Empire Burning: campaign finale and lessons learned

It has been too long without an update here. Moving countries and starting a new job, and no internet at home, does take a toll on one's ability to keep updating things regularly. Getting internet set up in Europe is so much easier (and cheaper)!

I'm sharing today some images of our campaign finale, and how we managed to deliver a fair entertainment, as well as a chance for the campaign win for everyone involved, even though many were very far behind in the Campaign Points score.We loosely based the scenario rules on the great "Colony of Plenty" scenario from Mutiny in Marienburg (in development), with its multiple objectives, hostage-taking and monster bonanza!

The Fallen Cathedral where the last Artefacts were hidden: everyone had a chance at the final prize.

The "Empire Burning" campaign was our group's field-test, at 6's2Hit wargaming shop and cafe, of the framework that I put together for an Empire in Flames campaign. It built very much on the framework set out in the Border Town Burning and Mutiny in Marienburg campaigns (all credit to their authors is due), but drew on a large number of scenarios, released over time in Town Cryer and a few others. It used very much the same campaign Objectives as Border Town Burning, with a few adaptations (as those objectives are already quite generic).

Sisters of Sigmar confront the heretics guarding the vaults holding the Artefacts.

Dangerous monsters lurk in the vaults. The Undead warband disturbs a particularly large one: a slumbering cave Giant!!

Dwarf Treasure Hunters following the 'The Lure of Fortune' Objective drive their armored "trade" wagon onwards, filled with valuable trade goods, on their last stretch to victory.

More monsters hiding in the vaults!! A dangerous Cockatrice flits about, turning warriors here and there to stone.

The horde of Night Goblins, following 'The Scourge of the Realm', tramples across the landscape nabbing Artefacts from the tombs as leverage to attract their rivals, the Marauders of Chaos.

The final victors and last warband standing: the Nurgle Hung Marauders of Chaos. Their leader obtains all the 4 four Chaos Artefacts, ascending as a Daemon Prince, and wins the campaign.

Things we learned:

- Objectives create story and emotional investment.
Linking the theme of a warband with actual objectives to fulfill and themed rewards created a great motivation that kept players engaged in a long-running campaign. Although the length of the campaign was believed to be too long by our group, the presence of objectives changes a simple league-battles group, which has only the accumulation of XP and loot as an objective (and therefore has a large chance to become boring), into something much more entertaining and with roleplaying/narrative value.

- Not all warbands can leverage well particular Objectives available to them. 
This is a bit of a thorny issue, as some warband types were much more suited to fulfill certain CP(campaign point)-granting "tasks" of some Objectives than others. Some of this should be discussed beforehand, in as impartial and non-competitive way as possible (to prevent future arguments), and either include some small changes in the Objective rules or choose another option.

- Objectives can have very different progression speeds. 
Objectives vary a lot in how you can implement their progression. Those that depend on obtaining specific objects (such as Artifacts, in The Celestial Protectorate and The Scion of Chaos) have a huge bottleneck in their progression because they cannot succeed if they do not obtain them, while those that do not even need to interact with other warbands (The Lure of Fortune) have more independence in controlling their progression. Sometimes, Objective achievements make the fulfillement of their CP-granting "tasks" easier (such as 'The Damned shall Burn' gaining bonuses and defenses against the warbands whose defeat will grant them CPs), while for other warbands (such as the 'Scion of Chaos' not gaining any bonuses to find the Artefacts) their task of fulfilling their objectives is not helped in the least by their Achievements.

- A portion of scenarios (~30%?) MUST include material rewards.
While progressing through the campaign, we noticed that monetary rewards from scenarios were not being enough for some warbands, while for others they were quite good. This was caused mostly by scenarios that had a winner-takes-all condition, where the surviving warband at the end could scoop up all the remaining treasure that hadn't been yet picked up. We fine-tuned it so that warbands that lose while some of its warriors are still carrying treasure will keep it as long as they are outside of charge range when they rout. This solved some problems, but not all. The remaining problem was still caused by some multi-player scenarios with large rewards for the winner, and also because many of our scenarios in our long list did not include material rewards, especially items that the warbands could use or sell (making skills that deal with making money from selling equipment relatively useless).
This imbalance can cause some warbands to fall behind in power-level even if they are winning the right scenarios for their campaign progression.

- Remember, lots of cover! 
Scenarios in the "open" wilderness may make players inclined to set up terrain more sparsely than they would otherwise in urban or forest terrain. This is a big problem, especially when shooty warbands are involved, and it took us a while to understand this was a source of the problem. Even in plains terrain, there are lots of scenery pieces one can use, especially lots of hills (with gentle slopes) and shrubs, which create a more organic-looking environment and break line of sight sufficiently to re-balance Mordheim gameplay.

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The campaign also had us asking several questions, and how many other different ways one can play Mordheim:
- Can you play Mordheim cooperatively, against a set of rules and tables rather than another player or Games Master?
- Can you use the Mordheim rules as a GM-run RPG? (this I have discussed previously)
- Can you use Mordheim as a one-shot boardgame-like event, for ease of play with a larger demographic?

I have covered a few of these in previous posts, and will do so more in the future, as I think the game system is so flexible that it can be taken in many different directions.

I think there is growing interest in Mordheim again in gaming communities, maybe partially due to the Mordheim videogame, but also due to the ease of play and getting into the game.
I will be exploring these possibilities in the future, so we can bring this game to more people and share the enjoyment of (affordable!) narrative miniature wargaming.

PS: this hat is a joke ;) I support in no way the presidential candidate who popularized this hat. Thank John Oliver for this idea.