Planning a 40K campaign

To make my battles more interesting I am planning out a campaign using the campaign concept from KISS Rommel rules. Through a series of battles the objective is to push back the enemy back to their starting zone.

Both sides start in the centre at the mining complex. The map uses Planetary Empire snap together hex tiles. With each battle the winning side can progress forward one zone. The Orcs home base is in the mountains and the Space Marines home base is at the space port. Once your home base is overrun the game is lost.

Each side chooses 10 units as their battle force. I try and select a range of units in varying sizes to ensure a level of balance between the sides. This is a rule or thumb approach rather than any points system.

At the start each side gets 4 urgent reinforcement tokens. This allows them at any stage during a battle to call upon one unit to join the battle - marching to the sound of guns. More than one token can be played during a battle, once per turn, until reinforcements arrive on a successful 4+ dice roll.

For each battle 2 dice are rolled to determine the number of units per side. The number of units is equal to the highest value and halve the lower value rounded up. So a roll of 5 and 3 would be 7 (5 plus 1.5 round up to 2).

To decide which units in your force are available for the battle. Shuffle a deck of 10 cards numbered 1 to 10 and place a card against each unit. Select your command unit and all units from 1 to 6 as your battle force, and set aside number 7 for reinforcements if called upon. Do the same for each side.

After the battle all destroyed units return to your force with a 4+ dice roll. If they fail, remove them from your force.