Path to glory, balance and sustainability

[Jaze]

Currently I am trying to find ways to guide campaign in my local store to be a bit more balanced an sustainable. The general worst case is you end up with a 5k army a 2k army and a 600 point army at the ends of the spectrum and games become enjoyably for 0-1 person which tends to lead to a high drop out rate.

The campaign is always open to anyone in store who wants to join, rather than a close knit group of friends.

My current ideas for path to glory are to have a dice roll for your reward which you can reroll, as long as it's not a duplicate, at the cost of a Glory Point. If you roll a duplicate that you have already rolled you get no reward for, the game. This should limit to a max of 2 of each upgrade a week but make getting the max unlikely, also giving some incentive for people to play more than the ~2 games a week, which is what happens if their is a hard cap of 2 games a week where weekend players find it hard to get a game because those who have played to the cap in the week are not overly interested in playing a campaign game with no personal benefit.

I also was planning to at a cap on the number of units that you can field in one game . Basses on the start units for leader +n. I.e. Durthu 4 base + 4 for n = 8. While branchwraith base 6 + 4 for n =10. The warband can have more units than this but can only use a maximum of the cap number in any game. 

When you roll for a new retinue unit of the roll is for a warscroll already in your warband  you can chose to add extra guys to an existing unit. This only counts as one unit for cap purposes and is capped at matched play unit sizes.

Also planning to add some form of restriction in summoning, possibly one successful "Summon *" spell per turn.

Initially I would plan this campaign to run for 8 weeks. Every 2 weeks it would move realm ( using the realm rules from The Realmgate Wars campaign) at the end of the 2 week period the player with the most GP's faction will claim the area within the realm that is being fought over. Their reward for the campaign is only narrative and possibly character will gain ability that only works in that realm in narrative games out side the scope of this campaign. Glory points reset to 0 each time players move realm.

Also is their any community work to more balanced party to glory retinue tables for multi faction. I don't really worry about wanting it to be fully balanced but I do find the table comparisons a bit loopy i.e. 5 druids vs 10 liberators. Also many factions are not represented.

 

In general I am looking to have a campaign system which is enjoyable for most involved and does not fizzle out due to some players outscaling the majority. All help, feedback and criticism will be much appreciated.

 

[Kramer]

The best thing i tried became 100pt increments. And dividing units into basic/elite/ special tables. And allowing no more elite and special than basic. 

But it ended up being theory hammer at best, nut looked good ?

[Rend 4]

We are currently allowing each player to roll for a unit. At the end of a battle. For each 100 points difference between the unit costs the player with the unit with fewer points may roll on either the general ability table or the unit ability table.

Also when the games start to get too far out of reach it's good for players to start allying if necessary, and play a 2 or 3 on one to tip the scales.


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[mhsellwood]

Just a quick note that the Disciples of Tzeentch battletome and the Stormcast book both have updated Paths to Glory sections. At first glance they are significantly better than previous tables (i.e. a Stardrake has 2 retinue rolls not 5) so some of the balance issues should work themselves out.

[avanp]

We are wrapping up a Path to Glory campaign at our local club, without using many modifications at all. So far it is fairly balanced. I blogged about what we are doing here.

[Dez]

I tried running this, and it went...really weird. I wish I could have just run it out of the box. I hope the GHB2 makes it easier, I know it's narrative but people still complain about balance.

[DinoTitanedition]

@Dez they will always complain, as complaining seems to be easier than enjoying nowadays Nah, seriously, there is so many different units and so many different factions, it is simply not possible to balance the whole game, just maybe bring it closer to that feeling. The variation a game offers, the less balanced it is. That is the way of things.

[CentralKarma]

3 hours ago, avanp said:

We are wrapping up a Path to Glory campaign at our local club, without using many modifications at all. So far it is fairly balanced. I blogged about what we are doing here.

This is true.  I was there.

To further this point, the GHB Path of Glory is more balanced then it looks at face value.

Obviously somethings stand out, i.e. stardrake gets as many starting units as a magmadroth, and I'm glad to hear that they corrected this in the new SCE book.

One important thing to note is how the points are scored in Path of Glory.  The winner gets D3 points, the loser gets 1.  In the campaign I'm currently playing, ( check out @avanp write up) I'm currently 3-1, with 5 glory points.  Another player has the same record, 3-1, but has 10 Glory points.  I've been unlucky and rolled 1's and 2's for my glory points, he rolled 6 and got 3 glory points everytime.  Another player is 1-3, but tied with me at 5 points.

2 hours ago, Dez said:

I tried running this, and it went...really weird. I wish I could have just run it out of the box. I hope the GHB2 makes it easier, I know it's narrative but people still complain about balance.

^^^ This is the real issue.  Its a narrative, and isn't supposed to be completely balanced, and the scoring system reflects that, IMO. But haters want to hate, or complain at least.

Like a lot of things with Age of Sigmar, on paper it doesn't seem like it should work, but once you actually start playing, it's great.  

 

[avanp]

Our club does a lot of matched play games, so balance is always an issue. We have a couple of people that no matter how hard they try they just can't not take the most optimal thing. My guidelines I put out said that everyone should roll on the charts for their rewards etc, but those who don't care for the narrative would just pick what they want. 

In our campaign I'm currently at 6 points after 5 games, and there is someone who is at 7 points after 3 games. All you need is a good VP roll and you're well ahead of everyone else. I'd say my army probably has more points, but I've had the misfortune of losing the Monument battleplan twice, despite almost killing everything. The dice giveth, and the dice taketh away...

[Kramer]

@Dez & @CentralKarma you are right ofclurse that it'snarrative and it can het wierd. And Thats fine. Especially when using the same factions. But during the summer me and a friend started a campaign. Played three games the first day.. and said:' this doesn't work. Let's figure this out and start again'. Sadly never did. (He played skaven, I played chaos)

hence the concept of adjusting unit sizes to roughly 100pt value.

 

[CentralKarma]

17 minutes ago, Kramer said:

@Dez & @CentralKarma you are right ofclurse that it'snarrative and it can het wierd. And Thats fine. Especially when using the same factions. But during the summer me and a friend started a campaign. Played three games the first day.. and said:' this doesn't work. Let's figure this out and start again'. Sadly never did. (He played skaven, I played chaos)

hence the concept of adjusting unit sizes to roughly 100pt value.

 

We talked about reducing it to 100 points per follower as well, then ultimately just decided to go for it.  It should be mentioned that I play with the sme 6-8 people every Thursday, and there was an understanding before it started to build a reasonable army, not to try and break the game.  I realize that not all gaming circles are like this.   

When you and your friend tried it, what aspects did you find weren't working?  I ask out of curiosity.

[Kramer]

Hi @CentralKarma sure thing. Well on the special lists everything was fine. Even heroes worked well. But two things (one of them is our own fault)

1. We  both rolled twice on the retinue table for some bodies on the field. I started with two spawn and 12 warriors. He with 20 clan rats. Best case he would have ended up 20 stormvermin big difference of course but still... a tricky start  

2. Because it was out first path to glory and we mostly wantend something that allowed us to play several small games to learn the rules. We did not pause to buy and paint what we rolled. Being limited to our existing collections hurt him more than me. So that is on us. 

But looking at the different tables we felt it was mostly meant for inter faction campaigns. But hey, that's our interpretation. ?

[Jaze]

 

On 05/03/2017 at 7:30 PM, Kramer said:

The best thing i tried became 100pt increments. And dividing units into basic/elite/ special tables. And allowing no more elite and special than basic. 

But it ended up being theory hammer at best, nut looked good ?

@Kramer The explicit point restriction is not a way I wish to go but it is a good idea, for the campaigns I am attempting to fix they are store wide and mixed age of which many struggle with points and so most campaigns try to mask, hide or avoid. Also is a secondary "mini game" where sales are are good for the store so points being to low won't really work. If I went the way of using points would be looking to use the Tzeench and Stormcast books as a benchmark as @mhsellwood says they appear to be much more balanced, would try to rewrite other tables based around those points.

 

1 hour ago, Kramer said:

But looking at the different tables we felt it was mostly meant for inter faction campaigns. But hey, that's our interpretation. ?

This I agree with in fact the first games of path to glory that we ran were the pre GHB black library path to glory supplement which was just written for chaos, of which the chaos tables are pretty much a cut and paste job from.

 

[Kramer]

1 minute ago, Jaze said:

 

@Kramer The explicit point restriction is not a way I wish to go but it is a good idea, for the campaigns I am attempting to fix they are store wide and mixed age of which many struggle with points and so most campaigns try to mask, hide or avoid. Also is a secondary "mini game" where sales are are good for the store so points being to low won't really work. If I went the way of using points would be looking to use the Tzeench and Stormcast books as a benchmark as @mhsellwood says they appear to be much more balanced, would try to rewrite other tables based around those points.

 

This I agree with in fact the first games of path to glory that we ran were the pre GHB black library path to glory supplement which was just written for chaos, of which the chaos tables are pretty much a cut and paste job from.

 

Different goals, different approaches. Totally logical. 

And to be fair. I was introducing my friend to the hobby and myself to the AoS rules. So I didn;t want to put him off to much because he rolled badly. 

[mhsellwood]

43 minutes ago, Jaze said:

 

@Kramer The explicit point restriction is not a way I wish to go but it is a good idea, for the campaigns I am attempting to fix they are store wide and mixed age of which many struggle with points and so most campaigns try to mask, hide or avoid. Also is a secondary "mini game" where sales are are good for the store so points being to low won't really work. If I went the way of using points would be looking to use the Tzeench and Stormcast books as a benchmark as @mhsellwood says they appear to be much more balanced, would try to rewrite other tables based around those points.

I think if you were re-working the follower tables I think using points to roughly balance the various retinues would be a good start point.

[Captain Marius]

I'm more interested in the Skill Tables than the Warband Tables, so I would set a points value for the armies eg 500 to start, then boost it by 250pts every couple of weeks. Players could pick armies based on the Warband Tables but would be free to add or remove Followers as they like. Followers with Skills would be Regiments of Renown and be able to use those Skills providing they are fielded exactly as they were when they earnt it. Maybe limit Skills to one per unit but allow players to pick? I hope to try this out soon!

[Goodapollo4]

We are just finishing up a PtG campaign in our club, which brought out a ton of people and was really successful. We used a system where we had glory points that could be spent on units or the warband upgrades, and had a cap on matched play point limits that gradually increased over the weeks of the campaign. 

Currently we are working on the next iteration of this plan. I think the matched play points provide the right kind of structure for the format, however no one in the group really rolled on tables to determine the units in their army, which might be more "balanced" but took a bit away from the original idea of PtG. 

I'm also interested to see what the GHB2 does to PtG

[OlDirtyCosta]

This is a Path of Glory modified rule set I drafted.  We have been playing revised some things (already updated) but, for the most part it has worked out flawlessly.  Obviously you can change any of the numbers out to make larger or smaller games and longer or shorter campaigns.  Feel free to do with it what you want of you feel so inclined.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QrD9qm9t2RkmRSYmjTeq651RDAJSfGkXsrKVbkjyedU/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Lord Cedric]

I am currently working on a narrative match play escalation path to glory.

 

The setting is outskirts of HammerHal and takes place in current timeline as set in City of Secrets. I've added a lot of background per Grand Alliance as well as many of the factions. Players are to name their Leader, Warband, add background etc.

 

Another reason I chose HammerHal is because players can then use their new Hero leaders as characters in the new Warhammer Quest Shadows Over HammerHal game which im also modding for 3D with use of my 15+ sets of Dwarven Forge Master Maze sets.

 

My campaign title is "Havoc At HammerHal".

 

The escalation is 6 weeks, 3 rounds at 2-week rounds. Starting Warband is 500 points with no Artillery, no Monsters, and at least 1 battle line. Each round ads 500 points to their Warband. While we are ending at 1500 points, i designed it for up to 2500.

 

My campaign design of glory is simple.... as the actual path to glory and Warband upgrades will be offered through the Narrative BattlePlan scenarios.

 

There is 3 objectives per scenario. Main. Secondary. And Tertiary. The main and secondary move and alter the narrative depending on the outcome.. ultimately deciding on what the next BattlePlan will be. Glory points will be achieved here as well as vying for buffs, unit effects etc.

 

The Tertiary is all about getting the shiny's. Coin. And how a player finds coin is narrative to the scenarios. These coins can be used to buy black market upgrades for your heros and warbands.

 

So much more has been created. But thats the gist. Its not fully designed yet. But I've already issued out the warband building and narrative background pack to my club.

 

We'll start sometime AFTER Adepticon. But already were got a LOT of interest.. some already taking lists and ordering models. We've also got 6 40k players so excited that they are going to try AoS for the first time through my campaign.

 

So excited!

 

 

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[Kramer]

On 3/8/2017 at 9:49 PM, Lord Cedric said:

I am currently working on a narrative match play escalation path to glory.

 

The setting is outskirts of HammerHal and takes place in current timeline as set in City of Secrets. I've added a lot of background per Grand Alliance as well as many of the factions. Players are to name their Leader, Warband, add background etc.

 

Another reason I chose HammerHal is because players can then use their new Hero leaders as characters in the new Warhammer Quest Shadows Over HammerHal game which im also modding for 3D with use of my 15+ sets of Dwarven Forge Master Maze sets.

 

My campaign title is "Havoc At HammerHal".

 

The escalation is 6 weeks, 3 rounds at 2-week rounds. Starting Warband is 500 points with no Artillery, no Monsters, and at least 1 battle line. Each round ads 500 points to their Warband. While we are ending at 1500 points, i designed it for up to 2500.

 

My campaign design of glory is simple.... as the actual path to glory and Warband upgrades will be offered through the Narrative BattlePlan scenarios.

 

There is 3 objectives per scenario. Main. Secondary. And Tertiary. The main and secondary move and alter the narrative depending on the outcome.. ultimately deciding on what the next BattlePlan will be. Glory points will be achieved here as well as vying for buffs, unit effects etc.

 

The Tertiary is all about getting the shiny's. Coin. And how a player finds coin is narrative to the scenarios. These coins can be used to buy black market upgrades for your heros and warbands.

 

So much more has been created. But thats the gist. Its not fully designed yet. But I've already issued out the warband building and narrative background pack to my club.

 

We'll start sometime AFTER Adepticon. But already were got a LOT of interest.. some already taking lists and ordering models. We've also got 6 40k players so excited that they are going to try AoS for the first time through my campaign.

 

So excited!

 

 

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Very cool set up! Love to see it as soon as it's ready, if thats okay of course

 

[Lord Cedric]

Very cool set up! Love to see it as soon as it's ready, if thats okay of course [emoji3]
 

Thank you!

Absolutely too! I designed it with the community in mind and even suggest what different Campaign Organizers might try, even allowing areas for their own creative flair. So I'll post it here for the community to check it out.

Here is my front cover:



Thank you for the interest!

- Cedric

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