‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – I Went To A Narrative Event (And So Should You)

Take a look at why Warhammer: The Old World narrative events are so much fun!

There are a lot of types of events you can go to for Old World. Big competitive tournaments like NOVA or the Welsh Open get a lot of press. But these aren’t the only kind of events you can go to. This past week I was able to attend a two day narrative events hosted at Game Knight by Neil of Rend 4. With 12 players this wasn’t a huge event, and most of us knew each other, at least from past regional events. That allowed this event be a super casual event with lots of good narrative flavor. Overall it was a total blast, with some great armies and players and games. So today lets take a look at the games I played and why you should go to an event like this.

The Narrative Format

The event was a 5 round narrative “tournament” based around conflict in the Border Princes. Players brought narrative themed armies and played games (shocker that).  At the start of the event each player picked one of 4 teams to join, each one based around one of the secondary objectives in the Matched Play Guide. Based on your team you could score more points for the matching type of objective. On top of that each round players rolled off to chose from 1 of 2 missions (from the BRB/MPB) to play. To cap it all off each game you rolled for a random effect on your table.

That was mostly it, with the narrative adding some flare and interesting effects.  Due to the group we had we ended up to just paring up ourselves to settle old grudges and make new ones. You did report win loss to see how your “team” would do, and also if you achieved your secret objective. Outside of that winning and losing didn’t matter much here and none of the prizes were based on winning games. Instead theme and painting and spirt of the event were rewarded. While there wasn’t much hard comp, this did really lead to people playing more fun lists.

My List

My army was based around a mercenary force of Brettonian Exile’s that are escorting a wine merchant (who I dress up as) around the Border Princes. I’ve been building on this theme for a while and really like how the army has come out. In terms of a specific list I ran:

Le Bus
Bretonnian Exiles [1997 pts]

–Characters [934 pts]

Baron [317 pts]
– Shield
– The Exile’s Vow
– Royal Pegasus
– Frontier Axe
– Gromril Great Helm
– Gauntlet of the Duel
– Virtue of Knightly Temper

Baron [242 pts]
– Lance
– Shield
– The Exile’s Vow (replaces the Knight’s Vow)
– General
– Bretonnian Warhorse
– Bedazzling Helm
– Virtue of Heroism

Paladin [152 pts]
– Lance
– Shield
– The Exile’s Vow (replaces the Knight’s Vow)
– Battle Standard Bearer [Errantry Banner]
– Bretonnian Warhorse
– Virtue of the Impetuous Knight

Damsel [76 pts]
– Wizard [Level 1 Wizard]
– Bretonnian Warhorse
– Illusion

Outcast Wizard [147 pts]
– Wizard [Level 3 Wizard]
– Warhorse
– Lore Familiar
– Dark Magic
— Core Units [863 pts]

30 Yeomen Guard [175 pts]
– Warden (champion)
– Grail Monk
– Standard bearer
– Musician

10 Peasant Bowmen [50 pts]
– Skirmishers

18 Mounted Knights of the Realm [473 pts]
– The Exile’s Vow (replaces the Knight’s Vow)
– First Knight (champion)
– Standard bearer [Banner of Châlons]
– Musician

28 Yeomen Guard [165 pts]
– Warden (champion)
– Grail Monk
– Standard bearer
– Musician

—-Rare Units [200 pts]

Border Princes Bombard [100 pts]

Border Princes Bombard [100 pts]

How My Narrative List Works

It’s a pretty straight forward list overall. Archers and peasants can annoy the enemy and claim objectives. The two cannons take down threats. The lone Peg Baron is a murder machine and hunts targets. Pretty much everything else goes into Le Bus. With the BSB, General and Damsel its a 21 model strong unit of knights and it pretty much goes forward. Conventional wisdom is that such a large unit isn’t that great, but I find it pretty good. The key here is to stack a lot of buffs. The damsel gives them MR 2 and is normally casting Glittering Robes for a -1 to be hit. Meanwhile the BSB gives them +1 S on the charge, so the horses are now S4 and the Knights 6. Meanwhile the Outcast wizard is going to try to cast Battle Lust on to give you just a ton of attacks.

Thanks to the BSB the unit can declare a charge out to 20 inches and is just very hard to ignore or escape. It’s size, plus armor and buffs mean that its also super tank-y. The general has a natural -1 to be hit and if glittering robes goes off he’s at a -2, with killing blow/monster slayer. He will challenge out any big threats and can normally tank them long enough for either static res or a killing blow to get them. It’s not subtle but it does work.

The list was my attempt to take a more toned down Bret list (no Peg Knights, no Green Knight, etc..). Still I will admit it was probably a bit too strong of a list for the event given what everyone else ended up playing. But that is a danger with narrative events, that even when you try to tone stuff down you may not match everyone else.

Game 1 VS High Elves

Round 1 I played vs High Elves and this was kind of the “bye” army. He had a big block of Sea Guard, a Griffon Prince and a bunch of chariots, plus some support units. We rolled the effect that allowed ambushers to get a +1/-1 to come in, but neither of had any. 

This was a pretty quick game. I went first and by cannons chew up his chariots over two turns. Le Bus ran forward and ran over two that survived then ran over the Sea Guard. By Peg Baron fought his Griffon Prince and killed him. And that was that. A very nice opponent (who I’ve played a few times before), but a bit of bad luck on some rolls.  It was pretty great to get a flying lord duel.

Round 2 VS Wood Elves

Round 2 I played vs the great Chuck Moore (of the Strength Hammer Pod cast). I had played his High Elves at an event early in the year, so this was a bit of a grudge match. He was running a pretty typical MSU wood elf army. Once big block of archers, a Treeman, lots of little shooting units, some ambushing cav, etc. (Sadly I don’t have anyone’s list as we didn’t really end up using BCP). Right off the bat we rolled a weather condition that meant that all shooting was at half range. This was umm… pretty bad for a shooting Wood Elf army. I offered to let Chuck re-roll it, but he decided to roll with the first result. He’s a class act.

Once again Le Bus went forward. I got off a long first turn charge vs the treeman and Monster Slayed it. That let me overrun into a small unit of archers which I killed on his turn. Le Bus was then able to reform and charge the big unit of archers (which thanks to my banner could not stand & shoot). That was pretty much the game there. Cannons and the peg baron mopped up some small units. Chuck’s archers did kill one cannon and his Glade Riders ran a 2nd over, but it wasn’t enough to turn things around.

Round 3 Vs Blood Herd

Round 3 I faced off vs a very classic Minotaur Blood Herd army. He had two big blocks of Minos, some characters and 3 Ghorgons. Neither of our armies were subtle at all! We rolled the ambush effect, which again did nothing. He went first and got up on me pretty quick. My cannons also had a bit of bad luck. The infantry were able to hold vs the first Ghorgon charges thanks to static res. However a second assault with Mino support eventually saw all my infantry (all 70) killed off. 

At the same time Le Bus had magiced up and annihilated the right most Mino block (not without some losses). The Peg Baron swept it one by one picking off Ghorgons. And at the end I hit the final Mino Block from both sides.

In terms of models lost this was by the far the bloodest battle. I lost about 80 models, while killing all 20 of his. Still I managed to defend my wine wagon once again!

Round 4 Vs Empire

The second day dawned and I paired up vs the awesome Cole and his Empire army. Cole had a big old block of Inner Circle White Wolves to face Le Bus. He also had a couple block of state troops (one rocking the Griffon Standard) some arty, a Stank and Road Wardens. Plus characters to support. We rolled an effect that gave all infantry and cav -1 LD, which had a much bigger effect than we thought it would.

Cole went first and cannoned some knights. I then move forward and tired counter battery fire. I didn’t mange to kill either Warmachine, but did take the head off his Engineer by accident. On his turn the White Wolves charged Le Bus, being one of the few units to really be a threat to it. Luckily I had gotten Glittering Robes off (thanks to the -1Ld his priest couldn’t get anything off). Robes meant I didn’t take too many losses and as our generals dueled I landed a killing blow, taking his out. He managed to not run off the table, but a bit later the knight failed a panic check, thanks to that -1 LD, and ran off the table. Meanwhile Le Bus went through arty and infantry and my Peg Baron managed to kill the Stank over a couple of turns.

A highlight of the game happened a bit on the sidelines. Here we had two blocks of infantry fight a combat over a bridge crossing a river. Complete with a challenge between champions. This was honestly pretty cool, and something that happened because it was a narrative event. I managed to win the combat by like 1, but thanks gain to that -1 LD he broke and I ran down the unit. My Yoemen then paused on the bridge to watch the rest of the game and control the objective on it. Cole was a great guy to play and this game was a blast.

Round 5 vs Gobbos

The final round of the day was vs Aleks Gavrilov of Fit_Hammer and his great looking Goblin army. His army is a ton of fun and looks great. He had one big block of Night Goblins with 3 fanatics, a smaller block with 1 fanatic, a Wyvern Boss, a mangler squig, a bunch of various squig units, a wizard, like 4 heroes on squigs, a doom driver, a bsb and some other random units. It’s a crazy collection of units and a very random army. 

We were having such a good talk setting up that I think we actually forgot to roll for a map effect this round, woops! Anyway, I went first and advanced. I put 1 wound on his Wyvern and took out the Doom Diver. He started coming for me but had kind of slow rolls on his random movement. Things quickly heated up however with Le Bus going into the mess of goblins in the front (and fanatics) while my Peg Barona and his Wyvern tussled (I ight I would not normally have picked, but it was narrative and thought it would be cool). 

The fanatics ended up not doing enough to stop Le Bus and it over a few turns busted through his center. In the flying fight we both did some wounds, but his general failed a check pretty badly and fled. I didn’t catch him, but it meant he bumped through a lot of units and ended up in front in of Le Bus, which eventually got him. We also had just a ton of panic going one as goblin units broke, making this super chaotic. His horde of squigs was very close to running over my left flank, but the Peg baron managed to charge and kill one character, then overrun into a 2nd that was engaged with my infantry, letting her kill it as well and the infantry ran down a third.

The Gunboat

The most dramatic part came on my right. We were using the new fast flowing river rules and I had set up a cannon in the river. This mean it was turned into a gunboat and slowing moving down river while firing. This was also where my baggage train was. Aleks managed to sneak in his ambushing Wolf Riders with

But his left Kiknik out for revenge and he charged into the cannon. Somehow the cannon didn’t die and didn’t break from the combat. Following his charge the river actually pushed out apart and out of combat, letting the cannon grape shot poor surprised Kiknik. His mistake was not knowing he was fighting a gunboat. I might have to convert my cannon into a boat following this.

Why You Should Go To A Narrative

This event was a ton of fun with a lot of great chaps just trying to play some warhammer. The narrative elements helped change up the games from just being standard games.  They also really set the tone meaning people took risks and tried to act in a narrative fashion. This was also the first time this group had tried something like this in ToW. I think some tweaks will be made before the next one, but it was still a blast. (I know I would take an even more narrative and less competitive army than I did.)

We had a lot of challenges and epics fights that a more competitive event might have avoided. I really encourage players to go try going to an event like this or to try running one. I know the recent Welsh Open had some more narrative missions and people seemed to like that.

While there is room in the game for hard core events (and I also enjoy those), events like this are probably more “in the spirit” of the game than anything else. They  are a real blast and most of the rules issues or broken stuff can be kind of ignored when you are playing for fun. Winning, and winning by a lot, take a real backseat to fun. I know I’ll be looking for more events like this to go to and I hope you will too.

Let us know what you think about Narrative Events, down in the comments! 

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.

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