Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign? - Map update P.6

[Red Orc]

I have forces for LOTRSBG (Mordor, Moria, Elves, dwarves, Men of Numenor), HoTT (Dwarves and soon barbarians), Warhammer (Skaven, Goblins, Empire) as well as some odds and ends I've used in various skirmish games like SOBAH.

Are you thinking to use a particular rules set or would we be free to use whatever is our preference?

 

Sorry Vinlander, I didn't see your post for some reason.

As others have said, whichever rule-set(s) you and your group prefer to use. It doesn't make any sense to try and limit what rules people are using, especially as we're trying to get as many people involved as possible. As we're not going to meet, it really doesn't matter. A battle fought in one location using HOTT counts just as much as a battle fought by a different group somewhere else using WHFB.

[Red Orc]

OK - some concrete proposals.

1 - each group of players should provide a list of their primary armies, preferably a different one for each player. This doesn't mean you can't play any others but each player should at least try to have a main army.

2 - we stick to the 64-square test grid for the moment. Each group of players gets the same number of squares as there are players in that group (if there's just you and your mate, you get 2 squares; if there's 8 of you at your club want to be involved, you get 8 squares). The players fill in their squares and send them back to me as a block (all squares must be contiguous, you can't have a group of squares in one place and another group somewhere else).

3 - I do my best to stitch the groups of squares together and I PROMISE I will fill in the gaps to sort the maps out. Unlike Atlantis, this is NOT primarily an exploration campaign, just a brutal war of all against all.

4 - once we're sure no-one else wants to join, we start logging the games.

5 - we also come up with a time to stop. That will be the end.

How does that sound as a suggestion for a plan?

[LordOdo]

Sounds okay.

You can keep some squares at the edges empty, which can be given to players who want to join in later..

[Mitchelxen]

Sounds good! We will be play testing Universal Soldier Fantasy Battle System this week so we can get back to you with a list.

[traveller]

This sounds interesting but how will it actually work? Who will be the umpire? Will there be a turn sequence system with a calendar keeping track of the moves and battles? I recall the old "Matchbox system" where the map was divided in grids and each grid had a number when two forces moved into the same grid (and matchbox)there was a battle. Should we all report our moves to the umpire who would announce "battle commence"?

Complex shit this  

[Red Orc]

No, the way I'm proposing it works is that you and your gaming buddies take a region (let's say, there are four of you so that region is four squares in extent). You then populate that region based on your terrain and armies. For example, if you have Dwarves, Orcs, Elves and Human Barbarians (Hordes of Chaos, because you're using Warhammer, let's say); you may decide that a mix of forest, mountains/hills and steppes is appropriate, and also put in some settlements, strongholds etc. This is the map you and your friends fight over.

Meanwhile, a group on the other side of the world is fighting in the region adjacent to yours. There are six of them (so they have six squares), and they have marshes, desert and mountains, because that's the terrain they have. Their armies are Elves, Orcs, Civilised Humans, Dwarves, Human Barbarians and Human Pirates. They're using LotR. Their battles don't impact directly on yours, but yours and theirs go towards the grand totals (in this case, the Elves both count together, the Orcs both count together, and possibly your barbarians and their barbarians count with their pirates as 'evil human faction').

Armies from different groups can't feasibly fight, because it would mean that people from Sacramento would have to go to Hull and people from Amsterdam would have to go to Sydney. Or we'd have to have some mutually-agreed method of deciding non-physical battles. It's not really feasible I don't think.

I'm volunteering to 'umpire' what's necessary to umpire, as I am currently devoid of gaming potential, being stuck in a) the outskirts of b) a strange city where I c) don't have access to 1) convenient transport or 2) (and somewhat crucially) my gaming stuff.

Does that answer at least some of your questions?

[Alfrik]

Just a suggestion, I always advise my players that any army other than the one they personally command, are commanded by "other people". This means of course that I can have any one command their army if they are not available and they will have to live with the outcome, win or lose, pyric to over whelming victory, or humiliating lose.  Stating that up front saved me tons of headaches about " I wouldn't have done that!" sorta complaints.  So for your campaign idea, we are the Rulers, and our armies are commanded by our "Generals" unless we can physically attend the battle.
 

[Red Orc]

That's a good idea - it helps keep people focussed on the campaign, if they know someone else might lose their battle for them!

Not sure how it works in practice though - it implies that 1) I'm telling people to fight battles; and 2) I approve of other people stealing their mates' minis and throwing a match just because someone couldn't come to game night 

In the Atlantis campaign, the action at each locale was controlled by the group. You and Leadfool and your mates fought a bunch of battles for your part of the campaign - I just provided some maps and some notes about local climate, where the natives lived, what sort of weapons they had etc. You did the rest of the organisation (ie, who turned up where on what day with what army, what terrain you used to represent the topography) yourself. I wasn't planning on doing more in this campaign - in fact, as I'm suggesting the local groups do the maps, I'm thinking I'll have rather less work!

In a real war (looking at something like the Napoleonic Wars, WWI or WWII), not every theatre of operations is a busy as every other theatre all the time. So if for example we fight a campaign lasting six months of game time, one group (campaigning in the Northern Wastes) might only fight three battles in that time, while another group (based around the Southern Cities) might fight ten. That would be fine as far as I'm concerned - it just means that the Southern Cities were hotly contested while, comparatively speaking at least, the war spared the Northern Wastes.

Or am I missing the point you're trying to make?

[LordOdo]

Bump.

The main armies I will using are (Vikingish) Humans and Forrestfolk.

Looking forward what armies you all will be using. I think we need to start soon, otherwise people will lose interest..
(but please not to soon, as I've still to paint both armies.. )

[Mitchelxen]

Red Orc - Do you want the army lists posted here, or do you want them PM'd to you?

We already ran a battle, a Meeting Engagement of our two armies. Now the units get better, Muhahaha. Enjoying it.
Is it your vision to have us post a battle report here as well?

[LordOdo]

I think we should have a different thread for that.. And keep this as a discussion thread, so the other one keeps clean

[Red Orc]

... I think we need to start soon, otherwise people will lose interest..
(but please not to soon, as I've still to paint both armies.. )

There are only about four groups who've said that they're interested. I was hoping that there would be more than that.

...

The main armies I will using are (Vikingish) Humans and Forrestfolk...

OK... how many people are in your group, LordOdo?

Red Orc - Do you want the army lists posted here, or do you want them PM'd to you?

We already ran a battle, a Meeting Engagement of our two armies. Now the units get better, Muhahaha. Enjoying it...

Exellent news! the opening shots in the war have already been taken!

I don't think I need the army lists specifically. Posting them with the battle report seems the best idea to me.

...Is it your vision to have us post a battle report here as well?

I think we should have a different thread for that.. And keep this as a discussion thread, so the other one keeps clean

Yeah, I think that's probably the best way. If you want to start a topic for your battle Mitchelxen, we can put a link to it from this thread (as a kind of 'master-thread'). I suggest that each group has its own thread. So all the battles for (let's say) the Western Kingdoms are in one place, all the battles on the Northern Plains are in another, etc.

If we're going to run this more or less as I suggested earlier, then each group needs to say how many players it has, which armies they're controlling, and then it needs to send me its map.

If someone from every group can send me a PM with your email address, I can send you the map square. Then you need to make a map of your territory with as many squares as you have players in your group - taking care that where they join you have the same terrain features in both squares...

[Mitchelxen]

Received the map tool from Red Orc today and filled that in and replied to him.
The Northern Front of the War has broken out. The report has made it back to the King.
Please see the link here in the forums for details http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=68590.0

The Northern Front consists of two players.
Player One is commanding an Empire of Necropolis Northern Army.(Human)
It consists of the Knightsguard Archers, Knightsguard Men at Arms, Knights of the Garter, Lir Oz the Wise, Spellcaster of some repute and is led by Sire William Boldhand.

Player Two is commanding a Bone Warriors Army. (Undead)
It consists of the Dread Archers, Spears of Anarchy, the Dead Riders, Vlad Xerxes the Necromancer, and it is lead by the Necromantic Hero - Nembo Dragontooth.

We are running a 1000PP Campaign using Universal Soldier Fantasy Battle System. We are playtesting the rules, specifically the campaign rules. The first clash is a meeting engagement between the two sides.

[Red Orc]

Nice one Mitchelxen - good to see the first reports from the campaign!

Three things occur to me - first, I need to make a 'battle' marker to put on the map file, so that you can mark your battles on the map and we can see how the war is developing.

Second, picking a colour for your faction might be a good idea. We could then put flags on the map to represent victories (or perhaps colour the battle marker in your colour).

Third, it would be useful to know the scale of battles. Not as in 1:72 or 28mm or whatever, but in terms of the size of the engagement. I have an idea that skirmish games (less than 30 models a side?) should count differently to mass battles (at least one side has 30 or more models).

Mitchelxen has indeed provided me with a map, I shall begin the main map very soon, I promise.

[Boondock Saint]

Hi guys. I'm late to this thread, but wouldn't mind getting involved. Is there any space for a few solo clashes between my Asian Fantasy warband and my goblins? They would be small solo skirmishes using Swordplay with the system running the goblins? Been wanting to try out Swordplay solo and this seems like a good opportunity.