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Hey all,

My gaming group and I are looking at ways to run a Dawn of War style campaign (DOW1). The campaign will hopefully incorporate multiple territories that can be won/lost during the course of the campaign with each territory giving a bonus such as a global requisition bonus or more specific bonuses such as an additional specified warlord trait (we are still in the early stages of planning so this is still very much in discussion). We would also like to incorporate different mission types such as Maelstrom, zone mortalis, cityfight and space hulk style games etc as well as different point sizes depending on the size of the territory being fought for.

The campaign would be built for around 8-12 people and to be played over several months with some sort of dynamic map to show who owns what territories which changes with each game.

Does anyone out there have any experience running such a campaign?

Any thoughts and ideas would be really appreciated as we think this could be a really fun concept.

Messy0.

I myself have not seen them done, but I have a friend who did one of these campaigns once and he loved it. Yours sounds exactly like his.

He said the only things he didnt like about it was snowballing armies. Like once one army won a specific battle that player got to put +50 points in his army. It added meaning to the battles, but over time it did make them seem unfair.

A rpg level up system for characters could work. Do certain things and become more powerful throughout the campaign or in the event of injuries become less effective.

They also had set total units in their army and they had to pick which ones to bring for each battle. If the model was downed in battle you had to roll a d6. If it a 6 then they survived their injuries, but anything else and they died and you could not use them again. I believe it was 3+ for characters. He said it was cool at first, but over time really limited their armies. They had missions where they could get more soldiers, but they were pretty limited.

As I recall it was a two month campaign they did with a story written for it and all that. I believe it was about an Imperial World under assault from an Ork WAAAGGHH that Khorne followers decided to get in on as well as Tyranids. Oh and it was a tomb world. Amazingly enough the Orks won the campaign.

I've had a similar idea in the past that I wanted to try using the board game "Risk" as the basis for the campaign with each army token being 500 points and playing a game of 40k whenever one player attacked another player to determine the outcome of the battle. It would use the rules from risk for reinforcements and campaign objectives etc. you could even use miniatures from Epic 40k as the army tokens.

That's a pretty cool idea.
My local gw just had its first birthday and they played a game of "dawn of war" basically everyone who purchased anything and then assembled could play it when done, bonuses for being painted. Was interesting and alot of fast building going on.

Some of the ideas above are great.

I really like the RPG style idea where its your commander that levels up.

In our discussion we saw some draw backs to additional points for army lists. As tibs stated it, it would eventually end up snowballing and one army able to roll over everyone else making the later stages of the campaign possibly redundant.

The biggest things i think to work out are reward balance for winning territories (i like the idea of RPG style), map dynamics and how to organise games over a long period (i.e. if people arnt available to play a game would it hold up the whole map from progressing?).

I like the idea of having set units that you brought with you. I.E you can bring a total of 5k to the campaign and choose out of that 5k per match but things get confusing when you factor in wargear and formations. I'm personally not a huge fan of the idea that units are gone once dead as this would seriously ham string anyone that looses a key unit and would get really complicated real quick.

Although it would be great for this to be really in depth, im starting to think keeping it relatively simple would help to actually get it going.

One of the key problems seems to be wanting to give an advantage to players that win previous battles that feel like they matter, but not creating an unfair match-up the next time they battle.
So maybe you could have victories in previous battles allowing flexibility in list building. At the start of the campaign everyone submits their lists and commits to play with that list for the length of the campaign. For each battle you win (or new territory you control) you can change a unit or two in your list. Over the course of the campaign if you won a lot you might have a very different list, but hopefully not massively different in power levels to the people who lose lots.

 King Pyrrhus wrote:
One of the key problems seems to be wanting to give an advantage to players that win previous battles that feel like they matter, but not creating an unfair match-up the next time they battle.
So maybe you could have victories in previous battles allowing flexibility in list building. At the start of the campaign everyone submits their lists and commits to play with that list for the length of the campaign. For each battle you win (or new territory you control) you can change a unit or two in your list. Over the course of the campaign if you won a lot you might have a very different list, but hopefully not massively different in power levels to the people who lose lots.

That makes a lot of sense. But wouldn't people come with their strongest lists to begin with? So unlikely to swap anything out. I definitely things its an idea with potential.

Maybe Lord of wars need to be earned by capturing special territories. for example there are 8 players and 8 LoW territories. So capturing more than 1 LOW territory would not only give you a LOW but deny someone else. (still keep the 0-1 LOW limit). Same could be done for other slots on the force org but within the same points limits e.g +1 Fast attack in a 1850 game. How would this work when people are using formations?

your home base could be worth something more significant if an enemy captures it but you get a bonus for defending it.

 Messy0 wrote:

 King Pyrrhus wrote:
One of the key problems seems to be wanting to give an advantage to players that win previous battles that feel like they matter, but not creating an unfair match-up the next time they battle.
So maybe you could have victories in previous battles allowing flexibility in list building. At the start of the campaign everyone submits their lists and commits to play with that list for the length of the campaign. For each battle you win (or new territory you control) you can change a unit or two in your list. Over the course of the campaign if you won a lot you might have a very different list, but hopefully not massively different in power levels to the people who lose lots.

That makes a lot of sense. But wouldn't people come with their strongest lists to begin with? So unlikely to swap anything out. I definitely things its an idea with potential.

Maybe Lord of wars need to be earned by capturing special territories. for example there are 8 players and 8 LoW territories. So capturing more than 1 LOW territory would not only give you a LOW but deny someone else. (still keep the 0-1 LOW limit). Same could be done for other slots on the force org but within the same points limits e.g +1 Fast attack in a 1850 game. How would this work when people are using formations?

your home base could be worth something more significant if an enemy captures it but you get a bonus for defending it.

You're right about people starting with their most powerful lists, but they will be made in a vacuum where noone has seen anyone else's list. Say you took no anti-air but most of the other players have flyers.
Or say you buy and paint a new unit during the campaign.

I think you are right that other types of bonuses need to be included as well though.

 King Pyrrhus wrote:

 Messy0 wrote:

 King Pyrrhus wrote:
One of the key problems seems to be wanting to give an advantage to players that win previous battles that feel like they matter, but not creating an unfair match-up the next time they battle.
So maybe you could have victories in previous battles allowing flexibility in list building. At the start of the campaign everyone submits their lists and commits to play with that list for the length of the campaign. For each battle you win (or new territory you control) you can change a unit or two in your list. Over the course of the campaign if you won a lot you might have a very different list, but hopefully not massively different in power levels to the people who lose lots.

That makes a lot of sense. But wouldn't people come with their strongest lists to begin with? So unlikely to swap anything out. I definitely things its an idea with potential.

Maybe Lord of wars need to be earned by capturing special territories. for example there are 8 players and 8 LoW territories. So capturing more than 1 LOW territory would not only give you a LOW but deny someone else. (still keep the 0-1 LOW limit). Same could be done for other slots on the force org but within the same points limits e.g +1 Fast attack in a 1850 game. How would this work when people are using formations?

your home base could be worth something more significant if an enemy captures it but you get a bonus for defending it.

You're right about people starting with their most powerful lists, but they will be made in a vacuum where noone has seen anyone else's list. Say you took no anti-air but most of the other players have flyers.
Or say you buy and paint a new unit during the campaign.

I think you are right that other types of bonuses need to be included as well though.

When you put it like that it makes total sense. I can see difficulties on how to change lists. I.e units dont cost the same. so lets say you want to add a helldrake, you may have to remove 2 units of marines to do it. which changes the list quite a bit. Where as if you could bring upto 3k total to the campaign and then a benefit of controlling territories is that you can add to your 3k pool (of which you decide your list for each game) could be a solution. I.E i have 2k worth of Tau in my army pool and win a territory worth 250pts. I can add 250 points yo my army pool which can can be called upon for future games but within the points limit for that specific game. I still think wargear and formations will be a problem unless units come ready build with any wargear included...its a tricky subject.

We should defiantly try out some ideas between us Pyrrhus in a mini practice campaign. its probs much easier with just 2 people for testing.

I have written up what I think is a decent campaign and im busy playing with mates, it works nicely and the bonus for winning is notable but doesn't snowball too much.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/665551.page

give it a read your welcome to use any ideas or thoughts I had, if you think of somewhere im lacking just lemme know

We've just started a very similar campaign based off of the campaign system from DoW.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/664084.page

So far it seems to be working smoothly although this is only our first week and turn in. The only thing I might want to improve upon would be the layout of the map and hex tiles. It functions almost like a risk type game without granting the victor of battles an advantage other than seizing territory from other players.

You could put limits on the starting lists perhaps - Maximum of 1 each of HQ, Fast Attack, Elite and Heavy Support, and have the players unlock more, as if they were working their way up a tech tree. Certain territories could unlock an extra fast attack slot, for instance.

Alternatively they could unlock upgrades for units in the players' armies. Give D3 squads scout say, or the Shred special rule on the first turn of each game.

Or you create special Relics that players could give to their characters.

How about assigning "requisition points" that allow players to buy defences (bunkers and defence lines etc) for territories they've captured, or burn them on one off advantages for attacking enemy territories - like allowing troops to infiltrate or deep strike.

You could change the scenario played depending on how close the bulk of the defending army is to their territory on the campaign map - defending a distant outpost from your main force could put half of your defending troops in reserve, arriving on the board edge which is the best equivalent to where the army would actually be coming from. Requisition point could also be spent on sensor grids (+ 2 units able to deploy on the board when defending this territory), vox relays (+1 to reserve rolls) and mine fields (units entering or deploying in affected area terrain for the first time take 2d6 S5 AP- hits).

Oh what fun you could have!

A friend of mine ran a similar campaign with RPG elements and mentioned the snowballing issue. He came up with a variety of fun responses, including alliances of convenience to take on the biggest player. However these could in turn go south. The dominant SM player took on an IG-Ork alliance who kicked him out of a valuable territory, only to lead to a battle between the former allies for who controlled it!

I wasn't present during the campaign but he mentioned other ideas like assassination missions against powerful characters.

Similar to what Aben Zin says, players spent points on the campaign map, which could go to buying foritifications or launching special missions like assassinations. This also kept games fresh as it wasn't just endless 1850 point meatgrinders.

It was a very non-competative meta and the new ways to combat snowballers also meant the campaign was a near constant deadlock so its far from a perfect approach but if you want a fun, fluffy campaign it sounds like a great idea, certainly would like to try it myself sometime.

I have run a couple of campaigns before and am currently running a map-based campaign in my local gaming group. http://standwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/p/medusa-iv-40k-map-campaign.html

The rules give players resource points each month for how many territories they can capture that they can then spend on buildings to help them in their games. There is also a points bonus for territories, but it works the other way, i.e. the player with fewer territories will get a bonus in battles. This stops strong players from ganging up on the players with fewer territories.
Each player also has secret objectives to complete that will give them a big bonus once they achieve it.

I played in a few terrain based campaigns in WHFB back in the day. One problem I had with the way they were set up was it tended to funnel me into certain builds, so my army was monotonous. In 40k terms, all armies had to start with just HQ+troops, and different areas would unlock things like more points, more points for wargear, and more non-troop FOC slots.

One thing to help even out the armies to to limit how many bonuses you can use for list building. Assuming you are using a system where each region you control gives you a boost. So controlling more gives you options, but not more power then someone who’s behind.

Giving more points to the underdog is another way of keeping things even. One could assume the guys who owns 2/3s of the map has to spread out and garrison all of it, while the little guy penned in the corner can bring all his forces to bear.

Remember the goal is for everyone to have fun. You want to get rewards for winning, but you don’t want to set up games where you are just bringing a list to get curb-stomped by overwhelming firepower.

look at Souls Storm and Dark Crusades. The rewards for territory bonus was 1 sergeant or some other army wide bonus. I remember Chaos being able to ignore supply lines. At first that ability seemed useless, but it then allowed you to go straight for the enemy home base even though they cut you off. It also allowed you to shift troops and launched attacks spreading into new territory. Eldar got fleet of foot which allowed them to move with in their territory quickly which means h can shuffle troops from one side to the other in one turn to respknd and defend against attacks. Sisters of battle had pre built bases so perhaps they can have additional fortification slot or even discount the cost by 10%. Tau had a massive cannon on the moon to shoot at a territory and destroy or damage existing structures and even kill stationed defense troops. Dark Eldar had the freedom of webway to go from A-Z instead of A-B. Forgot what Space Marines, Imperial guard and Necrons had.

These are all fantastic ideas. I really appreciate the hex map Corrm, super helpful to see a visual example.

Would be great if we could carry this on. I'm in discussion with my group now and taking all your ideas into account. I'll let you know how we get on.

If we come up with something good i'll be happy to share.