More Gorkamorka, and this time I've turned my attention to the Boyz.
Saturday 25 November 2023
Rising Sunz
Sunday 19 November 2023
WAAARGH-trakk
Friday 17 November 2023
You Might Not Pass!
The journey through Moria has been a fraught one for the Fellowship in our Quest of the Ringbearer campaign, as they've had to fight their way through a seemingly endless horde of goblins and trolls (even if the actual scenario rules didn't require this).
Exhausted and with their resources depleted, they just need to cross the Bridge of Khazad Dum to get to the East Gate and be free of the grasping dark.
However, the goblins will not let them go without another fight and there is something else in hot pursuit.
This is the Bridge of Khazad-Dum scenario and to win the Fellowship, who are incredibly low on Might, Will and Fate, need to destroy the bridge (only Gandalf can do this) and escape Moria.
However, there are a whole host of Goblins in the way and at some point in the first six turns the Balrog will arrive to hunt them down.
Hopefully the Fellowship can get a good head start before it arrives...
Turn One
...oh bum!
The Fellowship makes haste directly for the bridge whilst the goblins close in from either side. Gandalf surrounds the group with a blinding light to protect them from arrow fire whilst Legolas dawdles in order to fire back at the encroaching horde, dropping one of them.
However, with a terrifying roar, a huge eruption of flames and a dice roll of a one, the Balrog bursts into the seem and immediately begins whipping it's fiery lash out at the lagging Legolas.
The Fellowship push on and take the opportunity to plough into the nearest goblins. With Gimli and Boromir slaying all who stand in their way.
Legolas doesn't stop to fire again as to do so would allows the Balrog, which lumbers forward, again flicking its whip towards the Fellowship with deadly intent.
Turn Three
The forces of Moria gain the initiative and move to lock the Fellowship in place, allowing the Balrog to get dangerously close.
In a desperate bid to break free, the Fellowship hack and slash at the goblins, with Boromir and Gimli doing most of the heavy lifting, as for some reason Aragon was struggling to work out which end of the sword to hit people with.
Turn Four
The Balrogs towering form finally catches up with Legolas and it's great flaming sword slashes out but somehow doesn't cut the elf down.The rest of the Fellowship continue to battle through the goblins, trying to cut their way clear of their impending doom in the great shape of shadow and flame.
Realising that the tall man with the shield had strayed too far from the protection of the hateful light, the goblin archers turn their fire on him as their comrades back off.
Boromir falls as he's apparently quite vulnerable to concentrated archery.
Who knew?
Turn Five
In a desperately brave move to give his friends a chance to flee, Merry moves to block the Balrog's path.The plucky little hobbit is swatted aside into the shadows, but the Fellowship manages to cut a way through more of the goblins thanks to the sacrifice of Merry.
Turn Six
The Balrog thunders forwards again but the Fellowship manage to keep the goblins between them and the fallen Maiar.
Gimli continued to be the only member of the party who can reliably kill goblins, but Aragorn still contributes by using his free point of might each turn to keep the Fellowship moving.
Turn Seven
With the bridge in sight, hope is kindled and then snuffed out as the Balrog, still unable to get to grips with the Fellowship, moved to block the bridge.Its whip coils out and wraps around Gandalf, dragging to the feet of the creature and the wise old wizard disappears amongst the burning darkness.
All hope of a heroic victory is lost.
Turns Eight to Ten
Although the heroes could no longer win the game, the battle would only end when one side met it's victory conditions. This meant either two more members of the Fellowship would need to fall or...
...the Ringbearer...
...but twice!
However, with their numbers dwindling the Fellowship's ultimate defeat is imminent.
Inspired by the heroics of Gimli and Sam, Pippin charges forward to meet the beast.
This was pure heroism and not anything to do with protecting the more valuable members of the Fellowship for later in the campaign.
The rest of the Fellowship backing off was also definitely heroic.
Pippin falls and the battle is lost.
Aftermath
The battle was lost but the campaign was not done, there was the need to see what state the Fellowship would be in as the quest continued.
Gimli was hands down the bravest Companion, having killed eight Goblins and stood toe to toe with the Balrog for two rounds of combat. Sam perhaps ran him close with some crucial uses of his Might points and standing shoulder to shoulder at the end.
The Fool of a Took was Aragorn. Despite continuously contributing Might to the fight, he was unable to make his blade count and continually failed to come to his comrades' aid with abortive heroic combats. Although others contributed less, more was expected of Isildur's heir.
Despite losing the game, the Fellowship actually finished in better shape than when they started (apart from one notable exception). Nobody died in the recovery rolls and a decent amount of Wounds, Might and Fate were restored leaving the Fellowship considerably more likely to reach the next rest point of Lothlorien.
Alas, Gandalf the Grey was fated to fall here and will play no further role in the Quest of the Ringbearer campaign until he's rebooted as Gandalf the White in War in Rohan.
His one final duty was to help me come up with a spurious explanation for how the Fellowship get out of this mess.
The great black flaming shape loomed over the remaining members of the Fellowship. Aragorn prepared to sell his life dearly, Sam clutched his blade of Westernesse with two hands and Frodo felt to pull of the Ring at the back of his mind.
"Come on then!" yelled Gimli, the stout dwarf brandishing his notched axe, "I have a gift for ye from my cousin Balin!"
As the Balrog reared up to strike a sudden blinding gleam illuminated the entire chamber and the goblins ran screaming from the hateful light.
The battered and bowed figure of Gandalf leaned on his staff in the middle of the bridge, shining luminescence beaming from him momentarily stunning the Balrog and a brief opening was cleared to the bridge.
"Follow me, quickly," snapped Aragorn, a pain on his face indicating that somehow he thought all this to be his fault.
The group leapt for the gap, the ranger stooping as he ran to scoop up the crumpled form of Pippin, whilst Gimli ran to help the injured Legolas to his feet, Frodo and Sam scurrying behind.
From the depths of the chamber the limping form of Boromir emerged carrying a limp bundle that could only be Merry and joined the rush to bridge.
As they each passed Gandalf he gave them an exhausted an rueful smile, saving his broadest grin for Frodo.
"Now fly, you fools! And by that I don't mean ride on eagles, that's a silly idea spouted by people who don't understand the first thing about Gwahir, the defenses in Mordor, the distances involved or the effect the Ring would have on the eagles themselves. I'm clearly using a metaphor intended to encourage you all to leg it!"
With a chuckle Gandalf turned to face the approaching Balrog alone...
Sunday 12 November 2023
Elves of the Golden Wood
As our Quest of the Ringbearer campaign makes its way through Moria, the need for me to prepare for the arrival of the Fellowship at Lothlorien intensifies.
Enter the Galadhrim...
The next scenario after Moria sees Haldur and his Elves come to the aid of the Fellowship as they flee pursuing Goblins and Wargs. I believe it's based on a deleted scene from the movies.
As I owned no Wood Elves for MESBG I took to eBay to pick up some of the old metal models. Haldir and three of the Elves needed a Dettol (which works great on metal, less so on plastic) bath to strip the old pain job, whilst the other three Elves arrived clean.
Painting these models was relatively simple as I relied on contrast paints, washes and drybrushing which always seem to work much better on metal miniatures.
The robes are just two coats of Nuln Oil over a Grey Seer base with a drybrush if Administratum Grey.
Haldir has a bit of an odd pose. Firstly, he doesn't have a bow and that's his whole thing in game (he's a low rent Legolas). Then he's holding his sword out at arm's length, almost as he's handing it to someone. It's not like it's even something he does in the film. Weird choices.
I need to do some more Wargs before the Lothlorien scenario, and I will need them for events in Rohan too, so it might be a little while before Haldir and chums hit the table.
Painted: 270
Lead Mountain: 421*
* I haven't finished sorting the huge chunk of miniatures that came into my possession last week and so these stats are still in flux and likely to increase...a lot!
Sunday 5 November 2023
Fallout of Favour
Why haven't I played it?
There's no real problem with the game, which I like, is interesting and different to other skirmish games, contains solo and co-op modes and has a pre-existing narrative campaigns.
It seems right up my street.
However, I think the major issue is I've never played the actual Fallout games and so unlike a lot of my side projects, there's no nostalgia hit to drive me. On top of this I've once again not managed to coax anybody else to buy into the game despite them having an interest and enjoying the test games.
Which leaves me with a motivation vacuum.
Until now.
When it came to painting I relied on contrast paints, Apothecary White and Fleshtearers Red.
The details on the model were shallow and so I used a white base to make the contrast more contrasty.
As there is currently only a single Zeta Alien miniature in the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare range my little green man looked a bit lonely.
Fortunately I've had this excellent miniature from Crooked Dice lying about for some time in need of a project to join.
Painted: 263
Lead Mountain: 428*
Thursday 2 November 2023
Incursion on Phargos Rex
Strike Master Ijax resentfully surveyed the slum quarter of Novia Quintus, the fifth city of Phargos Rex. He shouldn't be here. He should be coordinating the pursuit of the ragged collection of loyalist forces he'd trapped at Optera, but he'd been called back to Phargos Rex to deal with a new threat.
Cultists and insurgents were far from an unknown problem. Ever since the Ruinstorm, they'd been appearing all over the sector. Normally he'd let local forces put down the mob, but this one was different. An entire Militia regiment had disappeared and Ijax had decided to deploy the legion to send a message to the rebels and make a statement to the planetary governors that he could protect them, ensuring their loyalty.
He still had no clear intel on what he'd be facing and listened intently to the the vox traffic from the PDF units he had stationed ahead of his position. If the blood-curdling screams were any indication, they enemy, whatever they were, should be hitting his lines imminently.
Both armies warlord traits granted deployment shenanigans (which we alternated) which ultimately saw the Headhunters getting perilously close to their objective, whilst the Arch-Daemon and a unit of Lesser Daemons went back into reserve.
The Sovereign few directly towards the Sabres that had crept to far forwards, swinging its great blade in a sweeping arc that cut through both hulls in a single fluid movement.
The Behemoth raced in the direction of the Leviathan and was joined by a gargantuan figure striding out of a tear in realspace.
They crashed into the Dreadnought, tearing through its armour and leaving it struggling to stand on its ruined limbs.