Carnevale: War!

The opportunity for a short notice game came up with Matt, and we decided to return to the mean streets of Venice in a bid to complete the intro campaign from the Carnevale starter box.

When last we left the Guild and Rashaar, they were in the middle of a series of scuffles over possession of a mysterious stone. Both sides had tasted victory, but only by the narrowest of margins and so things were finely poised going into the final two scenarios.

GAME 5: ASSASSINATION

Not content to let the Guild continue to meddle in their schemes, a sinister Magi-Rashaar has emerged from the depths of San Canciano, intent on unleashing eldritch powers from beyond the Rent upon its foes.

And yet the Guild know the streets truly belong to them and so the Capodecina in the area led his forces to hunt down and slay the foul creature before it could work it's fell magics.

This scenario was a straight up fight with the aim being to survive whilst making the enemy bleed. Each surviving model would score its side 1 victory point, with the added wrinkle that the Guild could score and additional 3 victory points if the Capodecina killed the Magi-Rashaar. Finally, each side could also score points from 3 secret agendas.

As might already be clear, the scenario introduced leaders into the fray, along with the rules for magic. As suggested by the scenario, the Magi-Rashaar took the Blood Rites discipline and loaded up with offensive spells.

Turn 1

With their mission parameters clear, the Guild advanced in force, intent on cleansing the streets of Venice of the scourge of the Rashaar. The Capodecina moved swiftly across the rooftops seeking a position from which he could leap down upon his quarry.

Meanwhile, the Rashaar all dived deep into the canal to hide their movements and take advantage of their skill in the water.

No casualties were caused and no agendas were completed, leaving the score at Guild 5 - Rashaar 5.

Turn 2

The Guild Citizens rushed across the bridge group together for safety in numbers, but the wily Magi-Rashaar saw this as an opportunity and unleashed the Kraken's breath upon them, causing severe damage.

Meanwhile, the Gondolier stumbled upon a Slave leaping about on boxes for no apparent reason, a fight ensued and although it didn't finish in this turn, we shan't be mentioning it again as this was a curious engagement with the Gondolier trying to not kill the Slave before disengaging with her several times. Meanwhile, the Slave was hugely embarrassing, managing to do more damage to herself than the Gondolier, who ultimately put her out of her misery in the following turn.

Seeing the Magi-Rashaar had come out of hiding, the Capodecina leapt across the canal in attempt to get to his prey. However, his leap fell short. Although he escaped harm, he could no longer reach the Magi-Rashaar and redirected his effort toward a lowly slave.

Somehow the slave survived this assault and the Capodecina was counter charged by the hideous form of a Lesser Ugdru erupting out of the canal.

Whilst this was happening, the other Ugdru continued to Hold Its Breath and dived beneath the canal once again. It's not clear what his agenda was, but it succeeded.

Guild 5 - Rashaar 6

Turn 3

With the foul sorcerer in the open, the Capodecina struck, inflicting significant harm on the creature but not slaying it. He just had to survive the inevitable magical counter attack and he would complete his mission in the following turn.

However, what followed was a torrent of eldritch power as the Kraken's Breath again burst out from the Magi's trident, killing two of the Citizens. Then, Blood Drain sapped the life force of the Capodecina, slaying him and revitalising the Magi-Rashaar into the bargain.

Hopelessly outnumbered, the valiant final Citizen charged into the sorcerer but failed to bring him down, and her bravery proved to be her undoing as she was in turn ripped apart by the Lesser Ugdru.

Despite killing the inept Slave, the Gondolier was now on his own against almost the entire Rashaar gang.

Guild 1 - Rashaar 5

Turns 4&5

The game was now up for the Guild and the Gondolier was pursued up on top of a building by the Lesser Ugdrus.

It was almost as if the Gondolier was trying to Draw Them In as he let one of the creatures charge him only to disengage in order to drop down onto the one still on the street, intent on cleaving its skull in two.

However, a quick read of rules for interrupting with Command Points allowed to Lesser Ugdru to slash at the Gondolier as he fell, ripping the life out of him before his blow struck home.

With a message of death well an truly sent, the Rashaar left the corpses of the Guild strewn across the streets and returned to the depths of San Canciano.

Guild 1 - Rashaar 5

GAME 6 - WAR!

The failed assassination had further inflamed tensions and both sides now prepared for all out war. The mysterious stone had now fallen into the hands of the Rashaar, but appeared to have been planted to draw these forces into conflict, control of the stone would allow its owner to find out more about their mysterious manipulator.

This final scenario used everything from the starter box and was an all out fight for control of the stone (worth 3 Victory Points). However, plenty of other points were potentially available from cycling agendas which could be doubled for even more.

Turn 1

In pursuit of this goal, one of the Rashaar Slaves spent almost the entire battle leaping around like a lunatic, trying to chain 4" jumps together. He failed. You won't be seeing much of him in the rest of this battle.

Meanwhile both sides began to manoeuvre into position. Whilst the Capodecina took to the rooftops, many of the Guild took the guard action with the intent to Hold Ground against the fish monsters of the Rashaar.

For their part, the Rashaar made good use of the canal to position themselves to drag the Guild beneath the depths and protect the magic stone which was in the keeping of one of their slaves.

The stage was set for an almighty showdown.

Guild 1 - Rashaar 3

Turn 2

The Rashaar struck first as a Lesser Ugdru sprung out of the water at a Citizen who had wandered too close to the edge and hurled her into the canal.

As she resurfaced from the initial impact a huge shape glided towards her and the mighty Raadru dragged her down beneath the surface to her doom.

In response the Guild Fishermen moved in towards the Udgru by the bridge, but almost as if they were goading the beast, the deliberately seemed to High Dive into the water as they moved up.

The new Capodecina leapt from the rooftops to attack the Magi-Rashaar and avenge his predecessor. However, just like the previous Capo, he failed to bring down his prey and was assailed by a torrent of magic and counter attacked by a Lesser Ugdru, leaving him in a weakened condition.

Guild 2 - Rashaar 3

Turn 3

Realising discretion was the better part of valour, the Capodecina slipped away from his foes and sought to Lead From The Front in the fight against the Raadru, Strengthened by command abilities, the Guild rained blows down upon its monstrous form. However, a Slave rushed to its aid, leaping straight into its mouth, her sacrifice lending the beast new vigour which hurled itself upon the Capodecina, leaving him with just a single life point left.

In the square, a mob of Citizens advanced towards the Magi-Rashaar, who was somewhat drained after his tussle with the Capodecina. He still had enough strength to use the Cantrip of the Devil to slay his rival from affar, the success of this casting restoring some of his will and allowing him to Blood Drain one of the Citizens to revitalise himself whilst a Lesser Ugdru rushed to place himself between the mob and his master.

Both sides expended most of their resources in this phase of the battle. The Guild prayed, "Gods Guide Us!" whilst the Rashaar grimly accepted that their Gods' Will Be Done and endured the fray.

Guild 4 - Rashaar 4

Turn 4

Things got brutal as the Raadru, under the command of the Magi-Rashaar, savagely mauled a Fisherman before hurling him into the canal, stunning him and then leaping after the unconscious fool. However, the beast somehow failed in its attempt to drown him, but being stunned would ensure a watery grave for the Fisherman.

The Citizens, unsure of tangling with the eerie Magi, went to attack the Lesser Ugdru at the same time. Lured in by the Decoy, one of the Citizens were cut down, but the others bludgeoned the foul beast to death.

Guild 4 - Rashaar 5

Turn 5

Although the Fisherman in the water was destined to die anyway, the Raadru seemed intent on drowning him, but failed again. This left it vulnerable to those members of the Guild determined to Keep The Monsters At Bay and was slain by the combined efforts of a Gondolier and a Fisherman.

At this point, something strange happened. The Slave carrying the magic stone, which had been hiding the entire time, seemed to head back towards the fray, almost seeming to act as bait in a trap that nobody but he could see...

The Guild took the bait and rushed towards him, injuring the Slave before he somehow managed to hurl one of the Citizens into the water, stunning her into the bargain. However, he was immediately set upon by another Citizen and killed, surrendering the stone to the enemy.

What actually happened here is that I realised that the scores were even after the Raadru was killed and I went for broke in trying to win the game, by trying to get another Drown action performed to win the game. I thought that the Slave would survive his encounters with the lowly Citizens.

I was wrong.

I continually underestimate just how rubbish the Slaves are at everything.

Guild 8 - Rashaar 2

Turn 6

The wheels had well and truly come off the Rashaar plan and desperate times called for desperate measures. Their only hope now was to try to retrieve the stone.

The remaining Slave leapt into the water and pulled the Citizen beneath the surface, determined to Let The Tide Take Them.

The Magi-Rashaar took a mighty leap onto the statue and sprang towards the last Citizen. However, he fell agonisingly short and was left with not enough time to inflict the necessary damage on the man left clutching the stone, who staggered away to bring victory to the Guild.

Final Score: Guild 8 - Rashaar 3

Ultimately, the Guild won the battle for the stone but every battle (with the possible exception of the failed assassination) was a closely fought affair. I really like Carnevale as it delivers really action-packed games full of some frankly ridiculous moments. Some of the agendas can be a bit weird in the middle of the battle (especially the parkour ones), but they at least mean that you have ways to win other than just slaughtering the enemy.

As well as the game being good, I think this is probably the best starter box I've ever encountered for a game. A decent, but not overwhelming amount of good quality models, terrain, loads of accessories, a full rulebook and a proper introductory campaign that teaches you the game in sections. There are many companies that could learn a lot from TTCombat.

I'm trying to coax people to buy in so that I can play some more games of this. If I'm going to get out to some local events, I'm going to need to buy some more models and buy the Blood in the Water expansion for the rules updates. 

Whatever happens you can expect to see some more Carnevale on the blog in the future.

Boom! Shake The Room!

The mysterious wheels of my motivation turn once more and I'm back with the Blood Angels and the Horus Heresy. This time to add some long-ranged firepower to a force that currently has a maximum reach of 24" with all but one gun.

It's also the time of year where I rarely see daylight, and so the quality of the photographs is regrettably somewhat diminished.

As you can see I've put together a Heavy Support Squad of five missile launchers. There are only five of them as Pete and I shared a box of heavy weapons and a box of special weapons between us and so this is all I have...currently.

You might argue that the Blood Angels aren't really the type to be packing missile launchers, being more of the charging/chopping brand of Space Marine. However, in my single game of Horus Heresy I did feel the need to at least threaten some hurt in the first turn, and even if these guys get murdered straight away, something firing at them isn't firing at the charging/choppy dudes.

The main parts of the bodies are from the same sprues as the Tactical Marines, with the only real difference being the arms and, obviously, the massive boom stick.

They were actually easier to assemble than the Tactical Marines. Partly this is to do with familiarity; I've done a fair few of them now. However, unlike the Tactical Marines these models don't have separate hands moulded to the weapon that needed lining up, the missile launcher slots onto the right hand and you only need to line up the left. 

Much less swearing.

In terms of painting they were done the same way as my previous Marines: Grey Seer, Flesh Tearer's Red, Mephiston Red, with black and silver done at opportune moments in the process. The missiles themselves were done with Brass Scorpion to offer a little bit of contrast to the rest of the metal.

I've given one of the squad an augury scanner to allow the unit a free reaction to any units arriving via jump pack or teleporter, although I'm not sure how effective five missile launchers will be at deterring a squad of ten Cataphractii Terminators.

I hadn't intended to give one of the regular squad a scanner as I'd already modelled the Sergeant holding one (there's a specific arm for this on the heavy weapons sprues), considering that it was a fairly straightforward way of making it clear who was the Sergeant, as I was saving the plumed helmet for the other squad I have in the works.

However, after assembling him I read the unit entry in the Legio Astartes book and discovered that the Sergeant can't carry it. Added to that, by giving him a bare head and the black shoulder pad of rank, It would have been clear who the Sergeant was anyway, and I'd missed the opportunity to add a little bit more variation to the unit.

As well as building the missile launcher, I used two of the heavy bolters on the sprue to convert the weaponry of my Baal Predator as the combination of long-ranged dual assault cannon with close-ranged heavy flamers seemed to unbalance and confuse the tank's role. now, it has a concentrated purpose as fire support, pouring hot lead into the enemy rank and file (whilst keeping clear of pesky power fists).

Five more Marines painted (I'm not counting the Predator) and no more models bought again continues to build up the lead I need to succeed (look at me, spitting out rhymes!). I have five more Marines to build, which are destined to take on the role of being a Tactical Support Squad, armed with some type of specialist weapons. Hot-melty death is the future!

Acquired: 116

Painted: 211

The Manchurian Tank Debate

It has been a good long while since I last played Bolt Action, and so to take a break from 7TV and Lord of the Rings, Matt and I took a trip back to the far east to pit my Soviets against his Japanese.

However, this time we wouldn't be revisiting the Khalkyn Gol incident in 1939 with tiny tanks and inexperienced troops. No, we would venture into 1945 and the Soviet offensive in Manchuria and Mongolia in which they declared war on Japan as part of an allied pact to finish off the war in the east.

This offensive pitted the might of the Soviet war machine, which had ground its way across Europe with increasngly large armoured vehicles, against the remnants of the Japanese Empire, which hadn't.

Let's play Tank War!

We played fairly fast and loose with the Tank War rules and the Manchuria Theatre selectors as we were working within the confines of what our collections would allow. Matt doesn't have enough transports (or tanks) for a decent sized game and needed to include somethings not from the selector, and I mistook an SU-122 for an SU-85 in my list building and put something in my list that shouldn't be there.

Hopefully writing about this on a blog won't result in the Rules Police knocking on my door charging me with crimes against historical accuracy.

We randomly rolled a Point Defence scenario and decided that due to the lack of transport and the fact that this was a massive Soviet offensive that Matt would be the defender, trying to keep me off three objectives.

Matt's force looked something like this:

1 Type 1 Chi-He Medium Tank (Command)

1 Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium Tank

2 Type 97-Kai Shinhoto Chi-Ha Medium Tanks

3 IJA Infantry Squads (15 men + LMG)

4 Suicide Anti-Tank Teams

1 Flame Thrower Team

1 Medium Mortar Team

1 Sniper Team

1 Type 1 47mm AT Gun

Arrayed against this I had almost all of my Soviet vehicles on the table, some of them for the first time, and a dearth of infantry, which would present problems later.

1 IS-2 Heavy Tank (Command)

2 T-34/76 Medium Tanks

1 SU-122 Self-Propelled Gun

1 SU-76 Self-Propelled Gun (Free)

1 Katyusha Rocket Launcher

2 Tank Rider Squads (9 men)

1 Sniper Team

1 ZIS-3 Divisional Gun

1 Truck

The game should have begun with a preparatory bombardment, but didn't because I always roll a one. It happens so regularly that I'm not even disappointed anymore.

TURN 1

Deciding to split my forces (which always go well, historically speaking) I advanced an armoured spearhead onto the left flank, opening fire to little effect. Their goal was to push towards the Japanese line, kill everyone there and allow the Tank Riders on the T-34 to capture the objective.

On the right (see above) I put almost all of my artillery: the Katyusha, the ZIS-3 and the SU-76. Their goal was to soften up the defenders opposite ready for the second group of Tank Riders and their T-34 to come crashing in from the flank later in the game. Unfortunately, their firing drew a blank, but the sniper, who was deployed amongst them was able to drop one of the Japanese AT gun crew.

First blood to Mother Russia.

TURN 2

The defensive fire came in hot as a mortar shell smashed down onto the the ZIS-3 killing two of the crew and causing the rest to run. Although I still had plenty of firepower on this half, I was concerned that they would be very vulnerable to enemy tanks making any kind of counter attack, an although Japanese tanks aren't very heavily armoured, I wasn't sure that an inexperienced SU-76 would be able to stop them.

Japanese Chi-Ha tanks did begin to trundle on to the battlefield, but their shooting proved to be somewhat inaccurate, and the when the Soviet tanks countered, the light hull armour of the Chi-Has was no match for the IS-2 or T-34.

However, despite losing two tanks in quick succession, the Japanese had lost barely any infantry. If I was going to stand any chance of driving them off, I would need those big units to be softened up before the Tank Riders got there.

To make matters worse, Matt had rumbled that I wasn't going to push for the central objective and began to advance the infantry he had there towards my left. He also realised that simply firing at my T-34 would force the Tank Riders to dismount, severely slowing them down. 

TURN 3

With the Tank Riders dismounted and the Japanese infantry in the centre advancing, I decided to push the T-34 towards the middle to counter the threat. Whilst this was happening, the IS-2 span its turret and managed to thread the needle and detonate the Japanese command tank, severely reducing the threat of a push towards my artillery.

With their armoured wing in disarray, the Japanese infantry stepped up to meet the threat. In the centre they charged the T-34 and narrowly missed hurting the tanks due to the difficulty of hitting moving tanks. On my left the infantry advanced to the crest of a hill to pour fire into the dismounted Tank Riders, further focusing on slowing the advance, whilst suicide anti-tank teams snuck forwards.

TURN 4

At this point in the battle, things looked grim for me. One unit of Tank Riders was pinned down miles from its objective, whilst the other had failed to appear from reserve. The origami Japanese tanks had folded, the infantry was still rock solid and on the attack, support by guys with bombs on sticks.

However, it was at this point that the dice gods decided to simultaneously repay me for the failed bombardment roll, whilst cursing Matt for some heinous crime he had committed in a former lifetime. Given what was about to unfold, Matt had done something REALLY bad.

Firstly, his squad of 12 men armed with anti-tank grenades only managed a single hit (needing 4+) on the T-34 and were subsequently sprayed with point blank fire from the tank, cutting the unit in half.

The final Chi-Ha arrived, and having worked out my fairly obvious plan, set about driving full steam towards the artillery park. However, it didn't last long and my reserves arrived, with the T-34 taking out the Chi-Ha in short order.

To make matters worse, the Katyusha managed to score a hit on the Japanese infantry on my right and then the Tank Riders dismounted, their SMG fire ripped through the defenders, leaving just a single man defending the objective from the Soviet horde.

However, all was not lost. In a bid to make the unit flee, I had used an exception hit to remove the sergeant, leaving the LMG in place, which passed its morale test and began returning fire. The AT gun turned in place and took out the T-34, leaving the infantry unsupported, and the sniper repositioned to add fire and try to whittle down the Tank Riders.

On the right, my attack was further stalled by a well-placed mortar shell hitting the SU-122 and some of the infantry, further pinning them in place. My IS-2 focused its might on killing the suicide bombers wending their way towards it.

Finally, and ominously, the flamethrower Matt had been holding in reserve entered the field, took aim at the Tank Riders on my right and...missed. My chances of capturing the objective would all depend on who drew a dice out the box first.

TURN 5

Whatever Matt did in a former life must have been REALLY, REALLY bad. I got the first dice and my Tank Riders on the right executed the flamethrower team and advanced onto the objective. All they had to do was weather the storm from the scattered remnants of the Japanese left flank and I would be guaranteed at least a draw.

Matt saw that the fight against the T-34 in the centre wasn't crucial and would ultimately be unsuccessful thanks to the casualties he'd taken and so with drew to pour more fire onto the stranded Tank Riders on my left.

However, this left the T-34 free to move to intervene in the other flank and if I kept control of the objective I'd already captured, there was still an outside chance of me snatching a win. The final Japanese infantry unit, hunkered down behind a hill was a massive obstacle to this and the IS-2 was unable to make a significant impact on it.

Enter the Katyusha. It repositioned and unloaded at the tightly packed infantry. Two sixes were rolled, one for the unit itself, and one for the suicide bomber stood with them, allowing me to overlap templates. The impact was devastating and the remains of the unit fled, leaving the objective clear. 

He clearly did something REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad.

TURN 6

The intervention of the T-34 ultimately secured the right hand objective for me. It killed off the crew of the AT gun, and combined with the Tank Riders going down for survivability, a sniper and a lone LMG were not going to clear them out.

To add injury to insult, the SU-76 finally managed to hit something and wiped out the sniper team with a point blank shot.

 

Now came the long shot, and sequencing was everything. I had to wait until the end of the turn to try to remount to Tank Riders as going to early would allow Matt to dismount them again simply by shooting at the SU-122. However, this exposed them to potential further pins from the few units Matt had left.

The IS-2 helped out by removing the threat of the mortar with its massed machine-gun fire and the remaining infantry unit misfired and failed to score any hits.

The orders test was passed and the Tank Riders remounted. The SU-122 also passed an orders test and advanced as far as it could go. All I needed was for there to be another turn...

...but there wasn't.

RESULT - DRAW

AFTERMATH

That was a really fun game although Matt suffered from incredibly bad luck in turns four and five in  both the sequence of orders dice being drawn and in the dice rolled on both sides.

My flank attack worked as planned, just, but I was far too slow advancing, meaning that I was too far away at the end of the game. I was also severely hindered by a lack of infantry units, meaning that I had no redundancy and Matt just had to stop one unit to prevent a loss. Were I to play this again, I'd put a squad of infantry in the truck, rather than use it to tow the ZIS-3.

Matt was intent on stopping me, and almost did, although it cost him all but about 10 men. We got a taste of the Manchurian campaign, such as it was, as the Japanese were unable to stem the tide of Soviet armour, although fought doggedly in defence.

I like this little played theatre of the World War II. The relatively open terrain makes for a very different game to slugging it out in across fields of France or through the densely packed cities of Eastern Europe. I've never played Bolt Action set in North Africa, but I'd imagine it has some of the same feeling to it.

Deja Cthulhu

Is he going mad?

Has he stared too long into the abyss?

Dies he not know?

We've seen these before...

I can hear you.

No, I'm not caught in an eldritch cycle of madness incurred through brushing too close to knowledge of the elder gods. I am fully aware that it looks like I'm re-posting old images.

However, I'm not. I'm just duplicating things I've already done...which is much more sane. 

Why? Well, to put it simply, when I painted the first two of these McGuffins, they were part of a set I got as part of the pulp heroes and villains Kickstarter run by Crooked Dice.

What I forgot at the time was that I also received copies of the two most Call of Cthulhu-esque McGuffins as part of the Lurkers from the Deep feature pack Kickstarter.

I was looking for a quick win to add to my painting tally and there they were.

The icon of Cthulhu McGuffin was painted really quickly. Dark grey on the stone, light grey drybrush, black wash. Then a bright green on the icon hit with a coat of Hexwraith Flame technical paint.

It's actually probably more useful as general terrain now that I have two of them. They can make suitable gate posts or flank an eldritch altar.

Speaking of eldritch altars, the altar is probably less useful now it's duplicated unless I'm planning a scenario where two cult leaders give a joint reading, or the action is set in a beachfront library.

In terms of painting, it's more base coats, dry brushing and washing. Nothing fancy.

However, quick wins are quick wins, and I'm looking increasingly safe from a Christmas backlash on my numbers for the year.

Acquired: 116

Painted: 206