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How plausible would this campaign be?

So, say that you had a campaign wherein you had two teams versing eachother with everything they had. Say, two Necron players versus a SM player and an AS player. Combined, the Necrons have, say, 7600 Points, while the Imperial players have 9100 points. In the campaign, these two teams face off in, say, 10 battles. Each battle would effect future battles in the campaign by, say, giving the victors a free fortification, or restricting the SM's ability to use drop pods, or provide the victors with a few Units of Combat Servitors, etc. A player could choose to forfeit a battle; automatically giving the opponent the advantage of whatever that battle offered (for instance, three squads of Combat Servitors to play in that players army). Now, the really important bit is that every casualty in the game is effectively unusable, unless it passes a Toughness test (For Necrons, roll for reanimation protocol again for each casualty), in which case it does not count as dead. In this manner, you could end up winning Pyrrhic victories, and lose thousands of points because you wanted to secure the objective, while the enemy was just focused on turning your troops into a bloody mist. And, if you so choose, you can have your units retreat, and make it so that they go off of the edge of the board in the direction of your deployment zone (thereby preserving units for future battles). As time wears on, each side starts accruing assets, with the Imperials winning a few Warhound Titans in one battle, while the Necrons win Orbital Defence Cannons and a bunch of fortifications in others. The final battle has the entirety of each army face off, with all of its assets. Prior to this climax, you can choose to fight a second battle over certain assets (for instance, sending a Strike Force to capture or destroy the Orbital Defence Cannons). Without drop pods, and forced to push through a killing ground to reach the entrenched Necrons, the Imperials suffer staggering losses, but the SM TWC, and the Titans, prove the ultimate bullet sponges, and allow the AS and SM to engage the Necrons in brutal CQC; forcing them out of one of their fortifications. However, the Necrons manage to hold the final fortification, and that, combined with their aerial superiority, wins the day.

To quote a fictional character... "Let's make this fun!"
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Plausible? Sure, but it'd be very record keeping heavy, especially counting casualties and keeping track of bonuses.

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Glorious Lord of Chaos






The burning pits of Hades, also known as Sweden in summer

The problem, I think, is that the extreme killiness of 40k weapons means that your armies will dwindle very quickly.

It also furthers inbalance - if you fight someone much better than you and you keep getting tabled, his advantage will become much bigger very quickly as your army dies.

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Silver Spring, MD

40k does have a silly-high casualty rate (because with such minimal/useless minimal pinning, suppression, and morale, rules, killing models is pretty much the only way for units to interact).

In 3rd edition's campaign rules (and similarly in games like Necromunda) you would roll 1d6 for each model that was killed/destroyed at the end of the game. On something like a 5 or 6 the model was fine, on a 3-4 they were recovering or being repaired, roll again after the next battle (maybe with a +1). On a 1-2 they were truly dead/destroyed. Damaged vehicles and wounded characters/MCs are healed or repaired automatically. Adjust this as you see fit. I recommend playing it as special characters only die on a 1, recovering on 2-3, and are fine on a 4+. I'd also give each army one unit type that will give a bonus of some kind to the appropriate recovery rolls if they're still alive, like medic/painboy/apothecary/techmarine/res orb etc (not a big bonus though, maybe just one re-roll).

I also would *not* do it as a toughness test. Weak units would be double penalized (easy to wound in the game, easy to kill after) and big tough units would never really die.

The snowball effect of losing games and running out of living models to field is a real problem though. I wouldn't count on your house rules to keep things fun and balanced. It will take a GM and/or player cooperation to keep things fun till the end.

Keeping track of casualties is really not that bad if each player makes a spreadsheet of their army list and uses it to record who is dead/recovering.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/08/15 21:36:53


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An idea, don't know how plausible: List out every model, ignoring force org charts, almost like a real order of battle. From there, you could play different sized games and decide the next battle after. You could choose some units you've got but never use in larger scale games for short kill-team/500 pt scenarios, and save the big list for a larger point game. Anything lost stays dead, or you could do the recovery rolls like CalgarsPimpHand mentioned. Maybe set out at the beginning and agree with your opponent and say "Ok, after battle #4, we're both going to get X points reinforcements," pretending they were called upon at the start of the campaign and lay out ahead of time what those reinforcements would be, so you don't just easily replace what you've lost.
I do like the idea of units staying slain, though, to make you really think about how you want to use units and plan for future battles.
I just thought of this. It's similar to Rome: Total War. Make a map and construct a few armies from what you have, each indicated by a counter/avatar on the map.You can make your armies all 500 or 2.5k blobs. Units move X" on the map. Put cities, valleys, rivers, etc on the map. and the battle terrain would mimic what's on the map, so you can put yourself at an advantage. You can have uneven battles, or have multiple units attack on your "turn" (a 1000pt army and 500pt army attack a 1250 pt army sitting in a fortification line). Be allowed to combine battle-damaged armies between battles to create a new list. It would take a while, but I think it's an interesting combination. You could set out X many cities/relics/sites that need to be seized for victory conditions.
This turned into a ramble, but I just let the ball keep rolling.

Here's to me in my sober mood,
When I ramble, sit, and think.
Here's to me in my drunken mood,
When I gamble, sin, and drink.
And when my days are over,
And from this world I pass,
I hope they bury me upside down,
So the world can kiss my ass!
 
   
 
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