AoS GRAND NARRATIVE AT NOVA OPEN 2018

This year the Age of Sigmar grand narrative event, four days of narrative games at NOVA Open, was run by a team of NEOs. Here is one of the NEOs with a description of the first half of the event, gaming on Thursday through Friday. The second half and epic conclusion of the event will be published next week. You can find an overview of last year’s event posted on the blog last year Grand Narrative at NOVA Open 2017. Thanks, NOVANEON18 team!

In 2018, the good folks at Nova Open allowed us to run a full convention’s worth of narrative gaming for Age of Sigmar.  The following is a brief overview of the events that occurred.  Please note that while we as Event Staff designed the world, it was the players that decided the outcome of events in Dawnland.  If you think of it like a game of Dungeons and Dragons, with Event Staff as the Dungeonmaster, you won’t be far off.

On Thursday, the prologue introduced the players and their warbands.  Since Dawnland is in Ulgu (Realm of Shadows), it was up to the players to decide how they managed to make it there.  Each player was asked to create a skyvessel and a champion to represent their army.  Players also made Age of Sigmar lists from 500 to 1500 points.

After all the warbands arrived in Dawnland, they gathered on their ships in the harbor for a celebration of the anniversary of overthrowing Queen Neferata (last year’s story).  Tensions built among the newly arrived mercenary warbands, and soon a naval battle broke out!  This was our signature event on Thursday night, where players stormed each other’s ships and plundered them for gold and renown.

Friday morning, players were inducted into guilds based on the allies they chose the night previous and their personal tastes.  These guilds formed the basis for how the players upgraded their skyships and made deals with the other players.  There was a fair amount of backstabbing and guild betrayal, as players who fared poorly in the naval battle were hungry for gold to upgrade their skyships.Friday’s morning and afternoon games (1500 points) determined which guilds controlled certain parts of Dawnland.  The Free Tribes immediately took the Synder Mines, where realmstone could be mined and used as magical precognition.  As with most realmstone, Synder is very addictive, and the Free Tribes had a plan to make gold by selling the magical substance to those addicted to precognition.Meanwhile, most of the other guilds made for the capital city of Sy’Dell, the Canal District, and the Bay of Bones.  The general consensus was that if players controlled any of those places, the power base it offered would help to spread their control over Dawnland.

Friday night saw all players lining up for an enormous siege of the city of Sy’Dell.  Each player had a 1500 point army.  With Synder giving most of the armies some form of precognition, they all knew an enormous lifeform would appear over the city soon.  Whomever held the city held the key to first contact with the Godbeast.

Things seemed grim for the defenders, as players who thought the city would fall changed sides.  In the end, the defenders stuck it out and won the day!  They expelled the attackers and the traitors with some help from a mercenary force which took the attackers in the flank.

Next week we will conclude the second half of the event!