Campaign Development: The Battle for Mercy Port

I have been asked to put together a campaign for my local gaming store. While I love the challenge, and am humbled by their trust, I am a bit lost. I have never run a tournament or campaign before, so how do I go about creating a new one from scratch? Well, I gave it my best shot. Now I throw it to my readers to go over and hopefully point out my errors in judgment. I need your help!

The picture of the map I made is included with this post.

Here is a copy-and-paste of what I have so far:

The Campaign Rule Basics:

The basic rules can be used with or without the advanced rules section detailed below, making for more/less complicated campaigns. Tailor it to your gaming group's needs!

Each player involved in the campaign chooses a single army. The player will play that army exclusively throughout the campaign, so choose wisely! Players can change lists between rounds, but they must meet standard force-organization requirements for their army.

Each player is delegated a territory from the map. If there are more players than territories, then randomly-selected players will not receive territories. Instead, they will receive a single chance, for each randomly-selected player, to attack players with territories to take theirs (driving the defendant player off-world if they lose the territory). These players can attack any territory on the map with this chance.

If there are more territories than players, divide the territories as equally as possible between the players. If there are an uneven-amount of territories for each player, all players roll off to determine who gets the extra territories. The highest roller gets first pick of the territories, the lowest roller gets 2^nd pick. The remaining players who did not receive bonus territories, if there are any bonus territories remaining, repeat the roll and pick process until all the territories are claimed.

To attack a territory (aside from the randomly-selected territory-less player chance-attacks), the territory to be attacked must be adjacent to the territory owned by the attacking player. The results of the attack are settled using 1000 point games of WH40k, with the winner of the game claiming the territory. In the case of draws, kill points determine the victor and the claimant of the territory. The defending player may not decline to the battle, but he or she may choose the scenario objective of the game (i.e. kill points, capture and control, etc.).

The campaign lasts for a set number of rounds (usually 5). In each round, each player can make a single attack on an opposing player's territory using the rules described above. Players that have no territories at the end of the round (due to being one of the randomly-selected players that could not win one away from another player, or losing all owned territories to opponents) they are forced Off-World.

Off-World players can make attacks on any territory on the map, but they receive a penalty of -200 PV to their attacking force. If they win a territory back into their possession by the next round, the penalty is withdrawn. If they own no territories by the end of the campaign, they score no points.

At the end of the campaign, the winner is determined by the player that possesses the most territories. If there is a tie, then the player who has won the most rounds is the victor. If this does not resolve the tie, the players must play a final game to determine the victor. Note that this may result in a 3-way battle! This final game is 1250 points standard, utilizing Kill Points as the objective, to simulate the final clash between the largest factions on the planet.

Optional Advanced Rules:

Territories can have different effects to the defending player based on their type. These effects are listed below:

Hab-Blocks: The defender gains an additional 50 points to his or her list for the battle.

Docks: The owning player receives an additional 50 points to spend on wargear for the battle.

Coastal Park: Two infantry units from the defending player's army gain the Infiltrate special rule for the battle.

Industrial Zone: The defending player gains an additional 100 points to spend on wargear for the battle.

Highway Intersection: The defending player gains an additional 100 PV to be spent on NON-infantry (that includes jump infantry!) units only (i.e. tanks, transports, bikes, skimmers, etc.) for the battle.

Bridge to Spaceport: The defending player receives an additional 200 points to his or her list for the battle.

Fortified City Center: The defender may spend an additional 100 points on wargear.

These effects only take place for the owning player's defensive battle. They have no affect on attacks into other territories. This may make it hard for players who have been forced Off-World to take a territory, so if these rules are in effect the -200 point penalty to Off-World attacks should be dropped in favor of territorial bonuses.

Optional Advanced Rules (cont.)

An alternative way to play the campaign is that players can keep a single list through the entire campaign. The player's list should be 3000 points instead of the normal 1000, but the player can only ever commit a maximum of 1000 points to a game. In this campaign, units that are destroyed do not automatically come back the next round. For each unit lost in a round, the player may check to see if the unit can be returned to active status (able to be played) before the next round starts. These checks are made at the end of the round, after all battles for the round have been concluded.

To make a check, the player rolls a D6, and consults the table below:

1, 2, or 3 Remains destroyed/irrecoverable.

4 or 5 Returns to active status, but at half strength (Half number of models for squads, half the maximum wounds for ICs, vehicles begin the next game by rolling as if hit by a glancing hit with no other modifiers).

6 Returns to active status with no penalties.

This roll can be modified by the territories the player owns after all the battles have been concluded in a round. Special territories can make it easier to recover casualties or bring in replacements for certain types of units. They are:

Docks, Hab-Blocks, Costal Park: +1 to Infantry unit rolls only.

Industrial Zone, Highway Intersection: +1 to Vehicle, transport, bike, or skimmer rolls only.

Fortified City Center, Bridge to Spaceport: +1 to any roll to recover a unit.

These territorial effects are not cumulative, so if a player owns more than one territory he or she may only ever gain a maximum of a +1 modifier to this roll, and only if he owns the appropriate territorial bonus to the unit he or she is trying to recover.

If a player in this campaign cannot build a list that meets the Force Organization requirements from the units he or she has in his or her master roster, then that player is eliminated from the campaign. This is to help regulate the number of elite/heavy support/fast attack units in the game, and put the focus on troops and their HQ units.