Resurrecting the DEAD…game that I love!

AI has garnered some pretty scary headlines and rightfully so. However, working with AI in my classroom I have found it to be an invaluable tool. ChatGPT in particular is incredibly useful.

I am going to be walking you through a basic example of how to use ChatGPT to enhance the rules side of your wargaming experience.

For those of you who haven’t looked into ChatGPT, it is a predictive text AI. This means it reads billions of webpages, articles, and posts and learns based on the words and phrases that are frequently put together. This can lead to accuracy issues as you will see.

To refresh if you haven’t read previous posts, I am resurrecting Wizards of the Coast’s Star Wars Miniatures Game that died in 2010. The first profile I am making for the new game is General Quinlan Vos. There is already a profile for Vos but it focuses on his time as a rogue Jedi. I want to focus on his time as a general in the Clone Wars. He led Advanced Recon Force troopers (ARF Troopers). The goal is to have a stealthy hero who commands stealthy, fast moving recon units.

Once you go to ChatGPT a text box will appear where you can enter a prompt. Be specific with your prompt.

Some examples you could enter:

-Suggest house rules to make Medium Machine Gun teams more balanced for their points in Warlord Games’ Bolt Action Rules.

-Create a profile for Galadriel based on The Rings of Power series for Games Workshop’s Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

See the screenshot below for my prompt and ChatGPT’s response.

It’s a good start. The profile looks decent. He’s a strong fighter so that fits. Some issues:

-It gives a point range but not specific point cost

-Special Ability 3 is nonsensical.

-Special Ability 2 is a bad description of an existing power in the game.

-Special Ability 4 is inherent to being a force using character

-Special Ability 5 is a commander effect (abilities leaders have) not a special ability

The beauty of ChatGPT is that it works like instant messenger and you can reference the conversation and keep it going to refine responses. Below is my response asking for changes and the AI making the changes. This is an imprecise science so be prepared to take 5-10 minutes on this.

I still had some issues so I asked for more adjustments and ChatGPT came through with a final profile I can use

In summary, chat with AI about what you want. Be specific. Give it refinements and be specific.

Now I have a much more daunting task…converting random miniatures into Quinlan Vos.

The next step in my project was the figure out what I can actually make for characters that I can actually convert. I trust chatgpt to make the profiles.

I have altered my theme after doing some more research. The set of profiles will be called Among Traitors. I originally planned for it to focus on Umbara and Felucia. I’m keeping Felucia and replacing Umbara with the Battle of Jabiimi. I don’t have the skill level or resources to make the Umbaran forces right now and knowing my limits is important because I’m pressed for hobby time and money. I don’t want to waste it.

My research has largely been done on Wookiepedia (literally the best name for an online encyclopedia) as well as reading some old comic books from the local library.

Some background on the two battles and theme of traitors in each. When Disney bought Star Wars they killed the 20 years of material already built up in books and comics. They call them legends now and have a new canon. I prefer the old legends canon and am using that.

The Battle of Jabiim doesn’t exist in the new canon. In the old canon, Jabiim was a Republic world where a coup was launched by the commander of their special forces, Alto Stratus. He and his commandos aligned with the Separatist and formed the Nationalist Army. Jabiimi loyalists fought a civil war. The Jedi and clones were invited to fight on the loyalist side. It became a hellish battle in muddy trenches. For inspiration in my conversions I am looking at the Siege of Khe Sahn in 1968. The Vietnam War inspired so much of Star Wars. The images above are inspiration for the look I would like to achieve.

The Felucia campaign is clearly inspired by the Vietnam War. Felucia is a wild jungle world with very few populated settlements. The 182nd clone legion was deployed the capture Felucia and was annihilated. The Commerce Guild (a key Separatist faction) established headquarters on Felucia with the head of the Guild, Shu Mai staying there. The 327th Star Corps was deployed with Commander Bly and Jedi Master Aayla Secura. They were still engaged in conquering Felucia when order 66 was issued.

Here are the profiles I will make and miniatures I will create through conversions:

-Quinlan Voss*: Jedi general who worked as a double agent during the war to spy on the Separatists. Fought in the Felucia campaign.

-Commander Faie: By the books officer who works with and eventually betrays Quinlan Voss

-Clone Marshall Cody*: Fought alongside Obi Wan Kenobi throughout the war, including likely at Jabiim

-Ghost Company Trooper: Veteran clone paratroopers who fought under Cody

-Clone Marshall Bly: Commander of the 327th Star Corps. Senior clone officer at Felucia

-Clone Engineer: Armed with shotguns and demolition charges, engineers were key to building trenches on Jabiim and dealing with the jungle and predators on Felucia.

-AT-OT: All Terrain Open Transport is a walker used in both battles similar to the role of half tracks in WWII.

-Sev’rance Tann: Chiss warrior, turned dark side acolyte, known for commanding surprise raids until her death.

-Particle Cannon Turret: Dual cannon turret used by droid armies as an AT and AA platform.

-Alto Stratus: Leader of Jabiimi nationalists. Big guy with a big sword in armor. Capable of killing most Jedi.

-Jabiimi Nationalist Officer: Generic profile for officers of the Jabiimi nationalist army leading squads.

-Jabiimi Nationalist Soldier: Generic soldiers. Tough, hard to kill.

-Shu Mai: leader of the Commerce Guild. Not great in a fight but can organize resources.

-Gossam Commandos: Not for commando type raids. These Guys are elite bodyguards.

*These characters have existing profiles but they poorly depict the character

2010…I was just starting college and life seemed great. That is until the game that introduced me to tabletop wargaming died. Wizards of the Coast’s Star Wars Miniatures Game was my gateway drug. It has release waves of 40-60 prepainted characters to fight skirmish battles in the Star Wars universe. Characters came in randomized 7 figure boosters (I loved this then and would nope right past a game like this today).

I had a huge Republic clone army and a solid Separatist armored company. I still have those and not much else because the game is unsupported. No new releases. None of the new characters that have emerged in the last almost 15 years.

I just played two games this week with a friend and was reminded how much I love the game. And how much I wish it was supported. So my Spring Cleaning Challenge is to bring back support for this game and create a new release of characters balanced against the original game (a community exists that makes new releases but they broke the game with ridiculous profiles…we pretend those releases don’t exist). To make balanced creative profiles I will be leveraging my knowledge and experience with AI. Then I am going to use the figures you see above plus bits and craft materials to create conversions and take those miniatures I don’t use and make them awesome!

My theme for this release will be The Clone Wars. I want to balance the factions (Republic is the only faction without missiles, the Seps lack decent nondroid warriors) while making units for the battles of Umbara and Felicia.