Campaign Information

Hello Battleground Players,

One of you asked the following about the campaign:

"How many points for the army? Are there minimum core units needed and are there maximum elite units?"

This is a great question; a great segue into describing a little more how the campaign works.

Everyone starts on an even playing field at the beginning of the game. You all start with one "Resource" - a Farm. A Farm allows you to recruit your Core units.

So, your first battle, you will be constructing armies from ONLY your Core units!

Each campaign round, you will get Gold. Winners of battles get more gold than losers, of course, but everyone gets some. You buy more Resources with your Gold.

Here's the list...

Resource (Cost in Gold): Game Effect

Farm (0): Lets you recruit your Core units. Min of {3,4,5}, depending on the phase of the campaign.

Logging Camp (3): Lets you recruit your Standard units.

Mine (3): Lets you recruit your Elite units. Limit as per the phase of the campaign.

Market (4): Lets you recruit Core Mercenary units.

Embassy (1): Can send build points to an ally on your team (only useful in the Team game (Saturday, not Thursday).

Harbor (1): Can send Gold to an ally (only useful in the Team game (Saturday, not Thursday).

Bank (3): Command cards at the start of a battle only cost 10, instead of 25. Max 6 per battle.

Tavern (4): Get to draw a Character during setup. Characters do special things. More on this later.

Saw Mill (5): Get one extra Gold per record keeping phase (i.e. every time you finish a battle).

Smelter (5): Get one extra Gold per record keeping phase (i.e. every time you finish a battle).

Barracks (4): Lets you recruit Standard Mercenary units.

Forge (4): Lets you recruit Elite Mercenary units.

Warehouse (5): Your Core units cost 5 less than normal.

Tower (5): Your Standard Units count as Core units for army building and scenario purposes.

Armory (5): Lets you recruit 1 extra Elite unit of each kind, over your normal limit.

Fortress (5): Get 100 extra points when building your army.

Palace (6): No game effect, but it gets you a lot of Victory Points ("Laurels").

NOTES:
a. Most of these give you VPs/Laurels, but I didn't feel like typing all that out.
b. Many of them, especially the ones lower on the list, have pre-requisites. Some have several. I will have a handout to show you the "buying tree".

GAME PHASES.

1. Everyone shows up on time.

2. Set-up. Get ready. Analyze your situation, and the situations of your potential foes. What resources do you have? What resources do other players have? This affects what armies you and they can build.

3. Draw Scenario cards at random, and Terrain cards to pair with each Scenario card.

4. Player with FEWEST VPs/Laurels gets to choose Scenario first, and whether you will be "attacker" or "defender", if appropriate. This is the mechanism for the person in last place to "catch up", as we expect you will choose the scenario & terrain combo that gives you the best chance of winning. Player with most VPs has the least choice in this step.

5. Construct your army on the spot, now that you know what Scenario you're playing. Yes, we expect you'll build your army to maximize your chance to succeed, now that you know both the scenario and your opponent.

6. Battle!

7. Record-keeping phase.
Determine:
Decisive Victory
Marginal Victory
Draw
Marginal Loss
Decisive Loss
... for each player.

Get your Gold & Laurels.
Buy new Resources.

8. Go home. Start thinking about the carnage & glory of the next game.

TIME LIMITS:

We will be on the clock. I will post that before we start, but please know that you'll only have 10-15 minutes to construct your army. We'll have about 2 - 2.5 hours to play, and then we'll have a few minutes at the end for record-keeping.

OK, enough typing for now.

Keep those replies coming!

-DC