The Ratlings Return

After an extended stay aboard The Traveller, recovering from critical injuries sustained in their previous expedition, the Ratling brother, Rein and Raus, finally made their return to the Blackstone Fortress....

Tuesday evening, while Finnegan was playing D&D, Amanda and I set up to play an Exploration of the Blackstone Fortress. Amanda played Amallyn Shadowguide and Pious Vorne, as usual, and I played Espern Locarno and the Ratling Brothers. We also brought along Dorg "the Wall" Brogan.


Round One - Combat



The Maglev Chamber opened to reveal... a rather sparsely populated part of the Blackstone Fortress...  Only four Nega-Volt Cultists and two Ur-Ghuls...?



Partly this was because Encounter Card #3 added a condition: Debris.... slowed us down a little bit... but not much.

Partly because Encounter Card #4 was more Nega-Volt Cultists... and I only have the four that came in the basic box - haven't painted the extra ones I got with the Servants of the Abyss box... maybe I should get on with that next!



Amallyn Shadowguide ran out and snatched up a Clue from one of the unguarded Discovery Marker areas, while leaving Bone'Ed Brogan to watch the hallway. Pious Vorne laid down some fire in the hall to catch any Nega-Volt Cultists that might come that way and then went for one of the other unguarded Discovery Marker areas... that Debris DID slow her down enough that she didn't get to it on the FIRST turn!



A couple of the Nega-Volt Cultists were burned in the fire - of the two that got through, one was wounded by Brogan and finished off by the ratlings, and the other was destroyed by Locarno's Third Eye!



Shadowguide finished off the Ur-Ghuls and snatched another bit of Archaeotech from their lair and then made for the exit.

Starting to realize Brogan is a bit slow... I mean he's fun to plug a gap and know that no one's going to get by... but he only ever gets to do two actions a turn - and can't expend Destiny Dice to hurry him along to the escape chamber...



So while we waited for him to catch up, reinforcements arrived! More Nega-Volt Cultists poured through a portal and through the fire barrier laid down by Vorne... well, almost all of them poured through... one of them burned up in it.



Shdowguide cut them all down so Brogan wouldn't be slowed by them. She is BRUTAL with that Power Blade she picked up...



On the final turn, as Brogan finally lumbered into the Maglev Chamber, even MORE Nega-Volt Cultist reinforcements arrived!


Round One - Challenge (but really, another Combat!?)



This was kind of an interesting one. It was like a knife fight in a phone booth... or... TWO phone booths...? And we had to fight our way into/out off both... simultaneously!?



This was fun - and at least ONE of the Discovery regions didn't have baddies... and a condition that didn't SUCK!



Because EVERYWHERE ELSE DID!?



So many Traitor Guard... and they all went first... I decided to make use of the Traveller's Support ability that effectively made all the Explorer's invisible to the Hostiles for a turn - unless they were in an adjacent hex - this would keep the Traitor guard on the right from shooting Locarno and the Ratlings to bits before they even got to act!



Shadowguide moved up and blasted three of them at the end of the corridor with her Ranger Long Rifle. She used destiny dice to do this, so she could go Overwatch and then just blast the rest away (or... most of them) as they charged around the corner when they activated.



Brogan defended the left passage while everyone else charged into the right passage and finished off the Traitor Guard down that way.



Shadowguide then went back and as Brogan fell back, she slipped through and cut a path for Vorne to move in... and start burninating. She roasted one group of Guard...



And then another Group of Guard...



And then used all the Destiny Dice to run down the hall, chop the Ur-Ghul in half with her Eviscerator and then light the Rogue Psykers on fire..



Apparently they are not as flammable as initially imagined... or maybe that promethium tank was running low after killing all those guard... because she only wounded one of them. But that wound must have had SOME effect - as when we next rolled for his activation, he chose to fall-back and ran for cover...



in the following turn Shadowguide moved into that chamber and finished off the rogue Psykers. And that was the end of that!


Round Three - Combat



An AMBUSH to be precise....



Conveniently, TWO of the Encounter cards only revealed solitary Rogue Psykers! A refreshing change from the previous encounter, where the first card was TWO Rogue Psykers AND six Traitor Guard and the second card was EIGHT MORE Traitor Guard!? The other hostiles were a pair of Spindle Drones and four Nega-Volt Cultists.

Ambushers alway go first - in that their initiative cards and shuffled and dealt out and then the explorers cards are shuffled and dealt out... but Amallyn Shadowguide has a nice piece of equipment that ALWAYS gives her a FREE gambit... and she has a D12 Agility, so she pretty much always gets to pick any hostile to switch with.

 

and so, before ANY of the Hostiles went, she charged out of the Ambush zone and murderified one of the Psykers, collected up some archaeotech he was sitting on, and then sat, in cover, on overwatch.

 

She then blasted away at the Nega-Volt Cultists as they tried to charge the rest of the group.



Pious Vorne charged out and melted the pair of Spindle Drones.

 

She then laid down some fire by the closest portal to give any reinforcements coming through something to worry about. At the end of the round, when we rolled an Event, it was All is Dust - which removes a Discovery Counter. As there was one on one of these burning hexes, we just said it was that one...

 The Rating Twins charged the other Rogue Psyker who went down in a hail of stubber rounds. they gathered up the shinies and made off towards the maglev chamber which Locarno had gone and summoned.



Again, waiting for Brogan... and More Nega-Volt Cultists showing up in the meantime. they were all killed by Amallyn Shadowguide and Pious Vorne. And then some more Spindle Drones showed up... and then STILL more Nega-Volt Cultists... but by that point they were way too far away to affect the exiting Explorers.


Round Four - Combat

For the fourth Exploration Card we drew another Combat - but it was getting kind of late, so we decided to call it a night and said we'd try to finish it up tomorrow evening... or maybe on Thursday...?


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Lots coming up right away!

Tomorrow I plan to post May Games (and Other Stuff) Part The Second.

Within the next day or so should be the conclusion of this Blackstone Fortress adventure.

And I got started with painting some more stuff today! After finishing up Kreuger's Unvalids, I was in a bit of a malaise for a few days... and didn't really feel like painting anything... We'd talked about playing Blackstone Fortress on the weekend, but I didn't even feel like I had the energy for that (we did play a few games though...). I was starting to wonder if I might take a bit of an extended break from painting... But then I'd picked up some Agrax Earthshade on Tuesday afternoon, and while I was waiting for Amanda and Finnegan to finish up with supper, I sat down to just finish up a base I'd been waiting for the shade to finish... and, while I was downstairs at the paint station, I put on Flight of the Eisenstein (the Audiobook I'm currently listening to) and got back to work on the last of the Grey Knights squads!

And, after this past evenings game, I'm feeling pretty stoked to get back to work on the rest of the Servants of the Abyss... and then get cracking on the Cultists of the abyss and the others that came with Escalation! Maybe I'll even crack No Respite and start working on the Pox-Walkers and Death Guard - seems apropos while listening to Flight of the Eisenstein - as it is mostly centred around members of the Death Guard - both loyalists and traitors!