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This is the blog/managment thread for the warhammer campaign set up last night by Leggy, J, Finch and myself.

The rules as I understand them are thus:

1. Campaign turns are played using the Diplomacy rules.
2. Battles are fought between two or more players contesting a province at the end of a campaign turn.
3. Battles are fought to a points total agreed by the two (or more) players involved.
4. A supporting action give +25% points to the side you are supporting.
5. The winner is the first player to control 10 Supply Centres.

We could do with naming the whole region.

Current Turn: Spring 1743 Moves:


tp:
Aldrick's Bay to Khorne Bay
Karak Kaarn to Carrion Peak
Blighted Wastes to Lagoon of Decay
Sea of the Dead to Evergreen Coast

J:
Cursed Rocks to Coast of Bones
Shambling Sands S Eagle Crags H
Eaglecrags S Sambling Sands H

Finch:
Carrion Peak to Caea's Blight
Shadowmarsh to Addersmouth

Leggy:
Werdent Edge to Infinite Azure
Addersmouth to Screeching Fjord
Horns of Kurnou to Shadowmarsh
Coast of Bones to Eaglecrags
Serenity Lake S Coast of Bones to Eaglecrags
Gaea's Blessing S Coast of Bones to Eaglecrags
Orions Battleground to Horns of Kurnous

Only two battles this turn:

Eaglecrags: Leggy (1250) vs J (1250)
Gaea's Blessing/Bight: Leggy (1000) vs Finch (1000)

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I think we'd be better off if this was in the WHFB Battle reports forum. Then we can post everything into this one thread. Battle reports are the best bit anyway.

What are the heavy sharpie lines? Looks like some sort of territory marking, but there's far more territories than there are players.

This is very cool - the map looks great, and the rules seem complex enough to be interesting but simple enough to be practical. Looking forward to hearing more as this plays out.

The heavy lines denote provinces. Each of us starts with 5, 3 with Supply Centres and 2 with out, there are also a number of neutral provinces that no one owns. This supply a bit of ground for a land grab in the first few turns.
We are not using the hexes for movement, we simply used them to build the map.


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Leggy, we might have to get someone to move it then.
I was trying to think of some incentive for people to submit a proper battle report, any ideas?


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Oh and when I said we could do our battles and moves by Sunday week, I don't think that is going to work. If people can fight the battles and tell me where they retreat to then I will draw up a map of where everyone is before we have another campaign turn.

Great idea. Diplomacy's rules are so brilliantly simple that they lend themselves very well to applications like this. It makes me wish I knew more fantasy players in my area so we could try it.

How many players do you have in the group? The more you have, the better it gets with the double dealing and backstabbing side of things

Also, from the standpoint of the interested neutral observer, I would suggest that defending side in a Supply Center battle be allowed either some kind of defenses or another "intangible" reward (see below) in lieu of points. With supporting moves already adding 25%, an additional bonus might make it nigh impossible (instead of just difficult) to push a player out of a city, making the campaign a giant turtle.

Some of the ones that I could think of off the top of my head...

- D gets the choice of whether to go first or second, regardless of scenario rules.
- D gets a free extra lord (non-named unit) to represent the garrison or militia leadership
- D can set up all terrain or can automatically choose the deployment zone
- D deploys after all attackers have set up so he can react to the attackers' plans. Attacking scouts or other units that would impinge D's deployment have to be moved into a legal position by the controlling player so that attack can't dictate how D deploys.
- D has X number of obstacles (low walls, fences, tar pits, whatever) that can be placed on the battlefield after deployment.

One or two of those would give the defending side a significant, but not overwhelming, tactical advantage, I think. A wily general would be able to make excellent use of them, but someone less skilled might not be able to leverage it as well.

If you're keeping the maps and battle reports in this thread, I'm totally subscribing. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing


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BTW, I love the avatar, tp_1983.

Hey Streika.

We've only got 4 player, and one's new to Fantasy, but its enough. Definitely try it if you can. Even just building the map was more fun than a regular gaming night.

We chatted about the bonuses for defending your supply centres, and decided against it for the same reasons you mention. I think once we've played out this campaign and ironed away any compatibility errors we could try complicating things with seige battles or the like. However, for this first play-through I think the K.I.S.S method is preferable. Especially so when you consider Finchy's new to the game.

I've done a map of the start of the game. It doesn't show all the terrain and what not but it is quite simple for doing moves from. I'll update it to our Spring 1742 moves soon, and put on where our Armies and Fleets are.



I've put my names in and will change the others as soon as the rest of you have disided. i shall probably keep the most up to date map on the first post for ease of use.

Looks alot like the island in the east that has the Tower of the Rising Sun, just south of Nippon.


what are the 4 armies that are involved in this lovely beat down?

Leggy is playing Wood Elves I beleive (in green),
Jordan is Undead (Yellow)
Finch is Chaos Warriors (Blue)
I am Dwarfs (Red)


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SPRING 1742



Moves:

FINCHY
Sea 2 > 28 FAILED (Illegle Move)
20 > The Idura Kaarn
14 S Karak Kaarn > 10 FAILED (Attacked) PENDING
21 > 20

TP
Sea 6 S 9 > 13 FAILED (9 didn't move to 13)
Karak Kaarn > 10 PENDING
Port Dierdre > Aldrick's Bay
Brion H

Jordan
8 > 13 PENDING
2 > 3
10 H PENDING

LEGGY
9 H
19 > 14 PENDING
27 > 20 PENDING
18 > 17 PENDING
26 > 27 PENDING
24 H
17 > 13 PENDING

BATTLES TO BE FOUGHT
13 Jordan Vs. Leggy
14 Leggy Vs Finch
20 Leggy Vs Finch
10 Jordan Vs TP

What kind of undead?

I'll tell you when I've fought him.


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Oh, and something else I've thought of:

what happens in the event of a draw? I would say no body moves, so if you were both moving into an area niether of you do but if someone was defending they stay there, or would that give the defender too much of an advantage?

In the case of a draw, I would say they keep fighting next round.

tp_1983 wrote:

what happens in the event of a draw? I would say no body moves, so if you were both moving into an area niether of you do but if someone was defending they stay there, or would that give the defender too much of an advantage?

agreed.

For draws, you'd have to keep fighting next turn; you can't go back into the territory you came from, because that might be occupied - I think Finch has moved an army into a territory from where his previous army is attacking Leggy now.

I've done a map; it's missing Leggy's place names, because he's rubbish, so i'll update it when he gives me them.

Anyone in favour of dropping the campaign entirely, and just making maps instead??

[edit - updated map moved to page 2]

You could go back into the province you moved from, the moves aren't finalised until all battles have been fought. If you try and move into an occupied province but tloose the battle you will have to move back where you came from.

tp_1983 wrote:You could go back into the province you moved from, the moves aren't finalised until all battles have been fought. If you try and move into an occupied province but tloose the battle you will have to move back where you came from.

so if you lose the battle and return to where you came from, what if an enemy moved into the territory you had come from? do they get pushed back too?

*Doffs cap to Spordans mapmaking skills*

I agree with tp. If an army draws it can't move. Therefore an army attempting to move into its starting province also can't move.

However, I would suggest tha tif an army LOSES, and an opposing army is attempting to move into its starting province, that army is forced to flee, as it has been outflanked. In addition, this allows for some groovy backstabbing. You suggest you're gonna support an opponents army, but instead move into its starting position, gambling that they will lose the battle.

Province names:
17 Whispering forest
23 Evergreen coast
18 Serenity Lake
9 The Eaglecrags
24 Emerald Harbour
19 The Horns of Kurnous
26 Orions Battleground
27 The Addersmouth

East sea - Sea of Life
North sea - The Infinite Azure

Well under the rules as written if an army tries to move into a province looses and so stays where it is, but another enemy army is trying to move into that original province it would be forced to fight a second battle. If it looses this battle as well it must then retreat into an advancent province, it may not move into the province the attacking army moved into and if there are no other free provinces it is destroyed.
I am not sure what happend if two opposing armies both loose battles and try and retreat into the same province. Both destroyed? Battle?


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And yes, nice map J. Also nice names everyone. Particularly like the Infinate Azure.


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Ah just re-read Leggy's post. So your saying they automatically loose the 2nd battle? That makes sense it would stop people having to fight last minute battles and holding the whole process up.

I really, really like this, especially since my friends and I are starting something quite similar soon, and I couldn't be more excited for it. We are going about it a bit differently, but at the end of the day, it still involves battles for regions on a continent. Love the map!

I was trying to think of ways people could play optional games as well as the ones they have to play.
I was wondering if we could have some kind of table to decide the purpose of the battle: maybe a 5% force next time you both meet. Maybe a magic item you could buy for your army from now on. Any other ideas?

lol Craggy Island. You need a gobbo army there for the spider babies.

Fall 42 is going to be interesting. Karak Kaarn's looking might exposed right now.

I found my old copy of the Lustria campaign GW did. If I can find it under the mess in my office, I'll see if they had a table like you were describing.

TP, when are we gonna find the time for these optional battles? I'm having enough trouble squeezing the three I have to fight into this campaign turn. No way do I want to have to squeeze extra battles in too.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea in general. For bigger groups on larger maps it would be great. If one or more players had a campaign turn with no battles to fight they could organise a no-territory battle, with a cheap one-use magic item for the winner (roll on a random table built from items in the brb) that they get free next battle.
However we aren't gonna have "empty" turns in our campaign. We're all crashing into each others borders already. Why add an unnecessary rule like that now?

Well I've fought my battle for this turn. It look's like you'll be another week before you finish all you yet.
Therefore I would quite like to get another battle in against either Finch or J.

I'm playing Finch Sunday (twice) and (hopefully) Jordan Monday, so its not exactly a week. However I don't play Jordan until later in the week it's simple enough to just ask finch for a friendly. No need to add additional rules for it.

Well, I might not get round to it this week anyway, but I just thought it would be a way to keep people interested in the campaign in the later stages when players with loads of armies are going to be fighting a lot more battles than those with only three or four.

I trudged up the mountain valley, hmy steps unconsciously falling into time with my comrades; the beat marked by the gentle click of tankards and the soft tread of a hundred leather boots. The company had long since fallen into silence. Our carefree banter had been left behind many days ago.
In the beginning the news of war had spread through Karak Kaarn like dysentery. Men had begun to tell tales of Alrick I, tales that had not passed their lips since they were told them by their nannies decades before. There had been a real feeling that they were on the brink of something, the dawning of a new age, an age when Dwarfs would once again ascend to rule the lands stretching from the Tiamat Sound to the Infinite Azure.
The navies had left from Port Deirdre amid a burst of flag waving And unbridled patriotism. When news filtered back that they had set anchor and marched into Brión unchallenged there were days of feasts and celebrations. It had long been known that the men of Brión were weak and that given time they would fall to the dark shadow that was ever spreading from the west. And so the Briónaise watchtowers had been manned with dwarfs and the government deposed and replaced with the newly inaugurated Duke or Brión. Of course the coffers and vaults had been emptied and the gold taken to Karak Kaarn for safe keeping. When the mule train, weighed down with the wealth of Brión had arrived at the Karak gates there had been more celebrations, more feasts, more drinking.
And then it had come for the armies to march westward out of Karak Kaarn. I had been one of the first to enlist, swept away by the glory and glamour of Aldrick’s new conquest. To be paid to march into foreign lands and reinstate the dominance of Aldrick XIV was a temptation too much.
Of course the unquestioning confidence in our fate as victors didn’t last long. It was different sitting in a tavern, beer in hand, espousing the virtues of dwarfs over all other known races. It was quite another to do so, in the foreign plains that lay to the west of the Kaarn.
Like all dwarfs worth their salt I get uneasy out of the mountains. For most of my life I have remained in valley’s so steep that the sun can only be seen for two or three hours each day. I have navigated my way by a thousand mountain paths each one snaking up a steep scree slope or following a gentle mountain stream and I know each of them like the back of my hand. Here I was lost.
To north, south, east and west lay only more plain. The sun beat down mercilessly and with out the cool stone beneath our feet, or icy streams to wash our faces in, it was not long before we all stank like fly blown corpses. The grim of the plains found it’s way into every crevice of my body, crevices that at home would not cleaned from one month to the next. We all agreed that we would be better, more confident, when we reached the mountains again. That was until we saw Carrion Peak.
In the dwarven tongue it is known as Kar Bizmah but none of us called it this, not after we had seen it. After a month of marching through the featureless plains Carrion Peak became visible on the horizon. Hard, black granite jutting out of the plains like a lone rotten tooth in some hags head. Before we had even reached it’s foot, the son was watery and weak in the sky. Muted by dank, yellow fog. It was here the silence fell upon us.
The grimy dirt of the plains became a thin sticky mud, upon which we could get no purchase. Between dawn and dusk was just twilight, even at midday with the sun directly over us the sky was grey and damp.
The valleys of Carrion Peak twist and turn in upon them selves so that, even though we had maps of this region dating from happier days, time after time we needed to turn about face and retrace a days march after reaching a sheer cliff face.
It was on my second night as I sat alone by the campfire, struggling to keep it alight with sodden, mossy wood that I first felt I was being watched. I looked around but could see no one and so I retired to my tent with a flask of whiskey.
I was not the only one, it turned out, who felt like this. I spoke with others in hushed whispers and they confirmed to that they could not shake off the feeling that our every move was being scrutinised. We all became jittery, glancing over our shoulders, for ever scanning the valley sides. The drinking, too, had changed. Gone were the night long games of ‘Captian Skelder’s Daughter’. Instead we kept our selves to our selves, drinking whiskey pretending it was beer.
As such it was almost a relief when we finally met the enemy. We had reached the remains of a village, burnt out timbers like skeletal fingers reaching into the sky. Further up the valley a stone acropolis stood guard. A halt was called while the Duke and his ADC again consulted maps. I wondered away from a unit a little, until I could only half see them through the mist that was already settling for the night. I took a swig from flask and lit my pipe, taking some small consolation from the warming glow in it’s clay bowl.
I looked up and could see further up the valley, a small light, as if mirroring my own. It was hard to gauge the distance in the gloom, but in the way it bobbed about I judged it to be a torch. Suddenly I froze. The mist lifted a little, just for a second, but in that time I saw clearly what it was. A group of figures were making there way to the left hand side of the valley. Though I say figures that does not do them justice. As I looked at them, one turned to look at me.
As clearly as I know see my quill and paper I see him still. From under his rusty helm a face such as none I had ever seen grimaced at me. He was a walking corpse. I don’t know how I could see such detail at that distance but I can still recall it all now. The decayed remains of ligaments held his jaw in place, but other than that there was no flesh over his skull. From with in the eye sockets came an eerie blue glow.
The mist shrouded them again from view and I was pulled from my reverie by a shout. Others had seen them and were now calling us to our battle lines. I found my unit on the left flank. We loaded our guns, stuffing as much black powder into the breech as the Quarter Master would let us have.
As the enemy drew closer my eyes must have been playing tricks on me, for while they walked with a slow and shambling gate, a bank of fog would hide them from view for only a second or two and yet when it had lifted they would have drawn in faster than seemed possible.
There was talk that the Duke had fled the battle field, leaving us to our fate but before panic could spread too far, he emerged from the mist behind us with the Mountain Guard.
To my relief, though I feel no small amount of guilt saying this, those fiends from beyond the grave swung round towards our right flank. When they had drawn close enough we set aim with our muskets and sent a hail of lead into their midst. To our left the organ gunners did the same, with a deafening crash that echoed from the valley walls. When the blue smoke cleared we all let out a hearty cry, a good portion of what looked to be their elite unit and fallen. But just as quick we fell silent. [Insert name of Jordan’s general here], the twisted, black magic addled mind that was driving these soulless bodies into battle, uttered some words of a long dead language and to our horror, those we had slain rose from the ground, taking no heed of the wounds we had inflicted.
Suddenly from above us I caught sight of black shape, like a bat only a thousand times bigger. It looked down on us for a moment slowly beating its large leathery wings before turning and taking toward the right flank.
I could hear hideous screams coming from the other flank as they closed into combat. It was all I could to force myself not to flee, but I didn’t. Time after time I reloaded and fired again into what units I could. I felt sick to my stomach I saw those abhorrent creatures, working through one unit after another of our army, drawing ever nearer. It was only the presence of the Duke and his Guard that kept us there.
At last they reached us, looking back know I don’t know how I kept my nerve but I did and as the fouls legions closed in on us I fired one more shot before throwing my musket to the ground and drawing my sword from it’s sheath. We held long enough for the Mountain Guard to close in. Though I, along with every one else had been making jokes about the Duke of Oltness, of how he was studying the maps for an escape route, when I saw him at that moment I swore never to make such a joke again.
Bear in mind this was my first taste of battle. It is not conducted in nice neat lines, such as it is in the Drill Halls. There is no break every five minutes were you can get water and regroup. With in thirty second it had descended into absolute confusion. We were crushed into one another and it was hard to see who was friend and who was foe.
Through all of this the Duke pushed his way. He waded through the ranks of undead, pushing them back or crushing them with his axe.
‘[insert name of Jordan’s general here]!’ he screamed. Will you not face me?’
[insert name of Jordan’s general here] did indeed turn to him. The Duke lifted his axe to send home a blow but before he could so [insert name of Jordan’s general here], with an unnatural speed had struck him. His sword was slender and the blow did not look enough to penetrate his army, but there was unholy magic at work for a split second the air fizzed with energy, my vision blinded and when it came back the Duke was lay on the floor.
‘Get him out of here’ The sergeant of the Guard cried. He and one of his men grabbed the Duke and dragged him out of the fray. My unit were now the only dwarfs left on the field yet we knew we had to keep fighting so that the Guard could get the Duke to safety. I would gladly have given my life at that point, but luckily I didn’t have to. After we had held them for long enough we to withdraw.
It would be many weeks before I knew if the Duke was alive, for there was no rallying of the army. The Mountain Guard took the Duke back to Karak Kaarn as swiftly as they could, the rest of his army followed in dribs and drabs, utterly broken. Silent. Over time over half the men present at that battle made it back to the Karak gates.
Whilst the Duke lay on his death-bed, tended by the finest physicians known. We began training. Our hearts were not in it but we knew we had no choice. Every day we looked down the valleys that lead to Karak Kaarn and knew that before very long the enemy would be at those very gates. We had become soft after centuries of peace. Though our hearts had swelled with pride our heads had been empty. This time we could not afford to make the same mistake.

Nice story TP. Horrific spelling and grammar (as per usual) but nice story. I especially like " the news of war had spread through Karak Kaarn like dysentery". That's a catchy simile.

Finch beat me tonight. I should feel embarrassed, but I wrote his army list. It's a tough little force! As i conceeded the shadowmarshes, and lost at Gaea's blight, that means my last hope of redemption this game turn is to defeat Spordan in the Shambling sands.

Ooh, good. Maybe you won't be winning any time soon. Are you playing J today?

Yeah, unless he cancels last minute.

Never fear, I still intend to rule The Craggy Isle as its harsh, but fair Overlord and living god. It's just going to take me a year or 2 longer.

Next campaign we should look at maybe including some sort of skirmish battles, using the mordheim rules?
I'm not sure exactly what situation they would occur in, but it's fast to play and requires few models, so worth a think about?