If you want to play a game of 40k, you're going to need a few things, like dice, a table, your models etc. The same goes for campaigns, there's all sorts of bits you need t o run a campaign. Some are essential like a map in a map campaign, some just help the campaign run smoothly and some just make the map look pretty. It doesn't matter what purpose these aids serve, they all go into improving the campaign for those playing it.
Even the simplest ladder or tree campaigns need the scenarios written or printed out, so that the players know what games they're going to be playing through the course of the campaign. With more complicated map campaigns, it's quite common to have specific scenarios for certain places on the map. Having these scenarios printed out along with maps and other player handouts makes its a lot easier to play the campaign, especially if you don't have an independent campaign master to create campaigns on the fly.
If you're running a campaign which follows the actual progress of an army from on battle to another charting their victories and their losses, then roster sheets become essential. Roster sheets are simply army lists that get updated with casualty loses and experience improvements. They make it easy to track how big a force is or what it contains. It can be as detailed as you need it to be, from a list of the armies in a players force and their point totals to a full army listing for each of the armies on separate rosters. The same goes for orders sheets which are just to track what armies are doing what in a campaign turn.
If you're running any sort of map campaign, you're going to need a map. Whilst that may be obvious, people often miss out the markers. These can be used to show who controls territories in a node game, show where on the map special events are occurring or special locations such as star ports, mines, cities etc. You'll also need army markers to track the movements of your forces is full blown map campaigns. These can be anything from card counters, pins, flags, models, epic models etc, I've even seen sweets used at an impromptu campaign turn meeting in the pub.
These are just a few of the things that help a campaign run smoothly, some are essential, some are just handy but all of them improve the campaign for the guy who running it and the players enjoying it.
Can you think of any other sort of campaign aids I've missed? Have you got any sample rosters or order sheets? Have you any pics of your campaign and army markers? Add your thoughts to the comments and feel free to send your sample rosters etc and pics to me by email.
4 years ago
