New Warmachine campaign: Defenders of Rhul (Battle previews)

Valus here with an update on the campaign I've been writing for the team.  I have got the premise ironed out and the central mechanic of the campaign is taking shape.  At first I thought about making this a map campaign, but I thought against it when the rules weren't coming easy.  This first draft is a narrative campaign with a random mission generator and upgrade system.  Today I'm previewing the six random battles you'll find in the campaign.  You can find the details after the jump.

"Yep, right over there; I see them now!"

Today we're going to preview the battle that are a part of Defenders of Rhul.  These are six battles that I made up using a modification of the Killing Field Scenario from the rulebook.  Here they are with a small primer for each:

Treasure Hunters
This battle is actually just a renamed Killing Field scenario that uses artifacts, which are a special type of objective.  Artifacts award points just as an objective would, but for every point an artifact awards, the player also gets an artifact token, which can be used as currency between rounds (discussed in more detail next post).  As in Killing Field, the first to five points wins.

Smash and Grab
This mission is similar to the above mission except that artifacts can be attacked and destroyed, which denies your opponent (and yourself!) points and tokens.  If you can't have it, why should they!?

Chance encounter
Like in most other games (namely 40k), this mission has a random/mysterious objective generator.  At the beginning of each game, a d6 determines if the artifact will aid or hinder the model controlling it.  Unlike other systems, these effects are known at the beginning of the game.  This preserves the sense of randomness while still allowing players to interact with objectives in a tactical way.  Few things are worse than slogging up the hill to an objective that blows up on you!

Rolling Thunder
In all of the games I've played I've seen an objective do quite a lot, but I've never seen a scenario where the objective moves.  This scenario presents an opportunity to test out the concept, as both sides must constantly reposition themselves to control objectives that randomly deviate at the end of each round.  Out of all the scenarios, this seems like the one that'll generate the most madcap plays, which I think is a plus!

Dwarven Defenders
In these last two scenarios, I created objectives that were actively hostile to both players.  In this case, the objectives are turrets that must be destroyed before a model can control the objective they are occupying.  The turrets themselves are randomized to threaten a certain type of unit such as troops or warjacks/warbeasts.  I'm still working on the stat lines for these, but once I work something out I'll release the beta rules.

Blight Infestation
In the final scenario, the hostile objectives actually spawn hostile models that threaten both armies.  again, the stats are in the works, but my intent is to make something the lines of a little less threatening rabid Shredder.  In both of these scenarios, I don't want the hazards to become the main source of damage, as that takes the fun out of the battle.  It'll take some balancing to get the hazards right so look out for draft one later this month!


Wrap-up
That's all for the missions.  In the next posts I'll preview some of the upgrades players can purchase between battles.  Also, I plan on adding achievements soon for flavor and maybe with a functional aspect.  Finally, I'll have some 40k Kill Team progress to show off soon!