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I am in the beginning stages of writing a Planetstrike type campaign, but I am lacking a lot of the fluff since I am fairly new to 40K.

The concept is basically another Tomb World awakens out in the Halo Stars. They are awakened because a close planet in the same solar system has a Shard buried deep towards its core and it has slowly began emitting energy. The energy also jump starts dormant Tyranid spores on the planet. (I have Necrons and my son has Tyranids). The Necrons travel to the planet to begin searching for the Shard. They are using a yet unnamed device to geolocate the shard (I am making this device out of spare bits). While all of this is going on, the Death Spectres report this up their chain of command and the Ordos Xenos catches word. The Ordos Xenos tells the Death Spectres to stand down and let this play out, but to keep reporting. The Death Spectres know they have a device that is emitting a signature similar to C'tan powers, but they don't know what it exactly is. This gives the Necrons and Tyranids quite a few battles on this planet before we press further. From here, take the Planetstrike concept. I plan on tiling out a good portion of the planet for where battles will occur. As (if) the Necrons get somewhat close to the center of these tiles (where this shard is), they will deploy an empty Obelisk to the planet. This is where the Ordos Xenos of the Inquisition along with Grey Knights will start dropping in. Why? Because the next Army I plan on getting is Grey Knights with some Inquisitors. I plan on drawing this said campaign as long as possible while letting my son help write some of the backstory in an attempt to get him into the fluff of a tabletop game.


Questions for backstory (Since I am very behind in getting caught up with the 40k universe's mythos, I would totally appreciate it even if you point me in the right direction for some of these questions:

- Would I be too far fetched saying the Necrons travelled to this Tyranid infested planet in a Super Monolith?

- Are there any Intelligence/Situation Report templates any of you have used to reporting information through Space Marine chain of command? I know I can make up something fast, but just curious if anyone used a unique format that I can continue on. I want to write the intro backstory in the form of battlefield updates and intelligence reports.

- Playing on a standard 4"x6" battlefield, what "to scale" would you consider that if I were to literally map out a portion of a planet?

- Are the Halo Stars already named? If so, where does this live so I can use that and name these planets?

- My son has an interest in picking up Space Wolves down the road. Other than them hating Grey Knights and wanting to sabotage a Grey Knight mission, what else could be a reason for including them in this campaign?

- Are there any other factions that would make sense to possibly bring into the campaign?

I'll probably have more questions for you guys dependent on how much help I get here. Thanks in advance

Ordo xenos would be more likely to call space wolves to assist, as the grey knights are the military arm of the ordo malleus. They could intervene if all that energy/warfare drew the attention of the chaos gods and daemons started appearing.

I don't think it would be too far fetched at all to say the Necrons have a super monolith. This is your campaign and the first rule of my campaigns is that anything that adds more fun and flavour to the campaign is allowed. So I say do what you want.

I actually have a campaign going on between Tyranids and Space Wolves. the reason I used for the space wolves is that they're a detachment that is an honour guard on a Shrine World. Or maybe this is a forge world that's dedicated to production for Fenris, etc... etc...

Any other faction can literally be involved for any reason. Dark Eldar can be raiding for slaves. Eldar can be there because of some etherial reason that only the seers know. Imperial Guard are literally everywhere in the universe that the IoM has planets so no special reason needed. Orks can be there because WAAGH. Chaos can be there because the shard is a powerful artifact so why not. Mechanicum can be anywhere technology is involved (especially if this is a forge world).

I wouldn't care so much about where the Halo stars are named. There are thousands and thousands of unnamed planets in 40k. just pick one , and that one's yours.

Your table "to scale" of 40K would represent a battlefield of roughly a few city blocks in size.

Thanks for the input guys. As simple as they probably seemed, that helped a lot. I ruled out using Grey Knights and will go with some Deathwatch dudes. The new Deathwatch: Overkill game is going to jumpstart the Space Marine side of this now. In my gaming group here, there are Salamanders, Dark Eldar, Chaos, Orks, and Tau.....more than enough other factions and it seems like as long as I don't go OCD, just about any faction can really work.

Super Monoliths are totally a thing.

Maybe some deathwatch

 EnTyme wrote:
Super Monoliths are totally a thing.

Even larger and more powerful than the doomsday monolith is the megalith: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Megalith I'd say it's extremely likely that that thing is capable of space travel.

Totally using Megalith now

I said this in another thread, but I'm going to say it again:

The only reason the Necrons haven't already taken the galaxy back is that they haven't had their coffee yet.

Thanks, Electronicham, for organising a campaign and being open to others' ideas. Just 2 humble suggestions:

electronicham wrote:
- Would I be too far fetched saying the Necrons travelled to this Tyranid infested planet in a Super Monolith?

- Are there any Intelligence/Situation Report templates any of you have used to reporting information through Space Marine chain of command? I know I can make up something fast, but just curious if anyone used a unique format that I can continue on. I want to write the intro backstory in the form of battlefield updates and intelligence reports.

Mono/Megaliths IIRC can travel between nearby planets. This comes from Battlefleet Gothic, where Necrons have these large Cairn Ships, like miles long, that look like giant Night Scythes/croissants in space. On their backs are a variety of Mono/Megaliths and it's like they detach to land on worlds, like huge shuttle crafts. Just suggesting Battlefleet Gothic may be an avenue for further research on Necron space travel.

As for reporting, there is a certain trend/trope, very simple that started from 1st edition. It goes like this:

-----

From: <Sender>
To: <Recipient>

++ Thought of the Day: this is where you insert some 40k idiom that foreshadows the contents of the missive ++

<Then the actual information you want to share goes here.>

-----

The Thought of the Day is a very 40k piece of flavour. It's like a moment of Zen that makes you forget you're reading something from a game designer and that you're really in the 40k universe. It's a very useful tool. I think a lot of other details in how communications are handled change from edition to edition, from authour to authour, but the Thought of the Day is quite consistent.

Just some quick thoughts, your campaign sounds very interesting, hope the above ideas help you further enhance it.

Yes, the halo stars are an actual location, not sure where though.

The Necrons have giant teleportation devices which can move entire legions. They also have spaceships called tomb ships.

You could also say the space wolves are getting involved in the campaign as they see that whoever wins here will be in a position to attack a world the space wolves are honour bound to defend or something.

The Halo Stars are along the northern edge of the galactic disc, forming the outer border of the Segmentum Obscurus. Though the stars within this area are widely separated, compared to the rest of the galaxy, the entire region is some 200,000 light-years across.

I always took the Halo Stars to be the following -



Literally the Halo that forms the ring of the Galaxy. You're still talking about a band filled with billions of stars but out on the edge, they're mostly the ancient stars --- dying main sequence stars and white dwarves.

Guys, I think I am going to stray from a Megalith and possibly go with a WORLD ENGINE.