From the start of my Warhammer 40K journey, I’ve always been a competitive player. I love taking game mechanics to their limits and using them in unexpected ways to display a deeper knowledge of the system. That’s something I’ve always loved about 40k; all the ways it allows a player to express their skill, where two players can both discover some new trick from one another. It’s truly something special. But as competitive as I am, there has always been that narrative player inside of me, just really deep down.

Meet High Kâhl Jackie Daytona:

Named after a certain very human bartender, this little dwarf has grown his legend throughout my tournament runs. What’s his legend? Dying to land fortress explosions every other game. Truly the stuff of legends. I’ve always found that naming, at least your warlord, is a really fun way to turn every game into a narrative experience. I’ve grown really attached to this exploding idiot, even in those games where losing him was catastrophic. What I’m trying to say here is that narrative play is an important and almost inevitable part of the hobby.

I think player burn out really comes from long periods of repetitive and similar experiences. How many times can you deal with rhino rush Chosen and still be saying to yourself, “Wow, capture enemy outpost on turn 1! What fun I’m having!” It’s normal to get frustrated when you have the same headache matched play game after matched play game. For me, it was Daemons in 9th edition. I really enjoy my AP not mattering, what cool design. Thanks Games Workshop. But is it always frustrating? Some of the coolest and most memorable games I’ve ever had was against those pesky anxiety riddled Chaos Daemons.

In comes the narrative mindset. Having to watch a Daemon player roll math on their invulnerable saves or lose is frustrating. Fighting against the crushing wave of ever surrounding durable daemon hordes while trying to hold the center of the map, hoping that High Kâhl Jackie Daytona can survive the onslaught long enough to complete his objective? That’s kick ass. All I had to do was name this little weirdo and most of my stresses with the rules fade. Mechanically, being unable to interact with with an enemy units stats is always a feels bad. Narratively though? Overcoming challenges is what builds character; that and exploding Land Fortresses I guess.

Yes I’m aware that complaining about Daemons lack of intractability while playing 9th edition Votann makes me a hypocrite, no I am not sorry about it.

All this talk about naming characters is cool and all, but where am I going with it? In short, I want to convey the importance of narrative play because really, it’s the heart of the hobby. I’ve explored it over my 4 years in the hobby in lots of different ways. The main one has been what I’ve talked about so far; little narrative flavor that maybe only I know about. About a year ago, I took my first real steps into the crusade system; it was pretty underwhelming. Mostly with people I hardly knew, and with games that might as well have been a normal matched play with their lack of flavor. There were a few reasons I’d say that I ended up really disconnecting from that campaign. The main culprits would probably be the starting points being like, 750? Holy sleeper, having no army building options is super feels bad. While the second reason came down to having no chemistry with half the group. I’m a pretty upbeat, wild guy, and if my opponent has an off vibe or gets upset easily, it really takes away from my enjoyment. So that fell apart, and I didn’t really think about it trying crusade again in any serious capacity for some time. The upside is that I made a lot of really good friends from that group, I’d say that’s worth any amount of frustration.

Fast forward to the latter half of 2023, my main group of friends introduce me to this new guy and friend of theirs; Gideon. Gideon and I are about as far apart as you can be when it comes to what we like in Warhammer. Guy loves his lore and his narrative play, casual games are his bread and butter. Then there’s me; guy who brought Ymyr 2 Land Fortress Votann to a narrative tournament. (Still not sorry.) But what me and him share, is enthusiasm and a drive to bring our friends together to just play games. Guy comes out swinging, looking to start a crusade with the my main play group, and we haven’t really looked back.

We’re about 3.5 games in and it has been so good. What changed? Both my main complaints I brought up earlier were fixed. We started at 2000 points, and everyone I play has accepted that narrative play isn’t about winning. If you get blown off the table turn 1, you can just rerack, retune the list from each others rosters quickly and go again. Or make that harsh loss part of the narrative, play a second game right after with some twists that help the side which just had a 15 minute game of watching your opponent land 3, 12 inch charges, and laugh about it later. Even losing doesn’t feel bad. My latest game, I won, but man did I get no experience. Meanwhile, Gideon’s Necrons ate real good that night. We both came away from that game smiling, and I think that’s the most important part.

So let’s talk about The Vengeful Crusade! We had originally planned for it to be based on the upcoming Pariah Nexus book, but it’s turned into a Tyrranid Crusade instead now that our Tyranid friend has joined. Neat! At the time of start, I had gotten into Admech, because I hate myself. It’s a difficult army which isn’t an awful play experience for your opponent, that rewards the mechanical skill I mentioned at the start of the article. Given that it was suppose to be a Pariah Nexus campaign, I did some research and came across The Xenarite. A weird internal faction of the Admech who has a particular interest in xenos technology and have allied with xenos in the past. I own a large amount of Eldar and figured being able to maybe add a few to the roster should the narrative develop that way might be really cool. Even just having a single squad of Shroud Runners would be so cool. In addition, with Gideon playing Necrons it became a real easy narrative hook for my guys to be involved. Pillaging a tomb world and all that.

Let’s take a look at my silly little roster.

I’m running it as the Skitarii Hunter Cohort, because I like to have fun when playing the codex, and it gives me a chance to practice the detachment in a less stressful environment before my next event. Plus, Skitarii are the coolest part of the whole codex.

My main narrative pieces is Lord Grobulus the Perverse, a tech-Priest Manipulus who might be taking the xenos tech thing a little too seriously, even for his peers. I think his time in my list is limited given what he pulled last game. More on that later. The second narrative piece is my boy, Dos-Knoch the Skitarii Vanguard Alpha. This guy has survived every single game I’ve played so far and it’s incredible. The rest of this article will be dedicated to gushing about this absolute unit and how he has driven so much of my enjoyment. Let me explain.

Before the first game of crusade we chose to do a quick boarding actions game with our factions. The mission was “Chaotic Hunt” from Arks of Omen: Farsight. The mission is super simple, at the start of the second battle round, each player randomly picks one unit from their army. It’s worth 15 points when destroyed. That’s it. That’s how you score. Who on my list was worth points? Dos-Knoch. This guy had no issue with hiding behind all his fellow Skitarii while both Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines bathed in toughness 3 blood. Needless to say, I didn’t give up any points that game, and it was awesome. So that’s when my friend Dyllyn said, “That guy knows something!” I couldn’t agree more. So I took a picture of the little Alpha to remember him, and the day he dies in the campaign will definitely lead to something.

Fast forward to my first game of crusade. As is customary with Admech, everything dies because it’s all trash units who only job is to bully you off primary. But you know who survived? Dos-Knoch. Game 2, played against the Blazing Vipers, a custom Space Marine chapter who may have caught my boys in blue carrying some Necron tech through a checkpoint. Again, a bloodbath, but you know who the only surviving unit was? Dos-Knoch. Game 3, the boys in blue had to march right back and get some more Necron technology. While victorious once again over the Necrons, the Xenerite lay in shambles. Except one, objective holding game winner. You know who it was? Dos-Knoch. Do you know who it wasn’t? Grobulus.

Let’s briefly talk about this guy. I think I’m honor bound by the narrative to have this guy be killed off in the worst way, and have Dos-Knoch ascend as a leader. Grobulus just sits in the back, and lets his Kataphrons do all the damage, while his men get absolutely slaughtered. Some commander this guy is. What’s worse? His battle scar, “Mark of Shame,” let me now tell you what this battle scar does to my now useless Manipulus.

This unit cannot form an Attached unit, it is unaffected by the Aura abilities of friendly units, and it cannot be Marked for Greatness.

In short, he does nothing now. “But Josh! You can just use 1 RP to get rid of that battle-scar!” You yell at the monitor, the great crusade player you are! But nay I say! This is the time of Dos-Knoch! Grobulus has failed for the last time, and will soon face servitor-dom. You know what it is that Dos-Knoch knows? It’s that Grobulus is garbage and should feel like garbage. Well, that’s one of the things he knows, and soon, all his Skitarii brothers will know soon too. This guy understands the mission, and so far, has been a game winning war-hero. Omnissiah bless you Dos-Knoch, you champion of machine and man.

I could take the time to gush about how Admech Dragoons are the emperors gift to Admech players, or how Manipulus are actually crazy good but that’s probably more suited to a competitive article than this love letter to narrative. If there’s anything I want you to take away from what you’ve just read, it’s this: The more you put into your own narrative, the more you’ll get out of the hobby. It could be as simple as naming your Drukhari Archon Chad Thunder-Thumbs, who never makes his 2+ invulnerable. Or it could be creating a map online, and saying “We’re fighting over this territory tonight. No benefit, just to add some cool narrative stakes to the game.” But I promise you, if you just put a little bit of time into these small things, you will find a new appreciation for this hobby. Might even make some new memories along the way.

That’s all from me today. I’ll keep you all updated as the campaign progresses. The Tyranids have arrived and it’s only going to get more spicy from here.

Be safe, and may the Omnissiah bless you.