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I was looking for a way to get our gaming group back into playing 40K by starting a campaign. I have a few problems with standard city type map based campaigns that I have run across or have played in the past. That coupled with the problem that our gaming group consists of older players that have multiple outside obligations I knew that if I wanted anyone to participate I would have to come up with something different.

The problems I have with the standard city type map based campaigns are:
1) Lack of variety of opponants. It seems like in the past, when we have run a map based campaign, that you get stuck fighting the same two people that are next to you over and over until you can finaly get to the middle and then maby get to fight someone else. To combat this I wanted a map that would allow players to go anywhere thus giving them more variety of opponants.

2) If you get two players that form an alliance then if they are next to each other that cuts down their opponants they encounter even more, and makes them better able to fight the person to the other side of them. So it turns out that everyone ends up with an alliance with someone on one side of them so they spend the whole game fighting one person over and over.

3) Eventualy someone gets tired of fighting the same person over and over or has a weekend when they can't fit a game in causing the campaign to ground to a halt. After a couple of weekends of this everyone looses interest and the campaign never finishes.

4) In most of the campaigns we have had in the past the objective is either unatainable or non-existant. If the goal is to control the entire map, two thirds of the map, 50 terratories, it either takes to long and everyone looses interest or as soon as someone gets close thier "allies" turn on them take it away again causing the game to go too long and eventualy everyone looses interest.

5) Respawning. If a person is unlucky and does not have an ally next to them but the people on both sides do they will get wiped out sooner or later. When this happens they are either out of the camaping or they have to start over. Most of the map based campaigns we have tried have used resources so when the people next to you each have 20 terratories thus 3000 points and you have 1 meaning 1100 points you stand very little chace to come back.

6) Scheduling. Our group consists of people in our 30's or so and most of us are married with kids, taking classes, or just plain addicted to a certain MMORPG that will remain nameless and thus not always able to play a battle every week or so.

In an attempt to still run a campaign that will be fun and engaging yet flexable enough for everyone to participate I have come up with the following idea for a campaign. Note that I have taken great liberty with the fluff of the 40K universe. This is more for fun in our group and not a GW sanctioned event so I'm not too worried about how plausable the background story is.

If you have any suggestions / questions about it I would welcome them. I will let you know how the game progresses and any changes I suggest to it as we play.

The map is a star system map of my own creation. You could use any star map with planets as long as it has a central point surrounded by a few planets. You want either the same number of planets as you have players. If you have more than 6-8 people I would recomend only putting 6-8 planets in the center and making everyone fight over them.

Race to the Emprer 40K campaign

In the distant galaxy of Rillos VI a wormhole opens up that leads straight to Terra and the Imperial City where the Emperor himself sits on the Golden Throne. Word gets out quickly and soon every race is eager to get to the wormhole and attempt to remove the emperor from his throne once and for all. As a fledgling commander the duty has fallen to you to acquire an army and make an attempt for the throne. Be advised that your commanders will not assist you in this endeavor in order to maintain plausible deniability when…. I mean if…. You fail.

Start: The campaign will begin Sep. 27th and last for 10 weeks. We will conclude with a final battle on Dec. 6th.

Time: Players will email their moves to Chris at email address no later than Monday and I will process the moves and let you know the results by Wednesday then you will email me back your responses by Friday. It will be up to you as the players to schedule any games that result from your moves. The system will allow for a certain amount of flexibility but please try to schedule your games as soon as you can.

Place: The default location for the games will be at Ed’s house although you are free to play elsewhere if both players agree. The final game will take place at Ed’s house.

RULES:

Setup: As a new commander you will be assigned a starting planet to which will serve as your base of operations. You will also be given 1200 points from which to purchase your starting forces, defenses, and ships at the following costs:

Ships………………….100 pts
Home planet defenses...Variable
Units…………………..At codex costs

You must purchase a ship if you want to leave your home planet. The more ships you have the more planets you can travel to each turn. Each ship can hold up to 2000 points of units.

You will assign which forces you have on each ship and mark your rosters accordingly.


Turns: The turns will be divided up into 4 phases as follows:

Phase 1: Production: In this phase your occupied planets will produce additional points which you may spend to, purchase more troops, purchase ships, or build defenses. Points will be produced as follows:

Home Planet / Industrial planets.…….200 pts
Occupied Friendly Planet…………….150 pts
Occupied Neutral Planet……………...100 pts

Points produced on each planet must be spent on that planet. (For example if you control the planet Tunsend and it is friendly towards you, you will earn 150 points. If you choose to buy 150 points of troops they will start on that planet and be available for pickup if you land a ship there otherwise they will sit there and defend the planet against invaders.)

The alignment and the tech level of the planet determine what you can build on each planet as follows:

Home Planet: A home planet may build anything from that race’s codex. Or it can build transport ships.

Industrial Planet: An industrialized planet can build anything from the native race on the planet’s codex or your race’s codex if it is different. (for example: if the chaos space marines landed on a planet that was occupied by Tau and industrialized it they could build anything from the Tau or the Chaos codexs assuming you have access to the models. (ps. Borrowing models is allowed if you can find someone to loan them to you.)) Industrial planets also posses the technology to build transport ships.

Occupied Friendly Planet: An OFP can produce only units allowed in a combat patrol mission. (No models with more than 2 wounds, no special characters, no 2+ saves, no vehicles with total Armor Value 33, no Ordnance weapons.)

Neutral Planet: A neutral planet can only produce units of the troops type.


Phase 2: Movement: After you have spent your points you can load or unload any troops from your ships and you can move ships from one planet to another. You may move each ship from any one planet to any other planet each turn. The closer you move to the center of the map the better your chances of being caught in the warp.

If you have an unresolved battle on a planet you will not be able to move that ship until you either choose to flee the fight or complete the battle.

Phase 3: Encounters: Once you have sent your moves to me at emial address I will send you an email to let you know what you find on each planet. Some of the things you could encounter are as follows:

Friendly forces of your race
Friendly forces of a different race
Hostile forces of your race
Hostile forces of a different race
Neutral forces of your race
Neutral forces of another race
Barren planet
Another player

If you encounter a hostile force the point total and race of the enemy will be randomly determined and revealed to you in my email. All hostile forces will be played by Chris unless someone wants to volunteer to help with some of the battles.


Phase 4: Reaction: Once you have received your email on Wednesday you will have several things that you could do in response to what you encounter. These responses are:

Colonize: If you encounter friendly or neutral forces you my immediately colonize the planet and start receiving points from it the next turn.

Fight: If you encounter a hostile force on the planet you may choose to fight it. If you win you can then colonize the planet and begin to convert them.

Convert: It takes 1 turn to convert a hostile planet to a neutral one and you must have at least 200 points of troops stationed on the planet in order to attempt to convert them. Note: hostile planets can rebel so having more troops reduces the chances of a rebellion.
It takes 1 turn to convert a neutral planet to a friendly, during which time you it will not generate points. Again you must have 200 points worth of troops stationed on the planet in order to convert them.
Once you have converted a planet to be friendly you may take 1 turn to industrialize a planet. During this turn the planet generates no points and you must have a ship and it’s forces there. Once industrialized a plant will generate 200 points per turn and can create any units from that race’s codex or your own.

Flee: If you find that there are simply too many enemies for you to overcome or you don’t want to fight another player you may choose to flee. If you flee you loose ¼ of the troops on your ship due to them not making it back to the ship in time.


Please respond to me with your reaction by Friday.

General Rules:

You do not need to be present every week to play. Please email me your moves by Monday and your responses by Friday to let me know what you are doing each week. If you have a battle please try to schedule it as soon as is convenient and email me the results when it is finished. I will need to know where the battle took place, how many points each side started with, and how many points each side had left at the end.

If you have a ship on a planet that requires a battle or a flee reaction your ship will not be able to leave until one or the other is done.

If you are being attacked by another player and cannot schedule a game for at least 2 weeks please concede or abandon the planet in question as you will be holding up other peoples progress. You can ask someone else to play your game for you if you are not able to play it in a reasonable amount of time but the results will stand. If they loose 450 points and you have 500 points on your ship you will be expected to loose 450 points from that ship.

All moves are secret and you will only know what planets you own. This is to encourage exploration and a variety of fights. I will update each player with the list of planets and the point total on each planet weekly.

No alliances! Due to the random nature of the game and not knowing where other people are there is no need for alliances.

All games will be played using the 4th edition rules unless both players agree otherwise.

Production:

Once you land on a planet you own with your ship you may choose to unload your ship and reload your troops effectivly changing your roster.

You will not have to decide what forces are on the planet until you move the units onto a ship or go into battle with them. You will however need to allocate between forces and defenses on a weekly basis.

You may choose to purchase defenses for the costs listed below:

Heavy weapon turret (BS 2, Front armor 10 Side 10 Rear 10)
Heavy bolter……………………..10 points
Autocannon………………………15 points
Las Cannon………………………20 points
Tank traps / trenches …………………….5 points/ section
Bunker ……………………………………25 points
Mine Fields ………………………………20 points

The forces available from each planet type are as follows:

Planet type Race restrictions Unit Type
Home Planet Your Race only Any from Codex & Transport ships
Industrialized Your race or Natives Any from Codex’s & Transport ships
Friendly Your race or Natives Patrol mission only
Neutral Your race or Natives Troops only
Hostile None None

Movement:

You may move from any planet to any other planet in the Galaxy.

The closer your move takes to you the center the greater the chance of your ship being altered by the warp.

The goal is to own at least one of the six planets around the wormhole in the center of the map by Saturday Nov. 6th. Any units you have on one of those planets will be sucked through the wormhole and will be available to you in the final battle on Oct. 11th.

If 2 players arrive at a planet simultaneously resulting in the need for a battle a 3-way battle will take place and the player with the highest strategy rating for their army will be the one to choose the mission type.

You cannot attack any green home planets. All players are assumed to have a safe haven there and will have a rally point should they loose all their planets.

When a player lands on a planet that is not owned by another player, what they find will be determined randomly by the following table:

1-2: Hostile Planet 1-3: Own Race
3-4: Neutral planet 4-6: Other Race
5: Friendly Planet
6: Barren Planet

The size of the enemy forces you encounter on an npc planet will be determined by rolling a d6 and adding the turn number to it. For example: You land on a planet on turn 4 to find that it is hostile. I roll a D6 and get a 5. I then add 4 to it and multiply it by 100. Thus you will be facing 900 points of enemy troops on the surface.


Reactions:

When a planet is being attacked, the attacking player gets to choose the mission type from one of the following:

Bunker Assault…………………………...p. 194
Strongpoint Attack…………………….....p. 207
Patrol………………………….………….p. 191
Cleanse (Alpha, Gamma, or Omega)…….p. 81
Secure and control (A, G, or O) …………p. 82
Seek and Destroy (A, G. or O) …………..p. 82
Recon (A, G. or O) ………………………p. 83
Take and Hold (A, G, or O) ……………..p. 83

For armies 500 points and under you may use the combat patrol mission rules for army composition. For armies over 500 points use the standard force organization chart.

The defending player gets to set up the battlefield and chooses thier side as it is assumed that they know the planet best and will pick the spot that is most advantageous to them.

If you are defending the planet you may choose to abandon the planet, concede the planet, or agree to battle. If you choose to abandon the planet you must have a ship on the planet and you will loose any defenses you have built along with ¼ of your forces stationed there.

If your forces number twice what is on the planet you may choose to take the planet automatically. If you choose to do so you will suppress the planet and it will be considered hostile however you will not risk loosing any troops.

You may colonize a planet if the planet is either neutral for friendly without a fight. Once you declare that you are colonizing it you will start to get points from it the next turn. You cannot start converting a planet the same turn you colonize it.

In order to convert a hostile planet to neutral you must have at least 200 points worth of troops on the planet. If you have less than 200 points left the planet will rebel and you will have to fight another battle.

If you have 200 points of troops on a hostile planet you are converting they still have a chance to rebel. To determine if a planet is rebelling I will roll a d6 and add 1 for every point over 200 you have stationed on the planet. On a roll of 1-3 the planet will rebel.

Neutral or friendly planets do not have a chance to rebel however you still must have at least 200 points of troops stationed on the planet to raise moral while you are converting them.


Battles:

All battles will be fought on a 4’ x 6’ table per standard rules.

All battles will use standard rules from the 4th edition rule book except where noted in these rules.

If during a battle you decide that your forces are out-matched you may retreat in order to try to save some of your units. To do this you must move your units off your table edge. Any units that retreat will make it back to your ship and will be safe. Broken or fleeing units cannot retreat.

If you loose the battle without having had anyone retreat or holding anyone back in the ship, your ship will also be lost on that planet. Same goes for the defending side. If you have a ship but do not have anyone on it at the end of the battle the ship is lost.

All planets that have been won in a battle are considered hostile.

You do not need to bring all your forces in a ship to a battle. You may choose to have some not participate.

You may also choose to have some of your troops come into the battle as reserves following the rules for reserves. You can do this regardless of whether or not the mission allows reserves.

You must state at the beginning of the battle what if any units are coming in reserve and which if any you are not using.

You are not required to have all models WYSIWYG but please try to be as accurate as possible. No substituting one race for another.

Hazards of the Warp

Starting on turn 6 flight to the center planets will become increasingly more dangerous as the warp solidifies and creats the wormhole.

Starting turn 6 any ship that goes to or from one of the center planets runs the risk of being altered by the warp. I will roll a d6 add a modifier based on the turn. The modifiers will be a turn 7 +1, Turn 8 +2 Turn 9 +3 and turn 10 +4. If the result of the roll is equal to or greater than 6 your ship has been altered by the warp and I will roll to see what effect the warp has on the following table.

1: Split personalities. All infantry units double in size as they split apart to form doubles. This does not effect vehicles.
2: Dual vehicles. Double all vehicles abord. This does not effect infantry.
3: Mechanical failure. All vehicles experiance trouble with thier circutry. You still have the points but will not be able to use them until you land on an industrial or home planet to get them repaired.
4: Identity crisis. All your troops change race! You keep all your points but must pick a new force from a different codex.
5: Lost in space. Your navigiational equipment malfunctions and you end up orbiting a random planet.
6: Ripped apart. You hear the sound of metal being ripped like paper just before your ship turns inside out. All forces and the ship is destroyed.

I will lay out the rules for the final battle in a future post. Sorry this is so long.

Here are the rules / summary for the final battle for the campaign:

As the forces gather on the center planets and the wormhole starts to open the day is quickly approaching when the races will clash and see who will take control of the mighty Empire and rule the Universe.

This is an overview of what you should expect for the final game on December 6th.

When: December 6th 2008

Where: Ed’s house

Time: 10:00 a.m. sharp!



Schedule: 10:00 Go over rules and answer questions

10:15 Bid for deployment and setup

10:30 Setup starts

11:30 Lunch (We can order pizza and have it show up about this time.)

12:30 Game starts

3:30 30 min. break if needed

7:00 Game ends*


*Game will go longer if needed to finish the current turn allowing everyone to have the same number of turns.

Anyone who is not there for the bidding for deployment will have all their forces come in as reserves. Be on time!!!

What you need to bring: Your army, army roster, codices, dice, templates, snacks, and drinks if desired. We will not wait for you to make a roster so have it done ahead of time!





Rules:
Turn 10 moves should be sent to me no later than midnight on November 29th. I will process the moves and send everyone their planet total on December 1st. Turn 10 will follow the standard rules for the campaign. You can still move any ships you have to any planets although I assume that turn 10 will result in a mad rush to get as many points as possible to the center planet.

The wormhole opens on December 1st and anything on the center 6 planets will be sucked in regardless of whether it’s in a ship or not. In the email I send to you on the 1st I will let you know the total points you have to spend on your army. You will be able to use any race for which you have a planet and the models. You can borrow models for a race if they are available however you must have the appropriate models for the unit (I.e. no Elder that count as Orks and no bikes that count as speeders). Units should be WISIWYG as much as possible. There will be too many models to keep track of to try to remember this unit has a plasma gun instead of a lasgun etc. The exception is wargear and grenades.

The game will be played according to Apocalypse rules which I will cover below.


Army Selection: You do not have to follow a force organization chart to create your army. Just bring what you can fit in your point limit. You can create your army from any race you have a planet for. Games-workshop.com has some legendary units and battle formations that you can take if you print out the sheet and bring it with you. There are more in the Apocalypse book.

In order to win the mission you will need at least 1 HQ that can be on foot.


Set-up: I will setup the battle field Friday December 5th and deploy the home forces that way all that will need to be done on Saturday is for the players to deploy and we can start.

We will determine deployment by the bidding method. Each player will bid between 1 and 30 minutes for deployment. Deployment zones will be assigned based on which center planet you own. The two players with the lowest numbers will deploy first then the next two and finally the last two. Each group will have 5 minutes to plan then their time will start. Anything that they do not deploy in that time will be held in strategic reserve and will come in later. Any units that have the scout special rule must make their scout moves during your deployment. Once the last person has finished deployment the person with the lowest time and two other people (based on table position) will go first.

Rules: The game will be played using standard 4th edition rules with the following adjustments. Three players will move simultaneously. In cases where movement will conflict the squad with the highest initiative will choose who moves first, if the initiatives are the same roll for it.

The winner will be determined by the person who has completed the most scenario objectives (see scenario below).
Strategic reserve will work as follows:

Turn One: No units may come in from strategic reserve.

Turn Two: You may choose up to half of the forces in strategic reserve to enter play as normal (i.e. if they can deepstrike they may do so ect.)

Turn Three: All the remaining units in strategic reserve must enter play.


Any rules disputes will have 2 min. to be looked up then if still not resolved will be solved according to a dice roll.

Any unit may ride in any non dedicated transport regardless of race (i.e. if you have orks and chaos you could have a unit of terminators jump out of a battlewagon.)

No infiltrating is allowed.



Scenario

You have positioned your forces to be sucked through the wormhole that bypasses the Imperiums defenses and should drop you straight in the Imperial capital city. You are committed to battle and there is no turning back now. Just as you hoped the wormhole swallows your forces and dumps you just outside the city proper. Reconnaissance indicates that the Emperor is on the throne and although security is heightened it is not unbeatable. You have discovered that there are several other commanders that have arrived with their forces as well and appear to have the same goal in mind KILL THE EMPEROR!

Deployment: Deployment zones will be defined ahead of time and the bidding system will be used to determine setup. The first person to deploy will have the first turn.

Special rules: Champion of the people! When making your roster you will designate one of your HQ choices as the Champion of the people. This can be a special character or a generic HQ choice. You will then choose one other HQ choice as his successor. If the champion of the people dies then the successor takes his place. If he too dies your race has no leader who is strong enough to lead them. These should be marked on your roster but kept secret until they either die or claim the throne.

All HQ choices and their retinue or any unit they join gain the fleet of foot special ability.

Turns: Variable

Objective: Primary Objective –Kill the emperor and claim the throne for your race. The throne can only be claimed by the champion of the people. To claim the throne the emperor must be dead and the character must be standing on it with no enemy within 6 inches. Accomplishing this objective will win the game regardless of the other objectives.
Killing the Emperor is worth 3 points
If you have your Champion standing on the throne at the end of the game but it is contested you will earn 1 point.

Secondary objective – Kill the Champion of the people for other races. Each other champion of the people you kill is worth 2 points at the end of the game.

Tertiary objective - Control the strategically important points. There will be 4 strategically important objectives throughout the city. Each will be worth 2 victory points for determining a winner if no one completes the Primary Objective.

Bonus objectives – Control the markers. There will be hidden markers through the city. By moving a squad onto these markers you can pick them up and carry them with you. These have the potential to give the squad carrying them a bonus. Beware if the squad carrying them dies they drop the marker and it can be picked up by anyone else.



There are 12 bonus markers in total. The number of markers and the bonuses for each are as follows:

Fleet of foot (1), Slow and Purposefull (1), Teleport (1), Chamelion (1) (+1 to cover saves), APDS rounds (1) (these add +1S and -1AP to the squad that carries it), Furious Charge (1), Surefooted (1) (roll 3 dice for dificult terrain tests),Extra ammo (1) (you can give up this token for an extra round of shooting from this squad), +1 VP (3), +2 VP (1)

WOW! very nice write up and awesome setup you have created. I like it very much! I hope you dont mind if me and my buddies try it out sometime!

Well the campaign is underway and it has been interesting to see the different aproaches taken by the players. We have six people who are playing and they all have a diffent degree of how much they want to be involved. 2 of them are not able to play very often so they loaded up all their points on a ship and made a B-line for one of the center planets where they plan to camp until the end of the game to get in on the final battle. One of the players only wants to fight a couple of battles and he divided his original forces in half and sent them to two different outer planets. The other three are willing to play a game or two a week so two of them divided thier forces into 3 ships and each took a center planet and two others. The last one divided his forces into two ships and took two planets that were close to his home planet.

The first turn saw no fighting as everyone got lucky on thier rolls to see what was on the planet and oddly enough none of them landed on the same planet.

The second turn however saw a couple of battles as people encountered some hostile forces on planets they were exploring. One won the battle and one lost. So far there are two center planets left and two players without a center planet. Everyone who has taken a center planet is spending this turn to convert it to Industrial as they all rolled friendly somehow.

So far the system seems to be working well. Two peices of advice I will give you if you are thinking about running this campaign is:

1) You can not play if you are running it! Besides knowing where everyone else is the possability exists that you could have way to many battles a week to play unless you have someone to help you. You will get a chance to play games and even play in the final as you play the loyalist forces defending the golden throne so it is not like you have to sit it out.

2) Create an Excel spreadsheet to track who has what planet and how many forces are on each planet/ship. This will save you a lot of frustration later when players ask how many points do I have here? Recordkeeping is the key as it can make or break the game.

I will keep you posted as the game continues and let you know what I learn and any tweeks I would suggest. Feel free to try it yourself and tweek it any way you see fit. If you do try it I would appreciate you letting me know how it works for you and your group and any suggestions you may come up with.

DamienSabin

wow you type a lot this campaign sounds awesome but you should make it less complicated with all the rules and stuff

sounds like planetarion.

wow i love that idea

Well the big game was a while ago. Sorry I haven't updated it since then but honestly between Christmas and the kids impending 1st birthday I have forgotten. Since the campaign has wraped up I will post my thoughts / suggestions on areas it can be improved and what went well with it.

First of all I'll talk about the overall campaign:

I thought this went pretty well all things considered. We had a couple of people who could not play many games at all and a few people who would have been fine playing a game every week. The other couple of people were somewhere inbetween these two extremes. The way this campaign was designed it allowed for all three types and it seemed to work really well. The way the dice were falling when a person landed on a new planet it seemed like a large number of them were friendly or neutral but that's just how I was rolling. For more battles you could adjust the outlook table to suite your groups tastes. If you want more battles between players I would recomened cutting down the number of planets on the star system. In the map I created there were about 40 planets for 6 people so we only had 2 fights where someone landed on the same planet and those took place on one of the center planets.

If you are looking to run this campaign MAKE SURE YOU KEEP GOOD RECORDS!!!!! This is kind of intensive as far as the recordkeeping goes as with 6 players it took about 2 hours a week to verify the totals on the planets and keep points up to date. Make sure you keep all the emails so you can go back and look them over. I had a color coded Excel spreadsheet that I made for each player, what planets they held, production each turn, if there was a ship located on that planet, and when/how much/to where they moved any points to or from that planet.

Overall I liked the way it played but more importantly the players really enjoyed it and want to run it again.

I will post the resulsts of the final battle on a sperate post since that was a different story.

Damiensabin

Ok, the final game.

First let me explain something about our group. Three of the six of us have children under the age of 4 at home and thus can not be gone all weekend "playing with our toys" as my wife puts it. Three of our group are adicted to World of Warcraft and can not play on Sundays and the other person who was playing was good with whatever. The other thing to note about our group is that some of our players are chronic procrastinators. These just happen to be the people who are WOW adicts.

The morning started with a call from one of the players that one of his sons had a soccer game that morning that he had to go to and he would be there by 11:30. He had his roster all made up already and would be good to go when he got there so it wasn't too much of a problem.

I had one other person who couldn't play in the campaign but wanted to play in the big game. Since he plays Blood Angels I had him helping me defend the Emperor. He also had his roster created and came over early and we deployed the defenders.

Four of the other players however did not have thier rosters created ahead of time so we had to wait on them to build 5-7K rosters. This involved pulling out all their models and seeing what they had what they could borrow for the races they had planets for but not minis for. This set us back a bit.

By the time we got started it was 1:30. Only an hour late so not too bad.

With a total of 40K points on the table we only managed to get 2 full turns in before it was time to quit. None of the players fought each other and instead just charged for the middle and fought the few Imperial Guard and Space marines that were in the city around the castle (which were controlled by myself and the BA player). This slowed the game down somewhat since at least two players were waiting to resolve the attacks. The area we were playing on was about 8x8 so everyone was a crowded.

While we were playing it was fun but in the end everyone was upset that we didn't get to finish the game.

My suggestions then are as follows:

Make it mandatory that players have their rosters created ahead of time!

Make sure you have a HUGE area to play in. It would have been best to play on the floor for as much space as we needed however then it would have taking a lot longer to get to the center and the palace.

Have at least as many people playing the defending army(s) as there are people taking turns. I.e. if you have three people going at a time have 3 people playing the defending armies and let them work out the combats for any defending unit.

Uness you have all weekend consider allowing playser to only take half the points on the center planet through the wormhole. For example if a player has 6K points on the center planet let him bring 3K to the planet. With 6 players this will still mean 18K worth of attackers.

One thougth I had was doing a two phase end game in order to get the players fighting more.
The first phase would have everyone land on the planet in two areas (in our case with three people in each one). The players would have to fight there and only the winner in each zone could move their forces to the Imperial city where you would have a 3 way battle between the two people that won in the deployment zones and the defending forces. This would add another day or so to the ending but you could allow the players to bring all their points from the center so you could have a 3-4 way battle with 6+K points per person then the winner could bring whatever they have left to the city making the assult on the emperor a bit more managable. That would also mean you wouldn't HAVE to scrape togather 10+K points to make it a challenge for them. If you want you can let the winning player on each side have their full points back to cut down on record keeping and feel free to throw in some of your own people as an advanced scouting force to oppose the attackers.

Next time we do this I think I will use the above method for the final battle. Set one Saturday for the landing games and the next weekend for the final game.

Well that is about all I can think of at this point. With the exception of not being able to finish the final game the campaign went pretty well. If anyone decides to run this or something similar please let me know what you found to improve it.

DamienSabin.