Narrative campaign progression of tyranid invasion

[miles]

I like having a story behind my games, and I have a couple local players who expressed interest when I mentioned trying a campaign. What I'm looking at is consistent games against the same opponent, spanning the course of a tyranid invasion of an Imperial planet. Not necessarily 100% fair battles,, just fun. Aside from the basic campaign tree, anyone tried something like this? How did it go? Any suggestions for interesting scenarios?

[gigasnail]

my only advice would be to avoid scenarios or bonuses that begin to snowball into an overwhelming advantage.

we had a couple of campaigns down here that went sideways fast because of this last year. capturing territories that give you extra points, or the ability to break the normal scenario rules (i.e. anything with the words 'titan' and 'manufactorum' together) really make things suck quickly. i told them exactly how their campaign was going to end the first time i saw the rules and that was exactly how it ended up. early victories for an eldar player sees him netting 500 points more in a game than his opponent, and then spamming wraith knights (and his opponents had no access to superheavies because he had the only territory that let you field them). GG, i'm sure that one was fun for everyone.

[Jabberwocky]

In my view, the best way to run an escalation campaign is as follows.

The loser gains points for the next game. 20% or so, depending on how many matches you're going to have.

The winner instead gains accolades:

Any unit that survives with 1+ model gains 'veteran status', +1 Ld, re-roll overwatch hits, re-roll charges. Not only have they adapted to the enemies movements and strategies, but also to the battlefield itself, reading the terrain to cross it more effectively during combat.

Any unit that survives 2 or more consecutive games also gains 'legendary survivor' status, +1 to save rolls.

Any unit that kills a character gains 'infamous', enemies must pass a morale test to charge them and enemies within 1" suffer -2ld.

These should be fairly balanced for offensive vs defensive armies as well as assault vs shooty armies.

You can rename the bonuses to be more niddy quite easily.




This system should give an incentive to win and keep key units alive at all costs, while giving the loser a means to stay competitive. It represents the loser coming back with reinforcements while the victor gains experience and solidifies their position, captures important assets, etc.

[miles]

Good point. I'd rather go with any benefits being small and character/unit based.. a +1 to leadership or something. The matches may be a bit unbalanced as is, don't want to tweak it much more. Am thinking things like an initial attack, tyranids can only use flyers, mines and genestealers, but Imperial can only use troops and fast attack (FA coming in as reserves), ambushes with one side outpointing the other 2 to 1, but if the ambushed person survives/escapes, they warn the base, etc.

[Jabberwocky]

You'll need to fine tune any rules to the players and their armies. If one is a lot stronger or favours an army type that has big advantages over the other, adjust the rules as appropriate.

It's better if someone who isn't playing the games is designing the missions and rules really.

[Kitane]

Look for Altair of War: Tyranids e-book. It was for previous editions, but the missions followed the standard Tyranid invasion cycle (with some quite entertaining elements like herding groups of refugees to slaughter/safety, etc.)

It shouldn't be hard to adapt them to the current version.

[Overread]

You can also mix in things like the winner of a battle gets to pick deployment side in the next battle (terrain setup by 3rd party to ensure its fair). It's an advantage but not outside of the normal rules of the game so it shouldn't break the game, so long as terrain is fairly laid out.

Another aspect you might consider is mixing smaller battles after bigger ones based on both players performances. Ergo if both suffer heavy loses during a battle the next game might be at a lower points value to reflect both sides having taken heavy losses and taking longer to build up to a larger battle again. This keeps the narrative going, but also means that you don't end up with either player actually having a points-advantage over the other.

[miles]

Thanks for the ideas so far.

I didn't see the Altar of War still available on any of the GW sites. Any ideas on where to find that (legally)?

[keening]

I'm currently playing through Rising Leviathan with a friend I don't get to play often and it's a blast. It really helps being strict with yourself and just fielding fluffy units. The all Lictor mini battle we had was really fun!