I am planning on running a campaign at my LGS - first one

I played in a previous one with 6 others and the GM let us make our own regiments, which ended up in there being 4 different ones (some of the guys ran characters from the same regiment). This made things a little confusing sometimes.

I was wondering what people's opinions are on the following

1. Would you rather have no option on the regiment you're from - as in the GM choose all the options and all the player does is build the character

or

2. would you rather have some options on the regiment you're from - as in the GM chooses say the home world type and the player builds a regiment from there with all that it ensues.

I like all the players being from the same regiment, or at least as many as possible so we get the band of brothers thing going on. Only war is not like deathwatch where you are expected to have a hodgepodge.

That said as a gm I will usually have different battalions or regiments from the same army to have some variation and variety, like one character being light infantry but they happened upon someone from an armored unit who lost his squad in planet fall.

I like to have some say, personally, as there are some regiments I really like (Cadians, Elysians), and some I just don't care for (Catachans, Armageddon Steel Legion), as well as types (I like Line Infantry and Mech Infantry, maybe Scout-type Infiltration, and would love Kasrkin, but am not a fan of Cavalry or the unngh! that is all the work of a Tank Regiment), so the choices of which name and type of regiment matter to my personal enjoyment, though I can see some people just trying to min/max their regiment rules (I just mentioned Kasrkin ), so the GM influencing it could be helpful.

I think I'd say the players should pick the type (Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery), and give the GM an idea of what type of game, and/or people they want to be (do you want to be straight-laced, GE-fearing Cadians, hard-as-nails, and about as subtle Catachan, faceless, nameless, remorseless ASL, or members of one of those made-up regiments from the Calixis Sector that the lore buffs who've played TT and read novels won't know anything about, but then let the GM flesh it out. You might say "like a Cadian", but not be actual Cadians, as many other regiments pray for Cadians to come train them how to be real Guardsmen, or "I want to be Rambo", but not actual Catachans, though they show up everywhere, to bail softer IG out of many fires, or say "drop us into the thick of it", and get maybe Elysians, maybe Harkonei, maybe Vostroyan, and see what they will devise for you.

My gripe is usually one regiment, after coming from so many other games, FFG or other, that don't have that sort of rule. DW lets you be any SM Chapter, DH and RT are specialists someone hand-picked, and other games are "you be a wizard, I'll be the cleric, and if she'll play the fighter, we've got a good rounding of a team." I like Cadians, again, but I can see other people wanting to be Rambo-gunwanks, or something else, or just thinking that the Cadians are too "vanilla Guard" to be that much fun, but then you have to argue it out, rather than have my Cadian, his Catachan, and her Brontian Longknife, even if they are all very similar by job. Oh well, that's how it goes, I guess.

I like all the players being from the same regiment, or at least as many as possible so we get the band of brothers thing going on. Only war is not like deathwatch where you are expected to have a hodgepodge.

That said as a gm I will usually have different battalions or regiments from the same army to have some variation and variety, like one character being light infantry but they happened upon someone from an armored unit who lost his squad in planet fall.

You posted as I was writing, and i think you could see what I was saying

I'd prefer to pick each element as a group, using points constraints and debating each choice before actual selection.

Yes, this can take an entire evening, I'm fine with that.

Yes, the GM can go eat pizza with his gf while the regiment is created, it's OK, I'll chip in a dollar or 2, have fun.

However, that is ONE regiment we are creating, via consensus. If, as a GM, you allow mixed regiments from the start, you might as well throw the regimental creation rules out the window IMAO. Everyone gets the same starting regiment.

If this is not acceptable to everyone or consensus cannot be reached, playing OW with that group would be a mistake anyway.

Again, IMAO.

For starters all players should be from same regiment. As GM i always make regiment from scratch which will fit with my campaing e.g. i don't want to players take tank regiment when i plan to do a commando campaing and vice versa. As a player it depends. If GM let us choose then of course everyone has a favorite one so we can do this in democratic way but like if he want us to make one cool but often it will end in argument between players. So my opinion is it's better if GM choose or make regiment.

Same regiment (preferably not mixed) designed by the players, only say the GM has is in it is some of the equipment, cybernetics and vehicle options. Like with my group going for that all sentinel heavy recon stuff and wanting to have an auspex per character, rather than per squad. Our Gm decided that made sense, with them being reconaisance and OK'd it.

As some people stated already, same regiment all the way. A mixed regiment is a bit of pain and joining a rag tag group from different regiments in the heat of battle is fine but just for a one shot experience, after the battle they will have to go back to their own regiments and forcing another "lucky" meeting in the battlefield of the same group is suspicious if not heretical <BLAM>.

IMHO the whole idea of OW is, for the PCs to be a cohesive military unit form the start, and not some stray mottley crew.

I like all the players being from the same regiment, or at least as many as possible so we get the band of brothers thing going on. Only war is not like deathwatch where you are expected to have a hodgepodge.

That said as a gm I will usually have different battalions or regiments from the same army to have some variation and variety, like one character being light infantry but they happened upon someone from an armored unit who lost his squad in planet fall.

You posted as I was writing, and i think you could see what I was saying

Well you know what they say about great minds.

Also I think you are spot on with letting the players decide then forming a campaign around that. I just started a fortress world campaign and already my noobies want to do a drop troops campaign and I think its great that they want to take charge of their destinies after 2 sessions.

Dont know what you should or shouldnt do.
But uhm... Here's how we did it. Hope that helps.

Fresh group, noone knew each other so we just took it slow.
GM said that he could make a new regiment if all players to gave some input regarding what they would like to play.

We just went over all the things avaible to regiments and then discussed what people might like.
Mostly discussed regiment types (Drop, Line, Armoured, etc.) to not get too much into detail.
After the players and GM had voiced their opinions and come to an overall aggreement on everything, the GM set about making the regiment.
Then when he had a template we all took a looksie and nooded in aggreement.

So, i think players will appreciate having a say, but the GM is probably the one who has to be the most comfortable with whatever you choose to play around with.
At least, that's how i saw things when i had to assemble a regiment later on, when i tried to GM.

I'd prefer to pick each element as a group, using points constraints and debating each choice before actual selection.

Yes, this can take an entire evening, I'm fine with that.

Yes, the GM can go eat pizza with his gf while the regiment is created, it's OK, I'll chip in a dollar or 2, have fun.

[...]

Nothing created by players is half as great as it can be with GM input, whether it's just changing a Common Lore for another, or changing basic equipment to fit a concept. Nothing. Not a character, not a regiment.

Thankfully, I play online, so if there'd ever be an Only War game, the regiment creation would probably take a week of back and forth on Skype, anyway. Or one week of back and forth, one session of making the regiment, and another week for adjustments.

Oh god, as the GM, I would kill myself if I had to do that. There is no way they get to create a Regiment without my input, and as a player, I'd hate all those times I'd like to go "Hey, GM, can we <do this> instead of <that thing>?".

And his gf is very nice, so we let her have him for an evening

Nothing created by players is half as great as it can be with GM input, whether it's just changing a Common Lore for another, or changing basic equipment to fit a concept. Nothing. Not a character, not a regiment.

Thankfully, I play online, so if there'd ever be an Only War game, the regiment creation would probably take a week of back and forth on Skype, anyway. Or one week of back and forth, one session of making the regiment, and another week for adjustments.

As some people stated already, same regiment all the way. A mixed regiment is a bit of pain and joining a rag tag group from different regiments in the heat of battle is fine but just for a one shot experience, after the battle they will have to go back to their own regiments and forcing another "lucky" meeting in the battlefield of the same group is suspicious if not heretical <BLAM>.

IMHO the whole idea of OW is, for the PCs to be a cohesive military unit form the start, and not some stray mottley crew.

I let everyone create a regiment, then after adjusting the mega-power gaming ones, I used the ole' imperial guard method of reconstituting a unit after massive losses, I merged players into a new regiment, let them keep their previous training and forced them to come together and form the identity of the new regiment.

That is one way to accommodate the desire for everyone to make a regiment. However, most times we throw a game together, we prefer a group build based on fluffy ideas. Just too many places in regiment creation to get very "gamey" and its something we try to avoid. Weakness and weird options open up more potential in a game later than super power gamed synergized to the max units.

from reading this I can see that most people would prefer some input in building the regiment.

My idea was to have an amalgamated regiment which consisted of 2 or more regiments from the same world who had suffered heavy losses.

One of the people who will be part of the campaign suggested that I as GM choose the home world type and let them go from there.

from reading this I can see that most people would prefer some input in building the regiment.

My idea was to have an amalgamated regiment which consisted of 2 or more regiments from the same world who had suffered heavy losses.

One of the people who will be part of the campaign suggested that I as GM choose the home world type and let them go from there.

That might work but I'd still be against it, be careful not to mix it to much, different infantry types might work ok in this but armour regiments might be difficult. Remember that Munitorium would press hard for uniformization of regiment type and standard kit, and you might end up taking away PCs equipment, since they are no longer in a... for example demolition regiment, and by imperial standards as a new mixed line infantry regiment they don't need those demolition charges, and nobody will care if they are specially trained to use them. And that's not even saying about armour regiment remnants, that one would like to have a baneblade for the squad, since he hails from super heavy armour regiment and the other one would add a hellhound since he is originally from a hunter-killer regiment.

Equipment defines the regiment type more often than the training they get. So unless you want to make a "special operations" squad, where all maner of specialists from different regiments end up and they have access to veriety of equipment, I would still suggest making them sit down and build one regiment for all, at least for the first time GMing (that is what I understood from your first post).

Get them together, make a democratic vote, moderate the whole procces - for example say what regiments are off limits. They might be specialists but that's what character specializations are for. Belive me it will be much easier for you in the future.

from reading this I can see that most people would prefer some input in building the regiment.

My idea was to have an amalgamated regiment which consisted of 2 or more regiments from the same world who had suffered heavy losses.

One of the people who will be part of the campaign suggested that I as GM choose the home world type and let them go from there.

That might work but I'd still be against it, be careful not to mix it to much, different infantry types might work ok in this but armour regiments might be difficult. Remember that Munitorium would press hard for uniformization of regiment type and standard kit, and you might end up taking away PCs equipment, since they are no longer in a... for example demolition regiment, and by imperial standards as a new mixed line infantry regiment they don't need those demolition charges, and nobody will care if they are specially trained to use them. And that's not even saying about armour regiment remnants, that one would like to have a baneblade for the squad, since he hails from super heavy armour regiment and the other one would add a hellhound since he is originally from a hunter-killer regiment.

Equipment defines the regiment type more often than the training they get. So unless you want to make a "special operations" squad, where all maner of specialists from different regiments end up and they have access to veriety of equipment, I would still suggest making them sit down and build one regiment for all, at least for the first time GMing (that is what I understood from your first post).

Get them together, make a democratic vote, moderate the whole procces - for example say what regiments are off limits. They might be specialists but that's what character specializations are for. Belive me it will be much easier for you in the future.

You might be able to bend on redoing the standard kit after mixing by saying that the elements of the Munitorum responsible for managing their logistics and resupplying them never got the merger memo and still have them on the books as separate regiments. Sorta the way Mitchell justified the Valhallan 597th remaining more or less full-strength and remaining gender-balanced - the Munitorum was sending them the resources for both original regiments.

This, however, is probably for experienced GMs only.

For a first time GM, single regiment. I'd probably go so far as to select which one they get, or partially build it and let the players finish it, or go through the creation process and shrink the number of choices available at each level to just a few of GMs choice, and let the players go through the abbreviated choice lists in creation.

For my first campaign that I have been, and continue to run, in Only War, I threw it all onto the floor as a mad-ass playtest to see just how robust the system would be and how to mitigate for powergaming run amok.

I'd say thay mixed regiments is acceptable if you can find a way to work it into the story, and are good to keep your players interested and with a varied cast. The interactions between the characters from all the different walks of life actually makes for some riveting storytelling.

However, that said, when everyone is a special snowflake all of the time, it ceases to be special, so I would encourage moderation among your games, if that makes sense.