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I was wondering how often you guys run specific scenario games in your circles?

And I don't just mean in Apocalypse sized games.

I have to admit I don't do this anywhere near often enough. Sure it involves a good bit of forward planning, and perhaps even the creation of special terrain pieces to suit. My friends and I often discuss cool scenarios, but sadly lethargy seems to set in and we never make it all the way.

One I want to run is a large 40k game depicting a siege (a lot easier with the new terrain from Planetstrike) but where the defender has some nasty surprises in store, such as camoflagued lift platforms, flush with the ground, so troops and tanks can appear behind enemy lines once the big push is on to take out the Artillery, and indeed, similar dirty tricks (beyond the Stratagems) for the Attacker.

So yeah, do you? How often? If not, would you like to?

It depends on your opponent really. As long as he or she also is into the spirit of the scenario then a lot can be achieved. For my brother's birthday I ran a special hybrid of Mordheim where every player had a champion or hero of sorts with some upgrades purchased from the back of the book. They were tasked with fighting their way through the undead and stop the evil necromancer. It went well enough until my brother insisted on killing my character (one of the "party members") and then proclaiming himself the winner.

So yeah..

One of the best scenarios I did was one for 40k, where two small 500 point armies would play assault on Pegasus Bridge of sorts. In the one corner a small Guard garrison with a Chimera and one Sabre platform holding both sides of the bridge (two blockhouses) and in the other corner a small commando force made from the D-99 list found in IA4. We used night fighting, sentries and some other things for added drama, like the defender being allowed to attempt and blow the bridge from turn X onwards and due to a strong current the Chimera would have to try really hard to cross the stream.

People will hate me for stating this, but a great source of themed scenarios can be found in the back of IA3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

I'd agree with that, even if I feel their list for the scenarios are in lala land!

But yeah, do you write your scenarios for set forces? Or do you prefer to make a mental note of what people have, write the scenario, set the points and let them sort out their forces to suit?

The bridge assault was with set forces, but for the most part we let the players pick their own forces, maybe with a list of suggestions on what might be "characterful" or "fluffy".

The thing I worry about with scenarios is design and balance. I only get to play so much 40K or anything else for that matter and so learning 3 hours in when the game is done that it was horribly imbalanced, usually in favor of the craftee of the scenario unless they're trying to hand themselves an outrageous challenge perhaps, I would be rather annoyed.

I'm not saying that describes YOUR proposed scenario, Mad Doc, just speaking to your question of whether we do it or not, this is why I don't.

I remember once seeing a Tyranid player with a home-brewed scenario that had a city terrain setup in the middle of the table with maybe 2000 points of Guard facing 4000 points of Tyranids, like this cinematic scenario where the IG was just beating off the approaching horde and looking at the table and thinking "God, this isn't even a game from turn 1."

Of course, then the same player made some statement about "I'm probably the best Tyranid player around here" when I never saw him in three years of local gaming or heard about him one whit, so I guess that told me a lot...

Yarr. I tend to let them know of the Scenario in advance, and the points limit.

The scenario bit then covers all the bits necessary, like lie of the land for the Defender, renegades within enemy ranks for the Attacker etc, so they can build forces which suit. If they want to do it fluffy it's up to them!

Ah yes, balance. That's a touchy point with these things and I know it all too well. Hence the reliance on your opponent(s) to keep one or two things in mind. What I could see is Guard versus Nids with the latter assaulting fixed positions with mostly small critters or melee beasties. Waaaay back in WD 220 (*wistful sigh*) Jervis did a nice Soapbox! on such a thing based off Starship Troopers. And the best thing of the bit: have fun!

Indeedy. Not playing in your own scenario is one way of encouraging balance, but then equally, not all scenarios need be balanced.

I mean, as long as the defending player knows the entire game is about a heroic last stand against insurmountable odds, he can hardly complain when he sees the enemy arrayed against him. This is also where the naughty surprises come into it. Imagine the Nid player swarming over a patch of ground, only to find it's been seeded with bombs, booby traps etc, or the fuel dump isn't just a pretty piece of terrain, but a wired to explosives so the defenders can take as big a chunk out of them as possible!

The reason this usually doesn't get done is that people are lazy.

Now the interesting thing is, I am not sure I can call 40K players lazy. 40K takes a lot of work to play even when you're just playing the default game. Painting, modeling, assembling, not to mention the gamespace, creating an army, and so on.

So I think the problem usually ends up to be: people don't have enough time!

How to solve: Host a Terrain-building night and invite your friends - hit the home store or whatever for supplies, work together to put together the custom pieces, make a party out of it, get it done! Then you will be ready to launch your favored scenario.

The alternative is for one guy to do it all, but why not split the work up as I've described? You'll all be playing it before you know it.

A third party a.k.a. arbitrator or GM may come in handy for strongly themed games.

I actually ask my club (I.E. friends) if they want to run a scenario game before deployment, and many of the times, we have.

I like Scenario gaming, honestly. Gaming at it's finest, IMHO.

A lot of the scenario gaming that I've been a part of comes from a game that has something funny, interesting, or compelling happen. A close fought battle - that breeds a follow on game or three. A loss of a named character in a battle - I had a great series of games where Azrael was captured by Dark Eldar and I fought the next three weeks trying to save his sorry hide. Someone gets on a roll with a themed army and the next thing you know you have a narrative campaign going, etc.

That's what made Battle for Macragge such a memorable starter set for me, it had a strong - and more importantly; movie-like - narrative to keep both parties interested.

About half the game we do are scenario base. Either part a small campaign (3-5 game) or just a stand alone game, with a specific scenario and a special rule or two.

The best one is of the the IG defending a Beer factory against orks...

I take this game very seriously...

I'm really a scenario and campaign fanatic myself and love to come up with stories and scenarios for games. However I am more into it then most of my regular opponents, though they oblige me.

I find that I'll come up with a cinematic idea for a battle and then go about whipping up a new terrain piece or two that will add to the idea so my love of scenario play often motivates my terrain making as well...

I'm honestly sick of points value/objective/work out winner. I played a game a month back, my Death Guard (actual proper Death Guard, none of that 'Counts As' bs) vs a mixed Chaos force. Eventually I reached a point where I couldn't win due to VP's, where as in an objective based mission I could still win. And that happens all to often - a force will reach critical mass with points and be left unable to win due to that.

Scenarios are far more interesting to me, and once I get my Planetstrike stuff up and running, I'm looking to organise a bunch of specific scenarios.

I'm tired of standard games. It's time to mix things up a bit.

Back in the dark days of 2nd Ed there were two scenario based games that I ran - a defensive mission on a circular table, and a convoy ambush mission. In the first one, a couple of Tac Squads, a Dev Squad, some characters and a Dread were gathered on a bunker in the centre of the table (it was about 3 feet in diametre). The opposition was just an endless swarm of Tyranids, played for as long as we could bother to. That wasn't balanced, and in both cases the Marines were wiped out, but it was great fun. The other one had a long convoy of tanks moving up a street with enemy forces deployed on both sides in high buildings. The idea was that the leader of the convoy (it was Marneus riding in a Land Raider) had to make it to the gate at one end of the table. Great fun in that one too.

A well run Scenario game can be the most fun you will ever have with Warhammer 40k or Fantasy.

I still remember or Campaign for Caliban.

This was right when 2nd edition Dark Millenium had come out.

Basically, at our gaming store we did Mighty Empires( was that out then?). With a mini map made up on like photoshop 3 or some gak. Then it was laminated and we were able to mark off where our troops were with a Erasable Pin.


The manager had prearranged set ups for each area with specific scenarios.

Basically it was Forces of Imperium VS. XENOS fighting over resources and the orks being there for fun.


One of the best experiences though was playing Take the Bridge.

We took two 3x6 foldable tables and had a Large Bridge between them. The goal being to take the bridge, now the Defender had the option to blow the bridge with special units after spending BTB with it in a number of turns.

Anyway almost all the different "areas" of the maps had special rules and we ad hocced some rules for earning Strategy Cards which you earned by not only exploring the "ruins" Xenotech stuff we had made which had stuff like Virus Grenaids/ Vortex Grenades etc..


Its probably still one of my favorite gaming memories. The whole thing too like 3 weeks and we were all moving around on the board once a week.

I still think GW needs to put out source/journey books for 40K similar in fashion to what they did for the Lord of the Rings SBG.

Those books were absolutely great in terms of content:

A bunch of really interesting scenarios, that were meant to be played on fairly specific boards. However, they'd have some of the terrain repeat over various scenarios so if you made a couple pieces you'd be golden for all of them. Also, they actually showed you how to make the terrain and gave a bunch of other ideas.

I don't think you were locked in to using the exact specific models indicated in the scenario, as it allowed for you to select other models based on their point values.

I really wish GW would put out some kind of scenario or campaign book like this.

The only problem with doing scenario books involving specific forces is that some people will complain when their faction is ignored.

Aren't the Imperial Armour books kind of like this? Having specific scenarios and such? Too expensive from FW for my blood though

Well, the given FW scenarios serve either as a historical refight or as inspiration for your own battles.

Chances of GW bringing out that scenario book that Jervis swooned about two years ago are slim to nill, especially now that we've got Planetstrike with [strike]six[/strike] one mission.

I love scenarios for all miniatures games I play. I only tend to play normal "points matches" while I'm learning a new system (a state I still consider myself to be in with 40k 5th Edition, please note), and like to get more "story" with my games as and when I'm up to speed.

But all too often I just haven't the time (or expertise) to do too much preparation in advance of a game. A solution I found that served well for LotR for a long time, was a set I created that derived from an article in WD 294 called "Rules of Engagement". This was for 4th Ed 40k, and can still be found online: http://www.de-witte-ridder.be/Docs/rules-of-engagement.pdf THis kind of random scenario generation works well for me. OK so they are never going to be as detailed as a specially constructed one, but they are still miles better than a simple linefight, and given my time and creativity issues, they are a good compromise!

I'm not sure whether they'd need to be tweaked for 5th edition, but at some time in the future I'm planning on trying them out to see. It helps that I'm a complete sucker for making objective markers. I love making the kind of little terrain vignettes that work really well for it! On the other hand I may try out the DiceLikeThunder missions book first: http://www.dicelikethunder.com/fluid.php.

And as with BrookM, I was gutted when all hope of a 40k scenario book seemed to be lost.

Osbad wrote: an article in WD 294 called "Rules of Engagement". This was for 4th Ed 40k, and can still be found online: http://www.de-witte-ridder.be/Docs/rules-of-engagement.pdf

I'm not sure whether they'd need to be tweaked for 5th edition, but at some time in the future I'm planning on trying them out to see. It helps that I'm a complete sucker for making objective markers. I love making the kind of little terrain vignettes that work really well for it! On the other hand I may try out the DiceLikeThunder missions book first: http://www.dicelikethunder.com/fluid.php.

Looks like they would be fine and would interact fine with things like "steal the initiative" flanking/reserves, etc.