From: "Roger Deal" TSubject: Fourmorian Invasion Fourmorian Invasion! A variant for Freedom in the Galaxy By Roger Deal The Background: It is three years (Standard Galactic Reckoning) after the success of the rebellion. The galaxy has formed a Federation, stronger than the old republic which was seen as having given too little authority to the central government and, therefore, in a crisis, easy prey for the machinations of the neo-imperialists. However, the various systems are exhausted materially, politically and intellectually and devote themselves almost exclusively to local problems. All military units of any significance have been disbanded. At this juncture, a vast alien armada appears, intent on a rapid campaign of total conquest. The basics: there are two sides; the Federation and the Fourmorians (we might as well make the invaders those standard SF villains, the hive-like insectoid race.) The Fourmorians start with every Imperial military unit, all of which, including militia, are mobile. They have no characters, all are entirely subject to the Fourmorian mind-meld. They enter on any map edge attacking as many of the systems of one sector as are “adjacent” to that edge. This will be a maximum of three. They move first each turn. Federation military units, when they appear, are Rebel units. The Federation sets up first as follows: all Imperial characters have either not survived the war, committed suicide thereafter or been executed for war crimes, except: Senator Dermond, Vans Ka-Tie-A and Jin Voles who are all under house arrest on their home planets. These three will work for the Federation when activated. Five Rebel characters were killed in the war: randomly remove 5 Rebel character cards from the deck. The rest are now on their home planets working for the New Galactic Order, except; if Rayner Derban and/or Kogus and Zina Adora survive, they are on Adare. Characters with spaceships still have them. In addition, five random possessions are assigned, secretly, by the Federation player to his characters. All PDB are level one and are down. All loyalty markers are set at “loyal” (to the Federation; exception; see ‘secrets’). There are no security bots, so some environs are safer for missions, but all creatures, including the Zop, still exist. ‘Irate locals’ should they be encountered, have their attributes reduced by ‘1’. Only one pro-Imperial sovereign has survived the war. The Federation player may secretly decide which and hold their counter until needed. They are presumed to have not gotten involved enough to be dethroned at the end of the war. For every other sovereign roll 1d6; on a “6” they are removed from play. All others are still on their home planets. Note that some rebel characters are sovereigns in their own right (Zina Adora, Frun Sentel, and will be restored to their thrones (even Zina, since RAyner will either have died a hero’s death or become her consort) as well as, potentially, if their parents do not survive, (Drakir Grebb, Odene Hobar). Hereinafter, sovereigns will be included in the term “characters” unless it is specifically stated otherwise. The following Planet Secrets are assigned (secretly, of course) by the Federation player: Dead World (still really quite sincerely dead, see Foumorian reinforcements), Empire Forever (loyalty really begins at neutral), Industrial World (double economic value upon mobilization), Living Planet (+1 to all Federation combat rolls). Only the following Missions are available: Diplomacy, Start Rebel Camp, Coup, Sabotage, Gain Characters, Summon Sovereign, Scavenge for Possessions, Spaceship Quest. In a few cases, the result of a successful mission differs from the original game. D, G, C and E missions are different as explained under Getting a Planet to Mobilize. Spaceship Quest (J) is basically Sabotage in space, destroying an enemy unit in orbit if successful. Movement: Federation units move as per the rules. Fourmorian units may move any distance so long as they are moving from one controlled system to another. They must stop in the first un-controlled system they enter. A system is considered ‘controlled’ when Fourmorian units have eliminated all Federation units from all environs on all planets within that system and there are currently no Federation combat units (not characters or camps) on any of the planets. This represents the Fourmorian mind-meld at work. Mobilization of Federation units: Federation military units are created at the time a planet mobilizes, and every at the beginning of every turn thereafter that each such planet has at least one environ containing only Federation units or which was last occupied by Federation units. Mobilization is initiated by one of two events: (1) Fourmorina units move onto the planet or into orbit around the planet, or (2) As a result of ‘Diplomacy’ missions. In either case, the initial mobilization units are placed as soon as such mobilization is initiated. Units are raised for each environ based on the Force Point value of that environ and must be of troop types original to that environ. The Rebel Military Value costs are used. Force Points may also be used to put the planet’s PDB back up or to raise it one level. On the turn of mobilization use the full Force Point value of each environ, (exception: if a “population goes wild” event has come up on a mission card on the planet this turn, the Force Points are doubled for the initial mobilization.) on all subsequent turns, use half of that value, rounding up. Subsequent mobilization takes place at the beginning of each turn and the first time Fourmorians land on the planet if that was not the cause of the initial mobalization. Additional units may not be mobilized in environs which begin a turn containing Fourmorian units or which last contained only Fourmorian units. (In the early turns, Federation units will mostly be destroyed as soon as they are mobilized due to the overwhelming numbers of Fourmorians.) Force Points may not be saved and units may not be combined to make units of greater combat strength. Combat: Combat is mandatory in every environ or orbit in which there are combat units of opposing sides are at the end of any movement phase. All combat units of the side with the fewer number of combat units must participate. The side with the greater number of combat units may assign up to four of those units to the combat for every one unit of the smaller side. Characters or may be assigned to lend their leadership to any one of their units but characters are never required to participate in combat. Procedure: the player with the smaller number of units places those units in a row to one side of the board, placing any characters who are adding their leadership to the combat on the unit they will “lead”. The player with the greater number of units then places up to four units opposite each unit of the first player, again including any characters. The number of units opposing any one unit may never be more than one greater than the number opposing any other unit. (Example: if one unit is opposed by four, no unit of that side may be faced with less than three.) The player with the greater number of units may have combat units in the environ which do not take part in any combat so long as every opposing unit has at least one unit to fight. For each unit involved the owning player rolls 1d6. To this roll they add (1) the leadership bonus of one character stacked with that unit and (2) if the combat is in a special fire or liquid environ, every Federation unit of that environ type adds “1” to their die roll. If in an air environ, each Federation unit of that type adds ‘2’. If in a subterranean environ and there are no Federation units of that type, the Fourmorians add ‘1’ to all of their die-rolls. If the resulting number equals or exceeds the applicable combat strength of the unit, one opposite unit is eliminated. Note that it is quite possible for opposing units to eliminate one another. After all combats in an environ have been completed the players must then decide if they will fight another round of combat in that environ. If both agree, the units are re-aligned and another round of combat is fought, if not, the combat is over in that environ for that player phase. It is possible for combat units of both sides to remain in the same environ but they must fight at least one round of combat each player combat phase. After every round of surface combat, if all the friendly units in a column in which at least one had a character assigned to ‘lead’ it, and there is at least one opposing unit remaining, a search now takes place based on the strength of the remaining opposing unit(s). The entire search procedure applies except that the character is always found on a roll of ‘1’. If the character escapes detection or defeats/breaks off from the enemy squad, they may be assigned to any friendly unit which survived that round of combat or may remain hidden. It is permissible to have other friendly characters to accompany a leader as protection in case they do encounter an enemy squad. This, of course, affects the hiding value. Space combat occurs when combat units of one side enter an orbit occupied by combat units and/or a PDB of the other side. Note that, unlike the original rules, fleets can attack opposing PDBs. Units fight with their space combat strength, level one PDBs have a strength of ‘1’, level three PDBs have a strength of ‘3’. The moving force must allocate either all its units or enough to equal the number of defending units, including a PDB, whichever is greater. The moving force may allocate no more than four units for every defending unit. Any moving units not assigned to space combat may move on to the planet surface or remain in orbit. They may not continue on to another planet or system. Space combat is resolved in the same manner as surface combat except as follows: (1) After each round, if there are units of both side remaining, combat continues so long as there are opposing units in the orbit. The non-phasing player may decide to leave first, followed by the phasing player. Non-phasing units must move to either an environ on the planet below the orbit or an adjacent orbit/system which does not contain units of the phasing player and which was not the orbit/system from which the attacking force came. Phasing units can only withdraw to whence they came. (2) Characters with a leadership rating for space combat may use that rating to add to the die-roll for one friendly combat unit (not PDB). If that unit is, itself, eliminated, the character is simply re-assigned to any surviving friendly unit, there is no search. If all friendly units are destroyed, however, all characters with them are killed. Basically, characters share the fate of the last surviving combat unit. PDBs are eliminated automatically when the planet surface is occupied solely by Fourmorian units. Reinforcements: The Federation receives new units either when planets mobilize, are first invaded or on previously mobalized planets at the beginning of a turn as described above under mobilization. The Fourmorian receive one Value Point for each system in which all planets are solely occupied by one or more of their units. The Dead Planet is included in this count if they were the last to solely occupy it even if they do not remain there. Each Fourmorian value point equals one surface combat strength point of as many eliminated units as the Fourmorian can afford. The Fourmorian cannot save value points from turn to turn. New Fourmorian units are placed with any other friendly units. The Fourmorians cannot purchase/maintain PDBs (so individual Federation space ships are never detected in flight). Important Note: there are no maintenance costs for combat units or PDBs. Characters: All characters begin inactive and can take no actions. They become active when Fourmorians first land on the planet they occupy or when a (G) mission for non-sovereigns or (E) mission for sovereigns is successfully performed in the environ they occupy. Special: if Kogus, Zina and Raynar are together they can be activated with one successful G or E mission. Characters travel from planet to planet either with friendly military units or in their own spaceships. For this game, sovereigns are treated as characters and can perform as such. Unless otherwise stated, sovereigns have a Diplomacy rating of ‘1’, an Intelligence of ‘3’ and a Navigation of ‘2’ except Darb Selesh who has a Navigation rating of ‘4’ and Balgar who’s Diplomacy rating is ‘2’. Getting Planets to Mobilize: All planets begin as ‘Loyal’. Unless Fourmorians actually enter their orbit, they must be convinced to mobilize by the characters. This requires that their loyalty track must be moved through ‘Patriotic’ to ‘Mobilized’ which is not on the track but is the equivalent of Rebellion. The loyalty marker can be moved one space towards Mobilization by a successful D or E mission on the planet. Planets with a star-faring race have their loyalty marker moved one toward Mobilization the first time another planet with their race is attacked by Fourmorians. Only a successful D or C mission actually causes a planet to mobilize. (This is all a C mission is good for.) A summoned sovereign may assist in this mission and gets the bonus draw for being royalty on the planet (they’re convincing their subjects that a further sacrifice is really necessary). A Special Rule; Ruesihavne Regnarte: Every Fourmorian player turn, one Fourmori is enabled to channel the collective will of the mind-meld thus allowing it to exercise leader-like abilities. Called the ‘Ruesihavne Regnarte”, it is placed with any Fourmorian unit and adds +2 to that unit’s combat die rolls that turn. If that unit is destroyed the Ruesihavne is also destroyed but another is created the next owning player turn. This applies only during Fourmorian turns; there is no defensive advantage during Federation turns. At the end of each Fourmorian turn the RR unit is removed and replaced on the next Fourmorian turn. The Ruesihavne Regnarte is not a character in the individual Federation sense and cannot go on missions, etc. (Note: “Ruesihavne Regnarte” is Envahiseur Etranger spelled backwards; nothing subtle about that.) Winning: The Fourmorians win by controlling all the planets at the end of a turn. The Federation wins if there are no Fourmori in play at the end of a turn. Example of Play: It is the planet Aras in the Eudox System (#52). The loyalty marker has just been moved from “loyal” to “patriotic” as news has just been received of the Fourmorian attack on Bajukai. On the first Federation player turn, three characters arrive by space ship and attempt a diplomacy mission. It succeeds so the planet mobilizes. The value is ‘9’. One point is spent to bring the PDB back up at level one. Two military units are purchased, a 4-3 for seven and a 1-0 for one, both ‘urban’. The Federation could have purchased a 4-4 instead but decided it was better to have two ground units. Nothing happen on this planet for the next two player turns except that the Federation characters depart for Niconi where they hope to repeat their success. On the second Foumorian player turn a large Fourmorian force appears, intent on stamping out the defenders while they are still weak. Bajukai is not yet totally conquered but the Fourmorian player decided that situation was under control. One 1-2 Fourmorian unit peels off to deal with the PDB, the rest land. In a hasty additional mobilization caused by this first contact with the invaders another five force points (half of nine rounded up) are available. The Segundens raise one 2-1 for three and two more 1-0 units for @one. For land combat a 2-1 is as effective as a 2-3 so there is no reason not to mobilize the maximum number of units. Rolling 1d6 the Federation player gets a ‘3’ so the planet sovereign, Tensok Phi is still alive. He is now placed with his units. The Federation player assigns him to the 4-3 to maximize the chance for a hit. Both roll 1d6 for the combat in orbit. Neither rolls a ‘1’ so both the 1-2 and the PDB are still there. Now the Segungens deploy their five units for land battle. The Fourmorians have 22 units on the planet (many of them 1-0) but, since they can only deploy four against each defender, two must sit this round out. Rolling for each of the defenders, the Federation player rolls a number, adjusted by the leadership bonus in one case, and scores three hits. The fourmorian has had the foresight to assign one 1-0 to each combat so those are the type of units lost. The Fourmorian now rolls for all 20 units committed to battle including the 3 lost. For a miracle, the 2-1 survives as none of the four units facing it score a hit. Since the Segungen 4-3 was destroyed the Fourmorian rolls 1d6 on the Search Table in an attempt to capture Tensok Phi. They roll a ‘5’ which is not enough as compared to the combined strength of the three surviving units so the leader escapes to join his one remaining unit. The defenders decide, wisely, not to fight another round of ground combat so no more will take place this player turn. Since the planet is not occupied solely by Fourmorians, the PDB remains. It cannot break off combat since it cannot leave its orbit but the Fourmorian chooses to land the 1-2, confident that the PDB will come down on his next player turn anyway when the last defenders are crushed. At the start of the next turn neither side gets force points for this planet since its control is in dispute. On the first Federation turn, Tensok Phi elects to blast off with the 2-1 for Niconi, preferring to carry on the fight in exile than to almost certainly be destroyed. The planet is now under Fourmorian control.