A few months ago Games Workshop put out a campaign system for Warhammer 40,000 called Urban Conquest and I decided to run a campaign for Pike & Shots, the wargaming club some friends and I started a couple of years back. Urban Conquest is designed for a maximum of four players. It uses color-coded physical components so it’s not a simple matter to just add more competing factions. I thus decided to run it for teams of two so I could accommodate eight players. I will be the referee, and I’ll also be playing AdMech and Planetary Defense Forces in special scenarios so I can get some games in too (though obviously, I won’t be scoring and can’t win the campaign!).

One-off games are great and all, but what makes campaigns fun is the narrative. After finding out what armies everyone wanted to play, I sat down to write up a background. This sets up the start of the campaign and will be built on as we start playing games. The challenging aspect of this campaign is that I ended up with six players who wanted to play marines. I tried to take some inspiration from the late (and sorely missed) Alan Bligh’s terrific Badab War books from Forge World, which featured many marines chapters squaring off against each other. The resulting narrative is below. It’s thick with 40K lore. I know you’d expect no less from me! I hope to provide some updates here as the campaign goes on, since I’ve dreadfully neglected my blog the last few years.

Campaign Background

Svarog is a mining planet in Segmentum Tempestus. When the Cicatrix Maledictum tore reality apart and cut off half the galaxy from Terra and the light of the Astronomican, the importance of Svarog to the Imperium increased greatly. A small fleet of Adeptus Mechanicus vessels, on the run since Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan destroyed their Forge World of Gryphonne IV, was directed to Svarog to expand its manufacturing output. Soon Svarog was not just mining raw materials but producing weapons of war for the Indomitus Crusade of Roboute Guilliman. It made important contributions to the rebuilding of the Crimson Fists on (relatively) nearby Rynn’s World.

As the Indomitus Crusade wound down, a political rift began to develop on Svarog. The Gryphonne IV contingent, led by Tech-Priest Dominus Zephyrus Omicron, had been crucial to the development of Svarog but the planetary governor, Jasper Tarrant, increasingly felt the Mechanicus was trying to take over the planet and turn it into a new Forge World. When word came to Jasper Tarrant that Mechanicus drilling machines were operating directly beneath Svarog Prime, the planet’s capital city, tensions only increased. When Jasper Tarrant confronted Zephyrus Omicron, the Tech-Priest flatly refused to explain the nature of the operation, only asserting that it was vital to the defense of the Imperium.

Jasper Tarrant was not convinced and began to make continency plans for ejecting the Mechanicus from Svarog. For this he would need a war chest, so he began to play a dangerous game. The governor started interfering in the planet’s trade contracts directly. Essentially, he was selling the same war material to multiple parties, getting paid many times over for goods he simply could not deliver. He thought he could make excuses long enough to enact his plan to get rid of the Mechanicus, and then make things right after the fact. This may have worked if he was dealing with the Imperial Guard. Unfortunately for Svarog, Jasper Tarrant was instead trying to cheat space marines like the Blood Angels, Iron Hands, and Dark Angels.

Meanwhile, the Mechanicus continued to drill beneath Svarog Prime. They had discovered Necron ruins on the planet and believed an ancient Necron weapon might be buried beneath the city. Their hope was to find something that could bring ruin to the Tyranids that had destroyed their home planet but they kept their goals to themselves. What Zephyrus Omicron had told Jasper Tarrant was true, such a weapon could indeed help defend the Imperium. The secrecy of the Mechanicus, however, was to have disastrous consequences.

From Sparks to Flame

The campaign that would turn Svarog Prime into a warzone began both above and below the city. The Crimson Fists and Raptors were about to begin a campaign together and had sent ships to Svarog to pick up supplies. Due to Svarog’s long relationship with the Crimson Fists, the governor had always played straight with the them so what they were promised was indeed ready for them. The trouble began when ships of four other space marine chapters arrived demanding the war materials that they had already paid for. One of the new Primaris chapters and the Iron Hands showed up first, followed quickly by a task force of Blood Angels and Dark Angels. Svarog could supply only one of the three space marine battle groups and the governor began to try to play them off one another. When things became heated, he called upon his longtime allies in the Crimson Fists to protect Svarog from what he described as near piracy form the other chapters. It is unclear if the shooting started by mistake or was intentional, but several of Svarog’s defense satellites did open fire and this began a confused void battle above the planet.

Meanwhile, the Mechanicus had broken into ancient Necron caverns beneath the surface. There they found the substance blackstone in abundance and began to experiment with it. This had two immediate and terrible consequences. First, their initial efforts attuned the blackstone the wrong way, so it became a warp magnifier instead of a warp dampener. A blast of warp power killed or drove insane all the astropaths on and above the planet and created inference that crippled communication. Then daemons from the Siren’s Storm (a nearby warp storm) began to pour into the caverns. Second, a Necron stasis crypt deeper in the ruins—alerted by the Mechanicus incursion—started its revivification cycle.

In between the forces above and the forces below lies the city of Svarog Prime. The marines deploy to the surface to try to seize the war material they are owed, while the daemons and Necrons swarm up to the surface. With communication nearly impossible, chaos reigns in Svarog Prime. Forces are scattered and no one understands the complete picture. Marines fight marines while a few streets away Necrons are reaping all from life hab blocks of terrified workers. The forces that might hold the Imperial factions together—the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Administratum—are suspicious of one another and uncertain who to trust in the sudden maelstrom of war. The campaign for Svarog Prime has begun.