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What do you want from a good map based campaign?

do you want something vaguely related to the boar game 'risk'?

how about character envelopment?

do you want special buildings like shile generators n stuf that have impact on battles as long as you own them?

how about special FOCs for each phase and / or codex to represent the matching armies of each state of the campaing for each army?

how would you aproach to have both.. good fun games that also forge the narrative by themselfes and support this way the story?

Generally the campaigns we run are more like a lead up to a great battle rather than a ground control campaign.
The last campaign we ran had 3x1500pt battles, 2x5000pt battles and 1x12000pt battle. The 1500pt and 5000pt battles involved the two opponants agreeing over which asset of the planet they were fighting over (such as a manufactorium) that would give bonuses to the player who won in the final battle. Also we generally start the campaign with a phase of planet fall as the attackers attempt to secure a possition from which to attack from.

However I have played a risk esc. campaign where the board is split between attacker and defender. You each take turns to attack an enemy position, we also have certain assets and rienforcement tokens that can be used during each battle to give one person the edge in a battle.

I would say that risk campaigns are mainly for a 1v1 (or maybe a doubles) campaign whilst the original campaign I outlined is for a large number of people (our last one had a 4v4 campaign).


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Also it helps to plan ahead, i.e. decide what kind of battles will take place if the attackers beat the defenders in the first phase or vise versa.
An example: The attackers had a successful planetfall and beat the defenders 4-0, the next phase will involve the defenders retreating to their rear defences as the attackers plow forward. So this kind of battle may involve the defender setting up terrain as if this was his defences whilst the attackers units gain deep strike and scout (any model with the deep strike rule may charge the turn they deep strike, same for scout), this shows the attackers momentum as they hound the defender.

Be extreme in who you select for a campaign.

Nothing kills your group faster then a non participating member.

Do not be afraid to tell someone NO.

do you want something vaguely related to the boar game 'risk'?

how about character envelopment?

do you want special buildings like shile generators n stuf that have impact on battles as long as you own them?

how about special FOCs for each phase and / or codex to represent the matching armies of each state of the campaing for each army?

how would you aproach to have both.. good fun games that also forge the narrative by themselfes and support this way the story?

Yes. It gives players goals and targets to achieve rather than random games which dont really mean anything in the long term/

Yes definitely, it gets players invested in their characters/commanders.

Yes but as long as its fair to both sides. One player having 1k points of fortifications VS a single quad gun isnt going to be fun.

Depends on the balance/composition of said special FOCs.

Fun and narrative. Competitveness should take a back seat to a story driven cmpaign. If players are getting steam rolled, they are much less likely to actually want to participate and finish out the campaign.

right now i have the idea in mind to divide the campain into different phases.

1. A introduction. perhaps someone remember the 4rd GRB and the Special Comando ruleset there? something like that for a start up. maybe the attack of a embassy... or the destruktion of a planetary shield generator or whatever.

2. Scouting units arrive and such stuff. there i have small games somewhere between 500 and 1000 points... skrimishes... light forces and perhaps some kind of base building.

3 this phase would be the main part. battles between 1000 and 2000 points around strategic positions , buildings and such. so here everything would lead to the final battles.

4. there one or perhaps some more huge battles witch lead to the final moments.

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For character envelopement i think mostly about abilities to reroll the dice for specific events one time. so the caracter gets better at what he is doing without changing his initial abilities. maybe i allow also the posibilliy to push the stats. but only one point at max for each stat.

If it comes to buildings... well perhaps something like a 1+ on reserves or such things.. or 10% more points... so nothing that strong but still a advantage for success.

for the missions i have right now the idea to create a special mission tree. so for each battle the players can slip down the tree and check for Terrain... campain phase... relative strengh of the armies and all that stuf so this leads to a natural way of finding the missions.. or at least a matching set of possible missions.
thing of a battle the "cities of death style" on a city field versus a open battlefield on plains on the map. Also it would be different if a player attacks from a strom position army wise against a player that has his last army pieces on that terrain. such stuff.

special FOCS are a difficult matter. there i will definately need help. 1. to create them for each army and 2. to compare them among themselfes.

For Competivenes... for myself i like challenging games and i try my very best to win on the table. But i want to to this in a story driven frame. so there it is important for me to find a way to ballance this for that campain, without restricting everyone from writing a list. or lists at all. so i thing a set pool of units on one hand and the special FOCs for each phase could help this . so each player can do his best to win but still we have a somehow self evolvingstory. .. somehow

What armies are you and your group fielding? This can help plan out the narrative.
For example: if your players are mainly imperial and chaos the back story could be an official of a planet has been corrupted, in which case the chaos would be defending OR a warp storm has opened over an imperial world, in which case the imperials will be defending. (You can also find ways of justifying why other races are part of said battle, i.e. the necrons are their to protect some ancient technology that a chaos lord has set out to take for himself)

there are plenty of possible armies. right now i am thinking more about the mechanics behind the campaing.

I think a good ruleset is one half for the thing. To plan out the narrative is the other. so i try to find the base rulewise. flesh out then this part to fit it to the narative.