Mordheim: The Enemy Within campaign - the final 2 Objectives

Here I'm releasing the last 2 objectives for the Enemy Within campaign: The Raiders (rampaging tribes and marauders pillaging from town to town) and The Seekers (treasure hunters and entrepreneurs, with also a smuggling alternative).

Finally, after much delay, I can release the last 2 objectives for the campaign.
Plots- The Raiders, The Seekers, The Smugglers (click here to download)

'The Raiders' objective is for those warbands who want to make a career out of raiding & pillaging settlements and caravans, while they amass an small army to carve out a small kingdom.
This objective is designed to be one of the simpler ones to follow, to help beginners or those of us who would rather have a more straightforward approach to Mordheiming :)
This is also one of the few objectives in this campaign that allows the max warband size to be exceeded several times (up to +4 warriors). 
One of the elements that interacts well with the Exploration table is that building new encampments, or upgrading existing encampments, adds Campaign Points ( representing the Raiders' staking out new hideouts and staying on the move).
The objective is completed only after fighting a large field battle on the tabletop, approaching the size of small detachments (with special rules to accompany it). If you ever wanted to finish a campaign with your Mordheim Leader at the head of a small Warhammer army, this is the chance.

'The Seekers' is the reason why this release was so delayed. It's probably the more complex objective, and is an adaptation of 'The Lure of Treasure' objective from Border Town Burning.
Instead of collecting Cathayan silks as a way to reach victory, the warband must choose one of a number of specialty lists, containing related items. They have to somehow acquire AND SELL these items in order to gain Campaign Points.
Furthermore, the objective allows a Hero to miss a battle, and take a vehicle to travel to their Homeland's supplier, where they can buy items off from their starting equipment table (at the costs listed and without rolling for Rarity). Essentially, this allows Dwarven and Elven merchants to ship their wares from home and sell them off for profit in the Empire.
The objective also allows for maintaining more than one encampment, as the warband establishes a franchise: in the form of shopfronts, taverns and trading posts, which grant more Campaign Points.

As an alternative to 'The Seekers' objective, players can instead choose 'The Smugglers' variant, which has a specialty list composed exclusively of illegal items. It follows a similar development as 'The Seekers' with the exception that Heroes can gain the Disguise skill (which allows undesirables to enter law-abiding Locations), and their final objective is to make a run out of the Empire to the New World.

Both of these objectives, like 'The Sellswords' before, involve a lot of use of the new Encampments rules. Prepare to see a lot more raiding of encampments (and having to build adequate defences) in 'The Enemy Within', especially since an evicted warband risks losing not only their hideout but also some Campaign Points!!


Items required to finish 'The Enemy Within':

• Random Events - (draft exist in scribbly form)
• Hired Swords - (scribbly drafts have been spoiled on the blog before!)
• Organizations - (I also have scribbly drafts)
• Scenario rules - (rewrite of originals), more than half is playtested

I wish to start a more systematic playtesting of scenarios at our local shop, to iron some final kinks.
But if some of you have tested any of the rules in your home games, please don't hesitate to share your feedback! We can build a better game the more issues we detect beforehand.

Roll high and prosper!

Coalescence Malign Portents - an Age of Sigmar Narrative Event

I ran a Narrative Event at our local gaming club, Alpha Omega Hobby just outside Boston, MA, last March.
It was a 3-game event, created and coordinated internationally by the NEON group, that local organizers adapted to their specific group.
Featuring story-based linked battles, Skirmish battles, Veteran ability progression and the new special rules of Malign Portents.

Hello all, and apologies for the belated content release. Boy has my job sucked me down a hole!!

These past months I have been focused on Age of Sigmar, and establishing a group of Warhammer players at my local game shop. And thanks to organized Narrative Play becoming increasingly popular in the past 2 years, I joined the NEON (Narrative Event Organizers Network) to run an event.

Malign Portents is an expansion released for Age of Sigmar a couple of months ago, and Games Workshop collaborated with the NEON for them to prepare and event that would use the new rules.

Malign Portents introduces special Prophecy Points, that Heroes in the army can use to trigger magical effects, which take the shape of visions and nasty omens that come to happen at that moment. There are 6 Portents that an army can pick, each with 6 Signs (ie. supernatural effects) that can be triggered.

In addition, each Grand Alliance has a special "Prophet" Hero called a Harbinger, that has a dedicated Portent they can draw on, in addition to one of the regular ones.

Finally, there are Time of War rules for fighting in the Realm of Death, where each unit destroyed feeds magical environmental effects across the table. Very unpredictable, very deadly.

Each NEO (Narrative Event Organizer) that signs up to run a NEON event is given a standard rules package, crafted by the main NEON team. It includes scenarios, general progression abilities, and a scorecard to track player achievements. Games Workshop also picked it up and distributed it on their Community page!

Each NEO is free to adapt the package to their gaming group's ongoing narrative or style of play. This can include even making all of the scenarios Skirmish games, or use a few different scenarios. As long as which Grand Alliance wins can be reported to the NEON main team, the event can be very flexible.

The story of Malign Portents follows the various armies entering the Realm of Death, Shyish, in search of the source of the curses and supernatural blights that plague the Realms. It is suspected it is Nagash's doing, who has been collecting the highly magical Gravesand to build inverted glass pyramids... but what these are meant for is unknown...

Malign Portents has its own website, where special rules were released on a weekly basis as amries fought the undead, and their decisions affected the fate of the Realms.

The specific narrative of the Coalescence Malign Portents event follows several armies who have arrived in Shyish in the hopes of opening the Helfire Gate, a realmgates that connects to the Realm of Fire and is close to Nagash's main fortress.

Lucky for me, at our local store we have been playing a map campaign on the Realm of Fire, so I decided to include this connection in our rules package. The winning Grand Alliance would get to keep that map region: the Lake of Shackled Spirits.

I modified the rules package quite a bit, to introduce alternative scenarios depending on who won each battle. Players fought over a Fortress of Souls (yes, with siege ladders!), guarding a shadeglass pyramid, and over the Haunted Coast to secure passage on a ghostly ship. All these battles took place under the Balemoon, that enhanced Prophecy points for every invading army to interpret Portents.

In the next battle, a squad of each army undertook a mission, either to collect souls from the Soul Well within the Fortress, to follow the skeleton work train to the Helfire Gate, or to scour the Shyishan town for relics for the final battle. 

The final battle saw four armies converging on the Helfire Gate, while the remaining two armies fled to the Realm of Fire, to regroup and take the gate from the other side.

It was a huge messy slaughter, to control the pylons that kept the gate closed.

The winners, securing the gate on both ends, were the forces of Chaos.

However, the international Coalescence results, from all events around the world, turned up Death as the final winner.

But the real win in our event was the narrative gaming: players really liked the story-like underpinnings or the linked battles, and especially the fact that their Prophet Hero kept gaining abilities after each battle, and collecting magical relics.

Our prizes were symbolic for now, but hopefully with more traction we can make a bigger event and our store will contribute some more meaty prizes :)

Keep on the lookout for more NEON events.
The Coalescence main narrative Event (Desolation of Eristrat) is going to take place June 23rd, so find a local gaming venue near you!! Join a Narrative Event or run one! :)

There is also the Grand Narrative Event at Nova Open, which will feature skyships!!

The Narrative Community is growing folks! Find one near you, or grow your own! :)

Warfront (Age of Sigmar) map of Shyish

Hey folks!
For those wanting to fight in the Realm of Death, while the global Dread Solstice campaign still lasts, here's a map of the Realm of Death for Warfront.
Enjoy!

Warfront - An Age of Sigmar Map League/Campaign

Hello folks!
I have finally come up with a map campaign ruleset! It's been so long in development, but now it has finally coalesced into being!

I decided to share this piece of rules kit that I developed for our local games store, to solve the problem of getting all players together on the same day for a Map Campaign.
We've all been there, and it's complicated.  Hence, I finally came up with Warfront.

Download - WARFRONT Rules Age of Sigmar (click here)

Download - WARFRONT Flamescar Plateau Map (click here)

This is a Map League/Campaign for a gaming group/store, where every game played, even random one-off games, can count towards the overall advance of each Grand Alliance as they conquer territory along the map. Even better: each new game can benefit from the bonuses accumulated by previous games from players belonging to the same Grand Alliance: either previously established garrisons on the map or Spoils collected from previous victories.
All very easy and straightforward: 1-2 pages of rules.

This map is for a 'Firestorm' Warfront campaign, with a few embellishments of mine.

Note: Destruction Grand Alliance HQ a tribute to Warboss Kurgan! :D Orc pirates abound.

All you need is some corkboard, some coloured pins, and presto!
Winning battles grants the winner control of the map region and Spoils markers, or if they win a Skirmish battle they can choose to earn Intel markers or destroy the enemies' fortifications.
Players keep track of which territories their Grand Alliance controls, and how many Spoils and Intel markers they have accumulated using the coloured pins. Fortified and Garrisoned map regions, as they are developed by winning players, are further marked with extra white/transparent pins (these are places with defensive earthworks or full-fledged forts, respectively).

Warfront had been developing in my mind for quite a while, from what I started a couple years ago with the 8th Edition "Theaters of War" scenario generator. I've been trying to make a modular scenario generator that would fit seamlessly into a map campaign. And a type of map campaign that could be run in a store that anyone could contribute to, without any input or coordination from any manager or Games Master.
But development slowed down as I became more focused on Mordheim, and had to face the fact that there were indeed a lot of rules required, which I kept tweaking slowly over months... and as Warhammer Fantasy slowly lost steam.
But it was really with the release of the Firestorm boxed game for Age of Sigmar that this all really crystallized in my mind, and I found out how to implement it.

Warfront is also very customizable: the ruleset is meant to be so simple it should work for every map you can come up with for your own gaming group, or even work in multiple systems.
I have also developed a version for Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition, and cooked up a Map set in the Dark Lands, Mountains of Mourn and the Sea of Dread.

Download - WARFRONT Rules Warhammer Fantasy (click here)

Download - WARFRONT Dark Lands Map (click here)

It is truly more a logistic framework to organize players than necessarily a rules supplement. The easiest and laziest way to insert narrative into your games. :)

Combining it with Army Progression
Within the larger pool of players participating on-and-off in the League, a smaller group of players can always come together to play an army progression campaign "story" together, growing their armies as they go. All the while participating in the larger war for the territory.

In Age of Sigmar this is best done via Path to Glory or the Skirmish campaign systems, which both allow for growth of armies and gaining veteran abilities as they grow in experience.
Because the WarFront rules contain an in-built balancing system when forces are of different sizes (Sudden Death and Ruses/Stratagems), even when some players have played more games it would not severely unbalance the game if they have a larger force.


Try it out! Put one up in your store or gaming club today!
Playing in a "campaign" was never so easy.

Play hard and prosper!

Mordheim "The Caravan" scenario playtest (The Enemy Within)

And a new post! Getting more into a regular schedule now.
Time to delve into the crazy world of the rules for wagons! 

This scenario was originally released in Town Cryer 11, before the full rules for wagons were released. I have updated it to be in line with current rules, and added a few rules clarifications.

This is an iconic scenario for a wilderness campaign, where one warband is escorting a traveling caravan and has to protect it from a raiding warband lying in wait.
The attackers start the game hidden, which allows warbands that have invested in stealth to shine at ambushing. 

The battle can take place either in a town or in a village setting: the crucial part is that buildings can be used for cover and better positioning. Also, there are several roads along the length of the table, which cross each other and turn at given points. These are meant to restrict the wagons' movement somewhat. Why? Well... Wagons move very fast! Especially in a straight line (10+d6" if you Apply the Lash!). Even when models are standing in front of them.

This scenario is a great introduction to the wagon rules for warbands who may be considering getting one, but feel daunted by the rules. The three "wagons" in the caravan are Carts (or Treasure Carts), smaller 3-person wagons, each pulled by 2 draft animals.

Stopping the wagons from moving isn't as easy as it may look, as they can plow through a blockade. The easiest way is to go for the draft animals. Even if you don't wound, hitting them is enough to spook the beasts and potentially send the wagon Out of Control. 

Wagons have a 1 in 6 chance of going Out of Control whenever they collide with something, when the draft animals are pushed too hard by the driver or it's wheels are hit hard enough. Additionally, if draft animals are hit, it automatically goes Out of Control!

A wagon Out of Control cannot control its direction or speed, and may veer dangerously to the sides. This becomes dangerous when it collides with walls or other obstacles, suffering a S5 hit and possibly prompting further Out of Control tests.
Now, not all results on the Out of Control are a death sentence. Especially after adding the Driver skill to the NPC caravan drivers, which allows a re roll on the table.

The Caravan (Scenario) (click here to download)

As you can see from the rules, this scenario feeds directly into the objectives of The Seekers (who are trying to set up a trading empire) or The Smugglers (who are trying to set up a criminal empire!), as well as The Raiders in the role of attackers.
Quintessential attack on a supply caravan.

Hope this gets you curious to use wagons more in your games! They introduce a lot of fun chases in games, and are very cinematic.
Next, I'll playtest The Stagecoach scenario!

Roll high and prosper.

Castle Wittgenstein: a multiplayer scenario for 'The Enemy Within' Mordheim Campaign

And we are back to releases for "The Enemy Within" Mordheim campaign! Phew, this one took time to bake!

Hang in there, I have more coming!

Finally I've managed to finish this campaign's multiplayer set-piece battle.

'Castle Wittgenstein' pits a couple of warbands defending the castle, hired by a corrupt baroness dabbling in dark magic, from everyone else. The other warbands will be trying to either bring the baroness to justice, steal her warpstone, or just take over the castle. Whether they work together or compete from the first round onwards is up to them.

'The Enemy Within' - Castle Wittgenstein (scenario)

Castle Wittgenstein is the iconic location where the plot of 'Death on the Reik', the 3rd chapter of ' The Enemy Within' classic WFRP campaign, finally resolves and where the heroes track down the source of chaos corruption affecting the region.

Our "first-generation, not-fully-compliant-with-rules" terrain for this scenario.

In this Mordheim campaign, the lawful warbands represent the well-intentioned heroes, while any chaos warbands (or other unscrupulous/criminal types) will be defending the baroness. Of course, warbands following the 'Host of Horrors' objective (invariably Skaven) will be trying to steal the warpstone meteorite that the baroness owns, by invading the castle from the underground.

Assaulting the castle is no small feat: this is no ruined keep with holes in its walls, although one can claim that not all expenses were spared when it comes to hiring the best soldiers to defend it. The defending warbands will be outnumbered, and will have to fend off an assault coming from the outer walls, as well as preventing enemies coming in from the underground tunnels and underground dock.

On the other hand, there are several attacking warbands, each with their own objective. While they may initially cooperate to invade the castle and defeat the defenders, they will be at odds with each other as their end goals will be in direct conflict.

This will be one of the most daring siege scenarios for Mordheim: 2 sets of walls (an Outer and Inner Bailey) 2 bridges and 3 gates to punch through. This of course only fully applies to the Lawful warbands, who start the battle outside the walls of the Outer Bailey. At least part of the Rivals warband may deploy on boats and rafts adjacent to the castle's underground dock. This allows that warband to also infiltrate the underground tunnels that lead to the Inner Bailey, bypassing the gates and bridges.

It is a complex setup, and I might have to tweak it as I playtest it further.

However, the distribution of attacking warbands (some outside the walls and others infiltrating) and the fact they outnumber the defenders 2:1, serves as a balancing factor. Furthermore, defenders don't immediately rout as normal: they instead fall back to the next defensible position (from the Outer Bailey to the Bridge Tower, then to the Inner Bailey, then the Manor).

Playing 'Castle Wittgenstein' will also require some extra props beyond the castle scenery: you need some underground tiles, and a large building with at least 10 rooms ( not counting corridors).

To ensure those with a more conservative terrain collection can play the scenario, the campaign supplement will include a set of underground tiles, as well as house interior tiles. This way you can set up the Manor as simply a large building (with no actual rooms inside) and then use the tiles as warbands move inside it.

The scenario requires a good bit of preparation, as it's got several special rules. But after all, it is meant as a landmark in the campaign, with as many warbands as possible participating.

If one of the players acts as the game organizer, keeping up with the rules will be much easier, as there will be at least one person who will have the big picture in mind, and can remind other players.

Note that there is room for a lot of shady deals and unexpected role-switching when assigning roles in this scenario. Unscrupulous Sellswords in service of an Elector can momentarily join forces with the Wittgensteins for this battle if it fits their purpose. And a band of Chaos Cultists could have a fierce hatred of the Beastmen the Wittgensteins have allied with, and will thus try to storm the castle as well.

Hope you enjoy, and I appreciate any feedback you can throw my way (which it will probably need!).

Roll high and prosper.

Narrative rules in Age of Sigmar: a review

This is a post a long time coming, and I've been doing my research the past months making sure I got the full scope. And tried my hands at a few games.
This is for newcomers to Age of Sigmar, current players, naysayers and even those who aren't interest in this edition of the game. There are ideas here that are very valuable and relevant, and many games could benefit from it.

•  For those still waiting for "The Enemy Within" Mordheim scenarios, I'm still editing them! Evidence:

 Now back to our topic of today.

Age of Sigmar has currently LOTS of easy-to-fit, modular rules that are filling up all the narrative needs you can have. They have slowly been building up since last year.
I'm surprised at how I myself am so satisfied.

For the uninitiated in Age of Sigmar (AoS), one of the biggest perceived flaws of the system was a lack of larger game structure and unit customization, especially in terms of magic items and certain upgrades, with the biggest offenders being Hero models (which had become painfully generic). This led to a huge fear that AoS would not cater to narrative-led games but more to casual light play.

Then things started to change, massively, especially with The General's Handbooks. But I will go by parts.

BATTLEPLANS (aka scenarios)

The earliest change you could see, even in the first releases, were Battleplans, or scenarios. In AoS, many of them were released in the first campaign books, and these were very diverse in their objective, and already set out the blueprint for narrative missions.
From the onset, they were as rich or richer than scenarios you would find in the old 6th ed Generals Compendium or the narrative scenarios in the final section of the 8th ed Core Rulebook. With the first Generals Handbook (2016), most universal narrative scenarios were covered: flanking attacks, defensive blockades, King of the Hill, last stands, etc. They even have a strategy matrix scenario, where both players' pre-game strategy decisions affect the game setup.
Being released as part of the game's core functionality, instead of "those other scenarios that look funky", went a long way to normalize their use.

TIME OF WAR

These are modular special rules, that represent different environments, or battle set ups: imagine battles supported by divine magic, or access to new spells drawn from the local place. For example, all wizards when in the Realm of Fire gain access to the Fireball spell.
The rules are short, contained, and easy to paste onto any battleplan. And are perfect to layer onto any game to represent fighting in different terrains (or planes of existence, as we now have in AoS).

But (and this is the best part), in a very sneaky way, they have introduced RPG-like item upgrades into Age of Sigmar, to develop your army! :O If a player wins a Major Victory in a battle, they get to collect a Triumph from that region's Time of War rules. These take the form of small magical items or magical blessings, such as the return of the Ruby Ring of Ruin or the Acorn of Ages, or a Wizard gaining a Tome of Fire which grants them the use of the Fireball spell outside the Realm of Fire.
As per the rules Triumphs only apply to the next battle, but within any gaming group you can house-rule it that Triumphs (or some of them) are permanent.

ALLEGIANCE ABILITIES

This was one of the biggest splashes coming out of the Generals' Handbooks, and what really started to introduce customization back into the game.

- Flavorful Abilities
They give specific battle traits rules  to armies from specific grand alliances (Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction) that really evoke the narrative spirit of their models. They give command traits to your general, from which there are a few choices, and help to define their powers and personality. Finally, you can give Heroes magic items (though in a much more limited manner than previous editions) which bring back many favorites.

 While having less options and less customizability than previous editions, the fact that points are not involved, and you just pick an option from each list, it makes army-building less time consuming and avoids number-crunching.

 With the Generals Handbook 2017 most allegiances (like Followers of Tzeench, Ghostly Undead, or Duardin Fyreslayers) also got their own set of abilities and further expands the flavour of that sub-faction (like Wood Aelf Wanderers being adept at mist-walking and shooting on the run).

-Magic Lores
Finally, and this has only been explored in a couple sub-factions, we are starting to see specific Magic Lores being re-introduced. Sylvaneth, Bonesplittaz and Followers of Tzeench wizards can each get one single spell from the Lore list, on top of those they know, as long as their army is aligned to that specific allegiance. They still cannot cast more spells per round than before, so balance is preserved.

And just like that, a lot of flavour gets reintroduced back into the game almost seamlessly.

OPEN WAR CARDS

This one is probably one of the best ideas ever in Warhammer, and previous editions would have benefited massively from this gaming aid.
It is a scenario and special rules generator in the form of a set of cards, with a pile for Deployment Zones, Objectives and Scenario Special Rules. It also has a pile for Ruses (special tricks players can play on each other during battle) and Sudden Death (special victory conditions for armies that are significantly smaller.
And just like that, you can generate an interesting random scenario, with diverse objectives from capturing objectives to killing a messenger.

Further, you can combine specific cards from each pile beforehand to build custom scenarios at your pleasure. And also, Ruse cards make a great bonus resource for use in narrative campaigns.

CAMPAIGNS

We had been waiting for these for quite some time. Boy, they really spent time streamlining these. They are very easy to implement, but they really REALLY shine when you connect them to the other narrative rules options, more than any other Warhammer edition before.

-Army progression campaigns
The first form these take, and the most straightforward, is a Time of War rule called Regiments of Renown (you might remember this name ;) ) that allows each unit to gain a 'veteran' ability after each game. This is great for league and ladder campaigns in a gaming group, especially when players still have small armies.
The next big breakthrough was Path to Glory, which was so popular that it got released and expanded in its own book. In this format, you pick from one of many allegiances within each Grand Alliance (like Khorne Bloodwarriors or Sylvaneth) and choose a champion and a few units of followers. After each battle and accruing glory points, the army is upgraded with either more followers or champion/unit 'veteran' abilities which all build on the army's flavour (like undead units recovering more models, or Aelf champions improving their command abilities). The follower tables balance the strength of the added models by how many you get to add in each upgrade.

This is the next easiest step to implement in a gaming group, and pick either a glory points threshold to win or come up with a special battle royale final scenario or somesuch.
Of course, players can use either of these progression rules (or both!) bolted on to a larger map-based campaigns.

-Map-based
The Generals Handbooks introduced a few simple setups for map campaigns, which are pretty easy to mock up in gaming groups.
But things really took off with the release of Firestorm. This is a boxed game, and just feels like a boardgame: a map, cards for resources and point tracking, and reusable sticker/tokens to track army position and garrisons built.

It is designed to be very freeform, where players can challenge for control of any map section anywhere, but as they build garrisons they are granted more troops when fighting nearby. And rivers restrict this, so geography still plays a role. Also, the scale of the armies fielded is also freeform, and players can agree on any value (of matched play points or even skirmish-level renown points) to fight their battles, and even vary it from battle to battle.
As players fight battles, they gain Glory and Build points. The first count towards final victory, while the latter are used to build garrisons and upgrade their deck which determines how powerful their overall force in the campaign is. It is from this deck that the amount of points they can field is decided.

 Each map region has its own Time of War rules to ensure different areas remain interesting and distinct to fight in.
The story in Firestorm is actually one of its coolest selling points, which strangely is not being used in promotional material. The reason armies are fighting there is to gain control of the Prismatikon, an ancient arcane array (from a fallen civilization, of course) that harnesses the energy of a captive elemental fire-entity into a beam weapon. Together with the arcane computer of the Infinity Gears, this magical weapon of mass destruction can be fired through portals across the Realms to level entire cities. Hot dang!

NARRATIVE GAMING EVENTS

Finally, we get to what is probably the biggest change in Warhammer narrative gaming. People are organizing lots of Narrative Events throughout the world. They are like tournaments, but unlike player's competing with each other as gamers, players compete as allegiances and drive forward a narrative played out in flavorful scenarios. Lots of campaign and scenario special rules are being created by avid gamers and organizers out there.

You can find the latest news in the Narrative Event Organizers Network.

If only they had done this back in 8th edition Warhammer. Now, not only are they popping up everywhere but even Games Workshop is supporting and popularizing these events. Wow. :)


THE NARRATIVE SETTING ITSELF
Coming to the end of the article, I'll just describe what people who aren't familiar can expect of the Age of Sigmar world, and to understand how life in the Mortal Realms really is for the average mortal there. The setting of Age of Sigmar has often been touted as shallow and designed in a rush, but in truth I believe Games Workshop should really talk about it more, so that people understand its stories and how people see their world.

The Old World of Warhammer was destroyed. This was many millenia ago in the Age of Sigmar. People talk about it in a mythological way, and how the gods (Sigmar, Nagash, Allariele) and other powerful supernatural entities (Arkhan the Black, The Glottkin) trace their past to that place. But the origin of many of these larger-than-life characters is now shrouded in myth (only we know the truth!).
These gods helped populate the Mortal Realms: eight planes of existence each of which is dominated by a prevailing magical force (Aqshy the Realm of Fire, Chamon the Realm of Metal) which corresponds to one of the Old World's winds of magic. This was apparently how the remnants of the Old World stabilized: they are now fantastical and highly supernatural. Realmgates, mystical natural portals between the realms (or within the same realm) that can take many shapes, connect them and allow travel and trade. Warhammer is now Cosmic Fantasy, much like Planescape.
 
Each god took stewardship of a different realm, and helped the mortal survivors who managed to start eking out an existence in these Realms, using the realms' resources and slowly incorporating them into their culture. And multiple cultures and races (aelfs, duardin, humans) started cooperating and practicing multiple religions in the same place (including Nagashian worship!). Many cultures across the Realms evolved, and empires already rose and fell. But what really drove all the civilizations into the ground was the massive invasions of the Age of Chaos. Not the usual raids, but a concerted invasion that broke the gods' power.

Now most mortals are either enslaved, converted to Chaos or are valiantly resisting in guerilla fights and hiding out in resilient locations. This has now been several centuries of Chaos domination.
This is where the Age of Sigmar starts, with Sigmar's warriors, the Stormcast Eternals, returning to bring freedom to the Realms. They even find settlements of survivors who have never stopped believing in Sigmar after all these centuries and prayed to him for salvation.
And the Stormcast themselves are former mortal heroes who have been reincarnated as Azyr-empowered superhumans, and can be reincarnated again and again... but at a cost to their souls and memories. I want to see how long will it take for some Stormcast to start rebelling against Sigmar's decision in enlisting them and forcing them to fight forever.

At this point in the story several regions have been liberated and small cities have sprung up from the survivors and migrants from Sigmar's realm... This also works well as a "points of light" system for RPGs, making it easy for "heroes" to adventure out of the safety of the city to the wilderness and fight monsters.

 While the tone of the Age of Sigmar is heroic and its Stormcast always shown in a valiant light, reading between the lines you can see how dark seeds of doubt are being sprinkled, that can be used in future stories... The people of the cities who migrated from Azyr behave as if they are better than their "uncivilized" neighbours from the liberated realms. People are wary of the Stormcast, these superhuman war-obssessed angels who arrive in thunderbolts from the sky, and who might quickly go paranoid if they suspect Chaos corruption. In the larger plan of Sigmar, risks cannot be taken.

So things are looking up on the narrative side, much to my surprise. It's just that Games Workshop could be promoting it more, other than the books. They are starting to, here.
All the details that 'sell' the narrative are under the surface.

And that's it. For now.
I am very surprised that, after such an absence of investment in narrative gaming from GW for several years, they have come back so strong and effective.
And I have learned a lot in terms of game rules structure, and deliver simple, modular but effective rules.

Roll high and prosper!