Apes and Artifacts: Empire of the Dead Battle Report

Friday we met for some games of Empire of the Dead.  This time Lord Greystoke and his followers were once again trying to track down the illusive artifacts that were rumored to be hidden in the countryside.  All previous rumors had been revealed false, but never let it be said that James Clayton, Lord of Greystoke, is anything but thorough and persistent! Unfortunately, word of the artifact had reached the ears of Her Highness of the Hinterland Hussies.  It seems they were going to press a claim for the valuable antique and try to discover it first!

The map lead to the ruins of a medieval town, where once a tower stood, and the remains of a graveyard and crumbling stone walls that marked the location of long-gone wooden homes.

As dawn broke the two rival forces approached from opposite directions.


John Clayton, in anthropoid form has grown stronger and more dangerous as time has passed, and his sidekick, Alphie the Ape has increased in formidable nature as well.  With them were two apes, and the household staff and Sergeant York, all with tranquilizer guns (bows).  


The Housefraus had all manner of impressive firearms, though only the President and Vice President appeared to have swords, though the smell of silver was in the air, and this metal had a strange reaction with the physiology of Alphie and Lord Greystoke, it interferes with the nexus of integrated life in a manner that Greystoke has yet to overcome.  

The women took cover in positions at a large old tree and the crumbling walls.  Some others of their party went to the graveyard to search there for the artifact.  One ape went around the south end of the tower, to seek a possible location of the artifact on the other side, but from this longer route he'd be safe from gunfire. 
Staff took cover at a wall and readied their own, weaker guns, while Greystoke searched a location that revealed nothing.  York prepared to give covering fire as Alphie waited at the wall to catch his breath before a charge across the open ground. 

At the Graveyard one of the women pried up a great stone of the step and there found an old box, with something inside wrapped in oilcloth.  They had no time to investigate their find further however, as Milly the maid ran to threaten them.  The Hinterland Ladies were non-pulsedat this, having their attention now fully fixed upon the rampaging ape and ape-man crossing the graveyard at great speed down upon them.


They opened fire, but the bullets had no apparent affect on the bestial man.  

While a firefight broke out to the west, ending when Alphie reached the Hinterland Officers, and soon bringing down the Vice President, while the Butler Woodhouse landed a sharp tranquilizer dart into the President, the most important action was taking place at the graveyard.


Greaystoke laid low the woman who held the artifact he sought, while Cecil the Ape leapt from the wall to block any retreat they might have. One woman did try to run, but Cecil caught her, pummeling her senseless.  
Milly and a soldier exchanged blows and heated words.  Greystoke scooped up the box and the two remaining Hinterland Hussarettes at the tree hurried off in the distraction. 

................................................

I'd lost only one ape, who had strength reduced by 1, while the Hinterlanders lost 5 of 7, with 2 miss next games, 2 with -1 strength and 1 with -1 movement.  Not a great result for them, but not as bad as deaths would have been.  But with only removing 1 of mine and just 2 left on the field, they did not make much cash to speak of.  On the other hand, with a win, removing 5 of them and left with 7 on the field I made a lot of cash.  The artifact turned out to be Garlic Grenades.  Not a very impressive artifact, but useful against the Vampires. 

We'll likely be doing a restart the next time we play.  Having caught a couple mistakes in game play, and some people with more games than others, a reset seems in order to get a level playing field.  It is a lot of fun to advance a warband, to see them get better, get new skills and increase abilities, and since the game is fun at any level it won't be bad to start the Greystoke Apes again.  

Balderdash: You Choose My Next Leader! A Poll.

This is the first time I've run a Poll on the blog.
I was looking at some of the minis I plan to use in the next Journeyman League for Warmachine & Hordes.
This time they are not limiting it to the official battleboxes, you can construct your own battlebox with any leader, and this made me want to run Circle and take Baldur.  A bit of background is in order...

If you aren't familiar with him or the game, Circle is the faction that is the 'Druid' faction: in D&D terms would likely be True Neutral.  They have information that the world will be destroyed by a terrible god, if humans continue to wake it up, which they are doing by expanding civilization.  So the only way to save the world is to cull civilization back, for the proper balance and all that.  These Druids are not mellow hippies.

Baldur is a Druid that specializes in the constructs: creating creatures made of rock animated by magic.
I love the idea of this, but to be blunt I didn't like the direction they took for the miniatures. I think the rock creatures are too tall, thin and geometric. I wanted more natural looking rocks, less crafted, so I sculpted my own. When I looked at the possible minis I could use for Baldur, since his official miniature is alright, but I find it kind of boring, I found I couldn't decide on which of three miniatures to use.

This is where you come in.

You get to pick which miniature I'll use for Baldur, the leader of the army I'll be using.

Here is the official mini that I won't be using:

To Vote in the Poll, just fill out your preference in the Poll at the top left of the blog.

Here are the choices, identified and listed in alphabetical order by the miniatures line it comes from, and each potential Baldur is posing with one of the Rock constructs (Wold Warden) to give a sense of how he'll fit in:

A.  Celtos:

B. Enigma:

C. Relics:

That is them, now it's up to you.  The Poll runs for about a week.
Let me know what you think, thanks for helping! 

Who Gives a Monkey a Gun? Well, I guess I do.

Wow, it was back in December that I converted the Reaper Miniatures pirate goblin into a monkey for a simian Cabin Boy for my Privateers for Legends of the High Seas.  And like most projects, if there isn't an immediate need, then it gets pushed to the side.  The campaign got called on account of lack of participation- was a bad time for a lot of people, me included- I had to miss two sessions and next I knew the league was canceled, so as much my fault as anyone else, just didn't have time with work & life.

So the Privateers remained as they were: bases painted and primed people.
Shifting things around I had to move this warband and thought "Wouldn't hurt to have a monkey for Greystoke's Apes for Empire of the Dead".
So he got some paint!

I decided I wouldn't rebase him- he'll stay with sandy beach, And his colorful attire? Perhaps he works as a spy for Greystoke, begging for pence in the street and keeping an eye & ear out about goings-on in the city, and so this outfit helps draw attention and might loosen the purse strings of charmed gentry.

A very quick paintjob for the monkey, and maybe someday his human swashbuckler friends will join him...

before:

Plastic Army Men Find Work As Dancers After Their Wars

Saw this on Lead Adventure Forum and thought this must be passed along, it's just brilliant.

When the war is over, exchange those combat boots for boogie shoes!

Enjoy!

Skorne: First Small Tournament Report

This past weekend, to cap off the Warmachine & Hordes Journeyman league (though open to anyone which about half the players were not from the league) there was a small three game tournament.  The format would be a different army size for each game: 15pts, 25pts then 35pts. I thought that meant different lists, but no, turns out it meant start with a 15 point list then add 10 points to it for each new game. Well that messed up the plans I'd had- I was going to try out 'Domina' Rasheth for the 35 point list... oh well, so I went to the caster I'd used for the last half of the league: epic Hexaris. There was about a dozen people, with Hordes being a bit more than half, though of those, there were 3 Skorne! Can't fault them for taste ;)

Game 1: Skorne vs. Trolls 15 points. 
There was a scenario for this, but it came down to both armies going for each other's throat, so I don't recall.

My Army:

Hexaris (epic), Bronzeback, Gladiator, Feralgheist, Beasthandlers (minimum)

Trolls:

Madrak, Mulg the Big Troll, Champion Hero, Fellcaller Hero, Krielstone unit
 -Too bad I didn't play him later in the day, he had a nicely painted unit of Fennblade trolls.

This was the first time I played against trolls.  Madrak is quite a good caster! He has a talisman that prevents him from being charged, so he lead with his warcaster, so I couldn't reach him. If I sat back, he'd throw his axe at me until close enough he could charge me, if I advanced, he'd charge me.  Quite a mess!  The stone increases the armor to the point that my best spell to cull his infantry wouldn't hurt them.

He only had one beast: Mulg, so my plan was to kill that Troll, then Madrak wouldn't have a source of power. I moved the gladiator up, as bait, the champion charged him ,but I was ok.  The Titan then killed the champion and I blasted Madrak pretty good with a spell.  Madrak then charged a beasthandler, and with an ability he had, started inching closer to my caster, so that by the third swing, he was attacking Hexaris! Not good!  He got one good hit on him, but missed 3 times! He only needed a 6, but three times didn't get it on 2 dice... some really bad luck there.  My Titans made a wall, preventing Mulg from coming to his rescue, and Hexaris hit Madrak and took his life.. but Madrak (being a Troll) made his 'Tough' roll (5+ on 1 die) and got back up, So I hit him again, and he Toughed again, and so hit him again! and the third time he stayed down!

A win for me, but the dice did him no favors.  He took it very well.

Game 2: Skorne vs. Legion 25 points.
Another first: I hadn't played against Legion before. This had an odd scenario.  At one corner of the field was an area to control.  At the opposite corner was a flag. If you controlled the zone (no enemy models in it)  *and* had one model near the flag, then you got a point, and the person near the flag got fried with a powerful magic blast.  "Thanks for helping- no good deed goes unpunished." First to get 2 points won.

My Army:

Added to the army: minimum unit of Gatormen with Beast Task Master and an Agonizer.

Legion:

Epic Vayl, Scythean & Angelius beasts, Tower battle-engine, shepherd and spirit martyr.

I had a hill with difficult terrain on it in my deployment, and I made a big mistake- I should have deployed my Gators in it, since they can 'pathfind' and they'd have been able to move out of it fast and get toward the control zone.  Since I didn't, he got to it fast and tied me up with the tower, further slowing me down.  I did take out the tower with the Bronzeback, but the Gladiator didn't fare too well.  The flying beast struck out, did a lot of damage, then flew back to safety, and the big beast with scythes there in the foreground of the picture finished him off.  2nd big mistake: I forgot to use the feralgheist! He's a ghost, that I can use to inhabit a dead beast, so i could have still used the gladiator.  I used my feat to drain away all the fury, so next turn his caster wouldn't have power without damaging herself, but by then he'd got the victory points and it was over.  Turns out this Legion caster has some really nasty spell abilities, so not sure what I'd have done if I'd found out about them the hard way ;)

Result:  Loss.

Game 3: Skorne vrs Retribution 35 points.
I did play against Retribution a couple times in the league, but it's the army I have the least familiarity with.
The scenario was to try to destroy a target near the enemy, once that was done, another would appear and you'd have to then destroy that one- meanwhile the opponent was trying to do the same to a target pair near you.  These pillars were pretty tough.  He had a lot of range and I didn't, so I'd have to tie his army up while trying to get to my targets bodily.

My Army:

Added: remaining Gatormen for a full unit & Archidon.

His Army:

Ravyn, Warjacks: Phoenix & Hydra, Mage-hunters (shooters) Archers (more shooters) Eirys (shooter hero)
a mechanic, a magic-aide and a mounted hero with a lance that shoots lasers!

-I never cared much for the look of the warjacks (though I kind of like the one here without a sword,just has hands) and since they're about the newest army I haven't learned much about them.  So i didn't know much about their abilities.  Both warjacks have a ranged attack though, and since everyone else did too, and I had none, order of the day looked like advance fast! but not so fast I get stuck where I could get charged first.  Easier said than done.

I set up like this, with Gators behind woods, so they could pathfind through it and the archidon could fly over it, ah-ha! learned from the last game!

Then I found out that one of the shooting units could see& shoot just fine through woods, and even through my own army! They shot magically through my titans and killed all of my squishy but very valuable beasthandlers. That's not good! He also shot at my Bronzeback, who could chose to move up when attacked, but if I did I'd get charged by the knight, so I didn't.. at least not at first.  He did get hurt a bit more, so I went ahead and moved up, while the gladiator prepared to charge him in return should it all go bad, and if not, he was guarding the target (unpainted titan below).Eirys the elf moved up and did 3 points of damage to the target with her crossbow.

(you can see my target, Domina Rasheth across the field- I'll update her later).
The knight did charge the Bronzeback, who took some damage, but not a whole lot. I also lost 2 Gatormen to arrows (they failed their tough rolls) but the next turn I got to hit back.  The gladiator had rush so charged through the difficult terrain and stepped on the elf.  One problem down. That healed the Bronzeback a bit with Hexaris' vampire power, and the Bronzeback killed the knight, which healed him a bit more. Hexaris blasted the Phoenix warjack knocking down it's shields and a couple points of real damage.  The Phoenix then charged my Bronzeback, but he again survived it.  My next turn, the Gatormen continued to wade through archers and the Bronzeback wrecked the Phoenix, which handily gave him some cover.

The Bronzback at this point is not far from his caster, so he charged it with his other warjack.  He was hurt pretty bad at this point, but still hanging on...barely. I needed the Bronzeback free to attack his caster, so the Archidon flew over, charging the Hydra warjack, I boosted the hit (roll an extra die) and got what I wanted: a doubles, so he threw the warjack! I aimed at the caster, but it missed, crushing the mechanic instead.  The Gladiator put Rush on the Bronzeback allowing him to move faster and over the wreckage, and the caster elf didn't survive the charge from a very angry Titan.

Neither of us managed to destroy a pillar target -if I'd tried the archers would have killed the gators, so made more sense to attack them instead.

Result: Win.

The Tournament was won by Skorne, but not my Skorne ;) I did manage to get the prize for best painted though, which I'm always happier about than battle victories.

I'll be playing Circle in the next Journeyman league, but I am happy with the Skorne and will be continuing to add to them.

I'll do an update for the Archidon soon, you might have noticed he has some paint on him now ;) 

Basilisk Honeymoon

I don't know if they wanted to share these with the public, but since Anne asked, the newlywed couple, Mr. & Mrs. Basilisk agreed to put up some pictures of their honeymoon.

If you missed their introduction update, it is here.

The Basilisks got many nice wedding gifts, nicest was from their master, Dominar Rasheth.  Well, to be more precise, it was from Domina Rasheth, who will have her own introduction here soon. The Basilisks decided to make good use of the funds and gift cards from Domina Rasheth, for when her husband finds out he's likely to have some Basilisk hide slip-covers made for his pillows.

(click pictures for larger)

First the couple went to Paris, city of love:

Then they popped over to Rome:

So Romantic!  No tourists?  Well, a hungry traveling couple has to eat...

Next they went to the ultimate monument to love, the Taj Mahal:

And finally for some silly fun, they went to Disneyland:

Many complaints were lodged at the Disneyland Hotel that night:

But it seems the pictures they took that night are too explicit even for the internet, and have been censored.
Just as well I suspect.

Enjoy!

Lizards in Love: Basilisk Wedding Bells

In the vast empire of the Skorne, it is the Titans who get the most admiration and attention.  Other beasts are needed and useful, but the Titans draw the most pride.  So though their story isn't the stuff of legends and sweeping epics, the humble Basilisks holds a unique place in an empire where cruelty, oppression, gile and brute force rule the day: theirs is a story of love.    (ahhhh)

Basilisks are as cheap of beasts as they come (4 pts) for Skorne, and don't seem to be much when you look at them on the surface. They don't have much skill as fighters or shooters, though they can do both.
They have average armor and defense, and not very sturdy either.  At half the cost of a Titan Gladiator you'd wonder why you'd consider taking them.  They have a couple useful skills, the female has an animus (magical aura effect) that increases the defense and armor of friendlies near her, and the male has a spray area magical gaze that can do damage.
Still, not much, but together... ah, the two are greater than their parts.

When the male is in combat, the female goes into a rage to defend her mate, giving her the attack skill and damage on par with a Titan! Now that is true love, a rare thing in the Skorne Empire, and should be nourished and honored. And so I shall, now that the Basilisk Krea is painted...

Aren't they a cute couple?  

Unfortunately, the Skorne sew the eyes shut of Kreas, but even still, she is happy on her special day. 

I can just imagine them taking walks in the park, frying passerby's with their eye-beams.

Best of luck to you two crazy kids!

Enjoy: