Now I don’t like to do things half-baked. With me it’s either all or nothing. That’s always been something of a blessing and a curse. But I like things to be done properly.
And I won’t be doing anything less with this sci-fi wargames campaign. There will be plenty of background fiction, plenty of videos and plenty of AAR reports – just like I have been doing on my WW2 Big hurt Campaign.
But I am also going to do a little bit more than that. I am going to give you a glimpse about how I set up the campaign, and how I go about designing the scenarios. So you’ll get a little glimpse behind the curtain too.
Right then, with that noted, let’s crack on with the campaign.
Setting The Scene
Perhaps one of the most important parts of a wargames campaign is setting the scene. The scene is what frames the action, provides the backdrop for each battle, and is the glue that links the wargame scenarios together. The better your back-story is, the more realistic the wargaming campaign will feel.
I like to write up my campaign story in a narrative form. Why? Firstly, I am a writer by profession. Secondly, I enjoy it. There is no third reason. Those two are enough for me.
All the narrative sections will be in Italics so they stand out.
Right then, let’s get this show on the road.
Map of the Voss Sub-Sector, Armageddon System
(c) Games Workshop.
Research Station Orion, Ogden’s Rock, Voss Sub-Sector, Armageddon System
Midshipman Kavrok stared out of the view port. Space, the sheer vastness of it made his heart beat a little faster, stretched out before him like an immense black cloth. Only it wasn’t truly black. It was speckled with countless stars, as if it had been sprayed with tiny flecks of white paint. And each fleck could have a dozen worlds circling it, which would be filled with billions of people, strange technologies, new languages, new customs.
Kavrok’s head swam and he turned to another view port that looked towards Ogden’s Rock. But the Imperial mining planet could not be seen. Research Station Orion was a far flung outpost, set to monitor the nearby warp beacons that guided Imperial shipping and to conduct scientific experiments in the name of the Emperor. Just what those experiments where he had no idea. Half of the space station was off limits to a mere midshipman.
Yet looking through that view port he could imagine Ogden’s dirty red surface. Upon it millions of workers toiled in the thin atmosphere and low gravity to extract ore that was immediately shipped to Forgeworld Voss. Most of the workers were volunteers, taking colonisation packages from hive worlds in the hope of striking it rich and carving out a living space that was bigger than you needed to lie down. There were also the penal miners, sentenced to mine until death for crimes against the Emperor.
Volunteer and convict alike both went through bio-modification procedures to cope with the harsh conditions on Ogden’s Rock. However, the colonists rarely read about that aspect in the datasheets that marketed the settlement packages.
After three Armageddon Wars, the forgeworlds were hungry for ore. Rebuilding took time.
“What would you have done Voidsman Gavros if you din’t join the Imperial Navy?” Kavrok asked one of the operators working a bank of monitors.
“Not sure sir,” Gavros replied without looking up. While Kavrok was not officially an officer, but rather an officer-in-training, he was still entitled to be addressed as ‘sir’ by other ranks.
Kavrok had his mouth open ready to make a suggestion to Gavros. During Kavrok’s six month posting to Orion to learn how to become a defence installation lieutenant he had come to dislike Gavros. The word in the mess was Gavros had failed the midshipman course and loved nothing more than seeing others do the same. But Kavrok’s words were swallowed by the immediate sounding of the warp gate alarm.
“We are not expecting any ships coming through the gate are we?” Kavrok’s tone made it clear he was not.
“No sir” replied Voidsman Darlan, from another bank of monitors.
“Shall I call Second Lieutenant Fedor to the comms room?” Gavros said.
Kavrok hesitated. What if this was a test? What if this was being set-up to see if he was truly officer material. Such surprise simulations were not uncommon in Imperial training programmes. Perhaps Gavros was in on it and wanted him to fail.
“No. That won’t be necessary. Initiate scans to determine incoming ship size. Perhaps it’s a lost freighter.”
Hands danced over the console. There was a pause.
“Sir, I am tracking multiple signals. At least thirteen ships emerging from the warp,” Gavros said.
Kavrok’s mouth went dry as he stared out of the view port at the warp beacons. His eyes strained, wishing he could see into the twisted maelstrom of warp space that ships travelled through. He whirled on Gavros, ready to call him a fool, but he heard the fear in the voidsman’s voice and stopped.
“Sound the general alarm. Re-call Second Lieutenant Fedor to the comms room. Alert the captain that there is an incoming battle-group sized fleet approaching.” Kavrok gave the order still looking out of the view port. He prayed to the Emperor he was doing the right thing. If he wasn’t he would be manning a monitor bank next to Gavros for the next twenty years.
“Sir all thirteen ships have exited warp space. I am tracking them launching smaller craft. Signatures indicate… Orks sir. Cruisers and escorts, with something else the scanners are not recognizing,” Darlan reported.
Second Lieutenant Fedor chose that moment to burst in to the comms room, still buttoning his tunic.
“Emperor’s teeth Kavrok! I leave you for an hour and you trigger the biggest Gak-storm this side of the Segmentum Solar!”
There was no reply from Kavrok. He was still staring out in to space. Second Lieutenant Fedor joined him. Even at this great distance, the sheer size of the approaching armada was clear. The Orks had come to Ogden’s Rock.
“Immediate transmission. Code 117A6. Destination Forgeworld Voss.” Fedor gave the orders in a quiet voice.
Kavrok did not look away from the view port. He listened to Fedor report to Captain Jesler about the incoming fleet. He heard the red alert sounded.
And he waited for the Orks to come. Death, he knew, accompanied them.
* * * * * * *
Eight standard months later, Captain Aramek of the Imperial Navy sat aboard the bridge of his ship, The Forlorn Hope, and stared intently at the sensor arrays before him. They were approaching Research Station Orion, yet space had been surprisingly empty.
Aramek knew of Orion’s fate, lost as it was to the green tide with all hands. He knew because the station had sent a coded warning that indicated an Ork attack – a warning that had eventually reached Forgeworld Voss. Slowly, as the wheels of Imperial bureaucracy ground together, a battlegroup was amassed under the command of Admiral Ariosto, a veteran of the Third Armageddon War. Then, with all Imperial paperwork in order, the battlegroup sailed to cleanse Ogden’s Rock from the green xenos and bring the Emperor’s rule back to the mineral rich planet.
But Admiral Ariosto had far too much experience with green-skins to simply walk right in and fire from the hip. No, he knew his enemy was possessed of feral cunning and any attack against the Orks had to be conducted with surgical precision in order to cut its disease from the planet.
Aramek smiled as he remembered the briefing and the long scar across he chin grinned with him. Ariosto had announced he wanted someone brave and fearless to take on a dangerous mission. Aramek was neither, but he knew an opportunity when he saw one. There was a promotion opportunity here, and Aramek wanted to be at the front of the queue. So he stepped froward and gave his best parade ground salute.
The truth was, Aramek was probably the most qualified for the task. His ship was a pirate hunter. It was built to look like a freighter, yet its shell hid fast engines and powerful weapons bays. Following the Third Armageddon War, commodities were still in short supply in the system, and the Imperial Navy was stretched thin while it recovered from three terrible wars. That made the sector a pirate’s paradise. Aramek knew that well, because he had been a pirate before taking the Imperial Eagle. Was he happy now that he was in the Navy? Well, it was better than mining Ogden’s Rock until he died. That was normally the fate that captured pirates endured.
Well, the ones without talent anyway.
So, after volunteering for naval duty to avoid bio-modification and becoming good friends with a pick-axe, Aramek had eventually risen in rank to become captain of his own ship. It was a small ship, and he didn’t think the Navy was in a hurry to give him a bigger one. Not an ex-pirate anyway.
That was why he displayed an unusual amount of Imperial eagerness in volunteering for this mission.
Admiral Ariosto had then briefed him on the plan to draw of the green-skins that were still picking over the ruins of Research Station Orion. While Ariosto seemed to doubt that the station would be in any form of functioning order, he did see the wisdom in reclaiming the Emperor’s base and using it as a staging post for the assault on Ogden’s rock.
Aramek, however, knew the Orks could fashion a radio out of two sticks and coffee cup. But that would still require Orks to be manning the station. They were considerably less adept at staying at their posts.
He gave the order to nudge the Forlorn Hope towards an asteroid belt, making it seem that he was just a freighter hoping to pick up some space junk that so often got caught up in asteroid fields.
“That’s right,” he said aloud. “No one here but us poor traders. Come on out of your spider web and play with the fly.”
Junior-Commissar Sharke, all stiff collars and Imperial starch, glanced at him from across the bridge. Aramek ignored him. What Aramek really wanted was a Rogue Trader’s Warrant of Charter, and this suicide mission might just be the key. Then it would be back to the stars, and freedom from the boot-heel of Imperial bureaucracy. And freedom from stiff-necked commissars.
But first the fly had to be careful not to get caught in the spider’s web.
The Forlorn Hope flew on, waiting for the spider to pounce, and hoping the Imperial ships were ready to jump in when it did.