Things that go bump in your face.

Back to the battle of the cults, and the 3rd Protocol have been on a recruitment drive picking up a scraggly techpriest named Colitis from a nearby sumpworks as well as Gastroenteritis, an unfinished electropriest found wandering the pipes- more importantly both brought with them Lasguns, reliable ranged support for the autogun heavy Nurgle worshippers.

The Nepotism Brotherhood had also been out recruiting, and added Ghrylls, a Neophyte with the most pimped out Lasgun you have ever seen- Hotshot pack, las-projector and telescopic sight giving him an accuracy only the boss could equal.

both gangs also had a few increases after the last game, Tetanus was the focus of a ritual and regained the point of Movement he lost to a leg injury a while back, whilst the hulking Mhogg-Rhyse gained a point of Toughness to make him a terrifying T5. The genestealer's were further enhanced when their patron back in hive secundus sent a specialist trainer out who gave them tuition in the finer points of gang warfare spreading some more increases out amongst the crew. The chaos elders finally decided it was worth spending some creds on the Protocol as they deigned to send a supply crate down, giving Tetanus frag grenades and giving everyone who needed one a backup autopistol or knife. 

We're going for another GW 3 scenario here Monster Hunt, one that luckily doesn't require us to force our morons to take intelligence tests for a change! This is not going to be my most accurate record because this game went crazy at several points, and the absolute carnage that followed disrupted note and photograph taking, so bear with me if not everything in the photo's and notes match up!

also yeah I forgot pre-game photos of my crew- mainly because the new guys aren't 100% painted yet..

Both cults had been briefed by their respective patrons of a large creature devouring imperial citizens in a slime reclamation plant down sump bottom, and whilst neither cared much for the victims the potential that it could be recruited to their cause if it was a potential ally or sold for a bounty if not was too much of a temptation for them to pass up. Once again the rival cults found themselves facing off, this time in the cramped confines of the zone mortalis slime tunnels beneath the plant.. 

Scenario- Monster hunt- Deployment

For deployment the compiler infiltrated purely to force the infiltrating acolytes backwards and deny them the centre room. The rest of the Nurgle skitarii deployed in three groups of three forming little Nurgle symbols on the board which was hopefully pleasing enough to the boss he’d give us a hand this time..  The Genestealer cult deployed second and chose to go heavy on their right flank, with only Hidlystrom and his heavy stubber holding the left. The acolytes predictably infiltrated fairly central behind a bulkhead door. 

Turn 1

t's all gone a bit quiet...

Nothing much happened in the first turn (unusually for one of our games, this could be down to the denser nature of Zone mortalis or maybe we were just getting cagey;) Lots of moving up and getting into position, Rotbringer summoned levitation and nipped forward whilst the rest of the cultists on both sides moved towards the centre. The central corridor was starting to look like a choke point and I wanted to get into a position where I could take advantage of that.  

Turn 2

Door based pop up attacks are both big and clever apparently

 It got heavy real fast in the second turn when Sepsis opened the heavy bulkhead in front of him and opened fire into the Acolytes, followed by Urban Decay and the mouth, who closed the bulkhead again with his last action.  This only pinned the abominable Spinsser and his nasty saw, but the combined fire did flesh wound Johrnson, summoning the first tentacle which Steve placed in the doorway by ventrot and sporeslinger to stop my crossfire getting into place, the tentacle took no time making it’s mark on the game, giving Sporeslinger a slap that seriously injured him, knocking him to the floor. This in turn allowed me to place another tentacle, this time right on top of the Acolytes. On the other flank a sporadic exchange of fire saw both Glodsmyth and Colitis take hits, with Colitis taking a flesh wound and bringing up another tentacle from the gaping chasm between the two.  The compler continued to move to safety whilst Gastroenteritis sprinted up behind the far wall to close down the tough Heavy Stubber of Hidlystorm. 

Turn 3

The first tentacles start causing havoc. 

The autopistol Trio behind the bulkhead repeated their pop-up attack from last turn but due to cover and the intervening flailing tentacle of death their shots went astray. Spinsser had more luck, allowing the shockingly lucky familiar to draw the tentacles lash out then carving it cleanly in half with his buzz saw before backing off and letting Mhogg –Rhise take the lead. The rest of the Genestealer cult gathered around the barricades that lined the crucial corridor and waited for an opportunity to strike. The other flank was dominated by a large exchange of fire at the lone tentacle in the centre, with both sides managing to wound the beast but neither being able to finish the job. Ventrot managed to wound the tentacle that had injured Sporeslinger with is Autogun, but it didn’t stop the beast lashing out at Rotbringer who luckily dodged the attack. 

Turn 4

wait- just how big is this thing? 

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this map sums up how mental this turn got pretty darn well… Genestealers won initiative for the first (and potentially only?) time of the game and sent the familiar in running past the tentacle in the doorway. The beast lashed out but missed, however if the familiar was to take a hit (or open the door next turn) the Chaos Skitarii using it as mobile cover would be left very exposed ad at risk to tentacle death.  I decided to seize the moment rather than letting the Xenos dominate the play, and opened the door with a tactics card before exploding out with my gangers. Firstly the Mouth heaved a frag grenade into Mhogg-Rhise before ducking to one side, this missed bloody spectacularly, scattering all the way down the corridor and landing in the heart of the alien scum! Ghrylls, Turnha and Caamrhone were all hit, with flesh wounds on both Neophytes summoning more Tentacles in the surrounding area, nice arm boss! Urban decay then charged the diminutive Familiar, smashing it to paste then ducking behind a wall, unfortunately the tentacle called by the mini-me’s blood appeared right next to Sepsis, who was smashed down and seriously injured by it before he could take part in the glorious charge into the mouth of hell. Johrnson activated next, but he was just within the furthest reach of one of the newly summoned tentacles which lashed out, crushing his ribs and sending him into recovery.  The witch and Ventrot hammered away at the tentacle before them, giving sporeslinger time to crawl away but having no effect on the monster itself. Even more fire poured from both sides into the tentacle in the central chamber, (including the Compilers long las, although he was actually aiming at Glodsmyth) with Hidlystorm moving into range the Xenos finally destroyed the beast- 2 down, 4 to go (tactics cards hijinks at this point meant Hidlystorm’s stubber went Click too…). Sporeslinger and Sepsis both succumbed to their injuries at the end of the turn (one day I’ll remember Nurgle’s blessing and re-roll one!) although only Sepsis injuries were grave enough to damage him permanently, the beasts acid melting part of his spine.

Turn 5

right, we've got this..

With a swathe of casualties starting to mount up on both sides it was time to start checking for bottling, but both sides held their nerve so far. The mouth opened things up with his last grenade, though it missed and scattered into nowhere so he hid round the corner before they returned fire. Mhogg-Rhise finally got his claws in and after Caamrhone tricked the tentacle into striking at him far at the end of his range the Aberrant charged into the it, gouging a great chunk out of it’s rotting hide with his pick. Spinsser revved his saw up again and Put urban decay down for the count, though again he was only knocked out (we both got hellish lucky with injury rolls for such a brutal game) in the other room Gastroenteritis decided to make his debut game a bit more interesting by popping round the corner and gunning down Hidlystorm at very close range, the Las rounds only pinned the Neophyte, but between pinning and lack of ammo he wasn’t a threat for one more turn at least. Small arms and scattered shots littered the rest of the table but the turn was a suspiciously quiet one after the initial carnage.. 

Turn 6

Hidlystorm facing ineffectual lasgun death. 

The 6th Turn is usually the end of our games to ensure they don’t go on forever, but as I was actually looking to at least draw for a change I was hanging on for more if we had time. Gastroenteritis started play with another pinning shot on Hidlystorm- no injuries were inflicted so unfortunately he’d be able to fire this turn… oops. The stealers continued to spread out, backing Ventrot and the Witch further into a corner after they failed to inflict any wounds with their firing. The mouth Inadvertently helped the Stealers with this when he and Colitis hammered fire in to the Aberrant’s back, giving Mhogg a flesh wound which then summoned a tentacle right in front of the two trapped skitarii… doh! Things got a little better when The compiler managed to pick off Glodsmyth who was sneaking round the back again, the resulting tentacle was out of the way even with a 6” range, and although it tried to swipe Glodsmyth it didn’t connect. Hidlystorms  time to return fire finally came and he unleashed an epic 5 shots into Gastroenteritis, and somehow missed him entirely! Tetanus saw his opportunity and quickly sprint up past the crevasses in the floor to give Gastro support next turn. 

Turn 7

the tentacles are starting to outnumber the cultists..

The skitarii inevitably did what they have become renowned for and failed their bottle test under mounting pressure, however for a nice change the filthy Xenos scum also decided it was a bit too hot down here for their liking. The Chaos amusement at this turn of events was only increased when Caamrhone himself promptly failed his cool check and did a runner, leaving the rest of his boys to fight the beast leaderless! That almost took the sting out of both Ventrot and Rotbringer (the most cowardly rogue psyker in history) also legging it, though based on the tentacle right in their face this was probably the right decision.   More impressively a fair number of the Chaos did decide to stick around for a change, (in retrospect not their greatest plan) so I was still in the game. The Stealers won the initiative now the dithering Caamrhone wasn’t about to complicate things and Spinsser opening proceedings by charging into both the Mouth and Colitis, seriously injuring the Mouth and cutting Colitis down so badly he’ll be out of action for a while with a gushing head wound. The tentacles this produced burst around the melee in the small room and they began flailing around, flesh wounding Spinsser for his temerity and mouth in the process. Ghrylls put a hot shot round squarely into the tentacle before him, but Redmayhne was in turn taken out by a grasping tendril of the beast. The compiler took pot shots at another pseudopod but failed to hit. Gastroenteritis finally managed to put a flesh wound on the super tough Hidlystorm but his jubilation was short lived when his skull was crushed by a tentacle appearing right behind him taking him out for at least the next skirmish. Finally Tetanus skipped round the back with the intention of ambushing the remaining Xenos from the rearand Glodsmyth bled out on the floor near him.  

Turns 8 and 9

Having rarely played to turn 8 before it was no surprise that both gangs were looking a trifle battered at this stage, and with only two fighters active and in play the Chaos gods were obviously happy enough to see a bit more carnage as they both decided to stick around for at least one more turn (though the Mouth fled the table at this point, escaping serious injury at the last second) . Reallising that the tentacles were the biggest threat to his gang Spinsser directed all their fire and melee attacks towards the tentacles round them, finally bringing down enough to summon the beast we had been hunting all along into play! It appeared within charge range of Spinsser unfortunately, and wasted no time taking revenge on the unfortunate acolyte before it was lightly wounded by the Compiler’s long-las. The ineffectiveness of his prized rifle was seemingly the last straw for the Compiler as turn 9 was  cut short when he called a full retreat, both tetanus and himself disappearing back into the shadows leaving the Xenos scum to deal with the problem they had brought to the surface. I gave Steve the option to finish out the duel with the beast but as it was past midnight and he wasn't exactly tooled for the job he declined. 

We're going to need a bigger... everything? 

Look at the carnage in the large corridor- just look at it!  It was an absolute slaughterhouse in there on both sides but we had an amazing game, and were both spectacularly lucky with injuries, I only had one in recovery (Gastro) and two proper injuries (Sepsis took a spinal injury and Colitis a head trauma), and Steve took a head wound on Glodsmyth with Jorhnson going into recovery. 

Not exactly a win, but as both gangs bottled, and the beast was still standing not a loss either- a draw for a change, could this be a turning point in my fortunes? This is a savage scenario, let alone in the close confines of the Zone Mortalis tiles, so I'd recommend not opening that particular trapdoor until you have some very tooled up individuals on board. 

This is your brain on Spook.

Game three of our Mini-campaign between steve and myself took place last night, this time we decided to go get ourselves some spook from the old domes down the bottom of the hive. My leader 'The Mouth', Witch 'Rotbringer' and Helot cultist 'Sepsis' were all in Recovery, taking me down to a bare 4 members, so I thought I'd get me some reinforcements first.

The 3rd Protocol gained a fair bit of experience last game, and The Mouth had enough to upgrade something shiny, but being in recovery meant I'd have to wait till next game. I moved straight on to my income and did pretty well, earning enough to purchase a replacement for Bitterboil, as well as a long-las for my accountant 'The Compiler of Miseries' so he can actually take part whilst staying as far from an actual enemy as possible! This still left me with creds in the stash but I sat on them for now. The injured Tetanus was going to be too slow to make use of his combat set-up, so I gave him the unfortunate Bitterboil's shotgun, and shuffled the combat gear to the new cultist, named 'Urban Decay' (we are allowing weapon swaps in our campaign as we don't mind models being changed around)

Steve's Genestealer's had done very well in the post game, earning enough to hire a new Neophyte equipped with a grenade launcher to give the cult a good deal more punch at range AND replacing the mining saw Acolyte he lost in Game one. The heavy stubber wielding Hidlystorm had got the magical 6 EXP and increased his Toughness by 1 point, oof. Finally the aberrant Mhogg-Rhise got enough to purchase an upgrade, but chose to hang on until he could up his Toughness too.

Before the game both cults decided it would be worth calling on their patrons for a bit of help, and whilst the Chaos powers in the Hive declined to give any aid to the paltry techno-cult, the Patriarch back in Hive Secundus rewarded The Brotherhood with a crate containing two shiny hand flamers. Each Acolyte took a flamer as a back up weapon and prepared to move in. A new dome full of Spook had been found nearby, and the chances of the Stealers getting it without a fight were pretty slim.

My available gang-   Sporeslinger, Tetanus, Bilebeetle, The Compiler,  Urban Decay. 

Scenario and Deployment.

The Genestealers deploy wide, taking advantage of their numbers.

Th Chaos cult focused around the low bridge on the right 

We followed the Spook Harvest scenario, and both gangs spread out fairly evenly across their table edges, whilst both The Compiler and the new Acolyte 'Spinsser' used their infiltrate abilities to drop on a spook counter each. 

Turn one. 

 Closely matched so far, the next turn will be crucial. 

As the temporary leader of his grubby mandroids, the Compiler kicked the game off by grabbing initiative and harvesting a spook counter straight of the bat. He took the opportunity for some quality control product testing while he was at it and gained the 'slow time' psychic power, which he was clearly never going to use as time is money, and he isn't about to go throwing it away. Spinsser followed suit by scraping up the Spook he was stood on, but accidentally got a face full of the stuff- luckily his hybrid metabolism shrugged it off. the usual early skirmish shuffling shenanigans took place, with Bilebeetle and Urban running for the next Spook sets and the genestealer's swarming into two groups either side of the raised road to present a solid front against the outnumbered chaos skitarii.

A spectacular amount of 6's saves the day.... 

The turn ended by Sporeslinger attempting to copy his last games snapshot against an acolyte by riddling Spinsser with bullets, miraculously the acolyte's Hazard suit saved every single shot, so he was only pinned, dammit! 

 Turn two. 

Bilebeetle is on the Spook, but way too exposed for my liking.. 

Chaos took the initiative for the second turn, and without solid lines of sight they continued to consolidate their positions, with two Neophyte's including the heavy stubber armed Hidlystrom preparing to pin down the currently hiding Bilebeetle. Glodsmyth was up to his old tricks again and sprinted far up the table, trying to cut off Urban Decay who had reached another Spook stash. The compiler legged it back to safety with his precious load, and Spinsser stayed put behind his pillar until someone dealt with Sporeslinger. Speaking of which, the new grenade launcher armed neophtye Tuhrna stepped up and attempted to drop a frag grenade on the wall Sporeslinger was hiding behind, but ended up sending the shell far into the distance, exploding somewhere in the ruins.

The aberrant 'drops in' on Urban Decay. (the last shot the pict-skull grabbed before failing)

Mhogg-Rhiss crawled under the bridge and dropped to the floor right next to Urban Decay, pinning himself but preparing to bring the pain when he recovered. The Familiar and Bilebeetle both reached the remaining Spook stashes and now had to weather a turn harvesting it under potential enemy fire.

Turn three

The Chaos cult regained the initiative this turn, and Bilebeetle started by harvesting the Spook next to him, this left him in visible to a lot of enemies unfortunately and a barrage of heavy stubber fire flesh wounded him and even more importantly knocked him off the ledge and out of cover, allowing Caamrhone to finish the job with his boltgun, taking Bilebeetle out of action and giving him a head injury to boot. Sporeslinger tried to support the beleaguered Urban decay by hitting Glodsmyth in the back, but his aim was way off. Glodsmyth didn't need to be warned twice, and blazed into Urban Decay, pinning him and denying him the spook (this turn at least). The Compiler encouraged Tetanus to drop the grenade launcher before it could do any more damage, but Tetanus completely ignored him and blasted a solid shot into Glodsmyth instead, pinning him in cover and blasting him back. Turnha did not miss twice in a row, and the grenade seriously injured Sporeslinger, who hilariously rolled down the stairs one at a time after being hit to lie in a heap on the ground. Urban decay rose to his feet and desperately emptied his pistol into the abberant beside him and somehow managed to wound the beast, though this did not stop it lurching to its feet ready for next turn. Snorting Spook is not for those of a delicate constitution, and whilst the familiar easily scraped the substance up, the dose he got for his trouble caused him to go a bit wild, sprinting into the open. The Compiler moved up to see if he could recover the day, but as soon as he crested the wall he could see the jig was probably up..

Turn four. 

Chaos inevitably failed their bottle check, but this wasn't over yet.. To turn the game in the Chaos favour the Compiler just needed to

1. Not have anyone fail any cool checks.
2. Win initiative. 
3. Take the familiar out of action or seriously injure it with one shot from his long-las. 
4. Activate Tetanus with him, and have Tetanus at least pin the Aberrant, in hard cover, at long range.
5. Have Urban decay harvest the spook,and survive a round of shooting. 
6. Bottle next turn to take the win. 

Seemed a bit implausible, but to hell with it, he'd give it a go. The chaos cult elected not to voluntarily bottle despite the odds against them.

Every surviving Chaos cultist then proceeded to spectacularly fail their cool checks and leg it anyway like the spineless wind-up pieces of rusty junk they are.  The only upside to this was Sporeslinger avoided a serious injury and at least they had one Spook spore to the Genestealers 2, so it wasn't a total whitewash.  

Again dammit!  next time you weirdly limbed monstrosities! 

Dreadball!

I haven't managed to post for a while, mainly as I've been working on commissions and I don't post those up (being nice to the people who paid me is quite important) however, that said, I have taken a bit of time out to get involved in some dreadball, which although I haven't played many games I absolutely love, and after bouncing through the rules I spotted the page about Dreadball Extreme, and thought, 'that's me, right there...' I got a human team from a good friend Sam (his blog is here) at Xmas, so I painted those up (from spray to finished during the movie armageddon... they arent the most complex models thankfully), and designed a bit of background- Workers from the salvage firm responsible for disposing of used Dreadball armour, who set up their own dreadball league with pilfered armour in the bowels of their salvage ship, eventually catching the attention of the firms owners, who decided to back their raw talent with corporate sponsorship.

This then led me to think 'hmmm, i want extreme bases' so I got some plasticard, built some bases, and cast them up in resin. this in turn made me think 'what if...' and I embarked on a rather over the top idea- I would use these bases to build an entire pitch from scratch, extreme style, and so I did- on a base of plastic mesh from a craft shop, I built 'The Rustbucket' home of the Royston Brothers Salvagers team 'The Rust-Eze Raiders'

Here's some pictures, followed by the first game report of the league I'm currently playing in firestorm games

"Marv 'the Mouth' Hengist here with my long time co-host Chuck Waggon at the Rustbucket to report on tonights rather unique game. After some initial confusion over drinks allocation when the caterers at the Rustbucket had simply sprayed the team initials on the refreshment trolleys to denote which was destined for each dressing room, meaning the Raiders were left with a unique Terraton tea made from crushed coral and seaweed, whilst the Rebels were served no10 'Blast-charge' Billy's finest moonshine, we managed to get under way. The game started with the Raiders no2 'Beauty Scream' Betty stealing a quick 1 Point behind the Terraton's back, before being pounded off the pitch by an enraged alien. The pain continued for the Rust-Eze team for the next few rushes as they failed to penetrate the Reptiles tough shells, and even Blast Charge was beat down by a brawling Rebel guard. eventually the Raiders got another break, and stealing the ball from a Terraton (no Chuck I don't know his name, all these damn aliens look alike to me) as he closed on a big 4 pointer they got another cheap 1 point, they were 2-0 up, but their celebration was cut short as no5 'Redshirt' Bobby was dropped with a blow to the head so severe he's likely now playing ball on the Rustbucket in the sky (yes Chuck I know that as it's mounted on a salvage ship the Rustbucket already is in the sky let's not let that get in the way of a good metaphor) as the game reached it's closing moments the viscous moonshine imbibed by the Rebels finally worked it's way into their alien system, and as they began to wobble rather strangely around the pitch a commotion in the dressing rooms revealed that the refreshments mix-up may not have been as accidental as previously thought, the robot ref dialled up Digby, and after a brief online chat called the game a draw on Rush 11, pending a stewards enquiry."

Draw- Both teams gain 1 dice (I rolled a 5)

NO2 'Beauty Scream' my MVP'
NO1 on the terratons killed NO5 (guard 'Redshirt')

My purchase- guard no11 'Bore-hole' Baldwin

No spare Mc, new rating 101.

Clown Cars

ok, I managed to take very bad, almost unusable photos of the game, so I won't be using them:P instead I'll have to do with (almost) finished photos of the Jokers Crew, plus the second game report-

Game two- Clown Cars

GCPD: two cops- one rookie, one vet
Joker: The Joker himself.

Scenario- The Police are driving one car each- a police cruiser which holds the goons, and the jokers truck which holds the jewels from the heist. each goon, the truck and the jewels are worth one VP each to whoever holds them at the end of the game.

Terrain: a street in the Narrows

The Jokers attention span may not be great, but when the truck didnt arrive at the pre-arranged meeting point even he was suspicious, mainly that his insane henchman had run off with the loot... with instructions to Harkey, the Ringmaster and Mime to check the prisons, the asylum and the morgue, he stole a nearby car and raced off to the narrows  to find his jewels.

Imagine his surprise when after only a few minutes drive down the deserted streets he found himself face to face with a police cruiser, closely followed by his own truck, only a clown could get arrested in the narrows...

Turn 1: The joker slammed his foot on the accelerator, and aimed his headlights straight at the cruiser. The Rookie driving was still unsuspecting at this point, as was the Vet in the Jokers truck so they slowly came on.

Turn 2:  The revving of the engine, and the obviously smashed up windscreen finally caught the attention of the Rookie, who saw the beat up station wagon coming straight for him, getting on the radio to the Vet he tried to take evasive action but the narrow street hemmed him in too much.

Turn 3: In a last ditch battle of nerves (the Joker decided that he wasn't going to lose at chicken today whatever I did) the Rookie managed to veer at the last minute,(coward!!) swerving to the left of the Jokers car, and drawing his pistol opening fire through his own window at the speeding Lunatic, he hit nothing but the Vet behind saw the gunfire and skidded to a halt, blocking the street but slamming himself around inside the car.

Turn 4: The Joker may be mad, but even he knows T-boning a car wasnt going to end well for him, slamming on the brakes he swept the station wagon to one side, and as it came around he tumbled out of the drivers door, before rolling to his feet, by the time the car slammed into the side of the purple ruck he had come about and was climbing over the bonnet toward the stunned Veteran, The rookie saw the clash in the mirror, and screeched to a halt, climbing out with his radio in one hand and his pistol in the other.

Turn 6: It was his truck in the first place, so the Joker can hardly be blamed for wanting to get it back, he dived through the drivers side window, landing on the Veterans lap he slammed his fist into the cops chubby abdomen, with a buzz of electricity (he rolled critical damage with his punch!)  the Vet began coughing up blood , heaving the clown off him into the passenger seat he clambered back out the way the clown came in, this time into the station wagon! All the Rookie could do was call for back up as he couldn't see anything.

Turn 7: having gained control of his loot surprisingly easily, Mr J climbed back into to the drivers seat, gunned the engine and sped off into the darness, leaving nothing but a beat up station wagon, an unconscious cop and a trail of purple paint behind him... his goons he would have to come back for, so we'll call this one a draw...

here's the almost finished gang (still need to finish the orange on all but the Auguste, plus a few details)

 The clown truck is from Ainsty Castings Carpark range, and I couldn't resist:) the 'Extra'  crew member is Mime, a 1980's batman villain who appeared in maybe 2 comics, but fitted with my spare models available and sort of matches the jokers theme...