One thing that I miss from back in the day is my old club’s annual-ish ‘big game’ with the old Warhammer Storm of Magic supplement. The spectacle of a 3 versus 3 or 4 versus 4 game spread across multiple tables. The fun narrative scenario. The wacky big magical effects. Spending most of the day laughing and slugging it out just for bragging rights without taking any of it too seriously. Good times. When I first heard about Halpi’s Rift, I was excited by the prospect of running those sort of ‘all-day-many-player-mass-battle’ events again with Kings of War. Now that it’s here, let’s talk about how that will work.
Setup
Halpi’s Rift contains a campaign setting spread across the various planes of existence. Each plane has it’s own unique properties, but in the context of a big multi-player game, I’m going to focus on the Astral plane. The Astral plane is intended for the ‘final stage’ of the campaign, and as such it allows you to take a sort of ‘greatest hits’ approach and pick your favorite parts of the other four planes. You can pick any of the unique artifacts and spells from the other planes, use any of the special terrain, pick which Channeling Table you want to roll on, and even give heroes two artifacts. Unless you have a specific narrative scenario in mind that really wants to be set in one of the other planes, I’d use the Astral plane for the variety and flexibility it gives all the players.
Alright, so we know we want to have several players on each side, and we know we want to use the Astral plane so we can use whatever toys we want. Now we need to decide what the actual setup will be. For games with multiple players on a side, it’s simplest for each player to make their own individually valid army at whatever point size you want (1500, 2000, 2300, etc) rather than try to make one single 6000+ point army. I’d go with 2000 points for each player.
Halpi’s Rift also contains some recommendations for playing games over 3000 points, but I think those are intended for large games with only two players. For a multi-player game, I’d let each player roll and keep one result from their selected Channeling table, rather than the suggested ‘+1 for every 1000 points over 3000’. That might result in fewer Channeling results at the start of the game, but I’d rather keep it low at first and have the scenario grant additional Channeling results over the course of the game.
As far as table setup goes, I’d use a 12 foot by 4-foot table for a 3 versus 3 game, an 18 foot by 4-foot table for a 4 versus 4 game, etc. In my experience, having a full 6 feet per player can give the players too much space to spread out. You can end up with the action on one flank happening too far away from the rest of the battle for any of the other players to get involved, and you feel like you’re playing three or four games side by side instead of one epic game.
Personally, I would try to get 6 or 8 players and plan on not playing myself unless someone didn’t show up. I’d keep a neutral army handy in case I needed to jump in and fill a spot. That leaves you available to do table set up in an impartial way, handle any rules disputes, run the clocks, draw everyone’s attention to important rolls that are about to happen, and generally act as the event organizer and host.
Scenario
While Halpi’s Rift suggests specific scenarios for the other planes, for the Astral plane you once again get your choice. But since this is supposed to be a special event, I’d start with one of the basic scenarios and then add some fun magical or narrative elements to it to make it unique. If you’re up for it, you can definitely create an entirely new narrative scenario from scratch, but I don’t have a lot of experience in balancing scenarios so I prefer to build on an existing base.
My goal in selecting a scenario for a game like this is to make the whole table matter for the entire game. Again, you want all your players to feel like they are playing one big game instead of just playing side by side, and you don’t want an overwhelming victory in one part of the table to render the entire rest of the game meaningless. So Dominate and Invade are out. I’d skip Kill and Control as well. Kill is basically like playing without a scenario, and while I love Control for competitive games I just feel like it doesn’t provide enough opportunities for special or narrative additions. Let’s consider the others.
- Pillage, Fool’s Gold, Smoke & Mirrors – One of these three would be my first choice if I was just running the game and not actually playing. Objective Markers that can’t be picked up or destroyed are easy for you to plan and setup while you are also doing the terrain. You can also spice them up a bit with special rules like:
- Dark Energy – This special rule is usually for games in the Ethereal plane, but you can easily include it. Spellcasters within 3 inches of an Objective can re-roll a number of dice equal to the value of the Objective.
- Magical Nodes – Instead of Unit Strength, use Spellcaster levels as the required stat to hold Objectives. I’d reduce the number of Objectives to 3 or 5 per 6 feet of table since there will be fewer scoring units.
- Balance of Power – If one side holds more Objectives than their opponents at the start of their turn, one of their players can select an additional result from their Channeling Table.
- Secure – Once upon a time, there was a scenario called Secure where terrain was used as Objectives. While that generic scenario has been replaced, it might be fun to include some of the magical terrain from Halpi’s Rift, such as Obelisks of Damnation and Shining Spires, and use those as Objectives.
- Raze, Salt the Earth – While these are a couple of my favorite competitive scenarios, removable Objectives run counter to my stated goal of ‘making the whole table matter for the entire game’, so they’d be my second choice. I do like how these scenarios can require a bit more coordination between teammates and awareness of what’s happening on the whole table when it comes to deciding ‘which units are going to defend your Objectives?’ in Raze or ‘when is the right time to burn which Objectives?’ in Salt the Earth, though. Removable Objectives can also put a different spin on special rules:
- Dark Energy, Magical Nodes, Balance of Power – All of these can easily be used in Raze and Salt the Earth. Spellcasters might think twice about burning a Dark Energy Objective right away though, and might instead try to sit on it for a few turns to get more re-rolls.
- Secure-ish – I wouldn’t recommend allowing players to remove actual pieces of terrain from the table. Instead, I’d take one of two potential approaches:
- Magical Nodes+ – You could have Objective Markers grant whatever special rule you want (+1 Brutal, Self-Inspiring, Fearless, etc) to units within 3 inches. As with Dark Energy, players might be hesitant to burn helpful Objectives too quickly.
- Drain the Node – You could still use some of the magical terrain from Halpi’s Rift as Objectives, but instead of removing the terrain piece when the Objective is burned, you could simply remove whatever special rules it has and turn it into a normal terrain piece once it’s burned.
- Power Surge – You can add an element of risk or danger to burning Objectives. The Treasures of the Wicked Ones rule from the Abyssal Plane is a good rule to adapt for this, and have the unit either gain or heal a single wound when they burn an Objective. Another fun thing you could do is apply the result of a single roll on a randomly selected Channeling Table, or roll your own custom Channeling Table, to the unit when they burn an Objective.
- Loot, Push, Plunder – The Loot Token-based scenarios are my third choice. There’s nothing particularly wrong with them, I just have a slight preference for the Objective-based scenarios. You can do some fun things with Loot Tokens though:
- Treasures of the Wicked Ones – The Abyssal Plane special rule is made specifically for Loot Token scenarios, so it seems like a no-brainer. Before you issue an order to a unit carrying a Loot Token, there’s a 50/50 chance they will take a wound or heal a wound.
- Magical Loot – Same as with Magical Nodes, only units with a Spellcaster Level of 1 or higher can carry Loot Tokens.
- Balance of Power – Same as with Objective-based scenarios. If one side holds more Loot than their opponents at the start of their turn, one of their players can select an additional result from their Channeling Table.
- My Precious – You can make Loot carrying units a little more resilient and less likely to voluntarily drop the Loot. A unit carrying a Loot Token gains Fearless and +2 to their Rout value. If you want them to drop the Loot Token, however, you must roll a Nerve Check against your own unit and they will only drop the Loot if you roll a Rout result. The unit is not actually Routed as a result of the check, and you do have to re-roll a successful Rout if they are Inspired.
Playing
Let’s talk about deployment. A game this size is already going to take several hours to play, and waiting for each player to carefully consider where to place every unit one at a time is just too time-consuming. Here are a few different things you can do to streamline deployment while keeping it fun.
- Mad Dash – Have all the players on both sides deploy their units simultaneously on a very short clock. Like, just a minute. When the clock runs out, you’re done. Any units that aren’t on the table in a deployment zone don’t make it into the game.
- Blind Deployment – Hang a curtain across the middle of the table and have both sides deploy simultaneously on a short but reasonable clock, like 3 to 5 minutes.
- Relay Race – Start a short but reasonable clock, and have the two players at one end of the table each deploys one unit. The next player on each side deploys one unit as soon as their teammate is done, and then the next, and so on, wrapping back around to the first player once you get to the end of the table. Both sides continue with each player deploying one unit at a time as fast as they can until they are completely deployed or time runs out. If you want some extra incentive, you could give a little advantage to whichever side finishes deploying first, such as a bonus to the first turn roll.
- Random Deployment Zones – One thing that players are likely to do before deployment starts is strategize who should deploy on which table, and therefore who is ‘facing off’ against who. If you want to cut that discussion short and just get right to deploying, you can mark off deployment zones for each individual player on both sides of the table, and then have the players roll for which zone they have to deploy their entire army in.
- Asymmetric Deployment Zones – For extra fun, you don’t have to make all the deployment zones the same size, or make them line up directly with the deployment zones on the other side of the table. This can help to further the sense of playing one big game instead of just playing side by side, as each player deploys opposite more than one opponent and needs to coordinate more with their adjacent teammates.
Now, let’s talk about actually playing the game. All the players on a side should do their turns concurrently to save time. You should try to keep them all in the same phase though. Things can get messy if one player is shooting while their teammates are still moving. A clock is also highly recommended to keep the game moving. It will certainly take longer than a normal two-player game since the teams will spend some time coordinating with each other, so the clock should allow plenty of time. I’d go with 90 minutes per side.
During the game, you should do a few things to keep the players fully involved and on track. Whatever special rules you’ve added should be printed up and handed out to all the players or placed on the relevant terrain/table areas. Otherwise, the players are likely to forget them after a couple of turns.
It’s really easy for the players to get tunnel vision and lose track of what’s happening at the other end of the table. To combat that and keep pushing the experience of playing one big game, you should pause the clock and do a quick ‘state of the game’ update at the start of each turn. Basically, let all the players know which side is currently in the lead, update them on the state of any narrative elements of the game, and remind them all of any relevant special rules that are likely to pop in the coming turn.
Lastly, you should point out or have the players call out ‘big rolls’. In every game, there are a handful of pivotal big rolls that end up defining the game. Sometimes you know they are coming (“if I don’t break this unit/hold off this charge, I’m going to lose the objective”) and sometimes they sneak up on you in the form of a lucky waiver or rout or snake eyes. Whenever possible, you should have everyone stop and take a moment to watch/celebrate/commiserate the moments that define the game.
I hope I’ve given you some inspiration and food for thought on how to go big with Halpi’s Rift. I’m definitely planning on running a game like this as soon as I can. If you run one with your club or at a GT or convention, make sure to let us know and post some pictures!
