This year I decided to go with the narrative event at NOVA. Last couple of years I'd done the GT, and I wanted to do something different. I brought my Prophets of Bark and the Spooky Bunch, Dark Eldar Coven with Mandrakes and some Harlequins (I'm going to make a follow-up post just about that, but you can go HERE and HERE to see some of it now).
The Forces of Virtue (My team) vs the Forces of Humanity. The whole event was divided into a bunch of varied point level games that you could choose to participate in, which all had a bunch of unique non-standard missions. The smaller games were played on 4x4s, some games were doubles, and everything ended with a big Apoc game. There was also a kill team element, but they ended up going with the newer GW kill team rules and literally everything I was planning/painting was made illegal by that. So I ended up dropping that part.
There was this whole warlord mechanic involved, were a few team leaders got to pick were and what you played against. It added a cool background strategy game to the whole event, but since I wasn't involved it mostly came across as a bunch of yelling and being told were to go.
Additionally there was another cool side-game going on, where there were NPCs on each battlefield you played on. You could save them or kill them, resulting in gaining either fame or infamy. I choose to "Save" people, because its been a long time since Dark Eldar could take Sla... Prisoners with Jobs.
Here's a brief run down of what I actually ended up playing against.
Game 1: Night Fight 1 - 2000 points
Shuttle Crash - A plane randomly shows up somewhere, randomly crashes somewhere, and whose captain became a relic you had to keep safe.
Rainbow Marines
I played against some really nicely painted Rainbow Marines. He had a lot of str 4 shooting but Wracks and Mandrakes largely don't care about that, so I just marched forward and eat most of his stuff.
Won.
Game 2: Day Fight 1 - 1000 points
VIP Escort - Escort a kill-able dude to the enemies deployment zone, and kill theirs if you can.
Knights
1000 points, 4 knights on a 4x4 table. Did what shadow monsters do best, hide in buildings. And since the board I played on was 90% buildings, and since my 1000 points of infantry couldn't fight 4 knights in open war; I just didn't. I walked my dude the long way around and my Mandrakes picked off his.
Won.
Game 3: Day Fight 2 - 1000 points Doubles
Refinery - 6 objectives with a fixed amount of points that can be scored off
Teamed up with Gothmog
(Forgot to take pictures of their stuff)
Dark Eldar / Deathguard
They went first and we lost by 1. They had made several play mistakes which let us gain some ground, but it wasn't enough to to compensate for a turn 1 trio of ravagers being yelled at to shoot us better. We kept to the mission as best we could.
Lost.
Game 4: Night Fight 2 - 2500 points
Convoy - Had to protect and escort a rhino-like vehicle across the table, and kill their's.
White Scars
I went first and killed his Glaive, because the mission was to escort a VEHICLE I had no option. I threw everything I could at it turn 1 and managed to kill it just barely. The rest of the game was me mostly mopping up.
Won.
Game 5: Day Fight 4 - 1500 points
Shuttle Crash - A plane randomly shows up, randomly crashes, and whose captain had to be kept safe.
Daemons of Khorne
It was a bad match up for him, he had a bunch of big Daemons and a few hounds. My army really doesn't care about things like that, and most of his stuff bounced off my things while I slowly whittled him down. But he was a great sport about it and he ended up rightfully wining best painted.
Won.
Game 6: Night Fight 3 - 1500 points Doubles
Convoy - Had to protect and escort a rhino across the table, and kill their's.
Again Teamed up with Gothmog
(Again forgot to take pictures)
Ad Mech with Iron Hands / Space Wolves
Won.
Game 7: APOCALYPSE - 40000 points
MADNESS
It was scored by primary and secondary objectives held at the end of each round. With extra points for killing Titanic and warlord models.
I ended up being placed on one extreme side and slowly moved toward objectives. I threw my planes deep into their lines, hoping the bad guys would kill them and I could take them away to safety, magically my 1 Razorwing did a lap around the table and survived the game with 1 wound left.
My Revenant made a appearance, and was promptly murdered by a smash captain.
Largely the rest of my army didn't do anything because my table side completely collapsed the flank we were fighting, so I spent a lot of the game trying to re-position to do anything.
Some people closer to the battle lines on my team will tell you we won, but I will tell you I was present.
Closing/Thoughts:
I really liked the event and had a lot of fun. Wouldn't be opposed to doing it next year.
Won 7 games with 1 loss. My Team ended up wining. I placed Second in the Fame. And I ended up randomly getting a prize, a 3 primaris marine painting kit.
If I had more time I would have tried to have gotten something ready for the Kill Team portion. But the second they changed to the newer rules I looked at my already made list of Wracks/Mandarkes/Scourge and moved on with my life.
TAKE MORE PICTURES.