Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Night Wars 02

We skipped a week (I think Amanda was doing something) and moved our game night to Tuesdays as we weren't playing Soulbound on Tuesdays anymore and Amanda has a singing lesson now on Wednesdays, which means she won't be home until 7:30 or so... 

Despite that change, she STILL wasn't home until 7:30, because she decided to stay at work and finish some stuff up... 

This week we played a second Purge Journey - meant to destabilize Lady Annika, the Thirsting Blade's power. One three such Purge Journey's are successful, they can attempt a Decapitation Journey to try and destroy Lady Annika... except that the vampires don't actually die for good in the Decapitation Journey (as some of the Hostile Characters did in the first campaign) and will all have to be faced again in the FINAL BATTLE... But that's a ways off... 

Finnegan decided to swap out Brutogg Corpse-Eater for Octren Glimscry - something he's NEVER done before!! He's Always brought along Brutogg and decided between Octren Glimscry and Dagnai Holdenstock... This week it was Dagnai and Octren! 

Amanda was, as ever, playing with Glaruio Ven Alten III and Qulathis the Exile. 

I finally finished painting Radukar the Beast and the Fell Bats, so they were available and their encounter cards were shuffled into the Encounter Deck! 

I also recently finished up all the Deathrattle Skeletons which can be used as extra reinforcements should they encounter more than one group (as some of the groups get rather large at Fifth Level!) I should try and finish up the extra Deadwalker Zombies I picked up for the same purpose! 

Glaurio was the first to exit the landing zone - he found a Mysterious Object and left it for Dagnai to search... 

... and pressed on to encounter some Deadwalker Zombies... and promptly shot one and damaged another.. 

Octren joined Gluario. He used a special ability that used an action... and dealt himself one damage... boosted his Hollow Stare attack, so that it dealt 3 damage (enough to take out a zombie with one hit...) and then promptly missed with one of the two remaining activations.. 

When the Zombies surged forward, one of them damaged him and he was down to two spots for activation dice!? (And he was Trapped!) 

Qulathis swung by on her first activation, shot two zombies dead with her bow and then trotted off, figuring Octren and Glaurio could handle the rest on their own... 

Dagnai searched one mysterious object and then revealed another...

Octren and Glaruio dealing with the last Zombie... As the last in a hostile group with 1/3 or less of it's original number, it would just flee on it's last activation, after attacking any heroes in an adjacent space. It attacked Glaurio... and Glaurio successfully used one of his newer special abilities - parry - which, when rolling a critical success on a defence die, he was allowed to attack back, and killed the Zombie.. which, in some ways didn't matter (because it was leaving anyway), BUT Glaruio's thing that gives him extra inspiration is when he takes out the last member of a hostile group! So this gained him an extra point of inspriation! Yay! 

Qualthis revealed ANOTHER group of Deadwalker Zombies and shot three of them down.. 

Then ran off to help Dagnai deal with some Ulfenwatch that he'd found skulking in one of the rooms. 

Another group of Ulfenwatch came marching in from the other direction. 

Glaurio joined in the destruction of the first group of Ulfenwatch. 

Then turned to fight the next group approaching. 

And then the first Vargskyr showed up! 

Everyone kind of ganged up on it and it wasn't too much trouble to take down.. 

Qualathis destroying MORE Zombies... 

Some Fell Bats were discovered lurking in one of the rooms - presumably hanging from the ceiling. 

Before they could attack, Dagnai charged in and chopped two of them apart with his axe and the third one fled without a fight! 

Dagnai pressed on to find the last of the Mysterious Ojbects! 

And then Lady Annika showed up... this time with an undead Ogor of the Kosargi Nighguard. The Ogor bodyguard was much slower than her, so she zipped across the board and left it in the dust...  

Glaurio, Qulathis and Glimscry all made ranged attacks at her... and NOTHING hit her... she is CRAZY good at dodging (5+ on a d12 - so 2/3 of the time, she just ignores all damage...) 

and then the next Vargskyr showed up!? 

Everyone started trying to make a fighting retreat out of the room and throwing everything at the Vargskyr, who was tough, but not as dodgy as Lady Annika! 

Octren had moved up and threw a curse on Lady Annika. 

Glaurio fell back and helped Dagnai with some Corpse Rats he'd encountered, and encouraged Dagnai to go fight the vampire - as he is the one with the anti-vampire enhancements... (deals damage that cannot be ignored!) 

Of course, Qulathis also has some anti-vampire abilities - three Oaken Arrows that she has for each adventure. They can only be used with a 6+ activation... But she happened to roll one six for her activation this round AND there was a destiny die that was a six... So she put two oaken arrows into Lady Annika and just about killed her - dealing EIGHT damage! 

Then Dagnai rushed in and chopped her with his encanted axe and finished her off!!

Teh Ogor finally lumbered up and took a swing at Glaurio - and MISSED - we figure he slipped on all the blood that spilled out of Lady Annika, as he was standing in teh same space she'd been destroyed in! 

And then everyone was into the Extraction Zone and whisked away to safety in Haven! 

Afterwards everyone went for drinks at the Tawny Owl and gained bonus inspiration points for the next game. 

One of the treasures Dagnai had recovered allowed him to PICK the Extraction Event rather than roll for it! So they picked on where each character rolled the Destiny Die (d12) and on a 7+ got to go through the Discovery deck and pick out a magic item or realmstone card!? So everyone is all tooled up for the next game!!

One more Victory up on the Night Wars chart... assuming the next one is a success as well, the following game they'll be able to take a run at Lady Annika in the first Decapitation Journey of this Campaign! 

Fell Bats

"BAT!"
Laszlo Cravensworth

These took just way too long. Not the actual painting - motivating myself to paint them. They've been sitting on the workbench for MONTHS, constantly being pushed out of the way... Now they're done... or, at least, I'm calling them done. I'm done with working on them. As I was painting the finish i noticed multiple things I'd missed or goobered on all three of them... but I just can't be bothered to go back and touch up, finish off, or fix them... Just don't look too close at them. 

Fell Bats

Just some really big bats needed for the Warhammer Quest: Cursed City Night Wars campaign - and useable in a Soulblight Gravelords army (and finally completed just in time for this evenings game!) 

In Soulbound, a Fell Bat is what a vampire turns into if they have he ability to transform... or a cloud of smaller bats...? Or a wolf... 

I've kind of been bouncing around, back and forth between projects, doing a bit of this and a bit of that and not really getting much of anything done. I was working on rebasing and prepping Kairic Acolytes and Tzaangor for a Disciples of Tzeentch and working on a few Stormcast Eteranals... then I got some Lumineth Realmlord Vanari Bladelords assembled and then primed them along with some Sentinels and Wardens, so everything is ready to paint for the Lumineth Spearhead (except the one miniatures I don't yet have!)... Then I cleared ALL of that off the workbench and replaced it with only the Soulblight Gravelord stuff I need to finish up... 

The Vargheists and Blood Knights look a bit daunting... But I'd like to finish them up before the end of the month and get going on a different Spearhead Army for October! (maybe a NEW one!?) 

(I asked my FLGS to hold a Helsmiths of Hashut Army Set/Release box when they drop in a little under two weeks!)

(But also I was planning to pick up a Maggontkin of Nurgle Spearhead at the local Warhammer Store anniversary event this Saturday...) 

Deathrattle Skeletons

This past week I've been working on the twenty Deathrattle Skeletons that came in the Soulblight Gravelord Vanguard/Spearhead box. 

Deathrattle Skeletons

They are very similar to the Ulfenwatch skeletons that came with Warhammer Quest: Cursed City (except the Cursed City ones were press fit and these ones required glue...)

ALL the Skeletons!!

I now have thirty of them! and I Wight King to lead them. Captain Halgrim used to be able to lead them... but I think he's been moved on to Legends... though I don't see why he couldn't ALSO be used as a "counts as" Wight King...? 

ALL the Soulblights, so far...

Still a little Hero Heavy, but nice to have a few more units of troops! Some of the stuff in the pictures isn't playable any more (some of the characters from Warhammer Quest, the Warhammer Underworlds warbands in the background) and I need 10 more zombies painted for it to be a proper unit of 20... 

I still have the five mounted Blood Knights and three Vargheists to finish off the spearhead

(and I STILL have three Fell Bats to finish up for Cursed City!?)

According to the 2025 Painted versus Purchased Log Page, this brings me to 345 painted 28mm miniatures so far this year (versus 331 purchased - or otherwise acquired!) putting me back in the black... for now... In another week and a half I'll be picking up another spearhead box (Maggotkin of Nurgle - at the Warhammer Store Saskatoon Anniversary event - because I got it in my head I'd like that fancy neoprene with the Spearhead map on one side!)... and the following week the Helsmiths of Hashut (because ALL THE CHAOS SPEARHEADS!)? Hopefully before that, though, I can get a few more things painted so I'm not plunged too far into the red. That will hopefully be it for the year... and I can spend Q4 knocking some more things off the Pile of Opportunity! 

Dreadblade Harrows

I picked up some previously owned Dreadblade Harrows from Fenris Workshop a month or so ago. These were one of two units I needed to finish up the new Nighthaunt Cursed Shacklehoarde Spearhead army! 

Dreadblade Harrows

This is the stuff I have for the rest of the Spearhead army... all I need are a unit of ten Dreadscythe Harridans. 

ALL the Nighthaunts (so far)... 

I still have a Scriptor Mortis and five Craventhrone Guard to finish up as well.. and maybe some Banshees somewhere...? 

Radukar the Beast

 At long last I have finished Radukar the Beast... or at least gotten him to a point where I feel like I just don't want to work on it any more and said "close enough".

The original model is stepping over a log and I decided because all my other Soulblight Gravelord and Cursed City stuff is based on flagstone and rubble bases, I wanted him to look like he's in an urban area... so I picked up the terrain bits box and hoped there would be a bit that would fit on his base and the models could be fit onto the terrain bit... 

Radukar the Beast

From the rear - you can see the other Vyrkos Blood-Born... I realized as I was editing these, it probably would have been better to take a shot from the side to show the second Vyrkos Blood-Born... From the rear it looks like... well.. I don't know what it looks like he's doing...!? Not sure what he was supposed to be doing on the original base... 

I'm not totally happy with the way it turned out.. doesn't quite match what I'd imagined in my head... Ah, well.. it's painted, I'm calling it done as I have no energy or interest to work on it any more - even though my brain screams at me to "fix it"... somehow...? Stopping kind of feels like giving up and failing and... it wasn't exactly an inexpensive model... so... 

I don't love the green stone of the broken statue... all the other statues I've done (or partly done) for Age of Sigmar terrain have been white - using the same colours I used for Vyrkos Blood-Born and the Vargskyr... and I felt like that would have been TOO MUCH WHITE! Feeling like I maybe could have gone with a blue-ish-grey...? But there's already so much grey on the base, I thought maybe something not-so-grey... 

Anyway...

Radukar the Beast is significantly bigger than the OG Radukar the Wolf... 

Even a bit bigger than the other Vargskyr... 

looking at his card for Warhammer Quest... he is going to be NASTY... and will probably show up once per game from now on... 

Strangely, he ISN'T one of the Vampires that need to be hunted down and destroyed in Night Wars... he's just a ferrel Vargskyr version of Radukar that roams the city eating things and is drawn to the fights... 

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - The Night Wars Begin!

Despite still not having Radukar the Beast finished... or the Fell Bats... we went ahead and started Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Night Wars this week! 

The campaign involves destabilizing and destroying the power base of three Vampire Lords that took over when Radukar the Wolf was defeated! And then once they have been defeated in turn, there is a final battle...? So... maybe 13 games? Assuming they are all victories... the maximum number of games would be 19... There are 13 games that need to be played to win the campaign - three destablizing missions for each vampire, followed by a Decapitation Journey... and after all three Decapitation Journeys have been successful... you play one Final Battle... If you fail seven battles the campaign is over and you lose... so... if you played all the battles, but had a lot of failures along the way... (like six of them) The nineteenth game would decide all success or failure would determine the entire fate of the campaign!? 

I imagine we'll get 13-16 games out of it, assuming a few go badly... 

The group decided to go after Lady Annika the Thirsting Blade first and played through a Purge Journey... Each of the Vampire Lords have a different type of mission to play and Lady Annika's are Purge Journeys. So after this, we'll play at least two more Purge Journeys... then a Decapitation Journey... then move on to hunt down one of the other Vampire Lords... 

Though each of the Vampire Lords get more powerful as eash of their rivals are taken out and they take over some of their territories and taking in their surviving minions!? 

Anyway... The Journey... 

This journey took place in the Corpsefall Passages.

Amanda, as always, was playing Qulathis the Exile and Glaurio ven Alten III. Finnegan had oridinally planned on taking Brutogg Corpse-Eater and Octren Glimscry... but when they decided on Lady Annika as their Quarry and found out her special ability was MORE VAMPIRES (instead of discarding vampire encounter cards, they are shuffled back into the deck), Finngan decided the old feller needed some rest and instead brought along Dagnai Holdenstock - Vampire Hunter! 

In Purge Journeys all the passages are closed and need to be opened with a 4+ action and hostiles and mysterious object tokens are all hidden and randomly placed as Lurk tokens, which are not revealed and activated until someone opens the door and has line of sight to the token... 

The objective of a Purge Journey is to destroy ten hostile groups and then make it to the extraction zone. 

The city was plunged into permanent night when the three vampire lords took over, so ALL of the hostile groups are on their Empowered side, making them all faster and more deadly! 

Qulathis was the first to leave the landing zone. Opened a few doors. Found a Mysterious Object. 

Brutogg was next and bullied past her to find some Ulfenwatch in an open square. 

Dagnai strolled out and investigated the Mysterious Object and found himself some Realmstone! 

Ulfenwatch dealt with, Qulathis pressed on... 

Dagnai looting the mysterous objects. 

Glaurio was the one to open this door... 

and found MORE Ulfenwatch!? 

Brutogg shoved his way into the middle of them and just started destroying them... 

and then some zombies showed up. 

Brutogg turned to start dealing with zombies while Glaurio finished off the last of the Ulfenwatch! 

MORE Zombies arrive! 

Dagnai fought his way past the zombies into the next chamber where he found another Mysterious Object! 

Qulathis and Glaurio dashed past and encountered some Vyrkos Blood-Born! 

Glaurio engaged them blasting the first one with his pistols.

Brutogg joined in beating another one down. 

Then Dagnai found himself surrounded by zombies again!? 

...and chopped them all to bits with his axe!? Then he looted the mysterious object... 

... and joined the other fighting the vampires! 

Glaurio stepped in to finish off the last one!

and then a Vargskyr showed up... 

and then Lady Annika herself showed up... 

Glaruio and Dagnai dealt the Vargskyr some grievous damage... 

Then Glaurio took off to get to the Extraction Point as it looked like it was getting time to vamoose! 

Qulathis ran by and finished off the Vargskyr! 

The Qulathis and Dagnai laid in wait to ambush Lady Annika! As she strode through the door Qualthis shot her and Dagnai gave her a good chop with his axe!

and then corpse rats flooded the room!? 

Dagnai stuck to the plan and finished off Lady Annika! 

Then he almost single-handedly cleared out all the rats... 

AND THEN he looted the last Mysterious Object, using his harpoon gun to yeet it right out of the room full of bats! 

Now, at this point Dagnai was inspired and, as such, gets to draw TWO Discovery cards when looting a Mysterious Object - which is handy as it allows you to avoid Traps or Crisis... usually... and sometime a treasure AND a realmstone card are drawn (which is what happened in this case) and Finnegan usually chooses the realmstone by default... because a lot of the items are... not that great... but I suggested he actually read what the card said this time around - it was a new one from the nightwars set and a character uses it on their turn and instantly becomes INSPIRED! Which is AMAZING!! Not needed for this journey, this late in the game... but on a future Journey - especially for Qulathis who really, REALLY struggles to inspire! She is so weak before inspriting, it's often difficult to finish off enough things to gain any inspiration points... and her special bonus activity to gain bonus inspriation points is so difficult to pull off... I'm not sure she's EVER done it... in THIRTY GAMES!? 

Just as they were getting ready to head into the Extraction Zone - Glaurio and Brutogg were ambushed by more Vyrkos Blood-Born! Glaurio was wounded once more! 

He killed the Vampire, however, and staggered back into the Extraction Zone! 

Everyone else made it in there just as some Kosargi Night Guard came lumbering through the building after them! 

Whew! 

Nice first outing in the Night Wars... 

Wasn't exactly a cake walk... there was a lot of tension and a general feeling that things could go sideways at any moment. It starts off kind of slow and easy - as hostile groups don't activate until they are discovered... but once discovered, as each hostile group is destroyed, a reinforcement group immediately arrives. So once all four have been revealed... you are fighting four hostile groups!! 

Lady Annika seems like she has the potential to be super deadly... it just worked out that Dagnai was in the right place at the right time and got in his hits before she landed a blow... She has some funny rules though... when she actually causes damage with the thirsting blade... if she has zero or one Blood Token, she gains a Blood Token and deals an extra damage and also heals 1-2 wounds... Once she HAS two blood tokens, however, she is very full of blood and suddenly moves slower (like HALVED from 6  to 3!) had worse dice for attacks and deals less damage... Once you hit her and deal damage... blood goes spraying all over and she loses a blood token and because deadly again... It seems kind of... goofy...? 

There are also some new enhancements that can be purchased... which seem crazy good... but are also crazy expensive (14 realmstone!?) There is no way that much could be gained in a single Journey... but there are a few ways extra realmstone can be gained now. One is visiting certain businesses in Haven - an area of the city that has freed itself of the undead and is a small, growing enclave of good and order... and also you can now trade in previous enhancements and gain half what you paid for them in realmstone... something to work towards! 

After this Journey all went to the which is described as Haven's premier tavern, boasting two intact and relatively clean rooms and the ability to produce food that isn't just boiled rat on a skewer... There you can have drinks on the house, being a hero and all.. each that visits rolls a d12, on a 3+ they start the next journey with one inspiration point. on a 1 they start the next journey with one damage!? 

Everyone gained an inspiration point to start the next journey... except Brutogg who rolled a two and got nothing... (at least he didn't start with a hang-over... not that being injured matters too much for Brutogg as he heals SO QUICKLY!!) 

I liked the system where I removed the tokens as people were taken down... but in this one the rules are very specific about how it's done. You have a token down to show who you are hunting, once the victory track gets to three (or six, or nine) you do the Decapitation Journey and when that's successful, you put up the token to show they're defeated and put down a different Hunting token to show who you are going after next. There are a few mechanics based on the number of tokens on the boards and, yeah, I could just reverse it and say the number of tokens that are no longer on the board... but I decided to just go with the rules as written for this campaign... 

Next week we will start playing on Tuesdays, as the role-playing game is now, theoretically happening on every third Sunday (maybe...) and Amanda has a singing lesson on Wednesdays and doesn't get home until 7:30... and then needs to eat, so we were starting rather late... and then ending rather late!!