Campaigns, Strategic Locations, and Home Bases in War|Maker

Similar to @filbot3 and his Narrative Campaigns, I’ve had this idea rolling around my head for a while now about creating a campaign using War|Maker, and incorporate things like Strategic Locations and Home Bases.

I’d love help refining and adding more ideas to the Strategic Locations and Home Base ideas below!

I doubt any of this is an original thought on my part - so if you’ve done this, I’d love to see what’s worked, and things you’ve done at your tables!

The Campaign

Whether you’re planet hopping around the galaxy, or marching through the Forbidden Valley with shield and spear, every good campaign needs a map.

The map (which could be as simple as a point crawl style listing) holds a few key pieces of information for the discerning commander: the locations of your and your enemy’s Home Bases, and a handful of Strategic Locations.

The goal? Invade and destroy your enemy’s base. This is easier said than done, as a Home Base stacks the odds in favor of the home team. So how do you overcome the challenges you’ll face when attacking your enemy in the heart of their territory? Strategic Locations.

Strategic Locations each hold something that will give a boon to the commander that holds that particular location. These boons come into play in the final conflict, giving players added options and powers to sway the battle in their favor.

The campaign plays out simply: each commander takes turns choosing a strategic location to attack, which plays out as a skirmish battle in War|Maker. The victor of the battle then takes control of the Strategic Location, adding that Boon to their back pocket.

Commanders can choose to assault locations that have already been captured - to take control from the enemy and gain access to that boon themselves.

In a close campaign, the key comes with balancing captured boons with choosing to attack the enemy base. Wait too long and you risk the enemy taking locations from you. Attack too soon, and you won’t have enough extra power to defeat the enemy’s base.

Strategic Locations

Whether you’re playing sci-fi or fantasy, these can be reskinned to your liking. A missile silo becomes a wizard pulling a meteor out of orbit.

Strategic Location ideas:

  • Orbital Ion Cannon Control: Commanders can unleash an Ion Cannon for 12D of damage anywhere on the battlefield, once every D6 rounds.
  • Warp Core Generator: warp portal generator that grants Hidden Passage to up to 3 FORCES of any rank, once every D6 rounds. Great for circumventing Ramparts.
  • Airfield: drop ships allow commanders to add a FORCE (1 regular FORCE or 1 HERO) anywhere on the map, once per D4 rounds. The dropped FORCE can act immediately.
  • Satellite Array: allows FORCES with the Howitzer ability to fire anywhere on the map, without needing line of site.
  • Electro Magnetic Pulse generator: deploy once every D4 rounds to disable an enemy base ability for D4 rounds.

Home Base

A Home Base is a formidable structure - an assault on which should not be attempted by the feint of heart. It should be impossible to destroy without sheer amounts of dumb luck, or significant strategic locations under your command. Each base part has a number of hits to destroy.

The battle is over when the enemy army is defeated, as usual - no need to destroy the enemy base fully. However - destroying parts of the base will make defeating the enemy significantly easier!

Base part ideas:

  • Ramparts [16 hits]: a choke point, front gate, etc. Enemy units cannot advance beyond this without destroying it first.
  • Shield Generator [12 hits]: grants the Shield ability, usable every D6 rounds. Can block attacks against structures.
  • MedBay [12 hits]: at the end of each ROUND, automatically heal 2D6 HITS, across any FORCE. Example: roll a 2, heal 2 regulars. Roll a 7 heal 1 hero and 2 regulars. Roll a 6: revive an elite.
  • Auto Cannons [2, 6 hits each]: infinite range, but still requires line of site. Unleash 8D of damage as an action, once per D6 rounds.
  • Power Core [6 hits]: reduces TIMERS on base abilities by 2 whenever they are rolled. Cannot reduce cooldowns by less than 1 round.
  • Command Center [20 hits]: allows for the defending commander to activate a FORCE and a BASE ABILITY each turn.
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Just reading the first couple paragraphs makes me think “West Marches Campaigns” where you start with a bastion or home town and explore.

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Definitely can be structured like that!

I also had in mind something like the old Command and Conquer games. Selecting missions and stuff throughout the campaign!

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Thinking more on your post, it seems similar to an idea I had based on HELLDIVERS and Mythic Bastionland. “Patrols” would be wandering encounters that appear on the map and you take strategic locations to give more combat multipliers.

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That could actually be a fun co-op campaign premise!

On top of strategic locations, there’s random encounters as you make your way to the enemy base.

In that case, all strategic locations would start held by the enemy too, I think.

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One of the ideas I thought last week was similar to this except it was vertical in nature. I have a d66 table of reasons for the battle and each battle resolution awards points to upgrade or add to your unit. Max unit size is 10 figures, starting point build is 30 pts. Table size max is 24x24

Inspired by Blame! GTFO and other small unit and able to be played solo, west marches style or one off skirmish style the players take their teams down into this industrial hole to fight raid etc. for that level. Completing the objective allows them to advance to the next level while failure keeps them on that level and unit wipe makes them go back to level 1.

Asides from 1v1, monsters utilizing the Crown and skull ai mechanic can also be utilized.

All that to say- steal any of these ideas! I like the idea of a campaign mode with selectable missions

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Upgrades is something I’ve also thought of - if only in the aspect of “upgrades would be awesome too…” but I haven’t put any thought into them further.

Would love to see your d66 tables!

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Roll d66 for why your squad(s) are fighting.

  1. Control of a rare resource-rich mine.
  2. Retaliation for a stolen resource.
  3. Suppression of a rogue AI uprising.
  4. Protection of a newly discovered alien species.
  5. Rescue mission for a kidnapped leader.
  6. Elimination of a hostile alien threat.
  7. Defense against a competitor attack.
  8. Securing a strategic descent route.
  9. Retrieval of ancient alien technology.
  10. Prevention of a cataclysmic superweapon launch.
  11. Sabotage of an enemy’s weapons production.
  12. Escorting a vital diplomatic envoy.
  13. Revenge for a destroyed relic.
  14. Liberation of a slave population.
  15. Prevention of a genetic plague outbreak.
  16. Securing an experimental research lab.
  17. Defending a neutral alien’s sovereignty.
  18. Seizure of enemy intelligence data.
  19. Counter-offensive after an ambush.
  20. Seizing control of an enemy elevator station.
  21. Suppression of an insurrection.
  22. Preventing enemy reinforcements.
  23. Protecting a refugee convoy.
  24. Seizing an enemy elevator.
  25. Defending against a bio-engineered creature.
  26. Control of a strategic elevator.
  27. Protecting a squatter nomadic tribe.
  28. Elimination of a rogue bounty hunter.
  29. Seizing an enemy weapons depot.
  30. Retribution for a level bombardment.
  31. Defense of a cultural heritage site.
  32. Securing a wormhole anomaly.
  33. Preventing enemy espionage.
  34. Extraction of a valuable asset.
  35. Holding a critical defense line.
  36. Rescuing a stranded reconnaissance team.
  37. Seizure of a high-tech cloning facility.
  38. Defense against an alien invasion.
  39. Conducting a level sabotage mission.
  40. Annihilation of an enemy war factory.
  41. Prevention of a temporal anomaly.
  42. Securing a strategic wormhole.
  43. Defense of a civilian habitation unit.
  44. Liberation of a besieged civilian habitation unit.
  45. Recovery of a downed elevator.
  46. Defense of a mining operation.
  47. Suppression of an alien hive.
  48. Escort of a critical supply convoy.
  49. Prevention of a level’s destruction.
  50. Rescue of hostages from enemy territory.
  51. Defending a scientific research outpost.
  52. Seizing a vital communications array.
  53. Elimination of a high-value target.
  54. Containing a biohazard outbreak.
  55. Protection of a corporate treaty negotiation.
  56. Defense against an AI insurrection.
  57. Seizure of an enemy refinery.
  58. Conducting a first-strike on enemy territory.
  59. Elimination of a rogue AI destroyer.
  60. Defending a strategic level.
  61. Liberation of a genetically modified population.
  62. Securing a high-energy particle accelerator.
  63. Rescuing an abducted alien diplomat.
  64. Protecting a fledgling colony.
  65. Reclaiming an ancient battlefield.
  66. Thwarting a corporate hostile takeover.

This is still WIP but please use as you see fit!

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Solid gold in this thread!

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Just to add, my brain didn’t math, a d66 table doesnt have 66 items, lol. Regardless, please take inspiration and enjoy. Next stage is to flesh out each item to better illustrate objectives etc.

Ie. Secure a strategic descent route. Setup- roll for who is defender/attacker, defender may choose a table edge location no closer than 1 pencil from defender deployment and mark as the objective. Conditions- attacker must choose one unit to carry demo charges (these could be anything from arcane sigiled stones, to biological explosive gas sacs, etc.), if the attacker can maintain base contact with the objective for 1 turn they achieve victory and receive 30 pts, otherwise the defender wins. In the event of total annihilation, defender wins.

Again, this is just the straw model, I need to read through the book again

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