Dark Heresy and things not quite dead...

Its been a busy couple of weeks! Work is an omnipresent as ever, but I've managed to get some good gaming in, possibly to the detriment of the career... Started off nearly two weeks ago at Robert's trying my hand at his 40k Dark Heresy game. I'm not too sold on the 40k thing to be sure; granted, I'm quite in to the Necromunda at the moment, but that's a hangover from 15 years ago that still niggles away. The new aircraft models GW have put out are amazing, and I'd love to get my hands onone of the kits, but the idea of buying into the game itself still leaves me lukewarm at best. Maybe its the sci-fi over fantasy, having to bend my head around yet another set of rules (tooooo many going on at the moment already), or just the massive expense of getting into another GW hobby (Gods, and painting it too!), but it all leaves me a little cold, so when Robert suggested this Dark Heresy I was a bit non-committal. I am all for backing him up at starting up something new with the lads, but with so much on just now, I was pretty non-committal.

Well, I was fucking wrong again... It was awesome!! I gave tall John a lift round and only intended to show face and watch the start, but I ended up rolling up a character, taking part, and was there all night! It set in the 40k universe, so there's a deep common background to latch onto for all players, even a drifting amateur like me. Character generation is all through D100s, even the name, if you like. I got 'Gunner' Cutter, a scummer. I'd like to imagine him to looking something like this:

but, no, I rolled him up as being a 50 year old ex-penal legion guardsman, so he probably looks more like this...

The mission was run by Robert from the Dark Heresy rulebook / sourcebook, and was called 'Illumination'. Lots of the taint of chaos and such going on in a hick ass planet in the armpit of the Imperium. We have been co-opted into the Inquisition into going and sorting it out. So far there's crazy natives, besieged Imperials living in a fortified outposts, barren wastes full of flowers that only grow on the blood of the dead, and a nutter in the middle of nowhere building a cathedral to fill his time (why do films and games like this always have massive cities and buildings in the middle of nowhere? Where the hell do all the resources come from? The Quarries? The labour? The fields of crops? Its like Edoras all over again...)

The combat system in this game is very different form anything else I've played. Each player has HP, and once they're gone, you go to damage charts and levels of fatigue to represent brutal critical wounds and bleeding out on the floor. So far I've discovered burst fire with Cutter's autopistol is a winner, and I've been blowing legs off left, right and centre! Only legs mind, cant seem to hit anything else... We've got quite an interesting group of players for this - the Craddock, Angus, tall John, James R. and myself, and the small group is an interesting counterpoint to D&D. Amongst us we have a scribe (the only one who can drive), two scummers (the fighters, I guess), a psyker and an assassin. We finished up with shit going down at the Cathedral - us down on nthe ground mowing down crazed natives, whilst Angus sat up in the bell tower tapping out gringos with his rifle. Immense. Cant wait til the next one!

The following Sunday at the club, we'd arranged a Warhammer doubles. 2k a player, Angus' Dwarves eith Craddock's Ogres vs. Robert's DoC and my VCs. This was rare, Robert and I NEVER fight on the same side! Last time was in the dim and distant sticky era of 2006... a long ass time. This was a great sized game for a club night - quite literally, just right. The other side's army looked tiny after deployment, compared to my massive swathes of Zombies and Skellies, and Robert's hordes of daemonettes and bloodletters, they were all strung out trying to fill their table edge. Craddock's ogres filled the centre, with Angus fielding a chunky unit of veteran warriors on either side, in front of his cannons, wirh the Anvilway up the back. Craddock looked like he'd be doing the bulk of the fighting, with a massive unit of ironguts up the middle, holding his BSB and a Level4 caster. Nasty! Robert and I literally had to cram our units in. We had the terrorghiest and flamers on our left, but other than that it was all my tarpit cheese. We both had our punching arm going up the right: Robert with his bloodletter horde, herald and monumental looking skullcrusher, myself with the maxed out Strigoi King, Grave Guard, crypt horrors and for the first time at the club, a Mortis Engine.

Angus and Craddock won the toss, but it started perfectly for us, as Craddock's L4 caster disappeared off into the warp on his first cast, doing no damage to us! Both sides rushed in to engage, and for all of us (except Angus, predicatably!) deployment created a bit of a headache as we tried to get the big hitting units to engage in the desired place. Robert's Khorne troops made a dash up the flank for Angus' dwarves, with his Skullcrusher getting cannon balled repeatedly on the way in and reduced to a single wound. In the centre his daemonettes charged in and cleaved up some ogres, but both sides soon got bogged down. This led to a standoff between my centre units and the rest of Craddocks as we decided who was going where. Frustratingly, my Strigoi Ghoul King - all 465 pts of him - was stuck out of the fight for 3 turns as I couldn't fit his unit in to engage, and the big stooshy blocked his path.

On the left, Robert's vanguard cavalry took out Angus' self immolating cannon. Didn't stop my terrorgheist taking a chunky hit, but it survived long enough to halve the mournfangs and kill the ogre cannon chariot thing with its scream. At this point, by turn 2, it looked like we'd got it sewn up; Angus and Craddock may as well have packed up and gotten a pint in. Horribly though it would swing lurchingly their way as the game wore on. On the right, Angus' Dwarves were literally proving stubborn. The skullcrusher got pulled down, and the dwarves were grinding down the letters and refusing to break. Although it miss-struck on ancestral rune, the Anvil was dishing out lightning bolts like the duracell bunny!The surviving mournfang munched through a whole unit of 30+ zombies by itself, and Angus' other clump of dwarves charged in to smash down 40 skeletons into bonemeal. I put all my fighting eggs in the Strigoi Ghoul King's generous basket for this game, with a couple of necros to cast and replace the zombie cheese - no hero vamps meant there was nothing to stiffen the line and I was getting torn up! Angus' dispel pile was taller the Eiffel Tower as well, so my necro magic wasn't able to stop the rot...

 

Still we was killing them just as fast until Angus cannonballed the last wounds off the Mortis Engine in turn 5. By this point it went off like a nuclear bomb. 2d6 S5 hits to everything in 17" radius! It nerfed Roberts letters, Angus' left flank dwarves, Craddock's surviving ogres, Robert's daemonettes, and some of my own graveguard, and just about emptied half the table! This was all because Robert failed the regen roll whilst I was takin' a piss, or course!

Craddock's last Mournfang was pulled down by my last - and apparently overwhelming - unit of zombies, whilst his leadbelchers fled for three turns on the bounce, so he was tabled. Heh. Robert just had dregs and a few scraps left over. The Bloodletter herald emerged as the only survivor on our right flank and made for the cannon on the hill, whilst his remaining flamer pumped off a few shots. His sorceror general had miscast and lost his levels, so had retreated behind terrain. This left Angus and me to duke it out!

Strigoi Ghoul King: so angry!

The strigoi King finally got in and ripped heads off - Angus' dwarves broke, but I couldnt catch. Game seemed in the bag, all good. In his last turn, Angus used the anvil to lightning bolt the Strigoi's grave guard unit, reducing them to one rank of 5 models. No look out sir rule to save the big man now. He also zapped the crypt horrors and weakened them. The inevitable cannonball which followed went right down the line of grave guard, pinged the Strigoi - who failed his regen save - and blew his napper off. Shit. End of the phase, my army did its crumble test, nerfing the crypt horrors, and the last of the grave guard. About a 1000 VPs off one bloody shot!!!!

My zombie ogre subbed ably as a crypt horror for this game - still deciding whether to fork out the GW rate, or ebay some old ogres and convert them...

All of us finished on dregs after that. Down to VPs to determine winners, and Robert and I won it by about 180 pts - far too close a margin, considering it was over 3000 VPs to each side! Great game though, and great fun. I'm definitely going to take the Mortis Engine again - cant say no to the nuke effect, just hope not to vapourise so much of my own stuff next time!

Tuesday night there was more Undead happenings as we finally got another D&D night organised. Martin continued GM'ing the 'Death Unchained' Ravenloft adventure, although Kev and Rambo couldn't make it. Their PCs got conveniently ditched and we made it out of the impaler's grave yard, back into the city, where I got possessed briefly before passing it onto a dog I think, and we got into a (friendly) wizard's tower. There we found out what all the magic rings we discovered do, which I'm sure is pretty key as if we face this domain's lord, we're going to get ripped up! We finished off in a spider infested, sinister tunnel leading from the wizard's tower presumably into the Dark Lord's keep.

I've been working on the BBC stuff for Ross, so no time this fortnight to do any Necromunda campaign stuff for the club - hope to get some done soon though. This weekend I'm doing another Flames of War game in the league - seems to be plenty of players floating about for it at the moment, maybe even Andy too! Robert is leading the massive 40k multiplayer this weekend, which should be interesting to see as well.

Tanks for the memories

Got some Flames of War on at the club tonight, first time in over a year and bending my head around the rules was initially rather slowwwww. Picked up quickly though, thanks the expert knowledge of Dougie! It was a 600 pt game against Alan, my first in the club FOW league. Odd opponents, as my Wehrmacht Infantry company were going up against Alan's own Germans. We played a scenario to capture objectives, in either deployment zone with a ruinous village in between us. Both sides started with half strength, with our other platoons coming on from turn 3 onwards, on a d6 roll of 5+.

I got lucky early on and managed to be the first to occupy a building in the centre. Easy to see cover makes the difference in this game as it made my troops almost invulnerable to infantry fire. Unfortunately Alan had some heavier stuff, with a PaK40 and some light man-packed field guns, who blew them away later on - but by then I'd halted his advance and he wouldn't have enough time to reach his objectives.

StuG-D - three sheets of tinfoil and some glue for armour.

My HMGs were pretty decent, but range wasnt so great at only 24", but at least the smallarms could only make 16". I had mortars but no spotter - hence range was only 24" and couldn't go indirect, or 'barrage'. Learned my lesson there - Alan used his CO to spot and extended the mortar range to 40", and he had lots of mortars! Star of the show for me were my StuG-D, making its solo run up the flank to seize an objective (albeit revealing that its armour is in fact as thick as tinfoil), and my Stukas! I lucked out on these as I managed to radio them in every turn! The blast they lay down is huge and the effect completely stymied Alan, psychologically if not in real terms. His casualties weren't too severe off the bombings, but my hit rolls were pretty ropey. It'll be interesting to see what they do to tanks (and if they show up so regularly next time).

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Yes, its a plane.

Roll the next opponent! Should be much quicker next time, and judging by watching Dougie and Kev play after me, I'll be facing a much bigger force!

Also this week, I posted up the first scenarios for the club Necromunda campaign. Four games were played in total - two against the bugs, and two against the zombies. Honours were split, as the 'critters' each won one game, with the players winning the other in each category. Seemed like the lads had good fun too. The zombie plague was a manic meat wall in one game, as Craig's Delaque ganger 'Bulldog' tore through 26 zombies by himself, in one game. Immense!

Folowing up on a previous post, after the Necromunda players chose their factions, this is what I posted up for them to do for their first campaign games, and what the lads took on tonight:



Here are the scenarios you can play to take part in the first stages of the campaign. If you read on, you'll notice two of them are faction specific. Challenge another necro player (dont matter which side they're on) to play the bugs or zombies, and if you win, you score campaign points for your side. The other scenarios are all out of the sourcebook. To earn campaign points from these, find a player from the opposing faction and challenge them to a game! The first set of campaign scenarios are below. I'll leave these up for a couple of weeks until the next set come up.

BUG HUNT!
The word is there’s a critter infestation up near Blumpkin Hole. Papa Tango’s watering hole up in them parts is losing business fast, and it aint just liquor he’s pushing through there, if ye take my meanin’. Profits are down, and punters are getting eaten faster than a guilder can count his credits! The Papa wants you to get over there and crush some bugs before the Double Deuce goes outta business.

Genestealer Brood: this mission is only available to gangs in Papa Tango’s faction.

Dont let it touch you! Dont let it touch you!

Scenario forces and rules: The bug 'gang' consists of 5 genestealers (gang rating 1400). The Papa is paying out a 30 cred bounty on each genestealer head taken (no tax). A model in the ‘player’ gang must spend a turn stood next to the body of a fallen genestealer, without shooting or fighting in order to cut off its head. Gangers who roll ‘captured’ on the serious injury chart may instead have a gene seed implanted in them (refer to GM). The Genestealers do not take bottle tests – they must be expunged or they will eat you all! Deployment follows standard gang fight rules.

Campaign Points: Winning this for the Papa will gain your faction 2 campaign points.


PLAGUE
Bad news up in Dustfalls; in fact there’s no news in Dust Falls, ‘cause everyone’s turned into a frakkin’ zombie! Papa Tango put a bad batch of Spook into the town, which caused an outbreak of the neurone plague. A few folks start getting’ bitey and before you know it, the whole settlements shuffling about feedin’ on each other’s brains! Dust Falls sits on the caravan route up to the Grimshaft. If the guilders and green hivers get word of this, then Boss Blake may as well just quit now! The Boss wants you to get your ass over there and start clearing the place out. Find the powerplant and get the generators fired up. Once they’re on, the Boss will be able to get some work teams up there to fire up the electric fences to herd the zombies into one enclosure where they can be take care of.

Plague: this mission is only available to gangs in Boss Blake’s Faction.

Mounds of squidgey rotten flesh coming for ya!

Scenario forces and rules: Set up a 4’x4’ table with one multi-levelled structure at the centre. The player gang must get to this structure and activate the generator using the control panel (use the water still or other suitable piece of scenery), located on the top floor of the multi-levelled structure. The zombie player deploys first, putting down 5d6 zombies. They maybe placed anywhere on the table, except for any of the possible player deployment zones. Zombies may be on any level of a multi-storey building (including the generator building), but must be at least 3” apart from each other. The player sets up second, and may choose his deployment zone. Player deployment zones are any one of the 8”x 8” corners of the battlefield. Additional zombies are attracted by the sounds of gunfire during the battle. 3d3 zombies arrive at the start of each of the zombie player’s turns, from one randomly generated table edge. Plague zombies follow all the rules on pages 26 and 27 of the Outlanders Rulebook, except that ONE 2d6 roll for zombie movement is made each turn, and applied to all zombies on the table.

To set off the generator, one of the player’s models must stand next to the control panel for one full turn without moving, shooting or fighting in hand to hand. If you manage to ‘kill’ (put out of action) 10+ zombies, the Boss will send his friendly doc over to see to your injured boys (regardless of success or failure). If you manage to activate the generator, the Boss will reward your gang with a ‘free’package left for you at the trading post (one free roll on the rare tradechart).

Campaign Points: Winning this for the Boss will gain your faction 2 campaign points.

Everyone's Got a Past...

I finished reading Joe Abercrombie's 'Red Country' last night. Should have been working, but meh. By Jupiter's cock, I'm a slow ass reader! Really enjoyed it though, just as with all his books so far. Written in the style of a spaghetti western (distinctly not to my taste usually), but so well done it was like immersing yourself in mud just and having fun rolling about in it! Great characters, well written, and although set in a part of the Abercrombie world that I initially had doubts about, I was gripped from the outset. Good to have a lot of the old faces come out in the book, and to see the hand which the passage of years had dealt them. Shivers and Ninefingers - immense! Not quite as good as the last one - 'The Heroes' - which was stand out brilliant, and a different type of book, but excellent nonetheless. I read his blog quite regularly and I like his approach: a lot of his world is based upon his experiences of D&D when he was in uni, even up to this day (imagine playing D&D with George R. Martin!!!). There is no black and white, just shades of grey; everyone is a bit of a cunt in their own way.

He set it up with a trilogy, and has now done three linked stand alone books. Each of the stand alone has its own style and theme. 'Best Served Cold' was a revenge book, 'Heroes' was a battle unfolding over three days (like a fantasy version of the longest day - epic), and 'Red Country' was his western. I wonder where he'll go next? Cant wait!

I've got Harry Sidebottom's 'The Wolves of the North' next up, maybe I'll get through this one by June :-D ?? The fifth book in the series, set around a Roman General - Ballista - with a barbarous Germanic background. I loved the first two of these, set on the eastern limits of the Roman Empire in a time of decline, civil war and war with the Sassanids in the ascendancy. The third book lacked some of the intensity of the others for me, but the fourth one got it back on track. Sidebottom is an Oxford Don of Classical Studies. The amount of detail, just the day to day material culture which he packs in is immense. Easily the most immersive Roman historical fiction I've read yet. Looking forward to going Greek after this and picking up Christian Cameron's latest. His last book, 'Killer of Men' was by far and away the best historical fiction book I've ever read, and I've read a lot...