Running Campaigns

Over two decades ago, I ran a massive starship campaign at my local club. It involved exploration, building and, of course, space combat.

The Full Thrust Campaign was truly epic in scale. We had over a dozen players plotting out their exploration of worlds on dozens of hex sheets glued together to form a map approximately A0 in size (33.1 x 46.8 in).

The game was designed so each fleet had a set amount of points. So players could them take those points and play out the system of their choice, either Battlefleet Gothic or Full Thrust. Each battle fleet would be a pin on the map, with explorer fleets discovering new systems.

Working out the turns for such a large campaign turned out to be exhausting. I wasn't getting any games played. To alleviate this, I had to ask for help working out the turns, but this generated another problem. Spying! Less scrupulous players were actively courting the umpires to obtain information.

Ork Krooza by Wolfie.

While running the campaign was great fun, the winner basically came down to luck and quick expansion. While we had a few battles - most of the fun was exploring - eventually, it was clear that one player had through chance and good strategy expanded, found the most habitable worlds and exploited them. His empire was almost a third of the board.

Red Alert spaceships.

I still enjoy the odd space game and Battlefleet Gothic still sees the odd game at the club. The imminent arrival of Red Alert by PSC has piqued my interest, but I think my days of epic campaigns are over. In my next blog, I'll take about what went wrong but also what went right.