A few months ago in November, Milarki held their first Age of Sigmar narrative event in Karlstad, Sweden.
The event was tied into the finale of the first chapter of their ongoing storyline, which logs in casual AoS games from around the world through their platform, Milarki.com.
We asked the organizers, Anders “Bobben” Larsson & Kim Sellstedt, to tell us a bit of how it went, how they used the Milarki site rankings to influence the event, and advice for aspiring event organizers.
Kim & Anders:
We closed chapter one with the big battle we called ‘In the shadow of the World Axis’.
The pre-event spanned the whole of October and November leading up to the actual physical event on the 20th of November as an end date. In October, each battle registered on the Milarki website counted toward each alliance and their ability to maneuver into a superior position on the eve of the battle. The result decided which grand alliance would receive small bonus cards at the actual event. These card had a variety of one use effects on them and they could be used once during the event. This way, the single player rankings from our website did not decide the victory scoring, since we felt that this would reduce the sense of everyone fighting for a common goal to win the battle at the event itself.
Then came November and the actual battle. Just as in the previous month, the battles registered counted toward each grand alliance to see who actually won the epic battle between the four warlords. We talked a little bit about them in the last article here on the NEON site, but in short we have four warlords that each represent the grand alliances.
* Garlock Suresteel represents Order and is a Lord Celestant tasked with leading a Dawnbringer crusade to Meridia. He has received instructions from Sigmar to claim the tower the locals call the World Axis.
* Kaela Wurmslayer represent Chaos and is a Darkoath queen leading the local defenders against the invading army. They use the old ruins as a moot site and ritual burial site for their elders and heroes.
* Forian Borsch is a Vengorian Lord tasked with finding an artefact of great power for his mistress Lauka vai. It comes as no surprise that he represents Death in this conflict. He knows that the old tower holds a secret and that beneath it lies buried something powerful.
* Teefsplitta is something of a dark horse in the conflict. He is a Wurrgog prophet of Gorkamorka and lead a tribe of Drakfoots. They hunt daemons and as they hunt a particularly infamous Bloodthirster they end up on a glacier far above the conflict brewing beneath them. As fate would have it he spots drake riders scouting the area and pick up the weird energies coming from the brewing conflict below. So they set of downhill to join in whatever is going on.
The fun part here was that since it was the games registered on the site that drove the battle there was no way of knowing who would win. The statistic showed death going strong in October but lost momentum as the real battle started but Destruction had almost no games in October leaving them far behind as November began. Lo and behold. As the event was closing, Destruction had sailed past chaos and won leaving death and order in the dirt. It was the only scenario that we hadn’t planed for – love it.
If you want to read the short story about the battle check it out HERE.
With 23 players in total, the four grand Alliances fought for control over a fortification guarding the entrance to the valley where the ruins called the World Axis were located. It was a team effort where one alliance would win together.
Rules-wise it was 3 games with 1000p armies. No unit could cost more than 300p. We felt like it would lend itself better to the narrative of a battle with more battleline units and less monsters and heroes. We also added custom battleplans that suited our three rounds.
We released the battlepack used in the event so that other players around the globe could play the event themselves as well. In the future this is something we will focus more on, since we want to bring the story to all our Milarki players around the world. We hope more people will join in and play with us next time we do an event.
One of the best things about hosting an event like this is the wide mix of players joining and playing together. We had people from the Swedish world team playing, we had Rob The Honest Wargamer (@Sixdiceskills) also playing with us. But at the same time we had a father and his 11 year old son with us and everyone had a great time. Seeing one of the top players in the world play against a beginner and helping out making it a fun game for both is a very rewarding experience. And also, making local players meet and realize that there are more players around them is super rewarding.
What have we learnt from hosting an event like this? Time…. That everything takes time. And you need to be super clear with everyone.
And also to give our players more time with their games. We had a round time of 1h 45 min and that was to short. Especially for the new players. But we needed to squish 3 games in that day. So we are looking at other ways for next time.
Also to check the technical equipment ahead of time if you can. We had issues with the projector at the venue so we couldn’t show the prepared graphics at the start of the event. And you also need an organizer that make sure that everything runs smoothly. As we said before, everything takes more time than you think. Getting coffee for everyone on time is more important than you know.
Looking ahead we are working on a re-design of the milarki.com site that will help the players get a bigger picture of Meridia and the story.
With almost 700 users we continue to work hard to bring them new features that will further enhance their gaming experience.
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Thank you, Kim and Anders!
We will be following the rest of the story unfold online, so please keep us updated with how the narrative is developing!
For more questions, they have an FAQ page!
You can find the Milarki website here for more details and to sign up!
Keep up with more Milarki updates through their Casual Fridays episodes on Youtube!
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