 Hello everybody, if it's Wednesday, it's Warhammer and that must mean it's time for another episode of Warhammer Weekly Joining me as always from a remote location deep in the woods. It's my co-host Tom. What's up, buddy? Hello friends He literally is somewhere deep in the woods in an unknown unknown unknown unmarked location Don't try to find him. You will not succeed Also joining us this week back on the show couldn't be happier to have him. Mr. Paul Wagner. How you doing, buddy? Doing great. Thank you very much for having me It is so good to have you back on Paul famous for many many many things first and foremost being of course The owner of the creepiest army in all of Warhammer and the largest clutch of spiders Yeah, the best but yes And so We're we're happy to have you on Paul because you are not just a collector of all things spidery You're also a fantastic narrative gamer and narrative Event organizer as a matter of fact, we might call that a neo And true truth. Thank you very much. Absolutely. And Before the sad news of a depth gone being cancelled early as the earlier this year You had some pretty big stuff going on with a whole narrative game that was gonna be going there. That's correct It was called the jibbering dome and we had a lot of buildup to it To plus stuff did a video on the lore, which was absolutely amazing We were we were coordinating to do some absolutely awesome coverage of the event and unfortunately with everything that did happen that did fall through But hopefully next year we will come back just as strong and Get that momentum back and move this forward. So really excited for it. That's right. We're gonna talk about that and all things narrative tonight so that's what we'll get into but first of course the No news. All right, Tom Hey We have a rumor engine we do Here's my formal prediction as I already responded on Twitter This is the official release of my whirlwinds edge army. They liked it so much when they read the article They were like, this is our this is our next city This is gonna be the city that pushes the human technology and you know, we've got a lot of pipes Clearly, there's lots of different. There's some piping actions But they're they're rusty. That's that's how I like my pipes Rusty rusty. Yep. So so this is just I look forward to the inevitable official release of whirlwinds edge As the next city of Sigmar. I think it's just going to be part of cities, too. Obviously Yeah Chucks up Did you see it? I did see it. Um, I don't know. It kind of looks a little scabin to me I would love to see some rats and hats type Skaven city stuff But it has been a while since we've seen some Skaven I was just thinking last week that that is one of those properties that is absolutely GW they're the first ones who really kind of pushed that aesthetic And it's something we really haven't seen and having all the main armies having battle films now There is some really fruitful ground for designers to really go crazy with those ideas. So I Totally agree like Skaven need an expansion at some point in the next two years. I don't want to see a redo of the book I think that original book is fine Right. I I really would much much much prefer to see either a new clan introduced or build out clan scryer or build out clan Eshin and get a bunch of new models for that Because admittedly the last time that we got, you know, any kind of model support for Skaven It was back in the end times with a few kits. We got back there, right? Well, it came out in time with that not that that's bad There are other Bombardier you didn't get the Skaven Bombardier in uh, you know what you got? Yeah, you got a new model That's a good one. I Never count those heroes. I'm sorry. You got the underworld warband. I mean come on. Yeah Those were amazing Totality of my under that's the totality of my shade spire Warband is what you just named. Yeah, plus storm beans like you guys are the death runner in request I mean, oh never mind. You know what I take it back. Skaven releases top to bottom. That's all it's been the fast six years How did I miss gave it? Skaven or duh releases? Yeah, that's that's all right. Oh, we're good. We're good You got me you got me No, I I agree especially from a narrative perspective the eschen are really Have a lot to give to push narrative forward And to really create some interesting stories instead of being a warfare based Clan they really are about subterfuge and spying and assassination. They're about ejecting Exactly and that that could add some really interesting Momentum as far as the lore is moving forward for sure. I agree every time something critically important happens the Skaven are there Like that's we're always there in the background the I Basically I picture some important character in the mortal realms Having a realization like the end of a mystery where the detectives like wait a minute and then they're like Choo-choo-choo-choo-choo when they have all the flashbacks to the scenes and you look to like the left of the camera And there's always like a little rat there where there's one, you know, a little Skaven there reading a newspaper He was over like having an ice cream cone in a different scene, you know Yeah, as a warrior priest, you know, like of thigmar could be a good they could be everywhere Uh, yes. Yes. I would that would be I mean that's a dream release. It's never gonna happen Yes, I do want to see the reforged reformed Skaven Instead of rats and hats, it's rats reforged rats reforged. Yeah, exactly the Skaven of sigmar That's a personal wish, but I can make it probably will never happen But that's okay. I can I can dream and I can make it happen myself needs me Anyway, yeah, it's probably some chaosy 40k thing, but okay Yeah, that's fine. Uh the luminous are dropping this weekend. Yes I mean sort of yes Yeah, like let's be honest actually one box with three kits are dropping this weekend And then we'll probably wait another three months until we see the rest. Hey, there are tokens Uh, there are nice. There's a battle film. Yeah, like all kinds of stuff with them pushing it that back that far like I I will probably end up having to like I'll keep a battle tome in my tokens and dice just resell everything else Here's the market. It's just gonna be hot Like there's gonna be such a demand for those models That like it's gonna be really hard to just start hobbying on them because like it's not like the rest of the armies here anyways so I mean, I'll keep my book I have to say it's a It's a pretty bold move for gw to release such an important release so quickly after they reopened. I know A board game companies and other companies have had some issues with shipping. So I'm actually pretty impressed. They were able to get their issues straightened out as fast as they were Um, I didn't anticipate this box coming up for another couple weeks because of all the horror stories. I've heard from All over the place. Yeah. Yeah I mean, I think at this point we're pretty we're we're thinking it's probably august or september You know, they said later in the year that to me that means something like that And they've obviously they're gonna they're gonna roll into the 9th ed 40k thing, right? So and that's fine Like I get it you gotta go where your bread's butter But then this will be out there which here's the thing What this will hopefully inspire is people to actually get This part of their army painted because I do think that the the three units that come in that box At least two of them Mainly the the the the numerous ones will end up in most armies As much as I love the light of a tharion I don't think he's going to show up too often in a lot of forces, which is a shame There's just going to be this like This like market glut like I joke around about those units like reselling them. The reality is is that like the the wardens for sure The cab the dawn riders Maybe and then everybody's gonna have al-tharians that they just can't get rid of Yeah, sure Yeah, but that's going to be the model that's submitted to every painting competition From here there and everywhere because it's a gorgeous model that you're not going to put on the tabletop usually unless you don't put You know, I don't know. I love him. Let me say that like I love that model Um, I think but I agree. I think that there's like So that you know, let we'll talk about the other the other half of what happened is all of the models Are all of the book basically leaked leaked this week Yes, and so like that's out in the wild now. And so, um, you know, we'll obviously do a luminous show in the next couple weeks Um, so we're not going to do that now But what I will say is that the army from a design standpoint is designed really interestingly um, and I you know, I saw somebody Uh, somebody on twitter today, you know mentioned or there's a discussion about tecla's being a trap and No, I made I disagree I may agree with that I don't know. We'll see. I don't know if he can pull. I don't I don't know if he's worth a 660 That's my problem. I think he is he is very much worth his 660. You are out of your stinking mind We'll have that discussion in a couple weeks. I don't think he's essential I think you can make a list without him, but he is absolutely worth 660 of 660 points Uh Yeah, he super is okay. He's good. He's good. He's good. And we'll talk about it. Um, but yeah, I um I will say this just as an aside Dawn riders are my pick. I love them ponies like I uh We'll talk about this, but I think that there's there's a lot of gas and dog riders Even if they're not going to be your primary like spam unit I think the utility like I think that a lot of people are going to look overlook that unit. I think that's a mistake Well, time will tell. Yep. All right. So yes, that will have to wait a couple months. I will tell you what I hope happens Yep Paul, I think you're going to support this. You ready? Yep. Okay The rest of the lumeneth is kind of a big release, right? There's like a lot of kits to that They want to make sure that's got its own Runway and build up and stuff, right? But there is another army waiting in the wings. That's it's pretty simple. It's one kit one book That's as far as we can tell. Yeah. Yeah So I'm thinking They slide them gargants They slide them sons of behemoth right up in front of the rest of the lumeneth like Why not just drop it? That's an easy off weekend drop, right? You do like two three weeks of 40k. You need one week of something different to break it up You drop the sons of behemoth and that daughter's a cane Uh Warband or whatever and boom. Yeah, there's your week. You're good to go Yeah, well, I mean they've got pariah coming on next weekend Yeah, you can't really expect them to drop ninth edition the next weekend Do you think is that what they're saying or you really I agree that there has to be some buffer between You know this monumental story wrap up in the 40k And ninth edition dropping, right? It feels like that has to be a larger. Um What I want to say pre-release pre-order, right? So You know, I just feel like there's some spots in there and I think that's where we'll slide in like them daughters I think that's where we'll slide in the the sons of behemoth Uh, and then and then eventually they'll get the best of the big elf release Uh, this is just this the reason I think this has been a calculated move on games workshops part to force the the uh Elf players to actually paint They're really pretty like highly detailed models As nicely as they can like we're gonna give them Months where all they can focus on is horsies and spearmen the theoretical sort of backbone of the army, right? ponies and pokers ponies, that's right ponies and pokers So you get those looking real sassy, right? And then we'll give you the rest of the army This is the uh, this is the you can't have your dessert. You got to finish your peas and your carrots first Then we'll give you the rest. Yeah, then we'll give you the awesome hats. Yeah, exactly And then you can go to town Yeah, so uh, several people are saying the ninth period will go on pre-order on the 11th, which makes sense to me um I think the big question in my mind right now Is you know, we look at the calendar Yeah, and this is kind of the last little news item. This will tie into that When we look today right now, there's currently the 24th of june Correct this saturday is the 27th That's right, which uh, would put us obviously if they announced something for pre-order this weekend That would mean it would be coming out on independence day the fourth of july also known as the five-year anniversary of aos I can't believe That they wouldn't know Like to me if they're gonna do the 40k. I'm sorry everybody by the way Let me just get this out of the way real quick I was super sick right after the show that last week like on thursday I got crushed bad enough that I had to go in for like a covid test or whatever. I'm fine It was okay But you had covid didn't you? No, I did not I that's my this I'm saying like literally I got a test and it was negative But I was I did not move out of bed for most of the weekend and I'm still recovering So I apologize everybody, uh, if I like cough or if my voice is if I lose my voice at some point Uh, anyway So I can't believe they wouldn't know or wouldn't want to celebrate this really tremendous milestone Oh, right Right ben johnson knows ben johnson. Come on. They know. Yeah We know They know Everybody knows So like I really hope we see something special for that Uh for that fourth of july Really how about even like a ghb? Sure, they could they could they could that could be when the ghb comes out. Sure It could be the celebration That would be a reasonably good thing and they can do a bunch of just like online content and events and stuff celebrating it Yeah, sure. That'd be fine. And then like and have like a milestone model like they release, uh, hamel car Um storm caster or something At george washington inspired storm cast. There we go. There you go. I'm calling it right now I mean, I like I'm just gonna go out there and say that the fourth of july Probably not big on the british calendar. No No, I doubt it. Yeah, so probably not at george washington Just a thought just going to throw that one out there. I think they're being so we might get like a We might get like a like a chaos warrior george washington. Sure. Maybe they'd be a tea party. Maybe a tea party Yeah, exactly. There you go. That's too. That's too on the nose I but at any rate, I think that uh, it's I I am interested to see what they're going to announce this sunday And what it's going to herald for the fifth anniversary But regardless of any of that we'll be doing the our fifth anniversary Of aos show next week And that will kick we will be kicking off a whole like five days of content. Uh, so Uh, erin busain who is the neo who runs the narrative Uh event at nova Uh, it has reached out to all the content creators. It's putting together a big schedule and a bunch of Fifth anniversary celebrated stuff Uh celebration stuff, so we'll have a whole schedule for you. We'll we'll kick it off next week We'll talk about all the the shows you can look at. Yes, exactly what erin just posted the hashtag five years aos So it's going to be really cool stuff from a lot of different content creators Starting from basically wednesday through the weekend next week through the actual fifth anniversary Uh, so I think it's going to be a lot of fun stuff. I'm looking forward to it Regardless of whether or not we get a cool release. We'll make it So did you say that was the last news item? Basically, yes Can I take responsibility but sneak in one more small little news item? Of course you can. Uh, so we just got the warhammer community podcast, right? You did And there's episode three came out on monday with jonathan hartman. Yeah, emmy awarding emmy award winner composer If you listen to that podcast, um, he talks about writing music for 40k But he also talks about writing music for age of sigmar He talks about how he doesn't write music until after the rough cuts are done Nice, he's only doing animation And if you read between the lines if he's working on music for age of sigmar, we're getting age of sigmar animation That's all right. I am I am pumped I'm gonna be like I mean so there's all kinds of speculation as to what that could be in my head But that would just be absolutely amazing. I mean we could do warhammer adventures We could do callous and toll we could like there are so many things that we could just go to town with Yeah, I mean if this is it When you scroll down To the individual level I think in both 40k or the mortal realms There's just an unlimited number of stories you can tell. I mean, I remember tom you and I You know, we ripped off the top of our head like five different animated series. We would absolutely love to see And you know, there's just there's just so many good options out there. So I you know, they had been pretty not They had sort of been like well, you know, if this 40k stuff works, we certainly want to do some aos too A wink a wink, you know, like they were very much On the nose about it. So I think that's wonderful. I man, I I can't wait Yeah, and uh, if you haven't listened to the podcast also a wonderful listen for a dedicated hobbyist His life has taken a completely different turn and a completely different discipline and and yet still comes back to warhammer So that was that I was a fun listen for me as well. Um, so nice Uh, do you want to just transition that to be your pick of the week because that's a good transition from news into pick of the week That's what I was kind of thinking would work. Well is if I did that because it's awesome If you don't know I actually did go to college for music. I have a ton of background in doing vocal work Um arrangement a little bit of composing and stuff like that and it was Amazing to listen to someone who like I said is in a completely different discipline Obviously is doing amazing in that discipline. You don't want an emmy by being bad at your job. Right. Sure, right? And the way he talks about it. I mean honestly then cis transitions and then another thing Reminds me a lot of how you guys talk on the podcast on design Sure, because he really is breaking down What you're trying to feel and how you are trying to create emotion And it's just a really interesting way of dissecting 40k age of sigmar and putting it into a different language And there was a really interesting point where he talks about how in the warhammer stores Games workshop stores. We always do solicitable lord of the ring soundtrack and all that kind of stuff forever And he was really hoping that you know this Angels of blood some angels of death soundtrack Etc. It will be something that plays in warhammer stores someday, right? Yeah, that'll be the thing when you you walk in the door and Then they transitioned to him talking about cutting up um Titanicus knights and putting on daemonette slanesh claws because it's just so fun And how this is really what he does to like relieve his stress. So It was an awesome really inspirational Podcast, um, so I'd highly recommend you listen to it. So nice for sure. Awesome. Very good Tommy, what do you got for pick of the week? Uh honest foregamer Had a a long deep dive on lumeneth And I would encourage you to check it out. Um, it was a engaging listen I'll say that this is the monday show that you're talking about when they went. Yeah, it was the monday show Yeah, you want to talk about that? No, I mean, well, sure I mean, it was good. They they go through the lumeneth realm lords pretty nicely Uh, and just kind of really break down the various Sort of units and stuff like that have another due controversial in that part. Uh, I thought that one was fine That show was fine Uh, and I have no issue with that at all I'll call rob out for something later Uh, for my pick of the week, I I was just tea in it up for you just in case I understand. I appreciate it Uh, I'll wait till we get to our to do we get to our subject? Uh, I want to tea up the latest battle report from doom and darkness Uh, it was his uh ogre mow tribes versus flesh eater courts And uh, it was great. It was great to watch Uh, I hate flesh eater courts I hate that army. I hate playing against that army. I like watching that army Get crushed I won't spoil anything I did like this battle report You can uh, what you want from that it was a good battle report And uh, so at any rate I'll link that down below. It was uh, it was a solid one so, uh Okay Let's talk about some hobby time guys Uh, I already know tom is gonna have nothing for this because he's out the deep part of the woods But paul from what we were talking about before the show I think you're gonna be able to carry the the weight for him here Yeah, what are you working on? It was my birthday at the beginning of the month and then father's day last weekend. Um, and I have I basically had an all warhammer birthday slash father's day month, uh, so I was able to get a an iron clad for my birthday, which is amazing Um and our kaon as well from the other side of the family Uh, the um feels like those could be kitbashed together in a nice way Yeah, but I I also ended up getting the triarch stalker for 40k for father's day And that's going to be my kitbash of choice at the iron clad to get that going to my gropex cutlers and get some legs on it See what I can do with that. Um And I also got the cypher lords for my wife. So I put those together Again another gorgeous gorgeous kit. Um And then I ended up picking up a start collecting death rattle with the mortar and the skeletons Because my neighbor son is getting into work. Right. Uh, he's playing against my son. So they're I of course had to pick up the whole start collecting because it's a better value than just picking up the skeletons alone You know, that's how it works. That's yeah Exactly. Uh, so I have been also finished up this week painting my Elricazenth model from the silver shard So that is a Scrooge privateer female captain That it converted out of a blood bowl dark elf female figure with a corsair cape corsair arms then a Witch elf head and a dark eldar pony tail. Nice. Um, that I painted up to try and match the artwork a bit So I had a lot of fun getting that finished um, so A lot of plastic that I have to work through and got some projects finished too, which was nice. Nice That's awesome, man. Uh Paul is as you as you may as I hope you know Uh, if you if you follow Paul on twitter, you already know that he's the master of bits Uh, and that that paul Usually does a bit of the day challenge you to guess what kit a bit is from because paul's bits collection is Is uh, truly beyond reason. Yes, that's good tom. Yeah, I think yeah, I think crunchier You could eat live on the show, baby. There you go Yeah, and there's been a lot of generosity that's allowed me to collect those bits. Uh, kenny lull, uh has donated the ton to me As well as um multiple other people so It's but it's one of the things that I really enjoy is just looking through all those little plastic pieces and imagining what they could be Right, so right. Yeah As someone who's just put the finishing touches Sands the display board on a completely kit bashed army. I I understand completely. Yeah Tom have you worked on anything hobby related in the last week? Do you have anything you want to share with us or have you just been doing? Or have you just been enjoying some vacation time with your family? um No, so like I I arranged my models Okay, it's kind of I repaired a bunch of stuff that was broken. Okay, that's real um, that's real uh and I narrowed down lists Uh down to the uh down to as i'm looking at nashcon in two months Um, and I gathered the things that need to be painted for that Okay, so like those are hobby related. They are hobbies things You did things Uh, and then I wrote dnd campaign stuff for the marathon. That's swiftly approaching swiftly approaching my friend. No, I mean Not a lot. Let's let's I'm not gonna lie. I haven't written a lot, but I have wrote so So I have a question for you Tom and this might be a loaded question, but is arranging models open play? I mean Maybe Because I'm firmly of the belief that arranging models to look pretty on your own terrain, etc Just for the satisfaction of doing it is absolutely open play I mean that would that would kind of check out Yeah, yeah, so I mean like but I don't want to throw shade at open play For those that like see it as like a very real Way of engagement like so I think it's both though, right? It's it's what it's playing with your toys Although there's no dice being rolled Well, it's single single player open play Sure, right? I I mean Quarantine open play. Yeah, there you go. Yeah Uh, all right for myself, obviously I finished up those two last Models I had Oh, hold on. Okay, and I ordered some luminous that happened. Sure That's how it says that's how it says so. Hey, hey, I I also ordered Um, the endless spells for slaves to darkness too. Oh, wow. You're doing some hobbying via purchase. Yeah, sure That counts. Yeah Uh for myself, I finished up those last two units for my whirlwinds uh edge army and Those are now in the case shared those out I was originally going to kind of stop there, but I still had these But then I was feeling like utter crap and could barely like I just couldn't The next part which is working on the display board is like a very major Thing that's going to require a lot of work and I have to like leave the house and go to stores and buy things And I just interact with people. Yeah, I just wasn't in that place Like moving was sort of a high bar challenge So instead I got out this last unit that I had left kind of converted, but hadn't finished in my three endring rigors for uh for Uh my whirlwinds edge army, which is the new like little jumpy jumpy guys But they have happy little, you know empire heads and some of them have empire pistols and Uh, they've got little like this is the guy with the rifle. So he's got the special gun Another dude over here. They've got, you know pistols and little chain swords And they're a little I'm using like the old empire, uh pistolier outrider heads So that kind of thing So those guys are almost done. I would be remiss if I did not say how gorgeous those models are then So they're absolutely beautiful Oh, thanks, man. I they came out really well. I hate everything about these little fiddly Guys from the new kit. Uh, I have learned that I despise them They drive me crazy because the Like the adeptus Mechanicus stuff is so small and fiddly and packed with like little detail Okay They are honestly Annoying to paint so Uh, but the bright side is I'm almost done with them So they just have a tiny bit more work of cleanup to do And then that will be the last unit and then hopefully by this weekend. I'm good enough That uh can start work on the display board and that's going to be uh, That's going to be a project in and of itself. So We'll see Uh, I'm excited about it. Uh, it'll be a it'll be a big thing And the bright side is I'll get something playable out of it too. You'll see. All right So, uh With that gentlemen, why don't we turn to talk about some narrative? Uh, there's a lot to unpack here. There's so much But at a high level I want to start by by calling out rob So rob on one of his shows. I remember what show this was recent He said something to the effect of an all paraphrase here that basically All gaming is narrative gaming because if you make a list you're playing narratively since you know the Everything that's in the book is part of that army and you're you're playing with them. You're using the troops of that army that's being narrative and um And so people who say I am a narrative gamer Are just wanting an excuse to be bad or something like that That is sort of this the story he gave now Rob had a whole story around it He he used a purposefully incendiary comment to make a point about sort of the nature of Of narrative gaming and where it matches with competitive and that they're really not that different And his point was nice and soft in the end, but I'm still going to call him out and say that's it rob them's fighting words. Okay, so Uh, by the way, I'll be on rob show tomorrow. So So he's sleeping right now so don't watch the show before he comes up right. Yeah, exactly Uh Rob I will get dug to punch you. That's what will happen. Okay Get the real narrative the real narrative gamer Um, okay. So I want to just start what how do you Think of narrative gaming as a broad umbrella term. So paul, I don't want to have you go first All right, so narrative gaming is really telling a story, right? So to rob's point of if you're picking models from an army book You are therefore being narrative, right? That's not narrative gaming because you haven't hit the gaming point yet, right? You can definitely set up the army to have a narrative focus That's a narrative framing. Yeah, it's a narrative framing Like it's basically the world building that you have done before you show up at the table, right It is the character that you have defined for The the personality that you have defined for the character that you are playing Right, but narrative gaming is not just about Making sure the models look like they belong in the same army Right narrative gaming is truly about telling a story and not only telling a story But telling a story With your opponent, right? It's not just you sitting there saying This is what i'm going to tell and this is how it's going to happen and you're going to sit there and take it, right? Narrative gaming should really about be about the relationship of you and the other player And how this story works out, right? Right if you actually talk about how authors write books if you actually talk about how composers write music they don't sit down and Write out the entire symphony the entire book from one point to the end Everything works out exactly perfectly fine And everybody knew it was going to happen all along and therefore it's great because i'm really smart and this is how it works Right, that's not how it works. What happens is You know when an author starts to write a book There's there's what's called panting, right or there's plotting So either plot out what's going to happen, right? And so match play tends to be more of plotting I'm going to do this thing. So in three turns this unit will be over here and able to take this objective And then this unit over here is going to be over here in two turns and hopefully be able to take out that unit That's holding this objective, right? so narrative gaming is far more about Pancing than about plotting, but it doesn't mean that narrative gaming can't be about plotting What it means is that narrative gaming encompasses the entire spectrum But what it really asks of you is to ask not Why am I using this unit because it's efficient for the points? Why am I using this unit because this is a unit that I want to use because I want to tell a story with what's going on either. It's your general or Or perhaps your your battle line units or this one cool conversion that you did It's asking you to invest some of yourself Into the army in order to figure out what's going to happen And then you and your opponent Are together engaging in relating that story Yeah, and you know for for me in particular and now this is not a general statement, but for me in particular it's about Giving value and giving honesty to that interaction by allowing that result whatever that is To define what's going to happen moving forwards, right? And what that is is for me That allows the other player on the other side of the table to help me to determine What story my army is going to take next and even what models I might buy for that army, right? I got an ironclad for my birthday But I wouldn't allow myself to buy an ironclad until I took down an ironclad in battle In age of sigmar because my army is grots So they can only salvage and if I can't take down an ironclad Then how can I narratively justify including an ironclad in my force? Sure, right? There's a quick little summary for me. Yep No, that's good I think that there's an element here like I think it's important to To to say that narrative gaming Is does represent this pretty broad spectrum of ways to engage with the hobby, right? Yeah, you can have somebody who is a narrative gamer because They're using basically all the trappings of match play and I've seen plenty of people At the tournaments that I like to go to they're like this where they show up I mean, uh, paul who did the ongoing storyboard at Uh, do you remember with the hops like the hop? Yeah, it was uh, and at holy A holy happen last year. Holy habit last year. There you go. Yeah Um, I know his face and I'm blanking on it. I know but I use the geranium to in a blanket because the point was that was That's a tournament. It's okay. Yeah, this this this was a tournament. It's still ostensibly used The trappings of match play right that is to say we were playing 2000 point games although we did have this extra character called a warlord So we had this sort of role playing as character brought in But then over the course of it the you know, they made themselves an actual story Alex did the same thing at holy wars with, um With his uh goblin with his general who was um Who was based on? Um, can't think of his name tilting at windmills. Uh, was it uh, brennan lynch or dominic, uh, dominic, uh, rightman I don't know. Dominic. It's dominic. Dominic is a dominic. Yeah, so Dominic had the hop story The point is in both those things, uh, and I'm sorry. I can't think of the the very famous character uh Cervantes, uh, yeah, yeah, don't be okay. There you go. Yes. We'll get there eventually. There you go. Thank you Can't believe I couldn't summon that to my mind. That's my that's my post fever brain Uh, but anyway, and he had like his little goblin was Uh was little don kiyote and would go around tilting at all these windmills And he was right and he had the narrative that he kept putting onto his like trifold poster board and stuff It was fantastic So but those people were still playing You know match play 2000 point games their their game still looked a lot like it even though in steve's tournament It is a very narrative Flavored tournament and how it's working because the things the tables are doing and stuff like that So you can be on that end of spectrum, but you can also be but you can go Way over right? I think the important part that you mentioned there was oftentimes once you get out of that kind of a setting There's no reason that you can't move slightly off the competitive footing And into the more collaborative footing Right, and and that's what you were talking about. It's about a shared experience with your opponent opponents At that group you it's much once you comfortably accept that kind of a footing It becomes much easier to do three four five player games Whatever you want to do to have roles to have different to have the story evolving to have people taking on different elements And and not always being quote unquote Fair Whatever that means Sure I mean what I would also say is that I think that there's an element of it that we haven't really talked about Which is that sometimes narrative gaming takes the form of a Of additional like ruleset frameworks that we've all kind of agreed to That add elements that like change the value decisions of army compositions of all of those other things So I think about things like Like so if you had like a map campaign Right that like that controls Like what you're gaining and what's going on in claiming territory and it's linking a bunch of like game nights Like saturday night warhammer game nights or whatever your weekly game That framing is itself. It's creating a narrative around what's going on. I think about things like Uh Even doing like triumph and treachery Like there's mechanics around it But it's about betrayal and all that stuff and those mechanics and like spending the points to like do special things All of that it's very mechanical But it's also adding like a narrative framework that isn't in just like match blood. Yeah Well, and uh as Pete Foley has mentioned on several podcasts, right match play Is lazy, right match play is we literally give you everything You show up at the table. You don't have to have a conversation with your opponent other than we're playing a 2000 point match play game I don't have to be nice. I don't have to do anything, right? And I just show up We know what's going on. We play a game and when it's decided we're done, right? narrative In my mind, I know this is personal but like In my mind, it's far more about walking up to the table and saying All right. Hi, my name is so-and-so This is my army. Let me tell you about it, right? Now we have this scenario that we're going to play and I'm going to do my best to win that scenario because This is you know, we're playing a match play game But I'm going to tell you what my army is and what my army's goals are So when the scenario is over, I don't have to give up and say Well, there's nothing worth playing for anymore Because you've already won on points or I've already won on points. So we might as well just stop playing I didn't walk up to the table for a scenario. I walked up to the table for a game with a fellow hobbyist I walked up to engage in a social Engagement with this person, right? Like I walked up to possibly make my new best friend Like honestly, that's how I approach games If I you know, if you were anywhere else in the world and you're able to just walk up to a table and say Hi, you have something you're passionate about. I have something that I'm passionate about We both already know it. Let's have a great time for the next two hours Quitting after the scenario is done Or saying, ah, well, you know All we have to do is really play out the scenario to me is forfeiting An hour an hour and a half 30 minutes of valuable interaction with another passionate hobbyist Why in the world would you ever give that up? Right? I can go and drink a beer anywhere at any time at my house Anywhere I can only play warhammer with specific people at specific times Right, and especially if you're at a tournament where somebody has a beautifully painted 2000 point army Why is it not okay to just sit and listen to them tell you about their army? Right, you engage them and allow them to engage you And you can have an incredible game that you would talk about from the next two hours as opposed to Well, yeah, I won nine to seven So I'm I'm I have so many points and therefore I'm at this point in the list, right? Right No, and that's fun. It's it's there's so much of a chance here from Like I said, the spectrum is so broad to me That's one of the interesting things about narrative gaming is that when we think about what match to play is Match play runs from sort of this this kind of short end of the spectrum that's basically like well We're using the points and playing another stricture match play and that's fine And then there's also tournament play which I see as something sort of a step over from that right sort of the hardest strict form Of yeah play right And that's kind of that spectrum and that's there's different takes on that and of course you can None of that means it's not friendly. None of that means not nice. None of that means people aren't You know putting a lot of passion and stuff into their army. Of course they are I have never competitive games have been the most the most friendly people Absolutely. Yep. They're still friendly people are still passionate people are still absolutely involved in what they're doing And then what's interesting is you've got this nice overlap there That's right there where matched and and and narrative can be all in that same spot And the narrative just runs way over here Where it can go from like highly structured to highly destructured Uh narrative opens the door to things like having a game master Right. Yeah, absolutely Another element that you you know, we just don't generally have the need for that other than the occasional judge call And that's not really a game master. That's just somebody acting as a new neutral arbitra arbitra Arbitrator. Thank you. Thank you But but you can like actively have as many events have shown you can actively have a gm Going through and literally changing the state of play By introducing elements like this is something that happens That that that has happened at raw and places like that a lot Where the gm will come around the table and say this is now a new situation. That's happening. Okay. Go keep dealing with that Continue with the game at gibbering dome last year. We had 16 players, but we also had four gms So it was me chuck more Matt as well Chuck's friends Matt and then heath from Milwaukee and we each had I I gave everybody their own table Right and they were the gm for that table and so players could elect to switch tables switch opponents, etc And and chuck's table was just like we're gonna stay with chuck We're just having a great time and like chuck's table told the completely different story Then he's table or my table or matt's table, right? And that's amazing, right? Like, yeah The the opportunity to be able to play with five passionate hobbyists instead of one Right and and tell that story and that's really not a space that we had We we don't really have much space to be creative with other people um in our lives and even for two four two three hours like that's just an incredible experience and to limit it because This is what match play says that we should play the game, right? On undesign Vince always talks about rule zero if the rule doesn't make sense throw it out I don't care. Just have a fun time, right? And if you look at ages sigmar ages sigmar is rife with rule zero of like look you don't like this rule fine Throw it out But we have this understanding that match play is every rule every time for every reason Right or that we're operating completely mutually on this sort of fair even plane Whereas in narrative you don't have to have that same agreement You and your opponent can have any sort of structure agreement. You can ditch anything you want You can't add anything you want as you mentioned somebody mentioned What's the new system coming out with ninth edition crusade where you'll be able to like evolve your army and stuff like that? Yeah, I really hope we get a framework thing like that. Oh, man. US like yeah Beyond passion. I would love. I know I'm not it's and I want to make my army And I want to tell the story of my army. I don't want to build from three units, right? I have an army. I want to play my army Narratively over time. I want to develop a character. I want to get I want a general to get a sucking chest wound I want somebody else to get some kind of commendation and do some yeah, yeah Some a unique special abilities like that's cool stuff Right. Yep. Well, and just imagine walking up to the table If you having this story about your army and your opponent having this story about your army And telling the story to each other and then playing out that story on the table top like There is no more interactive than to say I'm literally allowing the story to happen together and let's have some fun Like I played a game at adepticon Where it was we were on bottom table. So whatever from but um We were playing ko versus ko And my opponent was like, hey, what if when a ship blows up It actually blows up. Let's actually like cause a detonation So we made up a rule about how many wounds would happen within d6 inches whenever a shift went down Can I just say but just like quick aside 40k has that rule for most of its vehicles Most vehicles are explosive Exactly when they die, there's a chance they blow up and do a bunch more to wounds to everything around it KO that is a missed opportunity that ko ships do not have that same rule Don't make inert gas there. We're fine. Everything's fine We're gonna bail out It just lands like a cushion. Yeah, they're like everybody out of the wreckage. We're good. Everything's fine here Totally about this rule. So continue. I'm sorry. Yeah, and what it really allows is when you have these rules You can add rules and you don't have to worry about them being perfect You don't have to worry about them working in the next game. You can just say Look right now. This is cool Let's add this and make this part of our story. Right, right and why did you not do that? why would you like so So the one thing that I would add to this is that I think that there's a value in Like there's something that there's actually value added in um campaign style play That I think that we haven't tapped into Because it changes the value decisions that are being made in the game itself So like for those that are even more spike leaning right that are more like they just want to win Yeah In a game that where you lose and like even in casual play it like That like there's feel bad there But if you if you're in the middle of a campaign and there's like other things being accomplished And like even if you're like even if losing not as bad Has value carrying forward or secondary objectives that carry on into the actual the larger campaign stuff that's going on Like it there's there's really value added for all the different, you know, like player types In campaign play that just simply isn't there in match play Well, let me let me hold on. I want to hit one thing real quick Because I'm gonna respond because jack we really want jack is in is in the comments And he made a really good point that not everybody's really comfortable with sort of going off this way And this is a super fair point Like i've been playing rpgs and running games and doing narrative storytelling for more than 30 years Okay, so like i'm super comfortable to just break into this and start making my own crap between 10 plus years of doing You know actually writing games And then and and doing that that sort of thing. It's second nature That's not going to be the case for everybody And that's why these kinds of narrative frameworks like a crusade style system if we get it for aos or whatever These kinds of things that give you the tools that you can then choose how you use them to create your story I think are really valuable. Yep, right because it's not fair to just say, oh, well, yeah, you can tell your own story Yes, if you're a very creative person and you got it in you great Then it's easy you're you're going to be off to the races But if if that's not your personal bag and there's no judgment on that by the way, like that's just not in some people's skill sets Um, there's nothing wrong with having those tools in the same way We have by the way a thousand tools to make you a better match play gamer Yeah, right, right and I and I if that's not something that you're comfortable doing right But you're interested in this idea of narrative gaming pick up ether war Pick up the gloom spite and the cylinder box, right? There are some incredible Narrative scenarios in those books. The lore is amazing. The scenarios are great. They give you all kinds of ideas of how to do your game differently, right? Um, and It is such a value add to those boxes that no one has talked about everybody looks at them as like Oh, this is the value of the miniatures in the box But if you literally just buy the miniatures and this has always been one of my sticking points, right? Everybody is constantly like well the value of the miniatures is only based on what the battle tom says And if you buy this starter box It's not equal points value to this other half of the starter box because if you look at the battle Tom, it says this and you look at the other battle tom. It says this right Just look at the miniatures in the battle box Just do the scenarios that are there and then if you want to add stuff great add it But you already have all these custom made narrative rules for your force That you can move forward with and once you're comfortable with that then you could definitely add something like that, right? Or if that's all you want to do, that's fine You found three four five great games that have a narrative focus that have allowed you to tell a story right and the thing is and maybe this is me being a little bit of a a poster child or whatever, but Why does losing a game have to be the worst possible thing that can happen when you walk up to a game of war hammer? Well, it's certainly not once you're when you're when you're in this sort of mindset That it just and you especially if you within the narrative you have a lot of other specific and interesting goals And things that can come out of it housing becomes much less of an issue to be honest because you're just playing for different you're playing for different goals Right and that's why like I think that's the value of the campaign structure as well Is when there is a campaign structure They're like you have other goals that aren't necessarily the primary objective You know, I can think of a ton of more time campaign stuff where like I'm like, okay Well, I've lost this right I've but I need to make decisions now in order to make sure that I don't end up with sucking chest wounds Or that I can still achieve like secondary objectives. Yeah Well, and what you're talking about to me tom really sounds like war cry, but for a ls Right. Well got those campaigns and when you're losing doesn't necessarily matter It can give you a slight advantage, but it doesn't end it for you, right? Right, but I think the thing is right And this has always been a problem for me Now full disclosure. I have won tournaments, right? I've won several tournaments in a row back in eighth edition obviously, but um But the thing is If we're talking about losing being the worst thing that happens There's at best in a 200 man tournament One person who is not going to have the worst thing happen out of a 200 players And 199 players are going to have the worst thing happen, right? This can't be the way that we play at least once Right at least once right and even the person who played who wins might lose the game But secondary objectives might have carried it for them, right? We need to get away from this whole idea that losing a game Means that you are a worst player Means that everything is over and it's the worst possible thing that can happen when you walk up to a table and play against another player Right the worst possible thing when you walk up to a table and play against another player Is for that player to cheat, right or for that player to break your models There are so many higher standards of this is the worst thing that happened to me in a game of warhammer than losing Right, it's a 50% chance when you walk up to a table with another player Who is about as good as you who's going to win and who's going to lose And what determines that is this little plastic thing that has six sides, right your strategy helps But at the end of the day if you have the wrong dice roll at the wrong time It kind of doesn't matter how well your strategy works out Because you can always find one point at the game where this is where I lost it Or this is where I won it out of the thousands of dice rolls that you have over the course of the game, right? And when you say that narrative gaming is for people who lose games What you're saying is that losing games is the worst outcome And it's just patently untrue. I mean, I don't know losing games is pretty terrible, but yeah I mean losing games is not what you go to a tournament to do Right, right But it's not the worst thing that can happen There are so many more worse things that can happen in this social interaction, right? You can walk up to somebody and have the worst game in the world just because they don't feel like talking Is sitting and playing on their phone many bad games Right where I where I won and it was because of just the nature of the game Yes I'm gonna value that game a whole lot less than somebody who was willing to talk to me and like engage in the social contract Yeah, like having people just walk away from the table and mid game. It's just the worst Right then I'll walk away from you all the time tom I do not hesitate. I'll walk you away from a game with tom. He knows what he's doing He knows his minutiae that he's getting into he doesn't need me around for this So yeah, I absolutely walk away from tom But other than that, no, I try to stay be responsible for the most part Anyway, all right I want to get into this So I wanted to hit a little bit up of the the gibbering dome because you mentioned this and this is kind of a This can be a fun thing to jump into And then and I do want to keep the show somewhat reasonably length tonight because I'm going to lose my voice at some point So there that's all but I'll so I'm going to bring up the dome here And I just want you to kind of talk us through this this was going to be an event you as you mentioned You were going to be you were going to run at adept con and two plus topic to help you cover I will link the video below by the way for two plus doing the the narrative. So people are interested two plus did the The the gibbering dome narrative, which is really cool. So I'll throw that down below. Okay So walk us through All right, so um the gibbering dome has actually gone on for several years at adept con. It was at 2019 It was a 2018 and then it was a coalescence before that um, so the gibbering dome is of a spoke narrative setting that I created whole cloth in order to create a space where Functionally you are out of the sight of the gods one of the defining things buddy the stigma is that the gods are real um When you have faith in the gods they respond to your faith by giving you actual boons actual things And so what I thought would be interesting is to make a space that was beyond the sight of that So the gibbering dome is a massive building um that is suspended in the middle of the void used to be suspended uh between actually and shaman if I recall correctly um and uh, it has been loosened by teclas's um machinations uh, but in its heyday it was a center of learning um a center of intelligence and a place to really understand everything that it was um, and there were these massive colossi called the derkerf That would you to know everything that was going on they had access to all the knowledge of the realms that was um teclas saw this as a threat and unbound its power And now it is this uh spinning rack basically in the middle of the void that has become a narrative focus that allows people to um draw in and create their own stories within this sub realm So that was the attention of creating the dome um There is actually a pdf available for download on the motor realms.com Slash the dash gibbering dash dome That is the complete pack that was for 2019 and there will be another pack that's up there soon just as the uh the setting itself And so as I said the idea was to create a complete narrative space So if you want to match play match play and gibbering dome go fill your boots, right? But I was particularly intrigued by this idea Where dnd has the specific parts of their worlds For example, the moonshade aisles with the adventurer's guild where certain conventions get a specific space where If something's going to happen there you have to go to the convention You have to play in a dnd game run by one of their gms And then you can push that narrative forward through that activity And so the idea was to create a space like that within aos To allow players to push the narrative instead of necessarily um the game itself the writers And just allow people to have a place to explore a place to destroy a place to enjoy Nice So i'm just kind of scrolling through here lots of good pictures Like you said this new version will go up along with everything here in a couple days, right correct Yep, I'll link everybody to the existing version and you can watch that and that has uh that has sort of uh People can see what it looked like when the last time you ran it which was 2019 Correct. Yeah. Okay. So i'm gonna flip back over to you here paul and minimize this When you were running this What did you see so so you ran this uh a couple years? How did this play out like for those who are still like well, I don't get it What were you but what's going on? What's different? Like give the play experience here for folks what they were the what they were Encountering when they rolled up to this event at adept con so one of the things that I really enjoy in the social contract is Just making a game that you can get nowhere else right Again, it's people. We said match plays easy mode anybody can walk up to a six by four table throw some terrain on the table 2000 point army 2000 point army go and have fun and so When coalescence first happened. I really wanted to make kind of a very enjoyable experience for eric and davie Who were two of the people who were heavily invested in making coalescence exist? And so I started creating this bespoke terrain Um out of expanded pvc. Um care of the bishmeister Um And so I really wanted to create this own specific place And then it evolves as I started working on it into This own its own setting and so when you play in the gibbering dome You don't plan a six by four table, right? There are places where your models can't go there are heights So at the moment it's between three and four inches. So your models actually have to climb upstairs They can't see from one place to another um and you create more of a Very specific narrative setting to Make you have different choices about how to play the game other than this student has a 24 inch range Therefore I can see this student over here unless there's a woods because that blocks line of sight, right? It's more of You have to take your army and it might be a 2000 point or 1000 point match play army, right? And I've invited players who had no intention of playing in the dome to come and play And the battlefield changes the way that you play the army Not because you have so much terrain that you can't do anything, but the scenarios encourage you to Really enter into the story and create your own narrative for your characters, right? If you walk into this game and you play three games through this scenario And you don't have a story for your character You weren't really trying right and that's fine if you had a great time great But really what it was meant to be is a place to start that narrative or continue that narrative hook And one of the reasons one of the things that I did is I really enjoyed elevating the table So most tables are going to be about what is it? 42 inches 30 between 35 and 42 inches to the standard table height And so I actually made pillars And platforms that allowed you to move four to eight inches up And one of the cool things that happens is when you bend down and you look at the table for line of sight But the table is eight inches or 12 inches higher than you thought it was you're actually looking your opponent in the eye And you actually start having conversations about what your character can see And what's going on and it just created a really Awesome atmosphere where everybody was able to talk to other players. I mean there's 16 players But everybody was able to talk to everyone else and talk about what was going on and make alliances and break alliances and really immerse themselves in the gaming As opposed to immersing themselves in the scenario And it was such an awesome time in 2018. I was like I have to do this until 19 2020 so 2021 as well. So it's definitely going to continue Yeah, and I think this is when I look at the um You know erin who runs the nova narrative event Uh, you know when you look at the narrative track that happens there What's fascinating is people can come in they can jump in they can jump off They can participate as much as they want They can bring their story and they're going to meet the story that that erin is prepared for them A lot is happening in between games Which is fascinating. So they'll have like councils of the various players in between games. They'll have votes. They'll make decisions Gold is exchanged. You know favor is curried and bought and that gives advantages and disadvantages to the forces of the next game Like there's when you do one of these narrative tracks And if you really get involved with it it can it can become something you you can participate in throughout the entire weekend Because there's lots of different ways that you're you're you're intersecting with it beyond simply The hours of the table where you're staring down your opponent. That's still happening Right, but there's a lot there can be a lot more to it as well Which I think is super cool Because it does give you more of that like if if that's the type of experience you're used to of something like a role playing or Uh, that that kind of a dnd type experience just to use that shorthand Right, that's a good way that you suddenly get to experience that Yeah, and so I think that that's just a really neat element Uh of these of these sorts of narrative events That you you you just don't have in in other scenarios Even if you're trying to create it on your own, it's just hard The the great part about here is you've got people like paul You've got people like erin who put a lot of work into creating all these scenarios and and managing Sort of like I said before gming and running the intergame intra game Uh things that are happening and events that are happening and story that's unfolding And taking an active role in shaping it which I think it's cool, right? yeah, and so Uh, you know paul you've started a firestorm of comments Firestorm of comments by calling by calling match to play easy mode. So let's just I I get what you're saying, but I'll I'll put a pin on it here for what I what I think What I think is is the the fair way to to mean this and I think this is a reasonable way to look at this what the What match play is asking of you to bring of yourself to the game Is generally A fairly low bar that is saying it's asking for your attention It's asking for you to have put together a list and it's asking for you to understand what your units and your things are So you must have you must have some level of passion and attention and focus And then it's asking you to play according to the rules It's not that it's easy. It can be quite challenging as a matter of fact Especially depending on the army the opponent and things like that. Yeah, I think what is being said there is When your but it's not asking you to create new rules to create new experiences to weave anything from whole cloth Whereas often especially as you go deeper onto that side of the spectrum with narrative gaming It is asking you to do that and it there is a higher bar of creativity to it the same way that like If you've ever played in a role-playing game a weekly rpg It tends to be a lot easier To be a player and show up to that game weekly Than it does to be the gm and where where you have to prepare a lot of material for your players to encounter Some especially as you go, you know sort of farther in and deeper into that narrative spectrum It's asking you to bring more of yourself Right in that same way to engage more of that creativity Neither of these things are wrong. I hope we've been super clear about that Oh, yeah Neither are they separate as I think I made abundantly clear Earlier at the very beginning of this. So hopefully we're not Construing anything. Well, and when I say that it's easy mode, right like Playing a good game shouldn't be easy if it's match play or narrative, right? If you can look at me and say that I started the firestorm by saying that match play is easy mode Why can you look at me and say that saying narrative gaming is an easy mode? And not expect me to react to that, right? Yeah, because at the end of the day What I actually said was match play is all played out for you You build a 2000 point list your opponent knows they're bringing 2000 points You're doing match play. You know where you're rolling, right? You literally walk up to the table and you don't have to have a conversation You don't have to say talk the same language as the person across the table for you Setting up that game Is easy mode. It is it is using everything that the rules writers have given you in order to play the game Now who wins and who loses, right? That definitely is something that is not easy mode Right, not anybody can walk up to the table pick up an army And win five games six games in a 200 person tournament. That's not a thing, right? But neither can everybody walk up to a table With a full set of narrative and say this is the story we're going to play And we're going to move forward, right? Yeah, I think there's complexity to all of this. Yeah Yes, it's just different types of complexity engaging different parts of your creativity But there does need to be a conversation with your opponent beforehand of we're not playing match play How about we have a conversation about what kind of game that we want to play, right? And you have to actually talk to your opponent about what you're looking to get out of the game I'm not looking to get a win or a loss I'm looking to get a story or I'm looking to get This completely different experience where we blow up our ships or do something else, right? And so that's all I'm saying and that's what p Foley said and I completely agree with him when it comes to this where So if you're angry at that statement the key is you're angry at p Foley go yell at him. There you go You're welcome to yell at me as well. I don't care, but you know It I I completely agree with his statement that wholeheartedly that I get it I just don't want to bang on this too hard because I know that we're we'll draw battle lines if we keep going We will end up in a match play game All right, so let's do this I think we've we've talked a lot about the narratives in the tournament The narratives as we see it in how these games are structured But I think it's important that we we sort of end our discussion here as it start Start trending toward the end of our discussion. This is going to be a somewhat full discussion I think in the end, of course, we all love the narrative and we all love Narrative beyond just narrative play. We all love the narrative of this game Because in the end it's what decides the releases. It's what moves the bigger story forward in the world It's what shapes it right when you look right now at what's leading them in tonight's edition It's the entire story of this psychic awakening which has been this very like narrative story driven thing for them in 40k for us we had, you know, the um The war that led my importance led into soul wars, right and then we had the soul wars we've had all this right and uh, and I think that There's so we have to all acknowledge that this is the most like Uh, narrative driven. Yes. That the game has ever been or felt ever, you know The entire wrath of the ever chosen book Really feels like Uh, a completely narratively driven sort of Battletome expansion, right When I read it, I literally sat down and read through the whole story first right and Uh, when you read that whole story, then you go look at all the rules in the end You're like, oh, yeah, these all make complete sense because I just read that story, right? This is exactly what happened I had school story actually I quite like that. I quite like everything that happens in there I want to see more stuff like that as I've mentioned I think we should have about one or two of those products per year at minimum Yeah, so Now gentlemen Where do we want to go can be a big story can be a small story can be an individual character But as the mortal realms continue to get shaped by the narrative. What is the narrative that you want to see? Happening in the world in the mortal realms as it were going forward over the next three years All right. Well, there's a difference between what I want to see and what I think is going to happen You can okay. We'll frame it as usual in either way or you could give me a likelihood on a one through 10 scale All right 10 being it happens definitely one being only in your dreams or however you want to do it Uh, what I think is going to happen is gordrack is going to go destroy excelsis Okay, and we're going to actually have something destroyed right excelsis should have been in cities at sigmar It wasn't right. Um, there's an offhand and comment about how excelsis wasn't long for this world Um, gordrack's got this big battering ram And he's headed towards excelsis. So I think that's definitely something that's going to happen, right? Um As far as um, what do you hold on? I want to drill in on this just a minute Do you think he ends up it actually like does just excelsis fall or does gordrack actually get into az as a whole? I I don't know how that would I don't know why gordrack would want to go into azir. I tend to agree Like tough punch sigmar, but yeah, go ahead. I my honest answer is so I I'm I'm absolutely a stan of this prediction By the way, I think he adds. I think you're dead on with this like this. I give this one like a hot 10 Uh, I think excelsis gets destroyed. I do not think gordrack gets into azir I think they leave azir For a long time like terra. It's sort of this untouched sacred ground, right? It is meant to be this Because its existence and its being safe and not a freaking war zone Yeah, is actually a serving a really important purpose in the mortal realms It shows that that that good can win Yes, it's this incredible bastion of hope that keeps it from being this like just awful Beyond grim dark nightmare It shows them what they're fighting for right. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is it's the home front concept, right? Yeah, it's yeah So it's the it's the normal where everything else can be compared to it'd be like, oh look, this isn't normal Right, you see all these other realms. They're not normal. You see the gloaming that's not normal, right? Yep Um, I'm with you on this prediction. I think this one's I will say I think I think that it is destruction stern Like I so I think that destruction is the new big bad Um and whatever big narrative move we get um I I would even wonder if like obviously all points has been a flashpoint, right? Sure Um, I wonder if if that that isn't involved here Right, but like obviously the orcs have controlled the gur per ordeal Like we've known that. Yep I you know, it makes me wonder if like the answer isn't That it just like they come spilling into the all points and through the all points spill into a bunch of different realms Like it's true like a green tide style story like a tsunami of of um or or orky, you know goblany get seen this Do you see that as being like that they that they Are how much longer do you think we stay in the soul wars until next year? Yeah, yeah, like next year with third edition rolls Like I mean whether or not they do third edition It would kind of make sense that next year would be a big transition point, right? Yeah, like next year Like we have some big narrative push um and I I I honestly think that you know, I'll go as far as to say That I think that you know, I've said it a couple times and say again. I think next year is Is third edition I think next year is um destruction move to the front and center. Okay um, I think that uh I think we move out of the soul wars and into the you know, big dust up Um, because like they in my mind they have one of two ways they go narratively Either they go into soul wars Are into I'm sorry like a destruction like Dust up or they go into some type of civil war like order-based civil war Where you get like the dark elves release and you know like or you have something that's like That's really causing division within the ranks Especially like if it's related to slanash, I could see something like that happening um But because I think in the big narrative move, I think what happens is that slanash is going to break free Like we've been waiting on it for a while. I think it's going to happen soon Well, yes, I would tend to agree with that. That's my like That's my if you told me I have a year if you say we've done the next 12 months I mean, I'm I'm I'm betting a hot 10 on that one because you'll get the like mortal slanash type of follow-up Uh Coinciding with with her breaking her chains like archeon Broke one of the chains and then got called away To go deal with with nonsense Right Had gotten too close, right? But I mean, right he can clearly go back there I will point out that the first showing of the luminous realm lords in the story did not go well for them He shows up and just smashes through them I feel it's telling phalanx of them because and then he breaks the chain and then he's like, ah, and he leaves That's why you need sixes for those mortals and he kind of makes them reroll that that's a good point. So it's a thing. Um That's a really good counter. Yeah, I mean tech wasn't there so they didn't get the five plus. So there you go. Yeah Yeah, it's really rough. Yeah Just a rough go of it. Um, no, I think that there's uh, I think that we're really Um, I think that we get slanash freed Um, and I wonder if like slanash the freeing isn't like ironic and accidental And what I mean by that is like, I wonder if like the green green tide just smashes up Like it's just a big like they just come fashion through and like accidentally just in breaking things free slanash Yeah, uh, I think it'll be I think it'll absolutely be an intentional thing. Uh, there will be staven there There will be they're always there. Well, they but the scaven don't want slanash freed Right like that's part they will be there trying to stop whatever it is And as usual get in the way and cause something chaotic to happen That's always the story sure So I have a question for you guys Do you think the all points then becoming the eight points is a holding pattern for when the narrative is not moving forward We can focus on this area And leave the rest of the realms alone. Yeah until something else happens. Yeah, I think It's a great flashpoint. Exactly. I think they'll actually establish a couple of things like that So we've got the the all points, right and it's sort of become this One there's a dust up of everybody through Kind of everybody has reason to be there for some minor way, right? Right, but it's largely this death versus chaos budding. Yeah, right, right and I think what they'll do is like you mentioned excelsius Right, and so maybe that becomes a flashpoint where like and whatever that middle ground is there that gets held Becomes a dust up of like an order destruction Flashpoint right because I think what they want to do is they want to establish a couple of these narrative points That are around that they can actually like make trade hands Change used to set stories in have gains have losses You know what I mean because it's not then the whole sweep of the mortal realms because that's too big You're not just going to say like um orders no longer in fire cast an oxy fight, you know cast one, right, right That's not going to happen Right. That's too big But if they create these narrative hot spots Right, right then those you can you can move around it. You can play and they can set They can set things there They can have like I said gains and losses, right? Like catechrist could be pushed back to his fortress and be on the edge of losing And then suddenly here come to orcs as like boom in comes the third party like tom mentioned And all of a sudden we got a whole new game on our hands, right? Yeah, and then our kion gets head butted and then it just gets all rewritten. There you go I I do think that the appropriate end to the soul wars is the release of slanash who has factored so heavily into The nature of what it means for these souls Being reclaimed Right, right Yeah, I'm wondering if negash's nadir Is actually going to become become a flashpoint because what he has done is he had inverted the realm of shayish Right where the the edge of the realm is no longer the dangerous part It's now the center realm Because he has reigned everything into the nadir So i'm wondering if that's actually going to cause some major long-term issues Right because if the center becomes dangerous as opposed to the outside Right, is there some kind of gravity? With all the magic being in the center of the realm that's going to throw things off right are we going to see Just not necessarily the realms torn apart, but then Stuff just starting to move around right places to be Places going different places is negash going to lose power. Is he going to Be incorporated like there's a lot of potential there for that to happen Yeah, you have to wonder if they'd make a bold enough move like I I think we're probably beyond the point Where like if you have a model And it's a cornerstone model Yeah, basically safe in the story right now now. I don't think that should be the case I think those characters should still absolutely be able to live die in the narrative Because by the by it doesn't actually matter you can be playing your army from like time periods are vast Well, the gas has died so many times Well, can I actually build on that like as it has an idea? Is that maybe that's the answer to fixing that? Get him out of the way for a little while put him into a rebuilding phase where he gets destroyed and then The mortars have to like take over wall. They know he's not dead like he never stopped and we all know we'll be back But it's going to take like a hundred years or 200 years for him to rebuild him to his dumb self Right and so Round of releases So the next round of releases, right? Is that that's why the legions of negash blow up into four different books? Yeah, basically each mortar is that like negash isn't around Yeah, um, and then so what ends up happening is that the mortars in their combined forces Um, they are their individual forces have to actually like take the point on the development of like through trajectory of death Which would then bring the vampires into power as they're scrabbling over the scraps that the mortars can't control Sure, they would be a perfect excuse to get your own individual legions like to build out a vampire army To have that would be super interesting. Yeah, I think that's a great idea, Tom It solves the problem of the legions of negash book itself, right? Yeah of of the army being monolithic and they could even still like have negash show up as like that's not like obviously Whenever negash is up in the battlefield. He's always like shards of negash Like the remnants or their avatars And so I like they could even lean into that of like he's not there to lead the everything But the echoes of him can still be found. Sure. I mean he'd still be in the story Just because like in the actual narrative, he's dead But while he's rebuilding he's still whispering in his mortar's ears Right because like just as just as any ultra powerful character like that. They never Uh, I mean look We put sort on out of commission for quite a while But he was still around doing some shady stuff for for for a long time, right? So well that's been established that that's what negash does in black library novels Even when he was rebuilding he just whispers and like can appear for a moment, right? Right So so the other the other element like I'm going to jump topics real quick. Um Because like these we're talking about like these narrative developments. I agree with negash They have to do something there and I think that like especially if we're going into a new edition with the new launch of books Like that solves that problem like narrative because again What you had said leading into the segment events is that like the narrative Like if frames all releases and it drives all Like everything that aos is is driven by the narrative It is like like we need to come to terms with that And so if you want to know where we're going release wise look at the developments in the narrative. Yep, sure Um, and so like I think that's the solution to Uh, the negash problem You know in the allegiance of negash and all that stuff is is some type of fracturing of death probably, you know because of Of negash losing control You know and falling. Um And then, you know in discorporating Um, I think that destruction is the next kind of like front and center And I wonder if the answer to that by the way isn't a thread that we we've like seemingly forgot about Which are the god beasts? Sure Um, I wonder if they're not like I wonder if they're not Ready to just come like go full kaiju And like take take back some of the realms Sure. Yeah, like the you could The the next narrative could be quite literally the war for civilization Right, and it could actually have even to the point where If you get the sort of god beast turned wild in the broader narrative, right? And they're right they're sort of out there spinning destruction into a frenzy and chaos Yeah, rather than being rewards Yes, right that like the god beast. Yeah, yeah, yeah Like the whatever whatever wok is is being generated, you know, or whatever, you know It's actually influencing and stirring up the the the pinnacles, you know, the the true avatars of destruction Which would be the god beasts. Yeah. Yeah And then you could have some really interesting developments all across you can have like a god like a children of the god beast generation Or a release where you could do something like a bunch of like elemental ask, you know, like You know, like there's just so many really interesting Um, I mean that's kind of what sun tabaham on our like let me just point that out Like that it was this like super gargant like That they all descended from and yada yada I will also say by the by That the other there is another interesting narrative choice they could make Okay, okay Which is We push the battles into all of these hot spots the soul wars come to an end And we get the cold war times Okay This would be a very unusual choice for them But this would be amazing. So let me see if I can frame what I'm saying here I call this I'll give this on like a three out of ten on possibility. Okay. Yep. Yeah So there are hot spots where battles are happening. They are in the all points and and excelsis and whatever else they decide to frame, right? and out here But for the most part And largely across the wall the walls of civilization between chaos and death Because maybe negash is dead and the mortars have to rebuild Maybe destruction has been cowed or whatever, right? Like they're they're kind of in they're whatever they're doing They're they're always just running around being nonsensical, but they're largely under control And chaos and order have come into this balance. And so we get a day taunt period Okay where Uh, then the releases you have are the spy And those kinds of focused things you mentioned you mentioned the issue earlier This would be the narrative trick you'd use to bring malaria And it's some vast network of spies and assassins and stuff like that in there Yeah, they could launch a specific new product like Around doing that sort of thing like you could relaunch a sort of Black fortress, but make it more of like almost a conspiracy based thing Where you're you know moving around the city or whatever cities Cities of deceit instead of cities of sigmar Yeah, cities of death cities of destruction cities of chaos like there's a whole thread They could pull there. Yes. Yeah, so this would suddenly where be where the the eye Turns away from the broad open battlefields like there's still battles happening There's still plenty of framing to do all your fun big battles, right? But the major focus of what's happening in the story Turns into these bastions of civilization where this uneasy piece this burlin You know, yeah, yeah like Cold war period burlin is happening and you've got like spies jumping the walls and like You've got malaria and his vast networks and zinches vast spy networks And clan eschen and just like everybody's buying and selling information and assassinating key targets Like that would be an amazing year or two of stories to trot out, right? And three years that's the cycle wrong. I mean whatever these they could be anything and You could so use that to frame out a ton of new releases Right so Yeah, I think another thread they could pull is they already kind of mentioned it but if the gods Start to lose power and control over the realms or start to lose some essence, right? Yeah, so you have bellicor Takeover is the ever chosen instead of our kaon perhaps slan ash comes down and takes the all points, right? And you start having these Undedicated demons, right you start having these non-worshiping people Non-worshiping races that start to take over where the gods are not listening Right, they have all retreated and yeah, so there's a lot. There's a lot of definitely fruitful avenues to take here Yeah, any other specific calls we want to make before we call this a night gentlemen any other any other specific narrative Shots you want to call you want to point to the audience you want to point to the the crowd I mean you could just make the bad moon crash down anywhere And that would be an incredible narrative moment to destroy anything, right? You go anywhere you could destroy the all points you could destroy And if it crashed down an azir That would be crazy take out the sigmar obelim And all of a sudden you've got nowhere reforging stormcast nice all right Tom any interesting called shot or narrative move you think it would be great for them to make any of any likelihood Yeah, like again, I I think that I feel pretty confident about my call on the gash And the the ascendance of destruction like I like I feel like those are Those are the trajectory I don't I don't know how slinnish fits into that. Um, I think that Yeah, that's what I'm gonna go with I'm just gonna like I'll just say this I I'm really helpful For the trajectory we're on story wise. I really am I and I look forward to to where they go with it. Okay. Yeah, absolutely right on Uh, I I like all of these elements that that you guys have laid out If there was going to be sort of as we bring the the soul wars To an end the key is all of these things are about resources Right every all all of these battles so far have been about resources So the first one was about the the realm gates, right? Those are the most important resource at the time The next phase was the souls they were the most important elements We said everybody needed the souls to build their forces to go to war, right? And that's now largely been done So the question is what's the next? Uh, what's the next resource that's so valuable? There is a really simple answer here Oh, I got one. Okay. Go ahead. I'll I'll I'll I'll hold I'll keep my powder dry faith Loyalty especially with Shy-esh being able to generate gods based on the faith of mortal believers. Yep Faith could easily be the next battlefield Exactly. Yeah, you you literally pulled it right out. That's it. I was gonna say yes The war the faith wars, right or the wars of faith, right in belief Where where actually what's what's valuable now is no longer the dead But the living right or those who who call worship to some god like the gosh obviously makes believers by just killing them But like for the most part like that's a pretty easy He's got he's got a great great method of sort of inducting people into his his faith But like the I was thinking about this actually playing skig is sort of the nature of faith and how powerful it is in the mortal realms, right? And once slanesh is free and there's not this big Um, pinata of souls you can just punch forever Right and the storm cast and the gosh have kind of divided their sides and like, okay Your plan's done. It did what it did and now you've got what you've got And your reforging is flawed, but it's working. However, it's working and like that line has been drawn Now there's just lots of people Right and chaos has been fighting a hearts and minds game forever. That's been their their battle, right? They're always on about this And so what now the rest of the gods get into is the same thing into the recruitment Where you start to see them like trying to Uh pull for the faith of the living. Yeah the war of faith And uh, I think that would be a super cool Super cool turn for what to go into next that really gets to the heart of the mortal realms and the power that like the belief Has especially when entwined with the magic of the various realms. So Just that's my thought that's my crazy thought for what we could spin into next I think it's great. I agree. I'm I'm glad you got to the same place. Simpatico my friend. Simpatico. All right Very good. Well, thank you very much everybody for watching. I know this was uh, this was a very different show But hopefully very fun. I hope everybody enjoyed this all this talk of narrative Uh, if you did like it give it a like it's as easy as moving your mouse from like here on your screen over to here I'm clicking a little button. It's just that easy. See it's it's that you can just do that right there So please do give it a like it helps other people find the show and uh, I really appreciate it We all really appreciate it. Paul. Thank you so much for being on the show, buddy. It was great to have you Awesome being here. Thank you. Uh, miss you like crazy that I didn't get to see in person all the time times I normally see you this year, but uh Fingers crossed 2021 will be the year where everything gets Back to some kind of normal and we'll be back to our tournament. So I hope to see you then Exactly for all of you out there. Thank you so much for watching I very very much appreciate it. Come join us next week for the fifth anniversary of aos special That's going to be very exciting But as always, I thank you very much for watching this one and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye everybody