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.