[Sco0terkid]

Me and a couple of friends have decided to start a campaign with all of our armies.
The problem is, none of us know how to make it last.
We have a map, designed large enough to last a long time, with each of us getting 6 territories each.
Excluded the Imperial Guard, who already inhabited parts of the "map." (filling in the rest of the spots.)
We have a collection of armies in this campaign including;

Tau
Tyranids
Imperial Guard
Chaos Space Marines
Space Marines
Eldar
(This is the initiative of who goes after who in our campaign)

Every set of 6 territories includes an HQ, and two "buffer" territories.
We've already proclaimed that, to attack an opponent's HQ, you must fight all 3 territories.
With each one being a different type of battle (Seize Ground, Control, and Annihilation.)
Wiping out the HQ will wipe out the entire race. (Which is why it is extremely difficult to do so.)

Okay, now we also put "Special Territories," as of now the Imperial Guard owns all of them for already inhabiting the world.
Including places you need to have vehicles(Which is overpowered in my opinion..one race gets vehicles and the others don't?)
Cheaper units, flying units, etc.

We decided to start with a 500 point army in each territory. You could have ONE free HQ, and the 500 points had to be invested into troop options. Then, we were given 150 more points to do whatever we want with. (Elites, Heavy, etc.)

But these are the things that I strongly disagreed about in our campaign, that we just ignored;

1. THEY decided to say that we have a model that will classify as to where our army can attack (I.E. I'm Tyranids, I put a Tyranid model starting on my HQ, and each turn move closer to an opponent's territory to attack them). I said, "Well, what if our territories are just right next to each other, why can't those TWO armies fight in a normal Warhammer 40k style battle, and whoever assaulted the other territory, if they win, claims the opponent's territory. If they lose, they must roll a D6 and on a 4+ or higher, they regain ALL of their points for that battle. If he rolls a 3 or under, then he is stuck with the remaining points he had left when he lost.
(I.E. game ends with Tyranids losing, and they had 130 points worth of models left. If I rolled a 4+, I would get back my 650 points worth of troops I started with, and would not claim his territory. If I roll a 3 or under, I am stuck with the 130 points of units I have in that territory. So, if he wanted to assault me on his turn***HE ALSO ROLLS TO DECIDE IF HE KEEPS HIS POINTS OR NOT***, he can, and I'll start the battle with 130 points.) How can we resolve this?

2. The Special Territories. It seems unfair that only ONE race will have the ability to have vehicles in his army list. We also included an Airport, which you need to have FLYING vehicles. And Bulwark, which makes it so units are cheaper, but that will also be hard to track if you lose that territory. Is there a way to balance this system out, without rigging the campaign too much?

3. We will most likely restart our campaign (same places, same initiative, etc.). We want ways to balance this campaign out. After EVERYONE has done their turn, they will gain extra points as to how many territories they possess. (Most likely 5-10 points for each territory).
As for this, and special territories, how can we balance this out so one army doesn't have 4000 points worth of troops, while the others only have 2000 points?

4. All there is in this campaign, is to fight and to completely take over the map. Are there different objectives that we can add to add some diversity in this campaign? Such as, instead of fighting to protect a territory or to claim a territory, as to fight to find a power item that mysteriously crash-landed on the planet, or etc. (My brain isn't really working at the moment, so don't expect too much imagination).

5. We will keep rising up in points, no matter if we go passed 1000, 5000, or even 10000 points worth of troops. We can NOT refund units after we have bought them, as this would be unfair. (150+60 from each territory = vehicles, trygons, etc). So we did not allow that.

Please hand me some ideas? A LOT of criticism on this campaign, because right now, I don't even like it, due to the massive holes in its design.

 

[Mad Cat]

I don't want to appear negative and good for you for attempting such a campaign but I think you will all get bored and it will probably loose momentum. You have to keep the interest of all players for a long time such as 10 campaign turns with 10 games and possibly more per player.If you are adding forces as you go the victors can soon begin to completely outstrip people who have losed a few games so those 40k scenarios become formalities and the whole thing snowballs.

I would start off designing a smaller campaign with achievable objectives. Wiping out a player is not a great idea as said player will have probably lost interest 3 campaign turns before it even happens. When one player gets powerful and his conquests start to snowball into ever more victories all the other players can give up etc. I see many campaigns where people just arrange any fight and record the results which isn't a campaign really just a results scoring excercise. Long campaigns loose interest so I would start off with something simple with 2-3 sides (of more than one player if you have more people) and fought over a maximum of 6 rounds. Any campaign should have a clear result by then and if your campaign involves a player fighting 30 scenarios to determine who won then it will never get that far.

 

[jboweruk]

1. I like the flag idea, that way you can eventually also have a reason to use multiple armies, (see 3 below). I would also allow the winner to have to either 'table' the opponent to take a territory, or at the very least win by more than 500 points. Now to the army losses, okay this might mean a bit of book-keeping, but track them up and down as they go, so losses need to be replaced by spending points.

2.How come only 1 army has vehicles? Okay I know 'nids won't but any bug army worth it's salt should have some form of AT capability. Also maybe have a factory so that you need it to have vehicles or 'Monstrous' creature types.
Have a Bastion or town reduce the cost of forces by say 10% for each that you hold.

3. I would advise with the not wanting an army to get say 4k points while others only have a few is quite easy do deal with. Just make the player 'build' a second army and limit army sizes.

4. Objectives can be many and varied, this really is one of those things that you should get together with your group and work on. Maybe to make it a little interesting is to have written objectives that each player is dealt at random, and they don't show to any other player until they achieve it? That's one possibility. Each player could maybe have to deal damage to a certain other race, or maybe there are certain things you have to capture on certain tiles. It really depends how 'story driven' you want it all to be.

5. I'd consider dropping this rule and having a maximum score, or being allowed to use those points in reserve, so that if you lose a lot of troops you will have enough excess to rebuild.

If I was you I would certainly go for something a little simpler, it can be hard work running a campaign, and the simpler you keep it the better. I would stick with the old Mighty Empires way maybe of doing it, Idk whether you are using the ME/PE tile sets? If so then the old ME rules are still around for d/l, you could just adjust them, also the PE set comes with a pretty reasonable and simple campaign ruleset, worth a read if you have it.