Odatria:
Me and four friends from my gaming group are starting up a new fantasy campaign this spring which is called Slaughter in the Southlands.
Despite the name it does not follow on from blood in the badlands or anything, in fact it doesn’t even use Mighty Empires, but is a non-map based escalation campaign. The main focus was on it allowing the players to pick and chose different armies throughout, because the last one we ran with only a single army each did not appeal so much to the players in the group with more than one army who started to lose interest towards the end. The idea is that you can pick several generals and have them building up experience throughout the campaign. I’m keeping it relatively short this time but we may run a longer one in the future if it is successful.
Here are the Campaign Rules I came up with…
SLAUGHTER IN THE SOUTHLANDS
The Campaign
All the normal Warhammer Fantasy rules apply to every game.
As there are 5 players, each must face each other once during a round, so each will play 4 games.
The first round is at 500 points.
The second round is at 1000 points.
The third round is at 1500 points.
The fourth round is at 2000 points.
The final round is at 2500 points.
At the end of each round, a Triumph and Treachery game will be played at the same points value. Since the rules allow 3-5 players this game does not have to include everyone if not all can attend.
Campaign Points
During games each army can win Campaign Points, which are added to determine who is winning.
If you win a game, you gain 2 Campaign Points.
If you draw a game, you gain 1 Campaign Point.
If you lose a game, you gain 0 Campaign Points.
Additionally, if the enemy surrenders during the game you gain a bonus 1 Campaign Point.
If you slay the enemy general during the game, you gain a bonus 1 Campaign Point.
If you slay the enemy battle standard bearer during the game, you gain a bonus 1 Campaign Point.
Campaign Points are never earned from the Triumph and Treachery games played between rounds.
Armies and Allies
Each player must choose one race to be their primary army, and pick a character to be their general.
During the campaign, in any game after the first, players can choose to either continue having the same general lead the army, have a different general lead the same army, or have a different army entirely with different generals fight for them as allies in each battle. The general in play is always the one that receives any Experience, Magic Potions etc earned during that game, so using too many will mean while you have a lot of characters, each will take longer to build up experience points.
The only limitation is that the character must legally be allowed in the army list in the percentage allowance for Lords or Heroes. As most characters will therefore start the campaign as heroes, they can become the Lord level equivalent and retain any experience earned as soon as the points level of a game allows it. However, once they are used as a Lord, they can never go back to being a Hero.
Experience
During the Campaign it is possible for your generals to gain experience as they lead their armies on the battlefield. This can be for personal achievements or for the skill with which they commanded the army as a whole. The general receives a single experience point for each of the following things.
The general participates in any battle.
The general personally kills an enemy Lord or Hero.
The general wipes out or runs down an enemy unit.
The general remains alive at the end of the battle.
The generals army is the winner of the battle.
The generals army has completely wiped out the opposing army.
As a general gains experience they improve, receiving these permanent modifiers on their profile.
10 experience. +1 Weapon Skill
20 experience. +1 Strength
30 experience. +1 Toughness
40 experience. +1 Attacks
50 experience. +1 Wounds
If a general reaches 50 experience they cannot gain any further experience, but can still be used.
Treasure Chests
Treasure Chests may or may not be found on the battlefield, and may contain bonuses for the army that opens them first. At the beginning of every campaign game each player must roll a d6. On a 5+ they must place a Treasure Chest (represented by a suitable marker) on the battlefield before board sides are decided. They may not be placed within 6’’ of a board edge or 12’’ of another Treasure chest, or within impassable terrain. Remember to place them before rolling for board sides! A unit cannot deploy within an inch of a Treasure Chest but can open one by moving onto it on turn one.
A player can only open a Treasure Chest by moving into base contact with it and stopping to do so. A unit can move through a chest should they wish to do so (for example if it is in the path of a charge) but will not open it unless they end their movement in base contact with it. A unit cannot intentionally move on top of a Treasure Chest unless by charging over it into combat where their back ranks end up still over the chest. In this case the unit claims it, assuming that models in the back rank not currently fighting quickly grab what is inside. Roll on this table to see what is inside.
1 �?" Booby Trap! The unit that opened the chest immediately takes d6 strength d6 hits.
2-4 �?" Empty! There is nothing in the chest and it has no further effect.
5 �?" Gold! The chest is full of gold, the general that opened it gains d3 Campaign Points.
6 �?" Magic Potion! The general that opened the chest rolls on the next table at the end of the game.
1 �?" the character gains +1 Weapon Skill for the duration of the campaign.
2 �?" the character gains +1 Ballistic Skill for the duration of the campaign.
3 �?" the character gains +1 Strength for the duration of the campaign.
4 - the character gains +1 Toughness for the duration of the campaign.
5 �?" the character gains +1 Initiative for the duration of the campaign.
6 - the character gains +1 Wounds for the duration of the campaign.
Underdog Bonus
At the start of every campaign game, the army with the least number of Campaign Points gets a bonus modifier to their rolls to determine board sides, who deploys first and taking the first turn.
This is worked out as follows. For every 2 Campaign Points less they have than their opponent, the player gains +1 to their rolls. In the case of an odd number in Campaign Points difference always round down rather than up. A natural roll of 6 from the player with the most Campaign Points will still always succeed regardless of modifiers however, unless the other player also rolled a natural 6.
So for example, if one side had 8 CPs and the other had 5, the side with less (by 3) would have +1.
If one had 12 CPs and the other only had 6, the side with less (by 6) would have +3 to their rolls.
If the side with a +3 modifier rolled a 4 and their opponent rolled a 5, the roll of 4 would count as a 7 and win the roll off. However if they had rolled a 4 and their opponent had rolled a 6, the 6 wins!
A lot of the ideas are carried over from the last one, such as treasure chests and the campaign points system, which we found worked really well. I did originally write a story as we went along the first time but it ended up taking way too much of my time so it never got finished. The idea in posting this here however is to at least log the progress somewhere other than our facebook group as the campaign goes along.
I am of course starting out with my Chaos Dwarfs, I have already played my first game this morning. My other armies if I used any will be my wood elves (depending on the new book) and Skaven (depending on how much I expand my small ratmen army during the campaign). The fluff reasoning behind this (aside from them being my only armies at the moment) is that Kazgar, my primary Chaos Dwarf general, has the rats working for him as slaves, and has used sorcery to bind the forest spirits to his will in a dark, haunted woodland.
The other players primary armies are Lizardmen, southland themed hence the campaign setting, Ogre Kingdoms, High Elves and Empire. I’ll keep this updated as it goes on!