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Ok so in 28 years of gaming i have never done a single campaign....how do i do one?
It is just me and a friend and no GM.
Is there certain things we can do to link the battles? What kind of games do we do?...Do we need maps?
A veteren of such things to help me would be ideal!!!
Thanks Dakka

when you are that long into the game you could perhaps look in the RBs of 4th 5th and 6th edition. Each of them have a section about Campaign.

Also you can google for the "Vogen" Campaign. Also good inspiration.

You don't need a map. But this could help you to get more narrative.

Besides Maps you could develop a tree. there you link your games. Think of any story you wanna tell.

then think of what partt of the Story you want to play out on the table.

Perhaps the first contact of the forces some small scaled game.

Then any nmber of battles in between and last a final battle.

Depending on how you story runs and how you want to plan it you can eighter have totaly diffent outcomes and Battles depending on the one before.

or

You stick to a more stringent way and each los or victory gives a certain bonus or nerf for each player.

Also you should think of the scale of the campaign. Should it be a weekend only event or do you want to spend weekr or month with it.

Also keep in mind that the longer the campaign goes the more endurance is required because such stuff can also get boring. a unfinished campaign is for me somehow not satisfying.

The most important thing is. No matter what you actualy do. try to create games where both player have a reliable chance to win each game.

Linkin battles can be easy. From changing points to each army over improved reserve rolls and anything else. Just something that represents advantages during the battles.

also some writing of fluff. as a primer before each game and also as a resulting report , shortstory... aanything can help.

If you want to get deeper in it look for a simple system for Unit or charakter development. nothing super powerful. but perhaps abilities to reroll a certain dice once each game and stuff. so you get more attachet to the units involved.

Also some way of Unit pool may help. You create this before and use that pool to make up your actual lists. This leads to fluffy armies if its done right and avoids cheesy power creep.

The pool combined with some kind of char or unit development helps. Also give your characters names!

Also try to plan the rules you ned for the campaing before. thin them through and make sure that they t least logicaly make sense and stick t the way you want to play the campaign

A good book is Setting Up A Wargames Campaign by Tony Bath (Wargames Research Group, 1986.) It's mainly about historicals but the basic ideas can apply to any era. It's OOP but you can get second hand copies on Amazon.

However for your first campaign I don't think you need worry about buying a book. Just get some basic ideas together, have a go, and see how it works out. You will learn stuff to put into your next campaign.

First thing is how many players and sides? However many there are of you, what are the armies, and what are they fighting to achieve?
Real campaigns are often aimed at controlling strategically valuable positions, and at destroying the enemy army in order to impose a peace treaty.

A simple map is a good way to illustrate the area of the campaign. It can be a plain diagram showing important cities, resources like mines and ports, and the roads between them.
If you draw this on a square grid, you can easily write orders each turn showing where all your units are, and exchange the locations with your opponent, so that the chance for battles can be identified. An even simpler way is just to set up the locations as nodes in a network, and let all the routes in between the nodes be of equal length -- one strategic turn’s move.

Let each side keep a war diary of their plans and results, so you can have a narrative record. Big campaigns sometimes have a newspaper made by the umpire. If it's just two of you, you can write up the campaign and post it on DakkaDakka or a blog. Naming units and comanders is a good way to add narrative flavour to this kind of write-up.

Elaborate campaigns often include rules for casualties, supplies, and reinforcements. I would advise against that in your first campaign. Simply assume that the side that loses a table top battle must retreat, and let both sides get all their casualties back for the next turn.

Winning conditions:
Real wars sometimes drag on for decades before coming to a result. If you are enjoying the campaign you can just carry on and on, but another idea is to make a rule that the first side to lose say 10 battles, loses the campaign.

Hope this helps and you have fun!!

I have no help, but you should do it. My best memories of 40k are narrative campaigns. I'll never forget the 3rd War for Armageddon Campaign my lfgs did.

To me a *narrative* campaign is one that doesn't use a map.

At most it would be a flow chart like this:
http://sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/summer-campaign-first-battle-report-1k.html

Or it could be a simple linear campaign with pre-set missions played in order, with each scenario's outcome affecting one or more of the subsequent scenario, ie: blow up the bridge in mission 2 and the enemy doesn't get tanks in mission 3, or fail to blow up the enemies air-defence control bunker in mission 4 and you don't get any aircraft in missions 5 & 6.

It depends what you call narrative.

In my view, the narrative of the campaign is developed through the players making choices that influence their progress. It's the difference between a general in a war, directing battles, and reading a history book about that war once it's over, and playing through the battles.

These are both narratives, in fact they are the same narrative but approached from opposite directions, if that makes sense.

For your first narrative campaign experience, I'd suggest doing a small 2 or 3 linked-game campaign. The last mission should be the largest, with the most on the line. The first two could either be small-medium, or medium-small, depending on how you want the tempo to go.

The results of each mission should impact what happens in the next mission. You'll likely want to create your own scenarios for these, since the rulebook missions are often "two random armies meet to fight over the same points". By "impact the next mission", I mean set up a very clear change that the first mission has on the second, and the second mission has on the third. Perhaps have one alter the forces someone should bring to the next game, or alter the mission parameters of the next game. Alternatively, you can also have the first two mission be events that are occurring separate from each other, but both of which affect the final game.

Here's an example:

Mission 1: Tyranid Mycetic Assault (1500 points)
Tyranids are attacking an Imperial colony. The Imperials have to keep the bunkers from being destroyed. There are 5 AV14 bunkers placed around the table (1 near each corner, and 1 in the middle). The Imperials can deploy anywhere at the start of the game. The Tyranids will arrive via Deep Strike, and may start rolling for Reserves on Turn 1. Tyranids win if they destroy 3 of the 5 bunkers. Imperials win if 3 of the 5 bunkers survive.

Mission 2a (if Imperials win): (500 point Combat Patrol)
The Tyranid invasion was slowed, but the planet's mutation has begun. Small pockets of fighting are occurring across the planet to try and hold back the infestation. In this Combat Patrol, play a game of Maelstrom.

Mission 2b (if Tyranids win): (750 vs 1000 points)
The Tyranids are swarming the surface of the planet. The Imperial's only hope now is to retreat and regroup. In this mission, the Imperial player starts with only 750 points, and must survive the game with at least 1 unit left alive to win.

Mission 3: (2000 points)
A mighty Hive Tyrant has revealed itself, and whatever heroes remain in the Imperial forces regroup to try and take it out. If the Imperials have been winning, this is a chance to finish the Tyranid invasion off once and for all! If the Tyranids have been winning, this a last chance by the Imperials to abandon the planet in the ensuing chaos. If it's been a pitched war (1 win on each side), this is a desperate chance to disrupt the Hive Mind just long enough for them to call in a V-bomb from an incoming Inquisitorial vessel, sacrificing their lives to stop this tendril. Play a mission of "The Relic", with a walking Hive Tyrant (no flying) starting the game on the battlefield and in control of the Relic.

Really the best Campaign system I've ever seen for 40K/30K is the "FW: Horus Heresey Book 4 (Conquest)" system. We've never had anything as thorough or as flexible as this system.

Too many campaigns fizzle out because of locked-in individual-commitments that get missed, or some "fixed map" scenario holds it up etc etc... This Conquest system just keeps chugging along despite individuals to keep the general interest moving.

I'll write up a blog-post about it this weekend because setting it up seems a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get past that it runs as smoothly as playing your regular games with some minimal bookkeeping.

It's super thematic and just following book traits/examples the fluff/narrative can basically write itself if you want.

Another good point to mention is that you can very easily get ideas for campaign narratives by looking at historical campaigns and translating the set up to a new SF background.

For example, the Athenian invasion of Sicily (415 to 413 BC) during the Peloponnesian War could be re-imagined as a space invasion of a planet, with the Imperium as the invaders and the Eldar as defenders.

Ok finally got it done, well the first part anyway: http://atticwars40k.blogspot.com/2016/04/conquest-campaign-for-dummies-part-1.html?

I can't say enough good things about the Conquest Campaign, they really put a lot of thought and manpower into it.

If anyone is interested I have finished the blog primer on running the Conquest Campaign system, it seems like some effort to get started but it's really not too bad and well worth the effort. I created these to hopefully make it easier for people to try this system - cuz it's awesome!

Part 1 (setting up the campaign): http://atticwars40k.blogspot.com/2016/04/conquest-campaign-for-dummies-part-1.html

Part 2 (running the campaign): http://atticwars40k.blogspot.com/2016/04/conquest-campaign-for-dummies-part-2.html