Anyone else interested in running a 40k campaign?

[Karantu]

I know its nothing new but I've been kicking around the idea of starting a 40k campaign for a while, hopefully something with a map like Urban Conquest or the first Dawn of War PC game. Maybe we could even implement some campaign systems/missions from the Vigilus books or the Psychic Awakening books. My main goal is to have a long running campaign in the background which could help make our regular games of 40k a bit more interesting by adding in some fluff to all the random battles. Basically how I imagine it working is by having a large system map with multiple planets divided into several territories, something like this picture which is from Dawn of War.



On this map we could have multiple factions each vying for territory which is gained by winning battles or completing certain objectives.
For the factions it would probably be something like:

• Imperium
• Chaos
• Eldar
• Tau
• Necrons
• Tyranids

Since there are more Imperium and Chaos players than the other factions, faction mechanics on the campaign map would work differently for each faction. For example, the Necrons would have a Tomb World or Tomb World territories that can't truly be taken over on the map. The Orks would be a menace, caring more about getting into battles than actually taking territory. Tyranids would have a Hive fleet to coordinate their attacks from as well as Genestealer cult uprisings in Imperial territories.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a competitive tournament or anything, just a fluffy experiment I would like to try if people are willing to participate. I could keep track of the campaign map and post monthly updates here as long as you guys can provide me with the results of your games and make some decisions from time to time. After a while, I think we'll naturally have some missions pop up that make narrative sense in the campaign setting which players could try and tackle leading to fun consequences and some narrative progression.

[Jye Nicolson]

Chapter Approved supposedly has rules for running Kill Team and Apocalypse alongside 40k - if they're any good you might have an easier time getting people in and keeping them playing since they'd have more options for level of involvement and variety of plau.

[Karantu]

Having all 40k game systems contribute is an obvious yes. Regular 40k and kill team are obviously in, maybe even Aeronautica Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus (?). The later two might be fun for certain key battles/events.

Anyway I made a mock-up of what the greater campaign map might be like. It still needs elements such as the individual territories on each planet, attack vectors for the invading factions, Tomb World locations as well as some background for all the planets.








(The pictures are from Stellaris. I could even try installing some Warhammer ship mods to get more thematic screenshots.)

[job]

I’d be keen. My only suggestion would to keep it simple and allow for people to play when it suits their schedule. We had two successful campaigns run by Primarch for Warhammer years ago. One was very simple and the other involved a lot of questing and map campaign map movements but ran fairly well all things considered.

[The Other Dave]

Yeah, if Kill Team and Titanicus are valid participation points I'd be all in (although for different factions with each game).

My main suggestions would be to allow for a glacial pace for advancement, and allow for widely varying degrees of engagement with the campaign, including not requiring individual people to pick a single faction and stick with it, though. Maybe treat it as a backdrop to all the 40K-iverse games our group plays over the next two or three years, and track wins / losses / territories / characters and units of renown as more or less a record of how we play games, and not necessarily worry about in-game effects of the campaign.

[Karantu]

I was thinking of making it more just fluff and less mechanics. I wouldn't want it to actually affect game balance much if at all. Also, given that people play multiple armies even in the same game system, I have no intention of locking players to factions either. They can basically play a game with whatever faction they want and have that count towards the campaign. Maybe I'll try and kick it off next game day if people are willing to report their games with some simple details like who was in the game, who won, by how much and what the mission/scenario was. I'd also like to keep track of stats so that we can see which player contributed the most to each faction as well as the popularity of factions over time.
In other words, its mostly just a meta project that I wanted to try to make our games more interesting and immersive.

[Konrad]

Make that Death World Angelis (aka GORKAMORKA ) and I'm in! I'm joking, of course. Campaigns are really cool. The reason I like the skirmish games is the narrative and progression element.

[Karantu]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot to include Gorkamorka. That's what I had in mind with the arid wasteland planet. I was imagining the deathworld to be a bit more like Pandora from Avatar (by James Cameron) instead. I forgot to include a tundra planet but I guess the poles most of those planets could potentially have tundra regions.

I'll try and write up some background fluff in a way that could help tie in all the different armies being fielded by everyone. After that we could go into specifics about what each faction is doing in the system. Also I would like some names, I'm pretty bad at coming up with names so if anyone's got any names they want to pitch in feel free.

So far I need names for:
The system
The planets
The main hive city on the hive planet
The system/planetary governor

[Jye Nicolson]

I picked up Chapter Approved, and the linked/parallel games stuff is in the narrative section so it's a bit long on suggestions and short on rules, but there's a few good examples of how to string Kill Team, 40K and Apocalypse games together. And there's basically no reason they couldn't work with AT, AI or the rest of the 40K family.

The idea of pausing 40K games to play a Kill Team game that affects the rest of the 40K game might be a bit much, but given the games days are broken into morning and afternoon sessions, you could easily have the morning games affect the afternoon ones (maybe with a consolation prize of CP or something if you're linked with the losing teams from the morning to prevent an overlarge tilt). Could be a good excuse to bust out the narrative missions in the various games too, play Commanders in Kill Team etc, the sorts of things normally deemphasised in favour of matched play.

Challenge Missions look like fun too, even if there's no real persistent mechanics in the campaign, doing too well could "reward" you with a chance to try to eke out a star rating vs an overwhelming force

[Karantu]

I'll probably be picking up Chapter Approved too so I'll be sure to check it out.

Pausing games to play other games sounds a bit too messy to be doing on a regular basis so I doubt that'll be a part of the campaign but I'm all for having games affect other games down the line in someway. Since I don't intend to get in the way of people's games by throwing off what little game balance 40k does have, I was thinking more along the times of having it affect mission selection, board setup, or maybe even including certain named characters from the campaign in their army.

Having the commanders or elite units go on to play a game of kill team with a continued narrative from the 40k game sounds pretty cool though. It would help make the different game systems intermingle instead of just having it feel like multiple separate campaigns. I'll all in for narrative challenge missions from time to time though if people are willing. Asymmetric missions where one side has to survive against a relentless onslaught, or a desperate mission where the attacking team has to complete a certain objective even if it costs them their lives.

Anyway, I think if we focus more on the fun side and just go along with the campaign in those cases and not worry too much about balance or being too competitive, it could be fun.