Terrain Day...

Well, I went to Jester's Playhouse yesterday, with a simple thought in mind. I would build the Landing Pad kit I had purchased and use it in the campaign to represent the Space Port tile.

Rich however, had a different idea, and to the right you can see our efforts of the afternoon.

I think I need to give the wood chips another coat of glue, and then I can start filling gaps and adding some details.

It wont be finished in time for the opening moves this Thursday, but the following week is my goal.

What I don't think Rich realizes is that we spent the afternoon setting the bar very high, I hope he doesn't have too much in the way of plans in the coming weeks (unless of course its to help me make more awesome terrain).

I will be posting some more pictures as work progresses.

The Stormraven!

This is just too cool to pass up.
After talking briefly with Rich, he asked if we could use the Stormraven for the GreyKnights in the upcoming campaign.
I think this is a great opportunity to try out a new model. So with that in mind, I am going to allow ALL Space Marine Armies access to this beast for the campaign as a Fast Attack Choice. All other rules still apply i.e. you have to have earned enough "armor points" to purchase the Stormraven.
I'm not going to stop there though, I think it will be fun to allow Chaos Marines access to this as well.

In an effort to get some of these flying over our campaign world, I am making the following rules addition.
The Storm Raven is available as a Fast Attack choice for ALL Space Marine Chapters, and Chaos Space Marines. All other criteria must be met.

The Space Port tile gains the following additional rule: If a Space Marine player, or Chaos Marine player captures a Space Port they immediately gain access to the Stormraven, in this case the armor requirement is waived. In addition if an Imperial Guard player captures a Space Port then they immediately gain access to the Valkyrie, again all armor requirements are waived.

Be sure to check out Josh's background for his Dark Eldar in the comments section of my last post!

The Pre-Game

Alright, in preparation for the campaign I will be at Jester's Playhouse this Sunday (01-30).

I will be bringing some terrain projects to work on for the campaign, as well as a 500 point army for some fun games.

So, if you want to get warmed up, paint some miniatures for the campaign, or help me work on some of the themed terrain projects then meet me at Jester's at about 1:00 pm. I will probably stay till about 6:00 pm or so.

Hope to see you there!

I'm Jealous...

My little girl working with Paula, I'm so proud...

The World in which we will live, die and fight...

Above we have a picture of the World Map. Not to worry, if we decide it is to small on Game Day, then we will just add Rich's Campaign Tile map as well, and fight over 2 planets!

One of two Hive Cities on the Planet

One of the Space Ports

A Bastion which will be used when fighting over Command Center Tiles

Above is a Power Plant.

And here we have some Dangerous looking Plants, which could be used on Tyranid Tiles to represent a Power Plant, Shield Generator, ect.

I also have one of these, I'm thinking of putting the Terrain together for the Hive City Battles. So much to do.

I would also like to encourage any of you that are going to be playing in the campaign to go ahead and build a special terrain piece to fight over, objective markers, and the map tile markers (this last one will be required). These will all add flavor to the campaign, and add to the story.

Why only 500 Points?

I've had some conversations with some folk in regards to this upcoming campaign. One of the biggest questions I get is "Why only 500 points?"

Well, my thought was that in many Warhammer 40k campaigns, people tend to lose interest after a few weeks. You play about once a week as your schedule allows, making a move on the map, and so on. Progress is slow, movement on the map is slow, and any real changes to the campaign can take many weeks.

My thought was to do a fast and furious campaign in which the borders on the map can change drastically from night to night, playing as many as 3 turns in an evening.

I have also noticed that some of the players at the store have started some new armies, Josh with his Dark Eldar and Nagle (not me, notice his name is misspelled) with his Ork horde. This will hopefully help them with the motivation to get some paint on some of those models and test them on the battle field.

I have also attempted to design this campaign so that the army grows as the campaign progresses, this is deliberately a slow army growth, but I am guessing that by the end of the 4th week some of the more powerful empires will be at about 1000 points.

While I am adding this second post I may as well list some of the things that the players will need for this campaign.

1. 500 point army preferably fully painted. Unpainted models (less than 3 colors) will be allowed to be used, but will have a -1 penalty to all stats, this can be reduced to 0 (They are pressed into service before being ready for battle)

2. Campaign tokens for taken territory, these will be the players responsibility. These can be as simple or elaborate as you like as long as they are small enough to fit on the map, and they are individual enough to distinguish them from another player.

If you are having trouble with motivation getting your army done a few of us are meeting at Jester's Playhouse next Sunday, I am hoping to get in a game, but I am bringing some stuff to paint as well, and would be happy to help anyone out trying to get ready for the campaign.

A 40k Map based Campaign

Hi all, and welcome.
I will be using this blog for our Map Based Campaign.
I will quickly post the Campaign Rules below, along with the plans for our "Opening Moves" night.

To join the campaign simply post a reply here, with your name and the army you are going to be playing (this way I can start to get to work on our back story). You do not have to post your list if you don't want to, but we can use this blog for any discussion of the campaign.

Campaign Rules:

Army Composition: This campaign will begin with a 500 points army built by using the Adepticon Combat Patrol organization chart, and restrictions. ( A special note should be made in regards to armor, the maximum armor allowed for vehicles which are not dedicated transports is 33. This number is the sum of the front+side+rear armor of the vehicle, only counting the side once.)

Here is the link
http://www.adepticon.org/11rules/2011cp.pdf

I am shooting to begin this campaign on the first Thursday in February and we will be meeting and playing at Jester's Playhouse.

On night one we will be playing 3 games, these games will determine the starting points and how many starting tiles each player will have, in addition to providing a little bonus in the third game.

All games in the first week will be played on a 4x4 table.

Game 1: "Recon" Advancing patrols are probing the enemy for weak points in their lines, looking for a place to strike.
Deployment: "Pitched Battle"
Victory Conditions: The Player with the most scoring units in the opposing players deployment zone wins the game.
Special Rules: Night Fight (turns 1&2), Random Game length

Game 2: "Cleanse" Having completed their Recons, the armies now strike attempting to take ground.
Deployment: "Board Corners" (as per the BRB)
Victory Conditions: The Player who controls the most board corners at the end of the game wins.
Special Rules: The 12" center circle is a 5th zone, Random Game length

Game 3: "Supply Drop" Having engaged the enemy, and secured a foothold on enemy soil, more supplies are called in. (Seize Ground with 3 objective markers, rules for placing the markers are as per the BRB)
Deployment: "Dawn of War"
Victory Conditions: as per the BRB for the Seize Ground scenario.
Special Rules: The winner of this game gets a bonus of 15 points to be used for Wargear in their army!

1st Round pairings will be random unless a challenge is issued in which case every effort will be made for the 2 opposing armies to fight each other as long as the challenge is accepted. After the first game, a Swiss style format will go into play.

Wins and Losses will be used to help determine the effectiveness of your opening strikes onto the planet.

Results: Win = 2 tiles, a loss gets you 1 tile
The overall winner of the opening moves night will get to choose a tile first, these may be placed anywhere on the board, at least 2 tiles away from a Hive City. Tile placement will then continue in order of finish.

Campaign Rules:
All of the Standard Planetary Empires rules are in effect, with the following changes:

1. The Conquest Table on page 5, a Tile not adjacent to one of the winners tiles 2d6 roll is changed from a 7+ to a 5+. (This campaign is being designed to be fast and furious, so we want lots of action on the board)

2. Since we are using such small armies in an effort to have a high action campaign, all of the points bonuses for being out numbered are halved. So instead of 50 points a tile, the outnumbered player only gets 25 points a tile.

Other Campaign Rules:

Attempting to take a Tile that is not occupied: A player may attempt to take an unoccupied Tile, but any player may "block" the attempt by issuing a challenge and playing a game. This does not use up the players turn, and if the Blocking player wins, then he gets to attempt to take the tile! In the event that more than one player wants to issue a challenge, then simply roll a die to decide who gets to fight.

While we are using small Combat Patrol armies for this campaign, I want to promote new armies and some growth during the campaign. Therefore, each tile taken by a player adds 10 points to their army total.

Other Terrain Modifiers:

1. Space Port: +1 Fast Attack Choice, OR give one unit Deep Strike (this can be changed from turn to turn, but not game to game during the same evening). Points Bonus: +25 (as supplies and reinforcements are easily obtained with a Space Port)

2. Manufactorum: +1 Heavy Support Slot AND +5 points to the Armor Value limit (this tile also allows Monstrous Creatures to be taken). Points Bonus:+10

3. Command Bastion: +1 Elite Slot OR +1 HQ Slot, in addition the 2 wound restriction is removed. Points Bonus: +20

4. Power Station: Removes Armor Save, and Toughness restrictions. Points Bonus: +50 (more power, yeah!)

5. Shield Generator: Removes Invulnerable Save Restrictions. Points Bonus: +10

6. Hive City: Counts as one of each of the above. Points Bonus: +10 (for 125 total!)
* The Hive City will be very hard to capture, and is currently occupied by the Planetary Defense force led by Colonel Hunter himself. In game terms this will result in a game using the City fight rules, against an Imperial Guard army led by the Campaign Moderator.

Well that should get us started, the map is done, and I will be posting a picture shortly. Along with some other scenario ideas as we progress through this campaign.

Ted.