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Hey folks! I'm looking at running a campaign in my town. My goal was to create a system that allowed for dynamic games where you felt the impact of your victories and defeats, but for that to NOT be represented by points adjustments, and for these to NOT lead to the "snowball" effect where one or two players get major advantages against the others.

My idea is to use a hex-system like Planetary Empires. All players place down 3 tiles at the start (1 Hive City, and 2 others that they start in control of). Players would be heavily restricted in what they could bring, but every hex location provides ways around those restrictions. Every hex type would affect their tile, plus each surrounding tile.

Here's the initial restrictions:

- army must be a single CAD or codex detachment with Force Org slots
- players may instead bring a formation, but all formations are one-use-only for the duration of the campaign
- players may bring a Lord of War, but all Lords of War are one-use only for the duration of the campaign

- players cannot hold forces in Deep Strike reserve, and cannot purchase units that must start in such reserves
- players cannot Outflank unless they control another hex adjacent to the hex they are fighting in
- players cannot purchase Flyers or Flying Monstrous Creatures
- players cannot have more than than 25% of their units being Vehicles, Bikes, Cavalry, and/or Monstrous Creatures (or any sub-type of these).
- players cannot purchase additional detachments

Here's the types of hexes I'm thinking about:

#1 - Hive City - You need these to win the campaign. They provide no other bonuses. There will be one Hive City per player, and you must control half to win the campaign.

#2 - Bastion - Player may purchase Fortifications without requiring a fortification detachment.

#3 - Command Centre - Player may bring an additional detachment.

#4 - Airfield - Player may bring Flyers or Flying Monstrous Creatures

#5 - Spaceport - Player may hold units in Deep Strike Reserves

#6 - Fuel Dump - Player may exceed the 25% restriction on Vehicles, Bikes, etc.

#7 - Manufactorum - After seeing their opponent's army list, the player may change up to 25% of the units in their army.


It's my belief that these restrictions, combined with the pattern and manner in which the restrictions are lifted, will create games where players feel the reprecussions of their previous games without actually being points-imbalanced. So a player battling in a location where they have many bonuses can play more "broken" lists, while players battling in locations far from their bonuses have to use more basic forces. Almost all the time you'll have at least one of the above bonuses. You could use your battles keeping up a strong front so that you'll always have access to the more powerful lists, or you can try to quickly grab Hive Cities or make a break for important hexes.

Note, many of the traditionally "powerful" tournament lists would require multiple hex support. For example; to play a Drop Pod spamming force, you need to have both a Fuel Dump, and a Spaceport. However, just having a Space Port still allows you to do some Drop Pods.


My current concerns is that the Bastion is too weak, and the Fuel Dump is too strong. Most strong lists, and many themed armies, can't function without the Fuel Dump.

I also am not thrilled with my ability to name things. If you have any suggestions, please speak up!

Of course you will know what players you have in your area, but that set up kind of screws over any WS, Jetbike or Speed Freek army. Drop pod armies are utterly screwed, needing a Spaceport and a Fuel Dump.

Also, the Manufactorum is either pointless or completely broken, depending on how your players set up. Your players can simply ask the other what the are bringing which makes a Manufactorum pointless, or you don't tell each other and one person can LIST TAILOR. 25% is still a large amount, and what constitutes 25%? If I change all my Meltas in my army to Flamers because I'm playing against Orks, doesn't that mean my points go down since Flamers are cheaper? 25% needs to be defined better.

You are right in the Bastion being near pointless. I rarely see anyone paying for a fortification, much less 2. Mabye a Bastion could be like free upgrades on a unit?

The one use formation/LOW I'm a bit mixed about, because it could cause one player to have a really hard time, but only them. There is a problem with it however. ATM I've just finished painting an Imperial Knight, which took me around 3ish months to do. I then want to play in this campaign, but I can only use this Knight once? Does 3 months worth of work constitute to only one game? I would be a bit mugged off since I have a busy schedule and can only do so much painting.

Sorry if I'm sounding overly harsh, it's just these kind of campaigns need to be ironed out to be as effective and fun as possible.

Thanks for the points you made!

Thankfully, most people in our area play more than highly-skewed lists. It's true that the 25% limitation would screw over a Siam-Hann army, Speed Freaks, or tank-heavy Imperial Guard, but thankfully I don't believe my area has too many people that are totally committed to those. They may prefer to play those ways, but are able to bring infantry-heavy forces too. As such, I'm not too concerned about that.

As for Drop Pod armies being screwed; only if they try to go all-pod (since that would be 50% of the units in the army being Drop Pods, the other half being what goes in the pods). A single Spaceport would allow up to half the army being in Drop Pods even without a Fuel Dump, but one would need a Spaceport to even take any Pods. However, Space Marines more than most tend to like having a transport for every single unit, and this perhaps isn't fair for them. Would adjusting this to be 33% at the base level help alleviate this you think?

I'm worried to just write off the Bastion as useless. If people have to play very differently due to these numerous restrictions, some things that previously were pretty bad might suddenly become pretty good. At the same time, they still could just be pretty bad. I really, REALLY don't want to give people free points though, so no free fortifications or even free fortification upgrades.

Perhaps then I can scrap the Bastion and Manufactorum and put in something like a "Hunting Grounds" or something. Split it up in some way so that the Fuel Dump gives you Vehicles and Monstrous Creatures, while the Hunting Grounds gives Bikes and Cavalry.


Again, I'm not too worried about Knights and formations/LoW. We have no all-Knight players in our area, and many among us are in agreement that Knights and formations should only be brought to a game if you inform your opponent about it first.

I appreciate the harsh criticism! It doesn't sound like you're saying "no, it's bad, start over" and more "it's good fundamentally, but needs to be cleaned up".

You have a good base ruleset here. I definitely think LoW needs to be limited in the campaign, but one-use only may be a little too limiting. Maybe a good way to balance them would be to require three specific hexes (Manufactorum, Spaceport, and Command Centre make sense) for a specific number of "rounds" (maybe 2?) before using a LoW. After that battle, the LoW enters a "cooldown" period where they cannot be used again until the same number of rounds pass with the three hexes still under your control.

I think it's a good start, you should look at mine in the 40k campaign thread, see if anything gives you so ideas. Mine started as a no point system but after the first play test it should the abuse that could be done to it

Yes, one-use only on LoW and formations may be a bit too limiting. Perhaps some system that allows players to recoup the use of a formation or LoW is in order. I'd rather give that privilege to someone in a losing position than someone who is gaining ground. Perhaps if you lose 2 territories you regain the use of a formation or LoW previous expended?


Thanks for the note btgrimaldus. However, I want players to find how to abuse the system. I think the heavy restrictions given will help frame the battles better than giving continuing bonuses.