Brainstorming ideas for a small league/campaign

[wayniac]

I want to pitch a small league/campaign (really more of a basic league with a bit of narrative story) to my GW, to help drum up some more interest in AOS since 40k is way more popular.  I have a couple of ideas and plan to pitch the idea to the GW store manager tomorrow, but wanted to brainstorm first.  I'm basically using the Ladder League idea without the ladder; the narrative I've come up with is:

 

In the mortal realms, there exists a Realmgate that has the unique property of allowing access to any of the realms.  Called the Ur-Gate, it sits at the middle of an area where all the realms converge, its features constantly shifting and changing to the various realms that feed into it.  Life, Death, Fire, Metal, all of the realms converge in one place, and according to legend as influence from each realm creeps into the surrounding area, the mixing of each realm's magical nature causes a euphoria that can even turn the closest of allies against each other.  Control of this Realmgate would allow a force to strike anywhere, at any time.

 

Each Grand Alliance musters their forces to battle, for control of this area would be a great advantage in the Realm Gate Wars.  Who will control the Ur-Gate?

I'm thinking is restricting it to 1000 points, the idea being that I want to encourage people who are just starting who may have bought a Start Collecting box, to buy another unit or two.  I had considered 1000-1260 (even number) points and let players decide, but the more I think of it, I think setting a limit is better to minimize arguments of oh well I have X points.  Games would take place on a 4x4 board (we have one dedicated AOS table, the Realm of Battle one, so it would be 4 sections instead of all 6), and also a 1k point game shouldn't take long to play.  Since it's simplistic it would be "challenge someone to a game and play" so the more people who can get games the better.

Second I am planning on waiving Battleline requirements because A) I don't like them and B) Speaking from my own experiences it can make some armies harder to fit in when you're required to take, say, two units of 10 when you'd prefer one unit of 20.  I do plan to make it perfectly clear that this is a casual league and if I hear people are abusing the lack of Battleline, it will come back.  I don't think anyone will (there one or two suspects who could, however) but am a bit afraid of that.  Note I'm keeping the restrictions on Leaders, Artillery and Behemoths (so 1-4 for Leaders and 0-2 for Artillery and Behemoths).  I would ideally like to just use Open Play (with the aforementioned "don't be a ******" rule) but if I did that I know that nobody would play out of fear of "unbalanced" so this is the compromise.

The third thing I'm having issues with is trying to figure out a way to encourage more than just the six Pitched Battle scenarios; in my opinion they are rather bland but I know if left to their own devices, those would only ever be the things used (and we don't even do the mystical terrain stuff).  However I don't own all the books so I'm not sure of how to go about that, and I'm not sure if people would be willing to even look at other things.  I have the idea, if I could pull it off, to come up with a custom scenario (or maybe more than one, I'm not really sure) based on existing ones with like a chart that gets rolled on each game to determine which realm is currently influencing the Ur-Gate and add a battle-wide effect relative to that (I'm sure I could find effects in the campaign books or similar that I could grab).  I really don't want to just leave it as play a Pitched Battle scenario, since those can be used any time.

This would be my first actual campaign being run; as I said I wanted to keep it relatively simple since I don't want to go overboard with it and also I want to encourage maybe newer players who are learning AOS to dive in and really show them how cool AOS can be.

Any tips or suggestions?  The biggest concern is the 1k point limit (but I want it to be straightforward, like buy a start collecting and some extras, or build off the starter set, or one of those Battleforces coming out for Christmas), and the no Battleline (but I want to almost give a "Tale of 4 Warlords" kind of vibe to it, buy a unit you want and add it).

[Kramer]

Hi, for starters. I love narrative campaigns. I designed one myself for a couple of mates that just (re)started the hobby. 

A couple of things that went down very well for me:

1. I would add some sort of growth to the games. Either in points (500 -> 750 -> 1000) or general upgrades (new abilities, think path to glory)

2. A map. Just the fact that the different games can be placed helped. 

3 if intended for new players definitely see point one. Small games really help introduce the rules.