40K Deep Thought: Explore Your Narrative

Fritz here with the 40K question of the day: Can we have it all as players – both competitive play and narrative play?

Forging A Narrative?

We often hear through the various GW channels that 40K is all about the “narrative” and forging your way through the grimdark universe, but just exactly how are we supposed to experience this when Games Workshop doesn’t really give us any direction on where to go with the game?

Of course one could craft an elaborate campaign system with their close gaming friends and explore the narrative in that direction as almost a role-playing game expressed through miniatures, but what about the 40K enthusiast who plays down at the local gaming shop or club, experiencing 40 through pick-up games?

Let’s take it one step further in the discussion and ask how does one experience the narrative when so much focus online tends to be placed on tournaments and competitive play.

In this post I’d like to share my experiences with the narrative and how I balance that with winning…

It starts with my army, and based what I want to do with it. I enjoy the assault, and I enjoy settling the game differences in the assault up close with the chain-axe so my Chaos Space Marine army is built tactically to give me the greatest chance to do that on the table. I analyze the mission choices, and go about trying to accomplish them as best I can, but while this is happening there is something else going on with my army, a self-imposed narrative that I inject into each game.

I try to experience my army though the units I have to win the mission.

It starts with my HQ selection- I allow myself a little freedom in points to spurge on that extra wargear bling while staying true to the assault theme. I’ll grab the murder sword over the more obvious competitive wargear choices, because that is what I would do on the table. Tactically on the table, I allow myself to experience the game through the perspective of my chaos lord.

Playing Through Your Model’s Eyes
Sure he is commanding the warband and has issued orders to his chosen and the lackeys who would like to replace him with themselves- let them fight and win the mission. For my lord it is about earning personal glory and attracting the brazen gaze of Khorne. Physically on the table the model heads right out to engage opposing HQ choices in one-on-one combat, ignoring the other units on the table.

From a pure competitive win perspective standing over the table as a player, as my lord moves past a squish suicide unit of melta gun infantry it makes sense to assault them, but if I physically step down and look at it from the models perspective is such a warband leader going to waste his time on such fodder as there is no glory to Khorne for killing the weak.

There is the mission, and then there is the game you personally play with your army while the mission is going on.

One more example, on the extreme other end of the army.

Cultists are useful tools in a warband and are often competitively throw away or tarpit units when one only focuses on the win, but step back for a moment and try to see the game through the eyes of those cultists- misguided, hungry for glory, believing in a false promise.

On the table I play them as many of you do, but if a situation comes up where there is a chance for glory, a chance to win favor from the warband chosen or its lord, what group of cultists wouldn’t take it?

In a recent game against tyranids they were doing what cultists do, when a flying hive tyrant landed nearby to engage my Chosen of Skallathrax. Perhaps the player dismissed my cultists as they are hardly a threat competitively to the tyrant, but from the narrative perspective this was their chance for glory…so they charged…

In a game of dice, there is always that chance for something wonderful to happen, and many players go to great lengths to eliminate the “random” from 40K- redundant units, twin-linked stuff, psychic re-rolls, feel no pain to help negate wounds, etc. All standard tournament knowledge…  

But even against the impossible, there is always the chance in 40K where something can happen that causes both players to stop the game for a moment and take a step back in disbelief.

If my cultists had killed that hive tyrant that would have been one of those moments, and although they did get cut down by the xeno without even a notice form my Chosen the cultists did pass two amazing leadership tests and bring the beast down to one wound.

A year from now those Tyranids probably won’t remember how many games they won or lost, or even what that competitive build was at that moment in time, but they would have remembered the time such a monster got taken down by cultists.

BUT… allow a little of that narrative to take place on the table by selecting a unit or two in your list, and really ask yourself how they would act on the table based on the fluff, in that particular game, and let them do it and see what happens.