Hero for a Day - 40K 24 hour Marathon

Howdy Wargamers and Hobbyists, and welcome to the gym. This is where I have started going to build up my wargaming stamina so that I can manage to survive this event.

A club mate of mine will be running a 20 man Warhammer 40,000 24 hour gaming event for a children's cancer and leukaemia charity entitled 'Hero for a Day', and it sounds like it will be an amazing day.

This article (guesting over on Creative Twilight) will certainly be worth your attention, and I very much hope that if you aren't too far away, you might be able to make it.


Thanks for reading.

Forging the Narrative...#3

Greetings wargamers and hobbyists and welcome again to the War Room. We seem to be spending rather a lot of time in here lately...

Part three of my intermittent 'Forging the Narrative' series on Campaigns and my efforts to muddle through their planning and execution. This time around, I would like to talk about another element that needs to be clarified in order to allow your plans for war to progress. Two things I think you really need to know about are:

• The Factions that will be taking part

• The use of Alliances

Now I believe that these two points are important to get clear early on because they will impact the kind of games that will be played as part of the campaign, and the structure you will need to put in place to support them. Let's go into a little more detail about each of these areas:

Factions

A key point to work out before you can do, well, pretty much anything really as far as I am concerned, is to work out who will be taking part in your campaign, and what armies they intend to use. I find it is easier to formulate a plan and a backstory once this information is known, because otherwise you either have to come up with a very broad and generic plot idea, or you will end up having to shoe-horn armies into the plot in ways that you struggle to be convinced by yourself, let alone the players that have to play out the story.

So, question one - who is playing, and what armies are they using? If players have their own army fluff or character names worked out, this can be worked into the story, and saves you having to come up with this yourself. It also adds greatly to the players sense that their own army is developing organically and coming to life, developing it's own history based on games played rather than pure concoction.

Knowing how many players you have taking part and which armies will be represented also allows you to judge whether the armies can be allowed to operate individually, or whether you will need to group them into appropriate factions to make the narrative development and game planning more manageable.

It also gives you a chance to let the players know if the balance of armies is at all out of kilter, and let them decide if they want to rethink which army they intend to field. Heaven knows a campaign where 80% of the armies are Tau and the rest are Orks might be challenging to say the least.

I think this is one thing that caused me difficulties in the campaign I tried to run last year - for a narrative campaign there were too many individual armies roaming around and doing their own thing, and it got too complicated to organise and keep the plot straight. If it had been a straight forward map based campaign, this wouldn't have mattered so much because the plot matters less after the campaign begins, but there would have to have been a far broader supporting story, because in a map based campaign players pretty much move where they like rather than where the organiser wants them to.

 So, I advise you to try and get clear in advance how many players you have taking part and with which forces.

Alliances

So, you know who is playing, and what armies will be marching to war and causing havoc. So what happens if you have players that have smaller armies than the standard size for games in your group, perhaps because they are in the process of building up an army, or you want to play some bigger games for some scenarios? Well one option is to use 'Alliances' to even things up a bit.

Quite simply, you can allow two or more players to ally for larger games, which gives you options for playing special battles at key points in a campaign, gaming events in themselves which require a little more work to arrange perhaps due to the need for a larger table, more scenery, and of course more time to play the game out, but well worth it for the spectacle and the excitement. The back stories associated with many games systems are littered with tales of alliances, pacts, oath breaking and betrayals, and sometimes you can find inspiration for your own games in those stories.

There is also another practical benefit of using alliances which takes the use of factions a step further. It is always going to be far simpler to plan, drive and complete a campaign with two opposing alliances comprised of multiple armies and factions, than to try and run a campaign involving several autonamous armies, all with their own agendas. 

If you have many players wishing to take part, it may be a good option to consider creating two alliances and save potential headaches later on, like players inadvertantly being ganged up on, or one player running away with the campaign too early on and taking the fun out of it.

If you really want to play a campaign with lots of individual players and armies all going their own way, you might like to go with a structured map based campaign rather than one with a narrative you want to play out to the bitter end...

Next time, think I'll be getting into the part of the campaign planning that can be the most fun, but also give you the most problems to solve...the games!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Here is a photo of the progress I have made on the Hasslefree models I was painting. I expect to have these completed within another hour or two. I think I'll try and black and white check pattern floor for the bases. 

Forging the Narrative...#2

Greetings wargamers and hobbyists, and welcome once more to the War Room for the second part of this sporadic emission, which serves as a vent for my musings on campaigning in the miniature wargaming hobby.

After considering in part one what a campaign needs to be like in order to garner and maintain interest from participating players, for part two I would like to consider some of the first practical decisions that have to be made when planning the campaign itself.

For me, a good campaign needs a strong theme or narrative (after all, 'Forging the Narrative' is the name of the game these days), and this means that there needs to be an engaging story running through the whole thing, like letters running through a stick of rock. The question is, do you want the campaign to follow a set plot path through from beginning to end, or do you create a back story that leads the participants to the threshold, and then let the story develop naturally as the armies battle it out and attempt to achieve whatever objectives they have been set?

Each of the possible routes is perfectly valid, but the decision you have to make is whether you want the story to play out as you envisaged, ensuring the climactic final confrontation you originally planned, or whether you are happy to let the participants play out the rest of the story naturally, come what may as far as the story is concerned.

The ways that each of these options could work out are numerous. For example, when letting the players dictate the outcome, in a map based campaign the story that develops will be driven by the actions of the armies on the map, and where they choose to move, expand their empires, and engage their enemies. You might be playing a campaign that, instead of a map, allows players to choose the scenario to play next, and who against, which gives them a good degree of control over match ups and how the plot develops.

If you want to take more of a hand in pushing the story in the direction you want, you might have a map campaign or a narrative campaign with a pre-determined route that the armies battle down on order to reach the destination at which they will face their final battle. An example of this might be the Storm of Chaos Campaign (ooo, my favourite!), that Games Workshop ran what seems like an age ago now, which was played in stages, each one bringing Archaon and his horde closer to their prize - Middenheim, the City of the White Wolf.

So, I guess that's the simple question: do you as the organiser want the players to play out the story you have decided on, ensuring that you can plan a suitable finale? Or do you allow the players to take a greater role in determining the direction that the story takes, and risk losing the strong theme among all the strategic moves, avoidance tactics and power play that can ensue?

The answer to this question comes with the answer to another question: What do your players want? Do they want to be told what is happening around them, where they are going and who they have to fight, or do they prefer more autonomy, and a greater feeling that their actions are having a wider impact on the campaign?

In our own Club Campaign - ably run by Nick, with just a little input from myself - the Warhammer 40,000 Campaign that we are playing through has a simple structure, with some embellishments to allow the players a sense of involvement, but ultimately is dictated by the choice of scenarios and supporting story that we have put in place, and I think that we have found a good balance. Above all, it is still relatively simple to play out, once all the planning is done and ready to rip. 

The campaign has been laid out in three stages and at each stage, each of the players (eight players divided into two teams) play a battle against an unknown opponent (players are allocated their scenarios by their ‘Supreme Commander’), with the final stage being a grand finale. In the final showdown, tactical bonuses are awarded to each side depending on which battles they won earlier in the campaign, making their lives easier or more difficult depending on how they got on.

The clarity of knowing that the campaign will be completed in just three gaming sessions is a great way to ensure participation, maintain interest, and assures players that there will be a satisfying conclusion without it dragging on for months. Petering out into nothingness is probably the biggest threat to any campaign, so I think that starting simply and clearly is best. Let more involved and complicated campaigns come with time and experience, as players and organisers get a more developed idea of what they want, what works and what doesn’t in their gaming group.

This is probably a nice place to stop, as the next thing I want to talk about is 'factions and alliances', which raises more questions about simplicity VS drama and plot.

Until next time, thanks for reading...

P.S. Still no real progress, but got the three mini's undercoated. Soon.

Forging The Narrative...#1

Greetings wargamers and hobbyists. To borrow a segment title from HeelanHammer, 'Zis is ze war room'...

Forging the narrative is a phrase we are hearing quite a bit these days, printed in magazines, frolicking online, and uttered by show hosts on various podcasts. Though this is a phrase which first saw the light of day in the Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition Rulebook, I think that the phrase has merit across any war game system. 

At the end of the day, wargames are not just a game with rules to be played and either won or lost, they are a story, and the playing of the game tells the story. By our decisions as commanders, be they sound or otherwise, we allow the story to unfold on the tabletop. Simple wins and losses become stupendous victories and crushing defeats. The game takes on a character and an aura that surpasses anything we might experience playing more light hearted games.

Recently I have been thinking more about campaigns, what they are, what they should be, what they could be, and how they can be successful. A fantastic campaign might be the holy grail of wargaming for many people, but it can also be a difficult thing to achieve. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if you will. For myself, I think that the single most important consideration is how you can keep all the participants engaged and enthused, and if you can achieve this, it's probably because you've got enough of the other things on the money. The interest in the campaign is the measuring stick you use to determine how well you are running the campaign. That's not to say that what you're doing isn't good, just that it's not pushing the buttons of enough of the players. What one player might think is amazing, others might not.

The purpose of all this pondering and postulation is to analyse my own ability to run a successful campaign, and what ideas I can come up with to support it and make it interesting, because my favourite kind of campaign is one with a strong story to back it up (rather than one that just pushes pieces around a map and adds up area control points), a campaign that epitomises ‘Forging the Narrative’.  

Any of you who have been able to put up with me for a while may remember a couple of posts about the Eye of Morrslieb narrative campaign I started a few months ago at my local group. It's fair to say that this was not the great success I envisaged, though at the same time few events at our club remain flavour of the month for more than, well, about a month, without significant effort. I think the idea and the story were sound, I just couldn't make them work in practice, especially not with eight players.

'Bitten off more than you can chew' might be an apt phrase. I am wondering whether any future events should be based around a small but dedicated core of players, with in-built capacity to allow additional players to join and leave for one off games as they please...

This is the first of what will undoubtedly become a reoccurring topic on the Eternal Wargamer, and for now I just want to talk a little about what I have noted as potentially the most important aspects of creating and running a campaign. This is as much a journey of discovery for me as it is any kind of advice for others wishing to tread the path. Learn from my mistakes I guess. It won't just be a description of a practical system for running the campaign, because there are plenty of those out there that don't need explanation from me. I will however be referring to the foundation that I intend to use, which is one of the systems found in The General's Compendium. What I will try to talk about, the shadows I want to pin to the floor, are the additional elements that not only allow you to run a campaign, but to keep things flowing and keep people interested.

So, this post will just be my initial thoughts on what I think at this stage are the most important things to consider (to save it turning into a multi-page wall o' text):

The Focus:

To provide a setting and premise for a campaign that players actually want to be part of, because it is engaging, exciting and is challenging for all the participants.

Potential Pit Falls:

• Players getting bored and losing interest.

• A minority of players being too successful and making the campaign one sided and as a result, taking the fun out of taking part for other players and sapping their desire to continue.

• The campaign becoming too rigid or too random, so that the players feel that the impact their battles have is too small.

• The campaign becoming too complicated and difficult to track, making communicating what is happening to the participants.

• Losing the main plot driver for the campaign amongst trying to placate all participants and trying to please everybody. A strong story should engage the players without the need to keep changing the plan to accommodate their suggestions if this dilutes the focus too much.

Like I said, these are the things I will be thinking about over the next week or so, before laying the basic structure of a campaign and checking that the foundation is sound by bouncing it off a couple of the players at the club (and you guys of course - any feedback is welcome).

Let me know what your thoughts are. Are there any other key things you think I (or anyone else) should look out for when planning a campaign?

Until next time, thanks for reading...

Portugese Pontification...

Greetings fellow wargamers, and welcome to my little haven in the sun. I have left behind my study of stifling stuffiness, and taken a much needed break from the rigours of regular routines. While I sit, Bugmans Best on the table and Piri Piri on the plate, I am free to ponder on the hobby we all love.

I will begin by confirming that to date, I have kept my vow to not purchase any more models until I have a fully painted army for Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. I can also proudly declare that I have made a start on the painting portion of the pledge, having completed a block of 40 Skeleton Spearmen for my Vampire Counts army, with only a little trimming of the hand painted banner required to finish them off (pics to follow). This effort was encouraged in no small part by my participation in the 'Astro Painting Survivor Series 7', which alas I have had to withdraw from due to an appointment with a swimming pool and no small quantity of ale. As soon as I make it back to Blighty, I plan on painting up a coven of three Witches to use as Necromancers, and a sweet mini my better half bought me from Hasslefree Miniatures for Valentines Day.

Next, I will clear up the loose end left by the first couple of posts I published on our club 40K League-tournament-thingy. At last posting, I had played two games, having once been tabled and once dished out a tabling of my own. After that things got a bit hazy, with several attempts made at arranging my remaining two games meeting with utter failure. It seems some of the other guys met a similar lack of success in pinning their remaining foes to the field, and with other events looming, play was abandoned. I am assuming that a couple of the participants must be concealing pointy ears, as the old Imperial Navy adage that 'you may as well try to catch starlight as bring the Eldar to battle' holds true.

On a more positive note, I can report that my 'Eye of Morrslieb' narrative campaign for Warhammer Fantasy Battle is more than half way through, the first two of three games having been completed, and the planning for the grand finale coming on apace.

The first game went well enough, with all eight players managing to get their games in over a two week period. The result saw four armies victorious and no draws. I lost my battle against an army of Skaven, but managed to put up a fight before losing my Vampire and Vargheists to a Doomwheel. My overperforming Zombies however managed to reduce said Doomwheel to a single wound, while also holding up two fifty strong units of Slaves and still hanging in there till the end of the game, just! In a previous battle against the Skaven (the same opponent in fact) I also managed to lose the Vargheists to a Doomwheel, and so resolved not to allow this to happen again in the future.

Vargheists just don't have the hitting power to take out the Doomwheel before its multiple special attacks whittle them down (not a unit of three anyway), which is easily compounded by crumbling and the Vargheists being Vampiric, and so only being able to recover a single wound from the Invocation of Nehek, plus another from the Lore Attribute under the right circumstances. I have discovered that Vargheists are actually a little tricky to use, as they are Frenzied, which means they must declare a Charge against the nearest viable enemy unit if they fail their restrain test, but they are also a Flying Unit, so you can't just block their charge arcs with other friendly units because they can make a Flying Charge straight over the top of them!

There are a couple of tricks I have picked up for trying to keep them under control until they are in a position to attack where you want them to, which include placing them so that there are no enemies in their front arc to declare a charge against, keeping them further behind your line to keep them outside their maximum charge range of the enemy, and declaring charges against the enemy unit closest to the Vargheists with another unit, so that after Charges have been declared, if they were forced to declare a charge, the unit they declared against is engaged by another of your units across their entire facing, preventing the Vargeists from Charging them as well. The best use of the Vargheists has to be into a unit of Infantry (which they can Stomp) and preferably into a flank or rear of a unit already engaged with another unit, to accumulate combat bonuses and reduce the number of attacks coming back at them. If you can throw them into the flank of an Infantry block with a save of 5+ or worse, they can really add to that combat resolution.

Of course Vargheists can shred most chaff units as well, but they will need to eat a fair bit of chaff to justify their points cost in this role. In my first game the Vargeists did in theory have a fair chance of killing the Doomwheel, probably more so than any of the Infantry blocks in the army, they just didn't manage it on the day. Conversly, the Doomwheel was probably also the enemy unit that had the best chance of taking out the Vargheists. A really unlikely string of movement rolls and a 'misfire' by the Doomwheel saw it smash into the flank of my Ghoul unit led by my low level Vampire, and they just kept failing to win a round or pass a Combat Reform test to turn and get more attacks on the Doomwheel. With only two wounds and the Doomwheel dishing out strength 6 attacks, the Vampire was in real danger.

The second game went better. After discussion between the participants, we decided each player would be allowed to add 250 points to their 750 point list from game one, and also be allowed to change round the equipment selected for their characters to allow them to fix any major errors they felt they had made with their earlier choices. We also decided that a single Magic Item worth up to 35 points could be included. All of this combined would ensure we got the chance to learn something new and different in comparison to the first game. I would have loved to have had the points to fit in a Hero Banshee, but just didn't have the points for her plus the Vampire and Necromancer.

In addition to the extra points, I decided it would be good to include some rules to represent casualties sustained in the first game, so after a couple of drafts, we decided that any characters killed in a challenge in game 1 would roll on a simple table to see if they carried any injuries into the second game, which would reduce one of their stats by 1. I also decided we should roll a die for characters that fled the field, with a chance that they would play game 2 with a reduced Leadership chracteristic, which represented their own courage being shaken as well as affect their ability to inspire their own troops. They had seen them run away once already after all.

Units that were wiped out in game 1 would start game 2 as if they had taken 10% casualties (wounds) on a roll of 1 to 3 on a D6. I did suggest to the gang that this did give my army an advantage, as I could regenerate the wounds with magic, but it was graciously agreed that this was simply an inherent advantage of the Vampire Counts army. As it turned out, all I lost was a single wound from the Vargeists, which was easily replenished.

After working out who won in game one, players all rolled their D6's and applied modifiers depending on how they faired in their first battle. Players added one if they won their game, two if they routed the enemy, and minus one if they lost the first game. This gave us an order in which the players arrived at the crash site from 1st to 8th.

The first four players to arrive had a decision to make: they had to decide where to concentrate their efforts. Did they focus on the glory of their Master by high tailing it back to their Master's main army as fast as possible with their full force and report what was at stake to give their Master as much time as a they could to raise a larger force and return to claim the Eye? Or did they send back a token messenger who would take longer to get back to their Master as they flitted from bolt hole to hole to get back, if they made it at all, but attempt to secure the Eye with the meagre forces at their disposal?

Option 1 would would allow players the chance to deploy further onto the battlefield and therefore closer to the objective in the final game, as their Master's army arrived quicker. Option 2 would more than likely result in their Master's army arriving later and starting the final game further from the objective, but would allow a single unit from the scouting force list to be deployed on the objective at the start of the game.

The earliest arriving players would decide in secret which option they wanted to go for, after which the later arriving players declared which of the earlier arriving players they wanted to attack. Only after players had declared which army they were attacking did we reveal which scenarios they would be playing. Unfortunately, as I had neglected to bring along my 6th Edition rulebook containing the Ambush scenario, we had to substitute in the Battle for the Pass from 8th, which represented the ambushers blocking the path of the enemy at a bottleneck. As a final proviso for selecting opponents, I decided that players could not choose to attack the army they already fought in game 1, just to prevent things becoming repetitive.

In the event, I rolled high and arrived second of eight players, I picked the makeshift Ambush option, and my Vampire Counts found their path blocked by a force of Lizardmen...

The game went well, though ended in a close fought draw. I had a plan and pretty much stuck with it as far as what I wanted each unit to do. My Zombies did their job once again, by engaging and holding up a unit of Saurus Warriors led by Skar Veteran while my Vargheists and Vampire leading his newly arrived Black Knights smashed clean through a second unit of Saurus Warriors and then cleared up the enemy back field.

My Ghouls seemed to be wading through treacle for the first few turns, taking ages to make it into combat with a unit of Saurus Cavalry. I think I underestimated the staying power of the Saurus cav though, as the the Ghouls had a really hard time getting through their thick armour. In the end, the last couple of Saurus managed to finish off the Ghouls, but at least by that point the Saurus cav weren't in a position to affect the rest of the field.

I think the only big mistake I made was the positioning of the Skeleton Warriors and Neceomancer. When the Zombies finally folded, the Saurus Warriors and Skar Veteran they had been fighting overran into the front of the Skeletons, and the Necromancer went down to allocated attacks in the following combat round. I should have repositioned the Skeletons before the Zombies died to take them out of the overrun path of the Saurus Warriors, or at the very least move the Necromancer out of the unit. Either of these two things could have netted me a narrow victory instead of a draw.

In any event, I think things are going well so far, the players seem to be enjoying it, I just need to make sure I am better organised for the final game, making sure there are enough copies of the big rulebook around on the night, as the scenario I want us to play (The Dark Monoliths of Zhulgozar) isn't in the small rule book...

There are already plans evolving for a 40K campaign to follow this one, fingers crossed this first attempt goes out with a bang.

Thanks for reading...

The Eye of Morrslieb Narrative Campaign: Part 2 - Rumble on the road!

Welcome wargamers, welcome, nice to have you back once again in my war room...

It has begun. 'It' being the three battle narrative campaign I am attempting to run for the guys at my local club. On Thursday the 6th, we were fortunate to have seven out of eight participants able to attend, and so we got right into game one - Meeting Engagement!

Fickle creatures that they are, the armies that we have ended up fielding in the campaign are not necessarily the same as the ones that were first put forward. In the end, we have the following forces represented:

The Vampire Counts of the Schwarzeschloss (my army)

The Skaven of Grey Seer Scuttle

The Skaven of Clan Sneekit

The Lizardmen of Georgapottle

An Empire force from Averland

The Greenskins of the Gouged Eye Tribe

The Dwarfs of Clan Rawbread

The Chaos Dwarfs of Daemon Smith Azgral.

I should mention that many of the guys didn't have names for their force or characters, so I have made some up for them.

We started off by determining which armies would face off against each other, which we did by randomly picking out two scrolls at a time from the Golden Chest of Destiny, which yielded the following match ups:

Vampire Counts vs The Skaven of Grey Seer Scuttle

The Skaven of Clan Sneekit vs The Empire

The Lizardmen vs The Chaos Dwarfs

Orcs and Goblins vs The Dwarfs

The final battle in the list is yet to be fought, as the Clan Warlord of the Dwarfs was busily engaged drinking mead and updating his almighty book of grudges, so that'll get played in my 'off week' I hope, and then we can crack on to the second game. Now, the results of the first game went as follows:

The Vampire Counts of the Schwarzeschloss were defeated by the Skaven of Grey Seer Scuttle (though this vanguard force was led by his underling, Warlock Engineer Trundle). The Skaven of Clan Sneekit routed the Empire Soldiers of Averland, and the Lustrians were defeated by the Chaos Dwarfs of Daemon Smith Azgral.



Now here is where things get interesting. The next thing that happens is that we ascertain in what order the armies arrive at the crash site, the idea being that those that won the greatest victories in game one stand the chance of getting to the Eye the quickest, having smashed aside the opposition, while armies which drew or lost lose valuable time licking wounds and regrouping after their battle.

Each army commander rolls a single D6, and applies the following modifiers depending on how their game ended:

Defeated in game one = -1 to the D6 roll

Drew game one = no modifier applied

Victory in game one = +1 to the D6 roll

Routed the enemy in game one = +2 to the D6 roll

Just to clarify, the definition of 'routed' which we are working to is an army that had no units left on the table that weren't fleeing. The army was 'fled or dead', if you like. Any players which draw their scores should roll-off between them to determine which of them arrived first, until a final order is established.

Given the modifiers, you can probably work out that even if an army was routed, it still has a chance of getting to the crash site early if by some fluke they pull their finger out and get moving, which is what I wanted really. I didn't want the result of first game to make the second game a forgone conclusion, and still give the players a feeling that they could influence the story. Plus, it's more exciting to create tension.

Now, based on the order that the armies arrived at the crash site, my original plan was to allow each player a choice which would help determine which battle scenario they played next. After playing game one and having a longer think about the different ways the players might be able to scupper my well laid plans however, the options demanded a re-think. I realised I couldn't very well give every player the same option, because to pair the armies off for game two would require an even number of players to choose each route. If we ended up with odd numbers of players choosing each option, then two players were going to end up setting their armies up opposite the invisible man, and I hear he doesn't play by the rules. Ethereal cannon balls and all sorts of weird ass stuff.

So, the decision I have had to make is as follows. Once the order that players reach the Eye has been established, the first four players to arrive get to make the choice:

1. Do they focus on securing the Eye, sending just a token messenger to their master, who will take longer to get the message through, if at all, as they try to avoid the perils of the journey and the rival forces about?

2. Do they lead their entire force to join up with their master's army, being more sure of getting to them quickly as they forge through the countryside in force, but leaving the site uncontested and having to contemplate ousting a rival force from the site on their return?

The decision that the players make in secret will result in them playing one of the following two games:

Players taking option 1 - armies that chose this option will fight a Forced March scenario using just a single objective in the centre of the table for control of the Eye. The winner will begin the final battle with a small force already on or near the objective.

Each army taking this option must also roll a D6 for their plucky messenger. If they roll a 1-2, their messenger has fallen foul of some danger and been killed. 3-6, they arrive at their master's camp/lair and report the discovery of the Eye of Morrslieb, and their master begins mustering their army to set out and claim the comet.

I got here first! - If an army taking this option arrived before their enemy according to the results of the first game, then they automatically count as arriving first for the scenario special rules. Units from both armies are only held in reserve on a roll of 4-6 on a D6. Units arriving from reserve from the army that arrived first arrive on Turn 1. Units from the army arriving second deploy on Turn 2.

Players taking option 2 - armies choosing this option will fight the Ambush scenario. The army that arrived last will be the ambushers, as their force meets the enemy coming back towards them and can set their trap, which fits the story. The winner of this battle will gain a positive modifier to their roll to see whose main army reaches the Eye first, giving them a better chance of taking control of the objective.

Once the first four players to arrive have decided in secret which option they want to go for, the remaining four players are allowed to nominate an army for them to engage in game two, starting with the player whose army arrived at the crash site fourth, through to eighth. Just to keep things interesting, players will not be allowed to nominate the army they played against in game one. I think that keeping match ups varied will not only keep it exciting, it will offer a different challenge and therefore an opportunity to further expand our knowledge of the capabilities of the various armies.

Only when each of the four players arriving last have determined which rival army they are attacking do we then reveal which option they have chosen, and therefore which scenario everyone will be playing for their second game. This way, no player can really cherry pick the match up, because they don't know what scenario they will be playing, though they might be able to make a guess based on what they think the strengths of the army are. The four players arriving last may not get to choose the scenario, but they do still have a lot of influence over what kind of games will be played because they decide which armies face off against one another.

Force Restrictions and Changes

Given that this is a narrative campaign, and I would like the games to tell a story, it has been appropriate to apply restrictions to the list selection. Initially, the plan was to use the exact same list for both game one and game two, the intention being to allow us to get to know our lists and concentrate on getting the best out of them against different opponents. After playing the first game we have realised that we might get little out of game two if the armies are exactly the same, and it would be nice to step it up a gear, so for game two, I am allowing players to add an additional 250 points to the list they used for game one, which represents stragglers arriving who didn't make it in time for the first engagement, or trusted troops sent out from the main army. The game one list remains unchanged, save for adding more units to it. Players are not allowed to take anything away, because to allow that we may as well just have fresh lists.

After thinking about the restrictions used for the game one lists, I have also had a hard time justifying to myself the reason for limiting the number of war machines that can be included on the basis of the forces intended to be mobile vanguard or scouting forces, when things like Chariots are fast and move under their own steam, so I am clarifying the restriction to say 'no more than one artillery piece per army'.

Apart from that, the restrictions are as per game one. The increase in total points value will allow more flexibility to add additional units and equipment, and give the armies more depth.

There is however one additional consideration...

Injuries and Casualties!

I mean, does it really feel like your army has been fighting hard over the preceding couple of days if everyone just dusts themselves off and has another go? What do you feel like you've achieved if an army you wiped out yesterday is back at full strength today?

Now I will admit that I might be taking a bit of a risk trying this, so I have gone for a softly softly approach, and one that I hope will not cripple any of the armies, but at the same time, it will only apply to this game, because the final game will be fresh lists as the main armies arrive to battle for the prize.

BEFORE players spend their additional 250 points, they should determine whether any of their units or models will be fighting at reduced strength in this second game. First...

Characters

Any HERO model (I haven't said Lords, because there weren't any allowed in game 1) that was killed on the field in game 1, should roll a D6, with a -1 penalty if they were killed by direct damage (by which I mean they had their wounds reduced to zero by some means, which doesn't include being run down whilst fleeing), and consult the table below to see if the model has suffered any injury which they will carry through to the next game.

1 = Start game 2 with one less wound than appears on their starting profile. This character really shouldn't be out of bed.

2 = Start game 2 with -1 to their Toughness. This character took a real beating, but is determined to fight on, despite their fragile state.

3 = Start game 2 with -1 to their Strength. The character has been injured, and though the wound is not life threatening, they will not be fighting at their full strength until they have had a few days to recover.

4-6 = No penalty. The character's wounds are superficial enough that their fighting prowess has not been reduced, and though they might have picked up a good knock to the head, some livid bruising or cracked ribs, and maybe an impressive new scar or two, they are able to fight on without significant detriment to their abilities.

Now, I would also like to consider those 'heroes' who weren't killed in the fighting, but only because they ran away! Heroes that fled the field saved themselves from having to roll on the table above, but I don't think they should get away scot free. They are after all meant to be leading the warriors around them, inspiring them and giving them confidence. Legging it to save your own skin while your unit standard bearer gets hacked down defending the regimental banner doesn't exactly scream 'Chuck Norris', does it?

To represent the effect of seeing a hero of the army flee the field (the coward!), any Hero that fled the field in game 1 should roll a D6. On a roll of 1 or 2, they will fight game two at -1 to their Ld Characteristic, reducing their ability to keep their warriors fighting as their faith in their commanders courage falters.

Unit Casualties

Righty ho, now this is getting on for being a pretty long post, so well done to all of you with the constitution to have made it this far. This is the last bit.

To represent the depletion of units that have taken a real mauling, either through battlefield casualties or warriors that have 'jumped the fence' and fled rather than fight on, any unit that was wiped out/destroyed in game 1 should roll a D6. On a roll of 1 to 3, the unit should start game 2 treated as though they have suffered 10% wounds, to a minimum of 1 (in case of any rounding weirdness). The unit entry on the army list doesn't change, they simply have 10% wounds worth of casualties removed at the point of deployment, so they are still worth their full Victory Points if wiped out in game 2. Any casualties should not be taken from Command models if possible. If the unit champion was killed in game one, some lucky chap will be promoted ready for game 2.

This could mean that war machines and monsters simply start with fewer than their full wounds in game 2, which I hope will work just as well whatever the unit type is. I guess we will find out.

That's it. I hope I haven't forgotten anything. All the pre-game prep for game 2 is far more complicated than for game 1, though not that complicated if it's all done one step at a time, so it might work out great, or it might fall to pieces. I guess I'll just quote the adage 'no battle plan survives contact with the enemy'...

Fingers crossed this works out, let me know what you think of my plan so far.

Thanks for reading...

The Eye of Morrslieb Narrative Campaign: Part 1 - Introduction

Greetings once more fellow wargamers, and welcome to my war room.

This time, I bring you part one of what will be a multi-part part series all about the narrative campaign I will (hopefully) be running. I have decided to post as the campaign goes along rather than wait till it's over and then post it all at once, to give an honest account of how things go. I haven't run any kind of campaign in an awfully long time, so I am not sure how it will pan out, but if I encounter problems along the way and can get around them, maybe others can learn from my misfortune. Here goes...

The Eye of Morrslieb

~~~

For twelve nights, the Eye of Morrsleib glared down on the land as it forged a shimmering path across the heavens, like the emerald spear of a god. It's luminescence lent the countryside below an eerie and unnatural hue, sickly and pallid. In it's wake, there did fall a rain of glittering dust which glimmered and sparkled with the pure stuff of Chaos.

In every place where the dust fell upon the land, it brought with it the power of change, unfettered and uncontrollable. It's taint permeated all: flesh, stone, earth and water. Living things were twisted into diabolical new forms, or rent assunder, mewling and ravaged. Dead things found their withered limbs, though creaking and splintered, imbued with terrible new life.

On the thirteenth night, the Eye opened and became one with the earth, and every creature attuned to the raging winds of magic turned their faces towards it's resting place, sensing its power...

~~~

The Eye of Morrslieb is a three battle linked campaign I am planning to run at my local club, in an effort to get enthusiastic but inexperienced Warhammer Fantasy players playing the game, and to allow grizzled old veterans like myself to get their teeth into something with a back story while hammering home the nuances of 8th edition. Also, it will make a welcome change from the slew of 40K battles that have been fought recently as part of our Club Warhammer 40,000 League. This is intended as a warm up before we go for either a Club Warhammer Fantasy League, or into a more involved map based campaign.

I have to admit, despite a barrow load of resources to refer to, planning a linked campaign for multiple players is much more complicated than planning one for just two armies. The campaign narrative breaks down into three plot stages, each represented by an appropriate battle. I am planning on using pre-made scenarios from various sources with as little tweaking as possible, just to keep things simple for this first campaign.

Now I stress, there are two things I would like this campaign to emphasise: Making a narrative work and be exciting, and to help people along with the rules and getting to grips with gameplay and how their army works. Although there will be an eventual winner, this is not intended as a competitive campaign.

Stage 1 - Investigation

The representatives of each of the participating armies, leading small scouting or vanguard forces who happen to be the closest to the impact area of the Eye of Morrslieb all rush to ascertain the nature of the object that has fallen from the heavens. It is clear to all that it is of significance and may be of value to their masters.

As the armies hurry to do their masters bidding, they unexpectedly run into rival forces, intent on reaching the Eye first in the name of their own masters.

This first battle will be played out using the Meeting Engagement scenario, representing the hurried nature of the forces, and their focus on getting to the prize first, rather than who else might be about. We have eight armies taking part, and each game will involve two armies. The results of this first game will determine which armies reach the crash site first.

The armies taking part are as follows:

Vampire Counts (me)
Skaven
Skaven
Warriors of Chaos
Lizardmen
Lizardmen
Empire
Orcs & Goblins

There will be restrictions on list selection, and as the first two games revolve around the smaller forces rushing to reach the crash site and what happens when they get there, the players will use the same list for both of the first two games.

The restrictions are intended to ensure that the forces that are selected are not going to unbalance these low point games, and to try and pruduce armies that are representative of the kind of force that is more of a garrison/scouting/vanguard type of force, rather than a main army force with all the big characters and support. That comes later...

Here are the restriction on the lists for the first and second game:

Maximum of 750 points in total

No Lord Choices - Your Lord is with his army, this is just a peripheral force

No Battle Standard Bearer - The Battle Standard is with your Lord and the main army

Maximum of one War Machine - this is a small force mobile force, not an artillery train

No Monsters - Again, this is a small force, not the Altdorf Zoo. The force is not equipped to deal with a monster

No Magic Items with an individual value of more than 25 points - Any characters with this force are not important enough to be able to afford anything more spangly

In addition, to avoid any situations where a single lucky spell wipes someones army off the table, spells are generated by rolling a D3 rather than a D6, ensuring that in the first couple of games we don't see any of the really big spells, and to allow the players to concentrate more on maneouvering and combat rather than sparkly sticks that go Whizz Bang!

I am hoping that non of these restrictions will have too adverse an effect on any of the armies, but being as I am using Vampire Counts (who aren't famed for their prowess in low point games), if the restrictions bite anyone in the ass it will probably be me! I haven't run a campaign like this before, which is another reason for starting small, so this is a learning curve for me in that respect as well.

Which armies run into each other will be determined at random using marked pieces of parchment marked with the symbol of an army. Once the Meeting Engagements have been played out, the results will affect who reaches the crash site first as follows:

Each army will roll a D6 with the following modifiers:

Fought and drew or lost = +0
Fought and won a Minor Victory = +1
Fought and Massacred the enemy = +2

The resulting scores will be used to determine the order in which the armies arrive at the site and discover the Eye of Morrslieb. Any players that draw scores will roll off to determine a final order between them. Obviously armies that achieve the best result in the first game will stand the best chance of reaching the crash site first, which comes with certain benefits in later games.

So, next comes the games themselves, who won, and what order they arrive at the crash site of the Eye...watch this space!

Thanks for reading.

Worldwide Campaigns - Part 2

Welcome back one and all, to part 2 of my rant...I mean summary, of the phenomenon that was the Games Workshop world wide campaign! I am relieved that if you are reading this, then at least someone decided that part 2 couldn't possibly be worse than part 1.

Below is what remains on the list of events that we have not yet covered. The next event in particular I consider to be of major significance, a turning point in the history of the world wide campaign.

2004 - Storm of Chaos (Warhammer)
2005 - The War of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game)
2006 - The Fall of Medusa V (Warhammer 40,000)
2007 - The Nemesis Crown (Warhammer)
2011 - Scourge of the Storm (Warhammer)

So, we come to it, the event that inspired this topic, and has generated by far the greatest volume of debate and controversy. Even though it is seven years this year since the Storm of Chaos took (or didn't take) place, we still see the odd thread pop up in one of the various background forums from either someone who saw things go down and has questions, or a gamer who wasn't there and is appealing to the Loremasters for enlightenment.

I will talk more about this event than any of the others, because this is the biggy, so I apologise for that, but the Storm of Chaos was 'the daddy' as far as significance goes. I will say that I speak, as usual, from my own point of view, as a lover of stories, and with the considerable benefit of hindsight.

A couple of things you have to bear in mind about this event are that it was set in the Old World, the very heart of the Warhammer setting (not an Island in the middle of the Ocean, or on a far flung planet created specially for a war to be waged over), and that, at least in the beginning there was the promise that we as participants could affect the background of the Warhammer setting itself, by our actions in the campaign.

This was an amazing opportunity for anyone like myself, who places a high value on the story behind the games.

Now, there was an awful lot of ground work done in the lead up to the campaign, including linking back to some very old material, and I commend the writers for that. The story itself was great - up to a point.

I have read and re-read most of the material for the campaign, as I am lucky enough to have been able to preserve or locate much of what was made available at the time, and there was plenty of it!

As well as all the lead up stories, battle reports and special characters used as plot drivers, there was a day by day account of the war penned by Gav Thorpe, and the conclusions presented on the website which followed the end of the campaign proper.

Despite all of the work that went into the event, the quality of (most of) the material and the amount of control of the battles themselves given over to the participants, when the dust had settled and the conclusions written, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong.

My recollection of the events are that the direction the campaign took was not what GW had envisaged. The forces comprising and supporting Archaon's drive across the northern Empire towards mighty Middenheim was fragmented and seemingly not as coordinated that that of the defenders of the Empire. The Orc players, who may have been expected to take the side of disorder, conducted a focussed attack on the forces of Archaon. The Empire meanwhile enjoyed spectacular success, which it is claimed was not represented in the evolving story.

The fact was that, for many reasons, the story that formed the backbone of the campaign was not being played out on the table. The Chaos invasion force was overall struggling to make headway towards their goal, and rather than let it turn into a damp squib of an assault by the armies of the Everchosen, it is claimed that the story was used to drive the action, and Archaon towards Middenheim, where actual battle results were failing to do so.

This created a situation where people felt that ths story was not being influenced by their actions as it should have been, and this feeling was compounded by the conclusions that were written following the end of the tabletop conflict.

There were, to my recollection, three particular items within post campaign conclusions that really sealed the fate of the campaign, and by extension, the concept of the Worldwide Campaign as a story development tool.

First, we had Belakor, the first Daemon Prince and Dark Master from the Dark Shadows Campaign and his entire Daemonic army banished by the Elven Loremaster Teclis. Just like that, they were dust.

Second, we had the big battle that a large part of the campaign plot had been building towards, Valten's army of zealots and Karl Franz's army engaging the forces of Chaos. Archaon laid low both Luther Huss, 'prophet' of Valten, the incarnation of Sigmar reborn, only for the Everchosen to be slapped silly by Grimgor Ironhide, who then, in a very un-Orcy fashion, decided that it was enough to have defeated Archaon, and let him live!!!

Last, and most grating for me as a Vampire Counts player, was the tale of Manfred von Carstein and his part in the war, which in the conclusion began when he arrived at the village of Sokh where the hard core of Archaons remaining forces had repulsed attacks by the Empire army.

Manfred's forces swept through the village, decimating the Chaos forces and driving the survivors into retreat. After this, he squared up to the Empire generals, ready to destroy them, and after a cinematic but wholly unrealistic exchange of words with the now resurrected Volkmar the Grim (previously slain by Archaon and then brought back from the dead by Belakor), Manfred turns his army around and marches away without a fight!

I'm sure there are other things that people could name, but those are the things that stick in my mind. The final nail in the coffin though, was that the entire campaign had no impact on the game setting at all, as ever afterwards, bit by bit any reference to it having taken place has been erased, and the clock in the current big rulebook timeline has been wound back to the year before the invasion. Every current source now says that the largest Chaos invasion in history is on the horizon.

I should stop at this point and pass on to you, dear reader, something that I have deduced after reading the campaign background material, specifically the Loremasters Journal, in order to be fair to Gav Thorpe at least. Part of the problem with the campaign was that the Chaos invasion forces seemed to lack the cohesion and direction of their enemies, but when you read the day by day account (at least the way I read it), it is littered with prompts and nudges. These hints roughly equate to Gav saying "you've spent far too much time fighting for this inconsequencial backwater, Middenheim is the prize" and to quote Richard Obrien in his Crystal Maze days, "On to the next Zone!".

Whether these really are hints, and could have been picked up on at the time, or whether my madness has found a new way to manifest itself I just can't say, but if you get the chance to read the Loremasters Journal, see what you think.

So where does this now leave us? Will the Storm of Chaos break at some point in the future? Or has the wheel of time ceased to turn and the Warhammer setting is now stuck in a paradoxical End Time that will never actually come because the clock has stopped before it is due to be unleashed? I know what I think.

And what did the experience of the Storm of Chaos campaign teach Games Workshop? Well I think it taught them something fairly obvious: you shouldn't put vast, epic and fundamentally world shattering events in the hands of fate (or wargamers) and beyond your own control. This is what they said they were doing with the Storm of Chaos, and when it didn't work out, they had (I suppose were forced) to take the necessary action to preserve the game background. Unfortunately this somewhat undermined one of the big attractions of taking part in the first place.

Now then, we can clearly see the impact of the lessons learned in the worldwide campaigns that followed, which I shall skim over because that's all they really warrant, and to prevent this post running into a third part.

The War of the Ring I can't comment on, but I am sure it would have been a great marketing excercise.

The Fall of Medusa V for 40K and the Nemesis Crown for Fantasy were both far simpler than the Storm of Chaos, with main plots that were all but predetermined and just needed a final decison to be reached about which participating faction managed to best achieve their allotted goals before the campaign ended. Both were launched with a free booklet with White Dwarf (thank you again GW), and accompanied by campaign websites.

Medusa V revolved around a planet created specially by GW so that it could be destroyed, and it was clear the planet was doomed from the start, about to be swallowed by the Warp Storm named Van Grothes Rapidity. The campaign included opportunities for every race pretty much to be played, which will always create a story that is hard to justify convincingly. There just isn't any good reason or even likely possibility that every race will have interest in a single world all at once.

The Nemesis Crown was not a high impact high potential damage campaign like the Storm of Chaos. It essentially revolved around the hunt by various races for a single magic item: a rathed potent shiny hat. Of course the Crown had the potential to destroy the universe, but this would never have been allowed to happen. Suffice to say that this campaign was never in a position to influence the game background.

The Scourge of the Storm campaign, though included in the Wikipedia list, was over before I ever realised it was taking place, and I am confident was less of a worldwide campaign and more of a marketing tool to get people playing the Storm of Magic supplement for Fantasy.

If the question is 'how do the campaigns that came after the Storm of Chaos differ from those before?', the answer must surely be that the opportunity for we as gamers to have a chance to affect the setting we play our games in was taken away, and in my opinion at least, the whole concept died when that happened.

When quizzed on the subject, the answer given by a prominent person within Games Workshop (who shall remain nameless due to my enduring respect for this person) was that the company did not wish to cause anyones collection to become invalidated by the results of a campaign. Though I can appreciate this approach, it leaves us with a game where the setting and its stories that keep so many of us hooked on the GW hobby stagnate, reduced to a paper backdrop for our battles to be fought against.

I have been told that other companies manage to progress their back stories without any obvious problems, which makes me wonder why Games Workshop can't manage the same, though they do seem to have 'back filled' and expanded on the background material with things like the juggernaut that is the Horus Heresy series, without moving the timeline forward.

In conclusion, my advice to Games Workshop would be that worldwide campaigns can be a huge draw for gamers, and have the potential to be really amazing events, but rather than campaigns which are simply too insignificant in their events to carry any real sense of moment, they should release them as all encompassing source books similar to those produced by Forgeworld. I would love to see a book which provides background and army lists allowing us to play games in the war-torn northern Empire following the Storm of Chaos. This gives those that want it what they wish for, without impacting the main setting.

On that note, my next few posts will describe just that: the disposition and concerns of the various main factions affected by the Storm of Chaos, that I wrote after much deliberation over how to create such a source book and save the story from the ridiculous fudges that ruined it for us. Maybe they will inspire you to play some games post Storm of Chaos, or return to the maelstrom of Armageddon and pick up the war after the Season of Fire? Or even perhaps have a check down the back of the sofa for that stupid Nemesis Crown. It must be somewhere...

It's been a long post, so thanks more than ever for sticking with me...

Worldwide Campaigns - Part 1

Greetings all. Here is another subject close to my heart, and one that has spawned thousands of constructive and deconstructive posts over the years. Many of them by me I might add...

Below, I quote a list taken from Wikipedia's Games Workshop page. Some of you may not recognise the significance of the listed items. Others may suffer psychologically disturbing flashbacks, for which I apologise. Here it is:

1995 - The Battle of Ichar IV (Warhammer 40,000)
2000 - Third War for Armageddon (Warhammer 40,000)
2001 - Dark Shadows (Warhammer)
2003 - Eye of Terror (Warhammer 40,000)
2004 - Storm of Chaos (Warhammer)
2005 - The War of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game)
2006 - The Fall of Medusa V (Warhammer 40,000)
2007 - The Nemesis Crown (Warhammer)
2011 - Scourge of the Storm (Warhammer)

The list above represents a time line, and this time line records both the greatest events in tabletop wargaming history (speaking as a player of only Games Workshop games I should add. I would love to find out if any other companies have run similar events, so feel free to let me know), and what I consider to be the rise and fall of the worldwide campaign. This is obviously just my point of view, and if anyone has a differing point of view, good, because healthy debate is never a bad thing.

Now, though I am not a player of The Lord Of The Rings (at present, though the new Hobbit film releases starting this year may encourage me to change that), I can say I have been around for all of the other campaigns, and followed them online and, before the dominance of the internet, in White Dwarf magazine, going right the way back to Ichar IV. Yes, I was there son, I was there...

The reason I thought this topic might make a good blog post, is that, however involved I have been with the hobby since I started, I have always tried to keep up with things, and having had a White Dwarf subscription for several years has meant I haven't missed things that other people regret missing (like the WD released Sisters of Battle update from earlier in the year for example, which GW really should put up as a free download).

The result of this is that I have seen how the worldwide campaigns have changed over the years, and how people have reacted to them - to a degree at least. I won't be going into too much detail on the individual campaigns, because that would need pages and pages and would have you all snoring.

So, where did the (GW) Worldwide Campaigns begin? Officially at least, and as far as we are concerned, it started in '95 with the invasion of Ichar IV by the ravenous hive mind. As this was two years after the release of 2nd edition 40k, I'm sure that was the edition it was played under. So what about it? From what I remember, it was covered entirely in White Dwarf. No accompanying campaign Codex or snazzy online website for this campaign, no. This was run very simply. Well, simple for participants, not so simple for the GW crew running it. It required participants to fight battles, then post (yes post. That thing you do where you make marks on paper with a stick and feed it to the red Dalek with the 'email address' scratched on the front of the little paper casing) the results of battles to Jervis Johnson to compile.

I remember many pages of pictures from White Dwarf: photos gamers had sent in, extracts from their 'in character' letter reports, and a great one of Jervis Johnson kneeling amongst a sea of battle reports. His comment at the time was that they never expected the scale of response that they received.

From these auspicious beginings, the concept of the worldwide campaign has expanded, and in cases like the Battle for Ichar IV, have become part of the official back story of the game, though not all are considered to have been as successful as Ichar IV.

It seemed to me as though the simpler less ambitious campaigns had greater success than some of the middle of the timeline campaigns like the Storm of Chaos, though some have been of such little consequence that I didn't even realise they were happening till they were over!

The second campaign in the list, The Third War For Armageddon, (which was set around the Ork re-invasion of the entire Armageddon sub sector) was a great success in my opinion, taking the organisation to a new level by introducing a Campaign Codex book which detailed alternative and new army lists, as well as copious quantities of background material and modelling pics, and was a great step. It also made use of an online campaign website for the first time if I remember rightly. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!

Armageddon was another campaign which made it's way into the official background of the 41st Millenium, and left us with a legacy of new models (an entire wave of Orks, which saw the race reinvigorated, as well as Salamander and Black Templar Space Marines, and the famed Armageddon Steel Legion, not to mention new versions of old rivals Commissar Yarrick and a behemoth of a Ghazghkull Thrakka model). The war itself, officially, is still raging even now, sucking ever more Ork and Impererial forces into this cauldron of destruction, which itself has an impact on available resources for light years in every direction.

The first of the Warhammer Fantasy worldwide campaigns was Dark Shadows, which took place in 2001 on the mystic isle of Albion, recently revealed through shrouding mists. It has crossed my mind that 'Sandy Island', recently found to be missing from it's New Caledonia position on many charts, and the rediscovery of Albion could be more than just coincidence!

This campaign saw the return of Belakor (the first Daemon Prince) in his guise as The Dark Master, and his efforts to control the ancient Ogham Stones which kept the power of Chaos in check (again, much of this is from memory, so feel free to correct me if you know better). The campaign also saw the introduction of Truthsayers and Dark Emissaries, powerful magic users working for the forces of Order and Disorder respectively, and who in the back story attempted to recruit armies from across the Warhammer World to fight their cause on the island.

To the best of my knowledge, this campaign was also considered to be a success and I would like to say more about it, but the fact that I can't locate my campaign booklet (which came FREE with White Dwarf I might add), makes me reluctant to speculate more than I have already. Suffice to say that the forces or Order were successful in preventing an uncontrollable dimensional cascade which would have destroyed the Warhammer World.

On to something really special: The Eye of Terror Campaign! This war saw Abaddon of the Black Legion, defacto heir of Warmaster Horus, surge forth from staging grounds in the Occularis Terribus to assail the Cadian Gate at the head of a host of Traitor Marines, Daemons, Rebel Guard forces and Chaotis Titan Legions the like of which had not waged war since the Heresy. This attack became known as the Thirteenth Black Crusade. The worlds that defend the Cadian Gate (the most stable space route for attacking Chaos forces) and the fortress world of Cadia itself were assailed in force, and the action during the included Orks on their own Green Croosade, Necrons, and of course the meddling Eldar all play their part, on land and in space.

This was a monolithic endeavour on the part of GW, and was probably the first truly 'worldwide' campaign. The campaign website surpassed the one created for the Third Armageddon War, and the campaign Codex was a much weightier tome, with yet more new army lists and tons of background material and maps. The articles in White Dwarf were extensive and continued to appraise us of the progress of the compaign for the duration. The only real criticism came after when suggestions were made that the final published result of the campaign might not have relfected the action that took place in the way that participants expected it to. The Cadian Gate remains under severe pressure from the forces of Chaos.

This may been seen as a portent of things that were to come...

Given the sheer volume of text required to discuss this topic, it seems sensible to call a pause to the history lesson here. Join me next time for part 2, and the biggest, most controversial campaign of them all - the Storm of Chaos!