Age of Sigmar: Forging the Narrative

[Banat]

So, IMO, there is far too much obsession with "balancing" lists against each other.

So the idea behind this thread is to encourage people to develop story/narrative based scenarios, where there might even be an intention for unbalanced play.

There would also be plenty of room for scenario limitations.

My example:

I love the idea of a plucky band of adventurers finding themselves entering a mysteriously deserted town/village just as night as falling and the full moon rising...

10 Dwarven/Duarden miners vs. 20 Zombies and a Necromancer. The Necromancer can only summon further zombies, representing the zombified villagers.

It doesn't necessarily have to be these races, it could be 10 HE swordmasters vs. a daemon warband, the remains of a rag tag Empire troop vs. seemingly endless tides of Skaven etc, but obviously, given our context here on Carpe, the haunted village works best for me.

The Dwarves can either attempt to target the Necro to stem the tied of summoned zombies, or they can attempt to get to the tower/temple, at the top of which lies a beacon.

Once the beacon is lit, it would heavily debuff the Necromancer (e.g. half the number of zombies he can summon, or give him -2 on summoning roles etc) whilst giving the dwarves 10 bravery.

Then they need to last out the night until morning, which rather conveniently arrives at the end of turn 6.

Depending on how much scenery you have you could add further flavourful elements... e.g. the zombies "spawn" from houses or forests, (roll a D3 for each piece of terrain and thats the number of zombies spawned whilst the necro is still alive) or maybe the dwarves can only "light the beacon" once they have found oil/matches which might be randomly hidden at a piece of terrain (on a 4+ they find the necessary item etc).

Stop obsessing over "balance" and FORGE THE NARRATIVE.

 

[Oppenheimer]

Making up fun scenerios that aren't balanced is indeed fun. I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of that.
Seems to be what the scenerios in the new hard cover rule book are about too.

 

[Cela Shyish]

I actually had some fluff ideas to try to so I'll post some examples when I get home from work tonight if I remember, since they require a lot of fluff justification to explain properly.

 

[The Sun King]

@Banat Yeah I agree, balance does not equal fun, at least not always. I have always wanted to do a siege narrative but have found it tough with 8th's focus on regiments (cannot really put a horde unit on top of a wall). But maybe it will be easier to do in AoS.

 

[Eternal flitter]

@Banat Yeah I agree, balance does not equal fun, at least not always. I have always wanted to do a siege narrative but have found it tough with 8th's focus on regiments (cannot really put a horde unit on top of a wall). But maybe it will be easier to do in AoS.

As a matter of fact one of the first thing I thought that AoS could be good for is siege type scenarios. I mean they could be done in 8th but usually didn't feel quite right. Derailing a bit here but when the LOTRSBG was a thing that did work incredibly well for sieges. Anyway, sieges yes.

 

[The Sun King]

I agree. Doe anyone have siege rules laying around that might work for AoS?

 

[Aranei]

I remember the old Warhammer - Siege book. Could it still be used?
I also found a thread for 8ed siege on Herdstone forum:
http://z8.invisionfree.com/herdstone/index.php?showtopic=21336

The most useful guidelines are:
- Defenders may deploy up to 2 war machines and 1 character per tower, 1 war machine and an infantry unit of up to 15 models, or any single unit allowed by the building rules. In combat, the war machine is considered out of combat as long as there is not space for 2 models to participate in the fight (in which case, the war machine fights alongside any unit you have defending).
- 20 models may shoot from each wall section. 15 models may shoot from each tower section. War machines count as 5 shooting models.

The rules obviously require some work on them to be adapted to AoS.

 

[The Sun King]

Thanks Aranei!

 

[Aranei]

You can give each wall section 15-20 wounds and a 3+ save, and possibly immunity to dmg from anything that is not a monster, a war machine, a spell, or a unit equipped with a battering ram.

 

[The Sun King]

To even the odds you could give the attacking army some warmachines for free.

 

[Tawg]

You can give each wall section 15-20 wounds and a 3+ save, and possibly immunity to dmg from anything that is not a monster, a war machine, a spell, or a unit equipped with a battering ram.

To even the odds you could give the attacking army some warmachines for free.

I like the sounds of that. Could be interesting, especially I like the immunity. You could even replace the "Battering Ram" idea with simply allowing the attacker to grant a "Sapper" ability to a fixed number of units, who could then do an attack in Hero Phase against wall/towers. Sort of like casting spells, but specific to the idea of the siege scenario, yeah?

 

[Aranei]

Dwarf miners then should have a bonus for the "Sapper" roll.
And battering rams should be war machines.
(And I instanly started dreaming of a huge dragon/giant bone being carried by zombes/skeletons)

 

[Menkeroth]

The topic author is totally right - scenarios are what the Age of Sigmar is all about. It has lots of potential to put it mildly, practically as worlds in D&D. That's why the game is made the way it's made, and why the fluff is going on as it's going. Along other scenarios I'd like to play when I return home is exploring the ancient ruins by a, say, scouting party of the high elves (for example, by 15 Lothern sea guard or swordmasters of Hoeth), who encounter that the ruins are not quite empty, because they get attacked by (I don't that like necromancers and zombies or ghouls) skeletons (warriors or black knights / grave guard) under command of a wight king (one of my most favorite models), or by a vampire lord (or just vampire) and his blood knights retinue - possibilities are endless. For example, it's a unit of skeleton-warriors (20-30-40 models) and a wight king. Because of the standard bearers and, for example, an aura of death magic around the place the skeletons keep coming, and the elves have to search the ruins and retreat or slay the wight king, or conjure a spell of countering the magic of death (then you need a mage, of course). It's a rough sketch, but something like that anyway.