My Narrative League Battles

[Luke82]

I thought I would share my Warband’s progress in the narrative league I’m playing in at the minute. Narrative play is awesome so there should be more of it on here and hopefully people give it a try.

The league is a real basic campaign where units and heroes have a chance to gain bonuses or be wiped out between games. All rewards, artefacts, spells etc need to be earned and are random to stop it becoming just another list building exercise.

My warband is led by a Sorcerer Lord called Mortvein, who was a doctor in an insane asylum who began to spread disease among his patients and eventually pledged himself to Nurgle. He leads his group of polluted mad men pillaging around the realms with his acolyte Scrod the Bilious (Nurgle Sorcerer) and bodyguard Clogg the Unsanitary (Lord of Plagues) in tow. His warband contains marauders made up from his ex patients, blightkings and chaos warriors drawn to his cause, Nurglings and warhounds who flock around the band, and the rotten knights known as the flyblown prices. 

The battle of Hobbs End Farm

When Melvor the farmhand dug up a strange chunk of glowing stone on his farmstead he had no ideas the trouble he would cause by mentioning it on his next trip to market. Once the local Temple of Sigmar heard about it they sent one of their warrior priests to ascertain the nature of the stone and whether or not it could be the lost Stone of Mungle, a fabled relic of great power.

However, the stone was not only of interest to the local clergy, for the ruinous powers soon began to whisper to their champions to claim the stone for themselves. The Sorcerer of Nurgle craved the stone, convinced it’s power could help bring his patron daemon into this world. The seers of Lord Magnon, who’s raiding party of northern barbarians had just touched down on these shores, had convinced the avaricious Lord that the stone would bring vast riches to its bearer.

The warrior priest and his retinue had no idea what was about to hit them, and as they prepared to leave the farmhouse with the stone they saw the gathered warbands on the outskirts of the farm... they would have to protect the stone and prevent it from falling into the hands of Chaos.

For this battle the farmhouse and objective were set up in the centre of the board, with the two armies coming in from opposite table edges. My Nurgle warband had to take on my opponent’s Slaves to Darkness warband, and the defenders of the objective would run themselves, not moving and always fighting first in the combat phase due to their defensive position. 

The battle soon became a big bloody brawl in the courtyard of the farmhouse, with the warrior priest and freeguild guard sergeant going full Rambo and holding off two chaos forces for 8 turns... when they finally fell there was a tell tale crack of lightning as two more heroes were spirited away to Azyr!

The barbarians had a clear initial advantage, despite the guard sergeant single handedly fending off two units of chaos warriors. The marauder’s giants were very effective at keeping the nurgle warband away from the prize, but eventually the blightkings plodded into the battle and their arrival proved the tipping point as they slew the giants and entered the courtyard to overwhelm the barbarians. Once the Nurgle knights swept round from the rear Lord Magnon saw the writing on the wall and called his remaining minions away, leaving Mortvein to dig the relic out of the pile of bodies. It turned out not to be the Stone of Mungle but a Beguiling Gem, one he was sure would make a good offering for summoning his patron. As he fled, Lord Magnon pledged to take the Gem off of the foul spell slinger, and swore an oath of vengeance!

After the battle my knights earned a bonus to their ensorcelled weapons, getting +1 to wound rolls with them. The Beguiling Gem was my leader’s reward, if he could hold onto it. 

 

The Summoning

Mortvein had found a suitable site for the summoning ritual, a foul pool that could birth his patron, and the Beguiling Gem would make a suitable offering. As he prepared the ceremony there was a long blast on a warhorn... the Lord Magnon and his Northmen had found them and were preparing an attack! Mortvein instructed his minions to hold off the barbarians, for he had to complete the foul ritual to bring the Greater Daemon into this reality.

I had five turns to summon the daemon, during which my general could do nothing, and the barbarians had to try and stop me. 

The battle was savage with my knights and warriors charging out to take on the enemy, and the marauder gargants again making huge dents in my forces. The Nurgle forces held back the barbarians well, but the ritual was nearly interrupted when a barbarian  gargant burst through the lines and took on the blightkings guarding the  Nurgle Sorcerer. Though blightkings hacked into it, and the giant nearly toppled onto Mortvein, which would surely halt the ceremony... alas, the gargant fell the other way, merely squishing an unfortunate Blightking.

It looked certain that the ceremony would be complete when at the last minute a chaos chariot came tearing around a rock on a 11+ charge, clashing into Clogg the bodyguard. The chaos chariot was now just in range to hit the Nurgle Sorcerer in the face with it’s lash and halted the ceremony at the last minute, sending Mortvein scurrying off the field with his retinue, some Northmen wresting the Beguiling Gem from him as he fled. Lord Magnon had his jewel!

After the battle the Flyblown Knights had suffered telling casualties and lost their bonus. The Northmen marauders were rewarded by Lord Magnon for obtaining the jewel with fine weaponry, giving them -1 rend and increasing their fearsomeness greatly.

[Luke82]

Big Trouble in Troll Country

The orb had been swirling around the valley for but a few hours before it attracted the attention of the local warlords. For Prince Ulthred and his Northern Barbarians it represented a great prize to be pillaged and parades in front of his fellow warlords. The leader of the Deepkin raiding party wished to destroy it, to prevent the barbarians whose longships had violated their territorial waters from getting their prize. For the Nurgle Sorcerer Mortvein it was a source of arcane power to draw from and bolster his magics.... and for the Trolls it was their shiny fing that all these intruders wanted to knick or smash up!

A multiplayer battle! The orb was placed in the centre of the battlefield, and would move 2D6” in a random direction each turn from the second. The barbarians had to get three models in base contact with the orb and move it off the battlefield edge, the Deepkin had to destroy it, and my general had to cast three specific spells on the orb to win. The trolls had to stop all these warbands from doing their missions (and had twice as many points as every one else!)

The battle moved quickly with the trolls spreading out from the centre of the field to take on the intruders. The my knights were seriously damaged by a rock troll charge but managed to kill one in return, causing the other two to turn tail and flee... the celebrations of my knights were short lived however as the Super troll that charged them soon finished them and a unit of warriors off! The barbarians had similar woes with a Super Troll causing 11 wounds to their Curs’d Ettin in one mighty hammer blow!

The orb swung wildly towards the Norsemen marauders and they managed to control it, and the table edge was in sight! Their chaos warrior allies held off the trolls and the marauders looked certain to carry the jewel off when out of no where some Deepkin eel riders swooped over a hill to charge the orb, shattering it. The Mermen won the day, but now the Troll herd was angry and on the rampage.

My poor Sorcerer got nowhere near his object, and sought revenge on the accursed fishmen who destroyed the orb!

 

The ambush

Mortvein first heard the aethersea sweep over the rocks near his chosen ambush site, then saw the wild variety of beasts that the fishmen had mastered sweep into the gulley. Drawing his sword, he ordered his men to their task... bring him the head of the Deepkin general!

A straight up fight, my Nurgle charging the Deepkin force as they retreated to the sea after the last battle.

Man those eels are tough! They wiped out the knights on their charge then held up the chaos warriors for the rest of the battle. Once again the Blightkings proved MVPs as they took out an Allopex and the Deepkin general singlehanded. Once the Sea King was dead Mortvein ordered his remaining forces away, job complete, lest they be fin slapped by an angry flying turtle!

The two blightkings who slew the Deepkin general have been gifted with Rotflies... as in I’m adding some Pusgoyles to my pool of units.

[Luke82]

Papa Nurgle had been pleased with the slaying of the fish elf general, and had rewarded the Blightkings who lopped his head with rotflies to ride into battle, and word of the victory had attracted a beastlord and his pestigors to the warband. As the renown of Mortvein grew so too did the garden of decay around him. The A’shau valley would soon be overgrown with gnarlmaws and stink weeds, and it was not long before the fauna of the valley would start to die in droves as disease and famine took hold.

The local Ogre Khan was greatly displeased that his bountiful plains were now becoming overgrown with foulness, and as hunger set in amongst his horde  he set forth to wipe the Sorcerer and his rotten menagerie from his lands.

We had a simple scenario for this one; I had three trees on the edge of my deployment zone, and my opponent had six turns to try and get control of them. At the end of turn six we’d total up the total amount of remaining wounds within 7” of each tree, whoever had control of the most trees wins.

Well ogres sure pack a punch! My pestigors were pretty quickly devastated by cannon fire and finished off by the second turn by some iron guts, who also surrounded and beat the new beastlord to death (he died in the end game phase, so he’s out!). My pusgoyles took on another set of iron guts but failed to make much of an impact, and the ogres bashed them up, and som warhounds, to take control of the first tree quickly.

Tree two was more fiercely defended by my marauders but they were charged by some mournfang riders who quickly took out my general and caused big casualties to the marauders who would eventually falter, ceding control of tree two. My second in command Sorcerer was also caught by those murderous ironguts here and clubbed to death (RIP poor Scrod the Bilious).

My blightkings finally arrived to the party from the left flank and did some severe damage to the ogres gunnery line, but the battle was tipped by this point. They were plodding around in the centre of the field and made a last ditch charge to seize the centre tree but were unable to kill enough ogres to do so. My Lord of Plagues Clogg the Unsanitary has taken a cannonball to the face and was running around on his last wound for three turns but managed to hack down what remained of the ogres shooting.

With just tree three in contention in the closing rounds my Nurglings really stepped up, wearing down the Mournfang Cavalry and eventually killing the last rider and preventing a major victory as the Maggotkin left the field. 

Postgame was pretty brutal for my characters with the beastlord and Scrod being killed, but Clogg did gain another wound for his heroic resilience. Mortvein would have to call on Papa Nurgle for his blessings to get over this defeat.

[gabbi]

Love the classic models! 😃

[Maximum]

Beautiful models.
Beautiful narrative campaign, I follow you with passion, I also steal some ideas, I want to create a narrative campaign also in my club.
 I have a  question, for the warbands, do you use "path of glory" or do you have home rules?

[Luke82]

On 3/17/2019 at 9:43 AM, Maximum said:

Beautiful models.
Beautiful narrative campaign, I follow you with passion, I also steal some ideas, I want to create a narrative campaign also in my club.
 I have a  question, for the warbands, do you use "path of glory" or do you have home rules?

Hi maximum,

Thanks for the kind words, it’s much appreciated.

I started the narrative campaign after my group tried a map campaign but couldn’t really get together often enough to make it work. So this is more loose, with a simple end game sequence to develop armies a bit. Players can play as much or as little as they like, when they like, and how they like, and we just report our battles on a face book group so we can all track the stories. Some decent narratives have naturally grown out of the games and so far it’s been great. 

We don’t use path to glory rules, we basically use matched play points to build armies how we want, only we don’t take named characters and don’t take artefacts or spells etc, they have to be won in the end game sequence and it’s all very random.  If you like I could post the rules PDF for the campaign.

[Luke82]

Nurgle provided his disciple a vision, a comet would land in the nearly fields seven day hence. Mortvein readied his warband, and laid in wait for the gift to arrive from the skies.

On the morning of the expected arrival, as Mortvein prepared himself to claim his prize, a blast on a seashell proclaimed the arrival of a Deepkin hunting party. The brother of the Idoneth Prince slain by the Nurgle warband has led his army to ambush the Sorcerer and his cronies.

The comet would not arrive till turn three, so the Nurgle and Deepkin armies began to move around the board to cover as much space as possible. It wasn’t long before the Deepkin eels mounted a charge on the Flyblown princes, wiping the chaos knights out. Mortvein’s latest acquisition, a plague cannon, was hammering the Idoneth back line with artillery fire, but still both armies were only feeling each other out.

Turn three came and the comet crashed dead centre of the board, right near the Deepkin ship wreck and gnarlmaw. Both armies charged the prize, and the war really started.

However, the Idoneth high tide rule really proved devastating to the Nurgle band, as did the magical debuffs cast by the fish elves leaving the Pusgoyle blightlords tied up in the far corner of the board. By the start of turn four, the Deepkin had a clear advantage. The Leviadon turtle swept over a cottage to find Mortvein in his hiding place. A brutal peck from its jaws and a well placed fin slap wiped the Sorcerer out, leaving his body guard Clogg in charge. Sensing the battle was lost, the Lord of Plagues called the retreat in turn five, leaving the Deepkin to claim the prize.

End game proved brutal again... I lost Mortvein! His story has now ended, and Clogg has to step up as general and see if he can have more success for his patron than the Sorcerer did.

[Maximum]

14 hours ago, Luke82 said:

Ciao massimo,

Grazie per le belle parole, è molto apprezzato.

Ho iniziato la campagna narrativa dopo che il mio gruppo ha provato una campagna cartografica, ma non riuscivo a stare insieme abbastanza spesso per farlo funzionare. Quindi questo è più sciolto, con una semplice sequenza di fine gioco per sviluppare un po 'gli eserciti. I giocatori possono giocare tanto o poco quanto vogliono, quando vogliono, e come vogliono, e riportiamo le nostre battaglie su un gruppo di face-face in modo che tutti possano seguire le storie. Alcune narrazioni decenti sono naturalmente cresciute fuori dai giochi e finora è stato grandioso. 

Non usiamo le regole del percorso verso la gloria, fondamentalmente usiamo i punti di gioco abbinati per costruire gli eserciti come vogliamo, solo che non prendiamo personaggi nominati e non prendiamo artefatti o incantesimi, ecc., Devono essere vinti nel gioco finale sequenza ed è tutto molto casuale. Se ti va, potrei pubblicare il PDF delle regole per la campagna.

Would be great!
I'm really curious to read the rules.

[Luke82]

These are the rules we’re using, so far it’s worked really well. aos.pdf

[Maximum]

21 hours ago, Luke82 said:

Queste sono le regole che stiamo usando, finora ha funzionato molto bene. aos.pdf

I read the pdf very quickly.
the regulation seems simple and well balanced.
as soon as I can I will read it more carefully.
Thanks again.

[Luke82]

No problem at all, hope you get the campaign going along.

[Luke82]

Clogg decided he would take his band to lay Mortvein to rest in a burial yard. They buried the remains of the sorcerer, already rotten down to the skeleton, into the dirt of the field, and Clogg began to deliver a touching eulogy. But the peace was soon shattered by the sound of war drums as Lord Magnon and his marauders decided to try and put pay to the Nurgle band once and for all. 

The warbands clashed as the skies darkened and the hallowed grounds crackled with fell energies as the warriors desecrated it with their spilled blood.

 

The game would last five rounds, with the aim to kill as much as possible. At the end of round five whoever had the most points remaining would win.... there was also the possibility of some other combatants joining the fray.

 

The two warbands charged towards each other, with the pestigors reaching Magnon’s henchmen first. The barbarians mounted some counter charges, with their Gargant wiping out the Pusgoyles with some deft head butting. 

The two warbands started tearing strips out of each other, and their spilled blood stirred the restless dead of the burial ground. Skeleton warriors turned up in the north west corner of the blood soaked field, charging the barbarians in the rear.

The battle was becoming more complex as more and more undead began to rise from the dirt (including a familiar looking liche from where the Nurgle Sorcerer was interred). The Nurgle Kurgan has charged the Gargant with his marauders and slayed it, but was then charged by some freshly risen Black Knights who skewered the Chaos Lord.

The chaos warriors of both sides were having a drawn out battle in the middle when the Blightkings led by Clogg arrived to reinforce the Nurgle horde. They wiped out the large blob of barbarian marauders then waded into the chaos warriors loyal to Magnon, who had scarpered up a hill when a mob of graveguard and skeleton archers appeared behind him. Clogg broke off to challenge the Lord, but fell short on his charge.

Magnon charged instead, using his reaper blade to wipe Clogg out in one mighty flurry. 

The skeleton hordes were closing in fast when turn five ended, and not many mortals were left standing. The Barbarians just outnumbered the Nurgle horde, claiming the victory.

I lost the Kurgan in the end game.... I’m seriously running out of heroes!

[Kramer]

Love your fast and fun descriptions of the battles! Sound like you had a lot of fun. Love the detail of the sorcerer getting back for not having his well deserved eulogy  

[Luke82]

Thanks very much, the games are indeed a blast. It just seemed fitting that Mortvein would return as a liche after his memorial was disrespected so ha ha.

[Luke82]

The Idoneth General had intended a reckoning with the Northern Marauders who continued to plague his territorial waters, but his site of choice was an error that could cost him dearly. For the very magics that allowed his force to travel the aethersea inland had washed away a vast ring of salt, a seal which, unbeknownst to all save Clogg the unsanitary, had held back a carnival of daemons of the plague god. As the seal washed into the earth, the daemons had risen from the rich rotten loam of the plain. Their numbers were vast, too vast to tackle alone.

Prince Ulthred had no great desire to side with the fish elves that had been haranguing his warships, but could ill afford a war on two fronts. His grievance with the Idoneth would have to wait, for his old nemesis Clogg and his daemon patron were the pressing concern now. A temporary truce was the only plausible option.

The Great Unclean One Mondo Excrementus, his most filthiest, the king of rot, the duke of puke, the ayatollah of e-ah-bola, had arrived. His new pet had proved far more resourceful than his previous servant, and had found a way to lead the sea elves to break the seal of containment holding him back from the material planes. Once he had dealt with the peasants arrayed before him, Excrementus would spread the joy of Grandfather Nurgle far and wide!

The Nurgle daemons have finally arrived, and took on a combined force of Idoneth and Barbarians in a huge 5,000 points a side war.

Strategy was pretty moot (normal for me anyway) with the sheer amount of bodies so it basically became a huge meat grinder in the middle. My Nurgle maggot took on the marauder mammoth and three giants and held his own pretty well, and took out a giant in it’s death throes. The freed up Mammoth then charged my bilepiper who hilariously managed to slay the beast with his Jester stick. 

The Idoneth Turtle and Great Unclean One knocked some real lumps out of eachother, with the turtle managing to kill the big boy, but was unable to celebrate as it was soon taken down by some chaos warriors.

The war was pretty devastating to everyone across the board but a well positioned shipwreck meant I couldn’t get Clogg and his Blightkings involved in any meaningful way and it made a telling difference and the Nurgle casualties started mounting up.

The scenario we set was that once any army lost 50% of their units they would have to start taking bravery checks for their general or they bottle out of the battle. In turn four I passed, but by turn five I was facing a losing battle and mounting deaths so I called a retreat. We had toyed with the idea of the marauders and Idoneth turning on each other if Nurgle went first but by this point we had been playing for nine hours so decided to call it a night.

A fairly tame post game this time, no dead heroes! But Mortvein’s lunatics we’re wiped out... I always forgot their bonus anway!