WH40K Campaign: The Call of Draatus

I was thinking of using vassal 40k to run a map based campaign over gamers plane. We would be using gamers plane as a base for ooc discussion and record keeping. Vassal 40k to play the battles. A modified version of planetary empires for the map (using gps map function for record keeping). 7th ed 40k rules.

How I envision this:

The background: Something has sent a pulse of psychic energy deep into space. It has originated in a sparsely populated backwater star system called Draatus. Now various forces converge on the system in search of the source.

4 Factions - Each faction is united by a common theme or goal. The armies fighting for a faction need not necessarily be allies but they are all working toward the same ends in the campaign. Each faction is led by a commander, this is the player controlling the factions representative army. Factions can have any number of Armies under there banner, but we want to try to keep the factions equal in size.


Faction - Overarching group of armies fighting for the same goal.
Army - The 40k army used by a specific player. Each army is controlled by a different player.
Commander. - The player and army in charge of a specific faction

Example:
Faction - The Forces of Chaos
Commander - Azzorak
Armies:
Order of Nox - Chaos Space Marines of Nurgle - Azzorak
Goal: Locate the Warp pulse to open a permenant warp storm in Imperial space.

More to come as interest is gauged. Currently I am looking for 3 players to start factions for the campaign. We can play with just the four factions but armies serving under the faction would mean more diverse battles. Post if you want to start a faction or if you want to join one that has been proposed. Post the army you are interested in playing and why they would fight for a specific cause. Try to keep these connections plausible. Feel free to post questions. Map building, modifications to the planetary empires systems, pacing, and narrative will all be done collaboratively in the game thread if this takes off.

As in the past, 40k is fun. I've always enjoyed playing.

We will be using the same program yes, but instead of doing tournament style brackets I was hoping more for a global map with territories that we try to conquer. It will be fairly simple but number of territories controlled and the buildings built in them can affect battles. Number of territories controlled also helps you reach your end goal. Conquering territories happens through standard 40k rules. More to come as we start discussing.

So you're aiming for (to use an established example) something more like how Dark Crusade did it, where we'll be fighting over territory?

I'm totally in.

As far as a Faction goes, how about this:
Faction - Cadian 501st
Commander - DeusMalum
Armies:
Cadian 501st - Imperial Guard - DeusMalum
Goal: Secure Draatus against Xenos and Heretic incursion

That looks great, now say Keleth were to join, he could either.

Create a new faction

Ex: The Ancient Races - An unlikely or perhaps unintentional cooperation of Necrons, Eldar, and Dark Eldar who recognize the dangers the artifacts might represent to the fabric of the universe and so seek to destroy it.

Or he can control an army that benefits one of the two existing factions.

Maybe play as Chaos Daemons and be part of the Chaos faction or Space Marines and benefit the Cadian faction. He could even be a less likely ally such as Orks benefitting the Cadian faction. Its not that the orks are actively working with and taking orders from the Guard but if he could come up with a plausible explantation for how the orks actions help the guard achieve their goal that would be acceptable. Even still Ork freebooters frequently sell out to the highest bidder. The fluff is filled with strange and unlikely alliances including Dark Angels and Chaos, Space Marines and Necrons, Orks and Guard, Tau and Guard.

Example: The Ancient Races - The orks, though not really one of the ancient races, may fit here because their attacks on the imperial and chaos forces in the sector weaken their presence and their tendency to loot means they likely would destroy the relic if it were found thereby accomplishing the factions goals. In this example the orks are unwilling or unknowingly contributing to the faction, but for game purposes its all the same. How each army contributes to the war effort and how the necrons and eldar avoid conflict with the orks is totalling a matter of collaborative fluff writing, the factions system itself is a mechanical abstraction. This is kind of hard to explain on a forum, but this should prove to be an exercise in creativity. Obviously more logical factions are easier to justify but WH40k has such a morally grey background that anything is plausible.

Are Tau still a thing? I always wanted to play them back in our old stuff (though I did quite enjoy playing Space Marines). Now that the Mechanus are a faction, I might look at that...

Would love to see how mechanicus plays but I doubt that Vassal 40k has them supported yet. Tau got a new book in 7th ed and a lot of new units. They are quite competitive now.

You're right, no Mechanicus yet... but I wanna be machine people...

I'll look into 7e Tau. They fit nicely into mostly any non-Chaos groups.

Could even start another faction with them...The Greater Good. Could easily see Eldar working with them if the goal fits. Alternatively the Tau are the only Xenos species to get somewhere near tolerated by the Imperium.

Or they could even be working together without direct involvement between the parties. The Tau may find the place sufficiently far from their territories that they don't want to expend the effort taking control of it, but as the Tau empire expands a planet that has humans living on it is much easier to sway to the Greater Good than a planet full of daemons.
Meanwhile the Imperial forces wouldn't keep direct communication channels with the Tau out in the open, but sharing of tactical information once the Tau make their intentions clear would likely occur.

Oh man getting excited already just discussing the preliminaries. Hope we can get enough interest to get this going. The plan is for this to take place over the whole system so there will be several territory maps and several special rules for each. This should allow us to play all through the summer. It would be nice to get several people playing in each factions to spread the game burden around and have a bit more diversity in battles but we can always play 1 or 2 to a faction or cut the factions in half and double the armies in each. Think it would be more exciting with multiple sides fighting over the system though. I kind of envisioned the factions being able to discuss things via pm and kind of work out a tactical plan together. More factions means more threats to deal with. I know Anks has been interested in starting 40k and we have discussed playing Vassal games quite a bit. His schedule is a bit limited but a big enough player count will spread the burden enough that he might manage it. Plus having multiple armies per faction means he can (or anyone) can contribute when they can while others in the faction make up the slack. I will get in touch with him and see if he wants in on this.

Yeah I like the idea of a distribution over factions. One of the hardest parts about our old bracketing system was that EVERYBODY had to play every week, and that wasn't always manageable with work and school schedules. This way we could split matches based on pre-planning and availability.

Exactly I kind of figured that every game round (once a week or whatever) every player in each faction can decide to attack a territory. The attacker decides where the attack is happening but the defending faction can elect which army to defend with. Obviously the idea is pretty rough right now but I have a vision right now that needs refining. I need to start putting it on paper and that will happen as we discuss.

So I talked to a few friends who were old tabletop players back when we could all spend our parents' money on $1000s worth of figurines and paint, and there's interest. I'm working on getting some of them onto the site, anyone else have an interest?

Great work Deus, I still haven't talked to Anks but I am sure he will play. I am still working on the campaign system, I will post some information soon.

Can I get in on this?

Sure, think we're still building the list of players, but feel free to put your faction info in or join an existing one. I'm hoping the closer this gets to "ready" the more likely we'll be able to attract attention from people who might not otherwise have jumped in.

That is what I am hoping. Should have full rules posted soon and that will clarify things a bit and will help other decide if they want in or not.

How do I use Vassal? It won't let me get the modules I need to play because GW forbids them being on Vassal's website.

I know its tough to dig up the file because GW is a hassle. Here is a link to the module.

Install it and then open it through vassal using open module under file. Once you open it once it will be on the list of modules on vassal going forward.

As usual its been a little slow going for me, but I have the rules mostly made up and will start posting them in pieces here. Stay tuned

Is this gunna end up working similarly to the campaign mode in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade?

That's the general plan, yes.

That sounds awesome.

Its going to take a little bit of dedication on everyone's part to make it work, but if all goes well then that is what will happen. With a little Civilization esque (very very abstract) resource management. Basically a reason to take this territory over that one.

Nice, now to just figure out how to use Vassel properly.

Vassal can be a hassle. What are you specifically having trouble with?

I got some tutorials I'm slugging through to get it figured out. Shouldn't be an issue.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been a little busy with the store. While rugby season is over and I have a little extra time I have been understaffed at work and have had a serious of mechanical malfunctions there that had to be dealt with. We are also wheeling and dealing to put up a new location in town. Things are calming down again and I have been hard at work designing this and I still would love to do it. As of now we have less interest than I had hoped so I decided it is best to base this on two sides for now. We can play out our campaign and test the rules and do a bigger campaign in the future. As of now we have Myself, Kel, Deus, Kenny, and possible Anks and Heshopolite. Pretty even sides, I was thinking of doing a simple Empire vs Chaos type campaign since Deus is looking to play Astra Militarum and I was looking at Nurgle Cult Marines. Please post which faction you would like to support.

Factions:
Chaos Undivided
Leader: Azzorak - Order of Nox (Chaos Space Marines)
Armies Accepted:
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Daemons
Khorne Daemonkin
Renegades and Mutants
Orks (With backstory explaining why)

The Imperium of Man:
Leader: Deus - Cadian 501st
Armies Accepted:
Any Imperium

I also decided to keep this as an interest thread (Keleth if you could move this into Games' Tavern for more exposure that would be appreciated). I will be starting a new thread in the games development section of GP to post my rules and discuss it. I obviously have no intention of publishing or gaining any credit for it so lets make it together and keep it available online as a resource for all. We can create the campaign rules together as soon as I post what I have so far (hopefully today). As a final step I will be creating a game using the custom system. Please join it so we can set up a public forum to keep track of all the results of the campaign. DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!

Aw, I was hoping to pay Tau or Eldar, though they do partner against Chaos, spec Tau.

As for thread, I'd rather not move this whole thread over there. I'd rather leave that directly for RPG games that people are looking to start up. That said, you may want to edit the opening post for this thread a bit (maybe the title), and I'll make sure I mention this to a few Twitter friends.

Sounds good and we can probably fit Tau or Eldar in. You can probably have either work with the Imperium as temporary alliances with both races have been documented. Also Eldar are sneaky and can be helping the Imperium under the radar by secretly opposing the forces of Chaos on Draatus. As for moving the thread, that is fine, I only suggested it because I thought I posted this in the wrong place in the first place. I did edit the title a little bit but personally I am ok with 5-6 players. Should work well for a test run of new campaign rules.

Burn the heretic! Purge the mutant! Kill the unclean! Xenos, Daemons, and Traitors alike with fall before the might of the Emperor's Finest!

What version are we looking at? I'd need to look over a few things to decide if I'd just want to go Space Marines or something more outlandish.

Now I wonder if the new Mechanicus army is any good...

We will be playing 7th ed which is the most current. Mechanicus would be cool but I doubt its in vassal yet.

Well, as my understanding is that Vassal 40k stopped development 2 years ago, I doubt its in there directly, but we could use proxies. We had to use proxies for some guys last time we played, as it didn't have all the models/variants we needed.

A 7th edition version of vassal 40k was uploaded in June of this year. It would appear at least some development still happens. Regardless though Proxying is a valid option.

I will be playing Chaos Marines (A homebrew warband that's a splinter of the Iron Warriors).

Excellent more servants of the dark gods. That makes it 2v2 so wort case scenario we can play. I would like more players though for variety sake.

Anks is in too. Talked to him this morning. He will probably be joining you imperial dogs.

Dark Eldar are chaos-y, right? Based on what our 6th picks, maybe I'll switch.

Dark eldar are actually no friend of Chaos since Slaanesh feeds on the souls of their dead. Unless a crazy renegade splinter of dark eldar decided that serving slaanesh would change is favor toward them. Cool thing about WH40k is generally its possible to explain almost anything and keep it fitting the fluff.

Ah, I musta misunderstood the Dark Eldar backstory. I thought their thing was they decided to serve chaos when the races split.

Common misconception. Apparently there is a sect of dark elves in fantasy that do something like that so people tend to get confused. Basically when Slaanesh started eating the souls of all eldar the Eldar put them in spirit stones to protect them while the dark eldar just let him constantly feast on their souls. They just steal souls from their victims to keep their own souls replenished. Again though I suppose it wouldn't be a large stretch of the imagination to say that a certain cult of dark eldar pledged themselves to Slaanesh in exchange for his mercy. Perhaps they are misguided and are still stealing souls hoping one day he will honor the pact. Maybe he agreed and they are protected from the curse as long as they serve him admirably or perhaps he will ultimately betray them when they serve their purpose. Either way it works if thats the army you want to play. More important than the fluff is whether or not you are having fun. We can make it work however we want.

At the very the least there is precedent in WH40k novels (Gaunt's Ghosts) of dark eldar working as mercenaries on behalf of Chaos.

This is also a true. Much like Orks the Dark Eldar are largely comprised of pirates and mercenaries who have been known to work for Chaos warbands and Chaos pirates.

As I've been through the Gaunt books, that'd probably were I picked it up from.