The third installment of the famed “Shadow in the West” narrative event is set to take place later this month, in Wolverhampton on the 26th and 27th October, as part of the launch of the new Shadowcon convention!
Known for its mysteries, vs-team intrigue games and political backstabbings prompted by larger-than-life characters, this AoS event ran by the Nacho Mommas Wargaming Club pits players taking sides in the not-so-civil wars and conflicts over the kingdom of New Albion, in the Realm of Shadow.
This year, after civil war wracked the kingdom in the wake of a succession crisis (the vampire king died!) and players fought over it across two events, rulership under the new lycan king has brewed unrest. The Black Market Trading Co. syndicate under the enterprising grot-captain Toadsmasha is clashing with the king’s enforcers led by Lord Meatgut. Old allies reorient their allegiances and new mercenaries are called in, to join either side in this new conflict, fought in the alleys and valleys of New Albion.
The figure slowly made his way down to the gallows. The crowd murmured and whispered. It was none other than Lord Meatgut himself, Marquis of Sorgian, and the right hand of the King.
Toadsmasha hissed and went to move forward. Qlik put his claw on the grot’s arm. “Not-now, not-now!” he hissed.
Meatgut strode up to Elenaril, slow and deliberate. He nodded to the executioner, who freed her from his knot. With one hand, Meatgut held the lithe Aelf close to him, holding her chin between his giant fingers so as to look into her sea grey eyes.
“What do you see? Huh?” he whispered to her. “Did you see this moment?” moving closer to her. “Did you foresee how you would end? Tell me Aelf, where is he? Huh, where is Toadsmasha? Tell me and I’ll end this.”
She remained silent and her grey eyes looked right through him. He turned to the crowd with a slight flourish, holding Elenaril tight to him.
“The so-called Black Market Trading Company is to be disbanded. Piracy is a crime in New Albion, and the crown will not tolerate it. Any, and I mean any, who so much as looks up on piracy without informing the act will find themselves here! At Gallows Hill! Any found trading with pirates will be brought here! Any holding goods for pirates or hiding pirates will be brought here!” his anger grew with every sentence.
“It will not be tolerated!” spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted across the crowd, the boom of his voice masking the loud crack.
He dropped Elenaril as if she were a ragdoll and strode off from the gallows back into the building. The lithe and tender Aelf was broken, and soul was gone. Her lifeless face stared out at the crowd, her grey eyes landing on Toadsmasha.
None cheered. None made a sound as they filtered out of the courtyard onto the muddy path back down to Burrhåven.
The rain fell heavy that morning on Gallows Hill.
The Nacho Mommas team of NEOs consists of Tom (@korvaks_saga), Damien (@Sigmars_Revenge), Jon (@wackcjack) and Ol (@OB1138).
We chatted with them about what players can expect from this year’s installment: “Black Market Wrath”.
Q: Please summarize the event for us, and what players can expect.
A: There has been an 8 year time jump from the events of Trials and Treachery and Ross McLenteth (Jon’s character) has ruled over New Albion bringing an age of prosperity. However he has been an absent king for the last few years and Meatgut (Damien’s character) has been allowed to run rampant across the land. This led to him killing one of the 8 kings, a faction of pirates led by Toadsmasha (Ols character). This has led to an uprising amongst the citizens of New Albion and the 8 kings are determined to get rid of the Lycan king.
So players will join the forces of Meatgut or Toadsmasha as they either try to protect the king and Kal’dor Keep, or bring the king to his knees. It will be played out over 6 games across the weekend, not all necessarily will be full games of AoS though …
Q: Will there be mystery and intrigue games this year? What narrative innovations and special rules will you be deploying this time? Heard tell there will be a siege…
A: No mystery element this year, just an all out fight across the land of New Albion to try and take or protect the kingdom. We will again have Kal’dor Keep represented by a table at the event where there may be a little siege taking place but we can’t give away too much.
Meatgut is trying to capture and kill the rest of the Eight Kings across the weekend so that will be a side quest for the players. The Eight Kings will be hidden amongst Toadsmashas generals and if they lose the game they have to hand over the king they are hiding, although there are rumors of decoys having been deployed.
We are also bringing back Soulstone from last year’s event as it was a blast. This was a vital resource during Trials and Treachery that allowed the players to break the rules of the game over the weekend. By paying their opponents an amount of soulstone, agreed between the two of them, players could do anything in the games. For example one player paid soulstone to keep rolling casting rolls for a hand of Gork spell, another paid soulstone to have a face off between heroes that could not be interrupted and another used 3 soulstone to buy a bag of sweets… so they can do anything they want with it!
Q: The event format is very particular, running on only 1200pts per army and fully in the new 4th edition rules, with even more army building restrictions lifted. You even invite players to bring their own Anvil of Apotheosis Heroes, based on the new editions’ tables. Tell us a bit more about your reasons for this format.
A: One of the big reasons we decided to run this event is because we love seeing what amazing hobbyists are able to bring to the tables for their armies. Attending events ourselves we always felt that 2000 points in a year was too big a commitment for a lot of players to do something new and exciting for each event. This lead us to running a 1000 points event giving people that opportunity to bring a new force every year if they wanted to and we hope gave them more opportunities to be creative with their armies.
In terms of removing the other list building restrictions and Anvil characters we just wanted people to have the freedom to tell the story they wanted within our little world. This was again done to give the players more opportunities to be creative and we have had some rather funky lists come out of it. Last year the most memorable was one of the Witney NEOs, Charles, who brought a list of 10 Khorne Heros. It was great!
This was all great until GW announced a new edition a few months before the event. We knew this more than likely coming so had it in the back of our minds. Jon love spreadsheets and so when the new edition dropped he built a sheet with new and old points for all the units in the game and found there was around a 20% points increase per unit on average. This is what lead to the 1200 point limit as we still wanted the games to feel similar to previous years. The new edition of AoS has actually worked out great for us as a whole and play testing of the battleplans has been a blast.
Lastly it’s been great to see some of the players this year take the 1200 points per game and run wild with it. Basically one of our players asked if it had to be the same list for every game. We took a moment to deliberate and decided no. As long as players field 1200 points per game go nuts! So we know of one player this year that has 7 different 1200 point lists written. Before each game his opponent will choose at random which list they will be fighting against, which will then be removed for the rest of the weekend. We can’t wait to see what happens with it!
Q: What kind of team dynamics and strategic actions will players be able to experience? This year the main team leaders are the ogre Lord Meatgut and the grot Captain Toadsmasha, each played by one of your NEO team members who have played in previous events, right?
A: So Meatgut and Toadsmasha are played by Damien and Ol who this year won’t be represented in games (they get everyone else to do their dirty work 😂).
Players are again fighting for control of the regions of New Albion for their teams. That will determine advantages throughout the games for each team. We are also bringing back food and wealth rules for this year so players will be able to fight to make sure they are rich or not hungry!
Q: This year you are growing the event into a 2-day small convention. Tell us a bit more of what attendees can experience at Shadowcon.
A: Last year, whilst speaking to some of our attendees about what they had paid for the attending the weekend in terms of hotels and food on top of the ticket price, it got us thinking. One of the NEOs works in a boarding school and we wondered if that was a viable option. Turns out it was!
So for the ticket price this year attendees are getting accomodation for 2 nights and food for 2 days as well as the gaming for 2 days. We are going to have some smaller games running on the Friday night in the common rooms with a few beers. We have plans to run an activity in the morning of the Saturday across the school grounds and on the Saturday night we have turned our usual quiz into a nightly spectacular called Blankety Tasks for Right Prices!
We have some more ideas that we are hoping to utilise in the future as the event grows and becomes more recognised.
Q: What would you like to say to players out there, to motivate them to attend Shadow in the West 2024?
A: If you love narrative story based gaming with some unique ideas and hanging out with great people look us up!
Thank you, Nacho Mommas!
We will be following the event online, so please post lots of pictures on social media!
You can follow ‘A Shadow in the West’ on Twi..*cough* X @ShadowInTheWest for updates, photos and more events to come.
You can find the Event Rules pack here for more details and tickets.
All tickets have been sold as of now, but sign up for the waitlist if you live nearby and plan on stopping by: there are always dropouts! (true story)
Even if you don’t manage to get a spot to play, do make the trip to the Con if you can, and watch the amazing hobby and narrative play that players will bring: if previous years have shown anything, it’ll be an amazing experience. And you will be able to grab some of Ol’ official Shadow in the West artwork!
You can find more of Ol’s art at @four_moons_printing.
What do you think about this event?
Do you have any questions for the NEOs, and how they have grown a narrative event into a small convention?
Leave your comments below!
Narrative Event Organizer Network 