Campaign sign up

[quote="Jemal"]I'd like to second the motion that we NOT start this week - I was hoping to have a little time to test out a new army before

i agree we need to fix the bugs in the campain before we start

Caros wrote:
You need to step away from your hookah. Slowly. Codex: Space Marines does drop podding better than nids ever could, with drop pod assault, drop pods that can actually take some killing and so forth. Nid-Pod isn't bad, but it will never really compete, just like spacewolf podding doesn't.

One marines are on foot, they are dead. Simple as that. They may be tougher than most troops but that doesn't save them from getting shot up to death.

Tyranids can drop a helluva lot more firepower than SMs can in pods, all in the same go (so there's none of that Daemon-esque first-round-punch-then-pissing-onto-the-field nonsense) The nice thing about Tyranid lists? Three MCs in yo backyard, right about... NOW. And all of your transports and tanks are dead from Zoeys and Hive Guard shooting up your cans.

Spores > Pods. Marine pod armies are powerful, yes, but to say they do it better than Tyranids.... nuh-uh.


would elaborate further but I have to get off my ass and head to work

Holycause= If I'm not mistaken, mycetic spores are reserves, and deepstrike like everyone else. Also, you can only take one MC per spore. SO, your strangely grotesque "pissing" analogy would apply. Caros is right, Drop pods have a better chance to come in, based on the first-turn-half-your-pods thinger.
Now, granted, I know you can get +1 to your reserves if you take the tyrant with that ability, but that hasn't been faq'd as to whether that ability stacks on multiple units. Also, It means you need to sink points into that tyrant or lictor (?).

Okay, at risk of derailing thread, I have to argue this. =.=;

Right off I don't understand where you're getting the idea that nids don't have the trickle down issue. If you're talking using the hive tyrant + to reserve rule you've got a bit of an advantage, but at well over 250+ cost (The tyrant + Wings so he can deepstrike + reserve bonus.) Otherwise the tyrant has to reserve and is useless, or has to be on the board in which case he gets shot to death before ever becoming an issue.

Basically, if you don't take the tyrant's + reserve rule then you can expect to have all of your deepstrikers coming down whenever. Furthermore, even without that, you lack the marine ability to decide what comes in when. My dreads always come in first, and my troop choices always come in last because of the order of my pods, allowing me to avoid problems the nids would have (Yay our anti-infantry showed up... before our anti-vehicle, crap!)

Elites - See below, also most of the nid's good AV is all elites, making it a tough choice!

Lictors - Yay, you get +1 to reserve when its on the board! Um... yay. =/ Lictors seem good in theory, but because you MUST reserve them, you've got a 50/50 chance of their ability mattering on turn 3. As far as I'm concerned, this is great for me because you're sinking points into something incredibly average that will cause your army to be even more variable, thus defeating the point of a DS list.

Zoanthropes - One unit of Thropes kills one vehicle when it lands, maybe. Unless you're taking a full unit, they've got a reasonable chance of missing, so you basically have to take a full 3 man unit. Also very vunerable to psychic hoods etc. In total they have more cost than a tricked out ironclad and usually less survivability. (3+ invun is great, but the unit goes down hard to high S, melee or bolters.) Oh, and god help you if you don't DS these.

Hive Guard - Are okay, B4/S8 Weapons make them decent at killing light vehicles. They can't be podded, making them a massive target at game start if you're playing a pod army. You can't really reserve them either as they're slow, with 24" Weapons, meaning they'll have to walk a turn or two even after they come in if the opposing army does the sane thing and turtles.

Troops - The entire troop section lacks the ability to harm vehicles short of warriors with a cannon. This means if they drop then they have to drop next to infantry or they can do essentially nothing. This doesn't compare well to tactical squads who can drop, melta a vehicle to death (Max of two shots, which can be linked with vulkan.) And still hit the squad inside with massed bolter fire due to combat squading.

Fast Attack - All of the fast attack is basically wingged, which means it can deepstrike (Which is good I suppose.) But lacks the safety measure of a pod. Then again I find most of the nid fast attack to be sorta meh.

Heavy - Fex's are the only MC I can find that actually pod, and honestly, they do not scare me at all. Trygon's are better, but deepstriking them seems to be a bad idea, as they'll most likely come in one bit at a time, out of order, and be easily ripped to shreds by concentraited fire.

Pods - Tyranid pods suck for KP missions. Each pod is one melta/blaster/missile/whatever away from death. A drop pod can be hit by a melta and still has a 50/50 chance of surviving. A missile hitting a drop pod has only a 33% chance of a penetrating hit (Followed by a 33% chance of actually killing it!), while on a Nid pod, it has a 84% chance of killing it instantly and granting a kp. Nid pods can be killed by bolters, and reliably killed in melee (Though they do at least fight back I'll give!)

Shooting wise, both pods have their virtues. The nid pod averages 2 hits with its S6 weapon, making it okay for dealing some damage, and it can shoot first turn. Unfortunately its range is incredibly short, whereas my marine pods usually spend the entire game shooting with their storm bolters. I can't count the number of games I've won by a 24" drop pod opening up on the last one or two guys in a guard squad.

Marine players are well aware that 3+ armor does not mean invincible. The whole point of marine podding lists is to take a certain section of your army, dedicated for a certain task and put it exactly where you want it to go, when you want it to be there. Nid lists cannot do this. They basically have to hope that the parts they need come down in the order they need, with a possible slight bonus to that roll via tyrant, otherwise they end up with three units of gaunts dropping when the IG mech list hasn't taken a hit.

/rant

Sorry for the derail!

The tyrant abilites shouldn't stack with themselves, nor do the lictors. They stack with one another, but not with the same ability, thus by round 3 you could concievably have everything remaining coming in on a +1. That'd require 300 points to manage, and still allow for up to half your army to show up second turn, with the Lictor needing to show up on that turn.

Technically you could bring on multiple units of lictors to increase percentages, but at their cost? Not worth it.

I have changed the 6th set of special rules, it is now a king of the hill match, deploy as you will, and the center objective becomes worth an extra 500 points. I do remember that the total war thing did have a lot of players complaining. Because back in 3rd anything could take objectives, so many armies only used the minimum 2, and didn't put many points into them. Also a note for the 5th set of special rules, Dark Eldar never defends or gets ambushed, they are always the attacking player, deploying around the table's perimeter. And, yes you can take slaves for 1point each. AND remember that if a unit claims that it can always deep strike (like lesser deamons, lictors, and whatnot) then it can regardless of special rules present. Please refer to each individual codex to see if a unit can always deep strike, or only if the mission allows.

As for alliances and factions, any two factions that are not eternal enemies can ally.(ex: eldar n necrons , or inquisitors n demons)
Demons will count as chaos for that chart, ergo no alliance with empire, eldar, or tau.
(refer to:: http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/apocallies.jpg)

Allies can participate in multiplayer games (2v2 or 3v3 etc). The winners of a multiplayer game all gain 1 territory point each, and the losers all lose 1 point each.
Also, if ever all the remaining players in the campaign decide to declare a diplomatic victory (like in diplomacy) and all agree that they have won for their race/cause, we will end the campaign, and all members of the alliance will split the prize.

Right now we have 12* members, and prizes will be split between conquest goals and casual goals. As they stand will be::

30$ for best painted (voted on)
30$ for best sportsman (voted on)
60$ split among 1st and 2nd as 40$ and 20$ -- or split among winning alliance (Go Eldar!!)

So we can start this wednesday, if you can't play this wednesday, then you wont loose any territory points =)

LOL Daemons Alli with nids oh that is just wrong...

so can we ally if we want to or do you pick?

Was wrong about the hive guard, I forgot they can't be podded (for whatever reason), so that argument of mine is moot. Zoeys FTW!

Right off I don't understand where you're getting the idea that nids don't have the trickle down issue

Then how can you expect me to hold the rest of your arguments with merit if you don't understand a fundamental concept of the army build?

they do not scare me at all

12 T6 wounds, 36 BS3 twin-linked S6 shots. Yeah, that's something to laugh at.

Tyranid pods suck for KP missions.

So? Every at least halfway decent army build "sucks" for KP missions; the KP system in and of itself is total balls on a stick.

Remember you can't win if you get tabled. lol

The tyrant abilites shouldn't stack with themselves

Why not?

The Eldar ones do, because you sacrifice good psykers.

Imperial guard was ruled to not, because you sacrifice... nothing.

Tyranids do and should, because it costs a lot of points.

That's pretty fair and balanced, if you ask me.

I have changed the 6th set of special rules

I salute you! To show my support I will stop derailing this topic with my quibbling.

So we can start this wednesday, if you can't play this wednesday, then you wont loose any territory points =)

But wait. So if you refuse to play (or simply can't)... you auto-lose territory points?

Not that I want to get drawn into what is likely to be a long drawn out argument with you Alex, but I have to again say I will be surprised if the Nid's get to stack reserves. But here is not the time or place.

Judging from the confusion here Canadin, are you entirely sure you are ready to start this up on Wednesday? There seems to be a lot of issues that need to be resolved around the following:
1) Game frequency
2) Game rules
3) Points
4) Special rules
5) and so on...

Would it not be more prudent to maybe try and hammer a more concrete set-up and wait until play-offs are done?

Or maybe have a test game with the speacil rules in affect to see how they work.

I will be at Dragons Den tomorrow evening. If there is enough players interested we will start

You can ally with whomsoever you will, as long as you're not Enemy factions. You can be unfriendly, (ex: Eldar w/Tau or Dark Eldar) but you can't be hated enemies (Space Marines w/ heretics, xenos, or traitors)

Alliances apply only for Multiplayer matches, or if you want to declare a diplomatic victory. You can break and create alliances whenever you want, but I would discourage attacking allies, (Eldar v Eldar or Marines v Guard)

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And now, a little background on the planet we shall be fighting over.

The planet "Darius 38243" is a small imperial planet a few light years from the ultramarine world Macragge. Named after Ultramarine Librarian Darius Pardiak, who had lead a purge of the planet in the year 243M38. The world had fallen to chaos worship, and needed to be cleansed. The planet was however successfully then recolonized within the year. Darius 38243 grew and prospered over several millennia, never falling into conflict. Almost as if something guarded the planet, and warded off both xenos and chaos. Over years, archaeological digs found evidence of leylines that ran across the planet's surface; as well as a vault deep within the planet's core that seemed somehow connected. This supported the theory that something special was protecting Darius 38243.

Things have however changed very recently after the Battle for Macragge. Even though the hive fleet was defeated, many splinter fleets broke off and headed into space. One rather sizable fleet has just landed on Darius 38243. What makes this threat even greater than just a Tyranid invasion, is that the tyranids seemed to be gathering around the planet's leyline crossroads. It was not very long after that that demons started appearing out of thin air.

The local imperial guard commander was very distressed by these events and sent out a planetary distress call to anyone that would answer it. Sadly, the tyranids shadow on the warp disrupted the call and only a few were able to hear it. Lucky for the residents of Darius 38243, A nearby battlebarge of space marines, with an inquisitorial detachment, which was on patrol heard their call. Also, a small group of emissaries from the Tau Empire heard the call, and saw this as an opportunity to stop a force of evil in the name of the greater good.

As the allies of the Imperium land on Darius 38243 land and set up military bases, Chaos Marines and deamons seem to be appearing over the planet. However, what all these warriors have failed to realize, is the actual nature of the planet they fight over. Several mellennia before any human ever set foot on Darius 38243, Craftworld Ulthwe of the Eldar had used the planet to imprison a great demon lord. The Demon was locked in a vault, deep below the planet's crust, and the series of laylines acted as chains around this prison. If ever all the leyline crossroads were to be damaged, The seal would break, and the demon would be set free.

The Eldar have reopened their webway gates on the planet, and are now racing to secure they leyline crossroads. The forces of chaos are doing the same, in order to break the demon free. The tyranids are drawn to the leyline as well due to their psychic resonance, as well as the presence of edible enemies there. And The forces of Good and Mankind are trying to take over the leylines on the basis that the eldar and chaos want them. Every major skirmish in this campaign will end up being across these leylines, holding them is the key to taking over Darius 38243. (And they're objectives worth 1000 VP each, so you probably want to take em over)

To save sanity, I'm going to take this to PM. ^_^

awsome i will free the daemon for the glory of slennesh

Canadin (adam), A number of people have asked for this to wait. I know you are new in the city, so I want to post this as a warning, or suggestion:

Listen to your players. If People want to wait, don't rush in, forcing everyone else to play catchup.

Also, are you doing this officially through the den (handling prize money, say) or are you going to organize everything and set up prizes yourself? You need to be very organized to make sure this doesn't slow down, and so the prize money can be handled so that (in the case of player disinterest or collapse), the money stays in the den for the next league (something that has been set up for leagues in the past). If you want to do something with a set short period, say 4-6 weeks, its okay, but above a month, things get complicated, and any problems can lead to some pretty big rifts, inside and outside of the group.
Liability lies with you for this, if you take all responsibility on yourself.

Gotta agree with Paz. I'm sure we all appreciate you setting this up (I know I do), but it's best not to rush it. I understand being anxious to get playing, but there'll be plenty of people around for games, with or without a setup campaign, to tide us over until then. Let's get everything figured out before we commit to the game, so we're not changing as much on the fly.

Like the old saying goes, anything worth doing is worth doing right, eh?

i have no problem with waiting i just thought i would add that i also appreciate him taking on the responsibility of setting this up but like paz said no rush its all good

As there appears to be concerns about starting today, then I will propose that we can have a day to test the campaign rules; then start next week.

To help constrain time, we can also lower starting territory points down to 2, this will lower the total number of games required.

As for the prizes, I figured that 10$ was a small buy-in, just to make things more interesting. Drafting a magic tourney costs 15$, seals cost 25$, and generally you end up with maybe 3 extra packs or so if you come 1st. I was thinking of handling the money myself, but I guess if the store owner allows, I can leave an envelope at the store. The purpose of the prize is so that in the end, We give out tokens of victory to the most outstanding players, not walk away with nothing.

It is true that I am new here and don't know everyone or the store that well. I could talk to the store owner and see if maybe I can get gift certificates to the den or something.

As for a rule arbitrator, I used to be a good one for 3rd Ed. However, it is coming to my attention that now I am mixing up many rules in between 3rd, 4th, 5th, and Warmachine rules. Is there anyone in the store that knows 5th Ed inside out? If ever there are disputes, we can read up on what the book says. And when it comes to rules interpretation on something where what is written conflicts with something else, we can have a public vote, and have the majority decide how we will interpret that case.

the normal league is 5$/player, It's just a minor thing, not the main point of the matches. The more money is up for grabs, the more pressure there is to win, leading to less friendly competetion (IMO). There's really no cost to us other than what we decide to charge, as we alle

As far as rules arbitration, Adam/Tyson/I are at the den pretty much every week, and fairly rules savey between us, as well we tend to check up on the FAQs and common rules interpretations from places such as Librarium Online and BOLS. And if one of us is wrong about something, the others are usually eager to point it out.

We can have a vote on entrance fee.

if their is popular interest for prizes, then we will keep teh fee,

if peolpe would rather just play for fun and bragging rights, then we will remove the fee.

Fun is always... fun. Bragging is annoying =|

I say we suspend the whole monetary part until we work out any potential bugs, or at least give the system a few "test" games. People tend to get aggressive when money's involved. lol

OK, just reiterating All the info that we've been talking about, gathering it all in one place for everyone to look at, so we can see if there's anything else we haven't figured out before we start up.

Background:
The planet "Darius 38243" is a small imperial planet a few light years from the ultramarine world Macragge. Named after Ultramarine Librarian Darius Pardiak, who had lead a purge of the planet in the year 243M38. The world had fallen to chaos worship, and needed to be cleansed. The planet was however successfully then recolonized within the year. Darius 38243 grew and prospered over several millennia, never falling into conflict. Almost as if something guarded the planet, and warded off both xenos and chaos. Over years, archaeological digs found evidence of leylines that ran across the planet's surface; as well as a vault deep within the planet's core that seemed somehow connected. This supported the theory that something special was protecting Darius 38243.

Things have however changed very recently after the Battle for Macragge. Even though the hive fleet was defeated, many splinter fleets broke off and headed into space. One rather sizable fleet has just landed on Darius 38243. What makes this threat even greater than just a Tyranid invasion, is that the tyranids seemed to be gathering around the planet's leyline crossroads. It was not very long after that that demons started appearing out of thin air.

The local imperial guard commander was very distressed by these events and sent out a planetary distress call to anyone that would answer it. Sadly, the tyranids shadow on the warp disrupted the call and only a few were able to hear it. Lucky for the residents of Darius 38243, A nearby battlebarge of space marines, with an inquisitorial detachment, which was on patrol heard their call. Also, a small group of emissaries from the Tau Empire heard the call, and saw this as an opportunity to stop a force of evil in the name of the greater good.

As the allies of the Imperium land on Darius 38243 land and set up military bases, Chaos Marines and deamons seem to be appearing over the planet. However, what all these warriors have failed to realize, is the actual nature of the planet they fight over. Several mellennia before any human ever set foot on Darius 38243, Craftworld Ulthwe of the Eldar had used the planet to imprison a great demon lord. The Demon was locked in a vault, deep below the planet's crust, and the series of laylines acted as chains around this prison. If ever all the leyline crossroads were to be damaged, The seal would break, and the demon would be set free.

The Eldar have reopened their webway gates on the planet, and are now racing to secure they leyline crossroads. The forces of chaos are doing the same, in order to break the demon free. The tyranids are drawn to the leyline as well due to their psychic resonance, as well as the presence of edible enemies there. And The forces of Good and Mankind are trying to take over the leylines on the basis that the eldar and chaos want them. Every major skirmish in this campaign will end up being across these leylines, holding them is the key to taking over Darius 38243. (And they're objectives worth 1000 VP each, so you probably want to take em over)


RULES INFO:
Each Player starts with 2 Territory Points.
Matches will be 2000 points. Every territory owned beyond 2 grants a player a 50 point bonus to their lists.
(12 players so far means 24 territorry points total).

The mission type will be as follows::

6 Turn games decided by Victory Points. (You receive point cost in points for every unit you destroy, and 50% for units below 50% start strength, or immobilized vehicles).
There are also 3 objectives. One in the direct center of the table, and each player places one objective anywhere on the table more than 12" from any table edge, or other objective. The primary objective(center) is worth 1000 VP, the secondaries are each worth 500.
No siezing the initiative.
No rolling to extend game beyond 6 turns.
Game winner gains a Territory point, opponent looses one.

In addition, before every game, roll a dice to determine the special rules. :
1 - pitched battle (no reserves or deep strike)
2 - night fight (roll 2d6x3 to see something, all game) (reserves and deep strike allowed)
3 - recon (deploy up to 2 troop 1 HQ) (rest in reserves and deep strike)
4 - assassination (both players name one of their enemy's HQ which becomes an objective worth 500 bonus if killed) (reserves and deep strike allowed)
5 - ambush (player going first deploys within 18" of center objective) (other player deploys within 6" along any of the 4 table edges) (no reserves/deep strike)
***6 - king of the hill (center objective is worth 1500 points in this game, place a cool terrain piece there) (reserves and deep strike allowed)


Special Notes/Clarification:
Rules that grant bonus victory points (IE Dark eldar slaves) DO Apply.
Dark Eldar 'always attack' rule applies (Only matters for Ambush, where Attacker deploys ringing outside)
For respawn matches, Necron phase out is counted BEFORE the troops respawn.
Units that say they always reserve/deep strike, Or always have the option(Drop Pods, Marbo, etc), can still do so in games that don't allow it.

Player/Army List
I'm also including an Army List with both Screen Name and Real Name, to help stave off future confusion.
Canadin(Adam) - Eldar
Terran(Reagan) - Eldar
Darksfear(Tyson) - Dark Eldar
SewerStalker(Rhett) - Tyranids
HiveMindRuik(Randy) - Tyranids
HolyCause(Alex) - Tyranids
BenSutherland(Ben) - Chaos(Slanesh)
Littlehurc(Joe) - Daemons
Jemal(Jim) - Inquisition
Jstone(Jason) - Guard
Caros(Adam) - Marines
Cushak(Jared) - Tau

*Hmm, just noticed that Joe and Ben are the only ones here who've been around the league longer than I have, seems pretty much only us 'new guys' are interested... *shrug*



Jim's Thoughts & Suggestions:

Do we use the same list for every Territory match (Like Tournaments), or just stick with the same codex (Like normal league/fun play).
My vote is for the latter.

We need to decide what limit there will be on how many 'territory' matches can be played per week, if any. I would suggest 1/week given the nature of the...war?

What are we calling this? It's not the league, it's not really a tournament... I'm just confusing myself everytime I talk about it.

Deployment type? The Ambush scenario has it's own deployment, but should we pick defaults for all of them, leave it up to the players, or random roll? (Suggestions: 1=Pitched battle. 3 = Dawn of War. 4=special. 2,5,6 = Roll .)

Objectives : I'm suggesting making the 'primary objective' just a normal one worth 500(1000 for King of the Hill). At 1000 points, it's basically the entire game.. which fits fluff wise (Leyline), but if you had all three be leylines, that would fit fluff wise as well. My problem is just that the 'average' game I see would have each side holding their own objective (Essentially cancelling each other out), and then a fight over the central one which will end up in either A: Contested objective (Meaning it's a straight kill point match), or B: One side gets central objective and wins unless they other side vastly out-killed them (In which case how did they get the central objective?). It just makes the single objective worth far too much, IMO.

Rules Interpretaions Issues: If a Rules problem comes up that cannot be officially resolved with just the rulesbook (IE Interpration issues), take a poll of people available. If no clear majority, roll a dice(Odds/evens or high/low). Either way, post the question to the forums afterwards so the community can come to a decision and it doesn't happen again.

Cost/Prizes: Either No cost(Test run for Fun), or $5.00/person, with the 'proceeds' being split amongst winners as follows: 1st place 40%, second place 20%, Best Painted 20%, Best Sportsman 20%. (Best Painted and Best Sportsman should be voted on at end of war).
If diplomatic victory takes place, instead split 1st/2nd place (IE 60%) evenly amongst winning 'team'.

My vote on Cost is NO, but it's not a deal breaker.

*EDIT:
Also just a note, I'm working on a 'campaign' based off this setup that I'ld like to try assuming this one goes over well, but instead of territory points, different 'objectives' would be fought over, giving the controling force special abilities(Orbital bombardment 1/game, Veteran troops, increased reserves, Reinforced vehicle armour, etc). But we'll see how this goes first.