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Hey guys!

Me and my brother want to play a little campaign, starting with 1 HQ and a few Troops at 250p.
We want to evolve our armies depending on the outcome of the battles and have bigger and bigger battles up to 1500 points (or more).
The Characters should also evolve.

I watched miniwargamings path to glory and I liked the idea, except that we don't want to get random units but rather collect points to grow.

Is there any free campaign available like that?
we don't play chaos, so path to glory is a no go!

So let me get this straight.

You want to have a campaign that starts at 250 and increases as you go. You want to add units after each battle based on the outcome, but you don't want it to be random. You also want the characters to evolve, but again I am assuming you don't want it to be random.

Thus far I do not know of any campaigns where they upgrades and outcomes are not random.

I would suggest playing a living campaign. Start with the first game and see how it goes. Before you play, forge a narrative, who the HQ are and why they are there and fighting. The miniwargaming guys custom build all their missions, and for the batreps you saw, all the ork stuff didn't exist, they just modified the chaos goods.

After the battle, figure out a narrative, who won and why. Is the loser a sore loser, are they bitter, do they feel challenged? what is their next move and what will they bring to the next battle? Likewise, what did the victor gain? Were you playing a game of "the relic" and get to choose a relic from your book for your HQ? Perhaps it was a custom hammer and anvil storm the castle style game and if the defenders lost, the losers gained a heavy support vehicle or something.

Look up all the different scenarios you can find in all the campaign books. Even if it is like Tau vs IG and you play marnines and orks. Those books have awesome fun missions. Customize those missions and give them narrative and build your campaign based on them. Always make certain that the rewards are different, but equal, maybe allow both sides to choose from 2-3 options, and a major victory gives an opportunity for something extra.

Do you mind saying what armies you have? It would be easier if we knew what we are working with to help you.

The character should evolve randomly.
The army can even evolve randomly to a certain point (e.G. roll for what slot you "unlock", but its your choice what particular unit you want to field.)
we also thought about a system to restrict upgrades on units, so the units need to achieve their upgrades (e.G. scouts need to earn their cloaks or sniper rifles)

The biggest issue is how to stay balanced.
Oft the winner should get rewarded, but the loser shouldn't fall back to far so it stays fair and fun for both parties.

Thanks for your suggestions though, that sounds like going into the right direction!


I am fielding dark angels (and also have a small GK force) and my brother has tyranids. (also Ultra marines, which would allow for an awesome story, but he really wants to play those nids and Im fine with that ;-) )

I would strongly advise against giving rewards in terms of points, since whomever starts winning is then very likely to continue winning. Rather, think of things that allow you to grow an army past constraints. In most strategy games, you don't start your story missions with access to every unit. Instead, you start with access to just a few, and then gain access to more as you go on.

Perhaps at the start of the campaign, you only have access to basic troops with basic gear, and 250 points. Every battle, depending on the outcome, opens up a new unit, or new upgrade, or whatnot.

So Mission 1; Space Marines vs Chaos. Chaos only can start with Cultists, while Space Marines start with Scouts. Whomever wins gains access to their choice of two options (Tactical Marines or better Scout equipment for one side, Chaos Space Marines or Chaos Spawns for the other side), while the loser has the choice selected for them!

In this way, the missions define what happens next by shaping the armies, without actually giving one side or the other a better army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dark Angels vs Tyranids sounds great!

As for evolving and changing warlords, just keep rolling for additional Warlord Traits. However, keep in mind that the Tyranids have not just bad Warlord Traits, but also have one that has no current effect (Carnivorous Forests no longer exist, unless you come up with your own rules for them!).

There is an alternative trait table for Tyranids I think, so that shoudlnt be a problem:

Just adding more stuff after a match makes the outcome and the events of the previous match somewhat irrelevant, we want to incorporate the stuff that happens in the game. (but dont know how yet)

A way to link the upgrades or slots "unblocked" to the game could be to give unblock these for each Victory Point a unit gets you. For example, if Scout Squad n°1 captures objective X they get access to camo cloaks and sniper rifles. Or even better If Scout Squad n°2 kills an oponent at long range they get access to sniper rifles and missile launcher, if the Seargent wins a challenge he gets promoted to veteran sergeant ot gets a power weapon etc (always paing the points for the upgrades).

You could also do a game where if you capture objective 1 you get access to an Elite/HS unit, if you capture objective 2 you get access to a transport and so on.

Restricting units could work well too, specially at later stages of the campaign. For example if Terminator Squad 3 gets killed in a game then you cannot pick them for the next couple of games.

However to play this way either you leave a big gap between games to build & paint the necessary units or you will just need to give up playing WYSIWYG but it can also lenfd to building a fluffy army with a great backstory