Narrative Game at the 2013 Bay Area Open

One of my favorite games of the year was last weekend, the Narrative Game that Big Jim of Galaxy in Flames has run for the last two years.  The idea is to play a large game of 40k (with elements of Apoc, like super heavies) without the craziness that usually accompanies big games, like super tough units, no force org, and just a general craziness.  The game also tends to attract a non-competitive crowd which makes for just a fun gaming experience.

This year was great, as it was my first, game getting to use the Titan (other then a test run at GW Alamo last year) in a significant game.  It was a blast, though it ended up mostly acting like a mobile turret. 

Attendance was a bit lighter then some years, unfortunately some that came to the last two events couldn't make this one. We had some of the old crowd, and some new.  There were some great looking models and some great players.  It is always great to meet new people.

I didn't take anything close to as many pictures as last year, but I did take a few on my phone.

 I really liked this stormtalon.  It had two things that I normally hate, painted canopy and gloss coat varnish.  This looked amazing though.  The painter did the canopy from the inside and it looked fantastic. 

 Since the game is part of an overall Narrative there are some special characters that each side gets to control.  I got to run this bad ass sorcerer on the chaos side.

 This was the setup.  We had two large tables (making one large gaming area).  Most of the action ended up being on the green side.  There were four armies on each side.  Our opponents, the forces of the imperium, had 2 of their 4 armies as "reserve" armies so it made for a strange game.  Two of the armies deployed wholly in the green and the reserve armies had about half to three quarters were in the green section with the remaining in the middle.  The right flank, which is the grey, was untouched the whole game.

 My Chaos Warhound was on the far left flank.  It's a good thing, as most of the fighting was on this side so he plenty of targets.

 Great looking imperial guard army.  The avengers are gorgeous models.   This army was a bit frustrating to play against as it was really nasty and most of us on the chaos side  hadn't brought tough lists (or much to deal with flyers) so we got really chewed up by this flyer heavy list.  This was our first sixth edition Narrative game and none of the guys who had played before expected flyers to dominate like they did.

 A picture after a few turns of carnage.  My titan managed to survive the first two turns with only losing a hull point.  Other then the dreadnought next to him (that had failed a charge) not much went after the titan.  I tried to explain to our opponents they are not that tough to kill, but I think he just intimidated them into ignoring him.

 The far right flank.  You can see my chaos army sitting on objectives.  I did get our team a ton of points by holding these objectives unopposed, but it wasn't very exciting.

It ended up being a fun game.  It was not as much fun as some of the other games Big Jim has run, but that had nothing to do with his efforts, just happened to be a different crowd then normal.  I'm probably not being fair, it was still a fun game, it's just the last two were the most fun games of 40k I've ever played, and it it's really hard to top that.  

The game ended with a score of 22 to 8 after the third turn, with Disorder (chaos) winning.  The game was one where a side earned points at the end of a full turn by holding objectives.  The game got called at the end of turn three as it was 430, and each turn taking about two hours we didn't have time to finish another turn (event was over at 5).  At that point, even if we had gone another turn and our side had been shot off of all the objectives and Order took all the objectives the score would have been 22 to 18 (there were 10 points of objectives that could be held a turn) so there wasn't a real reason to continue as no matter what, Chaos would have won. 

The reserve strategy is tough in games like this, where you need to get out and take objectives early.  Our opponents not deploying let us infiltrate into a lot of objective and earn a ton of points early in the game.  It made for a deficit where it would have been tough for them to get us off the objectives and start earning points.  They did a great job of shooting us off a few objectives, but they didn't have the infantry to hold them.  In the end they killed more of our stuff, but weren't' able to win since they couldn't take the objectives.