When I heard about Only War, I was thrilled because I really like the idea of the Imperial Guard. Now that I have it, I am somewhat stumped. I can come up with individual missions involving squads of guardsmen killing enemies of the God-Emperor in a variety of interesting locations… but I can't really come up with an idea for an ongoing campaign.

So I wondered, what kind of Only War campaigns do you run?

I am currently running a campaign on a Forge-World, which is being Overrun by CHaos. there's fierce fighting, multiple regiments (some are specified, some are not) and the players are now a Squad (in fact… we already had two TPKs due to players being… stupid enough to touch unknown ordinance and staying the middle of a road during a firefight) in this campaign, fighting the Emperors Foe's and trying to survive.

Inquisition and Space Marines will also be involved as the conflict escalates, but for that, they have to survive a bit longer then one or two sessions. I mean, i'd also reveal what is actually happening there and why they were caught (and killed) by dark eldar, but they must first learn some tactics. The Hard way.

Some cool ideas I've seen so far:

- The regiment gets its butt excommunicated on a (relatively) peaceful Imperial/Hive/Shrine world. The SoB and PDF/IG forces are knee-deep in the purging. The Squad must avoid them since fighting will only decrease their chances of redemption.

- The regiment is pitched against high-tech Xenos (not Tau). The Squad has to fight against super advanced opponents and they have nothing to compensate. The Xenos have numbers, tech, tactics, supplies and everything . The Xenos are not very bloodthirsty, they take prisoners and respect surrender. They even treat their PoWs well… and now make sure that the characters wil experience this!

- Welcome your new alien overlords! The Regiment is "recruited" by the Eldar/Dark Eldar/Necrons to do their dirty work. The Regimental Command is totally fine with this as they were mindraped into submission with psychic powers/mindshackle scarabs/whatever, but the Squad could have differnet ideas!

- It is just another boring day on the front, when High Command phones in: put your sh*t together guys, because the lord general ordered a nuclear saturation bombing! Things quickly go haywire when the actual opponent also discovers the wonders of an all-out nuclear war. The characters must fight this nightmarish war under the shadow of the mushroom clouds, and they better win quickly, because radiation is a ***** when it goes unchecked!

My gm is running a campaign in a big hive city. We where are part of the local PDF, to begin with we just rand around and acted as Police/swat units. Strange cult activity in the underhive force us down in the dark where we encounter crazy cultists and find old chaos shrine. We realize we have no ieader what to do so we call for help. Some time passes where we fight off cultists and mutants until finaly a delegation of inquisitors arive. My squad is send down with the Inquisitor and his henchment. We shote and fight like crazy and finaly we are at the temple. My platoon have to defend around the temple while the inquisitor "fix" the problem.

It all goes well we fight all the baddies off and then we realize the temple have corupted the inquisitor and his warband. Our platoon is decimated and my squad leg it to the surface. After a bloddy fun get-away (car chases and the use of explosives to "make a way up" results in us bringing down the upperhive on the chaos temple \o/ .

We return as heros and the next few monts goes in peace. But then all hell breaks lose, the center of the upper hive suddenly crash down in to the underhive, taking the city council with them and most of the army command. Aparently we may have used a bit to many tons of explosives.. wops... my bad..

We now fight like hell as chaos mutants and demons rise from the deep. We manage to send out a distresscall and a Space marine force respond. We fight side by side with the astarties pushing the hordes back one step at a time. The marines take command of the upperhive and we put a iron ring around the "pit". As we are resposnable for the insident we are given the choiche of death by boltgun or go down and find out what the heck happened.

We go down and find that the Inquisitor have gone deeper in the hive than anyone ever did. In the deepest end of the hive we find a old tombe of some sorts. We have used weeks down in the dark hiding from all the enemies infesting the system. The old tombe is a necron complex and the inquisitor have broken in, killed its guadrians and infected the necron tombe with chaos powers.

We not stand at the head of the gates of evil! 5 guardsmen! We find xeno weapons in the tombe and out tech geek figures out how to activate them. Now pacing some serious firepower we go in and find the inquisitor trying to corupt the main core of the complex. After a few lucky crits we bring him down... for now.. I strap the core in explosives and we run like hell.

When we come back to the surface we find the upperhive devastated, most of the marines are dead. We left as the sole reason for the death in the city and we came back heros. We where still the main reason why all this happened so we are ordered off planet. A inquisitor lord takes us abord his ship... and thats where we ended the latest session

Me and my co-GM/writer are running a campaign centered on an Imeril pacification pacification of the war world Kuluth in the Malfian sub-sector (a world we fluffed out for our ongoning DH campaign.)

Essentially the world was a production hub, there has been a popular uprising, fighting to supress the revolt failed and the indolent filthy rich nobles who oversaw production fled onto an orbital station.

Basically this has been the situation for just over two centuries with back and forth guerilla warfare, mercenary raids and boarding actions as the nobles try to seize power on the surface once again and the workers try to free themselves of the hated nobles.

The Imperium however has finally run out of patience, it`s chosen to roll in the IG wipe both sides off the face of existance and repopulate the planet later.

Custom regiment from a dead/destroyed frontier world. Run of the mill guardsmen doing heroic things.

As a tangent to a Deathwatch campaign I am running a mini Only War series where the PCs play the losing faction of an internal war on an Imperial world. The entire faction from nobility down to workers were drafted into a 'Penal Legion'. The Regiment, because of its odd origins is surprisingly well equipped and provisioned.

They are fighting in a brutal war across a Hive World against Imperial successionists who have allied with various xenos mercs.. Every two sessions represent an independant adventure. The whole series is a way of giving the players knowledge of the world for their Deathwatch characters in a more interactive way than just handouts or briefing notes.

PC regiment is the Kian'Tzu 6153rd Penal Legion.

Adventure One

Death At Rust Point.

The PCs squad is given the job of invesitgating the abandoned settlement of Rust Point and securing it for 48 hours until the artillery company can secure the position and turn it into a foward firing base. As storm clouds gather and a strange grey rain begins to fall the PCs make a hideous discovery......

Adventure Two

The Mantis Head Baton.

Having survived the terrors of Rust Point and a court marshall following their outrageous claims of facing down mutant zombie deamons the PCs endure a month of attack by Imperial Sucessionists. An Imperial counter attack will soon be launched led by the legendary Knight Baron of Aul'Avador. However an unexpected raid by Dark Eldar corsairs draws the PCs into the politics of high nobility and they are given a task they are supremely unsuited to.....

Adventure Three

The Mentor.

PCs have had their honour restored and they have a chance to go home! However the wheels of the Department Munitorium turn slowly and before the PCs can be reassigned they have one last mission to complete. The PCs are at the vanguard of an Imperial assault to destroy a xenos doomsday weapon. In addition their exploits have drawn the attention of a surprising figure.....

Doing the whole Severan Dominate, Spinward Front thing, starting from Skrynne and having the regiments move deeper into the territory towards the heart of traitorous defectors. The campaign is military grueling, with propagandist campaigns occuring on all sides. Add Orks, Dark Eldar, and other critters, and plenty of social interactions. Drizzle the odd Inquisitor to way lay the party and 'requisition' their services.

Not sure where I am going specifically, as I'm building up from scenario to scenario.

I've had my players on the agri-world Fourtheden, fighting the Severan Dominate in the trenches, and now taking the fight to cities, which their siege regiment is unsuited to. I've sprinkled in a few missions to villages that involve mystery, intrigue, item retrieval, and Chaos. So far, so good.

That is, until other regiments of IG begin losing ground on other parts of the planet and the whole world is declared Exterminatus. My players are going to have to make a run for the spaceport if they hope to get off world.

Mechanised Infantry squad.

We did half of character generation, with some slightly lower stats, and no regimental abilities.

They started as the bus to Basic Training pulled into the warehouse staging area. I gently described the area as they pulled up, then put on my best R. Lee Ermy impression and started yelling at them to move their filthy carcasses.

Since then, they've dealt with a Mutant Slave uprising on a frontier world, a band of those same mutants discovering an ancient (and previously undiscovered) Eldar outpost, and the reactivation of a Webway Portal to a Necron Tomb World. (They blew the portal up with an inordinate amount of explosives).

On their way to the next world, they had 'fun' with inter-regimental politics, rivalries, sporting events, and pranks, narrowly avoiding being caught and executed for Tech-Heresy, Biological Warfare, and Theft of a Commissar's Hat. (Turns out tipping a large barrel of raw sewage into the air filters of another regiment's ship-barracks is frowned upon)

They are currently on one of three worlds being assaulted as the opening Salvo of an Imperial Crusade into a sub-sector being reclaimed after the defeat of an Ork Waaagh. After surviving "Absolutely NOT D-Day in a Chimera", they are currently en-route to clear out a market town, and capture a bridge over a small river.

So after having fun in open terrain, mountains/forests, and the inside of a starship, they now get all the fun of urban combat.

Started Only War about 6 weeks ago and have only just started the campaign with Final Testament as a start off. The party will finish the mission and be awarded with promotion and being tasked to take an agri world currently under dominate rule, thus leading into No Surrender then once planetfall is made was gonna run the mission from the GM kit and then have the party exploring deserted hives.....may lead the game into a dark heresy depending how high they get or stay with only war but throw a couple of very tough enemies in like a death cult assassin. Trying to avoid pitting them against chaos mostly because been there done that sort of thing. Aiming to keep the game going for about a year so hoping FFG release more campaign books that I can use

Started Only War about 6 weeks ago and have only just started the campaign with Final Testament as a start off. The party will finish the mission and be awarded with promotion and being tasked to take an agri world currently under dominate rule, thus leading into No Surrender then once planetfall is made was gonna run the mission from the GM kit and then have the party exploring deserted hives.....may lead the game into a dark heresy depending how high they get or stay with only war but throw a couple of very tough enemies in like a death cult assassin. Trying to avoid pitting them against chaos mostly because been there done that sort of thing. Aiming to keep the game going for about a year so hoping FFG release more campaign books that I can use

Right on, man. Sounds like your campaign is going swimmingly. The only thing I'll say, and I do this because I'd be remiss if I didn't, is for you to think about going with your own scenarios. You sounds like you've got that planner's mind - which is excellent for a GM to have. That said, you sound more than capable of crafting your own. Try it. You (and your players) will not regret it.

Yeah I agree I got a bit of a planners mind sadly as soon as pen hits paper my mind goes blank . I use the campaign books as a guide and then elaborate as the game continues but I still need the flake of snow to get the snowball.

Fair enough. And, truth be told, Only War is easy to craft scenarios for, but hard to make interesting/compelling. Often, its just combat. The trick it to subtly weave a story into the series of missions/operations the players undertake in a particular theater of war. Drop little hints from time to time - or at least make those hints available for the players to find. Make the subtle story lead to something if the players find the crumbs and choose to follow them. Whether that something is a climactic battle with a psychotic Severan officer that's crucifying guardsmen or a piece of intelligence that saves the regiment from a surprise assault, it only need "feel" important... even if, on a grand scale, it isn't.

Hope that helps.

I'm currently running a campaign loosely based on the Long Range Desert Group from world war two. My players created a drop regiment so I created a desert world very Dune-esk with just two cities and a archological dig so far they have faced cultists after dropping in to theatre to recover the squads Sergeant (who was annoyingly absent that day but I worked it up on the fly) and then issued them a truck/jeep like the 3 CWT chevvies the LRDG used and had them attack a poorly protected airfield. So far the sections medic has the most kills by using demo charges to blow up a barracks full of unsuspecting aircrew (the weapons specialist has annoyingly turned himself into a sniper) also they irritatingly have ended up with TWO of the mystery boxes off of the non-standard issue gear table, So I've made one to be a talisman to call Legion of the **** to help them and the other will launch a vortex missile at its coordinates the players are unaware of what these items do but I made some subtle hints three out of the four players are old GW veterans so they have strong inklings so far I think it's going well

Yeah, I imagine it could be tricky, with (IMO) superior officers you rarely, if ever, interact with, who don't really care about your individual well being, and who may send you off to die, just to buy something else a few more feet, or seconds, to do something, and a bunch of enemies that aren't really relatable to, as a Human, and relating to them might attract the Commissar's bolt pistol. Unless the Command structure becomes another enemy, and you have to avoid, work around, or stop them from getting you offed, there can seem scant little to get your players into, other than their eighth firefight. One supposes this could be a good spot for the talented GMs to pull something cool out of the usual place, and prove me wrong, but it might go a certain way to prove why so many military movies are the heroes, on the run from their own former allies, having to fight them AND the bad guys, to prove their innocence, survive, or just get revenge. Rarely does watching them receive orders, go get their kit, and go try to find someone to kill within those orders create riveting action and great characters. Again, that's when the GM comes along and spices things up, I suppose.

I'm thinking right now about the session in OW. I found a beatifully modelled city in the Sketchup Warehouse. It's a paradise city with skyscrapers, river, seashore, streets, parks etc. It's a lot of different situations that may require different approach to combat. They will have to retrieve VI hostages.

The first mission will be about crossing the river. There's a bridge, heavily guarded by the enemy from a nearby beach-shop, heavily fortified. Banks of the river are paved and quite high, so amphibious assault would be a bit tricky. My players will have to climb one of the skyscrapers, BASE jump to other side of the river and secure a place for the other guardsmen to climb on the high bank from inflatable boats. Next objective will be assault on the beach-shop and securing the bridge. Possible threats: snipers, mechanized patrols, dug-in heavy bolter nests. Can be interesting.

Hi to everybody. Since English isn’t my native language sorry for any mistakes.

I am currently planning to start an OW campaign that will be focused on a jungle warfare (inspired by the Khe Sanh battle). As most of my players are unfamiliar with the OW rules, I’ve decided to start with the “11 ^th hour” adventure. However, I want to give them opportunity to create their regiment and characters instead of playing the Catachans. Upon completion of “11 ^th hour” mission players will regroup at the IG base. However, as their regiment has suffered severe casualties it will be merged with the remnants of other units and reorganized into an infantry regiment tasked to defend the base against Orks’ hordes.

The Orks have surrounded the camp and established few AA positions preventing Imperial Navy to supply the besieged guardsmen. The AA positions are extremely close to the IG base so it is impossible to launch air strikes and orbital bombardments against them without damaging the camp. Moreover, Orks’ reinforcements constantly arrive from the nearest fortresses hide in the jungles.

Thus, the PCs as most experienced soldiers will be tasked to lead one of the platoons of newly organized regiment, organize the supply of it with heavy weapons and mines, fortify and defend their positions against enemy’s attacks. Latter they will have to launch a surprise attacks against Orks’ AA positions so they can receive some food and ammo from Imperial Navy. After that the PCs will be tasked to rescue the intelligence officer who possess vital information on the enemy’s positions required for orbital bombardment and is hiding behind enemy lines after his Valkyrie crashed (I am planning to modify the mission from DW Corebook).

Upon completion of these tasks, I am planning to introduce some minor pacification missions including hunting down the last Orks (probably the warboss himself) and negotiating with the remnants of local population.

I'm currently running an Only War campaign set in the Achilus Crusade/Eastern Fringe. The players created a Forge World siege regiment called the CCXXIII Turanshush. The squad was inserted onto the irradiated cursed world of Vanity which the Imperium needs to capture and secure to insure strategic control of the Cellebos Warzone.

The PCs were supposed to destroy one or more orbital defense guns, to allow the fleet to bombard the Archenemy into dust but first secure a landing zone and insure that their supply line was protected.

So after spending over a year and a half constructing fortifications on Iatos, including two hundred kilometers of trenches, entrenched Basilisk tanks and Manticore missile platforms linked by tunnels, the squad is rotated onto the front line. They are ferried up to the Sword of Saint Asceline which is serving as an Imperial Guard troop ship, carrying the entire 1st and 2nd Scholari regiments from Prol IX, as well as the 33rd Harakoni drop troops regiment; meaning that there are over 25,000 Imperial Guard bivouacked in the void ships hold. Quite cramped. When you get on board, you receive the following information in an informal briefing setting

The regiment is being deployed to the front line of the Cellebos Warzone to help capitalize on a recent victory won by the fifth expeditionary fleet over the Archenemy. The enemy still controls the hive city of Plutopolis on the surface of the irradiated moon Vanity, and have defended the city with four anti-orbital gun towers. As long as the gun towers are in enemy hands, no Imperial ship can risk an orbit that would pass within range of the guns of Plutopolis.

Your mission is to breach Plutopolis's defenses, either by disabling the gun towers or some other method and allow access to an armored tank platoon that will be dropped on the planet outside the range of the anti-orbital guns. Elements of the 23rd Death Korps Armored regiment, the 16th Scintillan Artillery regiment, the 1st Scholari Drop Troops regiment, the 33rd Harakoni Drop Troops regiment, a maniple of Skitarii, and a company of Storm Troopers in addition to the 322nd Turanshushi Siege Infantry will all be assisting in the invasion. Ten landing zones have been designated around the hive, Valkyrie transports will deploy troops to these landing zones as well as a single Tarantula-pattern sentrygun to each one, and once the LZs have been secured, Valkyrie skytalon heavy lift transports will drop off armored vehicles to the LZs.

High Command is unwilling to risk armored assets until the landing zones have been secured.

Early in the Crusade, the Mechanicus established a research station near Plutopolis hive, station 238. The station is still intact, and is in coded astropathic contact with the fleet. Station 238 has uncovered records that Plutopolis had a powerful void shield complex, capable of protecting the city against planetary bombardment as well as radiation. The Adeptus Mechanicus have requested that the shield complex be secured for the glory of the Omnissiah. There is also bunker that is providing the fleet with intelligence as atmospheric conditions periodically disrupt non-astropathic communication as well as mask much of the surface from auspex detection. Radiation levels all over the planet are dangerously high. Each squad will be issued respirator masks and survival suits to protect them from the radiation, as well as salvation augers, and each squad is being assigned a single meltabomb for use in disabling one of the gun towers.

Your commander has been entrusted with the location of both the bunker and the research station. Further, a company of the 16th Scintillan Artillery will be stationed with an Imperial Supply Depot one hundred kilometers North of the hive where it will provide continuous bombardment of the hive. Commander Heket will in fact be joining the initial assault, accompanying a squad of troopers and a squad of Storm Troopers deploying to Landing Zone Alpha, while your squad will be deployed to Landing Zone Zeta with a squad of Scholari drop troopers and a couple of Storm Troopers.

Be aware that the Archenemy flagship, the Abominable crashed into the south side of the hive after being rammed by the Resolve of Saint Praxedes . The Abominable is a Repulsive-class grand cruiser that was stolen from an Explorator fleet by the Hereteks of Samech. The ancient design is believed to incorporate numerous archaeotech components and included a blessed teleportarium.

Primary Objective: Breach the Defenses of Plutopolis.

Secondary Objective: Defend your LZ until the second wave makes planet fall.
Secondary Objective: Capture the Plutopolis shield complex without damaging the void shield generator.
Secondary Objective: Disable Defense Tower Primus
Secondary Objective: Disable Defense Tower Septimus
Secondary Objective: Disable Defense Tower Tertius
Secondary Objective: Disable Defense Tower Quartus

Tertiary Objective: Make contact with the Last Stand bunker.
Tertiary Objective: Make contact with the Explorator station 238.
Tertiary Objective: Secure the crashed wreckage of the repulsive class grand cruiser Abominable that lies mostly intact in the “Scar” district of southern Plutopolis.