DAEMON RIFT Campaign Rules
Overall
Each player starts with one 2250 point list, and one token representing it on the strategic map on his home stronghold. If he gains sufficient territory (see below), he can get a second army token, at which point he needs to devise a 2nd 2250 pt list – no special characters or unique magic items can be shared with the first list. With more territory won, a third army token and list can be added, again not sharing items or special characters. (A 4th or even a 5th army token can also be created, though no lists are needed for these: they will be a defense-only army tokens, and must remain within the existing empire; they can only roll off with foes or support other armies.) So at most each player will need to devise three 2250 point lists. Obviously, models can be shared between the lists. No more than one will ever be on a Warhammer table at one time.
- Each player starts with a realm of 3 territories: a home stronghold territory surrounded by two more. If 2 more territories (for 5 total) are conquered, a 2nd army token is created, and starts anywhere within the four home territories. If 9 total territories are conquered, a 3rd army token is created. If 14 are conquered a 4th (defensive) token is created. If 20, a 5th (defensive) token is created.
- Only the very first battles of this WHF campaign (between two lists fighting their first WHF battles) will be fought with magic items concealed as normal. After the first battles, opponents always have the right to ask each other to reveal any and all magic items in their lists (though they can agree not to ask each other if they wish). The reason for revealing items is that as the campaign progresses it will become known to some who has what magic items, while others won’t know, which creates imbalance. Thus in building your lists for this campaign it would probably be wise to avoid magic items that are only effective when opponents are surprised by them.
- If an army is “Massacred” during a WHF battle (according to the regular GW victory table), roll a die: on a 1-3, the token (and list) is eliminated from the game and a replacement token will appear in the home stronghold the next turn. A new (inexperienced) list at 2200 points (instead of 2250) will need to be drawn up for it. If an army is not only Massacred but obliterated in battle – every unit in the list counted as having been destroyed by the end of the battle – the token and list are automatically eliminated, with no die roll needed.
- The goal of the campaign is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. Game length is 15 turns. Points are scored as follows:
- 1 point for every territory controlled at game end.
- 2 points for controlling special territories (2 located centerish in the board).
- 4 points for controlling the main objective territory at board center.
- 2 points for every enemy faction defeated at least once in battle.
- 1 point for every enemy token eliminated in battle.
As you can see, a faction can go for the win in different ways: accumulating a large empire will score lots of points; but so will holding one’s homeland and seizing a couple of key objectives; and one could win by hardly worrying about holding territory at all, but rather cutting a swath through the lands and defeating a wide variety of opponents. Let army fluff or cold strategy point you and your faction in whatever direction you wish -- whatever your approach, there will be points to reward success!
Movement and Territory Control
- Movement works like the old Diplomacy game for the most part. Each army token can move one territory per turn (or “hold” to stay in place, defending its current territory). All moves are simultaneous, with orders written down then revealed together.
- Any territory in which an army token ends its move becomes controlled by that faction. Place a flag or other marker there to indicate control. The flag (and control) remains until some other faction ends an army move in that territory.
- If two armies attempt to occupy the same space, and neither has the support of another army (see below), they fight a battle; the winner occupies the space, the loser goes back whence it came. (In a draw, return both armies to where they started.) If the losing token cannot go back whence it came because another token (friend or foe) has occupied the territory it left, or if an army sitting in a territory is ejected from it, the losing army token gets to retreat to another adjacent territory of its choice, according to the following criteria:
- It must retreat to an unoccupied territory its faction controls, if possible.
- If there are no adjacent territories controlled by its faction, then it may pick an unoccupied territory controlled by another faction, or an unclaimed territory, to retreat to. It does not get to take control of it, however – the territory retains its previous status (controlled by another faction, or no one).
- It cannot retreat to the territory from which the victor in the battle came.
- If there are no adjacent unoccupied territories to which it can retreat, either because of blocking army tokens (friend or foe) or because the victor in the battle came from the only open territory, the token is destroyed.
- If one player has another token adjacent to the territory the first token wishes to travel to, it can be ordered to “support” the move of the first one instead of moving itself. If their foes do not have support of their own, the side with support wins 2-1. No battle is fought: the outnumbered army is pushed out of the space it wishes to occupy. If both have support so it is 2 vs 2, each side picks one of their armies to face the other.
- A token ordered to support another will revert to a “Hold” order if it itself is attacked. However, this rule cannot be used by a lone token to get out of being ganged up on in a 2-1: when the 1 is attacked by a foe with another foe in support, it will be driven back, regardless of which one it attacks itself. It will need some other army to attack the supporting token.
- Two adjacent tokens can offer mutual support: each is ordered to “support” the other.
- Enemy army tokens cannot switch places, “passing each other in the night.” In a situation in which hostile armies were ordered to move to each other’s territory, fight a battle, and the winner goes where it intended and the loser gets pushed backwards one territory. Roll a die to see in which terrain the battle takes place.
- At the end of every turn add up the number of territories each faction controls, and add or subtract army tokens as needed. (0 territories: no tokens. 1-4 territories: 1 token. 5-8 territories: 2 tokens. 9-13 territories: 3 tokens. 14-19 territories: 3 + 1 defensive token. 20+ territories: 3 + 2 defensive tokens.) Notice that a faction is only eliminated from the game, with no tokens or lists, if it loses every single one of its three original territories. If the home stronghold territory itself is occupied by a foe, new tokens start in an adjacent original territory.
- Movement speeds beyond the usual 1:
- an all-cav/speedy army token (i.e. every unit in that army list is Move 7 or higher) can move 2 spaces in a turn, not 1, when the terrain is open.
- army tokens moving along roads for their whole move can move 2 spaces, not 1 (cav can move 3).
- army tokens not moving along a road that have any artillery trying to enter into difficult terrain (=forest, swamp, hills, mountains, or crossing a river not at a bridge) must roll a die: on a 1 the move fails and they remain where they are.
- note that armies that move 2 or more will only control the territory they end up in, not all the ones they moved through to get there.
Combat and the Strategic Map
When two armies clash on the strategic map, play a WHF pitched battle using the lists associated with the army tokens in conflict.
- Since map campaigns can sometimes result in players constantly (and boringly) fighting the same foe over and over, we will use the following rule: After two factions have fought each other in WHF battles twice, each faction must fight another faction before fighting each other again. Simply “roll off” any battles in the meantime: 1-3 one side wins, 4-6 the other, and move the winning/losing army tokens accordingly; no massacres or lost tokens are possible on roll-offs. After two sides have fought three WHF battles against each other, from that point forward either player has the option of asking for a roll-off instead of fighting out the battle.
- Army tokens defending one of the four original home territories of a faction have these advantages: they automatically win the roll to see who starts placing terrain; they automatically win the choice of which board side they wish to play from, but must then place the first unit. The roll goes as normal to see who moves first.
- Tokens defending their home stronghold get the above advantages plus also get an extra 300 points to add to their list. In a rolled-off battle, defenders win on a 3+ on a d6 from their stronghold instead of the usual 4+. The “home team” also gets these benefits when trying to retake a lost home stronghold after it’s been captured.
- When deploying terrain for the WHF battles, use the following guidelines:
- In a clear territory, there will be 4 pieces of terrain, each one players’ choice.
- In a woods territory, there will be 6 pieces of terrain, at least 4 of which must be woods.
- In a hills territory, there will be 4-6 pieces of terrain, at least 3 of which must be hills.
- In a swamp territory, there will be 4-6 pieces of terrain, and there must be at least 1 water and 2 woods.
- when a river separated the two armies’ territories before they came to battle, there must be at least 1 water (players can set up a full river if they wish, but it’s not required).
- In a mountain territory, there will be 6 pieces of terrain, at least 4 of which must be hills, of which two must be multi-level.
Combat Losses
While it would be realistic to eliminate whole units and vastly wear down others in one’s set lists as battles take their toll, that would weaken lists far too much after a couple of battles, soon rendering them impotent and throw game balance out the window. It will be assumed, therefore, that each faction’s homeland is constantly sending out to their raging armies replacement troops to refill ranks. However, it will be fun and appropriate to allow individual lists and their leaders to suffer a bit of wear and tear. Thus the following rules.
- Monsters of 3 or more wounds, whether alone or in units, automatically “survive” battles to fight the next one, even if killed during the battle. However, if it is “killed”, roll a die at the end of the battle: on a 1-3, the monster starts the next battle with one wound. A monster with 4 or more wounds also makes this 1-3/4-6 roll if it was reduced to just one wound left in battle.
- Characters that are killed actually do die on a 1, to be replaced by a new, green version of the exact same type with the same magic items, less one item (a worthy unit champion has been promoted, but one of his predecessor’s items has been lost). On a 2-5, the character survives, but starts the next battle with one wound already. On a 6 he makes a miraculous recovery – no ill effects from his “death”. The second time a character “dies” in battle, he really dies on a 1-2; the third, a 1-3. Never gets worse than 1-3.
- Units of infantry or cavalry automatically survive to the next battle, but if they suffered half losses or greater at any point in the fight, they begin the next battle with 1-3 fewer men (if they had 20+ models to start with) or 1-2 fewer (if they had 10-19) or 1 fewer (if they had less than 10 models).
- Monsters/creatures of 2 wounds per model that fight in units (e.g., Flesh Hounds, Warhawk Riders) are treated as a unit of infantry or cavalry and take losses as described in the previous paragraph, but instead of going by the total of models in the unit go by the total of wounds. So, for example, a unit of 6 Flesh Hounds counts as a 12-model unit, and thus will start the next battle with 1-2 fewer wounds (i.e., either one wound on one model or one less model) if it lost half or more of its models in the battle. A unit of 3 Warhawks, with 6 total wounds originally, could only ever start with 1 wound off if 2 or more models were lost in the previous battle.
- Chariots, war machines, and other odd devices with crew are treated like monsters of 3+ wounds. However, the “wound” received on a 1-3 is randomly distributed as per shooting results, so a crewman could be killed or the device itself wounded.
- The Vampire Counts (and any other army with healing abilities) may not heal wounded characters and units of wear and tear losses they begin a game with. The only exception to this is Skeletons, Zombies, and Ghouls, units of which can be raised as normal regardless of whether or not they started with some combat losses.
- Note that models and units which count as destroyed for victory point purposes because of 1) running off the table or 2) ending the game in a state of flight do NOT count as dead for purposes of rolling on the Combat Losses tables. They fled the field and will live to fight another day! Units destroyed in other ways (getting run down by pursuers, etc.) have to roll.
- An army that issues a “Hold” order for its move and that is not attacked that turn can repair 75 points worth of its list’s Combat Losses damage sustained at any point in the campaign. For healing multi-wound models, divide the total cost of the model (with all magic items, extra abilities, etc. costed in) by the Wound characteristic and that's how many points each wound costs to heal. This “Hold” and repair can be done repeatedly. That should allow badly bashed up armies to right themselves, at the price of a couple of turns of inactivity. Magic items lost due to characters dying can be replaced, but at a cost of 3x the points. (So a turn’s rest of 75 repair points can be used to replace one 25 point magic item with the same item or different 25 point item or 25 points worth of multiple items.) Repair points can be used for different things in the same turn – say, 30 points being used to replace three 10-point infantry models and the remaining 45 points going to add a 15-point magic item to a replacement character whose original lost a 15-point-or-greater magic item upon dying. Left-over points cannot be “stored” to be added to repair points gained with future “Hold” orders. Lists of 2200 points brought in to replace massacred tokens can “Hold” in the home stronghold the turn they arrive and, assuming they aren't attacked, get raised to 2250.
Combat Experience
The flipside of wear and tear on a list is the experience that units can gain. The survivors are getting leaner and meaner…
- Any non-character unit (monster, infantry, cavalry, machine, whatever) that survives a battle having suffered less than half casualties/wounds gets to roll 2d6 on the following chart:
2-8 No upgrade
9 +1 WS or I (player’s choice; can’t duplicate a previous upgrade)
10 +1 Ld or Move (player’s choice; can’t duplicate a previous upgrade)
11 +1 T (consider this roll a 12 if the unit already received upgraded toughness)
12 +1 S or BS (player’s choice; can’t duplicate a previous upgrade)
No more than 3 units can receive upgrades after any one battle – so start rolling with the ones you’d most like to see upgraded!
- Any characters surviving a battle who suffered NO wounds gets to roll 2d6:
2 Character gets traumatized. -1 Ld.
3-7 No upgrade
8 +1 WS or I (player’s choice; can’t duplicate a previous upgrade)
9 +1 S or BS (player’s choice; can’t duplicate a previous upgrade)
10 +1 Ld or Move (player’s choice; can’t duplicate a previous upgrade)
11 +1 T (consider this roll a 12 if the guy already received upgraded toughness)
12 Wizards: +1 power die OR dispel die. Warrior generals: +6” range leadership. Others: choose any result on this table.
No more than 2 characters can receive upgrades after any one battle – so start rolling with the ones you’d most like to see upgraded!
Putting Combat Losses and Combat Experience together should result in adding character to army lists. After a battle, several units may have cut-down numbers and individuals with seeping wounds, but also some grisled veterans with nicely improved stats. Remember, Experience gains are permanent; Combat Losses only last through the next battle and don’t accumulate from battle to battle (except for dead leaders, of course). These rules also add a cool feature to battles: the desire to hoard key units or individuals to avoid losses or build on gains made. Once a hero or veteran unit wins an upgrade or two, who wants to see them perish or whittled down? So a general may find himself altering battle plans to favor this or that unit or hero… or wait to send it into battle to deliver the critical blow!