Wargaming & Campaigns

Wargaming is about a narrative, a story that I can continue on the tabletop. I achieved this storytelling in two ways. First, by recreating historical encounters. Here the backstory comes pre-packed with the events surrounding the battle that enrich the narrative. Here is the fun of researching the background of the conflict, the commanders, the terrain and why the encounter happened. The second approach is to place my battles in an invented campaign setting—this approach I tend to use for non-historical encounters and skirmish games. I have loads of notebooks, either on paper or electronically, with random jottings about people, places, belief systems and the rivalries between the leading players. Occasionally, I brushed the dust off these musings and turned them into a wargame campaign. Here are two different ways of setting up and playing a campaign.

A Pre-Made Campaign - The Tomb of the Serpent

The Tomb of the Serpent is a pre-made campaign from the Pulp Alley father-daughter partnership. Here my intrepid adventures take on the horrors of an ancient Egyptian God named Apophsis. In this campaign, I plan to follow the Tomb of the Serpent’s chapters but add more details that will give rise to several sequels and introduce some new characters. For example, the test game, set in a Chicago warehouse district, has already given birth to the Mist and his struggles against the Moretti crime family. Two leagues that will be the centre of a later campaign.

The Home-made Campaign - The Second Shadow Wars

The other campaign uses the Fantastic Battles rules by Nic Wright. The campaign will be played using my old 10mm Warmaster figures; minimal painting should be done. However, I have said that numerous times before! I have already played several battles using these rules, reported elsewhere on this blog.

• Blackthorn Abbey, where the oaks clash with the Wilderness tribes of the Steppes
• Battle of Landon Gate, a high medieval army, fought with the armies of the undead in the most peculiar of family disputes.
• Nidbodmar Bridge, Where the High Elf King launched the Purity Crusades against the Dark Elves.

The project's next stage is to develop these three battles into three separate campaigns. Ultimately, the aim is to combine them into one epic-style campaign.

Old Rivalries and a Forgotten History - The 2nd Shadow Wars.

The first campaign is the continual struggle between the Orcs (Umbarji or 'Shadow Ones') of the Howling Mountains and the tribes of the Wilderness Steppes. The campaign events occur two years after the battle of Blackthorn Abbey and link into the history of Umbarji dynastic rivalries. Meanwhile, the surviving members of the First Umbarji wars amongst the Steppe Tribes are few, and the old stories are lost. The Wilderness tribes also lack a strong leader, as they bicker amongst themselves. It is against this backdrop that the Second Shadow Wars will be fought.

Inspiration and Ideas

For this campaign, the rules and the ideas are my own, although I have drawn heavily on the writings of others. Most recently, Henry Hyde's book on Campaigns has inspired me to have another go at trying to set up my campaign. Henry's book is full of ideas, and rather than trying to take on all his ideas in one go, I have used the book as a toolkit. From the book, I have selected the areas that appeal to me and only involve a little bookkeeping. I have also gained inspiration from classic works, like Tony Bath’s Setting up a Wargames Campaigns, etc. The plan is to share the development of the campaign rules on this blog, with posts and, in Tahoe future, a downloaded rules outline.