There is a new podcast focusing on Narrative Play in the Age of Sigmar.
Specifically, on the Path to Glory system released in the new 3.0 edition of the game, and being further expanded in White Dwarf supplements.
The Mortal Realms podcast network took the opportunity to launched this new show, called Path to Story, dedicated to explaining how the rules of this new “personal-campaign-story-army-builder (?)” work, how they themselves are going about it, and how to best explore the system to play and enjoy narratives in the Age of Sigmar.
We leave it to the hosts of Path to Story to explain what they have in store for you:
You meet three figures along the path…
We are Paul, Spencer, and Will from PATH TO STORY, a narrative play Age of Sigmar podcast. On our show, we talk about the Path to Glory system and then build a narrative through the games we play together.
We love playing with the narrative of the mortal realms and want to encourage others to do the same using the Path to Glory system. To that end we thought we’d talk to you all about the new ruleset and how you can use it to tell your own stories.
When we talk about Path to Glory, we’re focusing on the new Narrative Play system found in the Core Rulebook for Age of Sigmar 3rd edition. While we are firm believers that Age of Sigmar is inherently a narrative game, since you create narratives through the games that you play, Path to Glory creates a system to allow those narratives to exist between games and take place off of the tabletop as well.
Path to Glory is a game that lends itself to casual creativity. You begin to consider deeper motivations of your characters. You consider their choices, rather than your own–compelling you to spare or sacrifice the personalities you’ve created on the board. The wins become more glorious, and the losses, more devastating.
– Spencer: “Yeah, have you thought about the gut-wrenching pain you can put yourself through?!”
You can take the story as far as you want, and once you’ve got your wheels turning, it becomes tremendously easier to integrate the storytelling skills back into other games you play.
What we really love about this system is that the narrative of your army and the way you play them on the battlefield are intrinsically linked to each other. A good example of this is the Quest mechanic. Your army is always pursuing a Quest which has its own reward and goal. So when you play a game of Path to Glory, you won’t be focusing just on the Battle Plan and victory conditions, but also trying to fulfill the specific requirements to complete your Quest.
We’re going to reiterate this because we love it so much:
“there is a concrete mechanic built into the rules that has you tailor the way you play to match the narrative you are pursuing.”
In our show, Will is playing as the Stormcast Eternals with his custom Stormhost, The Stormscale Covenant. He’s really digging into the idea that his force is a small but elite force of demigods battling it out in the Hungering Steppe, an area of Ghur we set the show in.
- Will: “Keep an eye out for the Steppe, there may be future ways to set your own stories in it.”
To accomplish this, he’s been focusing less on expanding his army, but instead improving his existing fighters through Renown and Territories that keep these units alive and kicking. As a true narrative zealot, he has given a name to every single model in his army. Every time a model is taken off of the board, they have the potential to be lost in the reforging process. When he plays, he takes this into account and tries to keep his Stormcast alive as long as he can.
Meanwhile, Paul’s character Petral is overseeing a Dawnbringer Crusade in an attempt to restore the realmroots of the Hungering Steppe.
– Spencer: “The what?”
– Will: “Magic tree roots that allow people to travel between the realms.”
While Paul’s warlord and other heroes are important characters, the narrative of his army is focused on the expansion of a full military force. Just like in the lore, the mortals of his City of Sigmar are not expected to survive. He is focused on expanding his territories to bring more units into his fighting force to offset any casualties suffered at the ends of the Stormcast foes. Soldiers can be lost to battle, as he’ll always have enough to spare.
Which Path do you take?
Now, to start your own narrative journey there are a few key things that you’ll need to do. First is to create your Order of Battle. It is crucial to remember that the restrictions for your Order of Battle are not the same as the restrictions for Matched Play. None of Games Workshop’s official roster building tools (The AoS app and Warscroll Builder on the Warhammer Community page) support the additional Path to Glory rules (yet?), so you need to take that into account.
As you’re building out your Order of Battle, you choose a starting size for your army. This size does not lock you into a set point value for your games. Paul’s army started at 2000 points and Will’s started at 1000. They are still able to play games together at 1000 points or lower and Paul can bring any units that he wants within that lower point limit, giving him more flexibility.
Which brings us to the hardest and most important part of playing a Path to Glory campaign: playing games with someone. It seems so straightforward, but getting buy-in to narrative games is much harder than setting up a matched play game. You have to talk to the other player and get to understand their force and the narrative they are telling. Together you need to find a way to fit this one battle into your wider narratives. Paul and Will are lucky to have someone that is willing to forge their narratives alongside each other.
If you can’t find a dedicated partner, do not despair! The system takes this into account and has special rules for those playing against someone not participating in Path to Glory. You still need to have a conversation about the fact that your army doesn’t adhere to the matched play list building, but you can still gain rewards for your force. You still get to have a meaningful experience on your Path to Glory campaign.
In the end, that’s what this system is about. Giving you the tools you need to tell the narrative of your warband and allow that narrative to be symbiotically linked to the games that you play. We hope that as narrative games and events continue to prosper in this new Age of Sigmar, more people will be willing to walk alongside us on the Path to Glory.
How can you follow us?
You can catch new episodes of Path to Story at Path to Story — The Mortal Realms, Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.
You can follow Will’s Path to Glory campaign on the Great Weave at Stormscale Covenant : The Great Weave.
Join us on Discord at themortalrealms.com/discord
You can also follow us on Twitter:
The Show – @pathtostory
Paul – @pjschard
Will – @SevvirElon
Spencer – @spencer_hulsey.
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Thank you folks, for making this new show happen!
This is an awesome initiative to help people around the world to better understand all the rules of the Path to Glory system, and how others are using the system to power their army narrative.
We’ll be listening in every episode, and hope to find more players across the table using the Path to Glory!
What about you, narrative players out there? Have you started your rosters yet? Are you brave enough to walk the Path to Glory?
Leave your questions for the hosts in the comments below.
Narrative Event Organizer Network 