I'm looking to run a campaign using the AVA of a vanilla faction (In my case, YuJing) across the full 20 ITS mission list. The idea is that if you lose a model that has AVA1, that's it for the rest of the missions, if it's AVA 2 and I lose 1, it's AVA 1 for the rest... And so on. Question I wanna put to you guys is what other things could we add to make this interesting? I'm looking at bringing Cubes in to the game but should they only work on unconscious models? Or do they leave a token on the table when they die so you can evac them? Also had the idea of having "AVA immunities" per side that mean that certain profiles don't lose AVA, maybe 5 each?
You could always look at the Paradiso campaign rules for saving Spec ops with/without cube. It will depend on if you have a doctor surviving and in case of cubes baggage bots as well. Last printed in Daedalus' Fall.
We aren't a fan of the Spec Ops rules so aren't going to be including them. Might make it so Paramedics and Doctors can interact with cubes too and of course the Cube Jager might have a something extra to reflect their lore.
I love this, can't wait to hear stories about this months from now. Yes, allow cubevac/casevac, though, for 20 missions I would maybe consider tripling or quadrupling your overall AVA for the campaign to represent the entire force from a single base for like a 6 month period before reinforcements and duty shift changes. Quite exciting, wish you luck.
Nah that's the point, the AVA is meant to be special. If I'm playing BioTechvore and using Vanilla, it completely changes the way I build a list. The Avatar, Moran, TR bot is a crucial asset (Not sure which faction my friend will pick yet). We both own pretty much every model for a couple of factions so we can branch out in to models we never take. Hell, I might even take Bao Troops.
AVA is a limit on how many simultaneous troop you can deploy, but not necessarily the quantity of that troop. Except for characters of course, they are AVA 1 but also unique in the galaxy (unless the opponent plays the same faction ) I liked Gyro's PMC campaign not long ago. We received troop supports, there was a value for Qty and a value for AVA. Although list-building was so crazy that AVA was no longer a thing that keeps balance in check. Anyway, what I meant to propose was to have a Qty based on troop classification. When you lose models you lower that Qty. While a single list can still only field up to AVA of a troop type. Also with Gyro, you only dropped Qty if the model was dead. Unconscious models were fine for next game. I liked that. It is faster than having to make rolls to see if KO model recover or dies.
Daedalus' Fall also has Medevac and Cubevac rules for recovering characters from the Unconscious or Dead state respectively. These could be expanded to all troopers without AVA: Total
Definitely needs a way to recover or have higher Qty. My last 10 games i had average of 85 surviving Pts. Meaning 215 ko/kill per game. Over 20 games that would be 4300 Pts that died. And Haqq total AVA (clicking random model from each unit) is about 2736 Pts only, (plus AVA T on a few troops).
Not a fan of the quantity, but maybe milestones such as mission 5, 10 and 15 you could select a certain number of reinforcements, maybe 5 a time. The point is we want this to be punishing and we want a reason to keep VP high at the end of each round.
Reinforcements are for the weak. Also, they will lead to a bit of a gameplay loop, with players jumping right back into their comfort zones every time they can revive their favorite profiles. Would be better experience without them IMO. Or, do a cross faction reinforcement system, where you can recruit units from other parts of your faction and end up with weird hybrid armies. I played in the same Gyro campaign as Robock, which was built on the idea of a mercenary company that added new stuff to its roster each game while simultaneously watching old stuff die off. For a non-mercenary approach you could play sectorials and add units from other sectorials within the parent faction. Could tie these reinforcements to added in-game objectives that are worth no points but give you additional unit access after the mission. You could implement "Survival" rolls at the end of the game for unconscious models. They roll their PH, applying various MODS to see if they die. IE, "have a doctor in the army" or "have allies in zone of control" is a positive to the MOD, and "located in enemy table half" or "have enemies in zone of control" is a negative to the MOD. If you wanted to go really deep in it, a veterancy system for troops that are taken and survive that make them better over time would be awesome. But its always a problem of balancing bookkeeping vs effect. I'd consider AVA immunity or increasesd AVA or "quantity" to the 'line trooper' of each faction, like Fusiliers or Zanshi. And honestly probably to basic remotes too based on lore. Letting players choose the AVA immunity will rapidly lead to the same core list design being used over and over similarly to basic reinforcements. If you are going the dropped cubes route, I would make the generic cheap doctor for each army AVA immune too. I would also not expect to see this rule used a ton going off of my experience in the Gyro campaign Robock mentioned. This might be different in an event with permadeath. Players will play more cautiously, and alpha strike pieces will rapidly use up their AVA and disappear. Or of course, the inverse, particularly in a 1v1 campaign it might be a viable strategy to throw early missions and focus on killing the best units in the enemy army. I think thats how I would play it especially without any form of reinforcement tied to mission success.
My only worry with the originally proposed system is that one player selects something like YJ or PanO, which have about AVA 2 total for their entire range of critical scoring Skirmishers, and the other does not and can therefore obtain a massive advantage early by just killing a Croc Man. Otherwise seems fine.
So between us we've fleshed it out a little, these rules probably aren't perfect but we're going to learn as we go and if we do this again we've learned some lessons on the way. With that in mind; At the end of the game you make recovery rolls for every unconscious/dead model. If you die, you place a token representing where the model died. Doctors and Paramedics can make a WIP check in B2B to casevac this can be unconscious or the dead model token, a pass means no recovery roll needed. Engineers used if it's STR. Recovery rolls at the end of the game are made on a PH of that profile - flat roll for unconscious, -3 if dead and -3 if no cube (Since my friend is playing Ariadna we've allowed all characters to have a cube equivalent) Cube Jagers auto pass the casevac and can use their med kits at range (Purely for fluff) No doubt more rules will come as we play, such as if Duroc dies, Saint could still take Margot without him. After the first mission we've decided to introduce Data Vaults, 1 per player that can be deployed anywhere on the table, within reason, we're both playing for fun so aren't going to take the piss. And a WIP check on this allows AVA of anything you chose to come back. This is one of those things we both think we'll have to go out of the way to get and probably spend a lot of orders to do so, but if you REALLY want an AVA back, the option is there. We just played Acquisition since we're going to run through all 20 missions in order and it was amazing, we've both been playing Infinity for quite a while now and this was so refreshing that we can't wait for the next games to come up. We found that key units were used very tentatively, for example I took 1 Guilang that didn't move a muscle the whole game in fear of losing it but it's repeater was so valuable it was worth it. On the other end of the spectrum Kazaks and Zhanshi were used for the most daring orders since their AVA is total which brings a whole new dimension to them (In Biotechvore we're both talking about whether it's worth taking mostly these) After the game, Saint ended up losing the AVA on a grunt and unknown ranger, I lost 1 ava of a Krakot, but we found that there weren't many casualties on both sides due to being so focused on keeping stuff alive. I took some screenshots (playing on TTS today but want to play in person as much as possible) so might make up a little after action report later on with lists.
Completely understand this, but we see it that maybe those aren't the units you want to be using to pick gun fights with. I have AVA 2 Guilangs and am terrified I will lose them, so I HAVE to be careful with it.
Make sure you have some kit that has higher ava or ava total. Things like REMs that can just be unboxed and deployed should really be unlimited ava and help if one of you gets a couple of crap matches or you burn your ava on doctors really quick
