[Campaigns] 40k Campaign - Four Way Battle for the Atrocis System

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**Angel_of_Rust**

***NEW CAMPAIGN. Click to skip down a few posts to check out the beginnings of a new campaign.***

Hey. Just as a warning, this is most certainly a huge block of text, enter at your own risk. I'm longtime player of 40k and lurker here on the forum. I play very regularly with 2 friends of mine which as you can imagine presents a problem with 3 people. More often than not we play 1v1 games and the third person is the rules lawyer. These are fairly laid back games with quite a bit of drinking involved. Anyway, I got the grand idea a few weeks back to try and bring a little excitement into the games. Our armies and lists have gone through a sort of arms race as they each become more refined and competitive over time. As fun as the game is, the lists have become sort of static. Even with multiple armies each, the small pool of players has seen most match-ups played out many many times. We have been trying to get this campaign off the ground for a few weeks now, but conflicting schedules have made it extremely difficult at best. Hopefully the first battle will be this weekend and I thought I'd share my ideas and look for a little insight before this Friday.

To try and introduce a little more variety into the games I came up for the idea for a 5 mission campaign. Each of the missions is a little bit different, but are based on existing rules, and slight modifications of scenarios from older rulebooks. The main goal for was to allow each mission to affect the following missions in the scenario in some manner. The first method I used is that I have adopted a kind of attacker and defender feel to the missions much like older editions. This will allow the victor of one mission a slight advantage of choosing deployment first or taking first turn which is always a welcome benefit, but not debilitating to the opponent by any means. For those interested in a detailed version, the Campaign Outline is included in the spoiler tag.

Spoiler:

Another way I have tried to link the missions together are Attrition and Battle Honors which are both outlined below. In order for both of these mechanics to work I needed what I am calling a Force Roster. Before the campaign begins, I have asked both my friends to submit a 3k point roster for their armies. These armies do NOT have to follow the FoC limitations and are intended as a pool from which to draw units for the missions themselves. The one limitation I have added additionally, is the Force Roster may not include more identical units than would be allowed in a single FoC. This is to prevent spamming and "hot swapping." The idea is that a Space Wolf/Ork contingent arrives at the planet and these are all the forces they can muster. For each mission a legal battle list of specific size must be taken from this larger pool. My intent was to promote the inclusion of some specialized units that may not be very useful in all scenarios, but in specific settings can really excel. Additionally these squads may not be enlarged reduced, or have their wargear modified in any way from how they appear in the Force Roster.

The first reason I need this persistent roster is what I'm calling Attrition. I want to represent the wear and tear of repeated battle engagements on a static force and so not every model will survive from mission to mission. I have come up with a manner in which most units will be replenished from fight to fight, but those that were extremely damaged may not return with everyone still intact. For those interested in a detailed version, Attrition rules are included in the spoiler tag.

Spoiler:

Now the first thing you'll notice is the units do not decrease in price and obviously decrease in effectiveness as they lose members. In order to try to counteract the mentality of swapping an identical fresh squad in for a weary one (hot swapping), I am using what I call Battle Honors. Battle Honors is a method to award experience to the units. If anyone is familiar with the 3rd edition Rulebook I have pilfered quite a bit from their experience section. I put together a list of Awards that a unit can earn for certain accomplishments during a battle. These Awards can then be traded in to roll on a Battle Honors table of USRs and upgrade the squad in question. At the moment they are awarded randomly as some are quite powerful but this may change. As you can imagine some Long Fangs or Lootas with Relentless would be an extremely powerful unit. I am open to suggestions for a better way to determine which USR is given. My hope is that squads can generate Awards rapidly enough that there will be a very clear benefit to using these "veteran" squads instead of just reaching for a brand new unit. I also encouraged my friends to both come up with names for at least their HQs if not for individual squads to try and get them invested in the narrative of the campaign and add flavor. For those interested in a detailed version, Award and Battle Honors rules are included in the spoiler tag.

Spoiler:

As you may guess I have put a lot of thought and work into this campaign so far and it is very much a labor of love. I will be playing the part of the "GM", rules lawyer, keeping track of Battle Honors, and Attrition information, and taking pictures and notes for battle reports. If you have any suggested changes please feel free to let me know. I will get finalized Force Rosters for each army posted when I get them to add to this thread, and as I have time I'll get the battle reports written and link to them. Thanks for reading.

**Dark_Eldar_Incubi**

Fantastic! I think you have a great few games ahead of ya. And l may just borrow a few elements of this for myself.

**Angel_of_Rust**

Added a small new change to the campaign. I don't want anyone getting screwed by poor rolling in clutch situations so I have given each of the two participants a Fate Point at the onset of the campaign, and will award another one at the beginning of Battle 3. If you are familiar with the 40k RPG Fate Points, these work very similarly, and can be spent for rerolls. The reroll encompasses all rolls in a specific phase, so all to hit, all to wound, or all armor/cover/invulnerable save rolls for a single unit in a single phase. These may be used for any statistic tests including morale, pinning, etc. Additionally they may be used for the Resupply roles in between battles. These rerolls represent an epic change of fate, and are not bound by the normal rules limiting to a single reroll, for instance, a unit of Boyz, that fails leadership and uses the Boss Pole to reroll the test, may expend the fate point to try a third time if they fail the second.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here are the Force Rosters for both armies. I will post the Space Wolf list when I get a finalized copy as it has been changing every 20 minutes as the player is nuerotic =P.

Ork Force Roster - 3000

Spoiler:

Space Wolves Force Roster - 3000

Spoiler:

And here are links to the Battle reports. These will be filled in as they are played.
Battle 1
Battle 2
Battle 3
Battle 4
Battle 5

**starwolf117**

I love this campaign idea. I am going to try and play it with my brother

**Grimgar314**

This is great. I am going to beat the space wolves-waaaaagh!

**Quintinus**

I gotta say I really like this. There are both a Spacewolf and Ork player in my group so this definitely needs to be tested out!

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

**Angel_of_Rust**

Played another game this past Friday. Finally had time to get everything posted. Battle 2

UPDATE:

Just for ease of use I am creating a summary here of the Awards, Resupply and Readiness as currently stands for the full campaign. The units are listed in the order they appear in the Force Roster.

Following Battle 2,

Unit Name - Awards - Battle Honors (if any)
-[Current Strength], Readiness
--Dedicated Transport Readiness

Space Wolves Award, Honors, and Readiness - 1 Fate Point remaining

Spoiler:

Orks Award, Honors, and Readiness - 0 Fate Points remaining

Spoiler:

**AreTwo**

Vladsimpaler wrote:I gotta say I really like this. There are both a Spacewolf and Ork player in my group so this definitely needs to be tested out!

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Note that you really don't have to use exactly the lists that we (the Ork and SW players) have put together. The campaign rules should function appropriately for any army, assuming the units taken are relatively competent choices.

I'm finding that its somewhat hard to work the Wolf Guard into the lists from game-to-game, and in retrospect probably shouldn't have taken them. But so far, the games have been very close, and lots of fun. I dread game three, as my larger GH squads have been cut down severely, while wanderinpeon has yet to really suffer any major losses to his forces.

**Angel_of_Rust**

As we continue to play through this campaign I am noticing that experience isn't awarded nearly fast enough. As it stands now most squads only have 1 or 2 Awards and some of them are in pretty rough shape. The foremost example of this is Grey Hunter (Wolf Standard 2) which has only 2 marines remaining and no transport. Even considering I allow the player to choose which models are currently killed, paying 185 points for a Meltagun marine and a MotW marine isn't cost effective by an stretch of the imagination. On the other side of the coin however, certain assault elements such as the Wolf Lord and the Warbikers are cleaning up and earning Awards very quickly. This means that a simple drop in the price of Battle Honors is not the answer. The change I want to make for the next playthrough is to use an incrementing price structure. This will make the first few Honors cheaper and easier to obtain rewarding the continued use of unit.

Under the new system Honor rolls would cost 2 Awards, 4 Awards, 6 Awards, 8 Awards, etc as compared to 5 Awards for each. Obviously this quickens the pace they are earned as 2+4 or 6 Awards grants the first 2 rolls on the table for only slightly more cost than the single first roll at 5 under the existing system. Additionally, because of the increasing nature of cost, after the first few Honors they become harder and harder to obtain. 2+4+6+8 or 20 Awards to purchase 4 Honors costs exactly the same as 5x4 or 20 Awards to purchase those same 4 rolls in the current system. This will mean that it's much easier to obtain some neat USRs on your troops that don't see much action while at the same time not making the Deathstar units greatly imbalanced.

Additionally, I want add a provision for Honor rerolls. Obviously I can't make a unique Honors table for each individual unit, or even each army. It's just too much effort and far too complicated to easily keep track of. I do understand however that not every special rule is worthwhile to every single unit out there. One of the first instances of this occurred even while the rules were in the planning stages. Originally Counter-attack was one of the USRs that could be awarded, but most Space Wolves already have Counter-Attack included in their profile. I swapped it out for Furious Charge without it even occurring to me that it puts the Orks at the same disadvantage. The simple solution I cam up with is paying for rerolls. At any time a player may repay the initial cost of a Battle Honor roll, to reroll that roll.

In practice these two rules together would look like this. A unit of Space Marine Devastators takes part in a battle and wins earning 2 Awards even though they didn't do an ounce of good all game. The player spends his 2 Awards for the first Honor Roll and gets a 6 - Combat Specialists. Furious Charge is pretty crummy for a squad of heavy weapon marines. At this point the player has two options. He can wait to earn 4 additional Awards, and purchase his second Battle Honor hopefully rolling well this time. OR he could wait to earn 2 additional Awards, and purchase a REROLL of his first Battle Honor. This new roll would replace the Combat Specialists, removing the Furious Charge from the unit. In this way you can sort of "fish" for the Battle Honor you really want but it is less efficient ass far as Award cost, or you can wait it out until you earn it normally, and save some Awards in the process. Back to are example of Devestators, lets say that on the second roll they roll something nice like Demolition Specialists granting the Tank Hunters USR. In the first case, the marine would have spent 6 Awards for Furious Charge and Tank Hunters. In the second scenario, they would have spent 4 Awards for Tank Hunters. Obviously the second option allows you to get the better Award more quickly, but it ends up costing more Awards total in the end.

I am not sure if I want to implement these changes immediately or wait until our next campaign, but I'll probably run them by my guys this weekend. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

**Quintinus**

This is pretty intense. I'm surprised that the Spacewolves have lost so many men but have won all of the battles so far. Pretty pyrrhic if you ask me!

As towards the ideas for experience, I like your new system more. Let us know how it works out!

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

**Angel_of_Rust**

Took a weekend off of 40k for the Easter holiday but we were able to play Battle 3 this past Friday. Brutal, brutal game but I think everybody had fun. I have been absolutely swamped with schoolwork. Semester ends in 3 weeks so I am buried in projects and exams. CHE for the lose. I will try to get the Battle Report posted tonight or tomorrow depending on how work progresses. Worst case it will be up before the next game this coming Friday.

As far as I am concerned Bjorn was MVP when he tried to walk over a barricade, rolled a 1, and got his fat ass stuck. Definitely changed the dynamic of the game when 200 some points was tar-pitted by his own feet. I have a contingency plan if things get extremely one sided in the next fight in order to preserve some balance in the final battle. I have an Autarch and his Warp Spiders sent to twist the strands of fate should the Orks get out of control, and if the Wolves need to be put in their place, I have an Archon and his Incubi who would love to collect some trophy spines. The Webway is such a great narrative element.

In other news, I was talking briefly with the Space Wolves player about a means to reconstitute forces. It does seem kind of silly when you think about it that squads would not combine in a prolonged battle situation such as this campaign. My initial thoughts are that a player would be allowed to "sacrifice" a squad to shore up another, example being say 3 Grey Hunters beat to near uselessness could forfeit their Awards and any wargear to add 3 Grey Hunter bodies to a second different squad. Of course this would have some stipulations to prevent abuse. You could not exceed the original strength of the squad being bolstered whether that new size is codex legal or not, it must be the larger squad that absorbs the smaller squad, and it would be an all or nothing trade. If there are more bodies available than spaces to fill, the rest are just wasted.

It seems it would work very well for Space Marines and Orks as aside from a few outliers most everything is a "Space Wolf" or an "Ork" and could even see it being extended to let normal Orks replace Lootas or Grey Hunters to become Long Fangs as their stat lines are very very similar sans wargear/weaponry. When I start considering the other armies, especially my own, it becomes a problem. I don't know how I feel about Aspect Warriors swapping between shrines or even Guardians starting out on the Path of the Warrior. Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and Chaos have similar issues. I'd really hate to murder the fluff for campaign functionality. If anyone has some suggestions on making it work I am all ears. This is very much a trial and error type endeavor and hopefully it can only improve campaigns in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to read and I hope you'll come back for more.

**SBG**

No more games? This looks neat!

**Soss**

I have tried to run something kinda similar to this before and have a couple suggestions if they help. I used a veteran upgrade list with USR's like you have but found that I made them a little bit more taylored to what function a unit has. One example is I have a melee, ranged and defensive chart to roll on depending what that unit could use.

I was thinking of also running an attrition style campaign and had the idea of the starting point totals would not include any upgrades, only the actual models and what size they start at. That way you could taylor you list better into a point value you want to play at and I always imagined that you had an armory that marines could swap out gear with anyways.

**reece_mess16**

This was a serious awesome read and super well thought out and put together! Thanks for this!

**Pinkbrains**

If I could afford this I would do this campaign

**Angel_of_Rust**

***NEW CAMPAIGN. Rules and such begin here.***

Well the original campaign kind of got sidetracked. Real life came in and took over and then 6th edition came and ruined everything. Who would have ended up winning depends on which player you ask. I am trying to start up a new campaign, updating my rules for the new edition, and adding a little twist. There will be four of us playing this time around for starters. The two players from the last campaign AreTwo and wanderingpeon along with my brother Point_and_Laugh and myself will be playing a risk style multiplayer campaign similar to the Planetary Empires stuff. As of this moment I do not know the armies each of the mon'keigh will be playing, though I will most likely be playing my Eldar with the shiny new book.

For those unfamiliar with the last campaign I hope you will enjoy this as much as we do, and hopefully some of the old fans will read along again too. I will be trying to create a variety of missions depending on the circumstances of the battle and which "round" of play we are in. Unfortunately with four players instead of two it is unlikely we will finish a full round every week but we will do the best we can to move the campaign along. We will start by choosing territories from a planetary system map much like a Risk game or, if you are familiar, the Crusade of Fire book. Each week, every player will be allowed to make a move to capture an empty territory or to attempt to wrest an already controlled territory from a foe. Players can also use their action to impede other players from adjacent empty spaces and the winner will end up earning control. Additionally, if the player is attacked himself, he will have to defend his territory or lose it to the enemy.

The basic Campaign Rules for force building are in the spoiler tag below.

Spoiler:

In addition there are some special custom rules we will be using for the campaign to add character. For those who watched the first campaign these will seem very familiar with some small updates.

Awards and Battle Honors
All units and characters involved in the campaign may earn Awards and purchase Battle Honors. Awards denote heroic deeds performed on the fields of battle during a mission. Battle Honors represent specific skills a unit has acquired through the rigors of combat. Awards and Battle Honors are described in detail below.

Spoiler:

Attrition, Resupply and Readiness
All units and characters involved in the campaign are subject to the Attrition, Resupply and Readiness rules detailed below. Attrition represents the effects of prolonged conflict on a limited force. Not every individual will live from one battle to the next. Unit's may use Resupply rolls to recover from the affects of Attrition. Certain Attrition conditions also affect a unit's Readiness. Readiness represents how able a unit is to fight in an upcoming battle. If a unit is not Ready, it may not participate in any battles in the subsequent Round of the campaign.

Spoiler:

So that concludes the first of hopefully many walls of text. I will try to get planetary maps made up over the weekend, and hopefully I'll have some definitive Force Rosters for you as well. Thank you for reading.

**Angel_of_Rust**

Quick update. I worked up a starmap and planetary game boards for the campaign so far, modeled in some fashion after the Crusade of Fire book. There will be a point on each planet that connects to each other planet much like the continents in a game of Risk. In addition each of these "spaceports" will be able to attack any of the the tiles on the asteroid. For the moment I am devoid of a fluff reason why they can only move from these tiles but I'm sure I'll come up with something eventually. If you have any ideas please feel free to post them below. Another idea stolen from Risk is additional score for controlling an entire planet. Each tile will be worth a point as well as the additional points for controlling a planet.

To start the campaign we will be having a free for all four way 1000 point game. This will not have objectives and will just be a bloody brawl to death without much attachment to the story and none of the campaigns penalties for failure. To prevent any teaming up or punishing only one opponent to either side, if you wipe out a unit of the player opposite you diagonally rather than the ones on either side, you earn two kill points. Most kill points at the end wins the game and in the unlikely event of a tie I'll think of something. The winner of the game will choose one of his territories first, and the remaining players will follow in order of their score. This will continue until each player has four territories, leaving five of them empty to start.

In each round, every player will have a chance to make an attack. The attacks will be taken in turn according to score. For their attack, a player may take an empty space adjacent to one of their territories If another player is also adjacent to the empty space, they may use their attack for the round to try to head them off at the pass. This will result in a smaller battle between the two players as their scouting parties clash, and the winner will take control of the space. If the player wishes, they may directly attack a different players space in an attempt to seize control of it. This will result in a larger battle between the two players as they bring their full forces to bear for the assault. I have plans for different scenarios for each of these two attack cases, and the objectives, deployment, and associated story will change in subsequent rounds of the campaign.

After all four players have made an attack the round is over and anyone who conquered a new territory gains a Fate Point which is discussed in the Campaign rules above. For the next round, instead of the free for all winner going first again, the player with the largest Territory Score will make the first attack. I had originally planned for five rounds but depending on how enjoyable this is we may play for longer.

And now on to our system. Be warned the remainder of this post is image heavy. Click the spoiler tag to continue reading.

Spoiler:

I also have a tentative Force Roster for myself. Might not be the most competitive list I've ever made, but I'm in a Biel-tan style kind of groove and don't really care. Should be a lot of fun and gives me lots of opportunity for storytelling.

Spoiler:

Whelp, that's all for now. Hope you like these ideas and continue to stop in and read. Hopefully we can get this campaign off the ground in the next few weeks and start posting some battle reports of the carnage. If you have any suggestions please feel free to post them and if it's an idea I like I wont hesitate to steal it and put it to good use. See you next time.

**AreTwo**

For this new campaign I was originally considering some mostly Nurgle-themed Chaos Space Marines, but since I haven't really used my Imperial Guard in a while, I think I'd like to try them out and see how the Hammer of the Emperor fares in the Atrocis System. My Force Roster is as follows:

Spoiler:

For the Campaign, I'll be coming up with new names for the Characters, and perhaps some of the vehicles as well, just to give the army little more flavor.

*EDIT* - Updated the army list with a few changes, as well as names and backstory for some of the characters of the Phobos 77th Regiment.

**Angel_of_Rust**

Got my final army list together and wrote up some story to accompany it. Enjoy.

Spoiler:

**Angel_of_Rust**

Greetings everybody. Last update before the Campaign begins. Players have been out of town and preoccupied but things should finally get rolling this coming Friday. If all goes well I will hopefully have a battle report up by the end of the weekend.

I have finalized the rules for the hazards on each of planets and they are included in the spoiler below.

Spoiler:

I am using the three rulebook deployments, Dawn of War, Vanguard Strike, and hammer and Anvil. In addition, we will be using the Spearhead deployment from 5th edition, and a modified version of the Ambush/Sabotage, and Strongpoint Attack deployments from 3rd edition. This will give us six total deployments. Images in the spoiler.

Spoiler:

As far as mission objectives, we will be using a similar format to Bay Area Open missions. We will roll up two rulebook missions to play simultaneous. One will be the Primary worth 4 points, and one will be a Secondary worth 3 points. In addition, the Secondary objectives from the book, Slay the Warlord, First Blood, and Linebreaker will be used as Tertiary Objectives worth 1 point each. This leaves the opportunity for 10 total Victory Points for the winner. I am currently toying with the idea of adding secret missions which are not revealed to the opponent before the game and would award 1 or 2 Victory Points, but I have a little while to come up with them yet. We will NOT be using Mysterious Objectives, Mysterious Terrain, or Variable Game Length but will be using Nightfight, and Reserves as normal.

To start, this Friday we will be playing a four way free for all. Each player will be playing a 1k list drawn from their Force Roster. The casualties taken in this mission will not effect the campaign in any way. The one and only mission will be kill points. Each unit will be worth a single kill point. We will be drawing lots for starting positions one player in each corner. To help prevent ganging up on a weaker target between two players, units from the player opposite will be worth two kill points each instead of one. Turn order will start with the highest roller and move clockwise. Deployment map is in the spoiler below. Assaults will be fought in each player turn, but only assaults which contain a unit controlled by that current player. In addition, players may fire into a melee in which they have no participants. For this purpose, the entire melee will be treated as a mixed unit, using majority toughness and removing nearest models as normal. Template and Blast weapons both small and large will be allocated against the separate units appropriately.

Spoiler:

Whelp, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have some real meat for you soon. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy.