Narrative event plans

I have four AoS or AoS-adjacent events coming up over the next two months and they're all narrative events, so for May's blog (which was at least half written in May, we're catching up), I thought I'd do a forward look at what my hopes and dreams for these events are.

Event 1 - A Crown of Salt and Shadow

What is it? An AoS 28 event with a custom ruleset loosely based on converting the Necromunda rules into the AoS world. Games will be played with small warbands, and it will have a very heavy narrative focus

What am I taking? I've built a warband specifically for this event, they're mostly kitbashed from the Corvus Cabal Warcry warband with a couple of other kits thrown in for numbers and variety. I did a fairly quick slap chop paint job on them, but I'm quite pleased with how they've come out.

What's the narrative? The lore for the event is based around a group of small islands, so the warband concept is that they're a gang of beach scavengers, who recruit new members from half-drowned shipwrecked sailors. The narrative set-up I'm hoping to explore with them is that the leader is a power hungry and not very nice ogor who is in charge by dint of being the biggest and strongest, while the other gang members largely actually like each other and are vaguely decent people. Will the ogor achieve success and riches? Will he die horribly and give his 2IC the opportunity to take over? Will the whole warband get drowned or murdered by zombies? We'll find out.

My warband for a Crown of Salt and Shadow

What do I want to get of the event? I know a lot of the people going to the event, so mainly I want to have a fun time, try out something different, and hang out with my friends. I'd like to come out of it with some fun stories to tell about my warband, but I don't mind whether that involves their terrible demise or glorious success. 

Event 2 - War in the Mortal Realms XXVII: Clash in Thondia

What is it? This is a narrative 2000 point AoS event being run by Bad Moon Cafe. It's their first narrative event so I'm not 100% sure what to expect: it's going to be using some of the Seasons of War: Thondia battleplans, and everyone's list will include a custom hero using the Anvil of Apotheosis rules. My expectation is that the narrative aspects apart from army construction will be fairly light and that most people will be playing the games themselves fairly competitively, but I might be wrong. 

What am I taking? I'm taking my Living City army that I painted during lockdown. They're my favourite army and they've yet to go to an event, so I'm extremely excited! There's every chance that the army will be squatted later this year when the new Cities book comes out, so I'm glad that I'll have the chance to get some games in with them first.

I am so excited to finally take this army to an event

What's the narrative? The narrative for the army is that they're the ghosts of duardin and Sylvaneth who died fighting each other in the Age of Myth, but rose up to fight alongside each other when the forest they'd died in was attacked by chaos. I haven't quite figured out yet what they're doing in Thondia, I'll have to give that some thought before the event! 

What do I want to get out of the event? Mainly just to finally get the army on the table, and get some games in with them. I have no expectation of winning many of those games, because while I love the army it doesn't have a lot going on competitively. But my favourite way of playing AoS is to put two thematic armies on the table and then to play competitive games with them, so if I get to do that I'll be happy.

Event 3 - Warhammer Witney 3: Taxes, Scum and Villainy

What is it? The third in a series of AoS narrative events which I've heard really good things about from friends who have attended. I'm expecting a very strong focus on narrative and story telling, rather than competitive gaming. This will be my first time going to one, and I'm both excited about it and a little bit nervous. The narrative for this one is built around organised crime in the Mortal Realms, and the organisers have been doing a great job of dropping regular updates and teasers to help the build-up.

What am I taking? I'm taking my Slaves to Darkness army, the Blood Kraken Reavers. I was originally intending them to be mainly a narrative army before the new battletome gave me the opportunity to run them more competitively, so this is a return to their narrative roots. I'll take all the more narrative pieces I have for the army (conversions that reflect their lore as ex-Anvilguard resistance fighters who have fallen to chaos), and I'll leave some of the more competitive components of the army at home. 

What's the narrative? The ex-Anvilguard background of my army fits quite well into the event narrative, since Anvilguard had a large amount of dodgy dealings going on, so my broad army narrative will be that my general for the event is hooking back up with some of his old contacts from his Anvilguard days to make some profit on the side alongside seeking bloody revenge on the Daughters of Khaine.

My mutalith vortex beast is a mutated charybdis

What do I want to get out of the event? I want to throw myself properly into the narrative side of things, and come away from it feeling like me and my army have contributed something to the narrative feel of the event. I'm a bit nervous about it, because I don't have a strong sense of what to expect, and I know that some people there will probably have gone to far greater narrative efforts than I will have done. But I'm also excited about getting the chance to delve into and explore out my army's background lore, which was the reason I was inspired to build the army in the first place.

Event 4 - Warcry: Blood in the Dark

What is it? A narrative Warcry event that a friend is running at Bad Moon Cafe, using the narrative Warcry warband rules. That's all I know about it, I've not played Warcry for a long time but it sounds fun and I have a bunch of Warcry warbands painted up so I figured I'd give it a go.

What am I taking? No idea! I've just ordered the Warcry core book, so once that arrives I'll have a read of the Warcry narrative rules and see what looks fun. 

What do I want to get out of the event? It's a good opportunity to get back into Warcry, and hopefully have a fun relaxing day out. The schedule for the day looks fairly relaxed - three games with two hours per game - so I'm hoping it will be a nice chill time, and will give me the motivation to relearn the rules and get my shit together so that I can carry on playing some casual Warcry after the event.

Wish me luck! I expect I'll do a write-up of at least some of these events in future blogs, and let you know how I got on.