Hey everyone!

I run the DW games for my family's group, (me my mom dad, and brother all play, and my sister and other brother want to play too) I had a little introductory game a few weeks ago and just kinda rolled with whatever happened and ad-libbed the story as I went along. It worked out really well and everyone had a blast and the situations i ran them through were mostly just choice a) choice B) sort of stuff. I want to run a campaign now and I want to start with them having overall command of the defence of the capital city on a mining world, during a full-scale Tyranid invasion. but what I am wondering is how to keep the story and stuff going after they finish defending/losing that planet. Basically just looking for inspiration and ideas. I'm also new to roleplaying and GM'ing in general, but I really enjoy it and I just want to make some really awesome campaign scenarios and battles/moments and stuff like that. Any help is welcome.

I highly recommend taking a look at the two sample adventures Final Sanction and Oblivion's Edge. They're pretty well put together and they sound almost exactly what you're looking for in terms of a defense against Tyranid invasion.

+1 to the above- Final Sanction and Oblivion's Edge are total Tyranid Invasion missions. Over the top and difficult, yes, but fun.

Also an editorial here, I've found The Emperor Protects to be a worthy supplement as well- not free but it definitely helped me with both some good combat setups, a bit of politics, and help with the 'what to have the marines do besides shoot' question you may hit.

Good luck!

The_ColonelCommisar said:

You could center your campaign around the people of that planet.

Maybe the Space Marines notice (while defending) that the Tyranid's force is too mighty to be defeated – the planet will be lost. So your PCs will have to organize an evacuation of the planets populace and they will have to protect the fleeing people.

Having left the planet, they will have to find a new home where the people of the planet may settle down. This will result in a story quite comparable to Battlestar Galactica: A populace fleeing from a captured planet, being on a trek through the galaxy, searching for a new home – only protected by a few military experts: the space marines.

The_ColonelCommisar said:

Tyranids are tricky to use as the basis of an ongoing campaign, because they have no individual characters or motivation beyond "consume", which can get repetitive. Maybe after the Killteam's success/failure they are given a promotion/chance to redeem themselves by undertaking a series of infiltration missions to destroy increasingly powerful Tyranid synapse creatures, in hopes of eventually collapsing the 'nid's local segment of the Hive Mind...?

A few suggestions from my current campaign that i've found helpfull thus far

Try to get your group to agree on a particular power level for marines/not marines, it helps with managing expectations in your group

Related to the first, pick a leadership related level for marines, DW marines in particular (how much inquisitorial authority do they have, etc.)

Some of the weapons are a bit goofy, particularly the bolter, heavy bolter and meltagun. There are quite a few threads around here about fixing them

Try not to let your players realize that frag grenades can barely hurt them, it leads to hilarious dropping grenades at their feet related situations

You can also consider using tyranid "respawning" as a way to add interesting characters to a tyranid centric campaign (the recent book set a precedent with the swarmlord respawning and retaining its knowledge each time, a similar thing could happen in your campaign)