Story & Rules

Hermelijn 40k 6th edition narrative escalation campaign - The Achilus Crusade

The Jericho Reach, once known as the Jericho Sector, is a region of space close to the Eastern Fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy in the Ultima Segmentum. This area of the galaxy was once a part of the Imperium of Man in ancient days, remaining so for millennia until it fell into an age of isolation, disintegration and evil. It has been lost to the Imperium for over four thousand Terran years. During those long millennia, many of its worlds became tainted by Chaos, whilst others were infested by dangerous xenos. To recover the Reach and restore it to the Emperor's light, the Imperium recently unleashed the Achilus Crusade.

The Achilus Crusade is a war of re-conquest fought on three fronts within the region. It is a brutal conflict waged with every weapon that the Imperium possesses and its leaders have sworn in the Emperor's name that they will never retreat and never surrender. In spite of such intentions, the Achilus Crusade may yet fail. The growing Tau Empire, ever mindful of opportunities to further spread the Greater Good, has cast covetous eyes over the worlds and resources of the Reach and has initiated its own efforts to claim it. On worlds long forsaken by the Imperium, the slaves of the Chaos Gods reign while at the Reach’s heart, unsuspected at the Crusade’s start, the servants of the Ruinous Powers have created a blasphemous domain ruled by Daemon Princes and Chaos Lords, where the mutable laws of the Warp rather than those of realspace govern the fragile bounds of space-time. Even worse, from the depths of the intergalactic void the Great Devourer has once more made itself known. The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Dagon seek to consume all the inhabited worlds that lie within the Jericho Reach and leave nothing but the corpses of dead planets spread amongst the ancient stars.

While the war between the forces of the Achilus Crusade and its many enemies rages, others with agendas far older than those of the Crusade move amongst the stars of the Jericho Reach. The fate of the Jericho Reach now hangs in the balance and only additional imperial forces may possess the skill and tenacity required to bring victory for the leaders of the Achilus Crusade -- and protect the Emperor's children from the terrible threat to all the galaxy that breeds within the Reach's confines.

The Achillus Crusade Salients



The Orpheus Salient was once the most secure of the three fronts of the Achilus Crusade within the Jericho Reach. The planets located rimward of the Reach were made up of sparsely populated frontier worlds and a few former Imperial planets -- many of which had kept faith with the Imperial Creed through the long millennia of the Age of Shadow. These still-Loyal worlds even managed to maintain some haphazard contact with the Imperium, providing the Crusade's scout forces with aid and intelligence about what to expect within the Reach.

The Acheros Salient was the central advancing arm of the Achilus Crusade. It soon became bogged down in blood and infamy. It showed the least progress in terms of worlds captured and, even given the massive losses on the Orpheus Salient, this front consumed the greatest amount of Imperial lives and war materiel on the pyre of battle. For the soldiers of the Imperial Guard, serving in the Acheros Salient is akin to being deployed in hell, whilst to the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes this region is a battlefield made up of everything they hate and despise, made reality. After the appalling reversal of fortune on the Acheros Salient, imperial forces resumed their assault on the region, pouring all reinforcements they could muster into a bloody war of grinding attrition that spanned over 50 star-systems and 25 years of struggle. The war focused around the control of key systems in what is referred to as the Cellebos Warzone.

The Canis Salient is the largest and oldest Imperial warzone within the Jericho Reach. Located to the coreward of the Reach, its first battles were fought in a Crusade to liberate dozens of human-inhabited worlds from Tau expansion. The Greyhell Front is one of the two main war zones where the Imperial forces of the Achilus Crusade were concentrated. The Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy struggled to establish footholds close to Tau-occupied space. This volatile region of the Reach is regarded as a meat grinder by the Imperial troops serving there.

Rulespack
v1.2 d.d. 31/12/2012
v1.3 d.d. 04/03/2013


This story driven campaign will focus on the battles between two teams. Each team will have a captain who will help in coordinating the league. Each league month, participants get to play battles of 40k and the results of those battles will have an effect on both the story and the games of their team in the following months.

The campaign will use the full 6th edition rules. Special characters are allowed but each special character can only be used once per team each campaign round (CR). Special characters (including counts as variants) must check for character casualties at the end of each battle. Forgeworld units with the 40k approved stamp are allowed but limited to one unit per army list.

Players need to hand over their army list each CR prior to the campaign evening. Army lists will be checked and published on the Hermelijn forum. Players participate in the campaign with one codex which they will always use for their main FoC. Players are allowed to take allies from any of the codex options according to the ally matrix. If they want, they can choose another allied codex each CR. Players are allowed to completely change their army list each CR. The campaign starts with 1000 point battles. Each CR increases the battles with 250 points. There will be 4 CR, each taking about 4 weeks.

Each CR, each player will be involved in a challenge with a player from the opposing team once. In addition, each player can play any number of extra games, as long as you find a willing opponent. No two consecutive additional battles can be played against the same opponent. Each team will also nominate a champion each month who will play a battle with a specific scenario. The champion’s game is worth 3 campaign points (CP). The challenge battles are worth 2 CP. All other battles are worth 1 CP. On a draw, neither side gets any points. The team that has the most CP at the end of the CR, wins that round and gets the benefits. Each CR, each team’s total of CP resets to 0. A player cannot be the team’s champion for two consecutive CRs. Each campaign round will start with a campaign evening. The fixed battle between the team champions will be played on the campaign evening. Challenges are declared at the campaign evening. Players that cannot attend can let their team captain challenge for them. Information about the champion missions will be provided to the players ahead of time (see below). In all these missions ignore any references to changes to your army list and.or point values. Each champion plays these scenarios with that month’s list.

Each CR, the team captains will roll a die to decide who can start the challenges. Each team, starting with the team that won the dice off, alternates to declare challenges. After a team declares a challenger (from amongst the players in their team that have not yet been involved in a challenge), the opposing team can declare the player (from amongst the players in their team that have not yet been involved in a challenge) that will defend their team against this challenger. The last two remaining players will be the teams’ champions for that CR. In the case that one of the teams is larger than the other, the team captain of the largest team choses a number of players equal to the size of the smallest team. The challenges are then worked out with just this list of players and after the champions have been chosen, the captain of the smallest team then selects a number of players from his team equal to the number of remaining players from the largest team and another round of challenges starts until all players have at least been involved in one challenge. The second round of challenges will only be worth 1 CP per battle. This is the only way that a player can participate in more than one challenge each CR.

Participation in the campaign costs 1 euro per month. As this is a team event, their will be no prize for best general or best painted. Two equal prizes will be randomly drawn, one from each team. Each battle played will give each player a single entry into this drawing. Each time a player finished painting his army list by the end of the CR, he gets 2 additional entries into the drawing.

Character Casulaties
If a unique named special character is removed as a casualty during a campaign game (this includes falling back off the board, etc) after the game has concluded, roll a d6 for the character, the results of which shown here apply. If you won the game add +1 to the roll.

1 - Crippled: The character must start the next game they are used in with one WS, BS, I, A, W and Ld fewer than normal (to a minimum of 1). 2 - Wounded: The character must start the next game they are used in with one wound fewer than normal (to a minimum of 1). 3 - Shaken: The character must fight the next game they are used in with -1 LD. 4+ - Survived: The character has escaped permanent injury, and may be used again freely in the next game.

Campaign Round I : Shadows of War

Special Mission: The Crucible of War (rulebook p 346). Roll off to decide which team is the attacker and which team is the defender. The imperial bastion terrain piece that Bart VM made will be used as the Central comms station. It counts as a bastion with a comms relay, one access point, no fire points and no emplaced bolters. Each player places 1d3 Promethium supplies (use an objective marker if necessary).

Order Victory Bonus:
Command of the Space Lanes: +1 to all Reserve rolls in campaign rounds II, III and IV.

Disorder Victory Bonus:
Corsair Traffic: may re-roll Deep Strike scatter dice in campaign phases II, III and IV.

Campaign Round II : Tide of Destruction

Special Mission: The battle at Alnitac (IA11 p 214). Team “Order” is the attacker and team “Disorder” is the defender. Slay the Warlord and First Blood are also in effect this game.

Order Victory Bonus:
Attacking on All Fronts: Fast Attack units count as scoring units in campaign rounds III and IV.

Disorder Victory Bonus:
Thunder of the Big Guns: Heavy Support units count as scoring units in campaign rounds III and IV.

Campaign Round III : The Bloody Stars

Special Mission: Scour the Starfort (rulebook p 350). The team that won CR II is the defender. The defender places 4 objective markers for the primary objectives. Each of these objectives should be placed in another table quarter and be at least 12” away from a board edge and/or another objective. The defender declares which two of these objectives are the planetary defence lasers. The Long Walk rule is not in effect.

Order and Disorder Victory Bonus:
Masters of Destruction: Each player in the victorious side gains a single Orbital Bombardment (as per the Space Marine Chapter master rules) per game in campaign round IV in addition to any they may have normally from their army list. The orbital bombardement is given to the warlord. As per the rules, he may not have moved to fire the orbital bombardement but may assault afterwards. It counts as firing a ranged weapon and has the following profile: unlimited range, STR 10, AP1, Large Blast, Ordnance 1, Barrage.

Campaign Round IV : The Fall

Special Mission: The massacre at Bellerophon’s Fall (IA9). The defender in this mission is the team that lost CR III. Each HQ model in the defender’s army counts as an objective worth 3 victory points. First blood is also in effect. The player that scored the most kill points gains another objective worth 3 victory points. The defender's units that MUST start in reserve (drop pods, flyers, ...) still do so.