Pandemic-Era Narrative Campaign

Feel free to add to the ideas page, which includes an overview of the Astheneia system and the big picture plot of the campaign:

Campaign overview
Now that battlescribe has updated 9th edition points and rules, we will treat battlescribe as authoritative.

Lamenters - Blood Angel Successor SM - Aidan
Inquisitor - Toby

Chapter 1 Games
When the Mechanicus dig up the Artifact and it emits it's psychic scream, they are unaware because they have no psykers at the dig site. But the Slaanesh and GeneStealers cults are both immediately aware of what has happened.

The Slaanesh Cult, because of their greater affinity with Slaanesh, know exactly where the Artifact is, and can see it's surroundings. This puts them in a perfect position to ambush the Mechanicus forces when they move to bring their exciting new finds back to The Hive.

Game 1: Steal the Artifact!
Slaanesh Cult ambushes Mechanicus Archeodiggers transporting the Artifact back to the Hive. They kill the Dominus and Administrator, claim the artifact, and leave a pair of angry robots wandering the wasteland looking for something to punch.

Game 2: Whose Artifact?
750 pts per side. Scott's GSC scavenge the battlefield where the artifact was taken, and arrange an ambush to claim the Artifact on it's way back to the Hive. The possessed cultist children of the Slaanesh Cult narrowly escape, and bring the Artifact into the Hive.

Game 3: Battle for the Primary Hive Armory
750 pts per side. Sneak Attack on Primary Hive Armory, Aidan's GSC fight Toby's Mechanicus for resources and advantageous position in the Hive city. The Children of the Jade Serpent successfully take the Armory, representing more generally the success of the initial phases of the revolution in the lower levels of the Hive.

Chapter 2 Kick-off Team Game: Genestealer Cults Attempt to Breakthrough into Mechanicus Levels
The two factions of GSC (with their greater numbers represented by Sustained Assault rules) team up against dug-in Mechanicus, aided by some PDF Guard Auxillaries, and the Tempestus Praetorian Guard and Retinue of the Corrupt Governor.

Game 1: Intercepted in the Warp!
Lamenters (Aidan) v Emperor's Children (Chris)

Game 2: Martyred Maidens Try to Seize the Artifact
Sisters of Battle (Sam) v Slaanesh Cult (Chris)

Game 3: AdMech Try to Destroy the Lower Water Processing Plant
Mechanicus (Toby) v GSC (Scott)

Chapter 3 Kick-off Team Game
Stalingrad Style territorial control match with All 5 league players facing off in an Imperium Alliance v Mixed Revolutionary Cultists Battle with all sides gaining Allies from out of Town

Game 1: Battle for the Orbital Defense Stations
1250 pts each, Emperor's Children vs AdMech in a space-hulk-style battle in orbit above the Hive. In a close battle above Astheneia, Chaos Lord Tengen and Sorceror TheoTedrin lead a small force of the Crusade of Endless Joy to victory over the Mechanicus garrison, allowing the Crusade to take control of the orbital platforms.

Game 2: Hive Fleet Typhon Tyranids vs King's Own Chimeras Catachan Guard
2k each, matched play rules with narrative special characters, prequel to chapter 3 team kickoff game battle, for control of the Jungle Deathworld (Astheneia II) of which the Jungle King is hereditary Planetary Imperium Governor

Game 3: Children of the Jade Serpent try to Escape in the Corrupt Governor's personal voidship
2000 pts of GSC with sustained assault vs 2500 pts of the Governor's Tempestus and Jungle King's Catachans. Also sometime before the big Stalingard game: sensing their impending doom, the Children of the Jade Serpent muster all their forces in an attempt to sieze control of the Governor's personal voidship, which they would use to escape the Astheneia system before the Tyranids arrive.

Chapter 4 Games and Scenario Ideas
A series of 1500 pt games

Anyone who has inspiration about what their character and/or army would do next, please speak up! Here, or in our discord chat, or PM me and we can can scheme together.

Game 1: Vore Syndicate close in on Scydriel
1100 pts each, GSC (Scott) vs Guard (Chris), open war cards for zones and deployment, no vehicles except DT, no monsters, the Xtrovoid's most elite killers have rolled up part of Scydriel's spy network, and are close to discovering her true identity. After her return from the Jungle DeathWorld, Scydriel realises what is happening, and quickly throws together a plan to get them before they get to her.

Game 2: Mystranda and Coteaz pursue the wounded Progenitor into the tunnels beneath the Hive
1250 pts each?, GSC (Scott) vs Sisters (Sam), after the big Stalingrad battle, Mystranda and Coteaz pursue the wounded Progenitor into their lair in the tunnels of the crashed-voidship-catacombs deep underneath the Primus Hive of Astheneia.

Game 3: Khorne v Guard 1500 pts, random scenario 9th ed
The newly rebuilt Baneblade, scavenged from the ruined hulls of the Three GSC Shadowsword tanks, attracts The Worst Monster Khorne Daemons, who are drawn from across the Warp by the The Horror and Death of the long and awful revolutionary war that burned up through the Primus Hive City of Astheneia, but most specifically by the souls and warp energy infused into a concentration in the super-heavy tank, made specifically to become the new flagship tank for the mechanized forces of the King's Own Chimeras! The Imperium forces all came together, further empowering the newly rebuilt SH tank, but it was all too much and so eventually a portal tears through into the fabric of reality, and the Warp flows in, with Khorne Daemons surfing that wave of energy and popping out to threaten the Imperium forces who had refurbished and finally fully crewed the new super-heavy Jungle Catachan Baneblade tank!

=== Game 4: Capt Reeves pursues the fleeing Slaanesh forces and attempt to seize the Artifact containing the KoS === This will be Zelamine's first time on the table in this Narrative Campaign, coming to the aid of the Exalted, but now humbled and diminished, KoS, and surprising Capt Reeves with a lot more than he bargained for. Reeves thought the survivors of his vanguard were insufficient, so he wisely called for reinforcements to join him in the pursuit in the field, as he set out pursuing the fleeing Tynzer-Snip, last surviving possessed cultist child, still holding the artifact staff into-which the diminished KoS had been banished.

Chapter 5: Climax and Conclusion
Mox will open up one of these days, and I want to clear the deck of this narrative campaign so we can resume scheming at what Season 3 should be. So over June and possibly Early July, we will play a series of games to answer all the outstanding questions and faction-title-matchups. Rough target 2k 2021 modern 9th ed games, with our narrative allowances of course, for our Chapter 5 1:1s, to prepare us all for the resumption of FLGS culture and gaming, and continue acclimating to 9th ed

Crusade of Endless Joy v Hive Fleet Typhon for the non-Imperium Despoiler of Astheneia Title
After more narrative thought, the key question to decide the final balance of power between the occupying Tyranids and the emerging Slaanesh Daemons, is whether the Daemons can open an enduring tear in the Materium out of which could flood a seemingly endless ocean of Chaos Warp energy manifest as daemons, whose very existence in our reality further weakens and merges the two realities, further and finally cementing Astheneia as a Daemon World?

2k random 2020 GT Matched Scenario? Or maybe the same kinda Warp Tear rules that Aidan and I used against Sam in the Warp Chapter Climax Game? , in which Astheneia narrowly didn't become a full daemon world by the heroic intervention of Eldrad and the First Harlequins at the time of the Fall

Martyered Maidens of Mystranda v Crusade of Endless Joy
Having exterminated the Xtrovoid Cult and Progenitor, and held the battlefield at the end of the First-Half-Climax Game, Sisters are in contention for the title.

The Martyred maidens were too slow to stop the Slaanesh Daemons form opening a durable Warp Tear in the Mechanics midlevels of the Primus Hive City. Zelamine, the Exalted KoS, the Disco Lord, Defiler, and mechanized EC units rampage through the Sisters force, taking first turn, making a couple T1 charges, and never really losing momentum to a Round 4 Tabling, After it took Zelamine much of 3 rounds to finally cut down Cannoness Mystranda, after the Repentia Superior and some healing character used suffering sacrifice stratagem to deflect Zelamine from the Sororitas warlord, who also mad her fight second after Zelamine charged Mystranda top of T2.

Tyranids attack Astheneia!
Two big apocalypse style climax games, one Peter's house, welcoming him to the campaign when conditions become right.

The other at Mox, to find the fate of Newland, the Govornor, Sydriel, and the Jungle King, againt Hive Fleet Typhon

5k per side 2v2 Tyranid Invasion Game
=== Last Stand Against Hive Fleet Typhon === 3k tyranids vs 2000 each Imperium, 1v2 team game

3k Hive Fleet Typhon vs 2k each Imperium Guard and Lamenters fight a last stand against the endless Sustained Assault Horde for 5 rounds, annihilation battle

Aiden's Lamenters and Sam's Sisters against Scott and Peter's combined Hive Fleets, Typhon and Sthenos?

infestation grows out of Mortex Megapartments district in the mid-hive levels,

The overall fate of the Imperium Alliance v Tyranid alliance, and the fate specifically of the Primus Hive City of Astheneia will be determined by the combined results of the two big Tyranid Invasion games.

Special Character Free for All Championship
~600 pts to each attending faction, for a patrol that must include their 4-perk special character.

Zelamine and Eater of History primarily against Captain Reeves, Mystranda and Coteaz, and Inquisitor Saskia-Ardens if we can pick a date when Toby could attend. And why not welcome Peter to join us too with a 4-perk Hive Fleet Steno character if he can attend?

And honestly, if anyone else on our discord channel wants to join us, perhaps bringing a special character they intend to use in Season 3, helping us transition to Season 3 I would welcome them

Prequel Chapter: Meanwhile In The Warp!
Dramatis Personae

Gol'gourum the Drowned - Exalted Great Unclean One

Scenarios:

Game 1: Slaanesh v Nurgle

Game 2: Slaanesh v Khorne

Game 3: Slaanesh v Eldar

Game 4: Slaanesh v Mixed Chaos

Chapter Climax Team Battle:   Mixed Chaos v Mixed Eldar

The victorious gathered Horde of Slaanesh took pole position in the rush to the Warp location behind the Astheneia system

The ethereal Slaaanesh scouting elements detected gathering concentrations of Khorne and Tzeentch energies and forces still moving towards Astheneia

Warp Chapter
Wibbly wobbly time of the warp, battles have been occurring as the forces of Slaanesh grow strong and prepare to durably pierce the membrane of reality on Asteneneia,

Towards the spacetime point in the Warp corresponding to the most debaucherous rituals of the wicked proto-Slaanesh-worshipping Hedonistic Space Elves

A convergence of Nurgle energy, suddenly aided by the champions of Tzeentch in a sudden and fruitful alliance, stems and interrupts the flow of Warp Energy and Intention of Slaanesh energy, and then suddenly the entirety of the Warp Convergence joins with each other, n a glorious moment when all the forces of Chaos are Aligned together, trying to tear upon the durable breach in realspace and create a new Daemon World

Tzeentch knows that because the breach is opening because of the destructive implosion of Slaanesh energy generated by the debaucherous eldar, means that the DaemonWorld they are creating will likely be a daemon or crone world like the rest of the Eldar worlds falling as Slaanesh is birthed,

But the other two Chaos Gods want in on the action, and to see the noble Eldar brought low by their own excess and nemesis,

So Golgourum reforms again at the crest of the slow creeping tide of Nurgle's Host that gathers with all forces at Slaanesh to fight together

At the same time, Eldrad and his council of farseers has scryed and probability-probe-investigated the Great Fall about to befall all of their civilization that had abandoned his teachings, but he and they lead a force to Astheneia, to try to prevent the total fall of Astheneia, and deny the creation of one more Daemon World in this Corner of the Galaxy. He is aided by the Harlequins who have also foretold of this day, but could not prevent it, and led by Eldrad will rage against the dying of the Eldar light and who will lead the survivors of his ruined race into long exile on the Craftworlds