New Campaing

By felismachina, in Only War Game Masters

Posted at
Hi. So i got this idea for a brand new campaing i plan to GM and would appreciate your help, suggestions and maybe a few ideas to kickstart my brain.


Let's start with the background. Players are part of recon regiment from homebrew post apocaliptic world. Lionus their world of origin is a bleak desert where majority of people try to survive, they scavange food and resources and live in tribal community moving across the desert. But some people (mostly rich and nobles) live in great walled city controlled by planet governor. Hovewer living in city has a prcie. All citizens are part of a lottery which occur every few years. "Winners" are drafted into imperial guard. So player character was (un)lucky enough to win a lottery. They fought (and died, a lot) in spinward front. They are currently very small regiment which have only one company so most of the times they act as auxilary to other regiments (like ogryn for example)


Since we got bored a little fighting that neverending war it's time to move on. And here are my ideas for a new campaing. And problems with that ideas


1. Lady General of spinward front (yep, old steel and blood died) recevied orders to commit one or two (not sure yet) regiments and send them to Segmentum Tempestus. She will need to commit player characters regiment along with one other to some homebrew unnamed agri world.


While i struggled a while with logical explanation for that i decided for space mysticism as sollution. One of the astropaths , inquisition psyker, space marine liblarian etc. whatever had a vision of great danger and that the only hope they have are 2 regiments from spinward front. So a sector lord pressed by inquisition or some other powerfull faction grant request for transfer. What do you think about this?


Another problem i have is that i am not sure which of official regiment should players regiment accompany.


2. The planet they will arrive is located in segmentum tempestus near loki sector ( i need this location or something close to this for later part of campaing). Planet is nothing special just a agri world with large oceans, two major continents one which is fairly temperate with lush forests and lots of grain fields or something and a few cities. Other a sand or ice desert (not sure yet which is cooler, no pun intended :) ) and a fewer cities . However planet was recently attacked by orks that besieged one of major city and a few others and they lurk in every corner of the continent. PDF can't do anything since they lack expierience and supplies to deal with this threat so planetfall will be bloody and rough.


The problem here is i don't know what to do next. Can anyone throw me a few ideas for mission involving orks? Something that is not prolonged trench warfare. And if somebody have a good name for imperial agri world then please share :)


3. After some time (not sure maybe a few games, maybe a few months of gaming, depends on my players) i designed a plot twist. Since players where occupied by orks they don't know that mechanicus facility nearby have a few captured genestealers and one of tech priest's had a hilarious idea to implant genestealer genes into some people to create soldier who can detect and maybe influence tyranids. This great idea works like a beacon for splinter tyranid fleet which will descend onto planet.


Now a few questions. Should the players met said tech priest before that incident or know that such facility exist (without knowing it's purpose). Should heretek (let's call him that) experiments were succes and he created human-tyranid which is loyal to imperium? Should some time pass between ork invasion and nids invasion or tyranids should attack while orks still wreck things on planet? Should they have any chance to win, wait for reinforcements or i should make this agonizing evecuation when thousand will die?


So guys/girls share your opinions, thoughts,mission ideas, location ideas, ideas in general, cool stuff or anything. And feel free to use this plot in your campiang if you like it.


Posted at

Aight, going to address these point by point:

1) Why not end the Spinward campaign in a success? The Severan Dominate can't hold out against the Imperium forever and similar rebellions have been crushed in time. Add one or two sessions for the grand finale, maybe, and give them a chance to contribute to winning. The best reason for reassignment, after all, is when the problem has been dealt with.

2) They're a recon regiment, so really unsuited to trench it out vs orks in the first place. On the offensive, give them recon jobs, determining ork positions etc. Their primary opponents are probably going to be Kommandoz and gretchin scouts/snipers and feral squigs or hunting squigs accompanying said gretchin. On the defensive, Orkz are fairly apt at warfare themselves, and with an enemy food supply in reach, their first action is likely to send in napalm-grotz to burn it to ash, as well as sabotage other key facilities. Hunting down tiny green suicide bombers in a civilian area could be an appropriate task for a recon regiment.

3)

>Should the players met said tech priest before that incident?

Yes, definitely, especially if he's the only proper cogboy on the planet. His primary task in an invasion, like any citizen of an imperium, is to aid in the war effort. He should be coordinating maintenence and lending personal attention to anything of vital strategic importance.

>know that such facility exist (without knowing it's purpose)?

I see no harm in them knowing the mechanicus facility exists, especially if it is assumed to be benign. It's not like anyone actually checks what the mechanicus are up to, and most people probably think of it as the tractor repair stop.

>Should heretek (let's call him that) experiments were succes and he created human-tyranid which is loyal to imperium?

If he's using genestealers? Hell no. Genestealer DNA is highly infective and takes over the host like a virus to create hybrids. The idiot is practically making a proper genestealer cult and arming it, without even being aware.

>Should some time pass between ork invasion and nids invasion or tyranids should attack while orks still wreck things on planet?
I would set a fixed time for the nid invasion and leave it up to the players' ideas and the varying success of their recon missions to determine if the orkz are properly dealt with in time.

>Should they have any chance to win, wait for reinforcements or i should make this agonizing evecuation when thousand will die?

All of these options, depending on how smart, stupid and lucky they are.

Posted at

Just another quick question since i have no time to reply atm. What about numbers? I was thinking that major city population (which players will defend) is about 15-20k since most harvesting is automated and planet 2,5 billion population are spread along vast distance. For orks i thought that 50k orks should be a reasonable number while only around 10k are assaulting the city. Or maybe these numbers are too low for 40k scale? :D Any suggestions?

Posted at

It sounds a bit high, actually, depending on how many Orks you want planetside. 50k Orkz means several ships, which brings in orbital bombardment and such shehanigans. On the other hand, if it's a regular ork outbreak (from an infestation you can't quite burn out; which makes sense, given it's an agriworld) on the planet, the initial number is also going to be low, but steadily increasing once they get a decent waaghfield going. Local orkz would be what I'd personally favour, since it lets you take farming machines, loot them and turn them into ridiculous murderbots for the greenskins :D

With heavy automation on the planet, I would lean towards evolving mekkboyz.

Posted at

Yeah, Genestealer-human hybrids are an actual thing, so i think it would be better than the technpriest knows this, intentionally creates a genestealer cult but keeps them in stasis in an effort to control them, but obviously gets in over his head and fails to keep it in check

I think unless the players are on top form with exterminating the Orks, the 'nids get there during the Ork invasion, would make for a very chaotic campaign, with the guard trying to evacuate the planet's population as the whole planet goes to absolute ****. Generally most tyranid invasions end in complete destruction of the planet. If you have a group who are cocky and think they can't lose this might be a great time to put the fear in them.

As the above poster mentioned, local Orks stealing and repurposing agriworld tech sounds ****** awesome.

but yeah have the players meet the (soon to be) heretek, you want the players to become slightly attached to him rather than you dropping the reveal "techpriest steelus was making a genestealer cult all along! and they brought the tyranids right to you!" and then have you players be like "who??? wait who cares TYRANIDS"

sorry for the disordered reply i was just writing whatever came into my head

Posted at
Here is what i got so far


Background: Planet Aesir is part of Fafnir system. It is highly automated agri world. It has twoj major continets One called Sylvanos with great open plains and lush forests. . The other called Hiems which is located near planet north pole. Hiems is an icy wasteland which serves as a base for adeptus mechanicus outpost. Here they try to replicate a tyranid gene in hopes of creating a person who can control tyranids. They work in secret so nobody except Magos Binarius retinue know about this. On the other continent loyal imperial citizens work to supply other planets with food. Harvests are carried out by servitors and collected by great land crawlers. There are few human settlements and one big city called Chrysalia which have only spaceport on planet. Local governor lord Anders Golbez is decandent noble who don't care much about imperium. He just pays regular tithe to the imperium so he can live a luxurious live in his palace. He is a coward and a fool and would be the first to escape of planet in case of trouble. He have a daughter who is an arrogant but patriotic.


Planet population is only 2,5 million and local PDF is stagnant and unexpierienced due to the decades of peace. Recently planet was a target of Ork invasion when a space hulk designation Liber Mortis carrying an ork warboss emerged from the warp and assaulted closest planet which was Aesir. Hundreds of Roks descended on the planet and started to lay siege on Chrysalia.



Plot Summary : Players will arrive after a invasion already begun (a few weeks perhaps). Chrysalia is at siege and governor is hiding within his palace. Local PDF are commanded by his daughter but out of necessity. She would escape this doomed (from her perspective) planet if only she could reach spaceport. Spaceport along with planetary defense weapon has been taken by orks. Instead of dismantling and loot this weapon they turned it to defend themselves from imperial retaliation.


Players comapny (recon attached to Cadian mechanized infantry regiment) will be first to make planetfall. They will need to make contact with the local pdf, destroy (or retake) planetary defense weapon and restore communication so the rest of imperial forces can land. They also need to contact the mechanicus outpost and asked for help.


Campaing plan

1. Retake or destroy planetary defense weapon

2. Retake communication tower and contact imperial forces in orbit and admech outpost on Hiems.

3. Sabotage mekboy facility in caves system before they can turn land crawlers into weapons

4. Meet with mechanicum forces and launch couter offensive on ork base

5. Tyranids arrive


What do you think about that? What other missions are good for this kind of campaing? Something good to fill gaps between major missions. What other plot lines i should add. Right now i think that governor plot is good background why planet is in such state, admech plot to introduce heretek. Also i would gladly take any ideas how these missions should play out.