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So I've always wanted to do this more or less but this summmer with me and two of my friends each starting a new army we figured it could be a good time to do it.

I haven't started planning too much yet as I need ideas but basically three factions are vying for dominance on a world (duh)

Factions:
Me: Black Templars
Friend 1: Blood Angels
Friend 2: Orks

We can explain Templars vs Blood Angels either through a discovery of their gene taint of the fact that the Blood angels are using psykers and that is just no good according to the Templars. I've been idly mulling over a couple concepts like Named heroes as HQ choices for each army. These models can be rendered unusable in later games of the campaign if they are removed from the battlefield a certain number of times. The only thing that would complicate that is my Black Templars requiring a Champ whenever the battle is over 750 points.

I had a couple ideas for missions that effect later games based on what their objective is. For example a take and hold mission for a landing pad that is essential to supplies and the faction that loses then has limited access to elites/heavy support for a battle or so. Periodically in the campaign all three forces come together for a massive three way battle for control of an important city/hive on the planet. The catch with these battles is that each army marshals as much of their strength as possible in this battle and thus the losing factions are depleted and are forced into a mission where they try to either acquire resources or take a critical location. Not sure how I could bring the campaign to an end but this is something I'm really interested in so I wanted to try and get a brainstorm going for this.

Ok so its been a while and I have not received any responses.

A couple of the things I am looking for are what could major points in the campaign? Capture of a hive city? Assassinate the Enemy main commander?

What are some scenarios that could lead up to these situations? For the hive city, could it be taking over a number or stations to lower the defenses of the hive? Should you be able to attack the hive without first taking these objectives but have to fight at a disadvantage?

Who should be in control of the world and the majority of its key objectives to begin with or should it be evenly distributed? My thoughts on this are the Templars and Blood Angels arrive more or less simultaneously after receiving pleas for help against the orks. This would largely put the marines on the offence until a certain point in the campaign. However, at what point should the it switch to a more even level, after each marine chapter establishes a base of power than can be taken away from it? What are the penalties to the force going forward if they can't establish themselves a base of operations.

How many hives or cities should there be? Should there be a capitol city? What are the installations and how many of them should there be that can be captured in order to weaken a city?

For heroes, should they be shown on the map of the campaign where in the world they are so that they can't be engaged in a battle on one side of the world and fight on the either side of the planet the opposite day? What should be the situations surrounding a permanent death of a commander in the campaign? Obviously the first time he is killed shouldn't mark his death in the campaign over all, maybe just incapacitated for a certain period of time? If so for how long and should his replacement not be able to have his wargear load out so as to mark him as different?

Finally

Am I just over thinking this? (Highly Likely)

I'm contemplating a similar idea. Have been for a while. I'm planning on using the new battle missions book combined with planet strike and cities of death. Taking missions that fit in good. Making a map and putting a few set battles and then a few random ones. I'm going to try a basic 3 month type thing to test out how it works. Then work my way up to something bigger. The end goal being one with secret objectives for armys. Hiring mercenarys (players who don't want to play reguarly but want to play). Cities and military bases. Large 15k point lists where once something dies it's crossed off with battles being 1850. I think the thing that seems to be in all campaigns I see is a limited time line. That way if someone wants to drop out or join it is easier. Or I should say that people have an easier time committing to 3 months than 6. I haven't seen the planetary empires and don't know much about it, but that's an idea too. Creating maps with that.

As far as my thoughts go towards starting a campaign. I would say that making up a map of the planet is a good way to start. Even if you don't want to shell out the $50 for Planetary Empires (I know I don't), I'd say take a look at the product page on GW.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat180002a&prodId=prod50017a

It gives you a nice breakdown of the various tiles that are in the box. These can give you a good idea as to what sorts of key structures you want to place across your planet for central objectives of the war as well as give you a starting point to think about what bonuses they could confer to your army. I'm thinking things like no building heavy support units without a manufactorum.

As far as total points for the armies go I would either go with Ringarin's idea of having a massive point value overall list with attrition, or limit the total number of points a faction could have across the planet based on the structures they control with a smaller overall value but allowing for reinforcements.

My personal method for handling the death of named characters would go like this. The first time they are removed from the table in a battle you roll a d6: roll a 1 and the character dies. If they get taken out again then they die on a 1 or a 2, then a 1-3, etc. It lets them stick around and be heroic but there is still that risk involved.

I like the idea of having the commanders move around on the map and would personally take it a step farther. I would make it so that your army can divide up into forces with set army lists that move across the map.

As far as the added complexity of things like the multi-objective battles around hive cities and the assassination of enemy commanders they do sound interesting, but the main thing you need to keep in mind is just what everyone involved in the campaign wants to do. Ask them what they think of those mission ideas and if they seem interested then work on hammering out any special rules. Battle missions and Planetstrike could be invaluable for this sort of stuff.

So betraying my inner history nerd I actually suggested we kind of model the campaign loosely off of the Crusades. I mean it would make sense, the Templars and Blood Angels have their own small territories like the often divided Crusader States from the actual crusades. Their low numbers also fits the bill for the crusaders. The Orks would periodically Waaaaaaaagh in much vaster numbers than the crusaders which also fits the bill.

I kinda like this idea, my friends are biting too.

Inb4 Muslim Orks