Creating a Narrative Campaign Part 1: Dissecting Deception's Edge

Chad McMann was a founding member and regular participant in Nerd Night, the Chicago gaming club that separately spawned both 2ndCityWarzone and Hyacinth Games and his early 40K background pieces can be found in the earliest 2ndCityWarzone posts.

One of the key elements that differentiates Wreck-Age from other game systems is that it is intended to universally act as both an RPG and a skirmish level miniature wargame. We've been discussing ways to heighten this appeal and that led to the idea of supplements that contained all of the necessary elements to do either. Every module, packet, or whatever they eventually will be termed would come with all of the narrative, background, NPCs, adventure locations, etc that you would expect from a RPG supplement, and at the same time have all of the key encounters broken down into a scenario format more familiar to table top wargame players. The ultimate goal being that you could take or leave whatever you wanted so that you could play it out entirely table top style, or you could play it out entirely as a pen and paper RPG, or if you love both elements you could do a hybrid of the two. This will hopefully create crossover appeal for a variety of gamers and allow people to tailor their gaming experience to their own predilections.

If you've been to the Wreck-Age website you may have noticed there are 6 short stories for download for a mere $.49 each (or you can download them for free if you like). While we were gearing up for Adepticon it was discussed that it would be cool to put one or all of these short stories in an anthology for sale at the event. It never came together, but while discussing how to make such an anthology more enticing to gamers, it was suggested that we possibly include narrative scenarios and RPG material so that someone who read the story could then play out the events if they so chose.

Today I downloaded Deception's Edge by Chad McMann, a great little story that gives you some insight into how the faction known as Stitcher's function and maintain themselves. I've been well familiar with the Stitchmen for some time now and even I felt like I learned something from the story. It was a quick read, and I highly recommend taking the time to do so yourself.

As I read the story I took notes. Who would the major NPCs be? What are the key locations? How large were the forces involved and what were they equipped with? How many encounters took place that could be represented by scenarios and what would the goal of each scenario be?

Its actually a really exciting exercise. I don't want to give away the story right away, but I will say that the as you read along the narrative can be broken into four action sequences that would become scenarios. It is obvious that Newmark, Dr. Mordan, and Arthur would be the NPCs (possibly Larsen as well just because he's named), And the Stitchers appear to number about 10-14 including Golems. The Stakers would number about 20-30. I think for purposes of play-ability we'd keep the Stitchers to a maximum of 12 on the field and Stakers around 20-25.

With my framework in hand I'm now going to set about drafting up formatted scenarios and pulling text from the story to describe the principal NPCs.

Have you read Deception's Edge? What did you think?

-Nick

PS. If you're curious about how the game plays, why not download the Quick Start Rules for free?

Looking at the 40K Warzone Tournament Surveys Part 2

I've been sitting on the 40K Warzone Tournament surveys for a couple of weeks now and I've done a lot of introspection. Most of my decisions are kind of "no brainer's" based on my instinctive reactions to the surveys, but I'm the type who likes to think things through and make sure my gut instinct and my logical analysis are one and the same.

I'm going to just hit a bunch of bullet points based on the question order and the results/comments made in order to keep things simple:

- I have every intention of running the event again next year, so feel free to start planning your force now.

- As of right now the prime candidate to get dropped is the Desert boards. I love the look and feel of Desert so it pains me, We'll see though.

I need to finish all 4 trench boards and get them ready for next year.

- Wraiths will still be able to pass through walls. Its too cool. I mean, they're Wraiths?!

- The Hidden Deployment Stratagem will be modified or removed.

- Flyers are a part of the game, so they're staying. Bombing runs over cities seems like such an obvious visual. Like usual, they'll be most useful as a Sideboard option and I see no need to remove the Flak Mods Stratagem.

- Preliminary Bombardment is really hit or miss (pun not intended). I know I've played with it since it was introduced in (I think?) 3rd Edition and it always seems like its going to be awesome, and then nothing gets killed. Sure, you can get lucky, but its sort of rare.

- Zone Mortalis Rooms/Objectives that were too Ambiguous is really an easy fix. I'll continue to work on my own Zone Mortalis tables rather than using those 3 old Kill Team tables that Brian Niro made so that they work a bit better with the rules.

- Intact Buildings are here to stay. If you know that you need Flamers and Grenades to flush models out you shouldn't have that hard of a time doing so. People should familiarize themselves with the rules for Buildings so they know how to best deal with them. I may even incorporate them more since they are so under used currently.

- I'll see what I can do to add some rooms with doors for Zone Mortalis. When I played in Sin of Alacrity I enjoyed the tension of having a nasty unit right on the other side of a door and just one well placed shot away from threatening my forces. Very cool.

One of Brian Niro's fantastic tables from the Sin of Alacrity event at Adepticon 2013. This table didn't have any doors, but it was still awesome to play on. Image taken from Brian's blog, A Gentleman's Ones.

- If you thought it was impossible to make a list for both Cities of Death and Desert you might not be relying enough on Infantry.

- Booby Traps, Tunnels, Hiidden Deployment, and Familiar Ground will all get reviewed. If you have any opinions feel free to post them up.

- A Warzone involving water was a the clear #1 choice to replace Desert. Swamps would be cool, as would canals, but I could always do something weird like Drifting Islands. Haha. There's a lot of room for creativity here. I would want to replace Desert with something else fairly open so we'll see.

- People wanted more Dangerous, Mysterious, and Unpredictable elements and I will comply. I still won't go too heavy handed with this but I have a lot of modeling ideas that I think would be cool.

- A Painting rubric will be implemented, as well as a Stratagem one. I think this was a missed opportunity for cool modeling for a lot of people. So many people took Preliminary Bombardment and did nothing with it. What about a Comms guy in one of your squads with communications gear? What about a Explosion, Crater, or even Incoming Missile markers? What about bulls-eye bases?

- Ensure soft scores are weighted more heavily so there is a better chance of a spread between Best General and Best Overall, and to reward those who approach the hobby from different angles.

- Bump the rounds up to 2 hours and make sure there is time for a lunch.

- Expect new scenarios and an easier to read packet!

- Next year I need to take photos during the event so I have documentation of the visual spectacle.

- Get Kevin Brown to help out again, that guy was a god send and I can't thank him enough. Unless he plays in the event of course, then he gets a pass! ;)

I think that covers it. Thanks again to everyone who played in the event. I wouldn't mind running the exact same 40K Warzone Tournament event or pieces of it a few more times this year to keep me working on tables and get in some additional play testing, so hit me up if you'd like to find a way to bring me and my boards to you. ;) If anyone has any additional comments or suggestions don't hesitate to post or drop a line: thirdxparty@hotmail.com

-Nick

Wreck-Age Pack Dog

I haven't had the time to finish Part 2 of the 40K Warzone Tournament article, but I have used the 15 minutes I've had here or there to finish this Wreck-Age Pack Dog. This is my third. I have to say I really enjoy how quickly they paint up. This one is 3 sandy shades of brown/tan and then hit with several washes. Finally, some of the details like the eyes, nose, ears, and socks were all picked out - quick and easy.

Thanks for reading. More later!
-Nick

Looking at the Adepticon 40K Warzone Surveys Part 1

This year at Adepticon I endeavored to try something a bit different. I ran something I dubbed the 40K Warzone Tournament. The ultimate goal was for all 32 players to fight across 4 very different “Warzones”. Each game was intended to be fought across a different board with its own special rules. This year the featured Warzones were Desert, Zone Mortalis, Cities of Death, and Trench. Each player brought a 1000 point army list with a 250 point side board so that they could make small modifications to their army so that they could drop that tank or flyer they used in the Desert to meet the constraints of the enclosed tunnels of a Zone Mortalis board. In addition, every player was allowed to choose a Stratagem from a master list that I pulled from a variety of sources like the Cities of Death book, Planetstrike, Imperial Armor 9, and even from the Battle Missions book. Similarly, the objectives for the scenarios were gleaned from a multitude of sources, putting all of my various newer and older Expansion books, and even the Dark Millennium sections of old rulebooks to use. The goal was to create a unique and fun experience for Adepticon goers that tapped into all of the things I love about the rather limitless world of 40K that seem to go overshadowed in the more competitive end of the tournament scene. It also created a bunch of interesting challenges for me as both a hobbyist and an arm chair game designer as I mashed game concepts together and simultaneously labored to build 16 fully detailed tables to match the Warzones depicted, that were beautiful and fun to play on. Though I never finished all 16 tables, and there were some small design flaws with select Stratagems and how they interacted with certain missions, overall I thought it was a huge success.

At the end of the the 40K Warzone Tournament I handed out surveys, and the results were really interesting.  From what I can see it seems to me that people really enjoy playing with Special Rules and Terrain Effects as long as they can figure out how to deal with them. For example, the Zone Mortalis rules are very heavy handed and there are a lot of them. What’s interesting is that people were sort of split on how much they liked or disliked ZM. Eight people considered it their favorite Warzone, and 5 people considered it their least favorite, ultimately making it the top choice for both. The Warzone that had the least amount of Special Rules was Desert, and when asked what Warzone people would drop in order to replace it with something different, Desert was the number one answer.  One of the biggest surprises for me was that a handful of people were frustrated with the Building Rules from the 6^th Edition Rule Book and were taken very off guard by having to use them. People are very familiar with the rules for Ruins, but as soon as someone was in a Building things sort of fell apart and people didn’t know what their tactical options were for dealing with units inside of them. I hate to say it, but this makes me want to use Buildings even more because they create new challenges that I think are fun and interesting when you know that they are coming.

Another interesting detail that relates to people enjoying the more Special Rule heavy Warzones was that a quarter of the people surveyed actually requested more Dangerous and Mysterious Terrain, and more detrimental Environmental Effects, like high winds and the like. Considering I spend a lot of time on blogs reading about tournament players railing against these sorts of bits of randomness, I found it really interesting to see that there are people out there like myself who find these elements unique, interesting, and thematic.

Though I thought I got all 26 back, I only count 24 today. Regardless, the information contained within these 24 surveys is very interesting to me, so maybe it might be to you:

1) Did you have fun? Would you play in an event like this again?

All 24 surveys came back: Yes. Yes & Yes. Or some derivation of Definitely/Absolutely. This made me feel like the event was an absolute hit and invigorates me to do it again next year.

2) What was your favorite Warzone? What was you least favorite?

Favorite:
Desert: 1

Zone Mortalis: 8
Trench: 4
Cities of Death: 7
All of the Above: 1
No Favorite: 1

Least Favorite:
Desert: 4
Zone Mortalis: 5
Trench: 3
Cities of Death: 1
No “Least Favorite”: 3
No Reply: 6

3) Did anything seem broken or overly frustrating? Did you have any serious rule issues?

No Issues: 10
Wraiths passing through walls: 1 (Personally I thought this was really cinematic! -Nick)
Hidden Deployment Stratagem was too powerful: 3
Flyers were too powerful: 1
Preliminary Bombardment was too powerful: 1
Zone Mortalis table/rooms/objectives too ambiguous: 1
Intact buildings were too hard to deal with: 3
Zone Mortalis tables needed doors: 1
Impossible to make a list for both Desert and Cities of Death: 1

4) Were you able to complete 4 or more turns every game? Should the rounds be longer? Or should there be less games? (they were supposed to be 1.5 hrs but were pushed closer to 2 hours depending on how people’s games were running.)

Yes I’d like longer turns: 8
No, the turn length was perfect: 16
I would like to play less than 4 games: 0
It was the perfect number of games: 18

5) Were there any Stratagems you felt were automatic choices?

No: 13
Booby Traps: 2
Tunnels: 2
Flakk Mods: 3
Hidden Deployment: 3
Preliminary Bombardment: 2
Familiar Ground: 2
Yes, but I’m not going to tell you what ones: 1

6) Next year I’d like to drop one Warzone and replace it with a different one. Which Warzone would you drop? And what type of Warzone would you replace it with?

Drop Zone Mortalis: 3
Drop Trenches: 6
Drop Desert: 9

No changes: 2

Replace with Alien World: 3
Replace with Jungle: 4
Replace with Swamp/Bridges/Islands: 9
Replace with Daemon World: 3
Replace with Ice World: 1
Replace with Space Hulk: 2

Add more Dangerous Terrain, Mysterious and Random Effects: 6

In my next post I’m going to analyze this data and talk about possible changes for next year. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions? Here’s an opportunity to share them.
-Nick

PS. Every one of these images was recycled because I couldn't find a single image from the event through Google. I saw plenty of you taking pics so if you have an image to share, please do!

Staker Outrider

I just finished this Staker Scout for Wreck-Age. It was nice to paint yesterday without any Adepticon deadlines looming over me. I've been working on a few articles about Adepticon and I collected all the info from the 40K Warzone Tournament after-survey. Expect all of that soon.
-Nick

My Favorite Adepticon Momement

This pic is of my Angels of Absolution looking across a hallway at an Ultramarines Terminator Squad that had just come into view. A bloody firefight ensued with more and more units being pulled into the frey. I was so excited to play in this event on Brian Niro's awesome Zone Mortalis tables and it completely delivered. Troy, my opponent also delivered the most fun game I had at Adepticon. Thanks Troy.

Also, thanks to all the organizers and volunteers at Adepticon. This year was the most fun I've had since the earliest Adepticon's I went to in 2005 and 2006.

-Nick

40K Warzone Rule Packet

I finished the rule packet a short while ago. Hopefully all of the scenarios prove enjoyable for everyone, and hopefully my poor Photoshop skills don't leave people scratching their heads too often wondering what something says. This whole process has been a learning experience and I feel like I gained a lot from it. Enjoy! -Nick

40K Warzone Tournament PDF

Updated for easier reading.