Prospective Campaign Idea

Had an interesting idea for the weekly game night at Brookhurst. Inspired by the campaign in the back of Escalation, and the type of fun battles brought on by Summer Rampage, I thought I'd try my hand at making one that could be an ongoing casual campaign that people could play weekly at Brookhurst. The rules are a little wonky right now, and I'm trying to iron out certain balance issues, but I think it's on the right track.

BLOOD IN THE SAND

A campaign for Warmachine and Hordes

Campaign Rules:

Army Composition: Each faction initially creates two 25 point army lists. Neither list can share character models. Tier lists are allowed. These lists represent a “pool” of models in the army, which can be expanded over the course of the campaign, but which may not be used in every battle.

Battle Sizes: Both players must be able to field the amount of points necessary for the battle taking place, not counting attrition losses. This may mean that one or both players have models that will go unused, so that they meet a lower point level necessary for the battle.

Campaign Map Army Movement: On a player’s turn, they get to move one of their armies into one adjacent territories. If there is no enemy army in the territory, and no enemy army intercepts them, the army takes control of the territory for their faction.

- If there is an enemy army in the territory, they must fight to resolve control of the territory. If the aggressor wins, the defender must withdraw to an adjacent friendly territory in any direction so that it is not occupying the conquered territory. If this is not possible, it must withdraw to an adjacent territory that does not have an enemy army on it.

- If the defender wins, the aggressor remains in the territory it previously occupied and does not advance.

Interception: If an army attempts to move into a territory adjacent to an enemy army, the enemy army has the option to intercept them. They rush to the site to try and vanquish the invaders, but in doing so suffer -1 to their starting roll for the battle.

Strategic Sites: There are various areas of the battlefield that have strategic importance to one or more factions. If the site is in a faction’s controlled territory, they gain the benefit. Site bonuses are cumulative, unless noted otherwise.

- Graveyard: Every time a faction recruits undead models/units before a battle, it gains a free army point, which can be spent on one undead model/unit.

- Farmland: Every time a faction recruits living models/units before a battle, it gains a free army point, which can be spent on one living model/unit.

- Mercenary Camp: Every time a faction recruits Mercenary models/units before a battle, it gains a free army point, which can be spent on one Mercenary model/unit.

- Minion Village: Every time a faction recruits Minion models/units before a battle, it gains a free army point, which can be spent on one Minion model/unit.

Reinforcements: At the end of every battle, both sides get army points to build up their armies. This number is based on a number of circumstances from the battle.

- The victor of the battle gets d6 army points, and the loser gets d3.

- Each side gets +1 army points for every unit killed (all members of the unit must have been killed, and remain off the table).

- Each side gets +1 army points for each warjack or warbeast destroyed (this does not count warjacks that would have gone inert if their controlling warcaster if killed. The warjack has to be completely destroyed, with all its damage boxes filled, reducing it to a wreck marker).

- If there was a scenario objective that was achieved, the side that achieved it receives +1 army points.

Each side can spend army points before a battle to replenish forces lost in battle, or to increase the size of their army, up to the maximum point level allotted for that battle. If the battle is taking place in territory controlled by the faction, they can spend their points on faction models, or Merce nary or Minion models. If the battle takes place in any Neutral or enemy territory, they can only spend their points on Mercenary or Minion models and units.

Attrition: After each battle, the winner is forced to press his advantage, which may lead to stretched supply lines and difficulty replenishing lost troops and repairing warjacks or healing warbeasts before the next battle. This is represented in several ways:

- Every time an army that was victorious in its last battle fights another battle, the army suffers attrition. This is cumulative until the army loses.

- When a unit ends the game with half the models or less that it started the game with (rounded up), it starts the next battle with one less grunt. For example: A unit with 5 models suffers attrition if it loses 3 out of its 5 models.

o When a

unit loses

all the models in the unit, it starts the next game with two fewer grunts.

- When a warjack or warbeast is destroyed, it starts the next game with the first box in each column or spiral marked.

I'm thinking it might just be easier to say it's a 35 point campaign and do away with all the army purchasing stuff, but that was sort of the appeal to me - that if an army was fighting out of its controlled lands, it needed to hire mercenaries to fill in the gaps in the army, while on the defensive it has more loyal soldiers to pull from. I'll pitch it Thursday night and see how it goes, I guess.