Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am playing some Heresy on Sunday, Death Guard versus Iron Hands, so I can have lord Styrix ascertain whether he truly is the master of ground warfare as the Unbroken Blades meet surprising foes in the metallic hellscape of the deeper hive. No victory like a hat trick victory

 Dekskull wrote:


It's all good. You've done your part Admiral Horizon. (BTW, Have you ever tried making a tyranid hive ship out of a pine cone? I've done it...and it's amazing)

Right now my plan is to get the remaining loose ends tied up. Then we can all do this again for another campaign down the road with different factions. It really comes down to whether Sherry and Samus want to do another game at this point or leave it at that.

I was thinking of possibilities but it seems that we've covered almost every 40K specialist game available. For a first campaign, its been good fun!

SamusDrake wrote:

 Dekskull wrote:


It's all good. You've done your part Admiral Horizon. (BTW, Have you ever tried making a tyranid hive ship out of a pine cone? I've done it...and it's amazing)

Right now my plan is to get the remaining loose ends tied up. Then we can all do this again for another campaign down the road with different factions. It really comes down to whether Sherry and Samus want to do another game at this point or leave it at that.

I was thinking of possibilities but it seems that we've covered almost every 40K specialist game available. For a first campaign, its been good fun!

Now now... no Necromunda, no Titanicus, no Aeronautica, no Kill Team, not to speak of the rest of the boxed games like Space Hulk, BaC, Lost Patrol, Space Crusade or...

I ummmm....welll...you see....errrr...I did say "almost"?

Well yeah also not to mention brew house bash and gorkamorka. But that's every weekend at my house anyway.

In any case...let's call this a wrap for "Act I" Feel free to "bank" games for Act II (just don't let anyone know the results until we start up the next part of the narrative).

I'll write some concluding fluff that will hopefully set things up for an exciting act II

We'll plan an "Act II to start in a few weeks" and see about expanding the factions and the players a bit.

Act II The Winter of Our Discontent. (Coming in March!)

Our campaign will about one year after the end of Act I. The narrative takes us back once again to the embattled world of Kennet Majoris in the Vigilus Subsector. The major characters will explain to you where things stand from their perspective. (Added Imperium and Chaos, other factions will come later)

Imperium

Rogue Trader Damian Romero:

Well, needless to say my endeavor didn’t work out quite as I had planned. At the outset, the fleet bombarded all of the foul warp tainted hives into dust while the Astra Militarum landed behind the Arch Enemy’s lines. An excellent start to the campaign. But from there, things didn’t go as planned. The Arch Enemy resisted our advances, and then managed to overrun the last remaining Imperial Hive, Ludeon. To make matters worse, that sacred wonderful relic I spent so much time looking for, failed to materialize. Very frustrating.
So as the Astra Militarum moved to encircle the fallen Hive Ludeon and settle in for a long siege, I realized it was time for Plan C. If retaking enough viable infrastructure to rebuild this place as a Hive World wasn’t going to work out, then I would just need to loot everything I could and send it back to the nobles on Vigilus, or whoever else had the coin to pay for it.

It took a few months and a few trips to Vigilus, but eventually I secured enough transports and laborers to set up decent salvage operations all over the planet, focusing on all of those ruined hives. Even better, any survivors that we found in the ruins were quickly put to work in my forced labor camps. That made things go even quicker. Addendum: They were all warp tainted mutants and condemned to die anyway but at least they got a chance to some penance. So I was really doing them a favor.

So my new plan is to keep the salvage op going as soon as long as possible. To do that, I just need to make sure those Wretched Death Guard stay bottled up in Hive Ludeon…they can rot in there forever for all I care, though I’d feel much safer if we had just bombed it when we had the chance. As usual, my pride got the better of me. I’m not some kind of desperate pirate afterall, this world was supposed to be mine for the taking! I also am still looking for that relic, though it appears to be guarded by some xenos tainted cult that is still lurking about deep beneath the twice bombarded Hive Ilaria. Note to self...still need to put that expedition on my calendar.

But alas, the dust in the atmosphere kicked up from all that bombarding has led to a long winter, predicted to last at least a decade, possibly more. Everything down there is freezing now, except for our rightous hatred of the arch enemy that is. That never freezes

Chaos: Lord Styrix

I was on the verge of a great victory, the creation of a bountiful garden for our benefactor the Great Pestilent Lord himself. You should have seen the true beauty we were wringing on this world. So many dark and terrible beings were coming to live here and dwell with us, and show the people of this world their love. We had but one more hive to conquer…and then all of my glory was taken away from me.
At once the sky was alive with fire, and from that fire came the ash which then went on to crush our garden with snow and ice. How many Great Unclean ones now lay frozen beneath the surface? It was a horror beyond comprehension…well certainly not your comprehension anyway you dribbling fool.

In vengeance, we drove ourselves into Hive Ludeon and sacrificed its millions to use as fertilizer for…oh what is the word. A Greenhouse. Yes, Hive Ludeon became our greenhouse. A beacon of light and warmth in a cold and heartless world. A small consolation in the face of an otherwise great tragedy.

You may ask, who do I blame for this? Well the puppets of the Corpse Emperor are first and foremost to blame, and they will see justice meted out to them soon. But there is another…one that has cut me deeply to the bone.

And that is Abaddon this so called Despoiler! His ship captains were the first to flee when the invasion began, leaving us all stranded here. Well I have…reconnected with more loyal captains, those too true to the Grand Father to flee back to the Eye to bow and scrape before a coward general. And rest assured, our time in hiding will be at an end soon. And then all of our enemies shall know my wrath…

Rules and Plan:

I’ll continue to act as a defacto story teller. Any player can play any game in the 40K setting, just run it by me first. Keep in mind generally BFG Epic, Titanica and Aeronautica will have much more of a strategic impact than 40K and Killteam (which will still impact the narrative but in smaller ways).

The main factions will continue to be Imperium vs Chaos, but other factions can also impact the narrative in small ways. Just keep in mind the only two factions able to acquire territory in the campaign are Imperium and Chaos.

Start Time: Planned for Mid March. So start modeling up your winter terrain now! I'll have a new thread up then.

Down in the slowly freezing urban desolation of hive Ludeon, the eerie beauty of the quiet streets was interrupted by the inimitable din of war. Bolts slammed into ceramite and huge energy beams raked buildings until they keeled over, cut in half and crumbling into clouds of dust. Over the staccato bursts of boltguns and deafening explosions, lord Styrix' voice rang in the XIV's comms: "Terminators! Sweep the streets, clear the way and hold the line. Dreadnoughts! Anchor the flanks." He was about to take this city and no bloody surprise from their lap-dog cousins was going to slow him down.


HH 2.0, Death Guard vs. Iron Hands in a 3k game of Dominion: Big, dumb guns at dawn.
(we wanted to field some silly tanks, shush )








A brief clash saw the Death Guard terminators surge forth to take territory and break the Iron Hand infantry against their indomitable armour. The Falchion and the Glaive exchanged a couple of shots in the beginning, before coming around the idea that they just weren't really doing much against each other and there were a lot of much, much softer targets available... like the Iron Father leading the Gorgon's children, who met his fate by the business end of the volcano cannons.

A Death Guard victory once more. Lord Styrix seems to be strutting a bit over there in the rubble...

So, ace. A Rogue Trader doing transport stuff. A Nurgle fleet incoming. And an Imperial fleet holding the system.
Maybe some eldar remaining.

Maybe other twisted things. Medio march.. mayhaps a dark Mechanicum ship turns up...

I do have Mech forces for Epic as well, if killer robots turn up to wreck the place.

 horizon wrote:
So, ace. A Rogue Trader doing transport stuff. A Nurgle fleet incoming. And an Imperial fleet holding the system.
Maybe some eldar remaining.

Maybe other twisted things. Medio march.. mayhaps a dark Mechanicum ship turns up...

Yes...there are things in the works.

The first event at the outset of Act II will be a surprise attack by a Chaos Fleet against the shipyards on Vigilus (which if successful would draw ships away from the planet we are fighting over) and free up the Death Guard to do any number of bad things.

I'm also planning to do an "interlude BFG game between Chaos and Orks" that will add a little more flare to the upcoming act II.

Dark Mechanicum showing up definitely makes sense right now. They're always looking for tech to steal, particularly as Abaddon needs resources to build up his Bale Fleets.

One thing I am trying to do though is avoid the "every faction is fighting a big war on one planet thing." To me it just cheapens the writing. Have a war between two main factions and let everyone else raid, loot and pillage.

Sounds good with me.

 Dekskull wrote:


One thing I am trying to do though is avoid the "every faction is fighting a big war on one planet thing." To me it just cheapens the writing. Have a war between two main factions and let everyone else raid, loot and pillage.

Its also nice to keep things simple where possible.

A quick suggestion would be to rename the title for this thread as "Revenge of the Specialist Games: 40K Narrative Campaign ", for the possibility of a separate thread for an AoS / WHFB related campaign.

Not sure how many Mordenheim, Man-O-War and Warmaster players are around these days, but The Old World is on the way and we never know what surprises GW may have in store for us later on...

Done: It's now called All Games 40K Narrative Campaign (Vigilus Subsector)

Also completed two small solo games that are meant to set things up for Act II (which I know I said start sometime in March but we can start earlier as well. The first event should be BFG though as that will determine where the narrative goes from there. (Horizon, I'm thinking Suprise Attack scenario with Chaos attacking the shipyards on Vigilus as the first battle of Act II. No pressure though, good stories also need downtime).

Interlude Events/My Games:

The Cursed Greenskins Deep in the void, two Ork Roks manage to get the drop on a Despoiler Class Battleship which had anchored itself close to the Great Rift where no Imperial Ship would dare venture. The Freebooter Captain Rot Ear employs unusual orky cunning by letting the crew of the chaos ship think the Roks were mere objects in space until it was too late. Though the battleship managed to scramble its assault craft and nearly destroy one of the Roks, the Battleship was crippled by salvos of torpedoes and crippling cannon fire, and was forced to disengage.

Game Description: Raiders Scenario from Original BFG jusing original BFG rules. Chaos ship lost all of its shields on turn 1 and needed to use all ahead full to move through the blast markers but failed its LD test leaving it a sitting duck for the Roks on turn 2. Bad luck Chaos. Good luck Orks!

Campaign Result: Chaos fleet at -100 points for next BFG game of Act II

The Massacre Chaos Space Marines launch a successful probe attack on the Imperial lines besieging the fallen Hive Ludeon. An entire platoon form the 55th Weedle's Squabble Regiment is massacred in short order.

Game Description: Two squads of CSM 9th edition vs two squads of Guard, platoon commander, and heavy weapons team (8th edition). So bloody and one sided I'll spare you further details.

Campaign Result: First 40K, Epic or Kill Team game of Act II. Chaos gets +100 points, or some other marginal benefit agreed by the players. (Like Death Guard needed any help at this point anyway lol).

Oh frell, so Surprise Attack. Chaos attackers but with a -100 point deficit.

I think I'll do the 1000 point game, please no pressure on when I play this, lol.

And Chaos will have 900 points, Imperial Navy 1000 points plus defensive stuff.
Chaos being nurgle focused.

Cool beans, and yay for the additional games played.

Why not right? If we have a good story, let's keep it going until we can reach a satisfying conclusion.

Act II here we come. (Eventually)

Played a blockade run versus a friend of mine (my og opponent).

He played classic gothic Imperial Navy and I used Adeptus Mechanicus.


First game I needed to do the breakthrough. And was immensely lucky to get the mimic drive subplot. As that gave me a vessel to lure the enemy with.
As such a Lunar and Dauntless got negated.
Otherwise his prow lances went poor overall. The NC on the Mars was better, same as its dorsal lances. Together with the cobras it got iffy but my Lunar managed to escape with 5 hitpoints left, together with the two of three hunters and a destroyed Dauntless. So got that win.

The endeavour proved enough of a good distraction to keep the enemy busy. And ... Imperial Navy bombers rolled really really really poor.

I missed this post. And to think, I wanted to keep this going.

Just an open ended ongoing narrative. I'll be happy to continue serving as chief story teller, narrating game results in the scope of a bigger story.

As stated before, all GW games set in 40K Universe are welcome, and now we'll have expanded factions as well.

Chaos and Imperium: Main Factions

Orks and Eldar (+Dark Eldar) (Pirate factions interested in raiding chaos and Imperial controlled territories).

Lore Updates:

The Hunt for the Mechanicum

Rumors were trickling in across the sector that Arks of Omen Bale Fleets were assailing nearby sectors. Hunting down Dark Mechanicum vessels therefore became the number one priority for Battle Fleet Vigilus. Unfortunately, one of their ships slipped away...

The Fall of Kennet Majoris

As a result of the fleet's failure, Command had to redeploy the small fleet around the ruined world of Kennet Majoris to aid in the hunt for the Dark Mechanicum. This resulted in the Death Guard ground forces quickly over running the remaining Imperial Defenders. But restoring Nurgle's garden would likely be a fruitless endeavor in this now frozen wasteland and it soon became apparent that the Death Guard had only achieved a phyrric victory.

The Ork Nuisance

Repeated Ork pirate attacks on Chaos ships, including the crippling of a chaos battleship by two ork roks, led to a Death Guard invasion of the Xenos Ork world of Red Sands. Though the attack failed to dislodge the ork presence, a brilliant raid on key Mekshops and dockyards significantly slowed down ork pirate activity in the sector. [This was from my own narrative campaign]