Hey all.

I'm starting a new campaign, my second for Only War (finishing Eleventh Hour this week) and it's my third overall. I wanted to create my own setting, since I don't really like the Spinward Front (none of the worlds they describe fit my vision for the campaign, and I've no idea what's on the others - seriously, what is a Mining World? Not that FFG did a bad job, but that's OT).

So I'm wondering what setting to use. The theme I'm going for is to use several regiments - the prologue is an elite team of Grenadiers infiltrating a Chaos-held defence platform, for instance - and have them each explore different parts of a meta-plot (something to do with Saints 'n' Chaos 'n' stuff). So I'm wondering what to do. I could flesh out my own campaign world, and do something along those lines, but another option I considered is to use Dan Abnett's Sabbat Worlds Crusade setting. I'd go from the early years, and maybe pick up the Ghosts later on if my players want to.

At this stage I'm not sure what to do, so I'm going to ask some more experienced GMs for advice.

You don't have to set games in the Spinward Front. Set them wherever you like lol. Just refluff as appropriate. What is it that you're actually trying to achieve? Your post is a little vague and open ended, and doesn't really tell us what you want other than "Not spinward front", which kinda just requires a minute degree of creativity on your part.

Yeah, they could become units fighting in the Jericho Reach, for other stuff that will be filled out some, fighting the forces of Chaos in the middle salient. They could also do a time-skip, and take part in repelling Chaos from Cadia, during the 13th Black Crusade (if your players are better than some IG/SM players were, you might even succeed ). The sheer number of things is vast, whether they are trying to sabotage the battleship vessel (or whatever someone else might describe it as being) that Karrad Vall is building, out beyond the Koronus Expanse, or take part in the strife that will arise when Saint Drusis returns, or what have you, and that's just some stuff to stick you with Chaos; there are so many options here, as the standard response for the Imperium to any problem is "throw the Imperial Guard at it." Whether you borrow from existing stuff, or make up a whole scenario, there is just so much to pick from.

A bit the problem is that I'm not quite sure where the battle lines are drawn on the Spinward Front. As I understand it, the Dominate is active to the relative 'north' while the Orks are active to the 'west,' but I'm not certain.

I think what I'm more looking for is setting advice. Should I create dozens of worlds for a campaign? Or just a few, like the ones they'll definitely be going to, and nothing else? Also, do you have any advice on meta-plots (overarching themes to the campaign, given that there'll be a few different regiments and warzones).

To answer your questions from my point of view

Should I create dozens of worlds for a campaign? Or just a few, like the ones they'll definitely be going to, and nothing else?

Create what you will definitely use. Make a few cliff notes of other worlds to mention for narrative flavor. No point in taking the time to fully flesh out several warzones if your group only manages to see one or two settings.

Also, do you have any advice on meta-plots (overarching themes to the campaign, given that there'll be a few different regiments and warzones).

Meta-plotting is easy. Write down the key objectives and tentative outline - don't worry too much about being super detailed. The players will be the catalyst to the story, and through interconnected events the meta will gradually shine through. For example, if I were to set up a meta-plot about a Chaos Sorcerer attempting to reach Apotheosis, i'd write down these five events:

1. The horrendous genocide on so-and-so world where the victims were flayed and hung in a grotesque manner (first sacrifice of the Sorcerer) (Possible location, warzone, etc)

2. The Navigators of the Imperial Navy report building warp tides forming into a potential storm (the notice of the gods has begun)

3. The desolation of x city on so-and-so world, where neither Imperial or local forces have reports. Only an empty city with vague yet terrorfying hints of what occured remaining (such as a crazed survivor, news articles, abandoned city with sigils of chaos) (This would be where the first warp breach occurs where daemons of x deity were summoned)

4. Contact is lost outside of X system where so-and-so world is located. The Astronomican is blocked by Navigators. Communications go dark (The warp storm begins!)

5. Hordes of Chaos gather across the world as the penultimate moment reaches it's zenith. Skies turn blood red and the flora decays where they set their boots upon the ground. (The sorcerer has fullfilled his bargain and in a matter of days or hours will become a daemon prince)

(none of the worlds they describe fit my vision for the campaign, and I've no idea what's on the others - seriously, what is a Mining World? Not that FFG did a bad job, but that's OT).

A Mining World is a world dedicated to large-scale mining and extracting operations to support Imperial logistics. These can range from mineral deposits, raw ores of precious metals or stores of Promethium or other valuable sources of fuel. Due to the large scale or otherwise focused nature, communities tend to be small, impoverished, or otherwise comprised of labor forces rather than populous townships or cities as were are accustomed to. These goods are then shipped across to the various Imperial Worlds to be worked upon in manufactorums or as finished goods (such as Promethium again).

So could a mining world be anything from a place dotted with villages to having hives built above major ore seams?

My meta-plot was going to surround the return of an ancient Saint; they choose the players' regiment as their holy guards after the squad unwittingly defends one of the Saint's chapels. So an idea might be to go from a small miracle, to a bigger one, then introduce a prophecy, and then finally have the Saint appear.

Thanks for the help on this. I've now got a much clearer idea of what I want to do with my campaign. I'll start planning!

As an aside, having lurked for a while I'm amazed to see that the three wise men of this board all posted to help me!

So could a mining world be anything from a place dotted with villages to having hives built above major ore seams?

Mind you, stip mining and heavy polution is fairly common either way.

Skrynne itself could be considered a mining world pre-ork invasion due to the promethium stores that are extracted there. Then you have other worlds that are completely invested in large-scale strip mining. The two questions that need to be asked when considering a mining world is the quantity of the material present and the difficulty of obtaining it.

Well that explains that. When they said 'mining world' in the book I thought it was quite a restrictive setting, but that's actually really helpful, since the mines aren't the only thing there. Theoretically, one could even have a Pandora-esque jungle world, with the occasional brutally harsh industrial strip mine!

Absolutely!

"Mining World" mainly refers to the main Imperial settlement and how it obtains resources.

Just want to throw my $0,02 in....

I'd focus on the feel of such a world, especially how the working class is treated as that conveys a good impression of such things. After all, you can add anything you want to any kind of planet and it would still make sense in WH40k.

For example:

Agri-world: usually small communities with well fed villagers in drab clothing. Good roads to transport the produce or aero pads for the transport aircrafts....One huge space port.

Pleasure world: clear division between the rich area and the workers' area but the workers will be well dressed (and fed) so as not to upset the wealthy with visions of squalor.

Hive world: A few Hive worlds of immense size with large manufacturing plants. Initially placed close to the raw materials (which led to the hive) but likely exhausted after a few millennia and now relient upon off world raw materials. The workers are segmented by factory, wear work overalls and other drab, utilitarian garb and lead very disciplined, organised lives.

Forge world: same as hive but turned up to 11. Workers have numbers, are treated well but impersonal (they are parts of a machine so well lubricated but removed if troublesome...) and there are a lot of servitors. All workers dread making mistakes as that is a one-way ticket to servitordom.

Mining world: Depending on the tech level obviously, but think of a huge oil refinery. Pipes of immense size crisscrossing continents, trucks the size of city blocks, lots of metal scaffolding, worker villages with dirt poor labourers (shanty towns). Imagine a 19th century coal mine with a cruel owner and then turn it up to 11....(South African mine with neighbouring slums would do nicely too). Google Sepheris secundus for some more information...

I would shy away from making multiple worlds to hop between. It's a lot of work, and if not done right, it doesn't make the setting come alive. By all means, make an imaginary sector if you don't like Spinward. Give it a few planets that the regiment may have heard of (a mustering world the regiment went to before being deployed, another world wholly dedicated to its Naval Shipyards, and the squad's homeworld if they made one up).

But instead of splitting your time and resources between multiple planets, make one crucial, Jupiter-sized Earth-like planet that the squad will be fighting on. You can fill it with detail, make only a few maps, and can redeploy the squad to a new zone with different conditions (mud, ice, jungle) whenever necessary.

Agreed.

You can have a long OW campaign on a single planet, which the PC never need know exactly where is.

My first OW campaign was like that - I still have no idea if we were in the Spinward Front, Jericho Reach or somewhere else.

I know there were seccionists, but they were so busy falling to Chaos that it could easily have been just about anywhere.

You can reasonably set an Imperial Guard action literally anywhere in the Imperium - and a good few places outside it.

If you want sheer brutality, the Jericho Reach from Deathwatch has loads of worlds detailed.

The Calixis Sector in Dark Heresy is more riddled with cults and conspiracies but still has open warfare such as on Protasia.

The Koronus Expanse from Rogue Trader doesn't have so much Imperial Guard but quite a few rogue traders with private armies.

If none suit, easy to make up a world or a sector wherever you like in the Imperium. Some solid advice earlier in the thread.

The current "Only War" (I use the wording loosely) game I'm in, playing as a Dark Eldar Incubus - in tandem with a Human Merc, a couple of Guardsmen on loan, a Ratling deserter, and a small mob of Orks - takes place across multiple worlds, so it can work, but you definitely get a feeling of detachment from the worlds themselves. They're kind of nameless lumps of rocks, despite us being briefed on them before we go down there.

I do have an idea to make several worlds work really well, but it does present with it the small problem that it doesn't function as a game within the greater scope of an Imperial Guard army, so much as a small band of brothers; that being to ape what was done in Metroid Prime 3, hopping back and forth between a few planets, investigating some problem or other or in pursuit of an elusive foe.

Come to think of it, that makes for a really good Dark Heresy themed game.

One thing I do feel that absolutely needs to be iterated, and cannot be said enough, as I feel quite strongly about it and that it's something everyone needs to appreciate.

The official design intention of the game is that you play an Irregular Squad within the Imperial Guard, fighting a conflict on X, Y or Z world, with a series of semi-linear objectives. Classic COD realised as a tabletop RPG really.

However, remember that all Only War is - like any other RPG system - a set of rules, to be tweaked with, altered or curtailed to whatever story you want to present.

Arbiters investigating a series of crimes on a Hive World, followed up by classic police brutality as you storm the cultist hideout and field execute all the Perps inside? No problem.

Mercenaries being sent into a dark Imperial compound to clear out an Ur-Ghul investigation? No problem.

Tau Earth Caste engineers exploring their solar systems in search of a new colony? Doable, but you'll need to incorporate elements heavily from Rogue Trader.

You can do literally anything in the 40k universe, or hell, even play out scenarios in other universes, using the Only War rules and a few small tweaks here and there.

Don't feel the need to adhere to the very cut and dry, cookie-cutter format that is often presented in the Only War rulebooks. The only real limits are your own creativity, and the acceptance of your players. That said, it's also perfectly okay to follow the norm lol =P I just want to...liberate people from the burdens of expectation.

Another setting that may appeal: The Badab War. Imperial Armour volumes 9 and 10 describe the conflict, if from an Astartes-heavy perspective.

But Only War can be used in lots of ways.

I'd recommend the Jericho Reach.

I would've much preferred that OW had described the war there (from the IG perspective).

I'm inclined to agree with you, but I'm thinking one reason to have skipped it is to keep the Space Marines out of the player's limelight; much material goes into saying how the Calixis Sector, and the Koronus Expanse beyond, are rather light on Astartes, while the Reach is where a chunk of the Deathwatch continues to hang out, and several chapters have standing numbers of Space Marines assisting Tetrarchus in his crusade. Also, much of what they describe in DW is geared for, well, the DW, with hordes of Nids, big bugs, and long-range Tau cheese needing deep-striking Space Marines to stop them. Some of these the Guard CAN handle, but some they'll struggle against, and with your unit being just a unit, rather than a mob of hundreds, I think they might've felt that the war in Calixis will feel more like the actions of the playerrs can have some actual bearing. My opinion, of course.

All that said, I too wish they had gone with the Reach. I'm not a big fan of the Dark Eldar, and while one of the things I REALLY do like about the SD is that they aren't, in and of themselves, worshipers of Chaos (if they knew what their boss was doing...), which I like more than a bunch of screaming, jibbering, WE DOOOO IT 4 KAAAOSS!" simpletons who can't be reasoned with, it can be fun to just blow up cultists. I like the idea of kicking around Tau (if your equipment and skill are up to the task), and there are SOME Orks in the Reach, without having them all coming out of every woodwork (Nids are for that). That just leaves the Tyranids, which I'd hope our GM would let us skip, and if I were the GM (likely), I probably would, too. There's enough Starcraft similarities there without the team bitching they/we just got zerg-rushed, again.

My only real point of liking the SF more is a feeling that it CAN go for the Imperium. If Severus can hurry up and die, then maybe the Orks can be routed (at least as much as any Waagh! is ever routed; maybe some Space Marines will show up ). The Reach is a foregone conclusion, in my mind, with next to no chance of victory. Depending on how you look at things, the Imperium, with full ability to mobolize everything, and no efforts to hide it, couldn't push Abaddon and Chaos back from Cadia. The Reach seems to have a full Hive Fleet, something on par with those that ate Iyanden and McCragge, plus seditious Tau, plus Chaos of varying strengths, and eventually Crons, some Orks, and a few other "little terrors". Any one of these tend to give the Imperium some pause, and none of them, as usual, seem primed to fight each other. And all just for some more space they'll have to fight forever just to hold, while two thousand years of not having it didn't hurt them a bit. Okay, I'm done whining.

I prefer the Reach, but I feel the Front made good sense from a perspective of mortal Humans who want to feel important and successful, even if that is a way of thinking alien to most IG.

much material goes into saying how the Calixis Sector, and the Koronus Expanse beyond, are rather light on Astartes

Isn't that material from before FFG took over and gave Calixis its very own Marine Chapter, though?

The newer books have buffed the presence of several previously rare Imperial bodies in the sector considerably. And a GM could always buff them further - such as by having the Black Templars return to reclaim that small fortress they've abandoned a couple centuries ago.

Also, much of what they describe in DW is geared for, well, the DW, with hordes of Nids, big bugs, and long-range Tau cheese needing deep-striking Space Marines to stop them. Some of these the Guard CAN handle, but some they'll struggle against, and with your unit being just a unit, rather than a mob of hundreds, I think they might've felt that the war in Calixis will feel more like the actions of the playerrs can have some actual bearing. My opinion, of course.

Since it's stuff from another product line it'd have to be re-statted to conform to OW's own powerlevel -- perhaps orientated after the tabletop stats like in this example . It also depends on just what sort of regiment the players are from, though, as that would have a considerable effect on tactical options, engagement types and thus survivability.

That being said, I think a game that does not have "mobs of hundreds" of Guardsmen at least in the background might feel a bit strange for Only War, as that is an important element for the Guard's thematic appearance. They do not have to bear any mechanical meaning, just keep a large portion of the enemy force busy, allowing the players to pull off their heroics.

I'd still recommend against putting 'nids against Guardsmen (although a sort of "escape alive" scenario, or "blow up this bridge before the swarm arrives" could be interesting), but Tau and Orks might work nicely.

There's enough Starcraft similarities there without the team bitching they/we just got zerg-rushed, again.

*snort*

The Calixis sector is light on Astartes at the moment since seven of the storm warden companies are in the Achilus Crusade (Jerico reach). Three companies where for a time in the Koronus expanse. Even though the storm wardens have their fortress monastery in the Calixis Sector only Three companies are there.

I believe that the Grey Knights were said to have a Strike Cruiser in the Calixis Sector/surrounding space. Probably in DH Daemonhunter book.

Of course, if they show up in an OW campaign ... it means that Bad Times are ahead for the Guard.

I believe that the Grey Knights were said to have a Strike Cruiser in the Calixis Sector/surrounding space. Probably in DH Daemonhunter book.

Of course, if they show up in an OW campaign ... it means that Bad Times are ahead for the Guard.

Yep, all IG regiments are immediately subjected to orbital bombardments by their own side because they possibly might have maybe seen something they shouldn't have seen....

For the most part I prefer to keep Astartes involvement in Only War light. In my last campaign, a squad of Blood Ravens were deployed to secure a Forge World alongside the Inquisitorial Levy that the players were members of. The Blood Ravens' deaths were used to emphasise the danger of several scenarios.

Not that it stopped the Guardsmen from saving the day anyway, but the collective look of horror on everyone's faces when a Blood Raven sacrificed his life to save the Death Korps heavy so that the Lascannon would hit it's mark and stop the Hydra...

Going to experiment with heavier Astartes involvement in my next campaign. Planning on deploying a company of Ultramarines or Salamanders, given that it's set in the Galactic East, bordering Tau space.

Sounds like it worked out nicely! Space Marines should never become a common sight, of course - but if used every once in a while, they can make for a nice thematic element and trigger some recognition value, given their role as posterboys of the setting. Besides, supporting the Imperial Guard with perilous lightning raids and acting as a force multiplier is what they do best.