Campaign Rules

GM: Rick Lloyd (Unknown Lifeform#7306 on discord)

Welcome to SUWGS' Age of Darkness Campaign

This campaign is intended to give an ongoing narrative framework to our games, so they have a reason to happen and have an impact on the wider situation.

The rules that follow are intended to provide a structured baseline on which to build that narrative. They are not watertight, exhaustive or inviolable and the actual rules are always “whatever the GM feels like”. If you want to do things in the campaign that are not covered by by these rules then discuss it with the GM and we'll find a way to work it into the campaign. Maybe you want to raze the spaceport you've just captured rather than hold on to it? Maybe your Word Bearers simply aren't interested in the mundane conquest of territory and instead want to unearth 8 ancient obelisks to the dark powers in order to conduct a ritual and summon an eldritch daemon of terrifying power? I'm happy to give you your own unique objectives or make alterations to the campaign to allow for these actions.

You don't actually need to read or understand the rules in order to play in the campaign. At its simplest you can just play games and let the GM know the result via the 30K discord channel. The GM will then apply this result towards the campaign on your behalf. The rules are summarised below for those who want to understand the underlying mechanics and maybe want to get more involved in personally deciding strategy.

Campaign Missions

Players should feel free to use any missions they feel like and not just those in the Age of Darkness rulebook. If you find any good mission packs please alert the GM.

Campaign Rules

Any game taking place within the 30k narrative setting may be applied to the campaign, including Zone Mortalis, Adeptus Titanicus, Epic, AI and Battlefleet Gothic. The following rules are for Age of Darkness games.

Wining a game of 2000 points or more: 5 points, clear one momentum modifier for the warzone

Winning a game of 1999 points or less: 3 points, clear one momentum modifier for the warzone

Draw a game: 2 points, clear one momentum modifier for the warzone

Lose a game: 1 point, suffer -1 momentum modifier for this warzone

For being completely wiped out: -1 momentum modifier for this warzone

For each primarch killed: -2 momentum modifier for this warzone

Establishing a new beachhead (does not apply to the first): -2 momentum modifier

Establishing a beachhead in enemy territory: -2 momentum (cumulative with above)

Being out of supply (cannot trace a path through friendly or neutral territory to a strategic supply point): -2 modifier

Modifiers are then applied to these results as follows. Add up the modifiers for both sides, if the winner has a higher modifier than their opponent the difference is applied to the result. This difference is halved (rounding up) for games of 1999 points or less:

Momentum modifiers: These are applied to each warzone and represent difficulties due to attrition and loss of material. They can be repaired by winning games or by events within a campaign, e.g. withdrawing from a world or going on the defensive.

Resource modifiers: Add up all resource production that can trace a clear path through friendly or neutral territory to the location where the game is being applied. Each side gets +1 modifier for each resource they have more of than their opponents. In future greater modifiers may be given for having significantly more of a resource than your opponent.

Resources are promethium, munitions, industrial output, provisions and strategic.

The campaign map is made up of nodes, connected by paths. Each node may in turn be made up of its own sub-map. Modifiers apply down from higher maps onto sub-maps, but not the other way around. For example, owning a system on the sector map would provide modifiers to a battle being fought on a planet in a connected system, but owning a space port on that planet would only provide a modifier on that planet, not throughout the entire sector map.

When invading a planet you may establish a beachhead by taking neutral territory without penalty. Your first beachhead gets a free military base which provides one strategic supply. Subsequent beachheads give a -2 momentum modifier and do not provide a military base. Establishing a beachhead in enemy territory provides an additional -2 momentum modifier.

Blue on Blue

Players will have a default loyalty (loyalist, traitor or blackshield). Blackshields default to the opposite loyalty of whoever they are playing against unless they arrange specific campaign objectives with the GM.

If two players on the same side have the same loyalty discuss how you are going to deal with this before the game starts.

1. One player swaps loyalties and declares they are an alternate loyalist or traitor company.

2. One player is actually Alpha Legion conducting a false flag operation. They swap loyalties as above and may chose to use Alpha Legion rules in place of their normal legion rules (this is not required though, it can just be a narrative thing).

3. Blue on blue. During the Horus Heresy it was very difficult to be sure of anyone's true loyalty and taking someone's professed allegiance at face value is always a risky prospect. Forces on the same side frequently attacked each other out of misunderstanding, confusion, or simply on the principal that if in doubt it was better to be safe than sorry. Even when loyalty was not in doubt some legions would attack each other out of rivalry or to further their own differing personal agendas. Blue on blue games count as a draw. The winner gets to decide how to spend the points. In addition your win/loss ratio may be used to establish dominance within a territory or warzone and between friendly factions in event over a dispute in campaign leadership, objectives etc.

4. Training mission. The game has no campaign effect other than to clear one momentum modifier on a selected warzone.

Campaign Forces and background

If you have any interesting background for your force and what they are trying to do please send a copy

Loyalist vs traitor games as above

Same side: either a training game (clears modifiers/applies some strategic benefit) or blue on blue mistaken identity/infighting – dominance for winning faction.

Wound allocation – proposed “gentleperson's agreement”

By mutual agreement players may decide not to use characters to absorb wounds on a unit. This doesn't represent a change in the rules, just an agreement on how players will allocate their wounds. If the agreement is in place players will not allocate wounds to characters who are in a unit until there are no non-character models left to allocate wounds to. They will also not allocate wounds to a character in a unit with another character who they have already chosen to allocate wounds to (wounds allocated through challenges or precision shots do not affect this).