Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Nemesis 02 - Secure Journey

Another Tuesday, another game of Warhammer Quest: Cursed City! 

In the Nemesis campaign a Calamity Level is tracked which abstractly determines the state of the city as it slowly crumbles at the precipice of the Shyish Nadir! It starts at 1 and at the end of most Journeys goes up by two, unless one has just completed a Secure Journey, in which case it goes down by ONE!? 

Secure Journeys entail running around the map and filling in a series of sinkholes that have appeared in the neighbourhood, all the while the sinkholes are disgorging enemy intent on destroying the Heroes or otherwise preventing them from completing their task.

Much like the interviewing of vampires, this is a Major Action which requires expending activation dice totalling 13+ followed by rolling the Quest Die (d12) and scoring 4+ at which point the sink hole is considered filled or plugged or whatever, whether by physical of magical means! 

Strangely, like the interviewing of vampires, there is nothing that states this cannot be done while in contact with enemy!? 

All set up and ready to go... 

Torgilius the Chamberlain, Octren's Wizard Academy nemesis, is back and appeared with a bunch of undead critters which just kept coming back again and again as long as he was around... 

Qulathis was the first out of the entry plaza and started shooting up Ulfenwatch...

Filling the Fuzz full of arrows! 

When the dust settled... there weren't too many of them left. 

Glaurio and Octren joined Qulathis and the first of the sink holes was filled... on the second attempt... because on the first they rolled a one... 

Through the cloud of bats Brutogg had been fighting sprang a Vyrkos Blood-Born vampire! 

And then another one!? 

More cops showed up and some police brutality occurred, injuring both Octren and Glaurio! 

All retreated to the starting passage to heal a bit and not get swarmed... 

But then the broke out of there and murdered all the ulfenwatch... 

Moving along towards the next sinkhole, a pack of Dire Wolves emerged from it!?

While the others were dealing with all the hostiles emerging from the sinkhole, Qulathis decided to sneak off and start filling in some of the other sink holes... 

aaaaaand Amanda rolled another one after blowing all her activation dice to try and fill in a second sink hole... it would not be the last time... 

Glaurio surrounded by giant bats! 

Qulathis had to fight off a few swarms of Corpse Rats while out on her errand. 

Dire Wolves mostly dealt with, Brutogg takes a moment to fill in the sink hole they'd been coming out from... 

Only for Lady Annika and an Kosargi Nightguard to emerge from another one nearby and charge in! 

Glaurio finally made it into the same alley as the others, and with the Ogor to his back started blowing holes in the giant bats with his brace of pistols! 

Then turned to help deal with the undead Ogor and vampire in their midst! 

Things were momentarily quiet as Hostile groups were annihilated all on the same turn and it took a moment for the new encounter cards to come into play... 

Brutogg shoulder-barged past the vampire... 

and into the next passage to fill in the sink-hole within! 

Glaurio Von Alten III, Vampire Hunter, blew apart and cut down Lady Annika... AGAIN.... 

Qulathis filled in another hole... 

Before Brutogg could fill in the sinkhole in the passage, Torgilius emerged, once more, and as always was accompanied by swarms of rats and bats! 

Qulathis filled in another hole... 

The encounter with the vampire lord and undead ogor had definitely left a few marks... Octren was in a bad way... 

and Glaurio was looking a little worn... both desperately needed to heal... 

But the monsters kept coming! 

A Wight King and some Ggrave Guard were the next to emerge. 

Qulathis filled in ANOTHER hole... 

But then her luck ran out as Radukar the Beast crawled out of the next one she was approaching... 

Brutogg heard her screams and turned to come to her aid... 

Qulathis filled the gigantic beast full of arrows... dealing NINETEEN DAMAGE in one turn... and then missed with the final shot!? (Radukar the Beast has twenty wounds... and normally automatically reduces all damage received by two... but Qulathis carried a weapon that deals damage that CANNOT be reduced!!) 

He did charge and deal Qulathis some serious damage (but didn't manage to heal any of his own!).. Then following turn, Qulathis was able to dodge out the doorway and put one more arrow into the monstrosity and take it out of action! 

A pair of Kosargi Guard crawled out of a sink hole and Brutogg stove ones head in before I could even take a picture of the pair!? 

the other one ran off to deal MORE DAMAGE to others he could attack at the same time... so Brutogg stepped back to finally fill in the sinkhole. 

But AGAIN... before he could... Gorslav the Gravekeeper crawled out of it along with a horde of Zombies!? 

and then some Ulfenwatch... and a massive swarm of Corpse Rats!? 

Brutogg bashed down Gorslav and then just waded through his minions!? (and took a moment to fill the sink hole... probably with all the bodies that were piling up around him...) 

He moved forward into the next plaza and filled in a sink hole while there were Fell Bats flying over it!? 

He finally broke through the crowd of hostiles and met up with Glaruio who, still injured, was slowly making his way to the exit location. 

Then some Fell Bats carried Brutogg away and he had to fight his way clear of them and storm off towards the exit again... 

He finally made it there, but they had to fight all the way...

While they stood in the exit square awaiting the Adamant to arrive and lower it's ladders, they were continually attacked by all manner of hostiles! 

They DID make it out, however and the Journey WAS a success! Calamity level reduced to TWO!! 

It is fun to be back playing this again!

This journey was a bit of a slog and went way longer than we expected... failing FIVE of the thirteen attempts to fill sinkholes (when there is only a 25% chance of doing so!) didn't help... luckily we all had the day off on Wednesday (Remembrance Day!) 

I STILL have some miniatures to paint up for this... but having a hard time motivating myself to do so when there are newer, funner, shinier things to paint!! 

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Nemesis 01 - Interrogation Journey

As promised, and after a considerable hiatus, we started playing Warhammer Quest again on the first Tuesday in November (and will hopefully be playing EVERY Tuesday until we finish Nemesis... and... maybe Darkwater... and possibly Blackstone Fortress!?) 

We kicked off the Nemesis campaign for Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - the third and final quest/campaign for Cursed City... 

In the first quest, Ulfenkarn in Peril, eight heroes came together to try and depose Radukar the Wolf, an ancient and powerful vampire. Radukar had worked himself into a position of trust and authority within the city Mournhold, helping the city defend itself from an approaching Chaos Horde. But afterwards he betrayed the mortal inhabitants, slaying their leaders and taking control of the city and renaming it Ulfenkarn! 

At the end of the first quest, Radukar is defeated after each of his powerful minions were deposed... but at the last minute, before he was killed, he turned into a giant Vargskyr and smashed through a window and escaped!? 

In the second Quest, the mortal inhabitants of Ulfenkarn are starting to take their city back, but a dread curse has fallen over the city, plunging it into eternal night (when all the undead beast become more powerful!) and three other vampires try to step into the power void left by Radukar but are never themselves powerful enough to defeat the other two and seize total control for themselves as Radukar had done. The remaining heroes took down each of these vampires one at a time and lift the curse that had fallen on the city... buuuuuuuuut.... at the end of it all, the beast-like Vargskyr-Radukar appears and it turns out he isn't so mindlessly beastly and thanks the heroes for helping put those minion vampires in their place... and he raises them again... and tries to take control of the city again!?

Radukar doesn't FULLY take control of the city, as he had in the past... but he manages to raise ALL of the minions the heroes had worked SO HARD to destroy in the previous two quests (this DOES actually feel just like playing against Soulblight Gravelords in Age of Sigmar!?)... and a spy lets the heroes know that Radukar isn't even interested in fully subjugating the city as he had in the past... he just wants to keep them all trapped there as the city draws ever nearer the edge of The Shyish Nadir! His plan is to effectively sacrifice the entire city into the nadir and with powerful magiks gain incredible power that could rival that of Nagash himself!!

So now the last of the Heroes need to find a way to get all of the citizens OUT of the city... which proves tricky as the city is on a remote island and Radukar still commands many minions and draws more to the city to help keep the population trapped and help him work on the dark ritual he is preparing. 

However, the heroes have learned of a Realm Gate hidden somewhere in the city that could be a way of getting all of the mortal citizens out! They need to discover the location of said realm gate and the only ones that know that... are dead... or, maybe, undead...? The secret was held by the Ven Aliens - Glaurios' family, who were all turned to Vampires! (Except, obviously, Glaurio!) 

So a number of Interrogation Journeys need to be completed, wherein the Heroes invade the estates of the Ven Altens and beat down vampires and try to get information from them!? Four of these journeys need to be completed and to complete them, they have to successfully complete six Interrogation (Major Actions) - which involves one character adjacent to a Vyrkos Blood-Born vampire, discarding MULTIPLE activation dice that total 13+... then they have to roll 8+ on the Quest Die (d12) but get to add +1 for ever point of damage deal to the vampire so far... success means on vampire has been interrogated and destroyed... they have to do this SIX TIMES.... to complete the mission... and then do this mission four times to get enough clues... and then... well... there's a LOT to do in this campaign. It could be another 20 or so journeys (or MORE!) to complete... so this should keep us rather busy until sometime in the middle of next year... 

For this first game, Dan joined us. He finally has a job that allows a little more free time. Hopefully he'll be able to join us from time to time whenever he's in town! Dan took over playing Glaurio Ven Alten. Amanda kept Qulathis the Exile, and Finnegan continued playing both Brutogg Corpse-Eater and Octren Glymscry... 

In addition to the Interrogation Journeys there are two other types of journeys - Secure Journeys that brings the Calamity Level down (which slowly ever ticks up for each of the other types of Journeys completed - or failed!) and Scavenge Journeys - which are very similar to Scavenge Journeys in the original quest - they are an opportunity to TOOL UP and gain some realmstone or one-use magic items and potions and stuff... They seem less important as ALL of the characters currently HAVE both and armour and weapon upgrade (each can only have one...). So... it will likely be Interrogation Journeys until they need to do some Secure Journeys to bring the Calamity level down and possibly the occasional Scavenge Journey if some Crisis or Extraction event causes anyone to lose their armour or weapon upgrades! 

and so.... 

Our heroes kick in the front doors of one of he buildings in the Ven Alten Estates... 

Somehow tired old Octren Glymscry stumbles ahead the rest and blowing up rats and bats and damaging vampires in one of the side chambers! 

Brutogg caught up to the little guy just in time as he was about to be overwhelmed by Vampires. Brutogg laid a beating on the two Ven Altens! 

Glaurio raced forward next and lifted the little old man out of the way and began interrogating his undead cousins... 

Meanwhile, Qulathis, still in the entry chamber... "uh... guys...?" 

Held off another vampire and a swarm of Ulfenwatch. Or... maybe just murdered them all...?

(this is what happens when I write game reports a week later?!) 

Qulathis joins the others (so... maybe she DID just murder them all...!?) 

(or she ducked away from the other vampire to help finish off this batch of baddies... and STAY TOGETHER!!!) 

Everyone returns through the entry chamber to deal with the Vampire and Skeletons coming from the other direction! 

Before they could complete their interrogation of that vampire, however, TWO MORE swooped in from behind and attacked poor old Octren... 

and injured him severely!! 

Qulathis turned and started pin-cushioning the one at the door, filling him full of arrows! 

Then she rushed the vampire and punched him in the head shouting "WHERE IS THE REALM GATE!? WHO KNOWS WHERE IT IS!?!!"

Glaurio stuff one of his pistols into the mouth of one of his cousins and told him "Look, cousing, we can make this painful.... or we can make this REALLY painful...." 

A pack of Dire Wolves arrived... but they were held up by some incredibly slow deadwalker zombies blocking up the narrow passages of the Ven Alten estates! 

Brutogg and Glaurio play a little bad cop, worse cop with one of this other cousins... 

Yiiiikes... 

(this is the initiative track... on this turn I dealt out ALL of the hostile cards first - initiative order begins at the other end... the three remaining heroes going last... luckily Glaurio gets to do a free "Gambit" to try and change his place in the initiative order, and gets to re-roll said gambit... but I think he only got a success, which allowed him to exchange his card with the hostile nearest him on the initiative track - a critical success means he'd get to exchange with anyone - i.e. jump to the top of the initiative order!)

Having brutally gained the information they sought, the gang starts to work their way to the exit... finding it blocked by GIANT BATS and DIRE WOLVES! 

Qulathis killed one wolf and two of the bats... Then Glaurio stepped up and killed a few more wolves... 

Then Brutogg charged in to finish off the pack! 

He even had time to check out on of the mysterious objects and open the exit and light the flares to call in the Adamant for extraction! 

Octren returned! (on the turn end event table - on a 9 or 10 - one character can take a free healing action OR one character that is out of action can return to the table... they still have all their wounds, and a single point of damage would take them out again... but being on the table and escaping means no having to do a survival roll at the end of the game!) 

Before they could all climb aboard the Adamant one more Vyrkos Blood-Born Vampire charged up and attacked the group... but then they were away! 

The new Quest Card for Nemesis - one clue gained, Calamity Level up to THREE!! 

I think each Interrogation Journey raises it by two, whether successful or not, and successful Secure Journeys bring it down by ONE!? (failed secure Journeys increase it by two as well!!) 

It is fun to be back playing this. 

I STILL haven't finished painting ALL of the new models required for this campaign... but I used a few stand-ins (for the Necromancer and the Graveguard that would attend the wight king - not that either of those showed up!?) and I just didn't put the card for the Vargheists into the encounter deck... HOPEFULLY I'll get to finishing them up before the end of the campaign - or before any of the set scenarios/decapitation journeys that specifically call for them!! (maybe I should look ahead and see which those are!!) 

Stay tuned for the next episode - which we are playing tonight!! Hopefully I'll get to posting the report BEFORE next week! 

In the meantime, I will probably continue working on 10mm minis for DBA or HotT... initially that all started out with working on historical English and French armies for the 100 Years War... but my brain has kind of shifted to Hordes of the Things fantasy armies!?