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.

working on writing up a nice narrative campaign but wanting to make some rules so as to avoid cheese, I know some of the players actively dislike playing super competitive net lists

The idea is pretty much every faction involved starts in their ship or the webway something happens forcing them out of warp space and/or to exit stuck in a world emitting strange signals (hitting all the tropes I know) mechanicum reads it as an STC, space marines/ guard see it as an imperial distress signal, necrons as a shard, tau a lost ethereal begging for help, tyranid tendril sees a big bright biomass defenseless, orks just see a big group converging on a plant and want the loot etc. as they come to the planet grav waves force the ships down and/or close webways and they are trapped with no reinforcements. coincidently they have one of every unit for their faction with them only barring basic troops (handy that). signals are not being received, radios seem jammed, and even allies on this planet appear as enemies (IE to loyalist marines the guard look like traitor guard while the loyal guard see space marines as CSM. Each faction assumes they are surrounded by enemies and must eliminate and expand to improve resource availability and find a place to signal for rescue.

so far the rules I have are

75 power level or 1250 point armies to be determined which to use.

1. no named characters, choose a basic HQ and give them a small name and back story for me to write around

2. no duplicate units other than troops. so while you can take say 3 elites then 3x assault terminators would be out, but assault termies, tactical termies, and a dreadnaught would work.

3. no forgeworld, I know they have some balanced stuff but other things are flat out broken and really not fun to play against.

4. no more than 1 lord of war with max points 400 (possible no lords of war)

5. other than troops cannot use any of the same units in 2 matches in a row. so if a tau player takes a unit of broadsides 1st round the next round they cannot field them, but can turn around and use them their 3rd games as it is assumed they went on separate mission

can you think of any rules I should add to ensure nobody is netlist/ waac a little story campaign?

I don't understand the point of rules 2 and 5. What do they accomplish?

Yeh im not sure how 2-5 makes sense in a narrative.

If you're going to set restrictions on multiples of units then you should use power levels instead of points. If your going to screw over different factions let them at least take every upgrade available.

rules wise for #2 just to make sure nobody is spamming anything . see a lot of different units on the board and avoid somebody taking the best possible units more than once.

for #5 the idea is the general is dividing their forces for different objectives. they will likely know what they are facing so can plan ahead a bit so maybe you want your plasma leman russes vs space marines next round but they re available now against tyranids. you make the choice of assigning them to the other battle or here.

possible letting 2 of a type of unit on #2

oh also likely

#6 detachments do not matter, you get 6 command points no matter what

oh also every game will use open war cards

pm713 wrote:
I don't understand the point of rules 2 and 5. What do they accomplish?

They punish the non mainstream armies for existing, while doing nothing to balance armies like SM and Guard that have a lot of choices built in.

Yeah id figure it would be easiler to just lock in a set number of detachments (1) so people cant over do some aspects of things.

yeah it hurts some armies and others are not as effected but

its kinda the same thing as rule 2

'Oh cool, a narrative campaign. Boy, I sure am excited to use my Talons of the Emperor!'

*reads rules*

'Ohhh...'

Voss wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I don't understand the point of rules 2 and 5. What do they accomplish?

They punish the non mainstream armies for existing, while doing nothing to balance armies like SM and Guard that have a lot of choices built in.

I am a primarily xenos player. orks, elder and tau are my most played (in that order) at 75 power points and using these.

my orks lists would basically be a lot of boys, toggle warboss on a biek and a warboss on foot. painboy on a bike and painboy possibly a deff kopta unit and a buggie unit alternating.

eldar would have fun and use a bunch of different aspect warriors. probably scorpions, reapers, a fire prism, and guardians then on the opposite list dire avengers, banshees, wraithblades, and weapons platforms with a falcon.

tau probably fire warriors, alternate a fireblade and crisis commander. broadsides with breachers in devildish, stealth suits, maybe a ghostkeel. other list hammer head, fire warriors, maybe some kroot, riptide, and piranna

the idea is not to have super powerful things vs super powerful things, just want to see units less seen on the table.

What do the players participating say? Maybe the thing to do is ask the people who are taking part what restrictions or lack of that they would like. You never know they might come up with something you hadn't thought of.

that is the plan, just using this as what the proposed rules would be then letting them hash it out on our community facebook page

 G00fySmiley wrote:
s, tactical termies, and a dreadnaught would work.

3. no forgeworld, I know they have some balanced stuff but other things are flat out broken and really not fun to play against.

So its cheesy to have overpriced units now? Oh well...

In reading these rules, something felt a little off with me and I just figured out what it was.

You say that the rules are to avoid cheese - a great goal! - but I think you're just being too overly heavy-handed about it. This should be a discussion with the players first and foremost. I think some of the restrictions come across as potentially army-breaking for some while only mildly inconvenient for others. It comes across as you being too overly concerned about cheese that you'll likely affect their enjoyment of the game as it comes. Restricting taking the same unit in 2 battles really risks players playing the same game over and over, or being stuck in an imbalanced cycle.

If anything, I'd just put a restriction like, "must balance unit type choices," like you can't take a second FA/HS/Elite until there's one in each slot, and leave it at that.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
In reading these rules, something felt a little off with me and I just figured out what it was.

You say that the rules are to avoid cheese - a great goal! - but I think you're just being too overly heavy-handed about it. This should be a discussion with the players first and foremost. I think some of the restrictions come across as potentially army-breaking for some while only mildly inconvenient for others. It comes across as you being too overly concerned about cheese that you'll likely affect their enjoyment of the game as it comes. Restricting taking the same unit in 2 battles really risks players playing the same game over and over, or being stuck in an imbalanced cycle.

If anything, I'd just put a restriction like, "must balance unit type choices," like you can't take a second FA/HS/Elite until there's one in each slot, and leave it at that.

I like that, will propose it as a possible. The whole list is just saying here are options, the players will be voting which of said rules to use. My job in this is running/ will be taking place over a couple months and will be writing a mini novel based on the conflict for them.

 G00fySmiley wrote:


can you think of any rules I should add to ensure nobody is netlist/ waac a little story campaign?

Just be honest and tell people not to be a prat, and then tell them again if they ignore that. If they ignore the second warning, stop playing with them.

No set of composition rules is going to be able to prevent a determined player from min-maxing within their framework. At the same time, you've just kicked out a whole bunch of realistic/fluff-based armies that aren't in anyway unreasonable.

You can't legislate a social contract. If the players buy into the idea of the narrative, the restrictions aren't necessary, and if they don't, no set of restrictions will actually work.

You said this was for a narraitve campaign? rather then having a fixed rules on what you can take for each battle, perhaps instead ask each player to detail a campaign army list (one you approve before hand) and for each battle they may only draw from that list?

you can mix things up a bit as well by telling them that "if a unit is lost as a casualty in a fight, you are unable to use it again until after X additional battles"

This means if I'm playing space Marines in your narrative campaign, I might declare that my force consists of the Ultramarines Second company A librarian,, 5 squads from the first company (2 terminator squads, 1 assault terminator squad and 2 sternguard squads) and 3 scout squads, plus dedicated transport for all infantry, 2 predators, a demolisher, and a whirlwind. For each game I'd be restricted to selecting my army from that list.

Just some food for thought,

Creative the 'Narrative Campaign' detachment.

1-2 HQ

4-8 Troops

1-3 Elites

0-3 Heavy

0-3 Fast Attack

0-1 LoW

Restrict everyone to using just that, and only that detachment, and you'll kill a lot of cheese right there.

If you're going to do a narrative campaign...you're better off selecting a small group of like-minded players. Have a pre-campaign get together where you establish the theme of the campaign and set your expectations.

Creating a restrictive list tells me you're pulling in players who likely have no interest in playing narrative stuff...so probably best deter them up front.

1. Ok, decent enough rule. Fairly standard in narrative campaigns.

2. Yes, of course, cause as we all know, militaries only take one of each type of gun or unit. After all, we all know that all terminator armies aren't a thing, nor all bike armies like some kind of Ravenwing or something like that. God forbid Blood Angel players want to use more Assault Marines than Tactical Marines. No Tau force has ever included more than a single unit of Crisis Suits ever in the history of their fluff. No Guard army has ever brought more than 1 Leman Russ with them on a campaign. And of course we know that silly little armies like Grey Knights, or Harlequins, or Custodes don't exist at all. Nope, certainly not. That would be silly and broken! (This is a terrible rule, highlander rules have absolutely no place in narrative/fluffy play, they are the dumbest, most unfluffy ruleset you can apply to the game. And that's ignoring the insane balance issues that highlander causes.)

3. I mean, if you wanna keep your campaign balanced and fair, what you really need to do is make sure your players can't use stuff from this company called Games Workshop. I mean sure, they have some balanced stuff, but other things are flat out broken and really not fun to play against. (GW is far worse than FW when it comes to OP units right now).

4. This rule is somewhat fair (assuming you don't have any Knight players in the mix). Consider saying no LoWs until a campaign ending Apoc game.

5. This is just...I don't even. So its not bad enough that you're limiting players to one of each non troops choice in their army, but now they can't even use the same unit choices 2 games in a row? Hope you're not planning on having anyone play anything but IG, Imperium Soup, and maybe SM, cause no other armies can even consider competing under these terrible rules.

There is a lot more bad than good in here. A ruleset like this is a great way to ensure that you get minimal player interest since no one but a couple armies can compete under these rules. You want a fun, non-WAAC narrative campaign? Sit down and talk to the players interested. Explain to them the purpose of the campaign, and trust them to keep things fun. That will work far better than this atrocity of a ruleset you have right now.

Check out the grand crusade ruleset I wrote. narrativewargaming.com

2nd edition link. The first edition is a lot more complex and deals with map campaign.

The no forgeworld bit would have me not interested at all in your event though. There's plenty broken in the core rules as well. Forgeworld has done nothing but enhance any game I have ever played and I will never participate in an event that bans it.

I feel like I always have to ask this question when people propose highlander style restrictions, but do unit variants count as duplicates? I play IG, so Russes have a bunch of variants, as do hellhounds. Does a Punisher count as a different unit than a Demolisher? Why or why not? It seems like you're okay with it as your example had two different types of terminators.

Either way, it seems totally at odds to want a fluffy campaign, then heavily restrict players to make lists that are not necessarily fluffy. If you're running a campaign for a bunch of players, I'd wager you either know them decently well already, or the group will be small enough to be managed on a case by case scenario. Rather than instituting bans that run counter to your intentions, just work with each player individually to ensure the lists aren't crazy over the top. If you want them to be their general, let them be a general and make the decisions they want, rather than forcing them through dubious fluff justifications.

All of your rules are terrible, and completely contradict the idea of playing fluffy story-based forces. Why are my FW DKoK not legal, despite being a fluffy force? Why does an IG army, a faction whose fluff strategy revolves around throwing a million copies of a unit at the enemy until they win by sheer attrition, have a 0-1 limit on everything but basic infantry squads? Why are named characters, which often have fluffy rules and work as a good starting point for a story, banned? The result of rules like these is that list building consists of trying to figure out how to make something work within your limits, not starting from a fluff concept and just taking the appropriate units. Armies built under these rules are likely to be less fluffy, if the narrative players don't get frustrated with the whole thing and decline to participate.

The actual solution is to tell people that the goal is a narrative campaign, work with them to build lists based on a fluff concept, and if anyone brings a disproportionately powerful list ask them to tone it down. Don't just impose a ton of un-fluffy list restrictions aimed at reducing power level and call it "narrative". It's easier to do it that way, but it makes a joke of the idea that you're focused on the fluff.

(Also, your story is pretty awful and that would be a strong turn-off for me in a supposed "narrative" event, but that's a separate issue.)

#2 and 5 rule would be a nightmare for an army like Tau to be able to use markerlights properly. I would never take a single unit of pathfinders but instead bring a few small units (they get shot off the board rapidly) and the same goes for marker drones.

So only one rhino in your army and only in every other game. Very fluffy.

Rule 5 in particular is a massive kick in the teeth for the struggling armies. Meanwhile the strongest armies with an abundance of good units will be just fine.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

1. no named characters, choose a basic HQ and give them a small name and back story for me to write around

While not as vital as in 5th edition, some armies rely on named characters to develop and catalyse various playstyles and fill specific niches. A lot of armies just don't have very good leaders outside of named characters, or have generic options in the fluff that can really only adequately be represented by named characters (for example, there's no way to get an Inquisitor in power armour without using a named character datasheet, and no way to represent a generic living saint without using Celestine's profile).

2. no duplicate units other than troops. so while you can take say 3 elites then 3x assault terminators would be out, but assault termies, tactical termies, and a dreadnaught would work.

This is a terrible idea, and serves no real purpose other than to skew the balance of the game towards armies that already have more fleshed out options, and disallow a lot of actually fluffy army compositions.

3. no forgeworld, I know they have some balanced stuff but other things are flat out broken and really not fun to play against.

Name a single Forgeworld unit that's overpowered right now. With all of the ridiculous stuff that GW is happy to throw out, and the huge nerfs they've bee tossing to FW stuff (most of it which was not particularly good to begin with), this is another terrible idea, especially since the recent FW nerfs removed almost everything of theirs from competitive play in the first place. The only place for most Forgeworld models to be worth playing now is narrative play.

5. other than troops cannot use any of the same units in 2 matches in a row. so if a tau player takes a unit of broadsides 1st round the next round they cannot field them, but can turn around and use them their 3rd games as it is assumed they went on separate mission

Good god, this is awful. Just awful.

I'm going to echo Peregrine with this one. Everything here is just really arbitrary and serves very little purpose in achieving any of your goals.

Ask all participants to check latest tourneys results and tell them that no list used there may be used in your narrative tourney.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Ask all participants to check latest tourneys results and tell them that no list used there may be used in your narrative tourney.

And then someone swaps one minor upgrade around and it's a "new list". Good luck enforcing this.

Any restrictions like this will be gentleman's agreement as far as actually enforcing them go.

I'm gna join everyone else in saying that 2 is just terrrible. It's not balanced just get rid of it.

5 I can't wrap my head around, why? Your narrative is of the same forces (expanding or escalating) and it horribly punishes people with smaller collections especially since there are probably people (like me if I were in your campaign) that can't participate since they can't even build a legal list between restrictions 2 and 5.

1. I like it. Always loved self made stories.

2. I like this. Hinder some armies that dont have particularly large selections but id still play by it.

3. Fair enough.

4. Id probably go no lord of war myself. If youre going to have no named characters, might as well avoid LoW.

5. I really like this. Makes you consider what youre going up against and think ahead to what you could be facing afterwards and weigh whether its worth throwing all your heavy hitters into one match but risk disadvantaging yourself next match.

It was mentioned making a campaign army pool to draw upon. What sort of average game size are you looking at fir each match? Full 1250 limit and take/dont take what you will?

For those interested, after discussion with those showing interest and talking over how we as a group wanted a narrative campaign and keeping things more powered down

75 power/ 1250 still to be voted on

no named or counts as named characters

1 battalion limit

no lords of war

no repeated units excluding troops and dedicated transports

forgeworld models possible but proposes in group and participants decide. (example Malenthropes are probably getting thrown out being just too good/disruptive for the points)