Hi All,
This will be my final article on the survey. I wanted to thank you all for participating and close with a few notes and thoughts. As part of this survey I asked respondents to condensed their thoughts on the campaign system into three words. While this was largely for the purposes of creating a word map (shown above) I was intrigued by the results (and the creativity of some individuals in getting around the word limit). I think it serves as a good summation of the survey as you can see that the vast majority of responses are positive. At the same time, as you look in the cloud, you will see a series of niggling concerns. I think that the crusade system is off to a really strong start. However the balance limitations and rules disparity between armies will be an ongoing concern.
Since we can’t expect GW to put out quarterly balance updates for the crusade rules it will fall on the GMs to balance their campaigns. I think this is always a good idea, regardless of GW’s materials, as the narrative realm has the highest tension between the power games and fluff fanatics. It isn’t easy to balance these competing demands, and I have no advice for other GMs beyond this: keep your ear to the ground and your finger on the pulse. I think a big part of organizing these events is communication. While you won’t be able to make everyone happy, all of the time you can at least try to make them feel heard.
To that end, I have compiled some of the creative house rules I asked respondents to supply. 43% of you indicated that their crusade used some form of house rules. While many were simple: i.e. no named characters, higher starting roster limit, there were a number of other ideas that I really liked:
- Your opponent chooses which of your units is “Marked for Greatness”
- Spend Requisition Points to re-roll battle traits
- Units that kill themselves, or dies to random events (explosions), the enemy unit that did the most damage to them gets the credit for the kill-count
- The Repair & Recuperate requisition can only be used on a unit that did not participate in the previous battle.
- Warlord got a free warlord trait to begin with, a free relic at blooded, and once at legendary, got access to a second warlord trait and relic (LP Note: this is fun but wild haha)
- If a unit was wiped out during a game, roll a D6 per model ; on a one one model is “out of action”, you can repair + refit a unit to bring them back to full size, but they lose some XP doing so
I wish I had more space to share the many great ideas I read. I was blown away by the response from the community and the creativity in adapting the core rules. I think that this crusade system is a sustainable option going forward. I think GMs will always have to tweak it to promote balance, but that has always been a facet of these campaigns. As we start moving into an environment where every army has a 9th ed book, and the second round of codexes come out I am curious what new wrinkles will emerge. It’s never been a better time to play in (or run) a narrative campaign and I would encourage you to try one out if you can!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
