The Fall of Masuda Campaign

Today I kicked off the Fall of Masuda campaign. This is the first campaign based on the Inquisitor's Map Based Campaign Primer that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. 

The campaign has eight players and we are using the Berks Gaming Club forum to run it. For anyone who wants to follow the progress or see how I am organizing each round, click here. 

Because all eight of us couldn't meet at the same time, I had to randomly select territories for each player. The campaign rules describe how I did this. 

I purchased Hexographer to use for this campaign. I could have probably used the free version, but since I'll be using it to update the map throughout the entire campaign I decided to throw the developer some money. It is a great product and allowed me to do a lot of different things to customize the map. I could have made custom icons for the different building types but decided to use what was available until I get more comfortable with the tool. 

I developed a step-by-step procedure with how I would assign territories. First, I didn't assign any names or players, all I did was make a list of Player 1 through Player 8 and assigned each one a color. Then I used the RANDOM function in Excel to assign each player a starting position. 

After I colored the starting territory for each player, I chose the next territory by selecting the first hex to the north of the starting point, then moved around the starting point in a clockwise motion. I did this one player at a time and it took me a couple of hours to complete it. If the territory was already taken by another player, I moved to the next available territory using the same logic. 

The results were awesome, especially for the two players that had their starting locations close to each other in the upper right corner of the map. 

After each player was provided with 15 territories, I then wrote each army name on a piece of paper and literally pull them from a hat. The Heartbreakers was the first army I pulled, so they were assigned as Player 1. Berek's Great Company was the second, so they got the Player 2 slot. And so on and so forth.

It was great to watch the map come together and I can see all types of strategic opportunities for my Orks - Da Red Finga . Steel Thunder's Cadian 17th (the blue on the map below) is beset on all sides by enemies. That could be good or bad. The Imperial Fists and Star Dragons are all over each other in the northeast. Berek's Great Company in the northwest is a bit separated, but that provides him a great opportunity to pick up some unoccupied territories. 

Here is what the map looks like for the first round:

I'll keep posting updates during and after each round so everyone can follow how this war unfolds.