Campaign 2011 - month 3

In drawing up the schedule for the year, I'd tried to create a programme of events that would keep things fresh and avoid us going through the same old routine every game. So I added in three special features:

1. The final siege of Mortendorf in month 12. I reckoned it would be good to have a resolution to the narrative element, but more importantly we can all have a super-mega-final blow-out with stupidly unbalanced, epic things happening as a bit of fun and a chance to celebrate the end of the campaign.
2. Two so-called "mega-battles" during the year. I didn't know exactly what they would involve, but I had some ideas. More on that later.
3. Four games with special rules - a chance for us to try slightly different approaches to playing the game: scenarios, alternative battlefields, special objectives etc. I hit upon the idea of theming the games around the four chaos powers. Since the gods of chaos are so ancient, I figured they would have a presence in the constellations. So according to an astrological calendar, each power would be dominant at some point, subtly exerting an influence on the whole Olde World. I'm particularly chuffed with this idea, because it presents what would have been a fairly arbitrary inclusion of special rules in a really characterful way that roots it right into the Warhammer universe.

So in this month, it was Khorne's turn on the throne of ascendancy. Since I wanted to get the character of the thing across properly, I put more effort into the Omens and wrote some sections of fiction. Here's what I sent round:

Month 3 - The Omens

The first piece of fiction refers to the Dark Elves' crushing defeat in month 2, introduces the idea of Khorne being ascendant in the heavens (referred to by the Druchii as the "moon cycle of Khaine"), and explains the Dark Elves' motivation for invading the valley (with the obligatory hint at incest thrown in for good measure). The second explains more explicitly what is meant by Khorne being ascendant, and illustrates how the gods subtly influence the behaviour of everyone in the Olde World, not just their own worshippers.

By month 3, I'd realised just how much administration was involved, and if I was ever going to get to grips with it, I'd need to record it all in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has developed in time, and has become an invaluable tool. I send a copy of it round to the players with each Omens (though I'm not sure how many really look at it). The latest version (which includes data for all the months so far) is here:

Campaign admin 2011

It includes a summary page which is important for the players to see where they rank, as well as how many EPs and GPs they have to spend.

The campaign rules themselves didn't require many changes, but I added a whole bunch of administrative clarifications: when to send in your orders, when generate gold etc. I added one new event card, which gives any player to option of fielding a mercenary army. And I also invented Wysiwyg, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent goblin who bestows rerolls to players who can field a fully painted army.

Finally, I added some extra rules regarding Khorne. These weren't actually that important - I opted for Khorne to go first mainly to establish the premise of using special rules every few games. The rules themselves were simple enough and designed simply to reflect the bloody nature of the god. From a campaign point of view, it gave the strongest players a chance to do some challenging, which shook things up a little.

Sadly on the night, we had some no-shows, thankfully two, meaning their respective opponents could face each other, contesting the same territories they had originally been challenged over.

On the tables, the extra rules made little difference (one table entirely forgot them). That was fine by me, because my intention wasn't for these special rules to interfere too much with the action.

The Spoils of War phase went more smoothly this month, with the players getting into their stride. At the end of the month, the map looked like this:

Map month 3

Little did they know what events awaited them in month 4!