The fourth installment of the ever growing “Shadow in the West” narrative event is set to take place later this month, in Wolverhampton on the 25th and 26th October, as part of the 2nd installment of the ShadowCon convention!

Known for its mysteries, rival team intrigue games and political backstabbings prompted by larger-than-life characters, this AoS event ran by the Nacho Mommas Wargaming Club has in the past pitted players against each other in not-so-civil wars and black market racketeering over the kingdom of New Albion, in the Realm of Shadow.

This year, as a stark contrast, players are visiting instead the shining shores of Hysh, the Realm of Light. Hunting for treasure. 
On request of the Emperor of Castelia, on whose domain rest these mysterious treasures which he requires help unearthing.

“Fifty years ago! For fifty years they were just sat there, ripe for the taking! If only we knew! Then they came and destroyed them, shattered them into pieces and left them like they were nothing!”
He finally sat on his throne.
“Are we sure that they are still there?” Said the tall lithe figure, his face hidden behind a mask of black and white.
“Oh, quite sure. Yes, my friend, quite sure” said the Emperor, assuring his right-hand man.
The Emperor stood up once more, slowly pacing towards the window overlooking the wasteland of Aveinus.
“What better place to hide such treasures as these? Ulgu, ha, no, far too obvious. The ruinous powers will have armies scouring every last shadowy corner of that realm. No, they came, they found them, and they shattered them and left them over there in that waste.”
“You’re quite sure?” Asked the masked man.
“My spies seldom fail me, Cardinal, and information paid for confirms it. Sigmar had his toy soldiers dismantle them and leave them here. In a quiet corner, in the realm of light, where nothing, not even truth can be hidden. Pah!”
“Then we send an army to scour…”
“No!” The Emperor interrupted the Cardinal.
“It will leave us open. It will leave us weak. No. We need to find…”
“Others” continued a shorter man, concealed in the only shadow in the room.
“We need to send others, tell them they are hunting treasure, give it to them. Stars above, give them the land, free of tax and caveats, then offer riches for these pieces, call them what they are, the Shards of Sigmar, they’re…”
“No! It draws too much attention, call them” he stopped to think for a moment. “Call them Relics of the Realms” he finished as he sat on his throne.
“Alert the eight principalities of Castelia, inform them that under my decree they have licence to pull together four of their finest treasure hunters with a small retinue. They can keep whatever treasure they find, and claim whatever land they win, but these relics will be returned to the palace. Failure to do so will result in death”.
For a split second, the glint in the Emperor’s eye shone the yellow of Aetherquartz.
“It will be done my lord” said the shadowy figure, silently retreating from the room.

The Nacho Mommas team of NEOs consists of Damien (@damo.paints), Jon (@divineauthoritygames) and Ol (@blackdog1138).

We chatted with them about what players can expect from this year’s installment: “Relics of the Realms”.


Q: Please summarize the event for us, and what players can expect.
A: Damo – After the finale of last year and Ross McLenteth essentially blowing up new albion our story has moved into the realm of Hysh. The land of Castellia is being ruled over by Emperor Valeon who wants to expand his empire into the unexplored northern territories of Avenius. This is where the players come in. They will be spending the weekend hunting for lost relics in the northern territories and claiming the lands for themselves. 
Jon – Event wise players can expect all of the usual chaos and drama that we are known for. 
Ol – We might be in the realm of light but there are still shady deals and events happening.


Q: This year you have moved to a new format, which is 4-person teams, each representing the treasure hunters hired by one of the provinces of Castelia. Each person still plays one-on-one games with a 1000pt army, but they will have to coordinate some goals with their team, right?
A:  Damo – Yep everyone will still play one on one games but each team is working towards a common goal of collecting their pieces of the lost relics in the hopes the emperor will look upon them kindly. The theme for this year initially came from the idea of running a mega game where people would play massive games of Age of Sigmar but as the rules man I felt this was a little too ambitious for this year.
Jon – We have four roles that the teams have to fulfill and will have to coordinate between themselves to achieve their goals over the weekend. (more below)


Q: There will be many small player teams now, instead of a few larger factions like in previous years (which featured some very characterful planning sessions, from what we heard). Will they all scurry into their own corner to have their secret conversations, or do you allow/expect alliances to form, or information/item trading to be the norm?
A: Damo – There is definitely going to be trading of information and items involved! The teams will have their 4 roles they need to fulfill:

– The Envoy to the emperor will be forming the council of Castellia and debating and voting on scenarios that will affect the outcome of games.
– The Quartermaster will be in charge of the teams finances (this year the currency is Aetherquartz replacing the soulstone from previous years).
– The Archivist will be deep in research solving puzzles to gain insight to the relics.
– The Relic Broker will be in charge of procuring the pieces of the relics that the team needs by bartering and trading with the other teams.


Jon – We have tried to create a balance of roles that require people to be sociable and interact with their co-players for the weekend; with others that are slightly more individual, to allow those players who need to recharge between games, the chance to do that.

Ol – We felt it was important to give people options for what they wanted to do with their time between games. The Envoy and Relic Broker are roles that require the trading and negotiating with other players whilst the Archivist and Quartermaster are slightly more insular roles. 
Damo – I fully expect alliances to form and to be honest would be disappointed if no one tried to overthrow the NEOs. It is what we would do!!


Q: You always include mystery and inter-team intrigue games in your events, and this year these relics are already looking very suspicious. Are there any mechanics of how this works that you can share with us? 
A:  Damo – I’ll leave this to Jon as he keeps telling us not to give too much away!
Jon – No comment.


Q: What Narrative innovations and special rules will you be allowing players to use this year? 
A: Damo – This year instead of table rules, as the players will be playing in the unexplored territories of Aveinus, we have seasonal rules for each game. The events of the story take place over the course of a year, so players will be playing across all 4 seasons. Each season has an associated rule that will be in effect for that game. As an example, in Winter the teams will be playing in heavy snowfall so ranged weapons will be affected. We are also bringing back the currency we have had in previous years but with a clearer focus this year.

Jon – Each player also has their Relic Hunter that has a custom warscroll. The warscrolls will morph over the weekend depending on the in-game feats of the Relic Hunters, both good and bad!

Ol – We are also bringing back the currency we have had in previous years. This year as we have moved to Hysh players will be gaining Aetherquartz rather than soulstone. We encourage the players to use this with their opponents to break the game rules and allow them to tell interesting stories on the tables over the weekend. We always look forward to seeing what they will come up with! 


Q: You made sure to stress that “Anyone who would try to cheese the custom model’s base restrictions will be punished”. Aha! To the point.
Sometimes event organizers tend to tread lightly when it comes to player restrictions and expectations, and try to be super-transparently professional due to players getting upset about rules not being clear. But you seem very comfortable to make clear that NEOs will have the authority to call all the shots, with a potential surprise penalty that nobody can predict. Hehe.
For the benefit of other NEOs who might be reading this and undecided on how to communicate their “event authority” and rules, explain a bit your reasoning and why you feel comfortable with that.
A: Damo – to be honest for me it comes down to the group of players that we have coming to the event. We know a lot of them very well due to the close knit nature of the narrative scene in the UK. They are all a wonderful group of people who we know will react well to whatever we put in place for the weekend. The new players that come every year also quickly pick up on the vibe of the event and roll with whatever we throw at them. I think you need to be clear on your expectations for the event and that the majority of the time is enough. The players are there to create a story over the weekend and 99% of the time you don’t actually need to enforce the rules. 

Jon – the most important thing is the players enjoying the weekend and sometimes, intentionally or not, other co-players can have an effect on this. As NEOs it is our responsibility to make sure that everyone is having fun and if that means we need to step in, we have contingencies in place for this.
Ol – But like we said we rarely ever have to do this. Everyone is just there to have a good time and our attendees are an awesome group of people. 


Q: In the previous events, your story developed the kingdom of New Albion in the Realm of Shadows, with input from player narratives influencing the direction of the politics’ shenanigans. This time, you’re giving player’s characters settlement rights in this new… wasteland (?) in Castelia. Are there plans to let players influence the next steps in the story of Castelia by their armies putting down roots in this place?
A: Ol – The last 3 years in New Albion, some of the players named some of the cities which we are expanding this year. The players will have a chance to name all of the regions in Aveinus and they are able to create their own stories for these places that will feature more widely in the story for year 5. We always look forward to seeing the narrative our players create.

Q: Last year you grew the narrative event into a 2-day small convention, in a very nice venue. Tell us a bit how that went, and anything you changed on how you are running it this year.
A: Damo – The inaugural ShadowCon went fantastically well and was a great send off to New Albion. The feel of the event was fantastic and having the gaming and accommodation all in one place created a great feeling for the weekend. We are still working on the “convention” side of things as our main focus is on the narrative event. It is still our dream for the future to grow the Con side of ShadowCon to the point where we have multiple game systems going with vendors selling goods. Currently our only vendor is Ol with his printing business Four Moons. 

Ol – For the first time we have returned to a venue as it has everything we require to fully immerse the players in the event for the weekend. It is great having everything we need in one place; food, accommodation and gaming, with extra space for the teams to be able to breakout in. 


Q: What would you like to say to players out there, to motivate them to attend ShadowCon 2025?
A: Damo – Do it!
Ol – Come have fun and enjoy!

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Thank you, Nacho Mommas!

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.

Tickets for Relics of the Realms are all sold out at the moment, but if you can make it, contact the organizers and sign up for the waitlist just in case: there are always dropouts! (true story).
Or if you just want to hang out, browse the con wares, watch the event and chat with other narrative players, it will surely be worth the trip.

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 like this?
Leave your comments below!

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