M3E Campaign Updates

[J4bberw0ck]

First of all, if someone else has already done something similar, my apologies.

I was watching a lot of Guerilla Miniatures Games Mordheim videos on YouTube recently, and it really ignited my passion for campaign-style games, with models that gain new equipment and skills over time. I love Malifaux too much to try to start a Mordheim meta near me, so I decided to take a crack at updating the campaign rules from Shifting Loyalties!

 

The major problem is the role of Avatars in the campaign rules. I've been brainstorming other options to replace them, and have come up with the following:

 

• Riders?
  •  Not available for all factions
    •  Maybe allow players to choose a rider from any faction?
• Emissaries?
  • Perhaps not powerful enough?
  • Different type of power than Avatars, but you have to pay for them when making a list, which can be a problem
• Crossroads?
  • Varying degrees of usefulness, not as powerful or universally used
• Masters?
  •  Make this the only way to hire a master?
    •  Keeps the campaign smaller, at least at first
  • Replace reward flip references to avatars with “this crew may hire a single master at this time instead of flipping on the chart. No scrip is spent for the master.
    • This option is only available from the start of the third week onwards.
    • The master’s totem (or counterpart, in the case of the Viks) will be available to hire at the start of the next week.

 

I'm leaning towards Masters being the best choice to replace Avatars. I like the idea that you have to "earn" your Master's attention with a bounty, or just flip the red joker during the events flip and give one to everybody.

 

The other issue is that some of the Bounties refer to schemes or mechanics which no longer exist, or are now unfeasible. Here are my attempts to update those:

• Covert Operation
  • Replace schemes with “Plant Explosives”, “Dig Their Graves”, and “Deliver A Message”
• On the Payroll
  • Replace schemes with “Breakthrough”, “Power Ritual”, and “Take Prisoner”
• Mark Our Territory
  • Replace “A Line in the Sand” with “Claim Jump”
• Neverborn - Unseen Objectives
  • Replace with Unwilling Sacrifice: score at least 4 VP from Take Prisoner.
• Bayou - Burn Down the Barn
  • Replace text with “Have a friendly model kill another friendly model, 5 times.”
• Ten Thunders - Ancestral Artifacts
  • Add text: summon upgrades do not count towards this objective.

 

If anyone has had experience with the campaign rules, or just thinks they've got a better idea for updating anything, let me know! I'm trying to avoid writing a completely new ruleset, and since Wyrd have firmly moved away from the Avatars, let's avoid re-creating them. Other than that, I'm open to all ideas, crazy or otherwise.

[KingJocko]

Overall I like your changes and agree on multiple Masters replacing Avatars as a reward. Putting Riders, Emissaries, or other versatile models as unlock-able feels too restrictive where additional Masters aren't necessary to have, but opens up another keyword to build around making your list building options a lot more adaptable. Also seeing your faction specific changes reminded me that Explorers Society is on the way and will need their own Reward Table, Lucky Misses, and anything else that's faction specific. Obviously we wont need those any time soon but doing some brain storming couldn't hurt.

[J4bberw0ck]

Ooooh, good point about the ES, that's going to be fun to figure out! I'll probably wait to see what direction they go with the faction before brainstorming too hard, but it's gonna be kicking around in my head, no question.

Since everyone starts the campaign with a Henchman, waiting a couple of weeks to get your first Master could be a problem in shorter, 4-week campaigns. Still, it just means you probably won't have multiple masters by the end of it, or if you do then you won't have any benefits from other Bounty rewards.

 

Does anyone have ideas for other Neverborn Bounty options? That's the one I'm most unsure about. The original Bounty referred to unrevealed schemes, but those aren't a thing anymore. Still, I love the sneaky flavour it gave the faction's objectives. I didn't think any of the current schemes gave that same sense of sneakiness, so I ended up changing it entirely, but I bet someone has another idea.