Being the forum trekking group that the Dakka Dakka pubic is, many of you may be aware that over at  http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/portal.php they are getting ready to kick off their Third annual all internet Campaign.

If you take WHFD and combine it with the games Diplomacy, Medieval and Shogun, and had it so that it was all run, including the games, online.  Then you'll begin to understand how this campaign works.  This isn't like your typical "submit your wins!  Put as many as you can into "x" node!" kind of Campaign.   Each player has an online virtual army. The army is structured much like a normal warhammer table top army. As the game is virtual online you don't need to play RL games or have a current GW army. The Asur.org computer will handle battle simulations for each player each turn.

Since everything is online you don't have to do anything other than access the internet about once a day. Each turn will consist of a 24 hour period during which the players will have an opportunity to discuss the previous turn's results, plan the current turn's moves, execute the moves and purchase upgrades for their hero or recruit new troops into new or existing units. Each turn requires no more than 10 minutes of time per day, although it can be much more if you are participating in the strategy discussions. At the end of each 24 hour turn, a loremaster will end the turn and the computer will match up the players at each location, simulate a battle between them and return the results.

A lot of the fun is social - joining a faction of like minded players, forming battle groups to ravage the enemy lands as a group ( a much more efficient way to destroy the foe), debating what strategies your side should take, where to attack net. There will also be alot of tactical options for tailoring your personal attack style for your individual army.

Please come take a look. The message board for the campaign can be found here.
[URL] http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/viewforum.php?f=54[/URL]

In addition they have put up a more comprehensive Campaign guide which you can find here. [url] http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/hourofthewolf_guide.html[/URL]

Again, Please come and join in.  In the last campaign they had nearly 800 players participating by the end.  If you decide that it is of interest and know which of the 8 factions would interest you most, then you can sign up for that factions usergroup.  That will get you admittance to your factions "hidden forums".  That is where all the real scheme begins.  If you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them, or you can simply post them to the Campaigns message board which I have given above. 

Goddam qlitches makes me submit before I'm ready!

Currently the sides are looking like this

Forces of Order vs. Forces of Ruin
Sarthailor 109 - 100 Druchii
Reik Men 72 - 79 Chaos
Dwarves 78 - 51 Nehekharans (Khemri)
Asrai Host 26 - 26 Skaven

Totals: 285-256.

You are welcome to choose which ever side you wish, but as you can see the Dark Forces could use with some more numbers.  Why isn't that everyone wants to be a knight in shining armor?   Doesn't anybody like to get a little dirty anymore?

This is actually the Third installment of what has become a yearly campaign. Each campaign has been an extension of the results of the previous campaign.

The first campaign was a redoing of the Sundering. The civil war that broke out between HE and DE which resulted in Malekith's banishment and the formation of the Land of Chill. Well in the Asur.org.uk campaign the DE actually WON! This caused the HE to be expelled and Malekith became the ruler of Ulthuan. You can imagine what kind of history altering event that was. So much so that they have actually developed their own divergent timeline which they call the Dark Empire timeline.

The second campaign was an extension of the first. Malekith pursued the HE to the Old World to finish them off. The HE had fled their to take shelter from their old friends the Dwarfs. This was the setting for the second campaign which was a redoing of the War of the Beard. Out of this one the Asrai emerged. The HE ended up uniting with local humans around the land known as bretonia and formed a new nation. Bascially because of this the bretonians will not emerge as is this new timeline the HE have infected their cultrue to much. Also the DE were able to destroy Karak-a-Karak, so what is known as the Dwarf capital in the GW timeline, doesn't exist in this new timeline!

Which leads us to the Hour of the Wolf, in which Malekith has built a global spanning empire.  He now returns the to Old World like Douglas McArther to the Philipiens.  With the help of Chaos, Skaven and Nehekara  they will try to eradicate the "good guys" once and for all. Meanwhile, the "good guys" prepare to push them back.


The first campaign included two races, DE and HE. The second was DE, HE, and Dwarfs. Now for this continusing campaign they have been split into two sides of four factions each. Good and Evil. On one side is Dark Elves, Chaos, Khemri, and Skaven. On the other side is HE, Wood Elves, early Empire, and Dwarfs. You can play any of the 8 factions.

Just to give ya a better idea of the structure, he's an example of a beginning force and then the recruitment list you can use to expand your forces. This is for one of the 8 factions. Each has their own seperate lists...this one is for Chaos. As your Hero goes up in kills, more rare units are made available for recruitment.........



]

So...you join a usergroup then upon acceptance you make a list or...?

If so, I tried the Dwarf group, it stated no more users were accepted? 

Posted By AgeOfEgos on 02/07/2007 7:20 PM

So...you join a usergroup then upon acceptance you make a list or...?

If so, I tried the Dwarf group, it stated no more users were accepted? 

Pretty close.  First you have to register at ASur.org. The reason for that is that since everything is online (and I mean everything) you need to have a player account. In order to restrict people to playing as one faction we tie the campaign registration to the user registration. This also helps keep the sub faction forums hidden from other players so that you are free to plot and scheme against them.  But of course you've already got an Asur.org.uk account but wanted to just let people know Why

Registration for the game hasn't actually started yet it's expected to start in just a few days actually.  Right now people are choosing up sides and going into discussion groups to plan their strategy so they will be fully prepared once the game starts.  That is the Usergroups.

Because right now the Forces of Order (Dwarf, High Elf, Wood Elf, and Empire) have such a numerical advantage those usergroups are not taking any more members.  The idea is to encourage people to balance out the sides and hopefully some will play as one of the Forces or Ruin.  Of course if you've never played any other army but Dwarfs, never want to experiment with any other armies, and just can't conceive of anything else BUT being a Dwarf, you could just wait until registration and sign up for a Dwarf army at that time,

But again, as in the games Diplomacy, Shogun, Medival, etc.. the amount of armies (this case players) that you can bring to bear on one location is important.  As such it is important for the number of people playing the Forces of Order (currently 285.) be fairly close to the number of people playing the Forces of Ruin ( 256 ) otherwise it would be a bit of a steamroll.

Posted By AoD on 02/08/2007 12:47 AM
If I can get your website to work, I'll join the Khemri side.

Although.. evil? And on the same side as the Druchii? What the..?  Also, the Nehekharans are still alive?   And there's an empire side?  But the ... the... AUGH.

Give this a try http://www.asur.org.uk

LOL.  Yea.  Kind of neat huh?  As I said, each Campaign has grown off of the results of the Previous one and has caused a whole alternate Warhammer history to develope!  A history that they have taken to call the Chronicles of the Dark Empire.  Just imagine how much history would have changed if the Dark Elves had won on Ulthuan during the Sundering.  One of the interesting things is these campaigns is getting a chance to shape a whole new history.  If your interested in reading all of the history that has been written so far they have it all archived in their "library" http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_articles.php?cid=17

To make it a balanced 1:1 battle for every faction on the side of "Order" their had to be an equal faction on the side of "Ruin".  It's always easy to get the goody-two-shoes to cooperate, never so easy on the dark side, but full backgrounds are develpoed for all factions.  Here is a quick link to the all the fluff pieces that have been released for the Hour of the Wolf Campaign so far.  There will be more coming out as the campaign progresses. 

Dark Elves

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=230

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=236

Dwarf  

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=229

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=246

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=247

Sarthailor – a “new” nation containing HE exiles, Humans, and their Half Elf decendents

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=224

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=228

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=238

Nehekhara – A divergent storyline of the kingdom of Khemri and Nagash.  In this new timeline Nagash came to the throne hosestly, he did not need to kill his brother to do so.  As such he is actually beloved by his people and Khemri has flourished, not become the walking land of the dead it is in the GW timeline.

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=221

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=222

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=223

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=225

Host of the Everchosen – Chaos

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=200

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=241

Ulrik Emprire

http://www.asur.org.uk/ulthuan/cms_view_article.php?aid=240

Posted By AoD on 02/08/2007 8:57 AM
I keep getting errors on your website. Stuff like Template->make_filename(): Error - file cms_articles_view.tpl does not exist
and
Template->make_filename(): Error - file portal_body.tpl does not exist

These only happen when I'm logged in.

Extremely Odd.

What is your username there.  I'll see if I can get a Mod there to help ya out.

Ah....I see that you ironed things out and got in.

Just to state here what you were discussing over at Asur.org

The only thing left for them to do it to do some balancing of the forces between the 8 factions.  It is moving quite quickly and the "hope" is that registration will be perhaps shortly after the weekend.  As this is a campaign within a finite time frame (60 turns) it's good to be there and ready to go on turn #1.