Alternate Campaign Progression for Shadow War: Armageddon

[Brother Tyler]

While Shadow War: Armageddon was touted as the new Necromunda, the campaign progression shifted away from what Necromunda players were familiar with and landed on the concept of hunting for promethium. Some have lamented the loss of the more detailed campaign progression of Necromunda, but I suppose the promethium construct makes sense for the setting of Shadow War: Armageddon. Sort of. There are definitely some weaknesses in it, depending on how you look at it.

If we look at the game as a method for squad-level skirmish wargaming in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, however, the whole promethium construct might not always work as well. Sure, we could simply change "promethium" to "victory points," but that's not fooling anyone. It might work well enough, but someone is going to complain (that's what the Internet is for, after all ).

So I'd like to examine alternate campaign progression systems for Shadow War campaigns.

We could, of course, adapt the Necromunda campaign system, including lingering injuries, etc. That's not that hard to do, so I won't belabor that point (though we may want to post a synopsis for those players that don't have access to the Necromunda rules).

Legends of the Old West and Legends of the High Seas, both from the now defunct Warhammer Historical, transplanted modified Necromunda rules on the American West and Golden Age of Piracy settings (with ideas for adapting for gangsters, swashbucklers, and other settings). There were some minor differences in the campaign rules (compared to Necromunda), so those might bear some examination.

Mordheim, I believe, was largely similar, but with the whole warpstone construct for campaign progression.

And before I go further, we might have to consider the possibility of differences between campaign progression and character advancement.

@Doghouse is working on campaign rules for Legiones Astartes vs. Legiones Astartes set during the Horus Heresy.

So what other types of campaign (and perhaps character) progression systems can we come up with? Consider some key events such as the Thirteenth Black Crusade and the Badab War. Ideally, I'd like to keep the discussion confined to the standard Warhammer 40,000 factions (so no going back to Necromunda gangs). The goal is to find ways to keep things fresh for Shadow War (beyond just creating new factions).

[Doghouse]

One I was toying around with would be Space Hulk exploration or even a Space Hulk mod? Some sort of exploration system might be fun. 

 

Another I was thinking of was something like that studio run city fight game GW had a few years back, the one where they had a map of a city in their kitchen and fought territory battles with it.

 

I definitely like your thinking. :tu: 

[Brother Tyler]

Both of those I could see as some form of area control for the primary victory mechanic (vice "promethium caches"), with potential for lots of special objectives. Rearming and resupply could in many ways be driven by the number of areas under one's control, or by when specific areas are under one's control. This is largely similar to the Necromunda concepts. Both could also be played as individuals in a competitive manner (i.e., each team for itself), or a team-based semi-cooperative manner (split players into equal teams, roughly thematic organization, each team is vying for control).