[Event Report] What We Did at the Newport Open Narrative, or, How Makhret the All-Knowing Made their Excuses and Left

We come to it at last, then. The first Narrative Open to be held in Wales.

If you accidentally dress in Deathwing colours, leaning in becomes the only option.

Combustion rages across the scrub and heath above our tomb location. Awakening and transition of assets has become... challenging. 

 If the Malignant Orb and human negligence could stop setting fire to things, I'd love that.

Canoptek sentinels were brought online, along with the personal retinues of Makhret the All-Knowing and Hamotep the Phaeron's Hand. Objective: secure the Shard of Mag'ladroth, translocate to rejoin dynastic forces in extrasolar orbit. Despite circumstantial obstacles, additional resource allocation and diversion allowed our conclave to manifest.

Meeting Room 1, aka the Woodland Suite, aka the battlefields of Armageddon Prime.

Elements of the conclave deployed in the primary continent's equatorial belt, interrupting the ritual practices of those who serve the formless horror. Consequence: we were taken for servants of the formless horror by a deployment of the transorganic elite. Attempts to hold the monolith site were ultimately futile.

As part of the Oppressor metafaction, I would be on the defensive for this first round, and had first pick of the tables. As it happens I'd been trawling the White Dwarfs of the past in the previous week, including #276 - the one with the Dark Angels vs. Necrons battle report that took place in the jungles of Armageddon! As such, I made straight for the Hellgreen warzone, and then had my first contact with the rules for fighting in the Hellgreen. Limited visibility, and hazardous movement for aircraft and flying models. Like Night Scythes, and Tomb Blades, and Wraiths, and C'tan. Like... most of my army.

John's Imperial Fist successors were fresh off a tournament field the weekend before, and it turns out that "half a tournament list, all Gravis, in Ceramite Sentinels" is quite hard to deal with. It didn't help that, as the man himself admitted, every single interaction in this game went his way. Even when I did manage to kill some chunky 3W bastards, one of them would survive and score big points, or lend a crucial extra shot that finished off a unit. 

I did what I could, picking off half a dozen Incursors and slowing the remorseless "we get rerolls for touching terrain" advance, but I couldn't touch his Aggressor units and only held onto my tomb entrance because they were too slow to reach my Doomstalker in time. 

John would go on to decoration as a Champion of the Imperium as his Aggressors continued to happen to people all weekend.

As our tactical position worsened, the conclave elected an emergency translocation, which brought us to the ruins of an organoform city two hundred and seventy-six khet away, in the third solar quarter. Regrettably, the Shard seized that moment to test the limits of its containment, and the conclave were forced to give chase. The pursuit led us into the path of transorganic elite forces engaged in cleansing the formless horror from the ruins. Their firepower dissipated the Shard, enabling a recapture, but we were once again forced to translocate in haste, yielding the ground entirely - and abandoning the anomalous technology of Necron origin we had detected amongst the rubble.

Having had more than enough jungle nonsense for one day, I relocated to the far end of the battlespace, the zone designated "Perfidy," which appeared to have very favourable rules for vehicle-and-monster combat. As the owner of a monster that hunts vehicles, I thought this was a fine, fine thing.

Sadly, I was disabused of this notion by Captain Allarus of the Thirteenth Legion - Spike to his friends - who went on to sweep the Protagonist award with his run of enthusiastic and total demolitions throughout the weekend.

We actually played this game twice; the first time I deployed the Void Dragon incredibly poorly and lost it before I'd taken a turn, which left me with no answer to Spike's Land Raider or the Victrix Honour Guard inside. The second time around, I at least managed to kill a handful of Victrix and Intercessors plus a Land Speeder before the exact same, casual "full rerolls and plus one to everything" removed a third of my army in one shooting phase and everything but Makhret's Immortals (cowering behind a building) in the next. No score either way, and I didn't get to fiddle with the mysterious xenotech crystal placed on the board by my (nominal) faction leader either.

I suspect I'd have had a slightly better time if I'd put the C'tan away, stuck my Doomstalker on the board instead, and cleaned up the Victrix as they emerged from their giant rolling bunker. No complaints though, Spike's a lovely chap and his army looked crisp as hell, like a Primaris version of the second edition Studio collection.

All in all, we were done in under ninety minutes, which at least left me open for a late lunch and a spot of retail therapy (of which more later). A moment to sing the praises of the ICC Newport, which served some surprisingly good street food (chicken pakora and mozzarella fries that felt worth the captive-audience prices) and an event-special .4% ale (which was nice, but I wouldn't pay £7 for any beer that didn't come with my choice of bar staff phone number under any circumstances by choice).

Our second emergency directional shift brought us to the planet's polar region, in the fourth solar quarter, and to an extensive assemblage of primitive machine-shrines fronting onto the ocean. Deducing it to be some form of dock, the All-Knowing directed the Phaeron's Hand to seize control of a vessel through forced override and disintegration of its organoferric crew. Especially zealous organoforms emerged to bar the path, and the All-Knowing elected to unleash the Shard once more.

You know those games where you lose, but you don't fail? This was one of those. Sure, the Order of the Bloody Rose may have technically secured this sector of St. Jowan's Dock, but they lost all but a dozen of their sisters and a single Immolator doing it. Meanwhile, the Nephrak Dynasty cleaned up everything they actually deigned to engage with, all my small units successfully "Punched Through" and exited the table, and I even made off with a piece of xenotechnology recovered by my trusty Wraiths before their demise! The Void Dragon also got to do his thing, and was left drifting back along the board in a statesmanly fashion to give Celestine the stink-eye.

Evan's army was gorgeous, by the way: made the showcase despite, in his words, being "tabletop standard, but not my standard." This is "unfinished," you know. Look at them.

I still lost, on account of every Secondary draw being something that wanted me to stand still or fall back and my Primary agenda being an aggressive breakthrough kind of deal, but... I wasn't here to take ground anyway.

Containment field... compromised. Disruption... disruption... situation suboptimal... as the strategic situation disintegrated... this form of transport, beneath us... this thing of iron and combustion, this crude flesh-to-metal control... the Shard hungers... the Shard...

A confession now, dear Reader. I didn't make the fourth round. Between Sunday trains and the multiple wildfires across the heads of the valleys and (as I discovered this morning while writing up the events) my forgetting to take any sort of brain medication due to early starts, I was exhausted. I was on the cusp of dropping out altogether, but decided to stop in Newport for a second breakfast, bus and walk to the ICC, and walk the floor for a bit when I arrived, taking photos instead of playing. Narratively speaking, the Necrons were taking a sea voyage, hoping to avoid detection by any more Liberators by not using any of their own technology to further their escape.

I didn't get the chance to cross swords with Will (who I'd previously met during the Vadinax global compaign) or Liz (who reached out on the Discord Formerly Known As Goonhammer), but at least they got to slam.
Liz was just the best at Tzeentching all weekend, the spot prize for JUST AS PLANNED was well deserved. Loved swapping army concepts with her, too.

Casual giant canvas prints. As you do.
Tempting as it was to pose with the Stompa art, I didn't have a photo wench at this moment.

... Situation. Optimal. Hail to that which dwells in the Void. Hail to the master of the material. Hail to Mag'ladroth.

There were four warzones on Armageddon, and I hadn't played in the Wastelands yet, so I opted to challenge Andrew's Steel Legion on this last battlefield and complete the set.

This proved to be a mistake. Not because of Andrew - he was lovely, his army was pure late-Nineties nostalgia straight to the brain, multiple people came by and complimented the perfect basing and the spectacle of these two forces going into each other. Not even because of me - I decided I'd pivot into Pantheon of Woe for this last matchup despite having never played it before, and that didn't have to be a mistake.

No, what did me in here was the warzone rules. At this stage in the event, the Liberators were defending on every front, which meant they had the special defender's advantage. On this table that meant a very one-sided sandstorm that only reduced line of sight for me, the attacker. Meaning I had an effective threat range of 12", into Guard hulls with their inordinate amount of guns. So when I went first, and all I could do with my first turn was move up, try to score a few points, and feed half my assets to Andrew, and then compound that by landing the Void Dragon on the wrong side of the board, and then proceed to roll some of the worst saving throws of my life -

This was another "shall we just rack up and play a 1500 pointer with all our stuff?" moment. I'm glad we did, because I really want to figure out Astra Militarum - I'm always tempted by them as a second army - and an opponent who clearly knew his onions would help me figure that out. Our second game didn't use the sandstorm and was much more of a back and forth. I still didn't make a clutch charge with the Void Dragon, my inability to roll a nine on two dice with two attempts continues to dog my heels, but at least I killed some of the lighter hulls and was well positioned to start flaying Guardsmen as they got out to try and press my back line of Immortals. I think I could have turned this one around, until another round of "nah, I don't need to pass saves with a 345 point monster" rolls took the C'tan off the board again.

With that, the Narrative was over - the Nephrak expeditionary force fell into inglorious veneration of the dead gods, only liberated by said god's destruction by Vortex grenade. Makhret the All-Knowing survived the engagement, but will have some serious explaining to do if the tomb-ship even bothers to pick her up. The Imperium retook Armageddon, thwarting whatever the Word Bearers were up to in the grander scheme of things. And I came home to unpack my swag box (there's some really good stuff in here, I wish I'd been able to swing for the premium version now), and contemplate the acquisitions from the department of ill-advised "I can take it home today?" purchases...

Look closely. Very closely.

It's time, dear Reader. I'm making Obelisk meta happen.