Hi guys i've had these home grown campaign rules sat around for ages and wanted to share them, firstly to se eif anyone could see any glaring mistakes in them and secondly because there aren't a whole lot of hard and fast campaign rules posted online and i figured somone might be able to use them as a starting point.
I should point out that they were written when the 4th ed rulebook was out and ammended when armageddon came out though it is still viable and highly usable even with 5th ed rules being played in games. The only difference will be the mission selection and i still feel the 4th ed missions had more flava then their newer simplified counterparts.
So without further ado, Enjoy.
Campaign rules
Phase one: The landing
Each general starts this phase by writing a 500 point army list which conforms to a number of special rules. This army will then be pitted against each of the other general’s armies once. The results of these battles will be tracked and points allocated later.
After each player has played a game against each other player they will all be allocated an additional 500 points to add to the existing army. Please note that the original 500points cannot be altered in any way, including swapping commander’s weapons etc. These now 1000 point armies will again fight once against each player and the results recorded for tallying.
After this second set of games the points are allocated. A win will score you 2 points, a draw will score you 1 point and a loss will score you none. The player with the highest score will choose their deployment zone on the campaign map first. The second place player will choose second etc.
Phase two: Hell on the surface
This phase deals with the main campaign. Each player will start with a force pool of whatever units were initially in their armies and from here on out it should be tracked exactly how many points are present in each army and how they are split. The winner of this phase will be the player who controls the biggest overall army.
Phase three: The beer
The losers will buy the winner a crate of his choice of beer for being such an amazing general and taking in all aspects of the game.
Phase one rules
Each player will create an initial 500point army which must include a single HQ choice and a single troops choice as a minimum. These may be augmented by any other units though these two are the bare minimum.
No army may include a vehicle with rear armour 11 or higher.
No special characters may be taken in this initial landing party.
These restrictions on army composition are removed after the first set of games has been completed and the army sizes are increased to 1000points.
Phase 2 rules
These rules only begin to apply after the deployment from phase 1 has been completed.
Forces
Armies will have a force pool which can increase and decrease as the campaign proceeds, to start with this will be the initial 1000 point army that was present in phase one.
For each unit you take in your total force pool you will need a table to track equipment and squad size. Each soldier lost in battle is lost for good, dead, kaput. If a commander dies they're gone. In this way it is possible to start games with less than their legal number of troops. It is however possible to join damaged squads with others to make complete squads of troops. These don't necessarily need to be identical troop types though any special rules the squad originally had will not carry onto remnant members. Units with special movement rules may only be joined by members of squads with the same movement rules.
The mixed armour rules apply to remnant squads.
EG1: An Imperial guard infantry squad and a shock trooper squad fight in a battle and loose six and three troops respectively. The two squads could be merged though the shocktroopers would not pass on their special rules to their imperial guard new squad members.
EG2: A Squad of slugga boys, a squad of Stormboyz and a squad of kommandoes loose 4, 8 and 6 boyz respectively. The Slugga boyz and Kommandoes could join up to form a joint unit though the kommandoes would lose their deployment special abilities. The Stormboys are on their own due to their special movement rules.
Units who have only a single model left are affected by the "all on your own" rules as normal.
All armies are allowed to use the apocalypse allies charts at this stage reguardless of army size.
Phase Sequence
1: Movement
In the movement phase all the players take turns to move an army on the map. Armies move in order of the initiative of the highest ranking character in the army. In the case of a draw players should role a dice to see who goes first, second, third etc. Armies controlled by the same player do not have to dice off each time. A player can nominate an army to stay still though it may not move at all this turn if he does so. In this way players with many small armies will still be able to move whilst those with larger armies have moved everything. The idea being that smaller groups are more flexible to command whilst larger clumps of units will be slower to react but when they get into battle will hit with more force.
2: Battle
Any armies occupying the same region will fight a battle. The battles fought are covered more heavily in the battle section below.
3: Consolidation
The winners of battles move into their new turf. Losers fall back to an adjacent neutral or friendly region to lick their wounds. At the end of the Consolidation turn no armies should be in the same region as one another with the exception of armies controlled by the same player. In this phase all actions related to specific map squares and all reinforcement rolls are made. Unless otherwise listed as an exception on the map square description.
Movement
Armies
Each force may be split into as many small armies as you want, these armies may each move into an adjacent region on the map once per turn. If this region is already occupied a battle takes place. Depending on the situation and who moved during the turn will alter the type of battle played. The winner of the battle takes control of the space on the map that was being fought over.
The old switcheroo (illegal movement)
An army may not move into a region in which they have already been attacked from this turn.
See Diagram 1for clarification
Battle
Multi force battles
It is possible for two armies to unite against an opponent though it is entirely up to players how long such alliances last (even if this means the alliance doesn't last till the end of the first turn). If an alliance wins a battle then it should be decided which of the two armies will take control of the space. This can be decided either before, during or after the battle. And may result in a follow up battle for the field.
In the case of multi force battles, each player takes a numbered counter out of a hat; they will take player turns in this order from highest to lowest in this turn.
E.g.: There are four players 1 Ork, 1Tau, 1 Necrons and 1 Space marine. In the first turn, the following counters are picked. 1: Ork , 2: Space marines, 3: Tau, 4: Necrons. The Necrons get to go first followed by the Tau, Space marines and Orks. In the next turn the counters are drawn and the results are 4: Orks, 2: Space marines, 1: Tau, 3: Necrons. So in the second turn the order of play is Orks, Necrons, Space marines, Tau.
This means the Orks will get to move twice once after the other. But there is no way of telling who will go first or last next turn.
In some battles the rules for turn order are decided for you. E.g: Attacker always has the first turn. These rules apply though after the first turn the randomization starts as above.
In a multi force battle all combats are fought in each player’s turn. So with the examples above, if by the start of the second turn the Orks are in combat with the Necrons. The combat will be fought in all four combat phases. Ork, Tau, Space marines and Necrons.
Destroyed forces
If an army has all their map areas taken from them then they are effectively wiped out and removed from the campaign completely. If both players agree any surviving units after this battle can be combined into the winning army and thus allow the player to continue playing with what he has left as a captain underneath the player that beat him.
Battle Types
Assault
If both armies moved in the previous turn they must roll to decide what mission is played. On a one to five the results are chosen from the Standard mission table below. On a six a further roll on the "random events" table is required to decide the mission.
Deadlock
If both armies are in adjacent regions at the start of the movement phase and one attacks the other without the other moving the players will roll on the standard mission table. On a roll of six the mission is instead picked from the "Orders from the top" mission table. In these missions the army that moved is the attacker.
Last stand (we need reinforcements)
If an army is completely surrounded by hostile areas then there are several special rules to be taken into consideration. First if a surrounded army is attacked then the fight will always be an "Alamo" scenario from the list below.
There are three major outcomes from such attacks on stranded armies.
1: The Attacker wins and the Defenders HQ units are wiped out: The Defending army has been completely destroyed and its forces scattered to the wind. They will take no further part in the campaign
2: The Attacker wins but the defenders HQ units survive: The defenders have lost the region. For each unit that survived the battle half of the unit (rounding up) can be placed in the closest Neutral or friendly region.
3: The Defenders win: The attackers are forced back. Hopefully reinforcements can arrive soon.
Breakout
If an army is surrounded they may play a breakout mission if they are in a position where the move will take them adjacent to either a friendly or neutral area. This is the only type of battle a surrounded army may partake in if the above conditions apply. In these missions the surrounded army takes the roll of the attacker (exception to the rearguard mission where they will play the defender).
Standard mission table
Roll Mission
1 Cleanse
2 Secure and control
3 Seek and destroy
4 Recon
5 Take and hold
Random Events
Roll Mission
1-2 Rescue
3-4 Night Fight
5-6 Patrol
Orders from the top
Roll Mission
1-2 Sabotage
3-4 Ambush
5-6 Strongpoint assault
Alamo
Roll Mission
1-2 Bunker Assault
3-4 Hold at all costs
5-6 Meat Grinder
Breakout
Roll Mission
1-2 Rearguard
3-4 Blitz
5-6 Breakout
Consolidation
Movement
At the start of the consolidation phase all armies which lost their battle must fall back to a friendly or neutral map space. The only exception to this is the defender in Alamo scenarios which are detailed more fully in the battles section.
Reinforcement
Each map square controlled by one of your armies may complete one of the following actions on any turn in which it did not take part in a battle. The army will gain d6x50 points worth of resources to add to their army. These points can be spent in two ways.
Recruitment: Anything which the army might normally spend points on, including troops to increase the numbers in damaged units, extra wargear, vehicles, etc.
Entrenching: If the army has 250 points unspent, whether this is left over from previous turns or not. The army may buy a single strategic asset as detailed in the Armageddon book. These assets will be lost if the army moves, this represents the fact that the commander of the army has spent a great deal of resources scouting the ground around his current position and preparing guerrilla tactics to surprise the enemy. As soon as he moves from the area he loses this advantage
House rules
General
* The sustained attack rule is not applied to any of the missions whether is detailed in the mission rules or not.
Map Spaces
Roads: Armies moving along a road which contain only vehicle mounted, flying, cavalry, skimmer and vehicle units may move two spaces instead of the one space they are normally allowed in their movement phase on the map. This move cannot be used to pass through opposing army spaces.
Cities: Armies which hold cities may gain an additional d6x50 points in reinforcements each turn which they remain in the city. As well as this fights in city spaces are conducted using the rules from the “Cities of Death “ Games workshop supplement.
Mineral forest: Battles in mineral forests are conducted using the jungle fighting rules detailed in codex catachans.
Slime lakes and acid oceans: Armies may not end their turn in squares completely covered by these features. Only armies comprised solely of flying or skimmer units may cross a square covered by one of these features. These squares are classed as hostile to all armies for the sake of surrounded armies and may not be attacked.
Mountainous regions: Armies containing vehicles other then walker, skimmer or flyer subtypes may not enter these squares due to the treacherous terrain.
Support batteries: Armies in command of one of these locations may fire onto a square up to 5 map squares away in a battle phase in which they have not fought a battle. This is resolved exactly like the scheduled bombardment strategic asset in apocalypse book.
Airfields: Armies in control of an airfield map space may relocate one unit from their own army to any other friendly or neutral space in the movement phase.