Campaign Woes

Let's talk a bit more about the Mordheim Campaign. Now I need to be honest, I had no idea how a campaign worked. All I had was a handful of good stories from fellow war-gamers about their campaigning days. Having a group of miniatures that developed and adapted sounded like a lot of fun! So off I went to conquer my store's first real campaign.

 I went ahead and used the Mordheimer as a resource for a lot of my preparation. In fact once I stumbled upon their Campaign Guide I was sold on it immediately (read: "I'm feeling lazy and this does all the hard work for me!") Now let's go over all the key components I was looking for in this campaign. First, I wanted a sweet-ass map with a lot of character. Secondly I wanted a lot of variation in the scenarios so we wouldn't get bored playing all the time. Finally, I wanted a story driven style of play, so movement across the map was deliberately restricted. Now let's talk about what I should have been looking for.

Most importantly, I should have been figuring out all the optional rules and warbands the campaign would be allowing. After that I should have been looking at how all the scenarios in each map location balanced with each warband and optional rule. Certain scenarios were outright awful, giving one or two warbands a distinct advantage over others. Finally, for a narrative campaign I should have restricted the number of players; in this way I could have given each player the time and commitment they all deserved. Thankfully the players were forgiving, and most people managed to have fun in spite of my grandiose fumbling.

This leads to the following conclusions. A narrative campaign is a poor choice for a game retailer. For a retail space to succeed it needs to maximize the number of participants in all of its events. Campaigns are excellent for casual play in small numbers; as mentioned previously the narrative campaign my store attracted got pretty out of hand. Conversely, a basic league structure will help support a larger player base. Knowing the game you're building the campaign for is also important. Like most of my players I was new to Mordheim. It was a bit naive of me to go head long into a campaign with out giving the actual game much play time. That also brings about another important thought; I let the campaign get in the way of the actual game. Because really, the campaign or league is just an excuse to play the game every weekend! Bogging it down with meta-rules from the campaign just made playing Mordheim a chore.

So, there you have it. The next campaign/league I run will be set in the 40k universe. I'll be using a set of indy rules that supports a much smaller scale. These basic rules will still help drive sales of stocked figured, but won't have the drawback of a traditional 40k format; the large price point that intimidates many new players. As the new campaign comes up I'll try to cover my second round of campaign shenanigans for the blog.