In the Emperor's Name Solo Campaign:

Right, since we're up to ten players now the for the clubs campaign, I'm going to be way too busy GMing to many games in of my own. For that reason (and because I really enjoy Vampifan's solo All Things Zombie (ATZ) game reports [link] I'm going to start playing a solo campaign of my own. The plan is to play through eleven scenarios (one per month, starting from February) with a final "End Game" scenario in January 2013. Of course, this assumes no untoward delays or failures to accrue Victory Points on the way.

So what's the plan?

Victory Conditions:

Earn 33 Victory Point (surely even I can beat myself) and then win the Endgame scenario. If my Inquisitor and all his Interrogators die, then I lose the campaign.

Special Rule: 

I want this campaign to last a while, so I can never accrue more Victory points than the number of games played x3. All excess Victory Points must be spent on recruitment or traded in for Fate Points at the rate of 1 Fate Point for every 5 Victory Points traded in.

Leaders: For the purposes of this campaign, the Inquisitor himself and all Interrogator models will count as Leader figures.

My Forces: 

I'll be building a 500 points Inquisition retinue lead by a single Inquisitor and his primary kill-team. Normally, I'd have to chose all my mini's from just one of the three Ordo lists, but as this is a solo campaign I'll be cherry-picking my forces from ALL the pro-Imperial army lists in the game but without having to pay the normal 5pts to include a "Strange Ally" in my retinue. After all, it's not as though I'll have an opponent to complain, is it?

I'm still working on the actual list, but as I'm mostly abandoning purchasing 28mm models I want my force to consist of as many existing "naked" model in my collection as possible. I'd rather not buy any more fresh lead if I can help it. But I want to include:

• An Inquisitor
• A Navis Noblis Navigator (already covered)
• An Astropath (already on the painting table)
• A Squat Engineer (the Gorton model from Warmachine is spot-on)
• An Ogryn (got one ready to paint)
• A Vindicare Assassin
• A Sage
• A Primaris Psyker
• And as many assorted Scum, Arbiters, Gun-Bunnies and other Imperial Agent types as I can manage. I plan on holding off on the obvious stuff such as Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers. The campaign rules have options for acquiring local reinforcements in various ways, so these can be added to the force as and where appropriate.

Enemy Forces:

An In the Emperor's Name campaign requires that the player select or randomly determine three enemy factions to encounter during the course of the campaign. One of these counts as the main enemy faction. The other two are alternates that crop up only occasionally.
I'm going to say that the main obstacle to the kill teams investigations are the various Hive Gang's that controls the area of the Underhive in which the Inquisitor is conducting his investigation. These won't be the campaigns main bad-guys, but they'll be the ones that the Retinue find themselves confronting most often. The second faction will be a military style force. I haven't quite decided yet if these will be actual mercs or the remnants of a rogue PDF unit, perhaps survivors of an unsuccessful planetary uprising. I think I much prefer the latter idea though. Maybe their leader could even be the deposed planetary governor? The third alternate faction will be a group of Adeptus Mechanicus adepts, or rather, Hereteks, hiding out in the Underhive where they can pursue their depraved experiments in peace.
I won't reveal just yet who the main campaign bad-guys will be, but there's no guarantee they'll be from one of these factions. Don't go holding your breath for a Chaos Plot though. Not every evil that happens Imperial space has the force of Chaos behind it after all.

What Next?

Well, I have a bunch of painting to do before the campaign even begins. My first game will undoubtedly be against the Hive Scum, as I have plenty of these guys already painted and good to go. The kill-team that takes them will depend on what I have painted between then and now. I can't see me using the full 500pt retinue in this one game however, so that gives me plenty of time to get the half dozen miniatures or so that I'll need for the project painted up and ready to go.