The Blood Deserts of Auros IX: Introduction
My friend Pat and I have experimented with multiplayer map campaigns and found they involve more paperwork and recordkeeping than actual playing. We've tried tree campaigns, but they tend to be effectively over well before the last game is played: lose a game or two and suddenly all you're playing for is see if your opponent will win the campaign with a "major" or "minor" victory. With this campaign, we're trying something a little different.

We decided to use this approach: each player would have a set of objectives he would have to achieve (in the form of a list of missions) to claim the planet Auros IX (at right) and win the campaign. A few of these objectives ("Inflict massive casualties on the enemy") would be the same for both players, but most were different. 

In the old days of "Rogue Trader," the Imperium was frequently the bad guy, and I wanted to capture a sense of that. I was also tired of stories and campaigns where the Orks were the aggressors and the Imperium sat back and took what the greenskins dished out. After all, humans didn't build the largest empire in the galaxy by being pansies! So in this campaign, it's the Orks who started out minding their own business on their own planet until the day the invaders dropped out of the skies and began kicking ass...

The campaign begins with the Space Marines attacking the planet; the winner of the first game "takes the initiative": he decides what the next game will be (one of his missions, of course) and is the attacker; the loser tries to defeat the winner in the next game to "take the initiative" for himself, decide what the next game will be (one of HIS missions, of course) and becomes the attacker. In this way, the campaign is like a volleyball game: you can't "score" (achieve one of your objectives) if it's not your "serve" (you have the initiative); you have to "break the serve" to "get the ball back."

Pat and I played the Auros IX Campaign for almost two years and found it very enjoyable and extremely challenging. If you're looking for an epic conflict of literally global proportions, why not give this campaign a try?

The rest of the material for this campaign is organized as follows:

Two player rules for the campaign, with the basic parameters;
Multiplayer rules;
"Midnight at the Oasis," an alternate scenario; and
Summarized results from the battles Pat and I fought.

Related Pages
Fighting Tigers Glossary and Pronunciation Guide
 

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© Copyright Patrick Eibel and Kenton Kilgore, January 2000
 

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