Raiding Aces Design Notes by Andrew Haught Raiding Aces is another take on the Infantry Ace campaign system. The goal here is to integrate raiding lists into an Ace campaign system in a way that is both fun and interesting. The escalation campaign focuses on the special forces that fought in the Sahara from 1941-1943. It’s all about the raids on and the defending of, valuable resources and reinforcements in the war effects in Africa. So what is this Raiding Aces Campaign all about? Well these notes should give you an idea.

Battlefront TV Raider's Campaign Pack: Unboxed Sean takes a quick look at what you can expect to see in the Raiding Aces Raiders Campaign Pack for use with the Raiding forces from the Early War book Burning Empires. Visit the Battlefront TV channel on YouTube here... Check out the Raiding Aces Raiders Campaign Pack in the online store here...

What is an Ace Campaign? For those not in the know, an Ace Campaign is an escalation campaign that starts you with a smaller list and builds up bit by bit to a bigger one. Most Ace Campaigns have three common elements that are always the same. These are: They will have the same core rule system. You get build an exciting hero character. There is always an end mega battle where all the campaign players get to unleash there best abilities yet. So far there are two ace campaigns Raiding Aces and Infantry Aces; Infantry Aces can be found in the Cassino book and Raiding Aces can currently be found here as part of the Raiding Aces Raiders Campaign Pack. Learn more about Cassino here... Learn more about Infantry Aces here... Learn more about the Raiding Aces Raiders Campaign Pack here... What is different about Raiding Aces and Infantry Aces? Raiding Aces is more then just a scenery change from Infantry Aces; in fact a lot of it has changed. The core rules are the same, but list restrictions have been lifted to allow transport teams, and there is a new set of abilities to choose from, we made sure that the skills you can give your hero in Raiding Aces have a more raiding feel to them and are completely different then the Infantry Ace skills.

New Abilities, You Say? Yes, when writing the abilities I tried not to use any abilities used in Infantry Aces. I wanted to keep the feel of raiding forces and I wanted the comic book desert rat hero feel. In the first Infantry Ace campaign there where three ability paths a player could follow, Leadership, Tactics and Combat, In Raiding Aces the three paths are Brains, Brawn, and Balls. With these new abilities players should be able to build those larger-than-life heroes that lead these raiding forces. Lets Talk About Brains The abilities in the brains category have to do with smarts. Here you will find abilities like “Cunning Like a Fox” that lets you place and remove your Ace command team during games, allowing him to almost be in two places at once. Brains skills that you may earn are a bit trickier then some of the other paths you can take, but once you master them they can be the greatest assets in your list.

Lets Look At Brawn       These skills are more straight forward then brains; it’s all about brute strength to get the job done. For example one of the tech trees you can follow is all about gaining more men, each game you get a handful dice you can roll and for each successful Motivation Test you roll, you recruit a stand of infantry from the locals to help you. These infantry stands form their own platoon adding to your numbers and adding to your brawn. Balls, Either You Got Them Or You Don’t These skills take the right kind of soldier; you have to have the guts to go all the way. One tech tree takes explosives to a whole new level; each skill you gain gets you bigger and better ones, and even lets you give them out to all your combat platoons. It’s like an artillery template you can place and detonate when and where you want it... boom! What’s not to love?          Open Play Since the equipment is pretty much identical and the platoons balanced, in Raiding Aces there is no specific era you must pick. This allows players to mix their raiding or garrison forces from either Mid or Early-war.

Creating a Story For me making an Ace is all about creating a hero and a story to go along with it. Be it the story of a real historical character that you always wished was in Flames Of War, or a fictional character created completely from scratch, it’s all about completing the story you want to tell in the Flames Of War universe. Each Ace campaign has this element of story telling and hero creation. Which hero will you create?    The Campaign Map The map is similar to the one you will find in Infantry Aces. Players will fight over each location and the side with the most victories will win the location and its victory points. These will be added up in the end to find out the overall victor for the campaign. In the first turn you are fighting for the remote oases in the deep Sahara, then, in the second turn, you battle to establish forward raiding bases closer to the coastline. Once these battles have been fought, you move on to launching a full raiding campaign against the enemy supply lines. In turn three its all about tonnage destroyed, so get out there and cause some havoc!

Final Thoughts Raiding lists really called out to me that they needed to be made into in Aces campaign. The story of the Saharan raiders has it all: small, elite forces and dashing heroes that led daring missions into the deepest deserts. It was not about one mission because a simple raid by itself didn’t do much. But when you string a lot of raids together throughout the desert they begin to disrupt whole armies and change the underling outcome of the war in Africa. These larger-than-life heroes that lead these daring raids should be remembered and respected. For the Raiding lists check out the Burning Empires book, for information on the book check out its design notes here: Read the Burning Empire Design Notes here... I hope you will enjoy this campaign and the challenge of creating your own heroes to lead your forces to victory in the burning sands of the Sahara. ~ Andrew.