Turn Three
Stu & Ian realm black size 15, 2 cities, 2 castle
Larry & Lake realm red size 13, 2 city, 1 castle, 3 mine
Matt & Craig realm green size 12, 2 city, 2 castle, 1 mine
Cole & Kieran aqua size 11, 1 city, 2 castle, 1 monument, 1 mine, 1 fleet
Land & Mike realm yellow size 10, 2 city, 1 castle, 1 monument
Allan & Leigh realm blue size 8, 1 city, 1 castle
Challenges
20-0 4-2
| Challenger | Challengee | 20-0 Result | Empire Points gained |
| Stu | Allan | 20-0 | 4-2 |
| Ian | Cole | 20-0 | 4-2 |
| Allan | Ian | 9-11 | 2-2 |
| Leigh(alex) | Cole(kieran) | 9-11 | 2-2 |
| Cole | Stu | 13-7 | 4-1 |
| Kieran | Matt | ||
| Lake | Land | 18-2 | 4-2 |
| Larry | Kieran | 20-0 | 4-2 |
| Matt | Land | ||
| Craig | Ian | 0-20 | 2-4 |
| Land | Kieran | ||
| Mike | Craig |
Treasuries
Cole & Kieran 10 Gold
Matt & Craig 5 Gold
Lake & Larry 9 Gold
Turn Two
Stu & Ian realm black size 12, 2 cities, 1 castle
Larry & Lake realm red size 9, 1 city, 1 castle, 1 mine
Matt & Craig realm green size 9, 1 city, 1 castle, 1 mine
Cole & Kieran aqua size 8, 1 city, 1 castle, 1 monument
Land & Mike realm yellow size 7, 1 city, 1 castle, 1 monument
Allan & Leigh realm blue size 6, 1 city, 1 castle
Challenges
4-220-04-2
| Challenger | Challengee | 20-0 Result | Empire Points gained |
| Stu | Mike | 20-0 | |
| Ian | Leigh | 20-0 | 4-2 |
| Allan | Larry | 2-18 | 2-4 |
| Leigh | Matt | ||
| Cole | Leigh | 18-2 | 4-2 |
| Kieran | Lake | 20-0 | 5-1 |
| Lake | Land | 20-0 | 4-2 |
| Larry | Craig | 20-0 | 5-1 |
| Matt | Larry | ||
| Craig | Mike | ||
| Land | Allan | 0-20 | 1-5 |
| Mike | Kieran |
Treasuries
Cole & Kieran 5 Gold
Matt & Craig 5 Gold
Lake & Larry 5 Gold
Turn One
Nations
Stu & Ian realm black size 7, 1 city
Allan & Leigh realm blue size 7, 1 city
Larry & Lake realm red size 7, 1 city
Matt & Craig realm green size 7, 1 city
Land & Mike realm yellow size 7, 1 city, 1 monument
Cole & Kieran aqua size 6, 1 castle
Challenges
| Challenger | Challengee | 20-0 Result | Empire Points gained |
| Stu | Leigh | 20-0 | 6-1 |
| Ian | Matt | 0-20 | 0-5 |
| Allan | Larry | 0-20 | 1-5 |
| Leigh | Ian | 0-20 | 1-6 |
| Cole | Craig | 0-20 | 1-5 |
| Kieran | Land | 20-0 | 5-1 |
| Lake | Mike | 20-0 | 5-1 |
| Larry | Land | 20-0 | 5-1 |
| Matt | Cole | 10-10 | 2-3 |
| Craig | Lake | 2-18 | 1-5 |
| Land | Ian | 0-20 | 1-6 |
| Mike | Cole | 19-1 | 1-5 |
The Prince of Myrmidens has died leaving no heirs apparent and the largest realm of the Border Princes in Chaos. Rumours of many successful Khemri raids suggest much gold, plunder, and rare artifacts is to be found here. So much that not just neighbouring realms are interested but warbands of all races are converging and forming partnerships to be conqueror this realm.
What follows is a variant of the Mighty Empires rules designed to a) allow the campaign to be played by teams of two players over less rounds but with more happening in each round, and b) fix some of the weaknesses of the basic rules.
(download the word doc here) BattleoftheBorderPrinces
The players in the campaign are divided into any number of realms(up to 6) of two players each. It is up to the participants themselves to find a suitable campaign partner.
Setup
The campaign map is set up with six tiles for each realm in the campaign and have pre-defined starting areas. A 500 pt game of triumph and Treachery will be played with a person from eachrealm representing them, the highest victory point realm selects a starting area first and then the rest doing the same in descending order. Re-roll ties.After all realms have selected a starting area, each realm (in the same order as before) places either a city or a castle in any territory within their starting area.
Realm size
The size of a realm is equal to the number of tiles it controls, plus the number of cites on those tiles. Having a smaller realm is an advantage in that you will get to take your actions before the other realms in the Events, Challenge and Conquest & Build phase, while having a bigger realm is an advantage in that you can get extra points for your army, and at the end of the campaign, the largest realm wins. Ties are resolved randomly, rolled at the start of each phase when two or more realms have the same size.Connection
A realm counts as fully connected when all tiles that belong to a realm are joined together to form a continuous area. Having tiles that are not connected to the rest gives you a penalty to the size of your army (see below). At the start of the turn, you can elect to discard disconnected tiles to avoid having the penalty. Discarded tiles become neutral but keep any features.There are two kinds of feature that provide connection for tiles that would normally be unconnected. Trade routes provide connection to all friendly areas up to two tiles away (i.e. with up to one intervening tile that doesn’t belong to you) and fleets provide connection to all your tiles along the same river system.
Sequence of play
The campaign is five rounds of three weeks each.
Events
Revenue
Challenge
Battle
Conquest & Build
The first three phases are done at that turn’s meeting, battles are fought any time before the next meeting and the Conquest & Build phase is done at the start of next round’s meeting.Initiative order
In each phase, the realms take their actions in initiative order. This does not apply to the Battle phase, where this would be inconvenient and in any case irrelevant. Initiative order starts with the smallest realm (see Realm size above) and continues with increasing realm size. Note that realm size may alter during a turn and is recalculated at the start of each phase when it is relevant. In the case of a tie, the order is determined randomly by the realms rolling dice and the higher number going first. The roll-off only applies for that phase; if you are still tied at the start of the next phase you make another roll-off then.The exception to this procedure is in round 1 (and only applies to the event phase), when initiative order is the opposite of the order in which players got to choose their starting territories. So the realm that got the last starting area gets the first pick in events for round 1.
Events phase
Each realm picks one event from the event chart, starting with the smallest realm. You may not pick an event that another realm has chosen.
Fool’s Gold – Pick a realm. That realm cannot collect any revenue during this round.
Building Boom – You may immediately place any feature costing no more than 1 EP in any of your territories, subject to the normal limitations on features.
Disaster – Pick one realm and roll a D6 for each feature they have, in any order you like. Each feature you roll a 1 for is destroyed.
All or Nothing – Your realm get +1 empire point for any of its victories this turn, but no empire points for losses. This is the only way for a player to gain more than 5 EP in a single round.
Scouts – In any battles you fight in this round, you gain a +2 bonus to any rolls to choose deployment zones, see who starts deploying and to see who goes first (if applicable).
Diplomacy – Pick one realm. That realm may not issue any challenges against you or play events against you this round (unless they have already done so).
Land Grab – The first tile you claim this turn costs 1 empire point less than normal. This applies whether the tile was neutral or belonged to an enemy realm.
Elite army – In all battles you fight in this round, you may include 1 extra Special choice and only need 1 Core choice.
Revenue phase
Each realm collects revenue from any mines they control. The gold is added to the realm’s treasury each round and can be spent or saved up and spent in future rounds. One player is tasked with keeping a record of this and is the gold master.Mines generate 3 gold tokens each round if they are on a mountain tile and 2 gold tokens if they are on any other tile.
Challenge phase
During the challenge phase, each player must issue a challenge to another realm. This is done in initiative order. It is up to the players of the challenged empire to decide who will take up the challenge, as a challenger cannot normally choose who to fight against. The exception to this is if the challenger lost a battle to one player of the challenged realm last turn, he can specify that he challenges that player to a grudge match. The players of a realm must try to distribute their battles as evenly as possible amongst themselves so that during the course of the campaign, both players fight roughly the same number of battles.
Maximum number of battles
For practical reasons, a realm can only be involved in six battles per round. Once this number is reached, the realm can neither issue any more challenges or be challenged any more that round.
Battle phase
It is up to the players to agree on when and where to fight their battles, as long as each battle has been fought in time for the next meeting.
Army size
The size of the armies in the campaign starts at a rather modest level, but increases during the course of the campaign, to allow players to start with a small selection of models and gradually increase it.
| Round | Army size |
| 1 | 1000 |
| 2 | 1200 |
| 3 | 1400 |
| 4 | 1600 |
| 5 | 1800 |
The realm with the largest size receives a bonus of 100 points in all battles that they fight. The second and third largest realms receive a bonus of 50 points. In the case of a tie, the realms get the bonus for the lowerposition they are tied for. E.g. when two players are tied for first place they are also tied for second, and get that bonus.
Any realm may spend up to as many gold tokens from their treasury to generate extra points which can be used in any battle during that turn. 1 gold token = +50 points in one player’s army for one battle (see Revenue). Gold tokens are expended once all battles have been declared (at the end of revenue phase inform opponent and goldmaster which battles they will be used in)
For each tile that is not connected to the main body of their realm (a realm’s largest cluster of tiles), a realm gets -25 pts, up to a maximum of -100 pts.Example: In round 4, the armies have a basic size of 1600 pts. If your realm is the third largest it is instead 1650 pts. Additionally you may spend gold to increase the size of your army in any or all of your battles if you can afford it. If you spend one gold token your army will be 1700 pts in one battle and 1650 pts in all the others.Army composition
Regardless of army special rules, a realm is limited to the following choices(althought the regular 8th edition percentages apply):
0 Lords
Armies cannot under any circumstance contain Lord-level characters.
2 Hero
In round 5, armies may contain one extra Hero.
A realm can contain one extra Hero for each monument it contains.
2+ Core choices
0-1 Special choice
A realm can contain one extra Special choice for each castle it contains.
0 Rare choices
Each city a realm contains allows it to include one extra Special or Rare choice.
Only half the number of characters (rounded down) may be Wizards.Remember that the realms all start off with either a castle or a city of their choice, which will affect their army composition restrictions.
Conquest & Build phase
When you play a game of Warhammer you earn empire points as shown on the chart below. Empire points are used to take territory; to build cities, castles, mines or monuments; or to remove territory from a rival player. Players take it in turn to spend their empire points, starting with the smallest empire and working up.
Placing garrisons
At the start of the phase, in initiative order, realms may deploy garrisons, one for each castle they control. Garrisons may be deployed in any tile adjacent to their castle, though each player may not have more than one garrison in each tile. Two different realms may garrison the same tile if they wish. Having a garrison in your own tile makes it more difficult to conquer for the enemy and having one of your own garrisons in an enemy tile makes it easier to conquer. Third-party garrisons have no effect. Garrisons used to increase or decrease the cost of a conquest, are removed after they have been ‘used’, though they can be used again in later turns.Castles themselves do not automatically count as being garrisoned, but after an enemy realm has declared which of your tiles it intends to conquer, you may recall the garrison to defend a castle that is being attacked. If the enemy realm then does not want to (or cannot afford to) spend the extra empire point to conquer the castle, they can’t decide to grab any other tile from you that turn instead (other than ones already declared). They can choose to abort the conquest and use the empire points on other uses, including grabbing tiles from other realms. Recalled garrisons may not be deployed again in the same turn, they stay in the castle.*You will need a painted core troop figure to represent your garrison on the map at this time.
Earning empire points (EP)
The number of empire points a realm has to spend depends on how well the players did in the battle phase. The EP the two players earn are added together and give the number of points available that round. So if one player in a realm earns 5 EP in a round and the other earns only 2, the realm will have 7 EP to use that round.If a player fights more than one battle, he earns a number of empire points for his realm equal to the number of EP he earned in the battle where he earned the most EP. So if a player fought two battles in a round and earned 2 empire points in the first and 4 in the second, he contributes 4 empire points to his realm that round, as that is the highest number. The number of empire points that can be earned for a battle depends on how well you did and the size of the enemy realm compared to yours.
| Result | Enemy realm smaller | Equal realm size | Enemy realm larger |
| Loss (0-9) | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Draw (10) | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Minor victory (11-13) | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Solid victory (14-17) | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Massacre (18-20) | 4 | 5 | 5 |
*the points relate to the 20-0 system which can be found in the appendix)
Unplayed battles give 4 EP to the player who made an effort to get it played (regardless of realm size) and 0 EP to the other. If both players made an equal or no effort, no EP are earned.
Spending empire points
Empire points can be spent conquering tiles, building features and raiding. Players can do these actions in any order, but they must do all the actions of one type before they can do any actions of any other type. So if you choose to conquer tiles first, you cannot then build a trade route in that tile and then go and conquer more tiles with your extended range. Unspent empire points are lost and cannot be saved for use in later rounds.
Conquering tiles
You can spend empire points to conquer tiles that belong to other realms or which are neutral. When conquering tiles, all tiles you conquer must be adjacent to tiles you already control. Thus it is not possible to conquer one tile, then another, forming a long chain. Having trade routes or fleets lets you get around this restriction and conquer tiles that would be otherwise out of range.You can only conquer one tile from an opponent for each victory you had against them in this turn. This is very important to realise right from the start.
| Factor | Cost |
| Base cost | 2 Empire points |
| Tile belongs to an enemy realm | +1 EP |
| Tile contains mountains | +1 EP |
| Tile is garrisoned by the enemy realm | +1 EP |
| Tile contains one of your garrisons | -1 EP |
| Each time the tile has been conquered already this turn | +1 EP |
Builds
You can spend empire points to add a castle, city, mine, monument, fleet or trade route feature to a tile that you control. If you want to replace features, you may remove existing ones at no cost. With the exception of fleets, features cannot be built on swamp tiles.
| Feature type | Cost | Limit |
| Castle | 2 EP | 3 |
| Monument | 1 EP | 1 |
| City | 2 EP | 2 |
| Fleet | 1 EP | 1 |
| Mine | 1 EP | 2 |
| Trade route | 1 EP | 3 |
A realm that already contains the maximum number of a given feature cannot build more and the only way to get more is to conquer them from other realms. So if you have one monument already and conquer a tile that controls one, you don’t have to remove one of them.
In addition, you can only have features on half your tiles (rounding fractions up). You can only get above this limit by conquering tiles with features already on them from other realms. So if you have nine territories, you can normally only have five features, but if you conquer a tile with a city on it, that is legal even if you now have six features on only ten tiles.
Castle – Having more castles allows the armies in a realm to include more Special choices (see Army composition above). Each castle allows you to place a garrison in one tile adjacent to the castle at the start of the Conquest & Build phase. Castles built later in the turn may not place garrisons.
City – Each city in a realm lets all armies of that realm include one extra Special or Rare choice. Cities also increase the size of your realm, which can give you more benefits. Due to its larger population, a city always counts as being garrisoned (see above).
Mine – Generates gold pieces in the revenue phase (see above), which can be used to increase the size of your army. Mines generate 3 gold tokens per turn if they are built on mountain tiles and 2 if they are built on any other tile.
Monument – Having a monument allows the armies in a realm to include more Hero choices (see Army composition above). Monuments can be represented by any suitable feature, such as a Wizard’s Tower, Idol of Gork, Dwarf Brewery, etc.
Trade route – Normally, you can only conquer tiles that are adjacent to ones you already control and all your tiles must be connected. With a trade route, you can conquer when there is an intervening tile between the trade route and the tile you wish to conquer. Trade routes also count as being connected to all friendly tiles up to two tiles away.
Fleet – A fleet works in the same way as a trade route in allowing you to conquer tiles further away and keeping your territory connected. However, instead of working at a fixed range, a fleet has an effect on all tiles connected to the same coast or river system (including swamps).
Raids
Players may raid if they feel they have no better use for their Empire Points.
| Action | Cost |
| Remove 1 EP from a chosen realm* | 2 EP |
| Gain 2 gold tokens | 1 EP |
* EPs removed are lost; you do not get to keep them for yourself.
Trading
At the end of the conquest & build phase, the realms may freely trade territories for any amount of gold amongst each other. Players may give away territories if they so wish.
How to win
The realm with the largest realm size at the end of the fifth campaign round is the winner. In case of a tie, the realm with the largest treasury is the winner. See Realm size on p. 2.
Realms dropping out
Should one realm drop out of the campaign for whatever reason, their tiles are auctioned off at the start of the next Conquest & Build phase. Tiles keep any features in them.Starting with the smallest realm, one tile is selected for auction and the realms bid in initiative order, using the Empire points they earned that round. Each realm (including the one that selected the tile) may either increase the bid or pass. Passing means they can’t bid for that tile later, but does not prevent them from bidding on other tiles. If nobody at all bids on a tile it becomes neutral. When a realm gets the winning bid on a tile, the next realm in the initiative order is the one that selects the next tile to be bid over.
Tips and tricks
Remember that you can challenge anybody and use the points to grab tiles belonging to either him or tiles that are neutral – you do not have to challenge the players closest to you. Later in the campaign the number of neutral tiles is likely to be few and you will be forced to challenge your neighbours if you want to grab any tiles. Thus, if you want to fight battles against players further away, it is best to challenge them in the first few rounds.
As there is a limit on how many features you can build and how many of each type, you can gain a lot by conquering enemy tiles with features on them, this being the only way of going above those limitations. Similarly, if you were beaten in battle by a neighbouring realm and build before they do, it can be risky to build features where your neighbour can grab them.
Appendix
Turn 1 and 2
| Victor | Defeated | VP difference |
| 10 | 10 | Less than 100 pts |
| 11 | 9 | 101 – 175 |
| 12 | 8 | 176 – 250 |
| 13 | 7 | 251 – 325 |
| 14 | 6 | 326 – 400 |
| 15 | 5 | 401 – 475 |
| 16 | 4 | 476 – 550 |
| 17 | 3 | 551 – 625 |
| 18 | 2 | 626 – 700 |
| 19 | 1 | 701 – 775 |
| 20 | 0 | 776 + or tabled |
Turn 3, 4 and 5
| Victor | Defeated | VP difference |
| 10 | 10 | Less than 100 pts |
| 11 | 9 | 101 – 200 |
| 12 | 8 | 201 – 300 |
| 13 | 7 | 301 – 400 |
| 14 | 6 | 401 – 500 |
| 15 | 5 | 501 – 600 |
| 16 | 4 | 601 – 700 |
| 17 | 3 | 701 – 800 |
| 18 | 2 | 801 – 900 |
| 19 | 1 | 901 – 1000 |
| 20 | 0 | 1001 + or tabled |
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