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.

UPDATE:

Get Tabletop Ops: Wargaming Campaign Rules for free here

A more granular campaign system

I’ve just written a Free campaign system designed for games from 40k to Epic 40k and other 6mm games. From platoon and company to division scale. From WWI to Sci-Fi settings!

These free Universal Campaign rules feature:

-Formations (platoon to division size) moving independently on the map
-Unit losses are removed from your Order of Battle
-Commanders generate order tokens, which allow formations to perform orders like move, pick battle plans when engaged, build structures, call artillery fire missions and more

Battle Plans: When 2 or more formations are engaged, each commander rolls off. The most wins picks the type of battle to play, as well as which map tiles are the battlefield (Played on tabletop)
This means that reserves can come on from the table edge and the battles reflect what’s happening on the map.



There are also rules for:

-Simple resources, buildings and victory point system
-Recon system
-Supply and logistics mechanics: formations that are too far from your supply depots,or have been cut off via enemy formations suffer penalties to their shooting and movement during games.
-A whole bunch of narrative and faction archetype rules to inspire your narratives
-Asymmetrical win conditions
-And much much more!

The rules have a number of balancing and modular options, so if the rules will break your game or are too detailed for your preference: just don’t use them! Simple.

It’s in Alpha, I’m just play-testing it now and getting player
feedback. I’d love to know what you guys think of it – https://brutalcities.com/pages/map-based-wargaming-campaign-rules

The TL;DR:
Hey guys! I'm writing some universal map based campaign rules.

I'd love to hear about your own experiences with map based campaigns! - More info here

A more granular campaign system

I've had a blast playing Legions Imperialis lately. But the campaign rules for that game are pretty similar to most that I've seen:

1) Move your single army, or nominate one tile onto a tile your opponent has that you will attack
2) Fight the battle (usually the stand-alone matched battle you'd play anyway) - win or lose, get some random small perk if you win
3) Generate some resources (not all campaigns do this)
4) Rinse and repeat.

These are designed to be simple & easy for multiple players.
But what if you had more dedicated invested opponents? Or you were just playing a campaign with your regular opponent?
I wanted rules that are far more detailed and allow multiple forces to move around on the campaign map. Think more operational level, rather than strategic. Where the actual tabletop missions, deployment zones closely follow the location of formations on the map.



The modular campaign rules so far feature optional rules:

- Multiple formations able to manoeuvre on the map and fight in the same battle - flank, reinforce, capture and deploy in important terrain features
- Simple but realistic supply line mechanics
- Semi-fixed rosters in your ORBAT (When units or formations are wiped you, you will strike them off your massive roster of units. Why? No more throwing away elite units to capture some circles on the tabletop. Sometimes you might want to voluntarily retreat!
- Fog of war and recon mechanics - you can see enemy formations, but you may not know their composition without recce!
- Combined arms actions- Artillery present can slow down and pin formations on other map tiles within range

And a bunch of more rules already written.


Creating More Realistic Objectives - Not E-sports Circles.

I was basically inspired by a feeling that pick up game objectives are all well and good for tournament play, but they are also kinda arbitrary. A circle on the tabletop is kinda a weird objective. You'll lose the battle if you can't hold more circles each round? Maybe the actual objective is to break through your opponents lines to cut them off from supply!


Universal Campaign Rules For Combined Arms Wargames


The campaign rules I'm writing are intended for games of a scale of Warhammer 40k and above - any games that allow a level of combined arms list building. So, from Bolt Action, to Epic 40k and Legions Imperialis, to cold war games. I hope to cover a wide range of setting with some modular rules, so you can pick and choose the rules that suit your game system. If you are interested and have any thoughts on this, I'd love to hear from you! Please let me know about your experiences playing campaigns in the comments!

And I have a 5 min survey here too, if you'd like to see a bit more of the context, and give me some more feedback and wish-lists.
SURVEY HERE

I've done a bunch of research already but more is good before I write too much!

Appreciate your time with this,

Cheers,
Ryan/ Brutal Cities

Run some similar stuff but the issue is currently it relies heavily on having some sort of game master who isn't really playing so it limits the potential games have as the person who really wants to do it often can't really play.

Are you familiar with Kriegsspiel? I've got a big interest in something like this so be happy to talk through it more.

Would you consider going wider, rather than modern, and go back to historical too?

 winnertakesall wrote:
Run some similar stuff but the issue is currently it relies heavily on having some sort of game master who isn't really playing so it limits the potential games have as the person who really wants to do it often can't really play.

I mitigate this by having "roving" NPC armies(that the players can't see on the map) that occasionally attack an army or raid a player's territory. This way the GM can play when they want to with minimal effect on the actual campaign results. It's more in depth in practice(mostly on limiting what they can and can't attack as to not hinder any one player's progress too much), of course.

winnertakesall wrote:Run some similar stuff but the issue is currently it relies heavily on having some sort of game master who isn't really playing so it limits the potential games have as the person who really wants to do it often can't really play.

Are you familiar with Kriegsspiel? I've got a big interest in something like this so be happy to talk through it more.

Would you consider going wider, rather than modern, and go back to historical too?

Yeah, a ref may be required - but I'll try my best to make a system that lets people self-manage. I guess for rules modules like fog of war, it may be harder. But similar mechanics work in games I've played so I have hope. Maybe there's even a simple technological solution - I'll find out as I get closer to it!

Kriegsspiel - yes! I haven't played it though. I'll check it out again, thanks!

re: ancients - I need to limit the scope in some way, it's already scope creeping as I think up more rules. So for now, only WW2 combat onwards. I think there are already a lot of earlier historial campaign rules available too.

Platuan4th wrote:

 winnertakesall wrote:
Run some similar stuff but the issue is currently it relies heavily on having some sort of game master who isn't really playing so it limits the potential games have as the person who really wants to do it often can't really play.

I mitigate this by having "roving" NPC armies(that the players can't see on the map) that occasionally attack an army or raid a player's territory. This way the GM can play when they want to with minimal effect on the actual campaign results. It's more in depth in practice(mostly on limiting what they can and can't attack as to not hinder any one player's progress too much), of course.

That's really fluffy and fun idea re: roving armies! A good Idea! Cheers.

I guess I'll be finding out what being a GM entails soon enough when I get some playtesting going

The Alpha playtest rules are available now from Brutal Cities as a free PDF.
I've titled it:
Tabletop Ops: Wargaming Campaign Rules


In order of popularity from the survey, people have indicated they want to play the following game systems in a map-based campaign:

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the system as is, if you want to check them out. - Get the campaign rules : https://brutalcities.com/pages/map-based-wargaming-campaign-rules