Halpi’s rift general rules

Last week, I wrote that my gaming group is going to start a Halpi’s rift campaign. This blog post describes the general campaign rules.

General rules:

The rift at the Halpi Mountains opens up the planes around Panithor which are the sources of magic. For those who fight for the lands’ future, gaining control of these planes (at least for the time being) is of the utmost important. As with the invasion of the Abyss, a few years ago, all factions muster their armies as portals to the planes open all throughout Panithor.

Preparation

We’ll be playing a number of “rounds” in which all players can challenge other players for battle. As we are in lockdown now, we can still start the campaign by doing hobby stuff.

Requirements

All players who participate should:

a) write up a 1,000 point army list which is the fixed core of the army. This 1,000 points must be taken every single battle. Most (if not all) battles will allow for an additional number of points (usually 500) that can be spent expanding this original army.

Both the 1,000 point core and the battle armies should be legal using the 3rd edition rules and optionally the Halpi’s rift supplement. Those inclined to use the Brothermark, may use either the official version of the list or my own version published a week ago*.

As we have a number of players who just started, both proxies, empty bases and unfinished models are allowed. Just make sure it’s easy to understand what unit represents and the base size is correct.

Please try to refrain from units of more than 250 points in battles of 1,500 points or less. Dealing with a dragon or horde of paladins is better done in larger battles.

General

b) Nominate one hero (of whatever kind) to be the general of the army. It’s allowed to use a unique hero as the general, even (especially) those introduced in Halpi’s rift. This hero gains the following upgrade in addition to any magical item it can take as usual:

• If it doesn’t have inspiring, it gains this rule
• If the hero has the Inspiring rule, the hero gains “very inspiring”
• If it has the “very inspiring” rule and no spellcasting, it gains either Heal (2) or fireball (5) and a spellcaster level of (1)
• If it has the very inspiring” rule and spellcasting, it gains +2 dice on all non-legendary spells.

This hero has to be part of the first 1,000 points and is thereby present in every battle.

Nexus power

Nexus power is the ability to manipulate the planes and their magic. From the planes flows raw magical power. For some races its a grand empowerment, for others (in particular the undead and night stalkers) a source of life that cannot be disturbed.

For this campaign, Nexus power is a way of keeping score. The player who has the most nexus power at the end of the campaign wins the campaign.

Nexus power can be gained by hobby achievements, winning (and reporting) battles and hobby/gaming contests.

All players can reward (other) players with nexus power for hobby achievements, some standarised achievements can be claimed by oneself.

The hobby archievements will be posted here soonish.

Good or evil

The campaign is set in a classical good-versus-evil setup. For the sake of playability we assume:

• good armies fight for the good team unless its a battle between 2 good armies. In that case, the winner fights for the good team and the loser fights for the evil team.
• evil armies fight for the evil team unless its a battle between 2 evil armies. In that case, the winner fights for the evil team and the loser fights for the good team.
• if two neutral armies fight each other, decide (by mutual consent or chance) which army fights for which team before the battle.

Please also mention which side (good/evil) won the battle when reporting a battle.

*I, myself, won’t use it. It’s a bit off to publish a homebrew list just before starting a major campaign and decide (since I’m the organiser) to use that particular homebrew list. I firmly encourage everyone else to use it, though.