And so in 1995 GW ran the Ichar IV global campaign. Tyranids, versus Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Eldar Allies. The idea was simple. Run lots of games over a single weekend at the various games stores. Each store representing a location on the world of Ichar IV and the side with the most wins would capture that location and the thus the side with the most locations would win the war!
And so in White Dwarf Issue 78 and 79 the campaign was written up.
A PDF of the relevant White Dwarf Articles can be found HERE! (And if you like Oldhammer, Join the FB Page.. )
Further campaigns followed and a few details can be found on the WIKI Here.
As a youngster these campaigns were impressive and I recall my GW store running several "campaigns" in advance of the global Ichar IV campaign event. These were several years before and were a mix of Rogue Trader 40K and Spacemarine/EPIC. The games centered around a central theme and usually ran for a month or so from what I dimly remember. At the time I had a black painted Dark Angels force, a Squat force and an Imperial Guard force for 40K. Playing RT, 2nd edition, again from my slightly dodgy memory.
The series of games would be run and we would all gather around to hear the "update" and get the briefing for the next game and eagerly discuss how and who would team up to play which games at which fiction locations and eagerly try and get more units painted up for the next weekend to be able to add to our forces (Yes even then GW were hot on the pulse of driving sales! )
I recall it all came down very close in one campaign to a battle between orks and marines and a single shokattack gun hit on the marine commander caused a cascading failure of moral and bang the orks won! And despite loosing the sorry bunch of gangly 11 to 16 year old's all cheered and recounted out battle stories as we headed for our various buses home!
I think since then I have always loved games where they felt part of something larger or had some sort of "presence" within a narrative and I guess these store run campaigns and the battle reports in White Dwarf at the time, have given me a lasting love to narrative games and campaigns.
AND FINALLY....
After that wander down memory lane.. I get to the point..
I fancy running another campaign in that style. Given the various Corona Virus restrictions in the world right now and the risks from face to face gaming at a store or shop etc... I cannot do what my initial interest was to do which was to book Element Games venue for a weekend and run a series of games there.
So instead I think I might explore if the old hammer community and fans of some retro gaming might fancy a more simple campaign run over a few months. Do some bi-weekly updates and suggested mission types.. record the over all progress of each faction and notable heroics of particular commanders and models and try and get a community built story going for some fun.
So.. what do folks thing?
