Return to the Blackstone Fortress

I needed more practice playing Blackstone Fortress before running it at ToonCon next weekend, so we had another go at it Sunday evening. The kids were busy being teenagers, so it was just Amanda and myself that went on this expedition....



I played Dahyak Grekh, the Kroot Tracker, again, and also took Espern Locarno, Imperial Navigator.
Amanda decided to try out Pious Vorne, a Missionary Zealot, and also took Amallyn Shadowguide, the Asuryani Ranger that Keira played last game.  I was worried Keira might be devastated if Shadowguide died while Amanda was playing her... but then decided, if she was so concerned for the elf, she should have come and played her herself instead of surfing the internet all night...



Our first exploration card was an AMBUSH!



But we made pretty quick work of the attackers...



And zipped off to the Maglev chamber. Felt like it went a LOT quicker than all the combats in our previous game.



Next up was a challenge. Simple enough and Grekh got another bit of Archaeotech.



Next was another combat - luckily we drew lots of the similar encounter cards - and hostiles are limited by the components in the game - so we really only faced two - instead of four - hostile groups...



They were also taken care of quickly enough!



Another challenge... I thought, for sure, Locarno was going to fall - having a d6 Agility, but he rolled a Critical Success! It was Grekh that ended up falling! He gave up an Archaeotech card rather than roll - as a one in twenty odd of NOT getting a Grievous Wound (or DYING) didn't seem like great odds.



More Challenge. I thought this would be easy first person just needs to back down and *boom* free Archaeotech... but Amallyn Shadowguide had to go first and would have to be the one to back down and Grekh would be the one to get the Archaeotech... and Amanda WASN'T going to do that!? I had to BRIBE her with THREE Archaeotech to just let it go and back down and let me take the card... which was the card that is the Secret Agenda for Rein and Raus - which I fully planned on holding to GIVE to them so we'd have some more inspired characters.

To be fair to Amanda, she WAS just trying to get into character and play the role - I did tell her that these ARE all just allies of convenience who, under other circumstances, might very well just murder each other on sight... I mostly meant the Imperial characters wanting to murder Xenos characters on sight (Grekh wouldn't necessarily murder any of the others - unless he had a contract to take them out, as they could very well be a potential client, and I don't imagine Assuryani just murdering aliens out of hand, unless they, in any way, stood in the way of them carrying out their mission), but kids to Amanda for actually listening to my droning explanations of background fluff and actually taking that  into consideration when making decisions for the characters she was playing!



ANOTHER challenge - Amanda thought there was no way I was going to get it done in time... and I got it done in 13 seconds... Ha!

When we sat down to do this exploration, we did say we wouldn't necessarily do the WHOLE thing - the last one took SIX HOURS and we started around 7pm and did NOT want to be staying up to 1am! but with the first couple combats going a bit quicker and all these Challenges coming out, it made the game feel like it was just FLYING by and we decided around this point to just play it through!



The Next combat didn't look TOO terrible - only two Hostile groups! a



I was a little concerned when I drew the Negavolt Cultist card - but conveniently as it was in the third position - it just added a twist... a potentially dangerous one... but less dangerous, in my mind, than a group of Negavolt Cultists (which we only faced once last game, but I remember them being pretty awful!)



Grekh, more or less, took out the Ur-Ghuls, single-handedly. Vorne roasted all of the Spindle Drones.



All but ONE of the Ur-Ghuls....



Y'know what? Ur-Ghuls are NASTY. This one took a good chunk out of Grekh - like a two-grievous-wounds-sized chunk! Yeouch!



Vorne, finishing off the Spindle Drones.



Locarno decided Grekh, despite his injuries, had things well enough in hand and decided to make for the Maglev chamber... and then reinforcements showed up! Luckily both Vorne and Shadowguide had  extra actions and gone on overwatch... they destroyed each Ur-Ghul as it rushed him!



And then MORE reinforcements showed up! They were a bit slower and allowed Locarno to get to the Mag-Lev Chamber and then Shadowguide and Vorne cleared them away, on the following turn, for Grekh to make his escape.



And then MORE reinforcements showed up!

(reinforcements only show up on a roll of 1-3 on a d20... so this happening three times in a row was kind of silly... Luckily everyone made it out okay...

And then we had One More Combat.



We were playing a bit later than we had planned... but we were SO CLOSE to finishing an expedition, we just went for it!



Remember that thing I said about Ur-Ghuls...? Yeah, Shadowguide wasn't' really paying attention in the previous encounter and failed to learn from Grehk's mistake of leaving any alive and in range of charging...



They took her OUT! Our first out-of-action casualty!

(Spoiler: She didn't die!)



And then MORE Ur-Ghuls came crawling out of the woodwork... Oh, and the Spindle Drones were at Threat Level THREE (it's bad, just trust me on this...)



Locarno tried to help Grekh - blasting Ur-Ghuls with his Third Eye and the setting up his Psychic Force barrier - which saved both of their asses I-don't-know-how-many times.



Eventually, Vorne, who was already waiting at the Mag-Lev Chamber had to come out and save them by BURNING EVERYTHING!!!

And so our "heroes" made their way back to Precipice.



In the Legacy Phase we drew New Threat: Rogue Psykers... boy, that sounds like fun times! Yikes!



Some of the goodies up for grabs at Precipice.



Some of the other goodies.



Amallyn Shadowguide went first and grabbed that Thermoplas Cloak - I didn't even get a chance to read it. but Amanda seemed pretty excited about it. Pious Vorne went back to her own ship and tooled up with a Hospitaller Med Pack. Dahyak Grekh also went to his own ship and picked up the contract for the Rogue Psykers - the one he had fur Ur-Ghuls turned out to be REALLY HANDY! Finally, Espern Locarno spent some time hanging out on Shadowguide's ship trying to talk to the Aeldari and winkle out of them some of the secrets of the Webway, but they were having none of it and sent him on his way with a fancy Plasma Grenade...

Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I hope to get another game of this in, even if it's just soloing it - preferably with the characters we HAVEN'T played (assuming I get them painted in the next day or so) and I definitely need another game (or two!) of Hellboy to feel fully prepared... No way I'm getting in a game of necromunda... but I'm feeling that one's pretty solid.

Should also get in a post sometime this week of things coming off the Workbench - including the last few Blackstone Fortress minis - at least from the base set... I still have the Escalation stuff to paint!

After that - a few game reports from ToonCon - where I'll be at all next weekend!