I shall start this report with a grovel. I have absolutely no excuse for the enormous gap between postings. A huge amount of incredibly cool gaming stuff has happened and I have allowed some fantastic games to fade in my memory. I will try to recap as much as I can and I truly do hope to get back to regular reporting from now.
We have only played one more session of Vampire: The Requiem since our first foray. In my first Vampire report I hinted at the problems that Joseph and Derek would have with combat. I was proved right when a ferocious – some might say possessed – dog attacked Derek and sent him into torpor. The timely arrival of the local Nosferatu down-and-out, Rhodri, was all that saved them both. They also met again with the blood-doll followers of the psychotic masquerade breaker again and may have been in more trouble if not for the intervention of a couple of Gangerel students who quite literally tore two of the ghouls apart. A third ghoul, a young woman, was taken back to Derek’s haven to feed him when he awoke from his torpor. After a day of what he considered accidental torture of the terrified young woman (which included almost drowning her in the bath among other things) he had learned a couple of interesting hints about her violent master. At that point, Derek awoke and was overcome at receiving such a succulent snack. He frenzied and tore the poor girl’s throat out. Oh well, so much for more answers. At that moment – almost as though I planned it, isn’t it? – there was a crash from below Derek’s flat. The old lady who rented the ground floor of his house had been attacked as a reprisal for the deaths of the ghouls. She was stabbed and a large message, painted in blood on canvas, had been pinned to her body with knives. It was a clear warning. Upon moving the body, Joseph discovered 2 old-style pennies. Interestingly enough, the mysterious messenger who had been writing on Derek’s mirror mensioned pennies. Further investigation was curtailed however by the sound of police sirens. Alerted by the noise, neighbours had notified police of the attack on the old lady. Joseph decided to remove any evidence of the murder. He turned on all of the gas rings on the old lady’s kitchen and went around slamming doors. Just before the police arrived, he threw a lit zippo lighter into the kitchen and ran up stairs to the open window of Derek’s fire escape. The 2 fugitives fled along the rooftop teraces of the row of old Victorian houses and just escaped before the police reached the house – which suffered the full effects of the gas leak and promptly exploded. And that’s where we left the 2 of them. Derek had no haven, Cambridge had been plagued with acts of random violence and vandalism and they could only hope that they had hidden the evidence of the two murdered corpses (the old lady and the young ghoul) from the police. There was also the rapidly approaching Dead Boat Night – a vampire tradition extending back for over a century.
We have also completed another adventure in the wilds of the Empire in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Sophia and Heini were hired to investigate the disappearance of an aid to a wealthy man who lived in the new town which their travels had led to. The clues they found soon led them down into the sewers to investigate the horrifying meeting place of a mysterious cult who wore green and used the symbol of an inverted triangle. The troup of rat catchers who escorted them to this dark place were almost entirely slaughtered on the way back to the sewer entrance by some mysterious attackers who moved inhumanly fast and disappeared back into the dark as quickly as they had arrived. The now diminished and frightened group made their way back to the surface as quickly as possible. Further clues and rumours led from a poison-adict elf who ran a bath house to a terrified leaflet printer and a fantastically mad puppet maker. Eventually, the cult was discovered and Heini, Sophia and Handsup the ogre launched an attack on them at their base in a glass-making factory. They were seen consorting with scaven and this was all the evidence the intrepid mercenaries needed to bring them to justice. The scaven fled back to their subterranean lair at the first sign of trouble and a desperate battle broke out between the party and the five cult ring leaders. Eventually, the cultists were killed to a man. Leaving the grievously-wounded Sophia in the capable hands of a passing doctor (thank the gods for the fate point system which can save a character from death), Heini explored the base and found the imprisoned aide. Unfortunately, the man had been poisoned and died shortly after. Heini rushed back to their employer to find him fighting for his life against a scaven assassin. Surprised by Heini’s entrance, the assassin was caught between 2 opponents and killed. The lord was startled to hear of the death of his henchman and left in a hurry to continue his plans to thwart the Scaven incursion – not before paying the intrepid adventures of course. With Sophia recovering from a very dangerous hand wound, and news of the ratmen so close to the highly-important city of Nulne, what will the dubious duo get up to next?
And yet more excitement has arisen in the interim of my reports with our introduction to a whole new game system. Johnny attempted to introduce us to Warmachine, created and supported by Privateer Press, some time ago. The idea never quite caught on. However, after a rather disastrous game of epic Armageddon (details later) he tried again this February. This time, he succeeded and it has taken up much of our time – and money – since then. Johnny collects the Mercenary faction and Cryx who are basically the undead army. I have now amassed a considerable Cygnar army (the closest thing to the good guys). I will branch out into either the Pirate army or Khador, famous for their heavily armoured units. Olly is currently looking at, but hasn’t yet bought, Menoth who are the zealously religious faction famous for their flame throwing weapons. The game is set in the Iron Kingdoms of Western Imoran where each kingdom’s armies fight constantly for power, glory and, in some cases, their very survival. The setting is categorised as ‘Steampunk’ where a fantasy world of elves, dwarves, wizards and ogres meets an industrial revolution world of steam technology and primitive fire arms. The main feature of Warmachine is the Warjack. A warjack is a six ton, steam-powered machine which is controlled via its Cortex (magical brain thingy) by a Warcaster who is a magician special character who leads the army. There are several different Warcasters for each army with different weapons, spells and abilities which make them more suitable to different styles of armies (IE: ones with lots of Warjacks or lots of infantry or a mix of the two). The game is much more clearly defined in terms of unit allowances and points limits permitted than the Games Workshop systems but is much more complicated in terms of the huge numbers of special rules and abilities of the units available to field. I’m afraid that there are far too many warmachine games from the last couple of months to write up any specific reports but we are planning this Wednesday’s (09 April) gaming session as warmachine so I can give you more details of a specific game after that.
As I mentioned above, my introduction to Warmachine came after a particularly disastrous game of Epic Armageddon. Johnny and I had planned a 6000 point game with Orks vs Space Marines. Unfortunately, I discovered that fate doesn’t have a sense of humour. I named my army and its various elements in very bad taste and every god in every game system I have ever played rebelled. My brand new Space Marine landing craft, packed full of devastater marines and land raiders was shot down by extremely lucky ork flak with the loss of all hands and precisely 1500 points of my army in one go. A similarly charmed Ork anti-aircraft role saw the total destruction of a Thunderhawk gunship full of assault marines with the loss of another 550 points at a single stroke. Combined with other insanely-accurate ork shooting I had lost no less than half of my army before we had finished the second turn. I pleaded for mercy and Johnny admitted that this really did represent a situation in which even the Adeptus Astartes were allowed to run away and hide behind the sofa. We haven’t played any epic since but my interest has been recently rekindled by a rules up-date and I may get back into it soon.
We restarted our Mordheim campaign around a month ago. My Carnival of Chaos warband is battling constantly against Olly’s new scaven and Johnny’s Ostlanders for our particular patch of rubble. It was good to get back into the skirmish games and we look forward to catching up with it again soon. The three games we played were Scaven vs Carnival of Chaos with the Scaven winning due to more missile armed gang members. Then came a game with the Ostlanders fighting the scaven. I believe that this was an Ostlanders win due to even more missile-armed warband members. Finally, the Carnival of Chaos fought the Ostlanders and won due to achieving the break through victory conditions. My nurgle melee warband was finally able to get to grips with the enemy on their own terms and much fun and violence there was.
And lastly, before the apocalypse bits, we move to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I recently bought a Brettonian battallion in order to indulge my interest in knights and archers to get a truly medieval themed Warhammer army. The effect was only slightly lost by my small squadron of flying cavalry. But, as everyone pointed out: at least the rest of the army would have probably believed in such things in the Middle Ages which tenuously justifies them. Eager to try them out, I called for a Warhammer evening. I had a practice game of 500 points of Brettonians vs Hordes of Chaos against myself which I will include here as a short report:-
Hordes of Chaos: aspiring champion on horse, 7 knights of chaos, 10 chaos warriors.
Brettonians: paladin standard bearer on horse, paladin general on warhorse, 7 knights of the realm, 10 men at arms including command group, 15 archers including command group.
The cheapness of the Brettonian infantry paid off in this game. The board consisted of a fairly densely-packed town on one half and a wood and scattered hills on the other. The Chaos knights gallopped around the far edge of the town to try and outflank the Brettonian archers. The knights of the realm bravely spurred their mounts to meet this threat but by the time the two cavalry units had negotiated the town the Brettonian knights were just a fraction too close and the aspiring champion of Chaos led the charge. Unable to bring their lances to bear, the Brettonian cavalry was hacked down until just the 2 paladins fought bravely against their intact opponents. Still they refused to give ground. Just when all seemed lost, the peasant men at arms arrived. They to had been threading their way through the streets of the town and they launched a charge against the flank of the Chaos knights. One brave man drove his pole arm into the throat of a great Chaos steed and the horse reared in pain. It threw its armoured rider to the ground where the other peasants fell on him with hacking spears. The dying horse bolted through its unit, scattering the knights in all directions. They turned from the new enemy and fell back straight into the wall of a farm house. Even more demoralised by this new obstacle, they milled in confusion and were cut down by the Brettonian champions and their dutiful peasants. In the meantime, the Chaos warriors used as much cover as possible to reach the Brettonian archers who had a wonderful position on top of a hill. Forced to leave shelter for the last mad dash, the warriors were pelted with a hail of arrows which felled 4 of them in one turn. Panicked by this frankly amazing show of accuracy, the others turned tail and fled back towards their own lines. It took them some time to regroup and when they returned to see what had become of their champion and his knights they found the reformed Brettonian force waiting for them. One more fell to the fire of the now mobile archers and the rest were cut down by men-at-arms and the gallant paladins. This was a great game with ups and downs on both sides. Once more the knights of Chaos proved themselves to be horrifying close combat monsters but the massed firepower of elevated long bows demonstrated its game-winning potential. If it wasn’t for the lucky strike of that peasant then the whole force could have been lost.
The three-way Warhammer game we played on the following Wednesday (last week actually so I’m finally catching up) saw 750 points of Brettonians vs Olly’s dwarves and Johnny’s also untested ogres.
Brettonia: paladin standard bearer on horse, paladin general on horse, 7 knights of the realm, 6 knights errant, 3 pegasis knights, 13 skirmishing peasant archers.
Dwarves: 1 cannon with engineer upgrade, thane with pretty axe of horror, dragon slayer with equally horrible runic weaponry, 10x warriors with command group, 10x warriors, 10x thunderers.
Ogre Kingdoms (apolagies, I don’t know the names): hero ogre, 3x core choice ogres, 3x core choice ogres, 3x special choice ogres, 8x nobbler trappers, 8x other nobblers.
The Brettonian army prayed – who wouldn’t – and were delighted to find that their ward saves did actually come in hand once or twice. Even so, their armies waited for them to make the first move. The archers prepared to repel the ogre advance on their right flank while the knights levelled their lances and gallopped towards the dwarven lines. The pegasis knights flew into the courtyard of an awesome castle/monastery (which Olly had fashioned with various Cities of Death buildings) and marvelled at the copious icons of the Adeptus Mechanicus which daubed every surface. Having the same idea as the Brettonians, the dwarves positioned their thunderers to hold their flank against the advancing ogres and prepared to meet the Brettonian cavalry. Unfortunately, the knights misjudged the height of their opponents and succeeded in little more than messing up the hair of one angry dwarf before being hacked to pieces by the sturdy little warriors. I failed far too many 2+ saves and my paladins fell to challenges by the ogre hero. With the average strength of a Brettonian soldier being just 3 they really do suffer tremendously when they don’t get the charge with their lances. Despite the small number of models on the table, the ogres did rather well for themselves. With their three wounds each they were able to withstand charges and their move of 6 and special impact hits rules made them horrifying on the charge. The dwarves fought stubbornly and well, despite never actually leaving their deployment zone. They were hopelessly outpaced by both of the opposing armies but their unbreakable leaders and high toughness kept them safely and they quite handily saw off the Brettonians. The cannon only fired twice, killing just 1 knight in its short life before some kind of ogre scout tore it in half and used the bits to bludgeon its crew to death. The Dwarves suffered because they, in effect, dealt with both armies. The Brettonians hurled themselves straight at the dwarves and the ogres, who couldn’t catch the cavalry to start with but made up for it when the knights were caught up in combats of their own, also moved towards the dwarves in search of anything to fight. Weakened by the Brettonian charge, the dwarves couldn’t face an almost fresh ogre army as well and so were crushed by their new lumbring foes. As expected, the nobblers ran away and the small ogre units did suffer telling casualties simply because of their limited numbers . This was a fun little game but I don’t actually remember exactly who won. I believe there was one depleted Dwarf warrior unit and some sort of ogre left but we called time due to the lateness of the hour and the ominous threat of gainful employment the next morning. From the perspective of measuring Brettonian performance in the game, it does highlight the importance of a hard-hitting unit like the Questing Knights for Brettonia as a remedy for their low strength against my main opponents who play high toughness armies. Next on the purchase list methinks.
And then there was Apocalypse. Since my last report we have actually played three Warhammer 40K Apocalypse games. The first was an alliance of Orks and Chaos against an alliance of Tau, Space Wolves and Dark Angels. I’m afraid I can’t remember exactly what happened in the 5000 point game but some devastatingly-accurate Chaos artillery and a rather textbook Ork flank charge devastated the Imperial army. It was a clear victory for the forces of evil which I genuinely regret not writing up sooner for posterity.
The second game saw a welcome new addition to our Apocalypse coven. Another John brought his Eldar to the fray so the game we played in early March saw 6000 points a side with 2000 points of chaos, 2000 points of Orks and 1000 points of both Dark Eldar and fallen Dark Angels facing off against 2000 points of Tau, Space Wolves and Eldar. I regret that I remember even less about this game except that everyone enjoyed the Chaos army which comprised: Brass Scorpion, 5x Khorne lords on Juggernauts, 4 units of 17 mutants, 1 unit of 20 mutants including 2 heavy stubbers, 1 Tzeentch terminator lord with daemon gun.
The daemon gun was fantastic and killed a comparatively huge amount. The rest of the Chaos army surprised everyone simply by surviving. I still had elements of almost every unit left at the end of the game because I couldn’t get to the enemy through terrain, vehicle wrecks and minefields (a well-chosen asset Eldar John). Again this was a loss for the forces of evil due to having very static armies which couldn’t reach the objectives in time to win an Apocalypse victory. Apocalypse datasheets also revealed their terrifying destructive power with the Brass Scorpeon, Baneblade and a Sunstorm Squadron of 5 Fireprisms adding to the uber-template fire. All in all, it was a whole lot of fun.
And now, without further ado, the gripping report of our last Apocalypse game played on Friday 04-Saturday 05 April. The game was a 6000 pointer with much more clearly defined good and bad armies. 2000 points of Eldar, Orks and Necrons faced off against 2000 points of Space Wolves, Tau and Imperial Guard. Here are the army lists as best as I can remember:-
Orks (Johnny): warboss on bike with loads of hurty upgrades, 10x flash gits with their special character, 15 looters, 2(12x) ork boys with power claw nobs in trucks, 3 battle wagons, 2 big mechs with shock attack guns, big mech with force field, 2 linked rocket buggies. Asset: Bunkers.
Eldar (John): seer council with 1 farseer and 3 warlocks; 10x guardians with star cannon; 10x dire avengers including exarch; wraith lord; avatar; 10x fire dragons including exarch; 5x dark reapers including exarch; sunstorm squadron with 6x fireprisms. Asset: disruptor beacon.
Necrons (Lance): 2 lords with resurrection orbs and a whole bunch of other horrifying wargear spred between them; 5(11x) warriors; monolith; nightbringer; 1x heavy destroyer. Asset: scheduled bombardment.
Imperial Guard (Carl): command platoon with heroic senior officer command squad and anti-tank squad with 3x missile launcher; 10x storm troopers with 2x flamers in chimera; 10x storm troopers with 2x grenade launchers in chimera; 10x storm troopers with 2x meltaguns in chimera; 10x storm troopers with 2x plasma guns in chimera; 2 hellhounds; infantry platoon with junior officer command squad including missile launcher and 1x grenade launcher, 2 infantry squads including missile launcher and grenade launcher; 3(1x) sentinel with lascannon; heavy weapons platoon with junior officer command squad including lascannon, 2 mortar squads. Doctrines: drop troops, grenadiers, storm troopers, sharp shooters, heavy weapons platoons. Asset: shield generator.
Tau (Olly): commander chappy with upgrades; 2 railheads; 22x kroot including shaper and 2x oxen; 2(12x) fire warriors in devil fish; 3x stealth suits; 3x battle suits with burst cannons and flamers; 3x battle suits with fusion guns and plasma rifles; 1x broadside. Asset: vortex grenade.
Space Wolves (Emily): Logan with 4x wolf guard retinue; 9x blood claws in rhino; 10x assault marines; land raider crusader; Whorlwind; Leman Russ Exterminator; baneblade. Asset: orbital bombardment.
The good side won first deployment and turn with 10 ½ minutes to 12. We started dropping our mechanised infantry across the front of our deployment zone (the random no-man’s-land once again went across the width of the table). The plan was to advance with the transports and then unload a withering hail of fire on the enemy assault units with the guard heavy weapons, tau guns and baneblade laying down suppressing fire on the further away stuff. It all went horribly wrong as our first turn’s shooting was utterly appalling. Logan Grimnar was able to assault and wipe out a unit of necron warriors (the Space Wolf power weapons taking advantage of the fact that they had run out of time to deploy the resurrection orb on that side of the board). The terrain impeded the advance of the storm trooper chimeras so that it was a truly pitiful amount of shooting we were able to let lose. The fire warriors did alright with some sneaky EMP grenades destroying the monolith in turn 3. The storm troopers quickly began falling back due to the leadership test causing Necron lord psychic power. The monolith got 2 turns of its zapping everything around it power and it more than made up for its previous performances with casualties and vehicle damage a-plenty. Advancing behind the rhino and land raider, the Space Wolf assault marines thought themselves safe until a barrage of laser energy from the fireprism formation wiped them out to a man. Logan aquitted himself admirably with Ork, Eldar and Necron gore (or nearest equivalent) coating his frost blade. He lost all of his retinue by the end of the game but held back the enemy completely on the Imperial left flank. The baneblade again attracted an amazing amount of fire which proved almost ineffectual with the loss of only a single structure point and no systems through the entire game. It dished out the hurt though with a constant barrage almost phasing out the necrons and one shot wiping out a buggy, 11 orks and their truck. The vortex grenade proved more adventurous than usual. In previous games it has achieved its function fairly competently but then fizzled out of existence. This time it zapped around the board accounting for no less than 5 necron warriors, the nightbringer, an Ork battle wagon, a chimera and a storm trooper. Much more apocalyptic and fun!
As usual, deep striking/reserve troops were a mixed bag. One of my anti-fireprism sentinels landed on top of its target and died. A second was redirected to our back board edge where it had a fatal collision with my arm and the floor resulting in a quick substitution. The disrupter beacon proved its worth this game with a steady stream of Imperial reserves being hurled back to a particularly round patch of woodland. They were followed with indecent haste by the third turn scheduled orbital bombardment which, quite frankly, really hurt. The Imperial bombardment was just as effective however with a salvo of missiles screaming down to breach a bunker and wipe out the entire looter unit – yes, all 15 – in a ground-shaking explosion.
Highlights of the game include the fireprism destroyer hit failing to hit or wound – twice. Also, the fantastic display of bravado from the last surviving Ork nob. His unit had been decimated by the Baneblade as I said earlier. Still he refused to flee the excitement of this highly explosive battlefield. He rushed towards the Leman Russ and punched his sparking power claw right through its armour. Wiggling it about and snapping it madly closed on anything he found inside he accidentally squashed a fuel can. The sparking mechanism of his claw touched off an explosion in the confined space, detonating the tank and killing both him and his nearby warboss who was happily basking in his victory over the Imperial Guard officer and his command squad. A splendidly violent end for all involved and the most damage the Leman Russ had caused all game.
The mechanised advance was stalled completely by the sheer luck and weight of gaus fire from the Necrons. I will always maintain that the ability of even their standard infantry weapons to destroy land raiders is excessive. The Imperials were hemmed in by a wall of immobile or wrecked vehicles which also reduced fire lanes for the heavier guns behind. We simply couldn’t advance.
The game was a clear victory for the forces of darkness. They held 4 objectives to 1 imperial held marker. One marker was unclaimed for some odd reason which I can’t remember. Our last turn was spent almost exclusively gunning down Necrons as they were only 4 or 5 models away from phasing out. Had the vortex grenade – which remained in play until the end of the game – scattered just a little further at one point it could all have been entirely different.
Our next apocalypse game is scheduled for early May with an alliance of Tyranids, Necrons and Eldar facing off against Orks, Tau and Space Wolves. What’s that? Background fluff? The game is set to be another 6000 points a side with my interim project being the scratch building of a Tyranid Barbed Hierodule – with slightly altered genetic make up to reflect the model I have in mind – Check back to find out how that goes. This Wednesday’s gaming will be a 3-way Warmachine game so we can delve further into the mechanics with the next blog report. Stay tuned for what I fervently hope to be more regular up-dates.
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1 comment:
That was certainly a long post. LOL!
Good to see some updates. Hope you do manage to keep a bit more up to date with gaming reports.
Very interesting reports.
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