Campaign Cards are Here!

After months in development, the Campaign Cards are truly here. I guess by ‘here’, I actually mean here.

These were first revealed for the group at D&D Experience in Fort Wayne, and those folks walked away with some preprinted cardstock, ready to start their games immediately. Now, the rest of us can join in.

For those of you who haven’t seen Campaign Cards before, they are an alternative and fun way to build a warband. You don’t use factions when assembling your, except where specifically told to on the Campaign Card. Instead, you build your warband based on its Warband Building Power, which focuses on keywords and other listed limitations. You can’t, however, use other warband building powers when using campaign cards. This format provides you with themed warbands ideal for scenarios and for ongoing campaigns with your friends. So with that, we welcome the two Drow houses we’ve already known, along with Dwarves, Duergar, Serpents & Sorcerors, Heroes, and Goblinoids.

Here’s a little more formal information on how to use the cards, that I’m sure will eventually end up in the download itself:

Campaign cards represent a variant format for Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures scenario play. Campaign cards are used for building themed warbands, and use alternative rules to those in the Miniatures Battle Rules for constructing warbands. Campaign cards can instill flavor to Scenarios, such as the Drow War series, and can be used to make your own skirmish-based campaigns including two, or more, players.

Build a warband using Campaign Cards:

Instead of choosing a faction for your warband, the first thing to do when playing a DDM game using Campaign Cards is to choose the specific Campaign Card from the house or clan you want to play.

• Each card has a Warband Building power that allows warband construction based on keywords or descriptors instead of factions. Creatures with the matching keyword, of any faction, are legal to include in your warband, unless specifically noted otherwise on the card.
• You may include items in your warband. Items need to be assigned to creatures of the appropriate level and keyword or faction during set up.
• You may not include both Good and Evil creatures in the same warband.
• Your warband can include up to 10 creatures.

In some cases, a percentage of the total warband point limit is given as a guideline for including some types of creatures in your warband. You may include any number of the indicated creatures, each of which counts normally against your warband creature limit, but the combined point cost of these creature may not exceed the value given.

For example: If no more than 25% of your warband could be composed of “Beast” creatures in a 150 point-limit match, you could include up to 37 points of Beast creatures in your warband. If you wished, 7 of your 10 creatures could then be Hunting Hyenas (7 creatures x 5 points each = 35 points), leaving 115 points to allocate for up to 3 additional creatures.:

Campaign Cards in Play

Each campaign card lists modifiers to creature statistics and other powers, called Clan Powers.

Statistic Modifiers. Modify the standard statistics of each creature in your warband by the corresponding modifier on the campaign card. For example, if the campaign card listed Fort +1, then each creature in your warband has +1 to its listed Fortitude defense. Similarly, if the card listed Speed -1, then each creature in your warband would have -1 to its speed statistic.

Clan Powers

In addition to the modifiers to base statistics, campaign cards also list Clan Powers. Much like the powers listed on a creature’s stat card, these powers describe when and how they can be used. Treat Clan Powers as if the creature using them has that power written on its card. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, Clan Powers only affect creatures in your warband. A Clan Power that gives Drow creatures +5 damage would do so only for Drow creatures in your warband.

Campaigns, Leagues and Tournaments

These cards are not legal for DCI Sanctioned play. The houses are inherently unequal because they draw from different, limited pools of creatures. If a competition is desired, we recommend informal tournaments small enough to permit a round-robin format. The round robin format also works well for an ongoing league. Play for a few matches, holding up the honor of your chosen house; then switch your campaign card to a new house and start a whole new campaign. Alternatively, you can divide all players into two groups, each group building from a single card, and have the two sides clash several times. To vary things, we recommend using the different scenarios and variants that are listed in the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures Battle Rules, or watch right here for upcoming scenarios.