This is the setup note for my solo Hope Eternal campaign in Rangers of Shadow Deep. I am treating it as preparation rather than actual play, so this post records the choices I want locked in before the first mission starts.
The first wargame I’m trying out solo is Rangers of Shadow Deep (ROSD) by Joseph A. McCullough, the creator of Frostgrave, Stargrave, and Oathmark. I played Frostgrave 1st Edition years ago and had a great time with it. I came across ROSD back in 2018 and was immediately intrigued, but I didn’t actually pick it up until Modiphius released the deluxe edition. I finally got my hands on it, and well, it’s been sitting on my shelf ever since… until now.
The first thing I did was dig out some models I have been wanting to use but never found a reason to. My Ranger will be represented by a Stormcast Eternal Liberator I got ages ago when Age of Sigmar first dropped. Once I settled on that model, I knew I did not want to use the default ROSD feel without changes. I wanted something that could support a more imposing main character and a setting where the Rangers feel like both visible champions and the people trusted to handle the work nobody else can.
House rules and adjustments
All my starting characters are locked in as one fellowship. I want that to matter for the whole campaign. During character creation, I can take multiple copies of a follower class if I have the recruitment points for it. Once the campaign starts, that flexibility goes away.
If a follower dies during a mission, that class becomes unavailable for the rest of the campaign. I can’t recruit another of that type, no matter what. I can only recruit a new follower after the mission is complete, and it must be a different class. If my Ranger falls in battle, one of the remaining followers will be promoted to Ranger for the next mission.
Here’s an example: if I start with two knights and one dies during a scenario, I cannot replace them mid-mission. After the mission ends, I can recruit a new follower, but it cannot be a knight apart from the one who already survived. I want losses to change the shape of the group instead of being treated like easy resets.
The second big change is tonal. Since I am using a Stormcast model, I want the Shadow Deep to feel more dangerous and the Ranger to feel more exceptional. That pushes the campaign slightly away from grounded low fantasy and closer to something more forceful and cinematic. It also gives me room to use bigger visual effects and a more dramatic presentation without feeling out of place.
Lastly, most of my terrain and minis lean sci-fi, so I am reskinning Alledore into something closer to science-fantasy. I want ruined advanced structures, old technology that is poorly understood, and the same core ROSD pressure moved into a setting that fits the table I can actually build.
Setting reskin and custom lore
For this version of the setting, I want the Rangers to have two clear roles.
The first are the Wardens. They are the public face: heavily armoured champions sent where the threat is obvious and immediate. Since I am using a Stormcast model, this gives me a straightforward reason for the Ranger to look more imposing than the standard ROSD tone usually suggests. Their armour is treated as old and difficult to replace, which also gives me an easy campaign hook if one of them falls.
The second are the Veilwalkers. They handle infiltration, scouting, intelligence work, and the kind of missions where being seen too early gets people killed. I do not mean literal shadow magic here. I just want a branch of the Rangers that covers the quieter side of the war against the Shadow Deep.
That split gives me a setting structure I can actually use. It explains why some Rangers look like overt champions while others work more like scouts, agents, or specialists. It also fits the kind of campaign I want to run better than using the default setting unchanged.
The character sheet for the Ranger and his companions is here. That page is the canonical roster for the campaign and will be updated as the project moves forward.