Age of Sigmar: Narrative Play Looks Amazing In 3.0
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar has some new enhancements for Narrative Play 3.0 – and campaigns are looking pretty exciting!
This one goes out to all you Narrative Players out there. I know there is a ton of focus on AoS 3.0 with Matched Play rules and Core Rules changes but Narrative Play is getting an overhaul and upgrade. Let’s talk a bit about those changes a few things that have us really excited.
First up, the Narrative Play rules section is a total of 33 pages. Now a couple of those pages are the intro to Narrative Play. And there are some army showcase pages and another 6 of those pages are specific Battleplans. Still, that leaves 23 pages of actual rules you can use for Narrative Play. This section really does combine a lot of the current Path To Glory rules from the Battletomes and also borrows some of the cool Crusade stuff from 40k – at the same time, it has some new twists more fitting for the Mortal Realms.
Getting Started With Narrative Play
When starting a Narrative Play Army/Campaign, things are tweaked a bit. You use the sections above to create your army and your campaign. Now, we’re not going to cover all 20+ pages of the Narrative Play rules as they cover things like how to build your forces, manage the aftermath of battles, spend Glory Points and Renown, how to deal with deaths in your army, and more. No, today, I wanted to talk about the thing that immediately jumped out at me: Territories.
Now, this goes hand-in-hand with your army sizes and the games you want to play. The Territory rules really reminded me of old school Necromunda with some very cool twists. Your starting Territory determines how you can build out your initial army as well. Army construction is well detailed in the Narrative Rules and involved picking your Warlord, picking a either a warscroll or core battalion, and an Endless Spell/Innovation as well. There are also enhancements to manage and things like that. It’s not SUPER complicated – but it is lengthy. Plus there are the quests to manage, too.
Anyhow, back to Territories. What’s exciting about these is that they don’t stay static. You’ll be able to add more and upgrade them. All that is done in the Aftermath Sequence.
Notice sections 5 and 6? Yep! It’s upgrade time. One of the coolest things about the Narrative Play mode is the ability to upgrade your Stronghold and manage your Territories. This makes it feel more like a map campaign without the need for a physical map. Although, if you wanted to create one using Tiles or a paper/digital map you absolutely could.
Personally, I love the idea of managing a Stronghold and the fact that it has tabletop effects on your army. This mostly just makes it so your army can become larger and larger. But keep in mind that when you build an army to bring to the game you’ll still agree with your opponent on a points limit for your games. And with Path to Glory, you’re pulling units from your Order of Battle which is a unit pool. So you probably won’t be taking your entire collection to games (although, you could if you wanted a truly epic game).
That said, how you manage your territories and your Stronghold will determine how your army grows and your own narrative expands. I really like how this makes each army feel unique and they will tell a story when you get to a stopping point. Narrative Players who want to do campaigns are going to have a field day with these changes and it’s going to be awesome to play in.
There’s LOTS more to Narrative Play in AoS 3.0 – I can’t wait to give it a go!
