Blackstone Fortress: First Stronghold Assault - Part One
Brief Recap:
Attacking the DESCENT Stronghold
6 Exploration Card Access Route
Played four so far: One Challenge, Three Combats
Drew the fifth card - ANOTHER Combat!
Janus Draik Dead
On Sunday we set up that fourth combat we drew the day before...
Pretty spread out. Ur-Ghuls up close - always a bad sign. Two groups of Traitor Guard. A single Spindle Drone...
A little plotting and planning.
Ur-Ghuls Charge!
And were incinerated by Vorne!
The nearer group of Guardsmen were also utterly destroyed as they rushed us!
Vorne also laid down some flames to block the Traitor Guardsmen coming from the other side of the cavern. Shadowguide danced about collecting up Archaeotech - only to be attacked by some Traitor Guard reinforcements!
Luckily she was in cover and had used her cloak - making her almost invincible against the newly arrived Guard - which would only shoot at the nearest visible target.
Vorne finishing off the last of the original Guard.
For a brief moment, we'd entirely cleared the area and thought we might be able to pick up Archaeotech and clues from the discovery locations at our leisure...
Then some MORE Ur-Ghuls showed up...
and some MORE Traitor Guard...
Force ran from the Ur-Ghuls, but then turned and burned three of them!
Shadowguide, likewise, just danced away from her pursuers... leaving that one discovery marker... undiscovered...
And then STILL MORE reinforcements arrived - ANOTHER group of Ur-Ghuls... and a Spindle Drone... AND MORE Guard!? WTF!? Every single reinforcement roll brought more on to the board - how many 1s, 2s, and 3s can one roll on a d20!? A LOT, apparently!!
After this we took a break and I ate my supper and Amanda got hers started (it required a bit more preparation!)
The final card we drew for the access route was a Challenge!
The three of us laid down some serious hurt on those maglev doors and we all collected a discovery card!
Then, onto the Stronghold!
This is the intitial set-up for the Stronghold - the maglev chamber rose up out of the ground and the walls folded away to reveal a large open chamber... with some terrifying new adversaries! Chaos Beastmen and Rogue Psykers - neither of which we'd faced before! There were also four Negavolt Cultists!
Behind each group was an exit location and ONE of them would reveal the stairs to the LOWER level of the stronghold
The lower level is where we needed to go to accomplish the goal - messing with some... thing...? someone had to stand on a specific location and expend three 6+ action dice... all the while hordes of Traitor Guardsmen and CHAOS SPACE MARINES could be piling in as reinforcements! Yikes!
The Rogue Psykers went first and... didn't do much. Locarno went next and moved into Vorne's space to prepare for the onslaught of the Beastmen - as they seemed the most threatening!
On came the Beastmen! Locarno actually took one out with some overwatch action.
Amanda's supper was finally ready, so she just ate it while we were playing...
Amallyn Shadowguide destroyed most of the megavolt Cultists on her activation at the end of the first turn...
Then danced over and slaughtered two of the Beastmen!
Locarno took out one of the Rogue Psykers and Vorne finished off the other one... level cleared... maybe this wasn't going to be SO hard, after all!?
Whoopsie! Not Dead Yet! One of the Rogue Psykers popped up due to an event...
the MORE megavolt Cultists came rushing out at reinforcements...
Seriously... it's supposed to be only 15% of the time... Could we have a reinforcement roll where reinforcements DON'T arrive!? Not feeling really positive about how things are going to go in the lower level...
dealt with those and all got stacked by the staircase, ready to take down the lower level Tier One Operator style!
Once any of us enter the lower level, we start checking for reinforcements arriving there - except those reinforcements arrive on a 1-10 (instead of 1-3 like regular reinforcements) and two of the reinforcement pools included a Chaos Space Marine leading five Traitor Guard!
Rolling our activation dice and destiny dice... Amallyn Shadowguide got two sixes and where was on in the Destiny dice pool... so we had her swap to go first and she just charged down the stairs and across the room and did the three actions that we needed to do! BOOM! Now all we had to do was GET OUT BEFORE ALL THE REINFORCEMENTS SHOWED UP!
First roll for reinforcements... Nothing!? I guess EVENTUALLY we had to fail a reinforcement roll... so glad it was on one of these!!!
Locarno ran down next and summoned the Maglev Chamber for us to escape in! Then we failed another reinforcement roll and Vorne ran down o join us... and then we failed the THIRD reinforcement roll!!! WOO!!! ANOTHER Rogue Psyker DID show up sue to ANOTHER Not Dead Yet(!) event!
On the last turn everyone rushed into the maglev chamber, and while the two reinforcement rolls for groups with Chaos Space Marines were failed, one last final group of reinforcements DID show up - but it was just Traitor Guard - and it was too late for them to do anything...
Stronghold #1: CONQUERED!
Our haul from this expedition - the black Destiny Dies on our cards was part of the bonus for conquering a stronghold - we each got to roll a die and had that much bonus spending allowance back at Precipice!
In the legacy step we drew New Threat: Rogue Psykers! As we discovered, the Rogue Psykers themselves weren't TOO bad - if dealt with quickly before they power up... but, looking at the Rogue Psyker Encounter cards that are added to the deck, they rarely come alone - there are almost always a group of Traitor Guard WITH them!
Vorne and Shadowguide pooled their recources and picked up the Thermoplas Cloak, Exodite Kriss and the Omni-Spectrum Retricies - all of which went to Amallyn Shadowguide. Locarno went to the Clarion to pick up the Cortex Enhancement and Bionic Muscle Fibres - so I can now run around at the same speed as Shadowguide and Vorne and the Cortex enhancement I'm hoping can mean I go earlier in the turn and can get to where my forcefield is most needed before the Hostiles go! All venire got out of it was the DOOM incantation... but she took what was left of all our Archaeotech.What to bring along to replace Draik (and the Ratling Twins)...? Is anyone even going to WANT to join us, given our history of losing companions!? I think we're all leaning towards hiring that hulking robot, UR-025.
Next...? We have enough clues for ANOTHER Stronghold Assault... but I feel like maybe we should get a fourth Character tooled up first - the other Strongholds look pretty nasty!
I was also trying to convince Amanda we should try a little "Side Quest" to rescue poor Dorg "the Wall" Broggan so we can bring him (or his brother Gren) along as Retinue Characters! Of course, that would mean I really need to finish up the two Ogryn! I picked a box of three up when I picked up the Start Collecting Chaos Space Marines and assembled one a Gren and the other as Dorg. The third I tried to make into some kind of mercenary/pit-fighter for Necromunda... (Hmmmm... looking at the side quest again, I'd also have to paint up a couple of Cultists and the Cultist Firebrand from the Escalation expansion - as they show up in the scenario!)
I'd be interested to try running one of the solo one-off expeditions with either the Harlequin Solitaire or the Imperial Callidus Assassin! Keira has a Solitaire amongst her collection of Harlequins. Maybe it would be a way to get HER to play with me!
Coming Soon To Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Amazons for Dragon Rampant - I got a little distracted...
MORE Blackstone Fortress
Ogryn for Blackstone Fortress - the Broggan Brothers - and some Cultists from the Escalation Expansion!
Well I've really enjoyed going through your Blackstone fortress stronghold quest! Nice to see the beastmen out and about, you have been on a 40k,Necromundia and Blackstone fortress spike so not that surprising you fancied doing something different!
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