They are back at it again! The Pendleton Wargaming has another big narrative event around the corner, at Squig City 2025 in Pendelton OR, USA, on the 26-28 of April 2025!

This narrative event will already be the 4th annual narrative event of the Pendleton Wargaming Group, and this year, it’s a doubles naval event! With multiplayer battles!

With the theme of Aqshy’s Ravaged Coast driving the narrative this season, this event was built, plank by plank, to deliver players a good swashbuckling, treasure-hunting experience, with LOTS of customization for their Admirals and ships.

We chatted with the lead NEO for the event, Ethan Mellville (@NillieBoi) about what players can expect from it. 

Q: Please summarize the event for us, and what players can expect.
A: This year is going to be an interesting one for sure! We are centering the theme of the Tides of War Grand Narrative around an island in the Vitriol Sea, and so we are including naval battles!
In addition to a number of tropical and pirate themed tables, each with a custom battleplan, we are attempting to host a series of 2v2 naval battles, using 3 full size ocean mats, and a series of handmade islands, to represent large scale naval warfare in the Age of Sigmar. Each player will get to participate in a naval battle during the weekend, and then on Sunday we will determine the fate of the Twinflame Isles with a series of 4v4 mega battles!


Q: The ships that players can bring can have customizable upgrades. How did you decide to implement these?
A: We wanted to carry on with the tradition of using/adapting additional upgrades for our heroes, and extend that idea to the vessels our players will use during their naval battle. After all, with the size of the ship models, we felt that this would be a fun way of adding a unique flavor and ability to those units, so that each player’s ship can feel like a character of its own.

We have 2 sizes of Sea Vessels: Galleons and Frigates. Galleons, being much larger, have upgrades that are focused on either increasing their potential damage output, or their resistance to damage, as vessels built to withstand the most brutal of combat on the high seas. Frigates, being a bit smaller and having less health, find their usefulness comes from their increased speed, and the upgrades available to Frigates either increase their speed, or improve their utility in other ways. One of our event staff, Keith Udy, did have the crazy idea of borrowing the “Rampaging Destruction” ability from Kragnos’ Warscroll, and modifying it to become the “Hel’s Head Explosive Battering Ram” upgrade, with the potential of doing a high amount of damage to enemy Sea Vessels once per game. And so that was a mechanic we felt had to be included! Depending on list composition, army lore, etc. some players may feel more fitted using a Frigate, and others a Galleon. And so when players are teamed up for their 2v2 naval battle, they will get to work together to choose the ships and upgrades that feel right to them. 


Q: The entire event includes several battleplans tailored specifically to work off of mechanics in event, like treasure dobloons and so on, as well as custom Command Traits like your previous events. Players will also be playing as doubles teams, and in the big multiplayer battles. Explain us a bit how these things will play out.
A: After participating in one of the more recent Animosity global narrative campaigns, I felt that the inclusion of campaign or event factions was something that I really wanted to include moving forward. I appreciated that the Animosity team created a structure where players from different and often opposing Grand Alliances can create situations where they work together towards a common cause. 

And so this year, we followed suit by introducing the following factions: The Coalition, The Pirate Rebellion, The Mercenary Companies, and the Skitterfleet. Players are free to choose the faction that best fits their background and character motivations. To help tell the stories of the successes of these factions, we decided to print out a large number of doubloon tokens. These tokens have different values, and can be earned by the players in several ways. Players will be able to turn those into the event team to count towards their factions’ event score (or perhaps keep them for themselves if they are enticed by riches.) This is a way of helping tell the story of how the factions are progressing towards their goals throughout the weekend, without directly impacting a player’s individual event score.

This year’s finale will feature a series of climactic 4v4 multiplayer battles, each representing a fight to control a different part of the Twinflame Isles, where the faction members will fight alongside each other over the course of two 3 hour rounds (with a hefty break in between.) After the blood is washed away, and the doubloons are counted, we will find out which of the 4 factions revels in victory!


Q: You have been running narrative events for your group for a good while now, and more and more people are joining. Tell us a bit how their reception has been to the introduction of more and crazier narrative rules.
A:  While we are excited to have 8 new players joining us for the first time this year, including some for whom this will be their first 2 day event, the majority of our player base this year has participated in 1 or more of our previous events.
Being in a pretty rural area, for many of our players, this is the primary event that they participate in during the year. And so our event team works hard to find a balance of trying to introduce new ideas to the tabletop to draw people in and keep them excited, like with these naval battles, while also trying to avoid going overboard (pun intended) and making it too stressful to remember everything. That is something that we were a bit concerned about this year, and so tried to really focus on the things that have worked well for us previously: unique secondary objectives, custom traits, and unique battleplans. That way, the players can instead spend most of their time and mental energy on what we are all here to do, which is to tell fun and interesting stories on the tabletop together. 


Q: Your events are now been a part of Squig City Con, can you explain a bit how they fit into the convention structure and the extra vendors/activities players can experience while they are there? Local conventions are always great as a vehicle to build up our events.
A: Hosting an event at our local resort is very fun because there are several restaurants at the location, as well as an arcade, bowling alley, and movie theatre so there is plenty to do in between games. Then players have access to lodging that is within the venue itself. And so the conveniences associated with the event’s location go a long way towards improving the experience of our players. The space is large enough that we are able to work with a nearby hobby store, Hobby Habit, as a vendor, which strengthens the bond and working relationship between that store and our local community.  

We hosted our first fully in person event back in 2023, and in order to help with the cost of securing a venue, hosted a 40K RTT alongside our narrative finale for that year. Since then, we have hosted both our 2 Day AoS Grand Narrative alongside a Grand Tournament for Warhammer 40K. As with many communities, you’ll find that is much easier to sell tickets for a GT for 40K, and that is something that we have utilized to secure the venue that we have now, Wildhorse Resort & Casino. Beyond those initial benefits of working closely with your 40K community, I think it is very important for our Narrative Communities to be featured and visible at these events. It is a very satisfying feeling when you see players coming in for a competitive 40K GT as they stop and stare at the thematic AoS tables, and wonder just what in the heck is going on over on the our side of the event hall!
It is a great opportunity to draw people in, and can help spark narrative interest, both for Age of Sigmar, as well as to help show that they could be telling these awesome stories with their 40K armies too! You never know when that work you put into a narrative event might catch someone’s eye, and spark the interest and creativity in them to go on and host something and tell a story of their own.

Q: What would you like to say to players out there, to motivate them to come to Tides of War and future events from the Pendleton Wargaming group?
A: We at Pendleton Wargaming take a great deal of pride in hearing from players who have driven up to 8 hours to come join us for our Narrative Events, or from players for which this was their first ever event for Age of Sigmar. It signals to us that, even in a region like the Pacific Northwest, known for some very talented and competitive communities, that there is a real interest in narrative events out there, and we are always excited to hear that we have the opportunity to introduce someone new to a community of players that come together to support each other and be immersed in great stories over a weekend of rolling dice on the tables. We’d love to see you at the next one!

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Thank you, Ethan!

We will be following the event online, so please post lots of pictures on social media!

You can find the Event Rules page here for more details and tickets.

There are still tickets available, grab yours before it’s too late!!!
And if they happen to be all taken, sign up for the waitlist: there are always dropouts! (true story)
What do you think about this event?
Do you have any questions for the NEO, and how to grow these games with cool special rules, in your local community?
Leave your comments below!

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