For one player, or a short campaign between two friends, paper is fine. For a small group with one organised person willing to keep it up, a spreadsheet works. Once several players all need the same up-to-date picture and nobody wants to be the bookkeeper, a campaign tracker starts to earn its place.
How the options compare
| Option | Cost | Whole group sees it | Does the arithmetic | Works without signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper Crusade cards | Free | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| A shared spreadsheet | Free | ✅ once it is shared | Only what your formulas do | Depends on the app |
| A personal tracker app | Usually free | ❌ one player's force | ✅ | Varies |
| A campaign tracker | Free to paid | ✅ | ✅ | Varies |
Paper Crusade cards
Printed cards and a force sheet are free, sit on the table with the army, and need no battery. They are also the slowest: every rank, every Crusade Point and every point of Supply Limit is worked out by hand, and a card that goes missing takes the unit's whole history with it. Nobody else in the group can see your force unless you show them.
A spreadsheet, and how to lay one out
A shared spreadsheet fixes most of paper's problems. Formulas do the arithmetic, history is searchable, and everyone with the link sees the same thing. The cost is upkeep: one person ends up maintaining it, formulas break when someone sorts the wrong column, and editing a cell on a phone mid-game is fiddly.
If you go this way, three tabs cover a campaign:
- Order of Battle. One row per unit: name, datasheet, points, XP, rank, battles played, battles survived, enemy units destroyed, Battle Honours, Battle Scars, Crusade Points, notes.
- Force sheet. Supply Limit, points in use (units not destroyed), Requisition Points, battles played and victories.
- Battle log. One row per game: date, opponent, mission, result, Victory Points, Agendas achieved, the unit Marked for Greatness, Out of Action results, and RP gained and spent.
The formulas worth writing:
- Rank from XP, using the thresholds below. Heroic and Legendary are for Characters only, so cap everything else at the top of Battle-Hardened unless it has the Legendary Veterans requisition.
- XP from kills: one for every 3 enemy units a unit has destroyed, counted on its running tally.
- Crusade Points: one per Battle Honour (two for a TITANIC unit), plus each Crusade Relic's value, minus one per Battle Scar, never below zero.
- Requisition Points capped at 10, and Battle Scars at 3 per unit.
| Rank | XP |
|---|---|
| Battle-Ready | 0–5 XP |
| Blooded | 6–15 XP |
| Battle-Hardened | 16–30 XP |
| Heroic | 31–50 XP |
| Legendary | 51+ XP |
Tracker apps
Apps split into two kinds. A personal tracker keeps one player's force and does the arithmetic, but the rest of the group cannot see it. A campaign tracker holds every force in the campaign, plus the battles and standings, in one place.
Before you pick one, check four things:
- Can the host run a campaign for free? Of the dedicated Crusade tools checked in August 2026, most keep group campaigns behind a paid plan. Their free plans are personal trackers, or cap how many battles a campaign can hold.
- Does it support your edition? A tool built around 10th Edition codex supplements may not handle an 11th Edition force.
- Can it import your army list? Typing in a whole Order of Battle is the step most people give up on.
- Can you get your data out? If the tool closes, a spreadsheet you kept is still yours.
Where Echelon fits
Echelon is a campaign tracker, and the free plan hosts 1 campaign for up to 4 players. Joining someone else's campaign is free on every plan. It works out ranks from XP, keeps Crusade Points current, warns when a force goes over its Supply Limit, and imports NewRecruit and BattleScribe lists, in 10th and 11th Edition. Everyone sees the standings and the battle history, and each player keeps their own force in full.
What it does not do
It needs a connection, so it does not work offline. Printing a force sheet or saving it as a PDF is a Supporter feature. And a player sees their own Crusade Cards in full, not everyone else's. If any of that matters most to your group, a shared spreadsheet does it better.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a free Crusade tracker?
Yes. Paper and a spreadsheet cost nothing. Echelon's free plan hosts 1 campaign for up to 4 players, and joining someone else's campaign is free on every plan.
Can I track a Crusade campaign in Google Sheets?
Yes. Three tabs cover it: an Order of Battle with one row per unit, a force sheet for Supply Limit and Requisition Points, and a battle log. The layout is above.
Does Echelon work offline?
No. It needs a connection to save anything, so a game in a basement with no signal is better scored on paper and entered afterwards.
Can I import my army list into a Crusade tracker?
Into Echelon, yes: a NewRecruit .json export, or a BattleScribe .ros or .rosz file, on every plan. A spreadsheet means typing the list in.
This guide compares ways to track a Warhammer 40,000 Crusade campaign. Echelon is an independent campaign tracker and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Games Workshop.