Domivar’s Campaign

Campaign Background:  Eons ago during the ancient god war the noble Domivar defeated the evil Oskan by plunging his blade deep into the tyrant’s chest during their battle in the heavens.  After doing so the blade shattered into many pieces which then fell to the world below.  Recently, one of these shards has become active, releasing ripples of magic.  Numerous kingdoms have dispatched expeditionary forces searching for this shard.  The more battles these forces win and the more structures they build the more likely they will find the ancient artifact and bring incomprehensible power to their respective kingdom. 

Campaign Overview: Once a month for 6 straight months players will hold a campaign session.  These sessions will consist of a small Vanguard game to steal resources from each other, a diplomacy phase where players will trade resources and then use them to build enhancements that upgrade their units, and finally a Kings of War battle effected by both the Vanguard game hooks and the enhancements built with resources. 

Every Kings of War game a player wins grants 3 campaign points and every tie grants 1 point.  Every enhancement built as well as every Vanguard game won gives players 1 point.  After 6 sessions the players gather a 7th time to fight one large mega battle, and the winners of the mega battle get 5 points each.  All players who partook in at least 4 of the 7 campaign sessions enter a number of tickets into a raffle equal to the number of campaign points they have earned.  The player who wins the lottery has found the missing shard from Domivar’s blade and wins the campaign. 

A Simple Map Based Campaign: Unlike other map-based campaigns where the number of armies, the size of those armies, and the number of battles a player partakes in each turn varies, this campaign makes sure that each player only needs to play one Kings of War battle and one Vanguard Skirmish per session.  One’s respective lists are not static.  You can change your list from battle to battle, although players should try to stick to the same Vanguard/Kings of War faction over the course of the campaign.  For players using a Kings of War list without an obvious correspondence between Kings of War and Vanguard, such as Abyssal Ratkin Slaves or Order of the Green Lady, pick a Vanguard faction that comes as close to matching your list as possible.  

 Remember that Domivar’s Campaign uses a map to provide the backdrop for a series of battles using armies upgraded by the kind of empire their respective king is building.  As the campaign progresses players acquire resources which they use to upgrade their kingdoms with different enhancements.  These enhancements help improve the units in the player’s army.

 Do you want better soldiers with an iron resolve?  Then build a temple.  How about super stealthy warriors?  Well you’ll need a ninja school.  You can customize your forces to meet your specific needs as long as you raise the appropriate resources and then build the right enhancements, which will require you to protect your own realm and invade others. 

Basic Map Concepts

Land and Resources: There are five resource types.  They include,

Each player generates 2 resources per turn from the above list, but no duplicates are allowed.  If you want duplicates you will either need to save resources, trade for them, or steal them from your opponents.      

Enhancements:  Once per turn each player can build a single enhancement if they have the appropriate resources.   

Building an enhancement lets you upgrade a limited variety of units based on unit strength.  The upgrades work as follows:

1 Enhancement – upgrade unit strength equal to effected unit strength (for example, 1 arena will let you upgrade up to 3 unit strength with brutal)

2 Enhancements – upgrade unit strength equal to double effected unit strength (for example, 2 arena will let you upgrade up to 6 unit strength with brutal)

3 Enhancements –  triple, and so on…

Enhancement	Bonus	Cost	Affected Unit Strength
Brewery	Wild Charge (+1)	2 Crop, 1 Wood	1
Arena	Brutal	2 Wood, 1 Cattle	3
Artillery School	Shattering	2 Metal, 1Brick	3
Training Grounds	Rally (+1)	2 Wood, 1 Crop	2
Necropolis	Dread	2 Brick, 1 Wood	2
Sacrificial Alter	Cloak of Death	2 Cattle, 1 Crop	1
Sacred Grove	Radiance of Life	2 Crop, 1 Cattle	1
Temple	Iron Resolve	2 Brick, 1 Metal	2
Laboratory	Life Leech	2 Cattle, 1 Metal	2
Ninja School	Stealthy (cannot give this enhancement to monsters/titans)	2 Metal, 1 Brick	1

War machines and individuals both count as unit strength 1 for enhancement bonus purposes.  You cannot upgrade all of your characters and war machines for free because they count as unit strength 0!

Commander Type: Your leader can choose from the following list of upgrades before a large Kings of War game (but not one played instead of a Vanguard game).

            Leader – gain rally (+1)

            Arcanist – gain hex spell for free

            Master Scout – Force opponent to deploy one additional unit

            The Mauler – gain/increase life leach by 1

            Healer – gain/increase heal by +2

            Hunter – gain/increase speed by +1

            Quarter Master – gain +1 nerve

If your leader dies in battle you no longer have access to the leadership style he was using and must select a new one in future battles. 

Playing the Campaign Start to Finish

Point/Game Size

            A typical campaign will have both veteran and new players with everything from massive pre-existing armies to armies that the player is building as the campaign progresses.  Consequently, this campaign will assume players are using the escalation size games, but players with large armies are welcome to substitute tournament sized games instead.  The respective game sizes will be as follows.

Campaign Turn	Escalation Size	Tournament Size
1	150 Vanguard	1000 KOW	1000 KOW	2300 KOW
2	150 Vanguard	1250 KOW	1000 KOW	2300 KOW
3	175 Vanguard	1500 KOW	1000 KOW	2300 KOW
4	175 Vanguard	1750 KOW	1000 KOW	2300 KOW
5	200 Vanguard	2000 KOW	1000 KOW	2300 KOW
6	200 Vanguard	2250 KOW	1000 KOW	2300 KOW
7 (Mega Battle)	n/a	2300 KOW*	n/a	2300 KOW*

* Adjust the size of this army if the number of players are not equal (more on this later).

Campaign Session Overview

Choose Capital/Place Capital Token (First turn only): Each player picks where their capital goes on the map by placing a capital token there. 

Choose Two Resources: Remember these cannot be duplicates

Pick Opponents: Roll off to see in what order people pick Vanguard/KOW opponents

Play Vanguard: Play a Vanguard game (or 1000 point KOW game if both parties agree).  The winner may steal one resource from the opposing player and gains one campaign point.  Remember to use the Kings of War hook for your later game.

Trade Resources: Roll off to see in what order people first trade resources and then build enhancements.  Remember to place an enhancement token around your capital.       

Play Kings of War:  Play a Kings of War battle against the same opponent you played Vanguard with to the agreed to points value (1000 to 2250 for escalation, 2300 otherwise).  The winner gets 3 campaign points.  Remember to use the Kings of War hook from Vanguard and the enhancements.    

Play Mega Battle (7^th Turn only) After the last campaign turn is over players will gather to play one final mega battle.  The player with the largest number of campaign points should side with the player with the fewest.  Opposing them will be the second best vs the second worse.  Alternate back and forth until a relatively equal distribution amongst players has been reached.  Keep the total points per army equal on each side even if you have to adjust the points per player in the event you have an odd number of players. (Example: In a 9 player battle it would be best for 4 players to use 2500 point armies and 5 players to use 2000 point armies).  

Completing/Winning the Campaign – After the mega battle every player who participated in at least 4 of the 7 campaign sessions enters a number of tickets equal to the number of campaign points they have into a raffle.  A single, winning ticket is drawn.  That player has found the missing shard from Domivar’s blade and wins the campaign. 

Miscellaneous Notes: Players are encouraged to build their own appropriately themed capital and enhancement tokens.  These tokens can then double as objective markers in Kings of War games.  If you’re playing humans build a campfire on a quarter sized base, or some tomb stones if you’re playing undead, or what have you.  Either way, get creative and make your capital and its enhancements look good! 

Also, this campaign structure does not require players to be present at all play sessions.  Just remember you need to attend at least 4 of the 7 sessions to have a chance to be the overall winner, and every turn you participate in you can acquire more campaign points. 

Finally, please remember that our Vanguard games are NOT using the Vanguard campaign progression rules.  We are not picking a 400 point fortified base camp or leveling up characters with experience. Also, we will not have access to unique items and will only be able to take 1 of any given rare item.  For the purposes of the Domivar Campaign the Vanguard games are one off battles largely there to provide narrative and hooks for the Kings of War games as well as make resource generation a little more interesting. 

Your Army, Your Story:  The point of the Domivar Campaign is to provide players a fun narrative for their Kings of War battles. Players are encouraged to name their capital and their fledgling king/lord/warlord/exotic dancer/whatever the heck leads your armies and personifies your personality on the tabletop (hopefully for your opponent’s sake that is NOT the exotic dancer). Developing a map as a visual aid, although mechanically unnecessary, adds to the fun. Feel free to craft stories, build informal alliances, backstab, place dead models from your arch rival on your bases to flaunt past invasions, and generally have a good time. The Domivar Campaign is not competitive in the strictest sense. Also feel free to write up a narrative about your army and if you wish, chronicle your forces victories and defeats as it progresses through the campaign.  As always, the primary goal of the campaign is to have fun, not to win at all costs, so have a blast and enjoy the gentlemanly hobby of utterly crushing your friends’ miniatures!