My Group's Campaign Rules

[igotsmeakabob!!]

Bolter & Chainsword community, I could use some help here!

 

Our gaming group is about to reboot a campaign game we've been playing for a few weeks. We found a number of important flaws and ironed them out, but this has got me thinking: what about all the ones we missed? A friend of mine wrote all these rules himself, and we've been enjoying the game so far. With this reboot, though, we're planning on something long-term... so I'd like it to be as flawless as possible before we get started. Who wants to change rules mid-game?

 

I realize that this is a large amount of information to go through, so whatever you can do is really appreciated.

It's a hex-based campaign map. We were using the Planetary Empires tiles, actually (they're pretty nice).

 

Anyway, here's a C&P of the rules as they currently are! It's a big chunk of text, so bear with me. I'm posting everything, so the crunchy stuff is found here and there. Let me know what you find, and thanks in advance for the help (you'll get some thanks after, of course).

Force Organization

 

Each army is broken down in Forces.

 

Each Force has a MAXIMUM point limit of 1500 points. A Force has no minimum point limit. The only minimum is that it adheres to the Force Organization Chart.

 

Each Force MUST adhere to the Force Organization chart in the 40K Main Rule Book. This means that each Force has a minimum size and a maximum size.

 

Movement Phase

 

Movement takes place simultaneously.

 

A Force may ONLY move if it has an HQ unit. If a Force has no HQ unit it may NOT take part in the movement phase.

 

During this phase ANY qualified Force may do the following:

 

Move into an adjacent neutral hex.

Move into an adjacent enemy hex.

Move up to TWO hexes through friendly territory, but must start and end your turn in a friendly Hex.

 

Any of your Forces may move in the movement phase.

 

There is no maximum to the number of points or Forces that can occupy any space.

 

If you move into a neutral hex you must roll on the random hex generation table to determine the terrain used for battles and the bonuses that this hex confers. This is now PERMANENT and will be used for any and all conflicts in this hex OR any bonuses that the hex will confer.

 

If you move into a neutral hex AND an enemy Force moves into the same neutral hex. The two of you must roll to determine the terrain/bonuses on the random hex generation table. Then you must conduct combat.

 

If you move into an enemy hex and it is empty. It becomes friendly and you gain any bonuses/abilities that it confers immediately.

 

If you move into an enemy hex and it contains an enemy Force. You must conduct combat.

 

If MULTIPLE Forces from MULTIPLE players move into the same hex for any reason. You must conduct combat. The battle will be assumed to be a Free For All and will be conducted using the same rules as any other battle only with multiple players.

 

How to Move

 

Move days will be marked on the calendar. They will NORMALLY be every other Monday. If there is no combat phase for any given period, then a new movement phase will begin IMMEDIATELY.

 

You will email your moves in the following format:

 

Force Name

Starting Location

Ending Location

 

Please write the hex locations by using the number across the top of the map and then the number of hexes DOWN from the top (starting with 1). So...

 

Examples:

 

Force Name: Eldar Swift Attack

Starting Location: 8,1

Ending Location: 8,2

 

Force Name: Space Marine Force 1

Starting Location: 4,5

Ending Location: 5,6

 

Combat Phase

 

Combat is played out using the Warhammer 40K rules with a few differences:

 

If a Force moves into an occupied hex the defending player ALWAYS deploys first.

If a force already occupies a hex then the deployment type CAN NOT be Dawn of War. Roll again if this is rolled.

In the case of a tie the Defender wins. If there is no defender both armies must retreat in the case of a tie.

 

Terrain is deployed by both parties as normal BUT should adhere the the hex description given when its terrain was generated by rolling on the hex generation table.

 

ONLY one Force per side may participate in a battle.

 

If a Force LOSES or chooses to RETREAT they must move the survivors into the NEAREST FRIENDLY HEX. If there is no friendly hex for them to retreat to the entire Force is destroyed unless otherwise noted.

 

If there are multiple Forces in a hex then multiple combats must be fought. This is to represent the overall battle taking place in the hex.

 

Use the following steps to determine the order of combat:

 

All Players present in this battle MUST choose one of their Forces.

These Forces then conduct combat as usual as per the 40K rules.

The losing player's Forces present in this battle MUST retreat.

 

All Players still present in the hex MUST choose one of their Forces.

These Forces then conduct combat as usual as per the 40K rules.

The losing player's Force MUST retreat.

 

This continues until only ONE force is still present in the hex. The ownership of that hex then reverts to that player.

 

Following these rules, all players present in a hex MUST conduct the first battle. Losers then retreat and any remaining forces must then conduct battle. As the player's CHOOSE which forces conduct battle AND the winner does NOT retreat, they may then continue to conduct battle with their original Force until it is forced to retreat. In this way a single Force may over power several enemy Forces through size/strategy alone.

 

Once all combat is conducted the players must make note of their losses under each of their forces. They should report the results of each battle and the next phase will begin.

 

Upkeep Phase

 

During this phase players will receive POINTS for holding territories that generate them.

 

They will be able to use these POINTS to buy units to reinforce their armies, or purchase upgrades for hexes.

 

During this phase players MAY combine Forces or move units between Forces as long as they are in the SAME HEX.

 

Any troop purchases or hex upgrades MUST be reported during this phase.

 

 

Allies, Trading, Assisting

 

You MAY choose to work with the other players.

 

This is limited only by what the players are willing to agree upon.

 

You can consider a player to be an ally. Your armies and hexes are then considered "Friendly" for the purposes of movement or for conducting battle in the combat phase.

 

You may choose to work together only for a single battle.

 

You may offer to trade POINTS for a hex, or assistance in a fight, or a peace treaty, or to try and disuade them from attacking you.

 

You may offer UNITS as an axillary force to another player (they must fit into his 1500pt force and still occupy the same spot on his force org chart). This must take place in the upkeep and follows the same rules as combining/swapping units between forces.

 

The limit to this 'team work' is entirely up to the players and how it affects the rules.

 

 

The Double Cross

 

No rule REQUIRES that your alliance/peace treaty/battle plan take place as you discussed it with the other players.

 

If you CHOOSE to send an auxiliary unit into another army you may choose to ALSO use that unit to assassinate the enemies HQ unit at the end of the game.

 

If you CHOOSE to attack the same hex as an "ally" you may AT ANY TIME choose to shoot the hell out of that ally INSTEAD of taking on the original "enemy" player.

 

If you CHOOSE to let an enemy unit into one of your hexes you may choose to attack it in the combat phase and destroy it (especially if it is too far from "friendly" territory to retreat....)

 

POINTS

 

POINTS are earned and spent in the upkeep phase.

 

The number of POINTS you generate is determined by what hexes you control and how many POINTS they are worth.

 

Reinforcements - Buying New Units

 

Primarily they will be used to buy new units for your armies. Either to create NEW armies, or to replace fallen units near the front.

 

Units are purchased in the following way:

 

If they are in a Citadel Hex OR a Hex with a Supply Depot the cost for POINTS to points is 1:1. A model that costs 8 points will simply cost 8 points.

 

If they are in a hex that has neither a Citadel nor a Supply Depot the cost is increased. Count the number of hexes away from the NEAREST Citadel or Supply Depot the hex you want to reinforce is. The cost is X:1 where X is the number of hexes. Therefor, if you are 3 hexes away from a Supply Depot the cost is 3 POINTS for every 1 point of models you wish to buy. In this example an 8 point model would cost 24 POINTS. You may NOT buy new squads in hexes without a Citadel or Supply Depot. You may only reinforce existing squads. (You begin by counting the Supply Depot/Citadel hex FIRST, so any adjacent hex counts as a 2:1 conversion and so on.)

 

Upgrading Hexes

 

You may use POINTS to purchase upgrades for an existing hex as follows:

 

Supply Depot - 100 POINTS - Allows you to reinforce models cheaply. A supply depot is automatically destroyed if a hex is conquered by another player. The supplies here were only usable by the original player that purchased them. Supply depots cannot be used the turn that they are purchased.

 

Trenches - 10 POINTS per 6" trench - Provide a 4+ cover save to troops that are entrenched. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

Walls - 25 POINTS per 6" Wall - Provide a 3+ cover save to troops that are entrenched behind them. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

Bunker - 50 POINTS - This is a building with Armor 12 on all sides. This fits a single squad. It is deployed with the unit during the deployment phase.

 

Bastion - 100 POINTS - This is a building with Armor 14 on all sides. This fits a single squad. It is deployed with the unit during the deployment phase. You may mount a single Gun Emplacement on it.

 

Light Gun Emplacement - 10 POINTS - This is a gun with the following profile: S5 AP5 Heavy3 24" Range. It fires with BS2 OR a model may fire it in the shooting phase instead of it's own weapon. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

Heavy Gun Emplacement - 15 POINTS - This is a gun with the following profile: S5 AP4 Heavy3 36" Range. It fires with BS2 OR a model may fire it in the shooting phase instead of it's own weapon. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

Missile Launcher Emplacement -20 POINTS - This is a gun with the following profile: S8 AP3 Heavy1 48" Range. It fires with BS2 OR a model may fire it in the shooting phase instead of it's own weapon. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

Anti-Tank Gun Emplacement - 25 POINTS - This is a gun with the following profile: S9 AP2 Heavy1 36" Range. It fires with BS2 OR a model may fire it in the shooting phase instead of it's own weapon. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

Artillery Emplacement - 35 POINTS - This is a gun with the following profile: S8 AP3 Heavy1 48" Range Large Blast, Ordnance, Barrage. It fires with BS2 OR a model may fire it in the shooting phase instead of it's own weapon. Place these when you deploy troops during your deployment phase.

 

All gun emplacements have the following unit profile: T5, W1, SV3+ and are automatically hit in assault.

 

Citadel - 1000 POINTS - SPECIAL

A Citadel allows you to reinforce units in this hex. A Citadel ALSO counts as an adjacent friendly hex for the purposes of retreating. Instead of retreating into a hex adjacent to a hex with a Citadel in it, the defender may choose to retreat to the citadel itself. The attacker must then press the attack forward to engage the Citadel to capture the hex.

 

A Citadel is a HEAVILY defended and FORTIFIED position which is very difficult to destroy.

 

The defending player receives 500 POINTS to purchase hex upgrades to deploy with their troops for this "Final Battle". These purchases are made immediately before combat.

 

Deployment is slightly different in this case. The defender chooses a short edge and deploys all of his forces up to 48" away from this edge (Should be two boards). The Attacker then comes in from the opposing short table edge.

 

These missions are played with 5 objectives. 3 of them placed on the board closest to the defenders table edge and 2 placed on the middle board. Ties go to the attacker in this case.

 

If the attacker wins, the citadel is destroyed. If this was a player's starting hex it reverts to a "normal" hex and must be generated using the random hex generation table.

 

WINNING

 

You are eliminated from the campaign if you have NO Citadels on the map.

 

Last man standing wins.

 

 

RETREATING

You may choose to retreat before combat begins. If you deploy none of your units you may declare that you are retreating and your force immediately moves to an adjacent friendly hex and your opponent takes control of the hex.

 

Retreating during combat works differently: Any unit that leaves the battlefield via YOUR TABLE EDGE is not destroyed. It has retreated and remains at the same strength it left the table at for the purposes of the campaign. You may do this either voluntarily, or via fall-back moves as per the 40k rules.

 

If you remove ALL of your models before the end of the game, your force counts as retreating and must now move to an adjacent friendly hex.

 

If any of your models are remaining on the board, the game is played until the end of the final turn. If you have immobilized vehicles for example, they must remain on the table top until the game ends. If you choose to drop pod troops onto the table top and then flee, the drop pods remain as targets until the battle is complete. This allows your opponent the opportunity to attack/destroy any models that are left behind for whatever reason.

 

Retreating is a way for you to save units from being completely wiped out during combat, or to retreat high-value models before they can be destroyed.

 

 

 

END OF BATTLE

 

If the battle ends and there are immobilized vehicles on the board OR models locked in assault:

 

Those models may retreat with the rest of the losing force.

 

I've debated several ways to do this (including sweeping advances, rolling to fix vehicles, winner taking vehicles, etc.) and the FAIREST way is that at the end of the game, any remaining losing forces may simply leave the table.

 

This represents the losing force conducting a full retreat and the winners taking up positions and beginning to tend to the wounded and what have you.

 

SO:

 

Loser's immobilized vehicles and models caught in assault LEAVE THE BATTLEFIELD WITH THE REST OF THE LOSING ARMY and perform a retreat move into an adjacent friendly hex.

 

If the game ends at Turn 5 and the loser's entire army is in assault... the game ends immediately and all of the losers surviving models leave.

 

 

 

Session Summaries

 

Win or Lose there is a chance for you to redeem yourself!

 

If you write a summary of your session you can earn POINTS!

 

Session summaries should be in first person from the point of view of a member of your army (general is probably the most appropriate). It should be of decent length. Aim for more than 1 page double spaced size 10 font in a word document.

 

Writing from the POV of the defeated force retreating, or the victorious force pushing the enemy back helps everybody get into character and really feel like they are a part of the campaign.

 

Your reasons for fighting on the planet are ENTIRELY up to you. It makes things more exciting!

 

Each summary will net you 50 POINTS extra if posted before the upkeep phase!

 

 

TERRAIN GENERATION

 

1 Desert

 

1 - Sparse Terrain

2 - Rolling Dunes

3 - Desert Water Pumping Outpost

4 - Desert Nomad Village

5 - Endless and Empty

6 - Oasis

 

2 Rolling Plains

 

1 - Sparse Terrain

2 - Rolling Hills

3 - Small Outpost

4 - Small Farming Village

5 - A River Runs Through It

6 - Forest

 

3 Mountainous

 

1 - Sparse Terrain

2 - Rolling Hills

3 - Small Outpost

4 - Small Village

5 - Tall Hills and Cliffs

6 - Mountain Top Observatory

 

4 Thick Forest

 

1 - Sparse Trees

2 - Thick Foliage

3 - Small Forest Outpost

4 - Small Village Amongst the Trees

5 - A Deep River With Dense Jungle

6 - Abandoned Ancient Ruins

 

5 Urban

 

1 - A Small Outpost

2 - A Small Village

3 - A Bustling Town

4 - A Small City

5 - Dense Urban

6 - Stalingrad Type City Fighting

 

6 Inhospitable

 

1 - Dense Death World Type Jungle

2 - Frozen Barrens

3 - Molten Lava Covered Volcano

4 - Fast Moving River Running Through Tall Cliffs

5 - Blasted Radioactive Crater Covered Battlefield

6 - Perilous Warp/Real Space Crossover!

 

 

Hex Traits/Bonus/POINTS Table

 

This table uses a D20!

 

1-5 Hex Generates Points

This Hex Generates 1d6x5 points.

 

6-10 Hex Generates Points

This Hex Generates 2d6x5 points.

 

11-14 Hex Generates Points

This Hex Generates 3D6X5 Points.

 

15 Ancient Buried Super Weapon

This Hex contains the remnants of an ancient super weapon. Once per battle an HQ unit may choose to fire the following weapon: S10 AP1 Range: Unlimited Heavy1 Large Blast Ordnance Barrage. This Weapon requires the HQ unit NOT move in the movement phase and ALWAYS scatters the full amount.

 

16 Friendly Local Population

This Hex contains a friendly local population. It counts as being a Supply Depot for the purposes of reinforcing units.

 

17 Long Range Communications Array

This Hex contains a communications array that helps to coordinate your battle strategies. All of your units that are deep-striking may re-roll the scatter dice ONCE per battle.

 

18 Lost Technology

This Hex contains items which may hold the secrets to great scientific discovery! If you control this Hex you may field an additional unit in any ONE of your Forces that would normally violate the Force Organization Chart. (Additional Heavy Support for example...) This Force may now also increase its maximum size by 500 points!

 

19 Space Port

This Hex allows you to move one Force in it per movement phase to ANY HEX on the campaign map. If this movement results in a combat (either by landing on an enemy controlled territory, or a neutral hex in which an enemy is moving) combat is resolved using the "Planet Strike" style deep striking deployment for the attacker.

 

20 Auxiliary Forces!

This Hex allows you to purchase a 500pt Force using any current codex. For whatever reason this local garrison has chosen to fight for you. This Force acts like any of your other Forces and may immediately begin moving in the next movement phase. This Force MUST stay together and may not be combined with any of your other Forces. This Force may ONLY be reinforced. New units may not be purchased for this Force. Once a squad is completely lost they may not be re-purchased. This Force fights for whoever controls this hex. Once control of the hex is gained by another player the Force is destroyed and the hex must be re-rolled.

 

 

 

These are the base rules. We've added a number of changes to the next game, found below.

 

1) All hexes generate points. Most hexes will generate 2 or 3D6 per round. A few will generate 1 or 4D6.

 

2) Special hexes all become hex upgrades. With the following changes:

 

50pts Communications Array. Once per combat you may choose to re-roll the scatter on one of your deepstrikes, or out of hex weapons (heavy artillery or super weapons).

 

50pts Heavy Artillery. S9 AP2 Heavy1 Unlimited Range Large Blast, Ordnance, Barrage. Heavy Artillery may be fired into other hexes with the following penalty: For every extra hex this piece fires it scatters an additional D6 inches. If fired into an adjacent hex it scatters 3D6, if fired two hexes away it scatters 4D6 etc. If a "hit" is rolled on the scatter die it then scatters 1D6" less. An HQ unit may coordinate these strikes in their shooting phase but to do so they may not have moved in the previous movement phase. They may subtract their BS from the scatter if they do this. Each Heavy Artillery gun must be direct toward ONE combat per COMBAT PHASE.

 

75pts Super Weapon S10 AP1 unlimited range, fired once per COMBAT PHASE by one HQ unit that has not moved in its movement phase. This weapon always scatters the full amount.

 

100pts Supply Depot. A Supply Depot allows you have increase the pt cap on one of your armies by 250pts and provides supply.

 

250pts Airfield. An Airfield allows you to move units across the battlefield quicker and ignores all hexes between the Airfield and the target hex. It costs 1/10th of your army size to move each hex. (A 1,500pt army will cost 150pts per hex to move). When landing in a hex that contains an enemy Force the attacking Force MUST reserve their entire Force and must all arrive via deepstrike.

 

+150pts Upgrade Airfield to Spaceport. A Spaceport may also allow you to move between planets in a system. Moving from one planet to another counts as 5 hexes and takes an additional movement phase to complete (You leave this movement phase, but arrive in the next).

 

3) Space Fortress. 2,500pts.

 

The Space Fortress represents a battle barge, craftworld ship, ork rock, etc. It is a single hex that operates as an independent planet/moon. It is the ultimate weapon in any armies arsenal.

 

It is a hex with the rules for a citadel and a spaceport. Traditionally it should also have super weapons and various defensive weapons purchased for it.

 

The terrain for attacking it should be appropriate for each army. It is assumed that if an enemy force lands on this hex that they've breached the hull of the ship and have begun an invasion. If the defending army retreats into the "citadel" then it is played as a citadel battle, but with appropriate terrain for the interior of a craftworld or ork rock.

 

Once purchased this is placed onto the strategic map immediately as it arrives form the warp.

 

4) Patrolling Forces.

 

This is declared in a Force's movement phase. A Force may be placed on "Patrol" across multiple hexes. These must me continuous adjacent friendly hexes that the force may have been able to move in during its movement phase.. This provides a defending player a chance to intercept enemy Forces across multiple hexes. This is usually 2 hexes for friendly hexes unless infrastructure upgrades are present OR a move has been made via an airfield/spaceport.

 

The odds of intercepting and enemy Force in a hex is 1/X where X is the number of hexes being patrolled.

 

If you are patrolling 2 hexes there is a 1/2 chance you will intercept an enemy Force moving into a patrolled hex.

 

Deployment should be Dawn of War in this situation. If a patrolling force was put on patrol via an airfield/spaceport then it should arrive via deepstrike with all of its units in reserve.

 

Multiple interceptions - It is possible that multiple enemy forces will move into hexes patrolled by the same Force. This Force may roll to intercept all forces and then must roll randomly to determine the order in which it intercepts enemy Forces. It may continue to intercept enemy Forces in the same Combat Phase as long as it is not forced to retreat. Once a patrolling Force loses a combat and is forced to retreat it must immediately make a retreat move from the hex that it lost combat in and may not participate in any other patrol related battles for armies that it has intercepted this combat phase.

 

At the end of the combat phase the patrolling army may end its turn in any of the hexes that it was patrolling.

 

5) Infrastructure upgrades.

 

Roads 25Pts per hex, allows you to move up to 3 hexes through friendly territory instead of just 2. Must move along these roads/webways/warprifts in order to benefit from this upgrade.

 

Supply Lines 50pts per hex, reduces the cost of supply by one step. (1 instead of 2, 2 instead of 3, etc).

 

 

Well, that's it! It's all we have so far.

As you can probably tell by now, my friend is a pretty intense guy... he wrote all this stuff up in a short time and is quite proud of the work.

Nothing's perfect though, so here we are!

[TheRealAxel]

Well, that passed an uneventful lunchtime... :D

 

Two things stick in my mind as to how I would 'break' the campaign, depending on how many points you have to start with.

 

1. Sit in your citadel, patrolling the territory you own until your opponents wreck each other. Call it the "Evil Uncle Jim" strategy, named for my Uncle who won 95+% of family games of Risk by doing exactly this. If anyone attacks, use the 500 points of upgrades to get 10+ artillery platforms. Good luck getting through a literal barrage of battle cannons when playing lengthwise. BS2 isn't important if the enemy is stacked so closely.

 

To avoid someone doing this, reduce the Citadel bonus to perhaps 250 points. Certainly increase the cost of artillery and heavy artillery (that's even worse because you can use it in other hexes!).

 

2. Get a space fortress and a heavy deepstrike focused set of forces (Blood Angels, drop pod Marines and Grey Knights sping to mind). Make each force perhaps 750-1000 points (though you're required to have 2 Troops it seems....) Don't bother holding territories...just launch precision raids on your enemies citadels on Campaign Turn 2 (after all their forces move out). To be fair, this is the way all Space Marines SHOULD play, if they're into the fluff. :)

 

To avoid someone being such a prick (while fluffy it isn't that much fun for anyone else), introduce a maximum number of forces at the start equal to half the number of players (not possible to smack EVERYONE on Turn 2). The difficulties of getting back to your space fortress for another go should limit the blitzkrieg.

[WarriorFish]

That is quite the read! Seems like it has some good ideas, as my group has been setting about organising a campaign like this including points values. It does feel like maybe it's a little too complicated though? For example I'd be inclined to drop the fortification stuff, and as Axel pointed out would be less open for abuse (if someone was inclined).

 

Points for writing fluffy post battle events might encourage some more meat to the campaign's overall story but I wouldn't do it if only to avoid the inevitable terrible prose. Plus I can't imagine it being any fun to write about how your commander runs away while your opponent is busy writing reams of text about how his commander is leaping from carnifex to carnifex ripping them in half as they retreat But maybe I've been on the internet too long, your group could be good at writing for all I know ;)

 

 

On a more serious note, it does read well and I'm going to show this to my friends as a good example of what can be done.

[igotsmeakabob!!]

Well, that passed an uneventful lunchtime... B)

 

Heh, happy to help out!

Two things stick in my mind as to how I would 'break' the campaign, depending on how many points you have to start with.

 

1. Sit in your citadel, patrolling the territory you own until your opponents wreck each other. Call it the "Evil Uncle Jim" strategy, named for my Uncle who won 95+% of family games of Risk by doing exactly this. If anyone attacks, use the 500 points of upgrades to get 10+ artillery platforms. Good luck getting through a literal barrage of battle cannons when playing lengthwise. BS2 isn't important if the enemy is stacked so closely.

 

To avoid someone doing this, reduce the Citadel bonus to perhaps 250 points. Certainly increase the cost of artillery and heavy artillery (that's even worse because you can use it in other hexes!).

I had the same thought about artillery. I think sitting in your territory doesn't help much though, because you're missing out on conquering all those delicious points-generating hexes.

2. Get a space fortress and a heavy deepstrike focused set of forces (Blood Angels, drop pod Marines and Grey Knights sping to mind). Make each force perhaps 750-1000 points (though you're required to have 2 Troops it seems....) Don't bother holding territories...just launch precision raids on your enemies citadels on Campaign Turn 2 (after all their forces move out). To be fair, this is the way all Space Marines SHOULD play, if they're into the fluff. ;)

 

To avoid someone being such a prick (while fluffy it isn't that much fun for anyone else), introduce a maximum number of forces at the start equal to half the number of players (not possible to smack EVERYONE on Turn 2). The difficulties of getting back to your space fortress for another go should limit the blitzkrieg.

Lol well, we're probably only going to be starting with one 500pt force apiece and no points in reserve, so the likelihood of this happening is minimal... that said, the space fortress assault idea IS a fun one :P.

 

Points for writing fluffy post battle events might encourage some more meat to the campaign's overall story but I wouldn't do it if only to avoid the inevitable terrible prose. Plus I can't imagine it being any fun to write about how your commander runs away while your opponent is busy writing reams of text about how his commander is leaping from carnifex to carnifex ripping them in half as they retreat. But maybe I've been on the internet too long, your group could be good at writing for all I know :P

We aren't terrible fluff writers, but it's more about getting into the mindset of the game and enjoying the fluff than writing stuff that will be cherished for the ages ;).

[vonny]

how do you do the terrain generation? Do you have 'empty' hexes that you use fitting planetary empire hexes for as soon as you move on and have rolled for them, or do you just place planetary empire hexes and ignore what's to be seen on them until you roll? And how many hexes do you advise per player?

 

also, in your experience, do shooty and protected armies not gain an unfair benefit in this type of game? Let me give an example

 

Imperial guard vs Tyranids where games are won by annihilation.

Imperials shoot all the tyranids dead before tyranids can get into close combat. Imperial win! Tyranids lose everything, guard loses (next to) nothing

Imperials shoot their best, but tyranids reach their line and start mopping them up, killing all the guard in the process. Tyranid win! Guard loses everything, tyranids lose 50-70% of their forces in the run towards guard lines.

 

I could see the same happening with orks, or maybe even infantry-based guard. Due to their army style, they're bound to suffer more casualties and thus have to spend more and more points in keeping their armies up to fighting power.

[igotsmeakabob!!]

Tiles are blank until someone steps on them, then we fill in the appropriate generated tile.

 

It's pretty rare for someone to win without losing 50% of their force first in any game, regardless of the armies being played.. at least in my experience.

[TheRealAxel]

A single territory and 500 point force for starters? If you're expecting player-player combat from Campaign Turn 1 then this isn't a good idea. A single 500 point force will quickly be reduced to 200 points or less after a single game, which isn't enough to do anything much. The player that doesn't fight Turn 1 will mop the floor against all the remnant armies without losing much. If you're not going to fight on Turn 1, why not?! 40k is a fighting game...

 

Can I suggest something along the lines of a 'recovery' mechanic for forces? This represents 'casualties' in the game not actually being dead or permanently incapacitated (perhaps just KO'd, or with a 'flesh wound'). I'd base it around a toughness check, or an armour save. Probably a toughness check would be better, so the Ork Warboss isn't unfairly dealt with. Maybe roll a dice for each wound the model lost. On each roll less than their toughness value they recover one wound (6 always fails).

Modifications:

-1 (beneficial) to the die roll if you won.

+1 (harmful) to the roll if the entire squad was wiped out.

-1 (beneficial) to the roll if you have a "hospital" terrain feature or somesuch.

 

That means Marines should have half their casualties get back up after a fight. If you won and have a "hospital" they should be nearly unkillable on a permanent basis.

[Brightguy]

I like the idea of tracking wounded. In my opinion one of the benefits of a campaign is that it favors generals who are able to win while preserving their forces for the next battle. I'd say roll a die for each wound 5,6= Recovered Immediately, 3,4= Recovers next turn, 1,2= Permanently lost. Same for vehicle destroyed, immoble or weapon destroyed results. If you get never you have to pay to replace the model. Say immoble results cost 20% of the model cost and weapons 10%.