounded down, the defender gets 2d6x10 extra points to spend on planetary defenses. Assault points for the attacker are scored based on close proximity to the planet being assaulted. A capital ship gives one assault point for ending the turn with in 30cm of the planet, and a transport gives 2. The ship can't be on special order or have shot at other ships during their turn. Each assault point contributes the final score. The final score which takes into account ship losses/damage also. Continues until 10 points are scored, or one fleet is destroyed or has withdrawn.

(Ammended victory conditions)
0-2 completely failed attack. Defenders win outright.
3-4 = 10% point advantage for the defender.
5-7 = even battle
8-9 =10% point advantage for the attacker
10+ = auto win for the attacker

Decided to go this route to make it function for either EA or WH40K ground battle if desired. As the group we play in has several Gothic players that play 40k and not EA.

So one thing that was immediately apparent, fast ships has a distinctive advantage for B lining to the Planet and evading the enemy fleet. This is what happened as my opponent wanted to face the Necrons. The "Planetary assault" scenario was written before the Necrons were added to BFG. Necron ships are crazy fast like eldar but much more resilient. We played 1000 point BFG battle, I ended up scoring 10 points by just rushing everything towards the planet and ignoring my enemies. However this would have been detrimental in a longer campaign as I lost half my fleet by the end and my opponent lost nothing.

With the ships I lost it put me at 9 assault points. The game of epic was a standard grand tournament scenario my side getting the point advantage (3000 points for me and 2700 for my opponent). The Necrons on the ground were quite devastating with the activation and points advantage. His entire army was broken or destroyed by mid turn 2. Hoping to try it out again soon.

Trying to figure out an incentive system for the ground battle to still be worth fighting to the end for both players. A 10% disadvantage is still winnable I think but significantly less likely that evenly match games. But it should be considering the planetary assault outcome. Potentially a reward scale based on victory points scored. Hoping for suggestions on what that might look like.




Even with the few Hiccups it was still a great time. Will update with new progress as we develop the full campaign.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

My idea is to award additional repair points for their fleet for the losing player based on VPs from the ground game.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

I was curious how this would turn out, especially against Crons. Their resilience does help out a lot with the assault scenario. Partly I think that's why you're supposed to use the low orbit table. If you don't use that I'd suggest that you mandate that capital ships don't provide points and your transports get two points per full turn within the gravity well. Alternatively mandate that any ships deploying troops cannot move within the gravity well while in high orbit. That will make them easier targets since they'd have to use the defenses column rather than normal facing.

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-Vaaish

Yeah excellent points. We did use the low orbit table with the planetary defenses which I forgot to mention. I'm mostly chalking the overwhelming victory up to my opponent not having faced Necrons before in either system. We didn't play the low orbit correctly either as I discovered after. We ammended a few things to make it a little harder for the attacker too. Closer proximity and taking time to blow up the defense platforms means you cant being gaining assault points.

Want to play this again to help tweak it a little more and then try out the "suprise attack" scenario as a planet assaulting option too. The "exterminatus " scenario is fun also and will be an option for plantary attacks launched against planets that are in systems not connected to a system the attacking player controls.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Be interested to see a full battle report on this. I toyed with doing something similar but for ships destroyed that would lead to limited unit selection. For instance you might not have Titans, SHT etc

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Walk softly. And carry a big gun.

I was thinking something similar, however it would be a lot harder and would add a dynamic to the space battles that could cause some severely one sided games on the ground. We discovered if you put too many penalties on the ground forces from the space battles often the ground battles aren't even worth doing. Then it just becomes a straight up BFG campaign. Also want to keep the space battle impacts on the ground forces very generic only impacting point totals not specific mechanics so some people in the group can play WH40k instead of Epic if they desire.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Got a few more trials in and I've written the full campaign rule set for a 3 faction (6-9 player) campaign. Just having it reviewed then we plan to play it in the Fall. I've made a facebook group specific to the campaign so each match will have posted narrative battle report. When its all done I'll put it all together and post it up here too.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group