Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal - Session Eight - the Sorcerer's Lair

The FINAL final chapter... 

I'd hoped we'd have finished this last week, alas...  

The Heroes have passed through a Realm Gate found in the back of the House of Venargo Auction Hall. The gate has taken them to the Sorcerer's Sanctum. Their lair that they believe to be under the city of Hammerhal Ghyra.

Arvios Sunhelm - Lord-Castellant of the Hammers of Sigmar - started things off exploring the door on the right, finding a library within that contained the most foul of texts.... He did find a very powerful artifact, that was handed off to Golnir Coalbeard (as he was the only character, at this point, that did not have an artifact!) and then it was never once used in the game... Ah, well....  

Golnir Coalbeard went next and explored the door on the left and found a "museum" of strange and horrible artifacts. He also was successful in his quick search and found a few treasures that were distributed among the group. Some of these DID get used during the game!!

Alnaryn - Aelven Loremaster - went next and... 

WOW!!! What an amazing activation roll!? Unfortunately, there wasn't much she could power with all these sixes... there hadn't even been any hostiles encountered at this point... 

She did open the remaining door in the room... and that reavealed EVERYTHING ELSE (well... almost everything else!) 

So Alnaryn charged off and attacked the Blood Warriors in the room off to the left! hoping to use the door as a bottleneck and trap them in there! 

I think she used a stunning blow and stunned the Blood Warrior in the doorway! 

Vizrin Kyre - Black Ark Fleetmaster - likewise tried to charge across the room and engage the Kairic Acolytes at the entrance of the room opposite! 

Archimaine - the Lord-Castellant's loyal Gryph-hound - tried to block the Putrid Blight Kings in the other room... 

The Adversaries all went and dealt some serious injuries to Visrin Kyre and the Gryph-Hound. 

In the following turn Kyre and Alnaryn fell back to try and hold a line back near the entrance that the fighty people could hold at, and the shooty people could stand behind and blast adversaries from behind... The Gryph-hound was SO injured it didn't have any activation dice to even fall back... and so had to stay where it was... 

Sunhelm had enough actions that he moved up, took a swing at a Blood Warrior, before falling back into line... 

And then everyone poured out of the rooms... 

Archimaine was knocked out by the Putird Blight-Kings, but an Elixir of Life (one of the treasures found in the Museum) was used to bring them back! 

Kyre slashed at Blood Warriors with little effect, their blades just glancing off the Khornite warriors heavy armour... 

Then it was Finnegan's turn to roll a BUNCH of sixes for ... (and a further six from the Destiny Dice pool was used!) One was used to power Sunhelm's Healing Light ability, another was used to Warding Lantern (which stunned three and injured one of the Blood Warriors...

Then he made use of the Ring of the Slumbering King TWICE - which dealt even MORE damage to the Blood Warriors!

The Coalbeard went and blasted away a number of the wounded Blood Warriors (all the ones that weren't stunned) and, I think, the remaining Kairic Acolyte..? 

So in the Adversary Phase all the Putrid Blightkings lumbered out to attack! (All the remaining Blood Warriors were stunned and unable to do ANYTHING!?). 

They dealt serious damage to Vixrin Kyre again... luckily the Healing Light helped with that at the end of the turn and Kyre's magic beans (They had some Treasure that was a back of magic healing... something... that they could eat in an End Phase and pass to any friendly adjacent warriors!) 

Things looked dire... but they all had ANOTHER round of just amazing rolls and coordinated attacks and wiped out the Putrid Blight Kings! 

Then Kyre charged up and attacked the Chaos Sorcerer! 

Before I could even flee with the sorcerer, he was surrounded... 

and then slain, refusing to be taken into custody alive!!!

And there was much rejoicing! 

With the Cult Leader slain and the rest of the cult killed or disbanded and dispersed, Hammerhal was safe once again... for the moment.

I had a LOT of fun playing through this campaign! I'm SUPER STOKED about starting Warhammer Quest: Cursed City next week! 

Cursed City plays quite differently - it's a lot more like Blackstone Fortress. There are custom dice with one, two, or no pips which indicate success, critical success, or misses... there are d6s, d8s and d12s... the better your skill the higher the dice you use (which had a higher proportion of successes and critical successes to misses). There isn't a Player Phase, followed by a Adversary/Hostile Phase, there is an initiative track and, I think, each turn the cards are dealt out onto it, so the order of everyone going is constantly changing and hostiles are mixed in with the Heroes. Gambits can be used to switch positions with enemies... 

Should be a lot of fun! (assuming I can get rats and zombies finished in the next week!). We'll be playing on Wendesday next week, though, because we're FINALLY starting a game of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound (the Role-Playing Game!) on Tuesday! If all things go according to plan, that will be every other Tuesday. The alternating Tuesdays we will play Cursed City, and on the weeks where we are playing Soulbound on Tuesday, we will play Cursed City on Wednesday! 

(This seems a little convoluted... but I wanted to keep up the momentum and play Cursed City every week, if we could, so we can get through it... but also wanted to keep running SOME of them on Tuesdays, to keep open the possibility that John might be able to join in - as he's really only available on Tuesdays...) 

Work-in-Progress Wednesday - 20 November 2024

Every week... I sit down to do this... 

and this is what my painting desk looks like

and over to the left... 

and the bit on the right... 

I don't even want to show you the stuff piled up on the floor around it or on the shelves behind... 

It's a MESS! 

But I do this as it FORCES me to tidy up that mess a bit and reevaluate what I'm doing and think about what I SHOULD be doing and hopefully keep myself focused and on track... it doesn't always work... 

Looking at these pictures, I started feeling like these all look pretty much the same as they did last week!? What did I even do!? but then I looked back on my blog and saw I'd finished up Jelsen Darrock and three Vyrkos Blood-Born and THE VARGSKYR!? And they were a lot of work! 

So this week... 

Most recently, I started assembling the miniatures from Embergard. The Stormcast Eternal Embergard are assembled (above)... 

and I've STARTED assembling the Skaven... which are a huge pain in the ass and I am NOT looking forward to trying to paint these... 

I also have these three other Warhammer Underworlds warbands lingering on the desktop... I think only the seraphon saw any work done on them this past week.

Having played Emberwatch on Saturday and seen Sunday's announcement that the Warbands of Emberwatch card expansion (which will include Warscrolls and fighter cards for two of these warbands) will be out on 7 December, I now have a deadline to try and get these done by... They probably won't see a lot of work THIS week, as I have a more pressing deadline!

Next week we will be starting Warhammer Quest: Cursed City and I will need these ZOMBIES finished!!

(We finished up Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal last night, and I just remembered I did not finish the game report last night! So I shall have to finish that up after I complete this post!) 

I will also need these rats! 

I might also need some of these...!? I'm not 100% sure what most of these are for, to tell you the truth... I've READ the rules and I've seen no mention of Diregoyles or the undead cats or the gravemarkers... unless they're ALL just optional Mysterious Object markers? Maybe they turn up in Crises or Events - I have NOT read through all of those! 

I don't NEED any of these Heroes, as I have four done.. but I will probably try to get at least two more done for next week (Dagnai Holdenstock and Qulathis the Exile)... just... because...  

Other things lurking on the desktop

These three random heroes/adventurerers... 

Saviours of Cinderfall... just need to finish up the Gryph-Hound and Girlz... 

A smattering of Slaves to Darkness stuff... I will probably switch gears once I finish up the Cursed City stuff and start working on these again. As with the Warbands of Embergard, the new Slaves to Darkness Battletome and Darkoath Spearhead army will be released on 7 December and that's getting me pretty excited about getting to work on these!

I STILL have all these Nighthaunt miniatures kicking around on the desk... I just can't put them back into storage... there are only these ten left to finish off ALL THE NIGHTHAUNTS!? I even did a little work on these, this past week - all the rusted metal on the Craventhrone Guard! 

Maybe after the Warhammer Quest stuff is done, before I get to into the Slaves to Darkness stuff,  I just need to focus on these for a day or two and get them all DONE!!!

Oh... I guess I DID get distracted by ANOTHER rebasing project and that took up a lot of time and space this past week... but have since been moved OFF of the workbench for the time being... I just need to do some flocking on the painted ones! 

So... for this coming week... The priority really NEEDS to be those fucking zombies that i just don't want to paint... but NEED to paint... and the rats. Maybe a Hero or two. and/or Gorslav the Gravekeeper! 

What have YOU been working on this past week? 

What are YOUR hobby priorities for the next week or so!? 

Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard - First Games

A whole new edition of Warhammer Underworlds was realeased this past weekend on Saturday. While there have been little rule tweaks and minor changes and additions along the way with each new setting/"Season" of the game, this was the first true NEW EDITION for the game! ALL of the stuff released up until that point was still stuff you could play with Warhammer Underworlds: Wintermaw - the last release (realier this year) of the previous edition. It wasn't COMMON to find people playing games with the older cards - but you could use any of them in relic format! It also wasn't terribly common to see people playing with a lot of the older warbands - largely due to "power creep" - the older ones just aren't as effective against newer warbands... but it could all be used. 

ALL the old cards are no longer playable with this new edition. I mean, you CAN still play with ALL THE OLD STUFF... just not in games using this new edition! 

Orion went and picked up her copy early on Saturday and then came by my place to play a few games. We had to use fighter and warscroll cards I printed off at home on our black and white laser printer... which were not the easiest to read!  

GAME ONE

Orion played Ironsoul's Condemnors and I tried playing the Thricefold Discord. Mostly because they only needed three fighter cards printed and cut out each! 

I played with "Flex" deck; Pillage and Plunder, which had me Delving treasure tokens (flipping them over) to gain glory points. 

Orion played with the "Stike" deck; Blazing Assault... which scores a lot for being aggressive and fighting and killing stuff...? 

The new board is... well, ONE board! No more each player picking one and setting them up offset or lengthways! 

Brodus started things off by charging in and giving Vexmore a good bash! 

Bit of a melee going on off to one side and Vashtiss feeling a little left out! 

Tavian taking a swing at Vexmore. I think they took the daemon out... I was down to two by the end of the first Round. 

VAshtiss whacking Brodus in the back, trying to finish him off! 

Ganging up on Lascivyr... they have one more wound than in the previous edition... but wasn't enough to keep them alive against a pair of big powerful Stormcast brutes. 

Starting off the third round, Vahstiss attacked Brodus and Finally finished him off!

Then she moved as far away as she could to just try and stay alive and maybe flip that last treasure token...? I think I had a card that moved her to a Treasure token or start hex in enemy territory... and then I moved to try and stay out of their charge range...? 

Some how Tavian got to Vashtiss... with some kind of boost to speed... I was excited because I actually rolled a crit and a success for defence.... 

Somehow Orion was rolling FIVE dice and rolled a Crit and FOUR successes!?

Orion won 16-9. 

Vexmor is arguably worse in this edition... deals less damage and lost the Locus of Indolence ability... They gained the Indolence ability which gives them +1 attack dice and grievous (+1 damage) IF they don't have any move or charge tokens... Meh... 

Vashtiss also deals less damage AND had lower defence!? Loses the Locus of Paramouncy (adjacent enemies cannot be supported). She and Lascivyr have a new ability called Evasive on the warscroll, allowing them to roll an attack die when they would take damage and on hammers or crits reduces by one to minimum of one... 

Lascyvr has lower defence, but one more would/health... No locus of Carnality. 

Being Daemons of Slaanesh, I really wanted to love these and have some fun with them... they did a lot of FUN stuff in the previous edition... but they're feeling pretty... "meh"... 

GAME TWO

Four our second game we switched things up. Orion had a go at playing the Thricefold Discord, but played them with the "Mastery" deck - Countdown to Cataclysm! I played the only other warband I'd printed and cut out cards for - the Thorns of the Briar Queen - and paired them with the last deck in the box, the "Take and Hold" deck; Emberstone Sentinels. 

I took a lot less pictures for some reason...

This was the state of affairs at the end of Round One/Beginning of Round Two.

Things had NOT been going great for me. I was down three and another was wounded - every activation Orion had (but one) killed one of my Chainrasps (and the other one wounded one...) I had dealt some damage, but the Daemons of Slaanesh were all still there and taking a Chainrasp out with every shot. 

I was concentrating a little too hard on the game and forgot to take any more pictures until the very end!? I finished off the two wounded Daemons and killed the third... but had lost two more Chainrasps in the process. 

I'd gotten my last two fighters onto Treasure Tokens in Enemy Territory (even have Delve one to make it a Treasure Token again) to score one last Objective Card worth THREE POINTS... then realized, after all that effort to get them there, it had said two or more friendly fighter WITH A COMBINED BOUNTY OF THREE holding... ALL of my fighters are only worth ONE bounty... I'd have needed THREE fighters to score it... 

Somehow I eeked out a victory; 14-11...? 

I like it so far. As with everything, it will take some getting used to. I'll need to play a few games with each of the four decks and then maybe start tweaking them. while those that LOVE deck building are lamenting the lack of cards, I don't mind that there is limited stuff, for the moment. Less stuff to learn/keep track of. Less overwhelming when trying to decide which to pair with which. 

There will be two more decks in two and a half weeks. Reckless Fury is another Strike Deck, and Wrack and Ruin is a Mastery deck... 

Hopefully I can find something good to pair Wurmspat with and they won't suck so bad in this edition!

By the time we were done, it was later in the afternoon and there'd been some freezing rain and the streets were like skating rinks and I was just not feeling like going out in that... I figured I would wait until Sunday when it was forecast to be +7°C! 

Indeed it did warm up - and was really quite nice out! 

So I rolled out to Dragon's Den Games and picked up my copy.  

all the stuff in the box!

I also rode out to Staples to pick up the cards I'd ordered printed... I only uploaded four of the warbands to start with. I've never had things printed there before and didn't want to just PRINT THEM ALL in case the print quality or paper quality sucked (I ordered them on card stock). They turned out pretty nice.... 

After an evening of "arts and crafts" (cutting and then gluing the fronts and backs of fighter cards and warscrolls together) I have fighter cards and warscrolls for four warbands ready; Thricefold Discord, Mollog's Mob, Zondara's Gravebreakers, and Cyreni's Razors. The first three are ones I like the idea of and thought would be fun to try playing. Cyreni's Razors was one of the ones that got it's own separate pdf and custom Warscroll that I thought Amanda might play. 

All the warbands that were released in the last year got separate pdfs with Fighter cards and custom Warscrolls. There are sixteen that are being re-released in four boxes of four that are only getting printed fighter cards and warscrolls - either in the boxes with the miniatures, or in one deck including all sixteen (conveniently, I have fifteen of the sixteen, so I'll be buying the deck!). 

The rest of the warbands - those not released in the last year that are not being re-released... did get PDF fighter cards, but did not get custom warscrolls. There are two very generic warscrolls for each Grand Alliance (Order, Chaos, Death, Destruction) from which those could be picked. They were released in one big 47-page pdf... and I didn't want to mess with print ranges and stuff the first time I uploaded stuff, and definitely didn't want to print off all 47 pages in that first go around - since I didn't know how it would all work out.... I'll probably be printing off all the cards for all the others soon enough. 

That'll be a lot of cards to cut and paste... which will I do first!? Maybe the Generic Grand Alliance Warscrolls... and then Wurmspat (for me!) and Morgwaeth's Blade Coven and Elathain's Soulraid for Amanda! The soulraid looks fun,