"All right, we don’t understand the R2-D2 crap.
We’re gonna use the Star Trek system: one blink for yes, two blinks for no."
Crichton (Farscape)
After a few people showed interest in my Silent Death Campaign, I went again through my old papers (some of it stained with coffee marks and some very good pencil drawings), edited the Campaign rules and translated it to English. Here they are, with some funny information about the actual campaign we've played.
Fun Fact #1: One of the girls played with my Espan ships. She liked the blue, she said. When I explained who the Espan were and their economic problems, she asked me if she could have her fighters launched from a transport and not having a carrier or a tender. We told her that she could, but that it was a dangerous proposition, the transport was very easy to destroy and her fighters would be unsupported until another arrived.
She said that she was happy with that. She had way more fighters than we did. During the campaign a lot of players tried to take her transports down and none was capable of doing it. Every time she won a scenario, she would say: "Gracias por su ayuda en este asunto!" It means in Spanish: "Thank you for your help in this matter!" It was a laugh. She didn't even speak Spanish, though it is very easy for a Portuguese to speak Spanish (Castellan).
The Rules of the Campaign
The Set: The campaign is played around a huge asteroid field. The map (each player has a copy of the map) is made of three concentric circles. The centre of the circles is a white star that was a supernova some millenia ago. The explosion created very rare elements that the players want to mine.
The innermost circle is divided in four areas of open space. These areas must be marked with the letter I and numbered from 1 to 4 . In each strategic turn the ships that stay in these areas will receive 1D4 damage to their damage track.
The middle zone is divided in twelve areas, each four areas touching one inner area. These areas must be marked with the letter A and numbered from 1 to 12. Here lays the asteroid field. The areas will be more or less richer in ore and raw elements. Roll 1D6: 1 - Poor; 2 and 3 - Average; 4 and 5 - Good; 6 - Rich. The first time a player tries to ore one zone, he will roll the die and the richness of that area will be written down in every player's map. It'll stay that way until the end of the campaign. Each strategic turn a mining ship is in an asteroid field area and there isn't combat, or the squadron protecting the mining ship wins the scenario, in that strategic turn the player can roll to see how much ore each ship mined: Poor - 1D4; Average - 1D6; Good - 1D8; Rich - 1D10.
The exterior zone is divided in twenty-four areas, each three areas touching one asteroid field area. These areas must be marked with the letter E and numbered from 1 to 24.
These areas have some little rogue asteroid fields that are big enough to hide a fleet. Each player can write down an Exterior area where his/her temporary base is hidden.The Fleets: Each player can buy military vessels and pilots with 4000 points. Each player receives 2 mining ships and 1 transport for free. Each time these ships are destroyed, the player will receive another transport, two Strategic turns later. The mining ships and transport are warhounds, with the stats of the Ushas warhound, but stripped of all weapons except the bow and stern double pulse lasers. Ships with FTL drives can move to any area in the map. They can move back to a player's planet outside the map and return 2 strategic turns later. They move out this strategic turn, stay out the next one and return at the end of the turn, two turns later. (See Repairing, below). Ships without FTL drives can move from one area to an adjacent area for each 4 points of drive or part of it round to the nearest whole number. A fighter with Drive 13 could move 3 areas. One with Drive 15 could move 4 areas. The current drive is used, not the printed one. A damaged fighter will move in the Strategic turn with its current drive.
The Strategic Turn: During the strategic turn players will move their squadrons and give orders to each squadron. This is done by all players at the same time and revealed after all movements and orders are given. Detection rolls are made and battles are prepared. All battles are played and final rolls are made before the new strategic turn begins. All ships banded together by the same order are considered a squadron.
Orders: Orders are Mine, Protect, Patrol, Attack, Repair, Changing Base Location, Move Out and Move In.With the Mine order, a squadron will mine ore. All fighters that are with the mining ship will protect her if combat starts. If there isn't combat with the mining squadron, or that squadron wins the scenario, at the end of the Strategic Turn a Mining Roll will be done.
With the Protect order a squadron will join battle with the enemy before the enemy can reach its intended target: ships being repaired, mining or the base.
With the Patrol order, a squadron will patrol an area. It will roll immediately 1D12 at the beginning of the Strategic turn, if the roll is less or equal to the number of ships in the squadron, the roll is successful. If a successful roll is achieved, all players that have squadrons and bases in that area must reveal to that player what they have. They don't have to tell other players, but the Patrolling player can give away the information. Chaos and disorder! Divide to rule! And all that jazz.
With the Attack order, a player will state the target of his Squadron attack, giving him an edge during scenario preparation. If the target isn't in the attacks location, the attack is cancelled, but the squadron can make a Patrol die roll with a negative modifier of -2 to the normal Patrol roll.
With the Repair order, a Squadron will be near a transport or inside the player's base repairing its ships. This is a very dangerous situation if it suffers an attack.
Changing Base Location is a three turns order. It's given to the Transport ship. In the first turn, the base is lifted. In the second turn the base is moved and in the third turn the base is set up again. The Transport can be Protected by a squadron with the Protect order.
Move Out is the order to send a ship to a Home Planet.
Move In is the order to return the ship to the asteroid system.
Combat Scenarios: After the orders, all rolls that create a combat scenario must be done. All scenarios must be played before another Strategic Turn starts. Scenarios are created with the following rules:
Map Zones: In the Inner zone all ships suffer 1D6 damage before combat starts. Missiles subtract 1 to each die roll of damage and Torpedoes are counted as being one torpedo less for dodging. The gravitational field and the particles around the white dwarf have these effects on ships. In the Asteroid field zone roll for 4D6+2 asteroids that will be scattered in the playing area. The Exterior zone will only have the playing pieces.
Basic Scenario: This is the basic scenario that will be modified by the orders. The scenario will last until all ships of one force are destroyed or have left the playing area from the side they entered. After the 6th turn a player can withdraw his ships from play. He must do this from the map edge where he started the scenario. Ships protecting a base can withdraw only after the base is destroyed.
Order Modifiers:
The Attack order has two benefits. The player will set his ships wherever he wants in the playing area after the enemy player has set his ships. The enemy player can only withdraw after the 10th turn.
The Mine order means that the player's mining ship(s) start the scenario mining and dead in space. These ships can only move after the 2nd turn.
The Protect order gives the player the ability to engage the enemy before the enemy reaches its target. After this combat, the enemy will decide if he wants to continue foward and engage the target or not. The Attack order doesn't have its benefits against the Protect order. The Protect order can also be used to engage a Patrol before all Patrol rolls are made.
The Patrol order gives the player the ability to attack what he discovers, but without the benefits of the Attack order.
The Repair order is terrible when in combat. The ships that are being repaired and the repairing ship are dead in space for the first 6 turns.
Changing Base Location, Move Out and Move In aren't scenario orders.
Combat Attrition: One of the most important rules in the Campaign is the Combat Attrition rule. All fleets suffer from Combat Attrition. At the beginning of the game each player has 0 AP (Attrition Points). Each Strategic turn all players gains 1 combat attrition point. Each ship destroyed in the fleet also gives 1 AP. Each scenario lost gives 1 AP. Each scenario won subtracts 1 AP. Each 10 points of mining sent to the Home Planet subtracts 1 AP. When a players fleet reaches 15 AP it's combat ability is terribly endangered. Pilots and gunners are exhausted and ship systems aren't working as they should. Piloting and gunnery is reduced by 2, to a minimum of 1, to all crews while the fleet has 15 or more AP. Players with painted fleets (matching their houses) add 1 AP to maximum allowed. Players with fleets composed only with house ships also add 1 AP. So an AP maximum of 17 is possible. A fleet that leaves to its Home system leaving just the temporary base behind can subtract 4 AP from her Combat Attrition for each Strategic Turn it stays away from the asteroid system. A fleet can only do this maneuver two times during the game. While it is outside the Asteroid system the fleet counts as destroyed for winning conditions.
Mining: A mining squadron that won the combat scenario or wasn't attacked can mine at the end of the Strategic turn. Each mining ship will roll the appropriate die. These are the mining resources that are sent to the Home planet. Each 10 mining resources sent will lower AP by 1.
Repairing and Reinforcements: The player's base and the transport ship can repair 1D10 damage points from each fighter/gunboat/warhound that had the repair orders at the end of the Strategic turn. A ship that travels to the Home planet will return fully repaired. This adds 2 turns to the Move Out and Move in orders for the transport ship. Reinforcements will arrive two turns after the ship's destruction. It will be a ship of the same cost plus a pilot if the pilot was killed. Roll a die for the ship: 1 - 25% cheaper, 2-5 - same point value, 6 - 50% more expensive. The pilots and gunners will have 1D4+2 piloting and gunnery stats.
Winning the campaign: There are 3 ways to win the campaign. A fourth way if playing with the Night Brood. (Rules will be added in the near future in this Blog. Stay tunned!)
Economic Victory: The first player to achieve 150 points of mined resources sent to the Home planet immediately wins the campaign.
Military Victory: The first player to destroy a certain number of enemy bases wins the campaign by scaring away the other Houses. Four bases in a 11 or more players game; three bases in a 7 to 10 players game; two bases in a 4 to 6 players game.
Conquest Victory: If at the beginning of a Strategic turn, the player is the only House to have ships in the Asteroid system he can claim the system and be victorious.
Fun Fact #2: The player that played with the Kashmere Commowealth introduced these rules. We all accepted it gladly. He could repair to full status any ship from any adversary for the price of two mining points per ship. His base location was always known by everyone. During our campaign he was attacked only once in his base by House Colos, but House Colos retired before its forces even reached the Kashmere base. During the campaign he won more than 40 mining points repairing ships.
