War Room: A Dark Conspiracy – Final Tally
The summer campaign has burned hot, and now, at last, we get a moment to breathe before the Final Battle.
For 13 weeks, from the Prologue to the eve of the last great clash, the war has raged across club tables, kitchen counters, cellars, garages, store boards and distant battlefields. When we finally gathered the notes, checked the results and tried to make sense of the ledger, the number was almost absurd.
1,014 battles.
One thousand and fourteen games fought for glory, revenge, territory and the Jade Staff. That is not just a good campaign tally. That is the sort of number that makes veterans nod, rivals mutter, and organisers wonder how they are meant to process everything before the next report goes out.
It began simply enough. A small muster in a half-sleeping wargaming club in the Alps. A few familiar generals, a few familiar grudges, the usual dice, the usual threats, the usual laughter. Then allied clubs answered. Then more commanders heard about it. Soon reports were coming from beyond Switzerland, then beyond our usual circles, and eventually from across the ocean.
Each week the battle reports went out through forums, chats and club groups. People read them in English, French, Italian and German. Some cheered as their faction climbed the table. Others cursed their defeats, blamed the dice, demanded revenge, or simply decided that the next week needed more blood. And, being proper wargamers, quite a few of them picked up dice and joined in.
Before long, the distant fronts outnumbered the original musters. We started it locally, but the community made it much bigger.
And now here we are, with a mountain of notes, battle reports, score sheets, half-remembered heroics, shocking massacres, miserable defeats, stubborn draws and victories that will no doubt grow larger every time they are retold. There are tales here fit for tavern songs, grudges that will survive into the next campaign, and losses that will be blamed on treacherous dice until the end of time.
So let us open the great ledger one final time before the last battle drums begin.
- Total recorded battles: 1014
- Campaign length: 13 weeks
- Average battles per week: 78.0
- Median week: 75 battles
- Quietest week: Week 2, with 36 battles
- Busiest week: Week 13, with 181 battles
- Week 1: 41 battles
- Week 2: 36 battles
- Week 3: 39 battles
- Week 4: 48 battles
- Week 5: 75 battles
- Week 6: 78 battles
- Week 7: 63 battles
- Week 8: 114 battles
- Week 9: 75 battles
- Week 10: 93 battles
- Week 11: 85 battles
- Week 12: 86 battles
- Week 13: 181 battles
Of those 1,014 battles, 368 came from the campaign core. These were the games fought by the Zurich group and the players closest to it: club nights, home tables, kitchen campaigns, cellar wars, garage grudges, store games and visits from allied clubs we knew personally. Not every one of those battles was fought in the clubhouse, nor did it need to be. This was the beating heart of the campaign, the circle where the first banners were raised and the first map hexes were stained with blood.
That heart kept beating because the campaign was not built only on grand 2,000 point set pieces. Many of those games were fast, savage Border Patrols and skirmishes, the sort of brutal 500 point clashes that can be squeezed into a weekday evening and still give everyone something to shout about afterwards. They kept the map alive. They made small advances matter. They turned minor roads, ruined towers and nameless valleys into places worth fighting for.
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| Tally of weekly games. The first week we had an extra holiday and we were motivated, but we could not keep the momentum. The Community started to get involved very soon, with spikes in weeks 5, 6 and specially 8th and 13th. The final spike was the rushed attempt to break ties and do a final push for the victory. |
Then the wider world answered.
The remaining 646 battles came from the community beyond the core: allied clubs, old forum generals, distant warlords and readers who followed the weekly reports, grabbed their dice, and sent their own battle tales back to the front. Across Austria, Italy and the wider internet, the classic 2,000 point battle remained a mighty engine of war, with full armies marching out to decide the fate of territories they had never seen, but were now determined to conquer.
That is when the campaign stopped being merely ours.
Every submitted result pushed the front line forward. Every battle report added another scrap of smoke, steel and sorcery to the story. Every commander who joined made the war larger than the map that started it. The core raised the signal fire. The community answered with armies.
Now, let's focus on the next milestone of the Campaign: The Siege of Nagronath.
The Jade Staff now lies in the hands of the treacherous Druchii, yet the bargain has been broken. Rather than return the relic to the Slann as promised, the Dark Elves have claimed it for themselves, and in doing so have kindled a fresh war.
Far away in Lustria, Lord Mazdamundi stirs in wrath. The ancient Slann has read the omens, and the old words carved upon the ruined walls beneath the Temple-City of Huatl speak plainly enough: the time for reckoning is at hand. Hosts are being gathered, old alliances reforged, and new pacts sworn in the face of the danger now rising from the west.
On one side stand the Druchii, their cause strengthened by grim bargains with infamous powers drawn by greed, ambition and the promise of plunder. On the other gather the servants of the Old Ones and their allies, bound not by avarice, but by duty and prophecy.
Even the Skaven have slunk into the shadow of Naggaroth, siding with the Dark Elves out of spite for the spawn of Sotek... or perhaps because the Council of Thirteen has designs of its own upon the fate of the Jade Staff.
Now the stormfront closes over Albion. Armies gather, fleets are readied, and every broken oath breeds another grudge. The old alliances have shattered, and the new ones are already being tested in fire.
The final reckoning draws near. Prepare for the Siege of Nagronath.
