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Tomorrow there will be another chapter of a campaign I'm running and I just had someone drop out, leaving my Waaaghboss to fight his previously intended ally, a Thousand Sons Sorcerer.

While there is no shortage of reasons why orks suddenly turn on anyone, including themselves, I would still like to have a cool narrative game similar to the one previously planned (TS and Orks trying to prevent a necron overlord from activating his doomsday weapon - a seraptek heavy construct). Sadly, I'm all out of ideas (damn baby stealing my sleep ) and IMO there isn't really a lot potential for conflict between TS and orks that you could build a rivalry on.

The TS army is tzangor-free, just classic legion units and expendable human assets (cultists).
My army is a speedwaaagh army which is mostly vehicles and squigs.
Keep in mind that crusade armies usually can't massively change their composition, but I can add pretty much anything from the ork codex but a stompa. Terrain is also available in abundance.

So, I'm open for pretty much anything, except warpstom-style tables. More often than not, random doesn't make for good games.

The doomsday weapon still works: the thousand sons were trying to destroy it but when the orks eventually got sight of it they decided to loot it!

The two armies are left amongst a ruined tomb world (the necrons having fled) and are trying to secure all the shiny hypertech superweapons before the other side does and before the various regions of the tomb world (inevitably) self destruct.

Scenarios involving search and retrieve, or fleeing to safety from destructive environmental effects, are the order of the day

One of the wierdboys in your army has been chosen by Gork, or was it Mork, to become the next prophet of Mork, or was it Gork?

He has started seeing strange visions and the other Orks around him are complaining of headaches.

While the Thousand Sons were going to keep using their useful allies for a few more battles before invetiably betraying them. The sudden energies emanating from the wierdboy are very interesting and would further some research on warp entities for one of the sorcerers.

Scenario:
The wierdboy isn't in the army and is instead the mcguffin/summoning portal/doomsday weapon.
The Orks have to protect the wierdboy.
The Thousand Sons have to capture or kill the wierdboy.

It is a nice switcheroo as usually the TSons are the ones doing the summoning/ritual and it might be fun for them to be stopping it for once.

Obviously maybe a bit too similar to the previous idea.

Has there been "negotiations" between the Orks and TSons? You could have it that the TSons want to disarm/deactivate the doomsday weapon, and the Orks want to strap a big engine to it and go rampaging across the system. They agree that the Necrons shouldn't activate it, but they have different ideas as to what they should do with it.

The Necrons have vanished before the alliance reached them, leaving the doomsday weapon powering up. The accumulated power is starting to rip the area apart, with buildings falling down and cracks opening in the ground to swallow anyone unfortunate enough to be in a wrong place. Both sides realise, somewhat late, that they have one chance to grab the doomsday McGuffin and make a break for it before the city block / valley / caldera / bunker etc. holding it is utterly destroyed.

Maybe a thousand son slighted the warboss with a slight off handed posh insult, warbosses don’t take lightly to that sorta thing, and one marine getting krumped would probably start a big fight. Perfect excuse to start your warboss in melee with their hq too .

The thousand sons are conducting a summoning ritual, they need to defend the circle at all costs from the speeding orks who have been drawn to the site after hearing psychic echoes of "gorkamorkagorkamorka" and believe gork and or mork is waiting to come through the portal.

Game wise, short end deployments, keep the gap between armies as large as possible. Tsons deploy 1st and go 2nd as they're defending. In return let the tsons dictate the terrain in their half of the board (within reason) and objective is simply assassination/survival of the sorcerer.

For added spice maybe the sorcerer cannot move more than 6" from where they're deployed and can complete an action at the end of movement that completes at the end of the psychic phase and does d3 MW to the 3 nearest units to represent the portals ferocity.

If you need some alternate mission objectives, maybe some (3?) psychic focal points the orks need to raze.

It's hard to offer advice without context. This battle is occurring at the intersection where your ongoing story meets your opponent's ongoing story.

Is your army working toward a long term goal? Are there individual units or detachments in your army that have goals of their own, or is your army unified? In fact, since it's Crusade and you're still allowed to have more than one subfaction, do you?

Then of course, you need to know the same for the enemy army. The intersections between your progress toward your goals and your opponent's pursuit of theirs is where the greatest story potential lies.

Then you filter that with intersections in space:

Where is this battle taking place? Do we know anything about the battlefield? Will there be Theatre of War Rules of any kind? Are there territorial campaign assets, and if so can those be linked to objectives or terrain at your disposal? Is this a part of an established campaign? If so, does the campaign interact with the ongoing cannon in any way?

What size is the battle, and how many detachments are in each army? Do your 40k games link with Kill Team, Titanicus or Aeronautica in any way?

Context is everything. The more of each player's story threads can be woven together the better; if you then connect that to the story of the campaign arc, you're at the sweet spot. Whether or not you choose to link beyond that to the overall Indomitus Crusade Narrative is up to you and your group.

My campaign takes place of the far western fringe of Pacificus and lines up with the events surrounding the discovery of the Blackstone Fortress. Some groups like linking their play to GW's narrative and some don't- there are pros and cons to both approaches.

The Speedboss has been planning his ultimate victory--Da Grand Spree, where his fastest lads will take their loudest machines across a predetermined swath of terrain, causing as much destruction as they can along the route. A sort of "race of death", if you will, with the non-orks becoming unwilling participants in this ork-vs-ork competition.

Unfortunately, for mysterious reasons no ork would ever care about, the Thousand Sons have encamped themselves right atop the approach to Da Biggest Jump, a canyon that the boyz would have to cross in the biggest, most spectacular part of the race. This is unacceptable! Da Grandest Spree must include Da Biggest Jump, or it is completely wrecked!

Time for da ladz to move in and clear those dusteez out of the way!

Thanks for all the great ideas! That's probably enough to write an entire campaign

PenitentJake wrote:
It's hard to offer advice without context.

The short version:
Currently the battle is fought on a agri-world with vast oceans located in the Imperium Nihilus which primarily exports food (fish, crops) and water. During the Noctis Aeterna the most advanced region of the planet was stricken by a disaster (an orbital platform dropped into the sea for unknown reasons) that not only caused minor daemon incursions across their waters and coastlines, but also a massive tidal wave which destroyed large parts of their defenses and food reserves. Unable to keep the local ork infestation at bay this way, they were forced to bribe them into fighting the horrors comming from the sea.
This promtly led another region full of fanatical followers and shrines dedicated to the emperor and his sons to declare them heretics and start a war to purge them, immediately calling for inquisitoral backup in order to have their leader declared as planetary governor.
Being faced with fanatical troops raiding their defenseless and starving territories, the first faction called out for help to anyone who would listen and were relieved when representatives of not one, but two legions of space marines answered their call. Chapter, legion, who cares, as long as they are helping you, right?
There is a third faction on the planet which essentially runs a huge black market for information and technology, trading with anyone who can pay, no matter their race or allegiance. The have no interest in either chaos or the imperium fully taking over, so they sabotage both side's efforts. Their interests align with those of a necron lord from a nearby tomb world who wishes to weaken both sides so they annihilate each other and pose no threat to him until his tomb world has fully awakened.

Currently the fanatics have been pushed back to the fringes of their capital, but managed to stop the invasion of their territories here with the help of recently arrived shield host who has now taken command.
TS and orks have little overlap of interest besides both serving the same side. Orks are fighting for the fight itself and scrap so they get strong enough to start a Waaagh! off the planet, the TS are looking to take control of the planet.

Maybe something simple. Local orc population after a won war against the necron, is nearing the state of a minor Waagghh the problems. Lack of transport to go off planet and food running low for the faster and faster growing orc population. Solution? Board and take 1ksons ships and use them as transports or crash/derelict them and use the parts to build rocks for space travel.

1ksons on the other hand are in a perpetual state of research. The fall of the necron gave them the option to start digging to uncover objects from the time of the wars in heaven. Eldar spirit stones, wrightbone conststructs and krork gear. Problems. increasing number of attacks from the orc "ally" , research and the need to transport the dug out objects slows the 1ksons forces down and without a slave/thrall network the progress does grind to a halt.

Over all hook point. An orcish kommando team witnessed the uncovering of Krork artefacts, inherintly orcish in nature made the orcs want to have those huge armours and vehicles. As a secondary agenda the Mekboys seeing the Krork stuff got his DNA memory triggered to a larger degree then normal, and now he is on his way to become Orkimedes/early Cawl of the Orks, all he needs to fullfil his destiny is to touch with the krork aftefacts.

A rivial faction within the thousand sons convinces the orks that thier allies are going to betray them and steal the necron weapon for themselves, so they strike first.

A rival thousand sons warband stages a false flag raid that the orks blame on their allies and the argument gos fully automatic.

the thousand sons were ALWAYS planning to betray the orks and steal the necron weapon for themselves, but a rival faction within the legion tipped off the orks, who were ready for the betrayal when it happened.

both sides genuiely didnt intend for the fight to happen... but paranoia on both sides lead them to prepare for the eventuality, just in case, and when both sides saw the other preparing for a possible betrayal, they took it as proof that the other side was ACTAULLY planning to, and the whole things spirals massively.

 Jidmah wrote:
Thanks for all the great ideas! That's probably enough to write an entire campaign

PenitentJake wrote:
It's hard to offer advice without context.

The short version:
Currently the battle is fought on a agri-world with vast oceans located in the Imperium Nihilus which primarily exports food (fish, crops) and water. During the Noctis Aeterna the most advanced region of the planet was stricken by a disaster (an orbital platform dropped into the sea for unknown reasons) that not only caused minor daemon incursions across their waters and coastlines, but also a massive tidal wave which destroyed large parts of their defenses and food reserves. Unable to keep the local ork infestation at bay this way, they were forced to bribe them into fighting the horrors comming from the sea.
This promtly led another region full of fanatical followers and shrines dedicated to the emperor and his sons to declare them heretics and start a war to purge them, immediately calling for inquisitoral backup in order to have their leader declared as planetary governor.
Being faced with fanatical troops raiding their defenseless and starving territories, the first faction called out for help to anyone who would listen and were relieved when representatives of not one, but two legions of space marines answered their call. Chapter, legion, who cares, as long as they are helping you, right?
There is a third faction on the planet which essentially runs a huge black market for information and technology, trading with anyone who can pay, no matter their race or allegiance. The have no interest in either chaos or the imperium fully taking over, so they sabotage both side's efforts. Their interests align with those of a necron lord from a nearby tomb world who wishes to weaken both sides so they annihilate each other and pose no threat to him until his tomb world has fully awakened.

Currently the fanatics have been pushed back to the fringes of their capital, but managed to stop the invasion of their territories here with the help of recently arrived shield host who has now taken command.
TS and orks have little overlap of interest besides both serving the same side. Orks are fighting for the fight itself and scrap so they get strong enough to start a Waaagh! off the planet, the TS are looking to take control of the planet.

What's your McGuffin? The TS are certainly not above planning for the future with a slow weakening of their ersatz allies the Orks to make their eventual task of eliminating their ex-allies easier. And the Orks are certainly Kunning enough to either be doing the same, or figure out the TS plan. Especially if a squad of Alpha Legion show up and pretend to be TS to make sure that happens to suit their own plans. Now that Lucifer is free to wander around, and Cypher always is they might be involved too. But until we know how those two interact I'm not sure they'd both be involved together.

You just find yourself a McGuffin - orkoid fungus - give one side something to do to that McGuffin - taint it with chaos - while giving the other side a window into that plan - Alpha Legion Squad pretending to be TS making the tainting process sloppy instead of secret -

Breton wrote:
What's your McGuffin? The TS are certainly not above planning for the future with a slow weakening of their ersatz allies the Orks to make their eventual task of eliminating their ex-allies easier. And the Orks are certainly Kunning enough to either be doing the same, or figure out the TS plan. Especially if a squad of Alpha Legion show up and pretend to be TS to make sure that happens to suit their own plans. Now that Lucifer is free to wander around, and Cypher always is they might be involved too. But until we know how those two interact I'm not sure they'd both be involved together.

You just find yourself a McGuffin - orkoid fungus - give one side something to do to that McGuffin - taint it with chaos - while giving the other side a window into that plan - Alpha Legion Squad pretending to be TS making the tainting process sloppy instead of secret -

Haha, that was literally the plot for the DA and the AdMech turning on each other

 Jidmah wrote:

Breton wrote:
What's your McGuffin? The TS are certainly not above planning for the future with a slow weakening of their ersatz allies the Orks to make their eventual task of eliminating their ex-allies easier. And the Orks are certainly Kunning enough to either be doing the same, or figure out the TS plan. Especially if a squad of Alpha Legion show up and pretend to be TS to make sure that happens to suit their own plans. Now that Lucifer is free to wander around, and Cypher always is they might be involved too. But until we know how those two interact I'm not sure they'd both be involved together.

You just find yourself a McGuffin - orkoid fungus - give one side something to do to that McGuffin - taint it with chaos - while giving the other side a window into that plan - Alpha Legion Squad pretending to be TS making the tainting process sloppy instead of secret -

Haha, that was literally the plot for the DA and the AdMech turning on each other

I'm assuming the McGuffin there was Dark Age technology.. Ad Mech trying to steal/fight over Corvex (Sammael's Bike) or something similar. But still, just recycle the recipe.

Exactly, though it was a Chaplain's relic crozius and Cypher tipped them off where to find it.

While they were originally supposed to negotiate a cease-fire, the DA (true to their narrative), immediately opened fire as their scans picked up Fallen signatures.

The hilarious part was that the actual mission played could actually have been completed by negotiating without firing a shot, but of course it ended in bloodbath anyways (just as planned ).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for the orks vs TS, thanks for all the input, but luckily (sadly?) the necron player got better and we could play the mission as originally intended. I'm still going to use some of that stuff here for missions to come, so your ideas are not wasted

You'll never guess who won that duel