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Good Morning Dakkaites! I have just completed my mighty empires board, so it's time for a LGS escalation campaign!! I have arranged the pieces in the best rendition of the northern half of Estalia (country bordering bretonnia to the south west) centered between the major port city of Bibali, and the Bretonnian City of Brionne. (Pages 139 and 148 in the Warhammer rule book for references). I like the fact that GW builds its fluff (or at least parts of its history) on campaigns and how they are resolved, and since I have found no real history of this neighboring kingdom, now is the time to create one!

Metagame: This is designed to be a competitive series of games (think somewhere between a tournament game and a pickup game), but the overall goals are to be a part of a greater story line (which will be submitted to GW upon conclusion), gain experience playing a variety of opposing armies and generals, enrich our gaming scene, and win prizes at the conclusion.

Precampaign: A campaigning tax of $10 will be levied on all competing generals, this will cover the cost of prizes, the mighty empires board, and any supplement campaign material.

Prizes: All players will be able to keep their armies flag markers (which you must paint prior to the campaign), as well as any territory tiles they hold at the end of the campaign. All included players will be listed as contributors in the final product sent to GW. Until the total number of players is known the exact prizes are a bit of a grey area, but the following accolades will be rewarded with roughly the same prizes:
Largest empire (Game Winner): "Genghis Khan" - The mention of your name will make the ancestors of your enemies tremble.
Best Win/Loss record: "Napoleon" - Your tactical genius will be studied and emulated for years to follow.
Player's Choice: "Eisenhower" - Mastering the art of war is just one facet of your legacy.
Campaign Master's Choice: "Hannibal" - History will remember you for your path to glory, not the agony of your defeat.
Campaign note: Each general can only receive one award.

Setup: Each player will construct an army roster of 4000 points, using rostersheets found on the GW website. It is not necessary that you are able to field all units at the same time, but these units will be the only ones you can use to create your armylists during the course of the campaign. All units must be fielded in your armylist exactly as they appear in on your rostersheet (with all the same upgrades/weapons options/number of models), the only exception to this are mundane weapons and one-wound mounts for characters, which may be added/exchanged/removed between battles. All rosters will be turned into me prior to the first gaming session for validity, and to monitor correct army usage. The only restrictions are that only 2 lords may be included and no special characters are allowed.

Playing the game: The Estalian Campaign will be 10 turns long, and follow the sequence of play found in the mighty empires supplement: Events, Revenue, Challenge, Battle, Conquest & Build. The player with the largest empire at the conclusion will be the winner.

Events: Beginning with the smallest empire (roll for ties) all players will select from the available events, the same event may not be chosen more than once a turn.

Revenue: Each player collects gold from any mines they control (2d6x10 on rivers, 3d6x10 on mountains) If all the dice rolls are the same, the mine is exhausted and removed from play.

Challenge: Starting with the smallest empire all players must issue a challenge to a rival faction. This challenge cannot be refused, and any empire who is already challenged cannot issue a challenge of their own. More than one player may team up to challenge a single opponent, who has the option of fighting them both at the same time, or in linked battles one after another. If one of the teammates are challenged later in the phase, they will fight against their new opponent, leaving their teammate to fight the original opponent alone.

Battle: Games will be fought in an escalating fashion, beginning with 1250 points and adding 100 in each subsequent turn of the campaign (1350 on 2nd turn, 1450 on third turn, etc...). The player with the largest empire may field an additional 100 points in all battles they fight. Any player may spend up to 250 gold to generate extra points for a single battle that turn (1 gold = 1 point).
Team Battles - All teamed armies (before additions) will combine to the current points limit, in addition a few restrictions apply:
-Each player controls his own army
-Units may not attack/shoot/target units of a teammate
-Characters may only join units of their own army, Generals and BSB's only affect their own army
-Teams have a single pool of power and dispel dice, which may be allocated as they see fit.
Units that survive a battle are instantly returned to full size and available for use in the next turn's battles, as the tales of their heroics bring many able bodies looking for fame and fortune.
Destroyed Core units and Heros, as well as any units that fled off the table are unable to be used in the following turns battles, as they heal their wounds, regroup and retrain.
Destroyed Special units and Lords are unable to be used for the following two battles.
Destroyed Rare units are unable to be used for the following 3 battles.

Conquest & Build: You gain a number of Empire Points based on your performance in the turns battle, Loss(1), Draw(2), Narrow Victory(3), Solid Victory(4), Massacre(5); any unused points are lost at the end of the turn. You may spend empire points as follows
-Claim an adjacent unoccupied tile (2)
-Conquer an adjacent occupied tile (3)
-Build a castle, city, or mine (1)
-Build a special feature (allows an extra character or special choice, determined when built) (1)
-Build a legendary feature (allows another rare choice) (2)
-Raid (2d6x10 gold) (1)
-Raze a Castle, City (becomes a Castle), Mine, Special feature, or Legendary feature (1)
Mountains, Castles, and Cities cost an addition point to Claim or Conquer. Cities must be upgraded from castles, and castles cannot be built on marsh. Cities also count as an extra tile when calculating empire size. Only one feature may be present on each tile.

Questions: (thanks for jogging my memory MGS!)
1. Does this seem like a viable framework for a campaign? This is my first one, and i would like it to run smoothly.
2. Is keeping track of experience worth the hassle? (What are the best ways to accrue benefits: based on points destroyed? battles survived/won? Should experience be take away from destroyed/fleeing units? should players be able to choose their benefit from a list of options, or are rolls on a table preferred?) i have always flirted with the idea of experience, but have never truly tried it in an extended gaming setting.
3. In order to conquer an occupied tile, should the restriction that you fought against them in the previous Battle phase be included? If so, should a new option requiring 4 Empire Points to conquer an adjacent tile that you didn't Battle be added? (This could only happen after a Solid Victory or Massacre, and i would think of it more as a revolt toward a powerful ruler, Through treachery or freedom fighters, than a conquering army) I think this is a good option or else the Largest empire will probably also be the person with the best win/loss record, which is not necessarily what i want.
4. Are racial campaign benefits worth it? (Dwarves removing the extra point needed in mountains, dark elves getting an extra d6x10 gold from raids, etc...) if they are, what are your thoughts on possible balanced benefits?
i think that both xp and racial benefits are worth it, from a purely fun point of view, i just don't want to get too bogged down on minutia...or create grossly mismatched battles
5. are there any general FAQ's that experienced campaigner see in the rule framework?

Thanks!
*edit for readability

Could you provide a series of bullet-pointed questions for folks to answer in response to this, it's not really clear what you're seeking, to me anyway.

Where are you running this campaign?

Estalia?

I just hope you won't include bulls and mexican hats...

@ Nicor: The campaign will be run in Texas, probably Houston since that is my hometown and i know a core group of like-minded gamers there, although i live in Austin currently.

No bulls is a strange request from someone in pamplona! Now im thinking of a "running of the minotaur" as a special event! (modeling a minotaur to have its hands chained together behind its back)

If any dakkites are interested and live in the houston/austin area chime in and be heard! i have a solid core of 4-5 gamers who i know will be interested, but i am hoping for 8-10. I also intend to go around to the LGS's and GW's in Houston and ask for support, via gift cards, or additional prizes...if any similar online entities would like to be a part please dont hesitate to pm me!

- Do you have the old Dogs of War army book from a few years back? That and the old Warhammer Roleplay Books have some good background stuff to work with.
(I used to use the old hogshead ones, myself.)

I haven't seen the new one, yet, but there may possibly be some good stuff in there.

- I played in a couple of campaigns like this and they are really neat.

You can do larger games, small games, Mordhiem like skermish games to get some magic items in there if you want to, you can play with as many as 1 unit, to as much as the 3,000 pts or whatever you want to.

Ours ended up with a four way battle that lasted about 2 days with some back stabbing, doublecrosses, and a nice prize at the end.

Biggest issue on tap is the record keeping. Make sure you have your stuff together and a good way to keep the record keeping in check.

One of the issues that comes up on the Mighty Empire games is that it is undefined and that your army can get out of hand and the game boggs down to micromanaging assets and it can turn into a game of "Mighty Accountants", which then turns into "Mighty Gamekiller".

The gamers have to be available. You can't just have a guy show up once or twice, and think thet are going to be efective. We had one guy who ended up being johnny come lately, and he ended up having to start in a whole new completely different hex, which didn't bode well when he got ganged up on by a couple of guys that owned the ajoining squars.
If you get a guy like this, don't just add one or two more extra squares. add about six or seven, so that you get the additional breathing room and extra map sections in there to give the guy a little chance.

If they join in, later, as well, you need to make it known that if they don't continue that they need to let you know up front. that way, you can get your alternative mercianry army, oddball army, or leave it open for those random passers by to join up and throw a few games in there to the group.
It gives you both an opening for other people to come in, and it also gives the game master a chance to get in on the action, or use the opportunity to intyroduce people to the game, or just put together an oddball random event, such as a pirate attack, a beastman warbad, or chaos cult to get in there and start reaking havoc on the other players.

As to the whole idea, Its a great idea and it is a whole lot of fun, but you can get yourself caught up in the paperwork, or if someone comes in an screws around with your campaign area, it is going to throw you off.

You've got a good thing started there. If you get hold of that Dogs of War book, and the RPG book, you can harvest a bunch of technicly accurate things to put into the campaign, such as the cave system, the mad necromancers castle, or the wandering ork warband that has taken up residence between two or three of the armies. ( in short, you just can add in things that are Estellian specific and accurate to the game.)

It also helps to limit a few of the things for the players to within reason of a tabletop roll playing game.
I/E- If you do not have the model for the unit, you do not have it.

Limit magic items basd on type of hero/ champions - ( only let them have specifics)

If there is something special, let them go find it in a skirmish game. Because if someone starts showing up with some Be all end all item, the ruin the game, based on the arms race that will enshue after the first time jughead comes in and uses it.


All in all, though, I absolutly love these types of campaigns, because they not only make the game fun, they give you yet another reason to go out and buy buy buy models and get them up and running on the table.

This sounds like such a great idea - i would just worry about getting bogged down in all the paper work.

Plus knowing my local gaming group, the chances of a no show from some are high which would screw it up pretty badly.

i look forward to hearing more of this awesome campaign!

Vlad