788.M41: An Uneasy Interlude

In the end, what has since come to be known in the centuries since as the First Armus War ended not with a decisive victory for either side, but with a stalemate that ground the conflict to a halt. Major fleet engagements were relatively rare, with the conflict being marked by many smaller skirmishes between the Imperial Navy and the Chaos invaders. The Chaos forces that initiated the conflict were more successful during this grinding war of attrition, enabling them to gain and expand a foot-hold in the sub sector. Nevertheless, the stalwart Imperial defenders were able to make those gains so costly that the Chaos invasion was contained after the Fall of Delphi in 787M41, limiting the Archenemy to full control of only two systems in the sub-sector. The result was an uneasy and undeclared cease-fire as both sides entered a rebuilding phase. Fortunately for the Imperium, the rumors of Xenos activity that had flooded into the Sub-Sector Imperial Command on Forge World Armus turned out to be mostly false. Those that were not were successfully neutralized early and with little cost. This meant that the Imperials were able to avoid over-extension from fighting on multiple fronts. It also meant that trade was able to continue relatively unaffectedly, minimizing the depredations experienced by the Imperial citizenry and thus limiting the spread of popular unrest.

This was little comfort to the Imperial citizens left behind after the Navy was forced to abandon Parma and Delphi to the Chaos invaders. The few Imperial scouts that were able to pierce the Chaos blockade that descended upon these systems and successfully return told of a nightmare of enslavement, devastation, and oppression. The once beautiful world of Delphi Prime was being strip-mined for its resources to feed the Chaos war machine, with vast complexes being erected by the Dark Mechanicus in a twisted imitation of a Forge World. It was clear from these reports that it would only be a matter of time before the Chaos forces would gain sufficient strength to renew open conflict.The failure of the Imperial Navy’s efforts to repulse the Chaos invasion did not go un-noticed; Admiral Valerius Gunthrop was recalled by Sector Command to face Inquisitorial censure for his failures; history does not record his ultimate fate. In his place, Captain Wil Goodenough, who had proven to be an able tactician and leader during many of the small engagements during the war, was promoted to lead the Imperial fleet in the Armus Sub-Sector.  His charge was to rebuild, retrain, and strengthen his forces and prepare to renew the fight to expel the Chaos invaders once and for all. Excerpted from “An Imperial History of The Armus Wars” by Dorman J. Poltera, 173.M42.

Here was the state of affairs in the sector at the end of the campaign!

And with that, the first BFG campaign conducted on the MBS forums is concluded! The campaign ran for about 6 months, with a total of 8 games played by 5 players. The official victor of the campaign was Seahawk, with his deadly Chaos fleet! Congratulations!. To all of those who participated in this campaign and helped make it a success, thank you!

Lessons Learned

While the campaign was successful, and I had a lot of fun running it, there were definitely a few areas that I think I can improve on. Some of these have to do with the mechanics of the campaign rules themselves, while others have to do with organization and execution:

• Game Matching: Early on, I had a couple of players drop from the campaign because they felt that there was not enough activity. This was because I had left it up to players to organize their own games, and I think that nerves, schedule, etc. resulted in too many folks not taking the leap to start scheduling matches. One thought I’ve had to correct this is to make match assignments at the start of each month; players would be free to play more games of course, but assigning opponents might be a good way to break the ice.
• Vassal: This turned out to be a fairly good tool to use for conducting the campaign! We found a few odd bugs here and there, and the system gets wonky if one of the players has to drop out and rejoin, but it got the job done for the most part. The built-in chat window will work in a pinch, but it really helps if the players are also on Skype or an equivalent VOIP service to talk through the game easier.
• List Construction: In hindsight, I definitely did not optimize my list for the campaign; I did not bank on playing mostly smaller games, which meant that I didn’t have the right mix of cruisers and light cruisers that I needed. I was able to mitigate this somewhat using reinforcements, thankfully. The bottom line is, though, that campaigns require a different list construction mindset than normal one-off games do.
• Game Tracking: One thing that I figured out during the course of the campaign was that it was very useful for both those involved in playing in the campaign and those observing it to have a “dashboard” of sorts that is updated frequently (ideally, every time a game is played). This makes it easy for everyone to know where the particpants stand, and by keeping the previous updates available it also makes it easy to follow the retrogression of the campaign.
• Map Features: For this campaign, I created two “terrain” featurs for the map; the Kittery Reach and the Loak Passage. Its tough to say one way or the other how these additions worked out, since not a lot of games made use of the special rules I made for them. I think they at least worked out OK, so I definitely plan on including them in the future.

The Next Step

With the conclusion of this campaign, I’m already getting excited for planning it’s sequel. It may end up being the second phase of the Armus War, or it might end up being in a different sub-sector entirely. We shall see! If you are interested in playing in the next campaign, you can sign up here:

http://www.manbattlestations.com/forum/index.php?topic=1432.0