MAP-based campaigns.

okay. so i don't own a scanner and therefore cannot upload and share my map, but i took a mordheim map from google and made my own, adding several key places.- this place is one kind of merchant, this place is another, this place is rumored to X, etc. the map is under a grid that is marked square-by-square with a number that represents the availability of wyrdstone- which after 5 battles tends to go downwards.
outside of the city are warband camps for each band (excluding the sisters, who of course have the rock to call their own, as well as the skaven and possessed.)

we haven't implemented it yet- and suggestions on how to do so are sort of why i made this thread.
so far it looks like there will be 'intelligence' rolls conducted to see if an army can use their contacts to locate or track other warbands, and then attack each other willfully- depending on when and where a warband is attacked, they will face a different scenario. there are also tunnels and even sewers that add a bit of dimension to the game map, which is large enough that there are no shortage of fights to have.

i'm considering including some external towns as well, it kind of depends whether rob and little ian join us for our next campaign, because without them we only have seven teams.

but making maneuvers on the map (specifically ones that don't involve combat) is tricky- do we have them move a certain distance every turn? it would make moving to intercept a warband difficult, as well as make moving from shop-to-shop easier. but there isn't much strategy in simply appearing wherever one wishes to go.

i just thought you guys might have some opinions on the whole map concept and maybe a pointer or two. the idea was to make the game feel more real.

The campaign Flame on played before our current one was map based with points for controlling locations and a host of special rules. Full details can be found in this thread:

Bell, Book and Candle (a Flame On Mordheim campaign)

We didn't specify where each warband was, just what territory was "theirs". This meant anyone could fight anyone else - so whoever turned up got to play!

It really depends on your groups preferences and attendance. A campaign in which you move about the map sounds fun but if one person has a conflict and can't make the campaign for a couple of weeks things go pear shaped.

Plus I really like to encourage game play as opposed to avoiding the playing of games. I've seen map campaigns where the 'winning player' hardly ever played a table top game. They just found ways to exploit the map.

A campaign where anyone can play anyone else is much more flexible and adapts to the changing availability of players.

I also recommend checking out Mordheimer's Campaign Aid from the Mordheimer site.

My experiences with map campaigns are just about the opposite of Von Kurst's; actually I should say campaign experience singular as it lasted for my entire time in Napoleonc gaming [roughly 15 years] AND from reports is still going strong. It is, however, more the realm of larger clubs with a dedicate cadre of gamers. There are elements to campaign gaming that simply can not be done with one off battles & finite scenarios...little things like newsletters, player journals, Machivellian plots , & such. Like large scale battles it is something every gamer should experience at least once in his gaming life.

That said I wonder how well a map campaign would work within the limited confines of a single city. I could see it going fairly well for something like E.I.F. that covered a Province or more with War Bands vying to carve out their own enclaves/bases of power kind of thing. Having several War Bands under each players control might be a viable state of affairs.

first off- i totally but this thread on the wrong board. my bad.
second off, OH MY GOSH WHERE HAS MORDHEIMER BEEN ALL MY LIFE!? i love this site.
third- my personal interest in the map-style campaign is that it allows you to play more tabletop games where "winning" against an opponent isn't your ultimate goal.

in many scenarios, like breakthrough, the object isn't just to swing steel until someone routs. but for some reason, i always end up playing wyrdstone hunt or skirmish or some kind of combat-focused game where i end up out-maneuvering bruce's possessed by the third turn, tag his archers (why give something with a 2 BS a bow?) and then i feel bad because it was like he never really had a chance. i wouldn't ever THROW a game, but in our last game (defend the find) he had 2/15 men standing when he routed. the magister who he had flown to a building outside of combat, and a beastman who was either stunned or knocked down. it goes as bad against ian's witch-hunters and my dad's reiklanders generally voluntarily rout before real fighting starts. i'm not gonna be the doucher who suggests we only play treasure hunt or something, but i don't want people to have less fun playing me.

so if the game is set up so that players rarely really NEED to battle all-out, i just think we'll all have more fun.