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I've been brainstorming ideas for possible 40k narrative events but not using Crusade. I want to avoid going the custom mission route since I've never found anyone able to really balance those, and despite being narrative speaking from experience it's not fun to, for example, play a mission where your goal is to kill the enemy warlord and your opponent just castles the entire game.

I have two thoughts on it, but I'm not sure which one would work better. The first is to just ignore secondary objectives entirely, whether this is by using missions that don't have them (such as adapting Crusade missions or the ones being put in White Dwarf recently), or using the Leviathan deck and simply skipping the secondary objectives. However, I keep hearing how important secondary objectives are to balance the game, and while narrative games have some more leeway than a standard Matched Play game, you still want an enjoyable game for both parties.

The second is to make use of the Leviathan mission deck but either the narrative GM predetermines the mission, including Fixed Objectives for both attacker and defender, or the players use the deck as normal but the GM provides guidance for how the terrain should be laid out and includes a bonus objective based on the narrative. If either player uses a Gambit they should note what was used and if it was successful for the GM's notes.

I'm leaning towards the second approach (maybe keeping some no-secondary missions for special uses) just because it seems like it's deviating the least from "normal" 40k. Here's an example of how that might work:

Bob and Jim are playing in a narrative campaign. Steve is the GM for the campaign. Bob plays Aeldari, while Jim plays Blood Angels. Bob’s Aeldari currently controls a communications outpost that is jamming the Imperial fleet around the world. Jim’s Blood Angels are looking to seize control of the outpost. They set up a 2,000-point game for that weekend. Steve lets them know the general terrain layout (the outskirts of an imperial city in this case) to provide a guideline for how the battlefield should be set up that fits the current narrative situation. It's determined based on the narrative that Jim will be the Attacker, while Bob will be the Defender.

Using the approach where the GM determines everything, we might have (note I kind of picked things at random so don't read too much into the specific choices):


Now here's the same idea but with a "tertiary" objective decided by the GM, otherwise it's a normal Leviathan game:



Thoughts? I'm trying to strike a balance between a common approach, so you aren't deviating too much with custom missions, but one that still adheres to a narrative rather than just playing random Matched Play games under the veneer of being narrative.

Your question is fairly specific to "missions."

In my campaigns, missions are often determined by the narrative elements of the campaign. You've said you don't want to use Crusade- that takes A LOT of tools out of your tool box, but those are the parameters you selected, so that's what we'll work with.

A few questions:

Will your campaign have a winner- and if so, is that related a particular in-universe outcome?

How long (in both time and expected games) are you aiming for?

Do you have a campaign structure (map-based, tree, attrition, game-count, phase based or some combination)?

Will it be an escalation game?

Will it incorporate other GW games? Like Kill Team side missions to affect the objective state of larger 40k battles?

Okay... Enough questions.

For me, you've already hit on the most important factor in Narrative Campaigning: linking your objectives to campaign conditions. It feels like you're trying to keep it kinda loose- if the Marines take the comm centre objective, they get to effectively direct their fleet.

That feels to me like something that might have a consequence- like maybe in the next game the marines can get an orbital bombardment to represent their improved comms situation.

But then, your reluctance to go Crusade might imply a desire to keep campaign action from affecting the game rules/ conditions because they have the capacity to upset game balance.

This is why I asked about Escalation or map based, or phase based. Control of the comms facility is easy to represent in a map-based campaign. It may be one of a set of critical objectives that must be controlled to advance the campaign to the next phase. Or control of the comms facility could affect the escalation- either by allowing the controller's roster to grow, or unlocking previous unit types or detachments.

One thing I'd strongly encourage is to avoid the single-winner campaign phenomenon. The Ashes of Faith campaign allows for a territorial victory as well as a campaign event victory- either the cultists complete a ritual or they don't. This allows for multiple end-games: the Inquisition can control the territory and prevent the ritual (Major Inquisition victory); Cultists could control the territory and perform the ritual (Major Chaos victory); or you have two flavours of draw- Inquisition stops the ritual, but chaos controls territory or Chaos performs the ritual, but Inquisition controls territory.

In a map-based campaign, you can have continental control, and provide multiple continents to allow multiple outcomes- so maybe one faction controls all six continents... but then maybe not- maybe you've got two players who each control three; you could even end up with six players each controlling one. You can do that on a larger scale- design a system with multiple planets, or a subsector with multiple systems... And then you can combine scales.

It's interesting: if you play at continental and planetary scale simultaneously, you get hidden resistance- so the the six continent planet becomes controlled when a single faction controls the majority of continents. They don't really control that planet, but the control enough of it that it counts as controlled on the planetary scale.

All of these factors affect missions and are affected by them.

Objectives can represent equipment, territory, Kill Team Spec Op assets, terrain pieces, single use strats, STC's...

Anyway, sorry for the long rambling post, but hopefully there's at least one thing in this rant that helps you find the kind of game you're looking for.

I personally like crusade but it's been my experience people dislike the bookkeeping aspect of it and would prefer to focus on gaming. Similarly I wouldn't touch a map campaign for the same reason. I've seen it get bogged down and people quickly lose interest because they want to play 40k, not move pins on a map.

So the idea was more "league with a story" but then I'd have to figure out a way for the story to matter at least a little bit, otherwise you're just playing matched play. I'm not sure I'd add bonuses for winning or losing, that might just remain backstory for the next game, but that's where the idea of Leviathan+bonus objectives came from. You're still playing "real" 40k but it's more than just your random matched play game.

I'm playing in a narrative campaign currently where the GM is doing completely custom missions for every game, which I also want to avoid as it's very hard to actually balance those and I've been on the receiving end of custom missions a few times in the past that were very easy to game by one player to either instantly win or just prevent your opponent from having any chance at victory. Neither situation was fun and interest plummeted after that was noticed..

I'd suggest to look for some of the 8th edition Chapter approved books on eBay. If you can get them for cheap they have some nice missions in them with a more narrative approach. 10th is also pretty close to 8th concerning its rules framework so the missions should be more compatible than, say, White dwarf missions from 5th Edition or so.

I'm currently running a narrative campaign, and I basically treat it as a D&D campaign with a bit of Dawn of War Dark Crusade/Soulstorm thrown in.

Basically, instead of creating 'just another match' sets up missions, I custom tailor the missions and sometimes change things up.

For example, the player in my custom campaign plays Sisters of Battle. The setting is that the Ecclesiarchy has become aware that one section of a pilgrimage road has stopped receiving pilgrims--not suddenly, as this is the Imperium. It's been decades since anyone on that path has gone through.

So, of course, my player arrives in the system with a small Sororitas detachment and becomes aware of the shoddy state of Imperial infrastructure in the system--downed main and secondary nav arrays, abandoned complexes, and so on...right around the time her ships were set upon by drukhari raiders and sent her forces crashing to the planet.

The first mission had her defending her main crashed dropship while she flew around with a squad of Seraphim collecting her forces or ambushing the enemy.

Since then, I've introduced some low level chaos mutants, Tau, and Genestealer cults. I have a flow chart of their goals and what moves they'll make based off her actions, etc.

Which leads to things like her leading a promethium tank caravan through the wastelands while fending off a mad max style raid of genestealer cultists with the ridgeriders, bikes, and goliaths.

This format also allows me to do things like provide her with auxilla in the form of Guard or just some statted Necromunda models that she can use in interesting ways.