Hello all! I noticed that some people had expressed a desire to try out different scenarios. I've had a wee think and have came up with a series of scenarios which I think may change the game a little - but not too drastically! I haven't playtested any of my ideas yet so bear with me. Obviously I welcome everyone's thoughts on my ideas, hopefully some may find these posts interesting! Apologies in advance if anyone has posted a similar scenario at any point.

So tonight, I thought I'd post up the general background and the first mission I've designed... More to follow in coming days and weeks!

Campaign Background: A small group of entrepreneurial colonists have discovered a world rich with valuable jewels and minerals. They successfully set up a mining operation on this world and were fast becoming rich on the huge profits piling in from their endeavours. Unfortunately word has gotten out about the operation and the potential of the world has led to two competing armies being sent to claim the spoils...


Mission 1: Time is money

Mission Background: The colonists have set up a series of mineral mines across a wide area. The mines are incredibly low-tech, employing a style millennia-old, with a simple entrance cut into an outcrop of rock. Unfortunately for the colonists, the mines are about to become the centre focus of a battle as two competing forces sweep in on a mission of plunder...

Forces: Players are free to set the battle at any size they wish and with forces as allowed under the normal rules.

Set up: Terrain is set up as normal and forces placed in their normal deployment zones (ie 80cm apart). There are eight mines on the battlefield, these can be represented by a small piece of scratch-built scenery but standard objective counters will easily represent each mine. As usual, none of these mines/objective markers should be placed within 25cm of one another.

Special Rules: Rather than places of strategic importance, the objectives represent hard cash to the invading forces. The standard rules for capture of objectives apply but in this scenario only infantry can take control of objectives. In addition, instead of players receiving the standard 5 pts for holding the objective, they receive 2 VPs per turn for each objective held. These VPs are awarded to each player in the end phase of each turn and represent wealth gained by the plunder of the mines. Please note that - contrary to normal objective rules - a unit must remain within 15cm of an objective to continue reaping the riches from the mine. Victory points gained from the looting are permanently awarded to that player for the duration of the game.
This means that if an enemy unit wins control of the mine after turn 2 or later, the player who originally held the mine does not lose the VPs won from previous turns. Example: Having held the objective on turns 1-2, the Marine player has won 4VPs for his force. On turn 3, the Ork player seizes the objective and wins 2 VPs to add to his tally.
Each mine holds 6 VPs worth of resources, meaning that after 3 turns of plunder, the raw materials have been fully extracted from that mine and no further VPs can be gained from holding that particular objective.

Victory Conditions: VPs are awarded as usual for breaking enemy units and the combined tally counts of these and points awarded for plunder count towards achieving the required threshold of points required for victory as in a standard scenario.

Optional Rules:

Winner takes all: There is a significant chance that the game will end in a draw (both players gain enough VPs on the same turn to end the game). To avoid this, players may agree that the person with the most VPs will be declared the victor. This would have the effect that players would have to concentrate more on breaking enemy units as well as holding those valuable objectives.

Gerrorf my land: If preferred, players may agree that resources cannot be plundered from the mine if an enemy unit is within 15cm of the objective. This would represent the problem that with enemies nearby, forces would be on high alert and unable to extract resources from the mine until the threat was removed. It would also make it less likely that all mines are fully looted by the end of turn 3.

Gimme Shelter: Infantry can move inside the mines to take cover while they plunder. The mines can conceal as many troops as desired. One stand of infantry can take cover at the door and fire at enemy troops. Note that units firing out of the entrance have only a front-facing 90 degree angle to do so. Enemy units firing upon such a stand will have to be within the same arc - ie can see into the mine from their angle - and will also suffer a -1 to their to hit roll. All other troops are concealed within and can neither be targeted nor target enemy units. To eliminate these hidden troops, the following techniques can be applied;
i) Template weapons: Any units which fire burst radius weapons can fire at the mines. All concealed infantry will be considered to lie under the template and will be hit with a -2 modifier as with a building (unless the weapon ignores cover modifiers, ie Inferno Gun).
ii) Close Assault: Enemy troops may charge into the mine and instigate close assault. Any charging units that can reach the threshold of the mine will be able to instigate close assault with any units hidden within. Note that while it may well be more realistic that the tunnels would make the infantry have to line up and therefore be fought one stand each turn, this is wholly impractical for the game and the reason why all units can be engaged.


It’s all about the money, money, money: If agreed, players may wish to disregard awarding VPs for breaking enemy units, and instead the victor would be the player who extracts the most loot from mining alone (ie the player loots the most VPs, receiving points from holding the objectives only). If playing this particular scenario, it is recommended that VPs for plunder be increased depending on the size of the scenario. For battles of 4,000 and less, holding a mine would be worth 3 VPs per turn, with any larger battles the value would be 4VPs per turn. Note that when running this particular rule, there would be no limit to the number of turns that valuables could be extracted from the mines.


**Special thanks to my nephew Callum for suggesting the "Gimme Shelter" optional rule.

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Clickable links for more Epic goodness:

Life of Die Channel including Epic Podcasts and Battle Reports

Epic 40K Players Page on Facebook
Net Epic Evolution Rules
Net Epic War! Campaign Rules

Sounds good. It is a relatively simple change to the objective rules that can have quite a significant impact on the game.
If a good selection of scenarios are pulled together maybe some sort of random scenario generator can be created (like 40k). Would make games of Epic a lot more varied than a standard pitched battle.

Sounds good to me Bissler
Winner takes it all & 15cm rule are both good too.

There are many ways to modify the core rules
once we played a game, inspired by a WH40K battle report.


It was a IG VS NIDS game were every completely destroyed Nids unit respawned at the deployment zone again
it was a conituous Nids storm

Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys, it's great to know that people are interested and even better to get some feedback! I'm hoping to playtest this first scenario next weekend so will maybe post up a battle report with the details of how it all went!

@Mattman: I deliberately wanted to do something that would be a fairly minor tweaking of the rules but would offer a slightly different experience when playing. Let's face it, we all love this game so I don't want to do anything which would completely change the system!

If you are looking for more scenarios to try out, I'd recommend this thread: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15119&hilit=total+war+scenario
These are all with Epic Armageddon in mind, but most should be fairly adaptable to NetEpic. I played my own variation on Cityfight last week and thoroughly enjoyed it (battle report available under NetEpic battle reports).

The majority of scenarios are not available on the link so I'd like to take this chance to offer my apologies if my scenario is in anyway similar to anything in Chroma's project!

@Ulrich: Intrigued by your NIDs battle! Sadly (unless I ever win the lottery) I am unlikely to ever play a Tyranid battle. Cheers again for the interest sir!

I do have several more variations on this general theme to come, will post more to this thread once I've written it!

_________________
Clickable links for more Epic goodness:

Life of Die Channel including Epic Podcasts and Battle Reports

Epic 40K Players Page on Facebook
Net Epic Evolution Rules
Net Epic War! Campaign Rules