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I'm a store owner and organize our 40k, along with a lot of other stuff. I'm sometimes frustrated at the slow shift in 40k's meta. At the upper level it moves around enough, but at a local level it's glacial.

I was thinking about the standard rotation in Magic, and how that adds velocity to the competitive environment, keeping people shifting deck ideas constantly. I'd love to see a way for players to maintain their army, but keep strategies shifting on a roughly annual basis.

So here's my idea, and please give any feedback you have. I'm also asking if this would be a project others would want to collaborate on, because it's beyond my time and ability alone.

Each year we create a campaign doc. It has three primary elements.

Narrative

The campaign doc covers a set region and/or time period in the 40k universe for a large war front. It outlines what the war is about, with specific goals and fluff content for each Codex.

Organized Play Content

The doc contains info for four leagues, one of each season, and pertinent tournament information for the year. It might contain a map, special rules for relevant worlds, special missions, a unique Warlord Trait table, and scoring systems for each league. The material Privateer Press puts out for their leagues is a good baseline.

Special Units

Each Codex would also gain one or two unique named characters, and possibly some unique units which are just slightly tweaked Codex units. It might be a small stat shift, different special rules, wargear options, etc. Basically the same sort of content in the supplemental Codexes GW is publishing.

This last part is the key feature. It shifts meta slightly. The unique characters, especially HQs, can allow army-wide effects. Tweaked units allow new uses for old units and potentially change strategies. The goal would not be broad, sweeping changes, but rather minor adjustments to address current issues in 40k's meta. For instance, 2012 saw a big intro for flyers, but few armies could deal with them. A 2012 campaign might give flakk missiles and other anti-air options to each Codex. 2013 saw dominance of MCs and death star armies, so some anti-MC content could address it, or ways to bolster SMU or horde armies.

So the big problem is creating the darn thing. It's something that should be collaborated on, I think.

The big question is: does it sound fun? Is it worth trying to put energy into?

Thanks, Dakka.

It depends on how many customers you are trying to please and keep local. I know people do love campaigns and stuff that deviates from the norm if its non competitive. I myself right now have a campaign starting next week. It does take a lot of time and thought especially since some older codex and weaker army builds can be destroyed easily and cause those people to not show, you make new missions and objectives, like special objectives per player only.

Its worth it, just make sure you put good effort and don't half @$$ it.

Your biggest problem is going to be keeping a consistent group of players over that kind of timescale. People join and quit the game, people have their schedules change and aren't available on the same day anymore, etc. A season-long league is going to be difficult to maintain, and expecting your original players to be playing at the end of the year is extremely optimistic. So you need to look very carefully at rules to allow people to join in the middle of a season, and rules to handle players dropping out at unexpected times.

And once you've thought about those things you should ask whether it's really worth it or not. Is a new player who joins at the end of the year really going to care about that fancy map? Is a player who can only play once a month going to care about the objectives they aren't really contributing to? Etc.

Sorry, I think I glossed things over too broadly.

The idea doesn't require the same group of players throughout. Players can come and go, with different participants each league, with four leagues throughout the year. Each league would be self-contained. It would simply use the campaign doc for some special rules and missions.

The core conceit is creating some variety in play, rather than sticking to the same old Codexes. Regulars burn out after a while. At my store, we get newcomers from time to time, but the regulars get fairly tired of the same battles with each other over and over.

One reason I'm putting it out here is it would be something any store could use. There could even be larger rewards to its final results that shape next year's campaign.