Odd Point Limits, Map Supply, and Why We’re Suddenly Talking About Triple Balloons
We had one of those very good hobby conversations recently: half campaign design, half list-building, and half getting distracted by a unit that suddenly looks much scarier than we thought. Yes, that is three halves. That’s the correct ratio for Warhammer discussions.
This time the topic was a campaign idea based on map supply and how that supply would translate into the size of battles. The basic pitch from Stas was simple: if a city has Supply 1000, then you fight there at 1000 points. Clean, intuitive, easy to understand.
And then, naturally, we started adding complications.
Supply from neighboring regions
The interesting part is that a region wouldn’t only use its own supply value. It could also get bonuses from the map around it:
- +10% supply from each adjacent friendly region
- +1% supply from each second-degree friendly neighbor
On paper that doesn’t sound huge, but in practice it could create exactly the kind of campaign weirdness we enjoy: lists at unusual values like 837 points, 1120 points, or other awkward limits that force actual army-building decisions instead of just defaulting to the same polished list every time.
And honestly, we love that idea.
There’s something very fun about having the state of the campaign map matter on the tabletop. If you’re doing well strategically, your next battle should feel a little different. Not necessarily fairer — maybe not even balanced in the strictest sense — but connected to the wider campaign.
The obvious concern: snowballing
Of course, the first question was also the most important one: does this create a runaway advantage?
Michał immediately raised the concern that after two wins, someone might end up with a really serious edge. That’s the danger with any campaign layer — if success on the map directly gives you more points on the table, then winning can start feeding more winning.
Stas’s intention here was much more modest. The idea wasn’t to generate giant swings, but rather small to medium differences, something in the range of a few dozen points. Enough to matter, not enough to decide the game by itself.
But even “a few dozen points” is not nothing in army-building terms. As Michał pointed out, in practice that can be the difference between a character upgrade that really matters — the kind of change that can reshape how a list works.
So the current feeling is: the idea is promising, but it absolutely needs testing on an actual map before we can pretend it’s balanced.
Maybe asymmetry is the point
What we liked most in this discussion is that nobody was pretending the system had to be perfectly symmetrical.
Quite the opposite. The goal was to give the world map real meaning. If you control the right regions, if you maintain connections, if you push into favorable territory, then the battle size and army composition should reflect that.
That kind of asymmetry can be dangerous, sure. It can also be extremely fun.
And if it turns out a bit overpowered? Well… if it creates memorable campaign moments, we’re at least willing to explore it.
Should there be a 2000-point cap?
Another very sensible suggestion was to introduce a maximum cap at 2000 points.
That came up because some battles really should feel bigger — for example, fighting over a provincial capital. We’d like those clashes to exist. Big centerpiece games are part of the charm of campaign play.
At the same time, flat percentage bonuses can get scary fast. If being surrounded by friendly territory starts handing out +200 points just because of map position, that may be too much.
So the ideas currently floating around are:
- keep the supply bonus percentages,
- maybe replace them with some kind of curved function instead of a flat 10%,
- and/or simply introduce a hard cap at 2000 points.
Honestly, the cap sounds like a very practical safety valve. It doesn’t solve everything, but it prevents the campaign system from spiraling into nonsense.
The other half of the conversation: Cathay Sky Lanterns got weird
Because no planning session survives contact with actual list-building, the discussion then took a hard turn into Grand Cathay and the question of whether Michał had been using the Sky Lantern badly.
His conclusion, after watching what sounded like his tenth strategy video of the day, was: yes, probably.
The Lantern had previously earned roughly “participation trophy” status in our minds, despite one memorable achievement: it killed four boars. Which, to be fair, is not nothing. But apparently it may have had much more to offer.
The key interactions Michał highlighted were these:
- Move & Shoot — so it can shoot after marching
- Quickshot — so no -1 to hit there
- D3+1 hits
- access to bombs and movement tricks that look much nastier than we first assumed
At that point the unit started sounding less like a decorative support piece and more like something we need to look at very carefully.
March, shoot, bomb, and drift away
The really spicy part was the movement-based bomb play.
According to the interpretation Michał found, the special bombs dropped in the movement phase don’t require the Lantern to end its move within 6” of the enemy. If that reading is correct, then the Lantern can do some very irritating things:
- start 12” away,
- move up to 6”,
- drop bombs,
- then use the rest of the move to drift back out,
or reposition into some other awkward distance band.
And then potentially follow that up with Dragon Fire Bombs in the shooting phase.
That is the kind of rules interaction that instantly changes how we think about a unit.
On top of that, Michał was excited by the fact that the relevant shooting profile seemed to ignore several common drawbacks — no negatives for long range, multiple shots, or stand & shoot. At that point we had fully entered the phase of the conversation usually described as: “hold on, that can’t possibly be right.”
Which is, of course, when Warhammer gets really interesting.
Small correction before we get too carried away
Before the balloon hype train fully left the station, Stas caught an important rules detail: the Lantern bonus apparently couldn’t be used for the cannon, only for attacks of the bombardment type.
So yes, the unit still looks very interesting.
But also yes, this is exactly why we try to talk these things through before putting three of something into a list and declaring enlightenment.
Triple balloon at 1000 points?
Naturally, the next conclusion was that at 1000 points, Michał could potentially fit three balloons into a list without much trouble.
Which immediately led to the most honest sentence in the entire exchange: he now needs to find a proxy.
And honestly? We respect that energy.
This is also where the campaign supply idea and the list-building side start fitting together nicely. If our system really does generate strange point limits around 1000, 1100, 1200 and so on, then we’re going to see some wonderfully cursed army construction decisions. Not just “what is strongest at 2000,” but:
- what can we squeeze into 837?
- what changes at 1040?
- is this the weird bracket where a support piece suddenly becomes worth it?
- and, most importantly, how many balloons is too many balloons?
We do not yet have an answer to that last question.
Where we are now
So at the moment, this is where the project stands:
- we like the idea of map-based supply determining battle size,
- we think neighboring regions adding supply could create fun, flavorful asymmetry,
- we are wary of snowballing advantages,
- a 2000-point cap seems like a smart option,
- and meanwhile we have accidentally opened a side quest about whether Cathay flying lanterns are secretly obnoxious.
That sounds, to us, like a very healthy stage of campaign design.
The next step is obvious: we need to actually sketch a map, run some examples, and see whether these bonuses stay in the “interesting few dozen points” zone or immediately become nonsense. And, ideally, get a game in once Michał is back — because theoryhammer is fun, but eventually the balloons have to leave the hangar.
If this system works, it could give us exactly what we want from campaign play: battles that feel tied to the world map, odd point levels that force creative army-building, and just enough imbalance to create stories.
And if it doesn’t work?
Well, then at least we’ll have learned something. Possibly while being bombed by a lantern.