Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So at the club I want to run a friendly campaign every other week, which will use the planetary empires box to keep track of the progress. Me and Hettar are going to be the ones coming up with it, but I though it would be best to get the feedback from people here.

So my thoughts were that we divide the planetary empires kit into a large planet and maybe a couple of moons. the planet is then divided into 2, for the good guys and the bad guys. good guys being eldar, tau and imperials, bad guys being chaos, orks, nids, necrons and dark eldar. in our club those numbers are roughly equal, and we have 2-3 nid players so could potentially have them as their own faction if the players agree.

so to sort out the games, we do the following.

There will be as many games as the smallest team has players.

Half of these games will be attack missions, the other half will be defence missions.

if there are an odd number of players in the smallest team, then the larger team will get the extra attack mission

eg is there is a team of 5 and a team of 6, then there will be 5 games. the larger team will have 3 attack missions and 2 defence missions, whereas the smaller team will have 3 defence and 2 attacks.

the teams nominate which tiles they are attacking - these are the ones being defended by the opposing team.

each team will then decide in secret which players are playing attack missions and which are playing defence, and assign the players to the tiles.

the attackers then play their corresponding defenders in a normal game of warhammer. points will be agreed in a casual manner, this isn't a competitive tournament but a year-long campaign to run with casual gaming

if the attacker wins, the tile is claimed. if the defender wins, the tile is not claimed.


this is the basis for it, which I'd like to build onto. I know Hettar had some ideas concerning "regions" with a main tile and some outer tiles, which he tried explaining to me via text but I didn't understand.

We also decided that we wanted one game to somehow affect the next weeks game in some small way. As this doesn't really bode well for casual gaming, I want to limit the effects of these to not have an impact on the game, per se.

So I'm thinking that, for this, we can use the planetary empires factories and space ports etc, which will have effects for the games the week/fortnight after. one that I came up with would be that, after finding out who the opposing teams are for each tile, your team is allowed to swap one attacker/defender with another. so it affects the match-up, not the game itself. space ports allow people to attack the moons, which will have been split evenly before. these games will use low-gravity or something like that, which used to be in a random battlefield trait table but doesn't appear to be in the new rulebook. controlling a whole moon will allow for special rules in apocalypse games, which will run every few months and can claim several tiles at once. rules like orbital laser or some such.

to use the planetary empires counters and factories and such, you've got to capture it, then you can use it the week after. after that you have to go get another. space ports can be used any time as long as you have one. another could be to prevent the opposing team from making any battles on moons next week, which could be very tactical if they only have one week before the apocalypse game.

I will probably organise it so that the teams will organise who's attacking and who's defending the week before, so people can make a themed army for it (no sense having a static gunline for attack, eh?), but this may cause issues as people don't always turn up each week. either way, we'll most likely be playing every other week, as players who have several armies from both sides (Hettar has chaos, Daemons, Space marines and Eldar, for example) will get withdrawal symptoms if they are kept from using their other armies. players will be using set armies for the games.

thoughts on this will be much appreciated! and hopefully Hettar will put his ideas down soon!

I think.......

There is roughly 80 tiles in the set, there are 10 Spaceport tiles. that's enough to make 3 small continents or 2 large ones.

I think that the board should not be just divided up between the teams but the teams should claim there own empire, the first tile claimed by a team can be any where but all further claimed tiles should be in contact with the teams empire.

Once all tiles are claimed the teams may attack the other teams claimed tiles.

There are enough tiles to completely surround each Space port, Spaceports can not be claimed directly but are automatically claimed if the team hold all the tiles that surround it

For each Spaceport held the teams will get an additional strategic asset during the Apocalypse games played every 2months.

this will take a long time if people have to fight for each tile in the first place, then fight over them after. to me it makes sense that the two sides make planetfall in places then spread out until they both have a frontline, and that's where we start it.

I was toying with the idea that we could have a progressing warlord for each player, so individuals can track their progress. not a special character, and we represent which tile he's on with a marker. he can only fight in battles on or adjacent to his tile. he gets bonuses for winning battles, and can move by one tile any week he's not in a fight. a lot like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. if the warlord dies in the battle but the army wins he just doesn't get any better.

perhaps just a permanent warlord trait that he has - each time he survives and wins, he gets to roll for an additional warlord trait that is added to all his previous ones. he's always the warlord and never rolls a warlord trait before battle.

that way we don't have to try and come up with balanced rules ourselves

I like the warlord idea, every one should get one and he should start at a certain points limit like 100pts and during the campaign he can buy new war gear maybe. say plus 15pts for every victory and 5pts even if you lose and 10 for a draw?

how long do you think the campaign will go on for? 4months or 6months? if that's 5-6 battles every fortnight that's only 10-12 tiles changing hands every month as a maximum .

I think if you are to divide them equally over the teams then the teams should alternately claim tiles connected to ones they already claim until all have been claimed, then keep the surround a spaceport tile with your own and claim it for strategic assets in apocalypse give the teams an incentive to break the links of tiles.

Ive been thinking of something a lot like this...with progressing characters and building giving certain bonuses...it hasn't got off the ground yet but maybe this thread will give me the motivation to get it off the ground again.

Hettar wrote:
I like the warlord idea, every one should get one and he should start at a certain points limit like 100pts and during the campaign he can buy new war gear maybe. say plus 15pts for every victory and 5pts even if you lose and 10 for a draw?

how long do you think the campaign will go on for? 4months or 6months? if that's 5-6 battles every fortnight that's only 10-12 tiles changing hands every month as a maximum .

I think if you are to divide them equally over the teams then the teams should alternately claim tiles connected to ones they already claim until all have been claimed, then keep the surround a spaceport tile with your own and claim it for strategic assets in apocalypse give the teams an incentive to break the links of tiles.

I'm thinking this will be a continuous thing rather than one with an end. as it basically is what happens in casual gaming (everyone stands round and decides who'll fight who) but with a way of keeping track of which side is winning. so it might be worth not adding anything that genuinely affects gameplay, only the apocalypse games and things like switching two players before a game, that sort of thing. claiming tiles one at a time is what the planetary empires suggests, but for just 2 sides it may be a lot quicker to simply cover one half in good-guy flags and the other half in bad-guy flags and let the decisions about which tiles the teams attack shape the board. perhaps say that surrounded tiles cannot put anything into voluntary reserves (so drop pods and fliers etc still have to) so you can tactically surround tiles to make them easier to claim. as a tile that's solely in contact with enemy tiles (completely surrounded) would be quite the rarity, I doubt this will be game-breaking for one or two games like this.

the warlords getting more points to spend favours some armies over others... ...orks for example generally don't put more than 150 points on any character, and that's a rarity. usually 115 points for a mega-bork-bosspole boss is all you need. I'll have a look through the old rulebooks where characters got experience in campaigns for inspiration.

I don't see why the teams cant pick there tiles, we could do it at the beginning of a gaming session, would take like 20 minutes. I don't think this covers casual gaming as in casual gaming you might want to play some one on your own team one night. I think once a fortnight for campaign battles would be more than enough.

Battle shouldn't be any set limit on points, just to be agreed between the two players before the game begins, I see your point with the points winning for buying your warlord war gear but think he could definitely collect warlord traits up to a maximum of three and he always loses a random warlord trait if he loses.