Recently, our local group began discussing campaigns again. We have done some very enjoyable ones in the past several years - some simple and easy, others rather complex, but each providing a "reason" for each tabletop battle, generating interesting tabletop situations and forcing players to act and think like commanders actually would (no suicidal last turn charges hoping for an "up 4").

Unfortunately, the guy who always volunteers to run campaigns closed down his jewelry business due to the rotten economy and took a job in construction management. His free time to set up and administer campaigns has therefore been severely curtailed. On top of this, he is now working out of state for ten days at a time, and only home for four days every two weeks. Needless to say expecting him to run a campaign was out. Since I would have to organize the campaign, it would have to be simple and involve as little bookeeping as possible. As each of the prospective participants wanted something a little different, we sat down to discuss it and decided to do a "Campaign Team" tournament.

The first step was to pick a historical era appealing to everyone. Our group prefers to game with historically contemporary armies whenever possible, so we selected a theme for our event. Since quite a few guys were putting together medieval armies, we decided that the period from roughly 1200 AD to 1330 AD was appropriate. We wanted to further limit our scope to armies that either interacted together during this time period or those that could have done so without too great a stretch of the imagination. We decided to allow only armies originating in the British Isles, or those that historically interacted with them.

Following is a listing of the allowable armies in our example:

BOOK TWO:
92. Welsh
112. Norse Irish

BOOK THREE:

128. Scots Isles & Highlands
131. Medieval Scandinavian (Middle Period ONLY)
137. Feudal French
140. Scots Common (Early or Middle Period ONLY)
144. Anglo-Irish (Early or Middle Period ONLY)
145. Feudal English
163. Low Countries (Early Period ONLY)
164. Medieval Irish (Early Period ONLY)
168. Hundred Years War English (Early Period ONLY)

Next, we had to deal with duration. Our group meets twice a month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays, in a local Masonic Hall. An ideal format would generate interesting battles to game on club nights, and carry over for a series of consecutive meetings. We decided to plan for a tournament that went three rounds, covering about seven weeks of real time.

Once the era and the time duration were selected, the format had to be ironed out. We wanted a campaign feel to the tournament, and we enjoy playing team games. We therefore decided on the following format:

• Each player chooses a single 1200 point list for his army.
• No points are charged for each player's CiC figure, or for his CiC's P or PA standard.
• The tournament would consist of three rounds.
• For each round, a player may pick units totalling a maximum of 800 points from his master list to field during that round.
• Matchups would be determined randomly, with two players per side acting as allies (800 points each). Since all of these armies either were allies historically or could easily have been, we placed no restrictions on who could be paired with who.
• Each player selects two pieces of terrain of their side's four total. They may place it on table in any agreed order.
• Either player (by agreement) may dice for terrain precedance, approaches, flank marches, etc. for the team.
• ALL generals must dice for character during each game.
• Units routed or destroyed at the end of a given game are then unavailable for the rest of the tournament.
• Units shaken at the end of a game were either unavailable for the following game, or can be used but will count as if they are one morale grade lower than the grade they were purchased at.

To keep the team feel of the event, we decided to assess scoring totally on a team basis - both players on a side get identical scores for each round based on their TEAM'S overall play. We used our normal tournament scoring format - kill points for enemy units killed (full points), shaken (half points), off table (half points), and captured baggage (see below), up to a maximum of 400, plus (for the winning team ONLY) points equal to the difference between their total kill points and their opponents' total kill points, to a maximum of 400. Thus the maximum score in a given game for any team would be 800 points. We have found that this scoring system encourages players to play aggressively (fight not hide), and not sit back in a corner, making for much more enjoyable games.

A few other special rules were added to enhance the flavor of the tournament. One was not allowing table talk between allies during each battle unless it was written out and diced for as a communication. This prevents historically absurd close, seamless cooperation between allies on the battlefield. Another special rule we decided to use was our "baggage rule", which prevent players from vacating their center to hole up in a corner. Each side (not player) is considered to have a 200 point baggage camp off table behind its central sector. The baggage is an allowable charge target if a unit is within charge reach of the table edge and more than 240 paces from the nearest enemy unit.

Overall, we found this format to provide an entertaining change from our usual Ancients gaming. It combines elements of a campaign with enjoyable multiplayer battles, and requires almost no bookeeping. The next time your local group is looking to do something different, give this type of format a try.