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And now for something completely different…

I am proposing we develop a new community generated competitive scenario system, and need your help to do it!

Community Generated? How can we help?

Below is an incomplete draft of a system to generate scenarios, and I want your help to finish and polish it. This is a community concept, and want input from as many people as possible to make sure it is useful and balanced.

My most important question – do you agree with and need a new set of skirmish scenarios?

• If I don’t hear much support, I will drop the idea. I’m not throwing this into the world and forcing people to use it- this is only useful with broad community support
• If you do need new scenarios, please contact me any way you feel. I will look for help finishing the gaps, fleshing it out, and making it all as slick as possible.

Some questions I am looking for you to answer (after reading the rest of the rules)

1. Do you think the game needs new fan made competitive skirmish rules?
2. Does a randomised approach like this make sense? Or could / should this be by building more scenarios using the existing approach?
3. Do you think the example approach will encourage enough diversity in strategy and lists?
4. Are the mission cards necessary? Do they add flair and extra strategy, or are they overwhelming with extra rules?
5. Noting the cards are examples so far, and need more development, but any feedback or ideas for them? Do they seem ‘balanced’ and interesting?
6. Would you like to help more as this idea comes together? This could include feedback, bouncing ideas around or playtesting.

Why do we need this?

A frequent comment is that skirmish scenarios are less balanced and a bit boring compared to primary missions. However it is the most accessible size – likely to be the first one new players get, and the simplest to build a list for. A lot of people imagined this game to be a ‘skirmish size’ game, so it is good to iron out any kinks in this size. A new scenario system is a great way to tweak the skirmish game slightly to fix these issues.

Too often the balance complaints revolve around heavy warjacks – their ability to score, combined with the smaller board and ‘reset activation’ every 3 pulse rounds can give them way too much influence. I propose the scenarios can shift balance away from warjacks a little by emphasizing warriors or vehicles in scoring.

Why randomise?

Slightly controversial and uniquely, I propose a random scenario generator, rather than a new narrative scenario pack. I have seen some really interesting skirmish narrative scenarios – for example Cold Storage and Information Warfare which have a stronger narrative character. However, Randomising lets players tell their own story and can quickly get a much wider scenario pool from a single system. A tournament may mix random and prebuilt scenarios – for example 2 games of Rogue Skirmish and 1 of Cold Storage.

Randomising the scenario elements adds some excitement, and helps each game feel more unique. The game is still mostly about the clash of forces, however using different objective rules in each game make sure it never feels “solved”. A top player shouldn’t be relying on the same models to win every game, instead encourage diversity and reacting to the scenario rules. Importantly to maintain the competitive angle, the objectives on the board are ‘mirrored’ – a key special rule isn’t going to be closer to one player.

The rules

Rules are in the following Google Doc, but copy-pasted here for convenience

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ryxOZMlTmbu11yWfPqKAzhkxOGGKTrPm0KTGDa57bs8/edit?usp=sharing

To generate a scenario

The following pages provide cards to generate the shape of the board, and objectives. 

There are 6 cards for each step of scenario generation – you can either roll a die and select the card showing that number, or print the cards and shuffle each set then select. 

Once selected – keep the selected Map and Mission cards next to the table, and objective cards next to the objectives.0

For Ancillary objectives, it is recommended to print the cards twice, since there will be a matching pair of objectives.

Steps

1. Map: randomise the map and set up the objectives accordingly
2. Ancillary objective: randomise from Ancillary objectives.
   1. Each Ancillary objective is paired – both paired objectives use the same rules, you can take a copy of the selected card and put it next to each paired objective. 
   2. If there are multiple pairs of Ancillary objectives, randomise a second ancillary objective pair, rerolling if you get multiples pairs of the same.
3. Prime Objective: For each Prime Objective, Randomise from Prime Objectives.
4. Mission: Randomise a mission. This is an additional set of special rules or victory points that affects the mission

Common Scenario Rules

Skirmish rules apply to all scenarios

All scenario objectives provide cover

Victory Condition

After the third Pulse round is scored, the player with the most victory points wins the game.

Rogue Skirmish Tournament

These rules are intended to be usable for competitive tournaments, with a random scenario generated each round. Alternately, other prebuilt scenarios can be intermixed with Rogue Skirmishes.

To be decided – at a tournament does organiser randomise scenarios for each round (so everyone plays the same scenario), or does each table?

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Maps

Editors note: in all cases: the objectives on central line are “Prime”, those closer to the players form a pair of ancillary objectives. Currently these are simple copy-paste from existing scenarios to show the idea, to elaborate later.

Map 1	Map 2
Map 3 1 & 2 denote the matching pairs of objectives	Map 4
Map 5 Incomplete – this card to be generated later	Map 6 Incomplete – this card to be generated later

Ancillary Objectives

Ancillary 1: Personal Shield1 VP, scored end of pulse round by warrior models While securing this objective, warrior models gain +2arm against ranged attacks	Ancillary 2: Arc Booster1VP, scored end of activation by any unit If a player whose units are securing one or more Arc Booster permanent objectives chooses to charge a unit or void gate during the Charging Phase of their turn, they can charge their units and void gates with 1 additional Arc for each Arc Booster permanent objective they control.
Ancillary 3: Arcantrik TurbineScored end of pulse round by any unit 1 victory point is scored for arcantrik turbineobjectives closest to the player’s starting battlefield edge, 2 victory points arescored for the arcantrik turbine objective closest to their opponent’s sideof the battlefield.	Ancillary 4: Alien Ruin1 VP, scored end of pulse round by any unit At the end of each player’s turn, that player can choose to have one of their unitswithin 3 ̋ of a gate node objective they have secured teleport to the correspondinggate node objective on the other side of the table.Reposition the teleporting unit within 2 ̋ of the corresponding gate node objective.When repositioning a squad, reposition one model in the squad first. Then,reposition the remaining models in the squad within 2 ̋ of that model. Modelsthat cannot be repositioned within 2 ̋ of the model that was repositioned first aredestroyed.
Ancillary 5: Chemical Stockpile1VP, scored end of activation by warrior models Each model making an attack while securing this objective can gain one of the following effects on their first attack of the activation.CorrosionFireBlast WeaponCryo (if the attack hits and the target isn’t immune to cold, the target gains an activation token)	Ancillary 6: Repair Crane1VP, scored end activation by warjacks or vehicles A warjack or vehicle scoring this objective can immediately roll 3 action dice. For each strike rolled, remove 1 damage point.

Prime Objectives

Prime 1: Alien Ruin 2 VP, scored end of pulse round by any unit A player’s Cypher hand size is increased by one card for each alien ruin objectivetheir forces secure	Prime 2: Gate Booster 2VP, Scored end of activation by warrior models After scoring this objective, you may place a void gate within 3” of the objective. You can charge the void gate with up to 3 arc.
Prime 3: Void Surge 2 VP, scored end of activation by any unit After scoring, you may apply the Arc overload to all units within 2″ of an objective. Arc overload: each unit affected must immediately gain 1 arc. If they are unable to, each model in the unit suffers a pow5 damage roll and all arc on the unit is removed.	Prime 4: Communications Jammer 2 VP, scored end of pulse round by warrior models A player securing a communications jammer at the end of a pulse round can choose whether to jam. If they jam, do not remove any activation tokens from models before the start of the next pulse round.
Prime 5: Strategic Location Scored end of pulse round by any unit 2 victory point is scored for strategic location objectives during the first Pulse round, 3 victory points are scored for the strategic location objectives during the second Pulse round, and 4 victory points are scored for the strategic location objectives during the third Pulse round.	Prime 6: heavy cannon emplacement  2 VP, scored end of pulse round by any unit A warrior model securing this objective can use the Artillery strike *action. Artillery strike can be used only once per pulse round. Artillery strike (*action): This model makes an attack with the following weapon.Cannon: Blast, lockdown, strafe, Rng 14, Pow 5 ranged attack

Missions

Mission 1: Assassination Each player nominates one of their solos as a target. The target must start deployed. The first time the target leaves play for any reason, your opponent gains 3 VP.	Mission 2: King of the Hill At the end of each pulse round, if only 1 player has model(s) within 6” of the centre of the board, they gain 3 VP
Mission 3: GiantSlayer The first time you destroy an opponent’s heavy warjack, gain 2 VP.	Mission 4:  Incomplete – this card to be generated later
Mission 5:  Incomplete – this card to be generated later	Mission 6:  Incomplete – this card to be generated later