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Alright so in my infinite wisdom I volunteered to run a Campaign at the FLGS. Then I remember the the amount of work that it takes to run something like this.... but I already committed so here are my products so far.

Reference Map:

I bought planetary empires and then 45 tiles from mighty empires. The board will be 94 total tiles in size. I thought I would cap it at 10 players for now to see how thing go. The above map is a reference map for bonuses for the tiles minues the generators, manufactorums, and power plants. Im already down $100 on this volunteer project.

Draft Flyer for Campaign:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FX98wiQXK46IqaWHtvllFh0e27sXi-XVRoC_vCM_6HM/pub

Draft Rules:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RPzX92BVAmryhdtkH11f9G1aoNi7RXIxtVlVaVUNm-Q/pub


What are your thoughts? Would you play in this campaign or am I out $100 bucks with no one interested in playing? I literally generated this all tonight after thinking about some cool ideas throughout the week. So if you see any major errors dont crucify me. Any advice from seasoned campaigners would be welcomed.

You didn't make the draft rule document open to the public...

MrRaioh wrote:
You didn't make the draft rule document open to the public...

Apologies it has been fixed.

I suggest offering some kind of small prize to the winner. Nothing too big (as it'll discourage sporting play and encourage min-maxing), but some kind of prize or trophy to justify the entry fee. Sure, you put a lot of work into it, but that wont justify the cost to your players.

Brother Michael wrote:
I suggest offering some kind of small prize to the winner. Nothing too big (as it'll discourage sporting play and encourage min-maxing), but some kind of prize or trophy to justify the entry fee. Sure, you put a lot of work into it, but that wont justify the cost to your players.

The winner does get a prize. There will also be prizes for the unluckiest player and other various awards. 100% of the entry fee is in store credit given back to the players for participating.

 Tomb King wrote:

Brother Michael wrote:
I suggest offering some kind of small prize to the winner. Nothing too big (as it'll discourage sporting play and encourage min-maxing), but some kind of prize or trophy to justify the entry fee. Sure, you put a lot of work into it, but that wont justify the cost to your players.

The winner does get a prize. There will also be prizes for the unluckiest player and other various awards. 100% of the entry fee is in store credit given back to the players for participating.

Yup, I can't read.

Sounds like a solid plan, have fun!

We did a multiple phase campaign last summer at our FLGS that spans an 8 page thread in the campaigns forum here
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/584361.page

I know you probably don't want to read through the whole thing but there are Various thoughts and rules things like that in there might be helpful for you. These are big time sinks but super fun. We went from averaging 8-10 people on 40k night to over 20 consistantly because of how enjoyable the campaign was.

Seems legit to me. Very Dawn Of War feel to it, but honestly, I think that's what will attract people the most aside from the fact that it Is a 40k campaign which I don't see very often (I can't speak for everyone though.)

Chancetragedy wrote:We did a multiple phase campaign last summer at our FLGS that spans an 8 page thread in the campaigns forum here
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/584361.page

I know you probably don't want to read through the whole thing but there are Various thoughts and rules things like that in there might be helpful for you. These are big time sinks but super fun. We went from averaging 8-10 people on 40k night to over 20 consistantly because of how enjoyable the campaign was.

That seems to be a very unique campaign which includes the use of space hulk. I appreciate the link and it is always added info and materials but we are keeping it relatively simple in this first campaign.

O'connell wrote:Seems legit to me. Very Dawn Of War feel to it, but honestly, I think that's what will attract people the most aside from the fact that it Is a 40k campaign which I don't see very often (I can't speak for everyone though.)

I will not lie the dawn of war games did influence the decision to give the tiles a force org bonus. I loved the dawn of war games and it actually fits into the format quite well. I am kind of anxious to start the event next Saturday. I am adding in a couple of rules that I made assumption on. I have yet to add the missions which will probably be maelstrom starting out. We will probably use the adepticon maelstrom chart instead of the basic rulebook chart.

I do have the battle missions book but I am not sure if they will be fair enough to run in a campaign.

Yah ours started off as just a city tile campaign then by phase 2 had morphed into a do what you want narrative thing. So we had people playing city fight, Various campaign books, zone mortalis, space hulk, and I even think there was a game or 2 of battlefleet gothic.

We were lucky in that inquisitormack on this site is an amazing painter and built the different worlds of tiles, and our final big board table and did a lot of the organizing, I helped a bit in game nights getting things organized but he really did all the heavy lifting.

Off the top of my head I think there's some very common but very limiting concerns with these rules that you (the OP) should consider. I could be misreading the rules and haven't processed them in full detail, but these are a couple points I see to think about, in increasing order of severity:

- Unless you're specifically going for very restricted 40k, or a slightly different skirmish ruleset, and i didn't notice, the starting points are extremely small and don't grow that quickly to standard-sized games.

- Over any reasonable length of time, most people will want to change up their core and not be beholden to the same initial army forever.

- With this kind of map and direct player-on-player attacks for territory, it's very awkward when players drop out or want to play more often than others.

- With a map setup like that and the direct attack rules, most players will really only ever interact with the other players immediately around them, and they'll play those same people again and again. That's a loss of opportunity to play among a larger group, as well as not fun if you just keep getting hammered by the same person.

- Most seriously, giving additional points and other major benefits for territories held creates a strong run-away leader effect, unless I'm missing how that's balanced out in the rules.

All of these will hopefully be taken as constructive criticisms and points to think about, to try and help make sure you get the most out of the effort you are and will be putting in. I certainly know what's involved.

For what it's worth, I've been running a number of 40k campaigns for a little while now. None super big (~20 players at most), but very successful according to the people participating. You can check out reports and rules for three of the most recent here, here, and here. They're a little different in that they're designed for quasi-tournament settings. Players aren't committing to be there all the time, and the time periods are shorter (a handful of monthly events, a weekend, or even just a day). So they're more abstract than most campaigns, but work well at mitigating some of the issues above by making a few tradeoffs of campaign detail for robustness and overall fun. E.g., holding specific sites of interest grants strategic benefits in the abstract campaign, not in-game effects.

 tjkopena wrote:
Off the top of my head I think there's some very common but very limiting concerns with these rules that you (the OP) should consider. I could be misreading the rules and haven't processed them in full detail, but these are a couple points I see to think about, in increasing order of severity:

1. Unless you're specifically going for very restricted 40k, or a slightly different skirmish ruleset, and i didn't notice, the starting points are extremely small and don't grow that quickly to standard-sized games.

2. Over any reasonable length of time, most people will want to change up their core and not be beholden to the same initial army forever.

3. With this kind of map and direct player-on-player attacks for territory, it's very awkward when players drop out or want to play more often than others.

4. With a map setup like that and the direct attack rules, most players will really only ever interact with the other players immediately around them, and they'll play those same people again and again. That's a loss of opportunity to play among a larger group, as well as not fun if you just keep getting hammered by the same person.

5. Most seriously, giving additional points and other major benefits for territories held creates a strong run-away leader effect, unless I'm missing how that's balanced out in the rules.

All of these will hopefully be taken as constructive criticisms and points to think about, to try and help make sure you get the most out of the effort you are and will be putting in. I certainly know what's involved.

For what it's worth, I've been running a number of 40k campaigns for a little while now. None super big (~20 players at most), but very successful according to the people participating. You can check out reports and rules for three of the most recent here, here, and here. They're a little different in that they're designed for quasi-tournament settings. Players aren't committing to be there all the time, and the time periods are shorter (a handful of monthly events, a weekend, or even just a day). So they're more abstract than most campaigns, but work well at mitigating some of the issues above by making a few tradeoffs of campaign detail for robustness and overall fun. E.g., holding specific sites of interest grants strategic benefits in the abstract campaign, not in-game effects.

I numbered your comments to make it easier to reply. I will answer them with what I currently have in place for each and then see if you still think it needs a little more work or if it could be better etc...

1. The starting points is 500. I kept that low because it will be a locked in force. Think of it as a vanguard force that established a beach head for a much larger force. Players should be able to score at least 3 tiles before they fight an opponent. In most cases players armies will be around 1000pts or even more before their first player on player engagement. I might increase the points per tile to 200 but then the game might grow too fast. 94/10 is an average of 9.4 tiles which jumps out to an army slightly smaller then 2k.... I will adjust the tiles to 200 a pop. This will make sure players get up to a decent size armies for those pvp games.

2. Read point one that the only locked in forces will be the initial 500pts.

3. Players dropping out will be difficult but its almost unavoidable and I will make a pitch up front that we hope to avoid that. I already have a lot of people on the fence that might replace a player who drops from the event. I would even allow an army to be switched up as the players force had to withdraw from the costly campaign.

4. That is a risk of running a turn based board game. I could plug in rules for people to attack anywhere along their front but might wait to see how the current format plays out. Variable mission sets should help diversify the field.

5. I actually have a couple of rules in place to keep the game on equal footing. Such as players only allowed to run the point level of the lowest player. So if someone with 10 territories attacks someone with 4 territories then they will run a pvp game at the 4 territory players max point level possible.

I will definitely check out the campaign and see if I like anything that I might be able to include. Thank you for the comments and the links. What are your thoughts on the above statements or suggested changes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chancetragedy wrote:
Yah ours started off as just a city tile campaign then by phase 2 had morphed into a do what you want narrative thing. So we had people playing city fight, Various campaign books, zone mortalis, space hulk, and I even think there was a game or 2 of battlefleet gothic.

We were lucky in that inquisitormack on this site is an amazing painter and built the different worlds of tiles, and our final big board table and did a lot of the organizing, I helped a bit in game nights getting things organized but he really did all the heavy lifting.

Yea I am hoping to find someone willing to paint up the tiles. Fingers crossed.

The one that still really sticks out is #4. The limited player interaction isn't a generic risk of any turn based boardgame, or even of map-based team campaigns. It's a risk of this kind of setup, where individual players are directly competing for control of specific map areas. Looking at the map, isn't it very plausible that the red player (#1) will essentially only ever play #2 and #10, or am I misunderstanding or missing some rules? Even if they manage to break out of that corner, it's going to take some doing and probably repeatedly fighting those two players, likely until one is eliminated or crippled. Diversified missions have nothing to do with this consideration. The concern is that, say, #1 will never fight #6, or at least not until the very end of the campaign, and similar for the bulk of the players as they'll struggle to meet up on the map. Is there a mechanism to help ensure players are fighting more than just the few people that happened to start immediately around them? It's of course possible your group winds up being totally down with that, but it increases the risk of people losing interest, getting knocked out early, gaining an unfair advantage being placed against a weaker player, etc..

Following that line of thought, the initial positions seem imbalanced. #1 and #6 are much more boxed in that any others, while #s 2, 3, 7, and 8 have more options and directions for expansion than the the others. The various positions also have really different opportunities for upgrades, e.g., #s 3, 4, 8, and 9 are very close to a formation while the others seem to have no chance at that upgrade; #s 2, 5, 7, and 10 have an "easy" shot at a LOW, etc..

We avoided that by having a round robin tile selection process. Where everyone put a token on a tile then next person went then the next and so on and so forth. So everyone was kind of everywhere and it seemed to allow way more interaction between multiple people. Giving people boxed in pre set areas is tough.

I think i found a quick fix to some of the issues. I have 8 spaceports that I am going to plug in with the ability to attack other occupied space ports. This would essentially let someone attack a player across the board and establish themselves there. I would have a stipulation that you can only seize unoccupied space ports by taking them from any of the adjacent territories. This would prevent someone from getting one and then trying to claim the rest before other players take them.

That's a pretty good idea. You could also let people use some of their action points to send an army back to orbit and make an attack anywhere across the board. It'd cost more than a usual attack, but could be worth it to them to hit particular objectives or something.

 tjkopena wrote:
That's a pretty good idea. You could also let people use some of their action points to send an army back to orbit and make an attack anywhere across the board. It'd cost more than a usual attack, but could be worth it to them to hit particular objectives or something.

This also would set up a planetfall scenerio nicely.

Spaceport and draw up a second map for planetary orbit whereby, any player that chooses to, can attack an opposing fleet and/or withdraw and/or redeploy those armies to different parts of the planet, enemy navy's permitting I suppose.

If a player was not present at the time of the turn then there was a dice off for their territory if attacked. This allowed one or two players who had something come up to continue to play in the campaign.
Turn 1: Expansion begins... one player shoots for another players CQ. I have the players plug in models to represent their models moving on the board.


Turn 2: The player on the right flank actually loses his CQ to the space wolves player but manages to regain his territory. Necrons(represented by the blood angels models) come in and take one of his territories for his troubles. His other territory is taken by me in the center as I move around the hive city. I was plugged in as the #10 Ringer player and chose space marines. Likely giving up my spot to someone else this weekend.


Turn 3: Beginning of turn 3 see's one player eliminated via the dice off rules implemented. The person came in later so the player that took his hq decided to give him a game for his final tile. The dark eldar player won so he will have one territory going in to turn 4.


Updated Reference Map:

Looks pretty cool! I'm definately keeping track of this thread.