Special Scenarios
Special Scenarios represent milestones within a campaign. A campaign generally has 1-3 rounds of Special Scenarios. For each player, there will always be 1 Special Scenario for the campaign finale, plus 1-2 Special Scenarios spaced evenly throughout the rest of the campaign. These Special Scenarios have special objectives and rules, representing something of greater narrative importance than just stumbling upon another warband within the city.
This section will describe how to set up Special Scenarios for a campaign, as well as how to play them.
Special Scenarios Campaign Setup
At the start of the campaign, the group should decide on what Special Scenarios will be played during the campaign. They should do this collectively, deciding on enough Special Scenarios to cover all of the Special Scenario games to be played during the campaign.
Special Scenarios come in four types:
- Law vs Chaos
- Chaos vs Underworld
- Underworld vs Law
- All Factions
These types represent which Factions will partake in each scenario. So a 'Law vs Chaos' Special Scenario will be fought by one Law Faction warband and one Chaos Faction warband. For 'All Factions' Special Scenarios, this represents a Scenario that is played by three players, with one from each Faction. This is generally for handling uneven player counts.
As the final step in campaign creation, the group needs to determine the Special Scenarios for the campaign. To do so, do the following:
- Determine the required number of Special Scenarios of each type for a single round
- Multiply this by the number of rounds of Special Scenarios
- Choose the specific Special Scenarios to fulfill the requirements
Special Scenario Type Requirements
This section will describe how many of each Special Scenario type is required for a round of Special Scenarios during the campaign. To do so, refer to the table below. To use the table, look at the row corresponding to the total number of players in your group.
Example: If you have 5 Players, refer to the row with Total Players equal to 5.
Now, order the assign the Factions to A, B, and C based on how many players are in each faction. Faction A should have the most players and Faction C should have the least.
Example: If your 5 Player group has 1 Law Player, 2 Chaos Players, and 2 Underworld Players, assign Faction A to Chaos, Faction B to Underworld and Faction C to Law.
At this point you can determine the structure of the exact games.
Example: Following above, this means there would be 1 'All Factions' Special Scenario and 1 Chaos vs Underworld Special Scenario.
Special Scenario Table
| Total Players | Faction A | Faction B | Faction C | A vs B | B vs C | C vs A | All Factions | Total Matches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
4-player rule: If Faction B or C are higher in Wins than both Faction A players, they can choose their Faction A opponent.
For higher player counts, simply use as many 6 player groupings as possible and then refer to the appropriate row for the number of remaining players.
For example, for 10 players you would combine the 6 player and 4 player rows (but don't use the special 4-player rule above). So there would be 2 A vs B games, 1 B vs C game and 2 C vs A games.
Multiply Special Scenario Requirements
The next step is to multiply the number of Special Scenarios required for a single round by the total number of rounds of Special Scenarios in the campaign. A Standard Length 6-player campaign has the following structure:
| Round | Description |
|---|---|
| 1-5 | Play against each other player once |
| 6 | Mid-campaign Special Scenario |
| 7-11 | Play against each other player once |
| 12 | Special Scenario finale |
In it, there are two Special Scenario rounds (Rounds 6 and 12). Referring to the Special Scenario table, we can see that the we need one each of the Law vs Chaos, Chaos vs Underworld, and Underworld vs Law Special Scenarios to complete a round.
This means we simply multiply this by the two rounds of Special Scenarios so we will need:
- 2 Law vs Chaos Special Scenarios
- 2 Chaos vs Underworld Special Scenarios
- 2 Underworld vs Law Special Scenarios
Select Campaign Special Scenarios
The final step required is to take the number of Special Scenarios required above and actually pick the Special Scenarios that will be played. This should be done collaboratively with the group, picking Special Scenarios that will allow all players to meet their goals, where possible.
When you select Special Scenarios, choose which specific round each one will belong to, so that everyone knows ahead of time. This will help provide a general structure for the campaign, although the group may not yet know who will play which scenario at larger player counts.
Once this is done, campaign creation is complete and the group can begin playing their first games!
Playing Special Scenarios
When it comes time to actually play a Special Scenario, players need to determine which Special Scenario they will play and who they will play it against. Those that have more wins across the campaign have the benefit of deciding both which scenario and which opponent they will face (if there is a choice).
Starting with the player with the most wins, that player picks one of the available Special Scenarios that includes their Faction and then picks their opponent (or opponents if the player chose an 'All Factions' scenario), which must be part of the opposing Faction within the Special Scenario.
After that, the player with the next most wins that does not have a Special Scenario assigned repeats the process, selecting a scenario and opponents. This continues until all players have Special Scenarios assigned to them.
If two or more players are tied for the most wins, decide randomly who will select a Special Scenario first.
Alternatively (if players agree to it prior to the start of the campaign) you can use the result of past games to determine who will choose first. For example, if Players A and B both have 3 wins, but they have battled once and Player A was the winner, then Player A selects the Special Scenario before Player B.
For lower player counts, there will be less choice between scenarios and opponents, but this does provide a level of uncertainty for players that have less wins overall.
In general, we recommend picking Special Scenarios and opponents that drive the narrative of the campaign and match the goals of a player's warband. However, there is nothing stopping someone from switching their goal mid-campaign, should they wish to do so.
Special Scenario Rules
The exact details of the Special Scenarios are listed in the Special Scenarios List. There are however some rules that apply to all Special Scenarios.
Routing
Due to the important nature of these scenarios, a warband's rout threshold is increased by 2. In addition, there may be other ways to force your opponent to make rout checks via special objectives. These will be described within the Special Scenario.
Faction Support
Everyone gets 50g of Faction Support to spend, in addition to the usual Faction Support received for those with less wins. This Faction Support must be used to purchase at least one Faction Agent for the game. The player with the most wins gets to spend their Faction Support first. As usual, there is a cap of 4 Faction Units per warband.
Rewards
If a player wins their Special Scenario, they can now hire the Faction Agent they used for this game at a fifty percent discount (rounded up) in the future. So, if a Faction Agent cost 50g previously, it now only costs 25g in the future to hire using Faction Support. In addition, players can always hire this Faction Agent in future Special Scenarios (ie. they can select this Faction Agent before other players spend their Faction Support). In the rare circumstance that multiple players get the discount for the same Faction Agent, the player with more wins can hire the Faction Agent first.
If players win a future Special Scenario with the same Faction Agent, they receive no additional benefit.
Campaign Finale
The campaign finale works similarly to other Special Scenarios, except that players only receive the 50g of regular Faction Support, but do not receive additional Faction Support for having fewer wins. This is a culmination of the efforts of each warband and a strong performance is rewarded by having the best chance at winning their final match!