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My gaming group wants to start a summer narrative/ escalation league. We are looking to motivate some of our slower members to actually get some stuff painted and others to start new armies we have been putting off. I've read tons of different PDFs and posts with different ideas but am looking to get some opinions based on real experience of what works/doesn't when doing this type of summer long project.
Some questions
1. How often have you found works for jumping points?
2. What do you use as a motivating factor for painting (we have been thinking about doing a possible percentage subtracted if your army is unpainted ex: you only get 450 pts instead of 500 for fielding unpainted miniatures)
3. Is a trophy or a small buy-in/cash prize a good motivator?
4. We have 1 player who always likes to take rock hard lists in very casual games. Any suggestions other than flat out sitting him down and spelling out that people don't enjoy it?
5. Any unique stuff you have run that worked really well or failed miserably?
6. Type of maps suggestions?
7. What works best for choosing matchups each week?

Essentially id like to discuss what you guys have found works and don't work for this type of league. Any suggestions or past experiences are welcome. Feel free to ask your own questions and debate the merits and downfalls of your own favorite systems.

1 no idea
2 shame and refusing to play if it gets to the third escalation and one squad is half painted and the rest is grey
3 maybe, certainly makes it less casual
4 be an adult, talk it out
5 no idea
6 get a planetary empires board or print one out
7 depends on how narrative you're going

Asmodios wrote:

Some questions
1. How often have you found works for jumping points?
2. What do you use as a motivating factor for painting (we have been thinking about doing a possible percentage subtracted if your army is unpainted ex: you only get 450 pts instead of 500 for fielding unpainted miniatures)
3. Is a trophy or a small buy-in/cash prize a good motivator?
4. We have 1 player who always likes to take rock hard lists in very casual games. Any suggestions other than flat out sitting him down and spelling out that people don't enjoy it?
5. Any unique stuff you have run that worked really well or failed miserably?
6. Type of maps suggestions?
7. What works best for choosing matchups each week?

Essentially id like to discuss what you guys have found works and don't work for this type of league. Any suggestions or past experiences are welcome. Feel free to ask your own questions and debate the merits and downfalls of your own favorite systems.

Generally assume that half of the players will stop playing halfway through the narrative. Don’t penalize for missing games or dropping out, 90% of the time people want to continue playing but life gets in the way. Have a definitive ending. If it drags on for too long people will stop playing.

1. Combat squad level 500pts, 1000pts, 1500pts, then 2000pts. But I never ran an escalation league.
2. Have a painting challenge raffle. Every X models/units fully painted you get a raffle ticket for a prize at the end of the month or so. Get store support if you can.
3. Any monetary or prize reward should be raffle based. This keeps people in the game. Trophy’s/certificates should be kept for best players and other “achievements”.
4. Let him take the hard lists. If people don’t like playing him they won’t play him. Raffle rewards means he won’t sweep prizes.
5. I made narrative stories at the end of each round, but I think it worked better if I did it just at the end.keeping the game to one sub-system allows for multiple planet types.
6. Avoid maps they middle the game a lot. Let people play who they want.
7. Let the players choose the match ups and just have fun.

Thanks for the suggestions anything helps as this is our groups first attempt. Anything out of the ordinary you guys tried that ended up working well? I was thinking of doing a large game of using the old fantasy triumph and treachery rules to determine order while picking map spots to start off

I'm not seeing any narrative here?

In my narrative campaign we have each choosen a leader character, who levels up as the campaign progress. They gain skillpoints from finnishing of units in melee, killing other characters, and surviving battles. They use them on skills inspired by special rules like -1 ap shooting, +2Movement, +1attack on charging. It's a chart where you roll randomly.

Also all psychic powers are rolled and permanent in the campaign.

One thing I loved is we removed all character reroll auras rule, to make it more incentive to use them to fight. This is my favorite part of the campaign rules as it changes the game completely


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also we use a "free for all" ruleset inspired by triumph and treachery, menaing all can attack all and you earn cards that lets you use certain bonuses. Examples would be, a vehicle can't shoot in a turn, easier perils etc, half a charge range etc.

You can only attack one other player per turn (except units already in melee) , making diplomacy a part of them game


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The victory points are kept in between missions, and can be used to hire mercenaries. I just keep mine because I plan to win the entire campaign! The planet is mine!

1) I've done 250pt per month and run it for 5 months, starting at 500pt. I usually recommend having about 500pt-1000pt painted before joining, depending on your army.
2) The Winter/Spring EL I ran had 3 points for a win per round and 3 points for a fully painted army per round. I'm going to change it to a more rugby-esque score, with 3 for a win, 2 for a draw, and 1 extra point if you win/lose by more/less than ten points, with a fully painted army worth 2 points and a solid effort worth 1. The goal isn't to have everyone play with fully painted armies, but to motivate people to paint.
3) I do both. Depending on the amount of players, I think painting should get at least 50% of the prize money. It's also worth keeping your prize structure flexible dependent on the amount of players. I had to restructure a bit due to almost 30 signups, as some people were gonna win a 120£ gift card. I would also strongly suggest gift cards as prizes for the LFGS and ask if they want to kick anything in, as they will directly benefit from this.
4) I wouldn't bother too much. One guy won't ruin anything. At most, one player gets a wash out a round.
5) I ban Special/Unique Characters. 40k, to me, is all about Your Dudes, not GW's Dudes.
6) Not run with maps yet.
7) Swiss seeding.

As a sidenote, I'd strongly suggest using the ITC Champions Missions and running it as an ITC Event.

PM me if you want any help!

Gitdakka wrote:
In my narrative campaign we have each choosen a leader character, who levels up as the campaign progress. They gain skillpoints from finnishing of units in melee, killing other characters, and surviving battles. They use them on skills inspired by special rules like -1 ap shooting, +2Movement, +1attack on charging. It's a chart where you roll randomly.

Also all psychic powers are rolled and permanent in the campaign.

One thing I loved is we removed all character reroll auras rule, to make it more incentive to use them to fight. This is my favorite part of the campaign rules as it changes the game completely


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also we use a "free for all" ruleset inspired by triumph and treachery, menaing all can attack all and you earn cards that lets you use certain bonuses. Examples would be, a vehicle can't shoot in a turn, easier perils etc, half a charge range etc.

You can only attack one other player per turn (except units already in melee) , making diplomacy a part of them game


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The victory points are kept in between missions, and can be used to hire mercenaries. I just keep mine because I plan to win the entire campaign! The planet is mine!

I think character creation is great and really helps people get into the narrative side. My only concern is that some armies will get almost no benifit while even small buffs to some armies characters would be huge. I’m thinking of going half in on this by providing buffs but making them very mild and taking a while to gain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ChazSexington wrote:
1) I've done 250pt per month and run it for 5 months, starting at 500pt. I usually recommend having about 500pt-1000pt painted before joining, depending on your army.
2) The Winter/Spring EL I ran had 3 points for a win per round and 3 points for a fully painted army per round. I'm going to change it to a more rugby-esque score, with 3 for a win, 2 for a draw, and 1 extra point if you win/lose by more/less than ten points, with a fully painted army worth 2 points and a solid effort worth 1. The goal isn't to have everyone play with fully painted armies, but to motivate people to paint.
3) I do both. Depending on the amount of players, I think painting should get at least 50% of the prize money. It's also worth keeping your prize structure flexible dependent on the amount of players. I had to restructure a bit due to almost 30 signups, as some people were gonna win a 120£ gift card. I would also strongly suggest gift cards as prizes for the LFGS and ask if they want to kick anything in, as they will directly benefit from this.
4) I wouldn't bother too much. One guy won't ruin anything. At most, one player gets a wash out a round.
5) I ban Special/Unique Characters. 40k, to me, is all about Your Dudes, not GW's Dudes.
6) Not run with maps yet.
7) Swiss seeding.

As a sidenote, I'd strongly suggest using the ITC Champions Missions and running it as an ITC Event.

PM me if you want any help!

Thank you those are some great suggestions. ITC missions would be easy as that’s what we usually play. I’ll defiantly send you a PM if I find myself struggling while pulling together the final rules packet

Asmodios wrote:
My gaming group wants to start a summer narrative/ escalation league. We are looking to motivate some of our slower members to actually get some stuff painted and others to start new armies we have been putting off. I've read tons of different PDFs and posts with different ideas but am looking to get some opinions based on real experience of what works/doesn't when doing this type of summer long project.
Some questions
1. How often have you found works for jumping points?
2. What do you use as a motivating factor for painting (we have been thinking about doing a possible percentage subtracted if your army is unpainted ex: you only get 450 pts instead of 500 for fielding unpainted miniatures)
3. Is a trophy or a small buy-in/cash prize a good motivator?
4. We have 1 player who always likes to take rock hard lists in very casual games. Any suggestions other than flat out sitting him down and spelling out that people don't enjoy it?
5. Any unique stuff you have run that worked really well or failed miserably?
6. Type of maps suggestions?
7. What works best for choosing matchups each week?

Essentially id like to discuss what you guys have found works and don't work for this type of league. Any suggestions or past experiences are welcome. Feel free to ask your own questions and debate the merits and downfalls of your own favorite systems.

#1 - Once every 2 weeks should be enough for everyone to get their appointed game in before scaling up, assuming almost everyone has everything they already need to play, and assuming you're okay going up against some unpainted stuff. Otherwise, you might want once every 3 or 4 weeks, but that feels like too long a wait between rounds.
#2 - The store that hosts our escalation league gives out a prize at the end by use of raffle (with wins and meeting challenges giving more raffle tickets), and every unit you buy from the store, and paint, giving you more raffle tickets.
#3 - Store Credit / Gift Card is a pretty good motivator for some, and the others will follow.
#4 - See point #2; we do challenges each round. If you attempt the challenge, you get an extra raffle ticket. The challenges are meant to de-power some lists, so if you play with a bad list, it's like you won already, but if you win with a bad list, then you do really well! Players that are used to playing with weaker lists often don't see any penalty in doing the challenge, and people with strong lists get a kick out of testing themselves. As with many things, if the stick isn't working, try to use a carrot instead.
#5 - Trying to force a narrative didn't work too well in our area. I think you'd need a group that are all really on board for that to work.
#6 - https://spikeybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/vogenmap.jpg from here; https://spikeybits.com/2010/08/vogen-campaign-system-updated-for-5th-edition-pdf.html ; never used it, but I've seen it on social media being used and people enjoyed it.
#7 - Random pull, making sure no one plays the same opponent twice if possible, and trying to make sure winners fight winners so that difficulty goes up over the course of the league.

 Yarium wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
My gaming group wants to start a summer narrative/ escalation league. We are looking to motivate some of our slower members to actually get some stuff painted and others to start new armies we have been putting off. I've read tons of different PDFs and posts with different ideas but am looking to get some opinions based on real experience of what works/doesn't when doing this type of summer long project.
Some questions
1. How often have you found works for jumping points?
2. What do you use as a motivating factor for painting (we have been thinking about doing a possible percentage subtracted if your army is unpainted ex: you only get 450 pts instead of 500 for fielding unpainted miniatures)
3. Is a trophy or a small buy-in/cash prize a good motivator?
4. We have 1 player who always likes to take rock hard lists in very casual games. Any suggestions other than flat out sitting him down and spelling out that people don't enjoy it?
5. Any unique stuff you have run that worked really well or failed miserably?
6. Type of maps suggestions?
7. What works best for choosing matchups each week?

Essentially id like to discuss what you guys have found works and don't work for this type of league. Any suggestions or past experiences are welcome. Feel free to ask your own questions and debate the merits and downfalls of your own favorite systems.

#1 - Once every 2 weeks should be enough for everyone to get their appointed game in before scaling up, assuming almost everyone has everything they already need to play, and assuming you're okay going up against some unpainted stuff. Otherwise, you might want once every 3 or 4 weeks, but that feels like too long a wait between rounds.
#2 - The store that hosts our escalation league gives out a prize at the end by use of raffle (with wins and meeting challenges giving more raffle tickets), and every unit you buy from the store, and paint, giving you more raffle tickets.
#3 - Store Credit / Gift Card is a pretty good motivator for some, and the others will follow.
#4 - See point #2; we do challenges each round. If you attempt the challenge, you get an extra raffle ticket. The challenges are meant to de-power some lists, so if you play with a bad list, it's like you won already, but if you win with a bad list, then you do really well! Players that are used to playing with weaker lists often don't see any penalty in doing the challenge, and people with strong lists get a kick out of testing themselves. As with many things, if the stick isn't working, try to use a carrot instead.
#5 - Trying to force a narrative didn't work too well in our area. I think you'd need a group that are all really on board for that to work.
#6 - https://spikeybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/vogenmap.jpg from here; https://spikeybits.com/2010/08/vogen-campaign-system-updated-for-5th-edition-pdf.html ; never used it, but I've seen it on social media being used and people enjoyed it.
#7 - Random pull, making sure no one plays the same opponent twice if possible, and trying to make sure winners fight winners so that difficulty goes up over the course of the league.

Thank you for the suggestions. What we did in the past for narratives was basically just the overall setting its taken place in (we are thinking other side of the huge warp rift splitting the Imperium that way its kind of anarchy free for all so its easy to explain why certain imperium forces are fighting) and then someone rights up a battle report for each game with their armies lore so everyone gets something to read.