Local tabletop gamers launch immersive community campaign

By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter

War has come to Strathmore and the stage is set for it to rage across the mortal realms, at least, on the tabletop that is. 

A total of 12 local hobbyists have launched into a collective campaign, which they will play out over the next several months within the popular tabletop war game, Warhammer Age of Sigmar. 

Campaign organizer, Nic Fortin, said the rules for his campaign have been adapted from the official ruleset released by the game’s developer, Games Workshop, as the community seems to like his adapted rules better.

“This is an adapted game for Warhammer, Age of Sigmar. We tried the Path to Glory supplement that (was released) with the game and we didn’t like it, so we made our own with a map that we will play across in real time,” said Fortin. 

To describe Warhammer Age of Sigmar (AoS) simply for those who have never heard of it, Fortin said “Age of Sigmar is Dungeons and Dragons meets chess on steroids.”

The game is played using collections of plastic and resin miniatures which encompass a vast range of fantastical races and play styles from Dwarves that dwell in the sky, to deep sea soul pirates, to giant mutated rats, just to name a few. 

Game pieces are acquired unpainted and unassembled, which allows players, if they wish, to greatly show off their abilities and styles in painting, basing and playing their armies.

With respect to Fortin’s campaign, he said there was a high demand for it within the local game community.

“Everybody tried the Path to Glory and was pretty saddened by it. I just said I would make something better,” explained Fortin.

“I wrote the rules in three days. What took a while is to have the map made, because it’s 10-gauge steel, not stainless steel. We needed real steel because it had to be magnetized.”

The campaign map now hangs in Hob’s Hobby Shop beside the tables participating players use to play out their games. The goal ultimately being to conquer their way across the map and control the most territory, not unlike real world war campaigns. 

Players will mark the positions of their fortifications, army positions and territories on the giant wall-mounted map with figures of varying sorts.

Participants are expected to schedule and play out battles with opponents at least once every two weeks in order to progress the campaign.

If a player loses all of their controlled territory and their army is wiped out, they will be eliminated from the campaign.

Fortin himself is currently unsure as to exactly how long the campaign will take to play out.

“This is still up in the air, I was thinking about a six-month period, but if it gets longer, it’s longer, if it’s shorter, it’s shorter. We will see,” said Fortin.

“We will see what we see after four months. If someone is unbeatable after four months, we can call it and then just restart, so we’ll really see how the game goes before we have an estimate on time.”

Anyone who is interested is welcome and in fact, invited to join in on the game at any time. Similarly, if a player finds they no longer wish to or are unable to commit to playing regularly, they are able to simply withdraw.

“It builds the community and it gets people excited to finish their armies and get people out of their houses. We do tournaments and all kinds of stuff, but this is the first time we’ve done something like this,” said Fortin. “Anybody is more than welcome to chat with us if they’re interested. Hopefully it’s a good (campaign), and we’d like to have a few more new players … we love new players.”