The Fourth Darkness - a Fan-made 4 Player Campaign

By jcshep19, in Runewars Miniatures Game

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Hey guys,

So I've been working on this for a little while, really wanted to try out a more meaningful series of games that can build its own narrative. This is a work in progress, the biggest shortfall right now is needing A LOT more time to playtest these mechanics and systems to make sure there's some semblance of balance (although some things are intentionally meant to be imbalanced) across the whole campaign. I leaned pretty heavy on some old WFB do it yourself campaign guides, but definitely it's a mutant of many different ideas all rolled up.

I figured I'd get it out there to the community, FEEDBACK IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! If anyone wants to adapt it or even try it with their group, even better!

Main things I'm looking at first:

Does it even make sense? I'll try and upload a picture today or tomorrow of the campaign map I'm using so at least that can maybe help provide some context, but does the sequence of events make sense for the campaign round, etc? Are there places where it's overly complicated and how could it be streamlined? I know a lot of this can be more fleshed out and better explained, I don't think I'm up for making a nice pretty manual or anything but definitely could expand/better organize some things.

Do things seem balanced where they should be: IE faction campaign and battle effects, criteria for determining battles, penalties/rewards for winning/losing battles. Many of the elements can easily be turned on/off to players preference (battlefield weather for instance) just a matter of whether people think this are too simple, too complex, or just right.

Do the battles seem varied and fun without becoming overly complex? I know some of it can be a bit math intensive but the percentages are the best way I know to keep things even when point values may vary.

And does it feel like Runewars or does it feel like a completely different game just with Runewars figures? I tried to incorporate some of the objectives and deployments, but also liked many other elements that just haven't made it into this game yet.

I tried very much so to avoid any sort of economics for the game, and tried to keep the materials to a minimum: biggest barrier to entry for most people I would think would be a good campaign map to use. Maybe if someone knows a good online hexagonal map generator or something? Other than that should just need 2d6 (or even 1d6) and a notepad and paper to keep track of army status.

It's designed to be a 2v2 game, with each player having 2 Armies, but I think you could easily adapt it to 2v2 with 1 army each for simplicity/supplies sake, or a free for all, or a 1v1 with 2 Armies each (recommend smaller map).

https://drive.google.com/open?id=18v3xizgI8QgN-gXELF4ivPvM00xCRq69

Again, I really encourage any feedback out there, and I'll try to get back to anyone as soon as I can.

Cheers

Edited by jcshep19
Posted at

Sounds interesting. Unfortunately, "the attachment is unavailable." Can you host it from another location?

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28 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Sounds interesting. Unfortunately, "the attachment is unavailable." Can you host it from another location?

ok I think I fixed it with just putting in google drive?

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Wow! That's so in-depth. It's going to take a while to unpack it all, but I like what I'm seeing so far.

About the 48 tiles, why so many? It would be neat if this could be played on the tiles from Runewars the board game, but if I recall correctly, that has fewer than 48 hexagonal areas.

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https://imgur.com/9yZvar5

that image should work?

@Budgernaut

let me know if it doesn’t. That’s the first map I just through together. My initial reaction too was “wow 48 seems like a lot” until I saw it on the board (everything below the river is in play and is 48 tiles). Once you add in terrain, particularly limiting terrain, settlements and capitals among 4 players, that space actually becomes less daunting I think. Definitely open to the idea of a smaller map, I think just depends on how reactive you want things. I think the best argument FOR a smaller map would be to try and ensure every player has a battle, just so if your campaign is the group plays one round a week, most weeks everyone has a battle.

the actual number came from the WFB guide suggesting that your number of campaign rounds should equal number of map spaces divided by 4. Now I reverse engineered it, as I had decided on 12 rounds first, and built the map off that. I can definitely see the merit in a smaller board, particularly for the health of the campaign as stated above, but maybe there’s another way to address that? This campaign is definitely designed for there NOT to be a battle for EVERY army each turn, you need time to rebuild, maneuver, etc. which is part of the campaign, otherwise you might as well just play a “tree” campaign.

definitely something for me to think about

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Something I had been meaning to address that's not in there (I know there's a lot of things, but this one stuck out) is what happens to your Army when your Hero dies for good? Now I tried to make it pretty rare, or at least uncommon for Heroes to out right die, they are meant to be Heroes after all. I think the low dice odds, nerfing the campaign effect of heavy wound effects (Margath, Ravos, Obcasiums,etc) and the fact that you have to fail at multiple points, and not "everything's going great and-DEAD" makes it justified when Heroes die, you don't feel cheated. Only time will tell I suppose.
Anyway, the clarification on "what happens after a Hero dies?" I see as this:
  • An Army must maintain at least 1 Hero in its Army when it is initially formed.
  • If a Hero dies, that Army's maximum point value is reduced by the cost of the Hero until that Army performs a Fortify order in friendly territory. The Army is not REQUIRED to return to friendly territory and fortify, but will continue to suffer a significant penalty until they do (an Army that loses a Hero and potentially its leader should really feel the impact, IMO)
  • Once that Army fortifies in friendly territory, the Army may replenish those reduced points in multiple ways:
  • -If there is still a Hero within the Army, the Army may replenish those points with either new units or expanding current units.
  • -If there is no Hero within the Army, the Army MUST recruit another Hero (remember that embedded Heroes are treated as entirely different characters). The Army is allowed to adjust upgrades as necessary across the army and may increase/decrease the size of a single unit in order to make a new Hero fit as well as not waste points. The player cannot arbitrarily change upgrades that do not actively contribute to adding the new Hero.
  • If a faction runs out of Heroes, it may elect or add a champion (same rules apply from above) to serve as the Army's new leader, and this champion must be unique in this Army. I can see the argument for either allowing this right away after the first Hero is lost for gameplay purposes (not all Heroes/embedded Heroes are created equally and you probably will end up punishing a player who is already losing), but I am ultimately against it as I think a campaign is better served telling a narrative and having iconic faces for you to identify with each Army, not "Uthuk Army 1" and "Uthuk Army 2".
If your group wants to allow champions to lead Armies earlier feel free to change those rules (or any rules in this campaign, for that matter!) but my recommendation is Initial Hero, then adjust for a new Hero, then champion once you're out of Heroes.

Posted at

Just posted a new version after some further review within my group. If it looks weird on a phone, try it on a computer or printed out, as that’s how it was formatted so that’s the easiest way to see everything correctly. I Clarified terms and made sure they were consistent throughout, modified some minor mechanics. Biggest things probably are I included a “FAQ” tab to better clarify some of the rules or concepts, and created a makeshift template Army Card to keep track of everything between rounds.

Discord had suggested using TTS for all of this or at least the Campaign map for anyone without the resources for a physical campaign map or wanting to play beyond locally, so that’s definitely an option for anyone who wants to try.

Hoping to try out a full campaign off the latest build starting tonight and getting as far as we can these next couple weeks.

Again, feedback very much welcome!

Edited by jcshep19
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Ideas here are Just wonderful. My problem is i have only 3 armies (WDL) So I Cannot use your file as is. But i am going to Create 3 Player campaign using your Ideas ( probably small changes Will sufice)

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@Skaflok

Hope it can be of some use to you, please take whatever you want out of it and let me know any feedback on things you think could use some adjustment/rebalancing etc.
As I understand it you're saying supplies would limit you to a 3 Player Campaign, 1 Army each Player, Daqan, Waiqar, and Latari?
If that's the case a couple of recommendations:
I would think you'd be forced into a 3 player free-for-all, meaning no alliances of any sort. The balance concern with an odd number like that (or Free-for-all in general) would be stalemating because no one wants to commit (especially with only one Army) or an imbalanced dogpile of for example Waiqar destroys Daqan, only for weakened Waiqar to be destroyed by Latari next Round, only for weakened Latari to be destroyed by reformed Daqan the Round after that and so on...
To help balance that, I think reducing the Army destruction standards may help, ie an Army that is destroyed immediately reforms back at the Capital with half strength (meaning half trays), or even that an Army defeated in battle can only lose a maximum of half strength, though that may be too powerful. Swap out Hero death with wounds if you have to keep heroes in the campaign for real world supply issues.
If you have enough excess forces for each faction to create a 2nd, fairly distinct Army, though not enough to field them both at once, I'd highly recommend running 2 Armies each, and just limit the size of the battles. Figure out what a good amount of additional points that each faction could add to an Army as "Supporting Forces" and limit reinforcements to that. Similarly a Legendary battle would just be a say 240Pt v 240Pt battle instead. The more units you can get on the table the better, but obviously there's a limit to how much you can field real-world.
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First Campaign Overview:
We got to play through a few Rounds last week and try things out, it was an absolute blast! We got all the way through Round 5. We had a lot of pretty epic experiences: Latari ambushed Uthuk after an unfortunate but necessary Forced March to contest a neutral castle, which led to an absolute bloodbath. The Uthuk were shattered, Ravos was slain (Huge!) and Kethra was weakened, however the Latari suffered heavily for their victory and their losses were beyond counting.
Daqan and Waiqar maneuvered strategically in the North, trying to gain the dominant terrain, after Waiqar failed to successfully organize a Forced March Daqan seized the settlement dominating the Northern pass, and a stalemate ensued as both sides awaited reinforcements. Eventually they arrived and a Legendary battle ensued, obliterating the forces of Ankaur Maro and Baron Zachareth, and ending with a bloody draw between Lord Hawthorne and Lord Vorunthul;, with Vorunthul ultimately seizing the battlefield and forcing the Daqan to withdraw.
Meanwhile in the South, Prince Faolan desperately rebuilt his forces in preparation for a overwhelming siege from the combined forces of Thu'Uk Tar's monstrous beasts and Kethra's newly formed horde of beserkers, while Aliana of Summersong led a swift force to the North in hopes of relieving a beleaguered and retreating Daqan host...
It really did feel pretty epic and the narrative made it feel impactful and very fun. Ultimately we decided to call it and reset the campaign. The biggest factor was the map (see below) and a few balancing tweaks we saw needed to be implemented and would fundamentally change the campaign. Very excited to start again!
Suggestions and adjustments:
Be very careful and deliberate in your campaign map building. You want the map to be balanced, but accessible for all players. Our problem with the initial map we designed (see imgur link above) was that with too much restrictive terrain in the middle, we made it too easy for the Campaign to devolve into two 1v1 scenarios: Daqan v Waiqar and Latari v Uthuk with it being too difficult for either Ally to support or become involved with each other. We're redesigning it to instead open up the middle of the map a lot more and force the contest into those areas. Allow for direct assaults toward each others capitals to happen and have incentives for conquering exterior map spaces, but have those choices come at a cost and make it worth the Players' time to move toward the middle where a diversity of fighting can happen. Also be careful on using minor/major settlements. You want them to be important, but not so strong that players ignore the rest of the map and you just play “King of the Hill” over one or two territories.
We reduced the Turns on Ambush from 8 to 6. Due to the closeness of deployment zones, it was just too much destruction to play a full 8 turns, 6 definitely felt more appropriate. We had thought about potential other objective factors (Attacker has reduced forces and has to withdraw forces after turn 4, defender has to withdrawal back off near short edge, etc) but couldn't come up with a good balance yet and thought it would just be unnecessarily complicated for now.
Clarified the Round sequence and what happens during each step, cleaned up the tables and the spreadsheet in general. Also split the Army cards into a separate doc and tried to make the Round sequence reference more useful.
Clarified recovery, as this is how it was originally intended but we didn't spell it out and therefore forgot about it: After every battle, unless destroyed, both Armies conduct an Army Recover Test. We feel the recovery is currently well balanced, but if the only way to recover is to fortify the Round after, an Army can be out of action for a third of the Campaign to get back to near full strength after a particularly bloody battle. While that has its own merits, ultimately we want there to be more battles than not in this campaign and so we agreed that mechanic should be there (it was supposed to from the beginning). So fight a battle, recover, and then next Round if you want to recover more you can fortify.
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Wow that campaign did seem awesome, would love to read some more of your campaigning adventures :) . Have one question though, why the elongated map? would not a more square one be preferable or is this to prevent two players to gang up on one of their opponents?

On 11/17/2018 at 8:26 PM, Skaflok said:

Ideas here are Just wonderful. My problem is i have only 3 armies (WDL) So I Cannot use your file as is. But i am going to Create 3 Player campaign using your Ideas ( probably small changes Will sufice)

We are also a group of three players, same factions. Did you manage to make a campaign? and if so how did you change the rules?

Edited by Datskor