Hi All,
So today I want to start to recap some of my experiences at the NOVA Open Narrative event. I went into this event with high expectations for several reasons: It is a pricey event (I did pick the premier package) and it has a reputation as a very well-run event. There is also the caveat that I bought my tickets in early 2020 before the realities of Covid. Additionally, this event was delayed for a few years which only heightened my expectations. In the meantime we began to see the Crusade rule system emerge, and I was very curious as to how the event would incorporate them.
Preparations:
You may have seen some of my earlier articles outlining the steps I took to get my army ready for the event. On Wednesday evening I rushed home from work, requisitioned our kitchen cart, and threw myself, my army and the dog (my wife had a work retreat) into the car and sped off for DC. My brother and his wife were kind enough to host me and look after the dog for the weekend so I was able to socialize a bit and get my bearings before bedding down.
Dog Mental status: Soporific
Day 1:
The narrative event starts on Thursday but not until the afternoon. As one of the “Warlords” for the event I got to attend the council missions which provided narrative updates and notes on how to play the missions. There were two sides in this campaign which I shall refer to as OB (my team) and SP (the other team). These are short for longer names that I can’t remember. Basically SP was trying to save the system, OB was trying to ravage it.
The set up for this event was a little complex so I will try to explain it as best I can. At the start of the event the warlords from each team were paired up to form a “Battlegroup”. This group would be assigned to one of the four planets (each with 6 tables). The Warlrods would then be assigned Lieutenants (the next most expensive ticket price) and Sergeants and then Militia until each side had an equal number of players on the planet. Ideally the Warlords, Lieutenants and Sgts would stick together in one Battlegroup for the event (Our group was the “Chaos Boys” as we sought to have only chaos-aligned factions. In hindsight I should have pressed for the name “The Big Red Chaos One”). Once on a planet the warlords would work out pairings. The attackers would nominate a player and a board, the defenders would match up one of their players and then nominate another player on another board and so on until all teams were assigned.
Once on a board the players would have three missions:
1. the unique, custom mission for the board itself, themed with the terrain
2. The “Planetary Mission” a core book crusade mission that all players on that planet would use
3. A secondary mission from the Nephilim rule set, but only from a category unique to the battlegroup/team
In addition to this players could also track Fame/Infamy for their warlords to move up the standings. It’s important to note for the three missions you did not aggregate the points but competed on each. Thus you could easily win the board mission while losing the planetary mission and the secondary one. Each category affected a different part of the narrative which made it really cool but also really complex.
Game 1: Vs Cadian Sgt Steel
This guy is a good friend of mine, but this was our first game against each other. In this mission we were forced to deploy at least half our army in strategic reserves. Our board mission focused on controlling the center of the board, while the Planetary was hold 1/hold 2/ hold more. My opponent went with a list with three Hades breaching drills and I brought my termite so this meant we both started with 1-2 units on the board. This game was a tense back and forth with my warlord getting knocked out early allowing him to secure the planetary mission while I edged him out on the battlefield. Some great moments from this game include:
1. His thunderbolt plane killing the Termite, and a Blood Slaughterer
2. Me making 6+ 9″ charges to lock up most of his army and keep his Leman Russ from firing all game
3. His warlord becoming a psyker through the mission reward.
Result:
Planetary Mission: Lost
Battlefield: Won
Secondary: Lost
Game 2: Vs Trent
Trent was one of the best Warlords for the SP side and the mission helped him a lot. In this mission we played it such that all our reserves would come in on a 4+ turn 2, and automatically turn 3 (something we missed in our last game). This report is going to be short as I made 1 charge all game and my army trickled in before getting wiped pretty handily. There wasn’t much I could do and was just a bad match up.
Result:
Planetary Mission: Lost
Battlefield: Lost
Secondary: Lost
Since we got a later start that day my battle wrapped up at 11:45PM. I was pretty tired and so headed for my lodging. Moving forward I would start counting the battlefield mission as the one I used to calculate my Chaos Points, although for this day I used the Planetary one. To be honest I was feeling kinda meh at this point. I was exhausted, a little stressed from all the driving (I was staying 20 min away) and felt overwhelmed with all the book keeping and tracking. However this would change rapidly on Day 2.
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