NagoyaHammer.com

There seems to be a trade off between how engaging a campaign is and how much effort it is for the organisers.

Well, Goonhammer is just about to put in a lot of effort.

The Vadinax Campaign is a global Crusade campaign kicking off on the 27th of this month. It's a big play area with many players and a lot of narrative to push around, enabled by all the work that's gone into Administratum, and it looks like it's going to get the kind of sustained time and attention from the GMs that we can only dream of for in-person games.

There's a substantial player pack already, with faction-specific packs about to be released that will juice up the Crusade rules for factions where they're a bit lacklustre. There'll also be special events on the various planets where narrative and mechanical rewards will be on the table.

Now obviously I'm posting this because I'll be participating, and I'm encouraging you fine folks to do so as well (since that would let us have in-person games). It does require you to be a Goonhammer patron, and if you play online (as I will) you can probably expect to be exposed to players of very different levels of competitiveness - you won't find WAAC toxicity but I'm expecting very strong players trying to wind it back for Crusade, much more casual ones trying to ramp it up because Goonhammer, and everything in between. Also fair warning, with our timezone many of them will be Australians. But I'm anticipating a real good time.

I'm personally kicking off a new Imperium Crusade representing my Loyalist Emperor's Children models, this time with Iron Hands rules. My story hook is "what if, when Sei Shonagon's beloved Empress Teishi died, she could solve the problem by interring her in a Redemptor Dreadnought?" - so Iron Hand's combination of anti-Emperor's Children strats and character dreads will be absolutely perfect. Totally not motivated by their exceedingly generous treatment from the latest datasheet making them feel like my best defence against the Chaos menace

So this is really cool so far, especially because it's clearly being used to dogfood new Administratum features.

I've been using Administratum for ages and I love it but I really hadn't seen any of the campaign stuff. The validated games feature is great - you only need to add the win/loss/mission details for a game for both players to approve it, and they can record their armies and do the bookkeeping for them async. They've added a planetary control UI - you assign a game to a planet, and it tracks which team is in control. They're also using the campaign page to drop hints to different narrative quests and things you can do, they're very cool.

What doesn't have a UI yet and I hope gets one is a way to earn and spend a currency called Fate Points that you get for the first time you win in a week. I just spend three Fate Points (I got extra from some mission rewards) to follow the trail of a giant Kraken I'm hunting on an ice world that I've been allocating wins to - but I had to tag a GM in Discord to do it.

Regardless it all adds up to a massively smoother way to run campaigns than relying on everyone to do their own book-keeping and read forum posts. If we run another campaign in Nagoya we should 100% use Administratum (and my patreon membership should cover it).

Gamewise I've been playing my regular Aussie opponent a lot still due to timezones but I've grabbed a few games against folks in America and should be able to keep up a steady stream, especially playing on weekends. Iron Hands are extremely good, but Chaos Space Marines have a very strong book and GREAT Crusade rules so they're keeping me sweating. Winning most of my games for now but we'll see how that keeps up.

The first (shortest) phase is coming to an end, and I've played 24 games, with a 14-10 record.

The Iron Hands have lost only once, but not everyone is setting themselves up to take on Iron Hands, so I've added a Blood Angels contingent. Blood Angels are an excellent chapter with powerful rules but whereas Iron Hands induce me to play cautiously, Blood Angels tap right into the yolo centre of my brain, and beyond that can easily generate a bonus 2 RP per game with agendas. So I lose a lot with them but walk away with exactly what I want.

For the Kraken Hunt I discovered I needed to gather resources belonging to other Crusade factions to build a lure. I could trade or win some by beating the appropriate faction. The problem was, no one in the group timezone compatible was playing those factions. But one of the factions was *Votann*, and they were able to generate enough resources for the lure themselves.

So I added a Votann mercenary force to my Order of Battle, and started mining like a lunatic. They care a little more about winning than the Blood Angels but still always generate at least some resources and can get more with an Agenda. So I farmed enough for myself and two other Imperium players to go squid hunting, largely indifferent to victory and defeat.

While I'm waiting on the Kraken to show up, I'm back to focusing on the Iron Hands fleet. In this campaign you can buy additional upgrades for your force if you have a Captain with the appropriate Honorific. So it's a matter of getting a Captain levelled up and then sending them to their desk job in the fleet. So far I have always full range meltas and a bonus Infantry redeploy, going to unlock Scouts as Troops soon.

In the second phase I expect to see more Strike Force battles (I believe we'll get a free 1000 points of supply limit, which will mean absolutely everyone will be 2k or more; I'll be 5500ish). I've added another Techmarine and a Relic Contemptor to be my Murasaki Shikibu and Soshi to the Sei Shonagon and (now Legendary) Teishi currently leading the Crusade.

I've been mostly haunting the ice planet of Skaadathi to advance the Kraken Hunt but the campaign is big enough that there's tons of battlegrounds and quests that I'm ignoring to do that . Lost ships are getting tracked down, hulks are being boarded, there's fighting on a Shrine World that is *probably* also a Tomb World, and this whole thing on an Aeldari Maiden World between Chaos and the elves. Hoping to get stuck into more of those once I have my squid trophy.