Narrative Play part 2

It isn't always possible to get a group of players together on a regular basis to play a narrative campaign. This means that sometimes you have to find a single opponent and challenge them to a narrative game. With a single regular opponent things become much more simpler if a less impressive. Such games can still be fun though and you don't have to worry about players not meeting up often enough. You and your opponent can take your time and enjoy the details.

The layout below (taken from a rather nice blog entitled Going On Campaign) is a great example of how to play a one on one narrative. The idea is that one player plays the attacking force and the other, obviously, the defender. You play a scout battle and the outcome determines which way the war goes. If the attacker wins then things become a sabotage attempt and so forth. You could just play a game for each one or you could come up with your own scenarios or special rules to match what is written below.

The only problem with this sort of set up is that once you have played the third round, it is obvious which player has won over all. You are simply playing to see whether it is a major or minor victory. This could lead to one player just dropping the whole thing because they can't win. The problem with narrative games in general. You need an opponent who is just as dedicated to the outcome, good or bad, as you are. It is still a good but basic start to narrative play.

Narrative Play part 1

I cannot just sit down and play a board game or card game without immersing myself into the world of that game. It doesn't matter that the game is Magic the Gathering or something like the Serenity/Firefly board game. I have to immerse myself and know why I am doing what I am doing or what a given action would entail in the real world. With Warhammer 40,000 I take that even further. Unlike everyone else I know I cannot just turn up to a game and play. I have to know why I am fighting Dark Angels and what relevance the mission has. Without that I may as well be playing chess against a computer. Sure it is fun but ultimately it is missing something. I am a narrative gamer and I'm proud to admit it.

The problem is that being a narrative gamer when no one else is can be a real pain. I have tried with my local club to introduce a narrative element with the Midas Crusade. The MC was based upon the Crusade of Fire campaign book from Games Workshop. I did it as an open-ended campaign where players could challenge other players for control of planets. I envisioned players colluding together or seeking to build that perfect list to drive the Orks from Volistad. But it never happened. There were a few attempts but no one was interested enough. It ended up with me making posts and basically running the fluff for three years. I recently decided to drop it entirely.

So how do you run narrative games? Well, I have realised that you can't do with a games club. It needs a handful of dedicated players willing to immerse themselves. Willing to go beyond just turning up with some dice and an army. It needs someone, an organiser, to come up with the overall story line, the missions and be able to alter things as wins and losses mount up. It needs structure but not too much detail.

What I plan to do with this short series of posts is to put forward some ideas for narrative campaigns that hopefully might work for you. But first, do any of you have thoughts on this? Have you played a dedicated campaign and see it through as more than just another game of 40K or whatever your game of choice is? If you don't enjoy them, I'd be very interested to see why not.

The floor is all yours.

The Midas Crusade - update

So after just four weeks the club Midas Crusade is going nicely. Unfortunately things may slow down now as our venue is closing for a month, but I hope that it won't stop any of the guys from getting their 40K hats on and playing some games.

As it stands at the moment the forces of Chaos still hold the majority of control in the Midas sector with the Imperium giving them a good run for their money especially over Midas Prime. The Necrons are recapturing their homeworld, the Orks are confined to a single world and the Eldar are taking heavy losses wherever they try to intervene.

You can follow the crusade at our sister blog, The Midas Crusade.

The Midas Crusade blog

Taking a lead from one of my favourite 40K blogs, The Aleph Sector Campaign, I have decided to scrap the Midas crusade mini campaign idea and instead use the club games as the basis for a narrative campaign using the setting that I came up with. I have decided to make an extra blog for it to keep track of events.

You can follow it here: The Midas Crusade.

League games at the club will be worked into the narrative by me, but if any players there are playing a friendly game then let me know and we can work it into the story. Likewise if you want to ensure that a specific faction claims a world then hunt down a player who is also contesting, and challenge them. Lets see where it takes us.

The Midas Crusade - intro

After reading through Crusade of Fire I have decided that the campaign example given within isn't so bad. It has plenty of potential and so I have started tweaking it slightly. The work in progress is called the Midas Crusade and follows a similar storyline I guess to the Crusade of Fire campaign. I have opened it up to the different factions of 40K rather than Imperial and Chaos. Initially, Crusade of Fire plays out over three turns and then you tally the results of captured worlds to determine the winner. I have taken that but I think it wouldn't be too difficult to expand it indefinately so that a open ended narrative campaign could be played with any number of players.

As I get it tweaked and finalised I'll post back some details. Firstly though I am going to need to handpick 3-4 players to test it out come the new year.

Crusade of Fire reivew

Crusade of Fire is not as bad as I feared. Knowing what it is like now I think I still would have bought it. It just depends whether or not you feel you'll get something out of it. In the introduction it does say that the book is designed as a knd of spring board for people to create their own campaigns and here are some ideas. Can't grumble with that.

The main body of the book is the campaign itself. It does suggest the use of the Planetary Empires set but if you have access to hexmap software you can make your own no problem. I would have done it as a series of planets in the sector rather than a tile system but that is just me. It uses a similar victory mechanic as Planetary Empires plus bonus points (see below). The Corvus sector isn't even a sector it is just a planetary system with 9 worlds and a space station. The idea being that it was engulfed by a warp storm and that storm is slowly receding back and uncovering worlds as it goes. Nice idea actually. The book gives some new traits but they are overall campaign ones rather than warlord traits. You roll on the Crusade of Fire (Imperial) or the Servants of Ruin (Chaos). Anyone else chooses which they want. These determine how your forces will win campaign points. Again, nice idea. You also get a review of each of the planets from the POV of either main side (Imp or Chaos) and why they want those worlds. All fluff but if written up properly would make for some nice hand outs for the players.

You then get a detailed backstory to the crusade and more in depth info on the planets for any GM you have running the campaign who may wish to include some secret objectives or add extra stuff to make things unpredictable. It makes suggestion ideas like having a lost necron tomb which awakens during the fight, and having a necron force (controlled by the GM or a neutral third player) enter the battlefield.

The main body of the book is handed over to the armies played by the GW staff members as they played the game, the special scenarios they came up with, and some rather vague battle/turn reports. For me, it was an interesting read but I can see how some may see it as a waste of money. Not everyone gives a damn about their games. The special scenarios struck me as being a bit too much hard work to employ and I don't think I would use them. They are not my cup o tea.

Next up is the dog-fighting rules as an addition to the flyers in the rulebook. I wouldn't bother. These were a bit of a dissapointment for me. It essentially adds more actions into the flyer's actions, and thus bogs the game down I think. YMMV of course. The special maneuvers and fighter aces rules are tied into the dog-fighting rules so you can't use them outside of that addition. I wanted something different here.

Then we have rules for Daemon Worlds. I suspect everyone has seen the page shot of this that was floating around for a couple weeks before release. Everything for fighting on Daemon Worlds is in that screen shot. Feels a bit like the extra rules for Death Worlds that WD put out a while back. These could see some use in my games though they won't be for everyone's liking.

Lastly, the book gives us the Arena of Death rules for gladiatorial combat. This is designed for very small tables (2x2 is recommended) and one or two characters aside. Again, I think this is for a certain sort of player really and I have no use for it. There are rules for manoeuvres and facings, plus manoeuvre cards with some actions promoting the adulation of the crowd.


Overall, I think the actual campaign idea is rather good and even if you don't try it as written, you can easily adapt or tweak it. As someone who has been searching everywhere for a decent set of campaign rules this was worth the purchase of the book. The rest of it less so which is dissapointing. I would have rather that they ditched the extra rules and expanded the campaign to include random events, multi-system campaigns and the like.

League 2013

After some recent discussion about the nature of the next league and it's Forge World allowance, I've decided that FW can be allowed but only with the agreement of an opponent before the start of the league. Seems a fair compromise for this though after talking to the other club members after this, leagues will be strictly codex only (plus White Dwarf updates).

The final league will be as follows:

• 1750pt games.
• Single codex though list may be changed between round knowing opponent, their codex and the mission.
• Allies are acceptable, as are fortifications with the exception of the Fortress of Redemption (due to size and terrain issues).
• Missions will be generated before the league starts using the system in Battle Mission (chance of rulebook missions, Battle Mission missions and Death World missions).
• Each table will have a mysterious forest and one other random special terrain.
• Each game will also have a random war zone trait rolled at the start of the game (rulebook page 368).

Crusade of Fire

Yesturday I learnt of a new release for 40K called Crusade of Fire. This is a £25 limited edition pre-order.

Crusade of Fire is a campaign system for Warhammer 40,000 that enables you to join the campaign to control the Corvus Sub-sector. Whether you choose to join the Crusade of Fire itself, the foul Servants of Ruin or the bloodthirsty Prophets of War, the fate of the sub-sector lies in your hands.

This 96-page, full-colour hardcover book features exclusive artwork and a host of dynamic new rules. As well as the campaign system itself, the book contains rules that can be used in any Warhammer 40,000 game, from massive multi-player scenarios fought in low-gravity environments or in bunkers deep below the ground, to expanded rules for Flyers. It also features rules for playing games in the gladiatorial arenas of Commorragh as well as for fighting battles on the surface of a Daemon World.

Crusade of Fire also features the story of nine hobbyists as they play through the campaign, including detailed battle reports, fantastic army showcases and turn-by-turn accounts of their conquests.

As someone who loves proper campaigns, I have laid down by cash for this even though I don't know what the release date is (couldn't see it on the GW site).

My only grumble is did this really need to be a limited edition release? I don't recall the Fantasy one that came out earlier this year being such a release, so why this one. Either way I am looking forward to it and hoping that it will be useful to the campaign ideas that I keep having. Details as I get them.

The Stygia Campaign

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to some bods from the club (I forget who unfortunately) and the topic of how you could have a planetary campaign featuring all factions came up. Many years ago that is exactly what I planned for a couple of campaigns that we ran. Hunting through my files I found the backstory I had written for it. Just for enterainments sake here is the Stygian Campaign.

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Armageddon. Cadia. Vraks. Macgragge. These are wars so vast that no one will ever forget them. Now, in the waning years of the Imperium a new name has been added to that list, Stygia. A world located deep in the heart of the Ghoul Stars. A world that has become the centre point for every major power in the galaxy. A world whose fate may very well spell the salvation or damnation for the entire universe.

            Thousands of years before mankind crawled from the seas, the Eldar race had already been instrumental in the banishment of the Necrontyr, but found the universe still beset by warp entities from the Immaterium. Their seers knew of the Chaos Gods, and foresaw a time when the ruinous powers could collapse the walls between worlds and all would be lost. They scoured worlds where daemonic incursions had destroyed native species and laid traps for the most powerful daemons, drawing them from the warp and containing their essences within specially prepared devices called the Amarth-Thame ("Apocalypse Box"). By the time the seers declared an end to their work, they had contained the spirits of thousands of powerful warp entities within these devices. Now they needed somewhere to hide them away. Such a place was found along the rim of the galaxy, a newly forming world still primordial with a surface of molten rock. The Amarth-Thame were dropped into the churning core of the planet, hidden away but protected from the untamed forces of creation. Within a few generations knowledge of the Amarth-Thame had been forgotten amongst the petty desires of the Eldar race. The world that would be Stygia cooled and solidified. The artifacts were distributed across its surface, deep beneath the ground. Here the contained daemons slumbered and awaited a time when they would be freed to extract their wrath upon the galaxy.

Stygia was first discovered by humanity in M24 when a colony ship, the Endeavour, was swept of course in the warp by powerful storms that buffeted and pushed the ship far off its intended route. When finally, the ship's navigator was able to punch a hole back into the material universe they were in a region of space dominated by ancient and dying stars. Too far from Earth or its other colonies to make contact, the colonists looked for a new home out here. They found Stygia, a beautiful green world with vibrant blue oceans. After a brief exploration, this is where they decided to make their new home.

In M31, an exploratory ship moving ahead of the Great Crusade located Stygia and its colony. What they found disturbed the crew greatly. The colonists were living a simple lifestyle, living off the land but almost a third of the population exhibited mutation or unchecked psychic potential. The mutants, though accepted by their human counterparts, lived separate to them and had thus slowed the unnatural evolution of the humans on the planet. The world was logged but all concerns were swept aside when in the following year the Imperium was plunged into civil war. The Horus Heresy had begun.

Once again, Stygia was forgotten until 812.M41 when records of the planets existence were uncovered by an accident in the great libraries of the Administratum on Holy Terra. For some time now, space marines of the Death Spectres chapter had been stationed near the Ghoul Stars, fending off incursions from daemons and other warp entities, and word was dispatched to them to investigate the current situation on Stygia. When they arrived, they found that mutation had spread further through the population though no direct cause could be attributed. Those who were heavily mutated or were identified as latent psykers were eradicated by the Death Spectres and the planet forcibly converted into the Imperium. Local system lord, Salem Draco, paid a visit to the planet and decided that it would be perfect for an agri-colony, supplying the nearby systems with an abundance of food. The locals were put to work working the newly planted fields, or in the mines pulling precious ores to the surface. The surviving mutants, manyclassified as "beast men", fled into the untamed forests and hills to escape persecution or extermination. The planetary governor, Exon Valdez, set up his palace in the newly constructed city of Bludhaven.

Several years later, miners working the Drakkensgraab mines unearth and bring to the surface an unusual object bearing xenos markings. The first Amarth-Thame had been pulled from its resting place beneath Stygia. Concerned by this turn of events, Exon has the artifact dispatched to an Inquisitorial facility in a nearby system. Scholars of the Ordo Hereticus determined that the object was of Eldar manufacture and that the runes were of containment, and that they held the essence of Chaos. The Amarth-Thame was quickly secured within their fortress library behind multiple purity seals, for safekeeping. Over the next one hundred and fifty years, several more of these artifacts are uncovered and the concerns of the Inquisition grow.

Events come to a head in early 999.M41 when suddenly and without warning all the Amarth-Thame began to broadcast a psychic scream that penetrated the minds of all on Stygia. The scream echoes into the warp, affecting psykers across the galaxy, disturbing the sleep of ancient evils and drawing the armies of Chaos like bees to honey. Even the Tau whose species have no psykers were able to hear this call, though faintly. The Eldar farseers are affected worse than any other, feeling the rage of a thousand trapped daemons flooding through their souls. The Amarth-Thame have been unearthed and awakened.

Now, in the last days of the 41st millennium, every major race has descended upon Stygia.

Why We Fight…

Chaos Marines & Chaos Daemons.

The call of the daemons trapped within the Apocalypse Boxes has reached across the galaxy. Touching the minds of all who serve the Ruinous Powers, it calls them to battle, plunder and fire. Fleets of traitor ships are leaving the Eye of Terror, the Maelstrom, and their strongholds throughout the galaxy are heading towards the Ghoul Stars. Daemons claw their way through the weak fabric of reality, stepping onto the surface of Stygia. Soon this world will burn and the entities within the Amarth-Thame will be freed.

Grey Knights & Sisters of Battle.

The Inquisition has been aware that something is afoot on Stygia for some time and has planned for just such an event. Grey Knights and Inquisitorial forces have been drawn from their secret places and now bolster the defences of Stygia. Under the guidance of one High Inquisitor Butlerian, the armies of the Inquisition fight to uncover and safely deal with the xenos artifacts and any heretic forces that have arrived.

Dark Eldar.

The Dark Eldar have raided Stygia for centuries, taking slaves and generating fear among the colonists. Drawn again to Stygia by the cry of the Amarth-Thame, these piratical Eldar see the war as a great opportunity to conduct their attacks with impunity. Let the lesser races fight one another, while they sow disorder and reap the benefits.

Eldar.

Memories of the Amarth-Thame have resurfaced and the Elder rush to Stygia. They have found the foolish humans uncovering things better left alone. Reading the fickle winds of fate, the seers of the Eldar know that this war will determine the fate of the entire galaxy. Either humanity will rise from this stronger or else they will usher in a new age of Chaos. Neither event favours the Eldar, but they cannot sit back and do nothing. The Eldar ride to war.

Necrons.

The psychic scream of the Amarth-Thame have disturbed the Necron who still slumber under dead worlds in the Ghoul Stars. The psychic scream interferes with their machines, awaking them early and causing great pain. The Necrons have begun to materialise upon Stygia, harvesting life forces and seeking a way to silence the incessant scream that interferes with their operation.

Orks.

Orks are drawn to conflict, and even they sense that something big is going down. Across the galaxy Orks are leaving battlefields to follow larger fleets that are headed into the rim of known space. Most Ork vessels are destroyed before reaching orbit but a few have managed to get past the great fleets above and crash into the surface of Stygia. It matters not to the Orks what this fight is about, they just won't be left out of it.

Space Marines & Imperial Guard.

The might of the Emperor's finest have been redirected to Stygia by the planetary governor and the Inquisition. The PDF has been augmented by troops from Cadia, Valhalla and other fortress worlds, while companies of Space Marines are deployed across the surface of Stygia. This world belongs to the Emperor and they fight to ensure it remains so.

Tau.

The Tau high command has sensed an opportunity with the growing conflict on Stygia. Their race has no knowledge of warp travel, but intercepted communications hint at the presence of artifacts from the warp. If such artifacts could be recovered and returned to the enclaves, the Tau would gain a significant advantage. Under cover, the Tau have managed to sneak a force onto the surface of Stygia in an effort to recover the Amarth-Thame for the Greater Good.

Tyranids.

The psychic scream of Amarth-Thame has even blotted out the shadow in the warp. Disorientated and lost without a connection to the greater hive mind, a Tyranid bio-ship entered the Stygia system and was engaged by picket vessels of the Imperium. Confused, the ship was no match for the enemy and crashed through the atmosphere, its carcass spewing spores in a last ditch effort to ensure the survival of its brood. However, the Amarth-Thame have prevented the emergent Tyranids from connecting to a single hive mind and those hives that have sprung up and survived have become single entities. Reports from the Ordos Xenos have even indicated that rival hives have fought and consumed one another in a savage survival of the fittest.

Battle for Tyken's Rift - 2013 Leagues

1. All games have a maximum limit of 1750pts.

2. The league will be split into two leagues of equal size. League #1 is for codex only games, and league #2 is for Forge World games. Each player will play each other player in their league once. Each round will (hopefully) be on a fortnightly basis (week 1 is league A, week 2 is league B, week 3 is league A, for example).

3. If you do not think for any reason that you cannot commit to the league schedule nor stay committed to the end then respectfully, please do not sign up.

4. At the start of the league each player specifies one codex that they will be using for the duration. Lists are not fixed and can be changed between rounds once players know who their opponent is and what the upcoming mission is.

5. Missions will be core rulebook and Battle Missions, using the Ultimate Challenge method. Missions 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3 will be the equivilent Death World missions (Battle Missions expansion) from White Dwarf #388 (April 2012).

6. Missions will be known in advance, giving players a fortnight to plan their list around their opponent's codex and the mission.

7. To update the Battle Missions scenarios to 6th edition, the following changes are being made:

* All objective missions will use the VP method, with objectives being worth 3VP.
*Secondary objectives will be used in all games.
*Night fighting and reserves rules from the 6th edition rulebook override those in Battle Missions.
*All objectives in objective missions will use the Mysterious Objectives rules.

8. Each game will have D2 random special terrain (table has been drawn up, see below) plus a Mysterious Forest.

9. If your army receives a new codex during the run of the league, you must do your best to upgrade as quickly as possible.

11. League scoring is 3vp for a win, 2vp for a draw, and 1vp for a loss.

The start date is currently the first week of February 2013

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Random special terrain generator

1. Ammunition dump.
2. Comms relay.
3. Fuel reserve.
4. Shield generators.
5. Warp storm. Page 367.
6. Minefield.
7. Archeotech artifact.
8. Shrine to chaos.
9. Imperial statuary.
10. Gun emplacement.
11. Lightning storm. Page 367.
12. Seismic cataclysm. Page 367.



Forge World

There has been some discussion lately around our club about the possible inclusion of Forge World units in our campaigns and leagues. There are those who do not wish to see them made legal for various reasons and there are those who don't have a problem one way or the other, and then there are those players who see them as being just an extension of the codex units. Those latter players are trying to force the issue by saying that all FW units are now 40K legal. That's not true though. It also doesn't mean that anyone can just turn up with an FW unit in their army. Some opponents just will not play against them. I can understand why too.
Forge World makes some awesome models and expands the military forces of the forty-first millennium. However when it comes to balance and points costs, they are often way out and that is the problem. That and some armies don't get anything even remotely resembling a boost from FW. Forge World should just stick to making the resin models whilst GW should be adding their units, probably pointed and balanced, to the codexes. Then we would see them being properly balanced and people wouldn't complain.

All of this means that for the 2013 league (possibly map campaign) I need to decide how to handle Forge World units. At the moment we have a couple players who want to play the new Eldar Corsair army list and I have agreed pending them giving everyone else a chance to review it in advance of the campaign. As for everyone else I am pondering allowing each player three FW units that they can use but if an opponent doesn't want to face them, they can't use them in that game.

It's all so complicated and no one is going to walk away happy with whatever I decide to do.

Tyken's Rift

I've already started working on the backstory to the next 40K campaign for next year. So far the details are basic but we thinking of a map based campaign over a league. Possibly two of them running side by side (twinky players and casual players). But until then, here is a small teaser.

Seeking campaign advice