Big Game Hunters' Safari on Venus: Battle Report

If you didn't see the game rules and hunting party construction guide, you might want to read that post first.

Motivated by the potential publicity, and the prize purse, offered by the Zoological Institute of Progressive International Taxonomists, four notable Big Game Hunters set out to claim the prize.



A Cytherian Parrotman hunter and his faithful companion, accompanied by a menagerie of fighting men from various tribes and races. These two have names unpronounceable, due to the fact they have a kinetic language, so to learn their language you'd have better luck signing up for a modern dance class than a language class. 

Allan Quartermaine and his followers, bolstered by a semi-submergable clank.  
To not scare off any camera shy natives, his camera was cleverly hidden in a tusk. 

The Swedish Hunter, two assistants, homeguard troops and offworld warriors. 
Svanhilla won several awards for photography in Oslo, and is determined to give viewers back home 
'a woman's perspective' of Venus. 

A companion of Kneemo's expedition, it wasn't surprising to see a clank among this hunting party. 

Venus awaits, but will not yield her secrets willingly. 
The entire table is considered dense vegetation, with visibility no greater than 20" unless looking down the river or if a clearing is discovered. 

The safaris begin as the parties head toward Thunder Valley.

Quartermaine is one of the first to spot some natives, partially obscured in the jungle: the fierce Draniki. 
His clank takes point, thrashing through the foliage, flailing his arms...wildly.

The Draniki take aim and fire, but to little effect. 

More Draniki on the move. 

Meanwhile the swedes are alerted by a piercing shriek, but the steely-nerved hunter brings the beast down. 

Quartermaine spots the strangest creature they have seen yet, looking like a big brain and tentacles. Not taking any chances, they fire. He finds his vision unaccountably blurred, but the creature's mind tricks are no match for his skill and a mess now decorates the underbrush.  A photo is taken, titled 'Linguine & Leaves' but it is not to be well received.  
   
Kneemo's men find trouble as well. Investigating an eerie blue glow, they find it's source. And open fire.

The Parrotman's expedition makes its way inland, following the river.

Approaching the remains of the brain, Quartermaine's men are attacked by walking trees!
A prolonged combat ensues with the treacherous trees.

The Cytherian company's rear-guard is attacked by a fair sized predator.  Soon after a larger one of the species comes to its aid, and when it is gunned down, this young one fights all the more fiercely, bringing down several of the diminutive warriors.

Meanwhile, their native primate allies move up to investigate a sinister looking cave.

Who's that knocking at my door?

The enormous quadrupedal hunter comes out for a meal, but while distracted, is hit by several well aimed shots.

 
Another brain creature emerges from the murky swamp. The primate warriors are on their own for now.

They manage to finish the beast off!  
Enjoy it while you can lads, because your employer is sure to take the credit for himself.

After dispatching the tree-people, the noise has attracted a hunting pack of Grishak: small, fast & hardy. 

Not content like Quartermaine to fuss with small prey, Kneemo's man spots a gigantic beast.  
Could this finally be the mythical Thunder Lord?

The Swedes run into an even larger brain creature, which is soon joined by two more small ones! 
Wounding the big one, it responded by inserting a tentacle into a man, draining him of life and the rest of the men watched in horror as the creature's wounds began to heal. Poor Svanhilla would not survive this day.

A thunderous roar erupted, accompanied by the ground shaking.  The true Thunder Lord entered his valley to meet his unwelcome guests. 

Few were not terrified at the sight and sound of this nightmare.

Brave or foolish, the little Grool, those who had defeated the cave-dweller charged forward in blind courage.

Grateful for the larger carnivore being distracted, the smaller, but nevertheless formidable Alice charged the shiny creature before her as the men opened fire. In an amazing display of skill (6 goals out of 7, with a couple 6's in there which count double) she ripped the clank's head from it's body with her jaws as her slashing toe claws ripped the metal of it's chest, to settle her weight on the clank, crushing it.  
Two myths were dispelled this day: Dinosaurs are not extinct, and there is no such thing as canned food. 
She will finish off the soldiers, who die in defense of their employers. She is mightily wounded, yet the hunters are close to her jaws. Their story remains unfinished, perhaps someday their tale will emerge from the jungle. 

Quite proud of his trophy of tree-creature, much to the amusement of his men, with their muffled remarks of the 'Brave Bushwhacker', Quartermaine sees the great Thunder Lord itself, and readies his rifle for a kill shot. 

His clank will be no help in this fight with the mighty dinosaur, for it has been ambushed by a Draniki hunting party. 

With his inadequate eyesight, the mighty lord peers into the jungle to spot his foes.  He can not see them, but their scent is strong: smells like chicken.
The great beast is wounded by several shots and spear-thrusts from the foolhardy Grool.  
Quartermaine is readying his rifle to steal the kill shot, but the notable Parrotman hunter, 'hippy-hippy-shake' (or something to that effect) was just a moment faster and brought the great beast down.

A victory celebration ensued for the native expedition. Many photos were taken.  
The photos will be studied by earth scientists, though reports in newspapers in every country seem to have omitted this last part. 
But the parrotmen know the real story and for them, it is enough. 


Afterword


Each player got 1 point per vitality loss it inflicted, and for beasts of 3 vitality or more, they got the full vitality points for the killing blow, since for hunters who gets the actual kill is where much of the bragging rights are. 
Players also got 1 point for a photo, and 2 points for photos of formidable creatures.
For physical specimens, players got 1 point per porter carrying 1 vitality creatures, 3 for each carrying parts from 3 vitality creatures and 4 points for each porter carrying parts from vitality 4+ creatures.  So it taking 2 porters to carry the rex skull, would be worth 8 additional points.  It didn't take precise math to see the parrotmen had the lion's share of the points. 


If there was one thing I'd change about this, it would be to make the initial encounters stronger. I imagined this like designing an RPG dungeon crawl: it's a balance of attrition: you want to weaken a party as it goes along, but not so much they have no chance against the final encounter.  There wasn't enough attrition, but still the big beasts were tough nuts to crack. Also, the rules we used have close combat only allowing 1target in a henchman group to die from one attack. Some of these beasts should be able to kill more than one so for the biggest I modified those rules on the fly to allow them to kill up to 2. Only taking down 1 henchman in a group at a time put the medium threats: devanu hunters, brains, will-o-wisps, etc at a real disadvantage compared to the parties' numbers,which limited the attrition they took. Still, it was a fun game, the players seemed to enjoy it and I know I did. 


Thanks to the players and you can see Mike 'shimey-shimey-shake' Parrotman's write up and excellent pictures (some of which I used here) at his site  Rot and Drivel.  Vegetation provided by Alfrik, with many tutorials on how to make them on his site Armored Ink.

Draniki Scouting Party Sighted

The Draniki arrive! Well, a scouting force of them at any rate.

This is a project over 4 years in the making. I'm such a procrastinator.

How it started:

Long long ago I started making a Lizardmen army for WHFB. I liked the models. But when the saurus get all tightly ranked I didn't like them as much. The minis are very characterful, but when they're all in the same pose, same facing, packed in tight together it just doesn't look like much. I wanted something different.

Fast forward several years finds me revisiting a pulpy-sci fi fluff background I had in mind, I was calling 'Planets in Peril'.  I played 40k long ago, and still keep an eye on what is going on with it, but it isn't a great fit for me: the fluff is a bit too dour and the rules a bit too *cough* simplistic? (Though I love Orks!) But I am addicted to creating armies. I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, so that explains a lot of what I am drawn to in gaming genres. So I came up with the Planets in Peril background with the intention of having many races that could be represented by easy to obtain miniatures from various companies. The one I was most excited about was the Draniki.

The Draniki weren't called that then, they were just called by their earth-name, "The Lizardmen of Venus". "Draniki" would come later after hearing it and knowing it must be their name. Any phonetic similarity between their word and an earth-language name for a potato-based food is purely coincidental.

I'm a big proponent of 'double dip' miniatures: minis that you can use as more than one army, or in more than one game system. Get more for your effort! So I intended to have the Draniki be usable as a 'counts-as' 40k army of some type: first trying necrons, then later deciding orks would be more likely.

I started building them. What a joy! Freed from the tight confines of ranked square bases, it allowed for angling heads and giving more movement to the miniatures.  I've also made cavalry, shock-troops and komodos (commandos), a couple small fliers and a couple 'tanks'. All in all I have over 120 miniatures to paint. A year later I scraped off the basing material and redid the bases with light texture & small geysers.

4 Years later I finally found some time to begin painting. In my defense I should say that this isn't a showcase-level project. This is a 'fast paint' project, or with the time I have for hobby it would never get done. A mass army like this I'll just be relying on the conversions and overall impression to carry it. The only way I found time to start it was using them as Askari allies for my Quar in the Venus campaign!  Starting a project as a portion of a different one is a great way to make a new project happen.

So, that's more than you ever wanted to know I'm sure, so on to more pictures!


These are Draniki warriors. Or, if I ever play 40k these would count as shoota boyz.

Draniki warriors take a tooth from the first thunder-lord they kill. Many have it mounted in their rifle, making it a formidable weapon in hand to hand fighting.

Here are some with double barreled radium rifles (angle of the picture makes it hard to see, but they are double barreled) These would count as 'big shootas' for orks.

A Draniki alongside a Quar. The Quar are grateful for both the great strength of their allies as well as the knowledge of Venus they can share.

The Draniki so far:

A small start to a big project.

World of the Draniki

Amtor.  Cytheria.  Venus.

Many names. Many myths. Many mysteries.

For those brave enough to penetrate the clouds and traverse the jungles of Venus there await many lifetimes worth of adventures.  Venus is home to many dangers and wonders that the men of Earth are only beginning to unveil.

One of the dominant races of Venus, and one of the least like the men of Earth, is the Draniki.

The Draniki (pronounced with a rolling R "Drrrahh-neekee") are reptilians, possessing intelligence and craft that rivals that of Man with a history and civilization that is far older.  Physically imposing, with an average height of seven feet and the sharp teeth of carnivores, they are however slow to anger and generally lack the cruel pleasure derived from violence which is too common in the worst of men. It would be a mistake to think of them as gentle giants however, for they are formidable hunters and think little of bringing death to outsiders when in doubt of their intentions.

"Of their past I am just beginning to uncover the secrets," stated Professor Nigel Hawthorne, acclaimed historian and anthropologist of Cambridge, "their history,which is backed up by archaeological evidence suggests they have had a similar history as our own, with its risings and falls, though on a far greater scale of time.  If they are to be believed, in their past they have traveled to the Jovian moons, and their ancestors had colonies upon Earth itself.  The last few hundred years they have been reemerging from their last dark age, which was heralded by 'the great death brought upon by the great unnamed.' It is unclear if this refers to a supernatural myth of some kind."

What is known is that the nation of the Draniki is vast, with many cities and a sophisticated culture steeped in rituals. They are a space faring race in their own right, though rarely do they venture beyond Venus. Tensions mount as more and more expeditions from the various nations of Earth encroach upon their borders.  They have had trade in the past with the Phobosians, and have sealed a formal alliance with the Phobosians on expedition to Venus. 

The Draniki are coming...

The Draniki are coming...