After a 2019 spent sailing the stars of the Imperium, traversing the immaterium and defending the beleaguered worlds of Imperial Nihilus it felt like time for a change, and whilst we each will continue to improve our existing Warhammer 40k forces the call to war from the Mortal Realms was too strong to ignore.
We began our time as a a gaming and blogging foursome with an Age of Sigmar Tale of Four Gamers (hosted over on the WGO Forums). The blog series spanned 97 entries over 7 months, and really cemented the four of us as hobby bloggers!
As a side note, it was also the inspiration for this very blog!
There have been some seismic upheavals in the Mortal Realms since we last did battle there; the Stormvaults have been opened, the Ossiarch Bonereapers have risen from their crypts, and half a dozen new or revised battletomes have been launched, updating many of the ailing factions within the realms.
Our last Tale in the Mortal Realms had a pretty heavy Narrative vibe. After 12 months of more competitively focused 40k we're looking to inject a little more levity into this Tale and bring back some of the fun and chaos of our previous one.
Whilst there are lots of possible ways of building a narrative Campaign we're opted to go with a modified version of A Path to Glory; the escalating campaign system supported within each Battletome.
For those unaware of how it works; Path to Glory campaigns have players build forces and battle over the course of weeks/ months to earn Glory. Glory can be spent to both increase a players army size (by rolling for extra units), or to augment their existing forces with extra rules.
Units are split into Champions and Followers. Players Pick a Champion when the game begins to act as their Warlord. Based on the Champion picked they then augment their starting warbands with additional followers, with different strengthed Champions allowing more or less followers (for example, a mighty Lord Celestant on Stardrake, or a Frostlord on Stonehorn cannot take any followers, whereas a Goblin on Giant Cave Squig can take 4 followers)
As the Campaign continues players can spend their Glory to add extra units to their forces, with different units cost 1, 2 or 3 Glory based on their relative strength. In this way different units are loosely balanced in strength, to ensure a fun and semi-balanced game.
For our Tale we've injecting that extra element of Narrative flavour by adding in a few extra rules!
Our first house rule; Players are free to combine units from the full breadth of their Grand Alliance!
Unlike in 40k (where we all seemed to gravitate towards Emperor-worshipping "good" guys (speak for yourself: I was drawn unwillingly into service to the corpse on the Golden Throne and will be backsliding into heresy shortly! - Tim) ) Neil, Tim, James and myself all seem to have rather nicely subdivided ourselves into the four Great Alliances, and this little addition should help us diversify our forces (if we want to), explore other narrative or competitive options, or just bail out of a project we're losing steam with.
Our second house rule; Players gain at least 2 Glory per month, and must spend 1 on a unit and 1 on a rule.
Part of the fun of these escalation/ narrative games are watching units and armies grow and develop, and traditional Path to Glory encourages one or the other. In this way we hope to allow each player to build a fun army with lots of options, but also lots of narrative flavour!
Our third house rule; Players can buy half strength units from the Path to Glory Tables.
Some of the more powerful units in the game are know as Elite Followers, and require 2 or more glory to purchase. To make these units more accessible early on we're allowing players to buy said units, but at half strength for half the glory. For example, the Ossiarch Bonereapers Mortek Guard usually come as 10 models for 2 Glory, but in our case we'd allow a Player to buy 5 models for 1 Glory. Simples!
With these three rules in place it's time to meet the Warlords.
Grand Alliance: Destruction - Medge
Our last AoS Tale saw me go a little overboard! I started off with a Beastclaw Raiders faction, diversifying into Ironjaws as it became clear that 6 models wasn't going to work as a list! What I ended up with was a fairly impressive 4000 point Destruction horde featuring Iornjaws, Savage Orruks, Beastclaw Raiders, Aleguzzler Gargants and a Magma Dragon!!
Since the end of our last Tale the forces of Destruction have seen much needed upgrades; Battletome: Gloomspite Gitz, Battletome: Ogor Mawtribes and Battletome: Orruk Warclans have all been released, offering me a veritable buffet of new rules to try!
Having been sat on the Destruction halves of both Looncurse and Feast of Bones for a while I certainly have a solid starting position. But the question remains... Ogor or Grot?
Grand Alliance: Order - Neil
Order are my favoured grand alliance in Age of Sigmar so for this tale I have gone with another of the heroic factions trying to remove the taint of Chaos from the realms but rather than going for the noble Stormcast, the nascent Cities of Sigmar or even the wrathful (bloodthirsty) Daughters of Khaine, I have decided to pick the exotic Sylvaneth.
The Sylvaneth are a cool faction, being made up essentially of living trees who's goals and indeed thoughts are very different from any other faction in the game. From a painting perspective they give a canvas to blend the natural with the more magical with bark sitting alongside more spirit looking sections.
My aim for this tale is actually to get my rather large collection of Sylvaneth (that until now have just really sat in a series of different boxes) painted and onto the gaming table to mete out some leafy justice, and if possible to get a reasonable 2000 points list out of them.
Grand Alliance: Chaos - Tim
Last AoS tale I assembled a force of Maggotkin of Nurgle - an army which I was initially skeptical about but which went on to surprising success at our local club and at the Warhammer World AoS doubles tournament with James. As my playstyle is quite cagey and objective based it turns out that an army that can reliably sit comfortably on objectives and not go away suits me very well. The weird bursts of speed (run and charge, GUO bell and so on) that Nurgle is capable of also gel very well with my track record (sure to end in writing this) of making improbably long charges.
This tale I have again pledged my soul and plastic to the only true gods (rather than glorified johnny-come lately ex-inhabitants of the World that Was... sorry not sorry James and Matt). And speaking of the World that Was, I hear the call of the Everchosen... my army of the tale will be the Slaves to Darkness!
I'm drawn to this faction for a few reasons - the spikes; the brutal anti-Stormcast aesthetic (and I love how the Chaos Lord on Karkadrak and Liege Kavalos are each dark mirrors to the Dracoth mounted Lord Celestant); the spikes; the fact that they're the newest kids on the block (albeit in a book with rather questionable internal balance); the way I can mix them in with my Maggotkin and Bloodbound; the spikes; and the undisputed best faction acronym of Games Workshop (move over, Sisters of Battle).
My army will be a conversion-heavy spikefest with some external gestures to my existing Maggotkin (through converted marauders and Iron Golem) and shared basing to give me flexibility to combine them into a tournament or Throne of Skulls later in the year.
Mount up on your chaos crocodiles, and join me on the Path to Glory...
Last AoS tale I assembled a force of Maggotkin of Nurgle - an army which I was initially skeptical about but which went on to surprising success at our local club and at the Warhammer World AoS doubles tournament with James. As my playstyle is quite cagey and objective based it turns out that an army that can reliably sit comfortably on objectives and not go away suits me very well. The weird bursts of speed (run and charge, GUO bell and so on) that Nurgle is capable of also gel very well with my track record (sure to end in writing this) of making improbably long charges.
This tale I have again pledged my soul and plastic to the only true gods (rather than glorified johnny-come lately ex-inhabitants of the World that Was... sorry not sorry James and Matt). And speaking of the World that Was, I hear the call of the Everchosen... my army of the tale will be the Slaves to Darkness!
I'm drawn to this faction for a few reasons - the spikes; the brutal anti-Stormcast aesthetic (and I love how the Chaos Lord on Karkadrak and Liege Kavalos are each dark mirrors to the Dracoth mounted Lord Celestant); the spikes; the fact that they're the newest kids on the block (albeit in a book with rather questionable internal balance); the way I can mix them in with my Maggotkin and Bloodbound; the spikes; and the undisputed best faction acronym of Games Workshop (move over, Sisters of Battle).
My army will be a conversion-heavy spikefest with some external gestures to my existing Maggotkin (through converted marauders and Iron Golem) and shared basing to give me flexibility to combine them into a tournament or Throne of Skulls later in the year.
Mount up on your chaos crocodiles, and join me on the Path to Glory...
Grand Alliance: Death - James
Once again I stand the representative of the one true Master of all the Realms - The Grand Necromancer, Nagash
For the last Tale I lead a mighty Nighthaunt procession across the realms in the aftermath of the Necroquake, sending a great many souls down to Shyish as part of the Great Work. Now my new army stands ready and waiting to be unleashed as I take up arms with the mightiest of Nagash's creations - the Ossiarch Bonereapers
Once I saw the initial reveal for this army I knew I'd end up with a whole force of them. They've been given a great aesthetic by the design studio, having very clearly been designed as a dark parody of the Stormcast Eternals. Backing up their gorgeous models are some really interesting and powerful rules that should see me having a great final army at the end of the project.
My goal for this Tale will be to use it as a springboard into a full 2000 point army that I can then take to one of the Warhammer World Throne of Skulls, something I've been looking at doing for quite some time now. For now however there's the Tale and a Path to Glory to enjoy. My Legion prepares for war and it will offer all a simple choice:
Pay us the tithe, or become it...
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