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Anyone tried the Path to Glory warband rules from General's Handbook? They seem pretty cool, but I have some reservations about the overall balance of it with being able to take like heroes on big monsters and then being able to just pick (since rolling is optional) a group of the most powerful units available. I get the intent is to mimic the old Chaos Warband stuff from Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned, but how does it hold up in the day and age of "everything must be balanced"?

Seems like a fun little way to play the game, although I can already hear the cries of "but there's no points!" from my local crowd.

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

There are no points so no one here takes it seriously.

 auticus wrote:
There are no points so no one here takes it seriously.

Yeah I get the idea my local group would be the same way.

Me: It's a fun little narrative thing, just have fun with it.

Them: B-but.. MUH BALANCE! MUH POINTS! Someone can take more powerful stuff!

Me: *facepalms and goes off to read Featherstone's Wargaming Campaigns and pretend I lived in a different time*

WayneTheGame wrote:
Anyone tried the Path to Glory warband rules from General's Handbook? They seem pretty cool, but I have some reservations about the overall balance of it with being able to take like heroes on big monsters and then being able to just pick (since rolling is optional) a group of the most powerful units available. I get the intent is to mimic the old Chaos Warband stuff from Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned, but how does it hold up in the day and age of "everything must be balanced"?

Seems like a fun little way to play the game, although I can already hear the cries of "but there's no points!" from my local crowd.

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

We tried it, rolling randomly for the units we got. It was so ridiculously unbalanced that we gave up after one round of games. I was playing Skaven. I got things like a Plague Priest and 5 Plague Monks. My opponent had an Abhorrent Ghoul King on Terrorgeist as his General and things like Crypt Flayers. It just wasn't fun when the games are so lopsided. Even trying to play the mission, I was tabled almost immediately. We added up the points and it ended up being 515 points versus 1680 points if using the GHB points. It was crazy. 5 Plague Monks? Seriously? I don't think I would ever have won a game.

Having said that, the principal is sound. The tables are just completely worthless. Make your own tables and you could probably use the rest of the rules.

Our gaming group starts this next week. Not sure who is bringing what, but I'm playing khorne bloodbound. We aren't rolling but I plan on sticking to just the basic stuff with a unit of knights and a gore beast chariot, nothing real crazy. Some of the monsters look cool but don't really synergies with the rest of the list.

It seems like a good approach would be do not allow Heroes on monsters and maybe instead of randomly country in the world and give a certain amount of points to build it I don't know what the specific points are for everything but maybe like around 300 points to spend on the warband using the points in the matched play section (this would obviously require more thought) I don't know I have not given it much thought because I am certain that my group would be like Auticus' and refuse to touch it because there's no points.

When I do find a little amusing is the original chaos warband rules from slave to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned specifically say that because it's random it can be unbalanced but again I guess that's another time when people were not so caught up on balance

 Kriswall wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Anyone tried the Path to Glory warband rules from General's Handbook? They seem pretty cool, but I have some reservations about the overall balance of it with being able to take like heroes on big monsters and then being able to just pick (since rolling is optional) a group of the most powerful units available. I get the intent is to mimic the old Chaos Warband stuff from Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned, but how does it hold up in the day and age of "everything must be balanced"?

Seems like a fun little way to play the game, although I can already hear the cries of "but there's no points!" from my local crowd.

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

We tried it, rolling randomly for the units we got. It was so ridiculously unbalanced that we gave up after one round of games. I was playing Skaven. I got things like a Plague Priest and 5 Plague Monks. My opponent had an Abhorrent Ghoul King on Terrorgeist as his General and things like Crypt Flayers. It just wasn't fun when the games are so lopsided. Even trying to play the mission, I was tabled almost immediately. We added up the points and it ended up being 515 points versus 1680 points if using the GHB points. It was crazy. 5 Plague Monks? Seriously? I don't think I would ever have won a game.

Having said that, the principal is sound. The tables are just completely worthless. Make your own tables and you could probably use the rest of the rules.

How path to glory only involves chaos guys how were you playing shaven and flesh eater courts

GHB's path to glory let's you play as Death, Skaven, Chaos, Stormcast Stormstormals, Fyreslayers and a couple more armies.

I always thought it was meant that you were playing one 'Allegiance' as it seems like they were meant to be balanced with themselves rather then each other allegiance.

I think the path to glory system would work much better if, instead of the 1v1 scenarios designed for it, players used the free for all scenarios from earlier in the GHB. Combined with a bit of reasonable changes (10 plague monks instead of 5, one less unit for the stardrake leader, etc.) it could work just fine, because free for all has this funny way of being a great equalizer since the stronger players get ganged up on. Not perfect but worth a shot imo.

Actually, Kriswall came up with a pretty cool system to use with the path to glory rules, worth checking out.

It's a work in progress. If you have feedback, let me know!

Path to Glory is an absolute mess in my opinion. Easily the worst thing in the GHB because it is 0% playable. The armies are wayyyyyy too big, wayyyy too many points or wayyyy too many models. I think any player could write a better example in 5 or so mins. Kriswall's example looks great when I skimmed over it. Tbh setting a low points limit like 500 points to begin +250 points after each month with a simple levelling system granting the general artefacts and battle traits after a certain amount of victories would be a pretty good system to roll with.

Yeah, I am not a fan of Path to Glory at all. He's some ridiculous examples of starting warbands:

Stormcast Warband:

Champion: Lord Celestant on Stardrake

Followers: Drakesworn Templar (who also rides a Stardrake), 5x Retributors, 1x Knight Vexillor, 10 x Judicators

That would be like 1840 matched play points...

Deathrattle Warband:

Champion - Wightking

Followers - 60 x Skeleton warriors

61 models!



It's a mess.

The chaos version of war bands fighting each other works pretty well

Yeah, it seems like a nice idea totally shot to gak by the crazy tables that don't restrict anything.

I get the intent; like I said I have read the original Chaos Warband rules in Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned, and that too could be unbalanced, but I think it's too much nowadays; maybe back in the late 80s/early 90s people were less focused on balance or something.

I think a good way to handle it, very rough idea anyways, is immediately to make it so you cannot have any models with the MONSTER keyword; that should eliminate nonsense like that Stormcast "warband" that's like a full army. Second, I think that there should be a hard limit on the number of units you can take, like say just 3 to start. I almost like the idea of going nearly Heralds of Ruin for 40k style, where ilke certain units are actually units (e.g. a unit of 10) and some bigger things are just a single thing. An example for my own Flesh-Eater Courts might be a unit of 10 ghouls, but 1 Crypt Flayer and 2 Crypt Horrors instead of units for things other than your "rank and file" troops.

I think part of the issue is the original rules was very small, like a handful of models; in Lost and the Damned 1st edition, the Nurgle sample warband starts off with 6 Beastmen and the Champion himself; during the course of his "saga" he acquires 5 dwarfs, 1 Chaos Warrior (lieutenant), 5 humans, 1 human wizard, 4 Skaven, 10 more Beastmen and 1 ogre, and loses a handful of followers during the campaign. Obviously that level of variety wouldn't quite work in the current day with more established factions but I think it would be more true to the original if you didn't necessarily need to acquire things as entire units.

It's liks the codex astartes: it is fine IF you use it as a guideline. As a rule of thumb we in my LGS do this: you can have 1 behemoth (starting) be it your bossman or another fella. No more. You can roll 3-5 times and if the results are too disparaging we either re-roll or allow the weakest armies to either select another thing or do a few additional rolls. It works fine if you allow people to have different unit counts.
For every phase (which is usually 3 battles) you get one additional roll (but you can only roll for behemoths once every two phases)

Path to Glory looks like a very interesting campaign with a lot of potential which suffers from an implementation that falls short imho due to the large number of models needed. I hope it gets an update to be more practical and flexible.

It's a lot of fun but you have to do some tweaking to make it fair. In the followers option one choice of Clanrats is 10 rats strong, 10 wounds while Stormcast can choose 10 Liberators for 20 wounds. I would say just let the Skaven player take 20 clanrats and call it a day.

Something I am considering doing is to break things down into individual models (1 unit = 1 model basically) and redoing the charts, to get that real old "warband" feel where you might have several different guys, almost like Heralds of Ruin.

I played a "kill team" AOS game today at my GW for the store's 1 year anniversary and it was really loads of fun having like a unit, but each model activates and acts independently. I think something like that can work. Points may be a problem though I am going to check and cross-reference things.

I was just going over the Path to Glory rules this evening, and was thinking about how unbalanced it could be. Balancing something like Skaven vs Storm casts seems like a major hurdle. Even the rewards tables have disparity, as some have negative results, while others are all positive, and death only has 6 options instead of 12. Plus, not every army is represented.

I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick. Even if it's random rolls for units, it creates problems as you are going to need massive collections be able to field everything you roll.

I was hoping some one hear had a good work around.

Bonzai wrote:
I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick.

I think my group has solved the problem by both rewarding victory AND loss.

Here's how we're doing it.
1. Start with 300 points. No minimum sized units... pay per model. Clanrats are 60 points for 10, so they "cost" 6 points each. You can purchase undersized units, you just can't have two of the same undersized unit. Having 2x 5-man Clanrats units is a no-no, but having a 10-man and a 5-man is fine.
2. Play for a preset amount of time. We're doing two weeks. Track your victories.
3. At the end of a "campaign round", i.e. every two weeks, roll on the below chart. If you have more victories than losses, add +1 to your result.
* 1 = add 50 points to your list.
* 2-5 = add 75 points to your list.
* 6 = add 100 points to your list.
If you have more losses than victories, roll on the table above AND get a free D3*10 points.

Victors effectively can't roll a 1 on the above chart. By giving the losers of each round a free 10-30 points, the lists should auto-balance over time, even with variable player skill. Terrible players will have bigger and bigger lists and will eventually present an even challenge to the best players who will have smaller armies.

It's working pretty well so far. Assuming a two week cycle and that winners always roll 2-5 on the chart, it will take about 6 months to get to ~1000 points. Consistent losers would of course have more points. The theory is that over time, rewarding the losers more than the winners will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone. Consistent winners are effectively being handicapped systemically to provide more balanced matches. Points don't even really matter that much in the long run, because you're really balancing a player's ability to play X points of Army A against another player's ability to play X points of Army B. You're not really balancing X points of Army A against X points of Army B.

It's also allowing us to try out units we never would have before. I added 2x Rat Ogors to my list and they were amazing. I'm now considering adding a unit to my non-campaign games.

 Kriswall wrote:

Bonzai wrote:
I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick.

I think my group has solved the problem by both rewarding victory AND loss.

Here's how we're doing it.
1. Start with 300 points. No minimum sized units... pay per model. Clanrats are 60 points for 10, so they "cost" 6 points each. You can purchase undersized units, you just can't have two of the same undersized unit. Having 2x 5-man Clanrats units is a no-no, but having a 10-man and a 5-man is fine.
2. Play for a preset amount of time. We're doing two weeks. Track your victories.
3. At the end of a "campaign round", i.e. every two weeks, roll on the below chart. If you have more victories than losses, add +1 to your result.
* 1 = add 50 points to your list.
* 2-5 = add 75 points to your list.
* 6 = add 100 points to your list.
If you have more losses than victories, roll on the table above AND get a free D3*10 points.

Victors effectively can't roll a 1 on the above chart. By giving the losers of each round a free 10-30 points, the lists should auto-balance over time, even with variable player skill. Terrible players will have bigger and bigger lists and will eventually present an even challenge to the best players who will have smaller armies.

It's working pretty well so far. Assuming a two week cycle and that winners always roll 2-5 on the chart, it will take about 6 months to get to ~1000 points. Consistent losers would of course have more points. The theory is that over time, rewarding the losers more than the winners will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone. Consistent winners are effectively being handicapped systemically to provide more balanced matches. Points don't even really matter that much in the long run, because you're really balancing a player's ability to play X points of Army A against another player's ability to play X points of Army B. You're not really balancing X points of Army A against X points of Army B.

It's also allowing us to try out units we never would have before. I added 2x Rat Ogors to my list and they were amazing. I'm now considering adding a unit to my non-campaign games.

I LOVE this idea. Consider it stolen

Wayniac wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

Bonzai wrote:
I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick.

I think my group has solved the problem by both rewarding victory AND loss.

Here's how we're doing it.
1. Start with 300 points. No minimum sized units... pay per model. Clanrats are 60 points for 10, so they "cost" 6 points each. You can purchase undersized units, you just can't have two of the same undersized unit. Having 2x 5-man Clanrats units is a no-no, but having a 10-man and a 5-man is fine.
2. Play for a preset amount of time. We're doing two weeks. Track your victories.
3. At the end of a "campaign round", i.e. every two weeks, roll on the below chart. If you have more victories than losses, add +1 to your result.
* 1 = add 50 points to your list.
* 2-5 = add 75 points to your list.
* 6 = add 100 points to your list.
If you have more losses than victories, roll on the table above AND get a free D3*10 points.

Victors effectively can't roll a 1 on the above chart. By giving the losers of each round a free 10-30 points, the lists should auto-balance over time, even with variable player skill. Terrible players will have bigger and bigger lists and will eventually present an even challenge to the best players who will have smaller armies.

It's working pretty well so far. Assuming a two week cycle and that winners always roll 2-5 on the chart, it will take about 6 months to get to ~1000 points. Consistent losers would of course have more points. The theory is that over time, rewarding the losers more than the winners will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone. Consistent winners are effectively being handicapped systemically to provide more balanced matches. Points don't even really matter that much in the long run, because you're really balancing a player's ability to play X points of Army A against another player's ability to play X points of Army B. You're not really balancing X points of Army A against X points of Army B.

It's also allowing us to try out units we never would have before. I added 2x Rat Ogors to my list and they were amazing. I'm now considering adding a unit to my non-campaign games.

I LOVE this idea. Consider it stolen

I decided to go with Skaven and my initial list was a Warlock Engineer, 2x Rat Ogors and a Warpfire Thrower Weapons Team. Worked out to 280 points, leaving me with 20 points "in the bank" for the next campaign cycle. I lost more than I won, so when it came time to roll on the table, I didn't get the +1 modifier. I did roll a 6, though, giving me 100 points. I also rolled a "2" on my D3 roll, giving me 20 bonus points for being a dirty Skaven loser. 20 points in the bank plus my newly acquired 120 points gave me 140 to work with. I spend 100 on a Single Stormfiend to continue the theme of big bulky rats with fancy guns. That leaves me with 40 points in the bank. My newly upgraded 380 point Skaven War Band is only 5 models, but they're all pretty good models.

I also wanted to note that you're normally stuck with what you bought, but can "trade" in models between campaign steps for half cost. I bought the Rat Ogors for 60 points each. I can trade them back in for 30 points "credit". This adds a strategic choice. Do I use my spare 40 points to buy something like 6x Clanrats now or do I save them for something bigger later? It's a surprisingly difficult choice. I'm erring on the side of saving points so that I can play some games and see what gaps my war band has. Maybe I need to add more blocking bodies, in which case I might add some Clanrats. Maybe I'm going to need another Wizard to counteract spells, in which case I might spend 100 points on a 2nd Warlock Engineer next round. One of my opponents is a Tzeentch player, so I'm anticipating spells. Throwing a shield on my Rat Ogors and being able to try to unbind a 2nd spell per turn would be nice. Decisions, decisions.

 Kriswall wrote:

Bonzai wrote:
I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick.

I think my group has solved the problem by both rewarding victory AND loss.

Here's how we're doing it.
1. Start with 300 points. No minimum sized units... pay per model. Clanrats are 60 points for 10, so they "cost" 6 points each. You can purchase undersized units, you just can't have two of the same undersized unit. Having 2x 5-man Clanrats units is a no-no, but having a 10-man and a 5-man is fine.
2. Play for a preset amount of time. We're doing two weeks. Track your victories.
3. At the end of a "campaign round", i.e. every two weeks, roll on the below chart. If you have more victories than losses, add +1 to your result.
* 1 = add 50 points to your list.
* 2-5 = add 75 points to your list.
* 6 = add 100 points to your list.
If you have more losses than victories, roll on the table above AND get a free D3*10 points.

Victors effectively can't roll a 1 on the above chart. By giving the losers of each round a free 10-30 points, the lists should auto-balance over time, even with variable player skill. Terrible players will have bigger and bigger lists and will eventually present an even challenge to the best players who will have smaller armies.

It's working pretty well so far. Assuming a two week cycle and that winners always roll 2-5 on the chart, it will take about 6 months to get to ~1000 points. Consistent losers would of course have more points. The theory is that over time, rewarding the losers more than the winners will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone. Consistent winners are effectively being handicapped systemically to provide more balanced matches. Points don't even really matter that much in the long run, because you're really balancing a player's ability to play X points of Army A against another player's ability to play X points of Army B. You're not really balancing X points of Army A against X points of Army B.

It's also allowing us to try out units we never would have before. I added 2x Rat Ogors to my list and they were amazing. I'm now considering adding a unit to my non-campaign games.

I appreciate your example. I think I am going to take it and stream line it a bit further. 1 point for a loss or draw, 2 points for a win, 3 points for a major victory. Points can be used for rolls on the charts, or used to purchase 50 points worth of units (stealing your per model cost solution). First one to 50+1 more victory wins. I think that may work out ok.

Bonzai wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

Bonzai wrote:
I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick.

I think my group has solved the problem by both rewarding victory AND loss.

Here's how we're doing it.
1. Start with 300 points. No minimum sized units... pay per model. Clanrats are 60 points for 10, so they "cost" 6 points each. You can purchase undersized units, you just can't have two of the same undersized unit. Having 2x 5-man Clanrats units is a no-no, but having a 10-man and a 5-man is fine.
2. Play for a preset amount of time. We're doing two weeks. Track your victories.
3. At the end of a "campaign round", i.e. every two weeks, roll on the below chart. If you have more victories than losses, add +1 to your result.
* 1 = add 50 points to your list.
* 2-5 = add 75 points to your list.
* 6 = add 100 points to your list.
If you have more losses than victories, roll on the table above AND get a free D3*10 points.

Victors effectively can't roll a 1 on the above chart. By giving the losers of each round a free 10-30 points, the lists should auto-balance over time, even with variable player skill. Terrible players will have bigger and bigger lists and will eventually present an even challenge to the best players who will have smaller armies.

It's working pretty well so far. Assuming a two week cycle and that winners always roll 2-5 on the chart, it will take about 6 months to get to ~1000 points. Consistent losers would of course have more points. The theory is that over time, rewarding the losers more than the winners will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone. Consistent winners are effectively being handicapped systemically to provide more balanced matches. Points don't even really matter that much in the long run, because you're really balancing a player's ability to play X points of Army A against another player's ability to play X points of Army B. You're not really balancing X points of Army A against X points of Army B.

It's also allowing us to try out units we never would have before. I added 2x Rat Ogors to my list and they were amazing. I'm now considering adding a unit to my non-campaign games.

I appreciate your example. I think I am going to take it and stream line it a bit further. 1 point for a loss or draw, 2 points for a win, 3 points for a major victory. Points can be used for rolls on the charts, or used to purchase 50 points worth of units (stealing your per model cost solution). First one to 50+1 more victory wins. I think that may work out ok.

That assumes that everyone plays the same number of games (rarely true) AND gives winning players an ongoing advantage, making it more and more likely that they'll win each subsequent round. One player who has a strong start AND plays a lot of games is probably going to win. Players who play fewer games or suffer a short losing streak will fall behind quickly and have less chance of winning games as time goes on. From a community standpoint, a campaign like that is no fun for most players. You need balance and the players "win" by having something ongoing to do with each other.

If you need a winner, it's the player with the best win/loss ratio the very end.

 Kriswall wrote:

Bonzai wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

Bonzai wrote:
I love the concept of an escalating campaign that rewards victory, but this just seems like it could get out of hand quick.

I think my group has solved the problem by both rewarding victory AND loss.

Here's how we're doing it.
1. Start with 300 points. No minimum sized units... pay per model. Clanrats are 60 points for 10, so they "cost" 6 points each. You can purchase undersized units, you just can't have two of the same undersized unit. Having 2x 5-man Clanrats units is a no-no, but having a 10-man and a 5-man is fine.
2. Play for a preset amount of time. We're doing two weeks. Track your victories.
3. At the end of a "campaign round", i.e. every two weeks, roll on the below chart. If you have more victories than losses, add +1 to your result.
* 1 = add 50 points to your list.
* 2-5 = add 75 points to your list.
* 6 = add 100 points to your list.
If you have more losses than victories, roll on the table above AND get a free D3*10 points.

Victors effectively can't roll a 1 on the above chart. By giving the losers of each round a free 10-30 points, the lists should auto-balance over time, even with variable player skill. Terrible players will have bigger and bigger lists and will eventually present an even challenge to the best players who will have smaller armies.

It's working pretty well so far. Assuming a two week cycle and that winners always roll 2-5 on the chart, it will take about 6 months to get to ~1000 points. Consistent losers would of course have more points. The theory is that over time, rewarding the losers more than the winners will make the game more balanced and fun for everyone. Consistent winners are effectively being handicapped systemically to provide more balanced matches. Points don't even really matter that much in the long run, because you're really balancing a player's ability to play X points of Army A against another player's ability to play X points of Army B. You're not really balancing X points of Army A against X points of Army B.

It's also allowing us to try out units we never would have before. I added 2x Rat Ogors to my list and they were amazing. I'm now considering adding a unit to my non-campaign games.

I appreciate your example. I think I am going to take it and stream line it a bit further. 1 point for a loss or draw, 2 points for a win, 3 points for a major victory. Points can be used for rolls on the charts, or used to purchase 50 points worth of units (stealing your per model cost solution). First one to 50+1 more victory wins. I think that may work out ok.

That assumes that everyone plays the same number of games (rarely true) AND gives winning players an ongoing advantage, making it more and more likely that they'll win each subsequent round. One player who has a strong start AND plays a lot of games is probably going to win. Players who play fewer games or suffer a short losing streak will fall behind quickly and have less chance of winning games as time goes on. From a community standpoint, a campaign like that is no fun for most players. You need balance and the players "win" by having something ongoing to do with each other.

If you need a winner, it's the player with the best win/loss ratio the very end.

I guess it depends what you are after. In my experience it's easier to herd cats than to keep gamers interested and focused on anything for more than 2 months. So having an end in sight is a good thing. I also think it's important to reward success. It's true that a few players could run away with it. On the other hand, a dedicated player could lose 50 times and then win the last game and still pull it off. I do think that the biggest hurdle was balancing the diseperate units among the different armies, and coming to some sort of balance. The point system is a big step in the right direction.

From my experience (with Warmachine's leagues) a good way to avoid burnout is to also limit games per month (or whatever your "section" of the league is). Otherwise, people who can play every day or multiple times per day can quickly get so far ahead that people don't want to participate because there's no way to catch up.

Not AOS related but I saw this happen in like three Warmachine leagues, along with getting bonus points for painting; some people painted a ton of figures or worked odd job schedules and played like 4-5 games a day because they didn't have to work and/or lived close enough to just hang out at the game shop all day long and got like 10 points to catapult into first where people who could only play once a week or once every other week had no chance to even get close to them, so they just dropped out and stopped playing.

Wayniac wrote:
From my experience (with Warmachine's leagues) a good way to avoid burnout is to also limit games per month (or whatever your "section" of the league is). Otherwise, people who can play every day or multiple times per day can quickly get so far ahead that people don't want to participate because there's no way to catch up.

Not AOS related but I saw this happen in like three Warmachine leagues, along with getting bonus points for painting; some people painted a ton of figures or worked odd job schedules and played like 4-5 games a day because they didn't have to work and/or lived close enough to just hang out at the game shop all day long and got like 10 points to catapult into first where people who could only play once a week or once every other week had no chance to even get close to them, so they just dropped out and stopped playing.

Which is EXACTLY why you don't reward wins with something that helps get further wins. If you do, it's a foregone conclusion that whoever has the most free time will "win" the league.

I do like the idea of limiting the number of games. We discussed it in my group and here's the idea...

1. Campaign 'cycles' are two weeks long.
2. During each cycle, players assemble and paint whatever they'd added to their lists.
3. At the end of each cycle, a quick tournament is run (each player plays at least three rounds) and the win/loss ratio of that tournament determines the rolls for expansion. Anybody who can't participate gets a D6 roll for points... no +1 and no D3*10. Maybe give the winner of each event a themed prize for their army.
4. Any games played throughout the two weeks are to be considered practice. Presumably, gamers will also want to play other things during this time.
5. Fully painted and based war bands get an extra 10 points for the following cycle as a reward for bringing a nice looking war band to the table. Not game breaking, but it gives people an incentive to sit down and paint.

At 300 points, games go QUICK. A tournament will probably be half a day at most. At 1000 points, you'll have a full day tournament. Running an organized play event every two weeks seems reasonable for a gaming community.

If we decide on giving a themed prize for their army to the overall winner, we'll probably put together a narrative campaign where the war bands are fighting for control of certain artifacts or something like that. I will have to ponder this. If I do this, we'll probably limit the campaign to 6 cycles, which means 6 organized events and eitehr 3 or 6 months depending on whether you choose monthly or 'fortnightly' as your cycle length.