Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal - Session Five - The Vile Dungeon

It has been just over two and a half months since we last played Warhammer Quest... 

Wednesday evening Amanda, Finnegan and I sat down to finish working our way through the last few dungeons of Shadows Over Hammerhal. 

Finnegan played the Cogsmith, Golnir Coalbeard, which he'd originally been playing, and took over Arvios Sunhelm - Lord-Castellant of the Hammers of Sigmar. Amanda played Vizrin Kyre - Black Ark Fleetmaster -as she has throughout the campaign, and also took on Alnaryn, the Aelven Loremaster.

Because it's been so long I kind of forgot.. a LOT of things... a lot of rules... and even what had been happening in the previous session!? I did have notes... but I missed things (and didn't THINK to read the previous session's battle report!) I assumed they had FINISHED the Halls of Blood, which Amanda, John and Maygan had been playing through... but looking back now, I've realized they'd had to stop part way through the last battle and had NOT finished fighting the Flesh-Hounds in the last room... They hadn't really NEEDED to go back to that last room, they'd found another way down... also, I'd put four or five Flesh-Hounds in there instead of the silly trap that was supposed to be in there... and... the Flesh-Hounds were a bit much... 

So this session we just started back in Cinderfall. Vizrin Kyre visited the Rift Market, along with Alnaryn. Kyre acquired a Twisted Charm, but Alnaryn did not find anything. Golnir Coalbeard had little money to spend, so he went gambling, hoping to make that money into MORE money... instead he walked away with a magical Heartseeker Ring! Lord-Castellant Arvios Sunhelm went to the Guild of Certified Thaumaturgists and bought himself a Seer's Philtre. 

Having stocked up and rested, the four returned to the dark dungeons below Hammerhal - only to find their way blocked by a house collapsing on the entry way they'd intended to use! The Lord Castellant quickly conamdeered some workers to clear the rubble away! This would take some time, so the bunch of them had some more time to look for supplies that might aid in their exploration. 

This time Vizrin Kyre and the Loremaster visited Bougren's Bountiful Bazaar. This time it was Alnaryn that walked away with an Excavation Charge and Kyre walked away empty-handed. Golnir Coalbeard found himself engaged in a drinking contest... and passed out drunk after the first pint!? 

Eventually enough rubble was cleared away, they were able to return to the tunnels and chambers beneath Hammerhal...

Returning to a section they'd noted two expeditions ago, the area smelled of rot and putrefication. the wall were covered with a thick layer of pustulent ooze and the floor writhed with giant, bloated maggots. The air was filled with fat buzzing brownish-yellow flies... 

The first two rooms they entered were empty, but in the second the discovered a secret passage that led to the lair of a Rotbringer Sorceress! 

The two aelves took down the Sorceress' Blightking bodyguard! 

The Rotbringer Sorceress herself was a deadly foe, though... the Fleetmaster was overpowered by her noxious emissions! 

the Lord-Castellant joined the Loremaster in the Rotbringers sanctum and purged the putrid servand of Nurgle... but before she could be struck down, she called out for aid! 

Three MORE Putrid Blightkings rushed out of the next room. They were too late to aid the Sorceress, so they were determined to avenger her! 

They were as vicious as they were vile and har to take down. 

It took all the group to take them down! 

After finishing them off, the four investigated the two rooms; the Rotbringers workshop and the room the other Blightkings had come from. In the latter they discovered a hideous, rotting alter to Nurgle. The Lord-Castellant decided it needed to be destroyed! In the process they all contracted the Rawblight (counting as a Grievous wound, blocking one of their action slots!), but also in doing so, discovered and aritifact of Ghyran - the Seeds of the Everroot - which had magical restoritive powers! 

Down at the other end of the dungeon they discovered more Blightkings in a room with fleshy walls! 

The three charged Alnaryn, nearly overpowering her!

She held them briefly at the doorway while the Lord CAstellant shouted orders for all to fall back around him. 

They drew the Blightkings out into the hall where the Fleetmaster and the Lord-Castellant could engage them in melee, while the Loremaster and Coalbeard could stand behind blasting them with firearms and arcane bolts! 

Eventually they took them down, one-by-one! 

The final room on this level was the worst yet! They found two more Blightkings sloshing around in a room absoloutely FULL of bodies and part of bodies or both man and beast in varrying degress of rot and putrefaction! 

The Lord Castellant initially held them at the door

Until Kyre was able to slip in and finish off the last of them. 

At that point the four heroes, once again, retired to the surface streets of Cinderfal. They visited their good friend Brother Bargo of the Chapel of the Shattered Blade and he was able to cure them of the Rawblight. 

Afterwards Golnir returned to the gambling dens, only to lose his money. Alnaryn returned to Baugren's and acquired an Amulet of Mist. Vizrin Kyre visited REd Yugol's Reverie, but was unable to learn anything of their future from the enigmatic soothsayer. Sunhelm visited the House of Venargo and found an interesting item - the Spectral Eye! 

At this point we called it a night, but are determined to forge ahead next week on Tuesday or Wednesday - on of those evenings we will play, the other we will watch some more of the new season of the Legend of Vox Machina! 

There are really only two (maybe two and a half?) sections to explore. 

Oooh! I should try and finish Tzarketh, Bane of Law, to use as the Chaos Sorcerer behind all this corruption and chaos beneath Hammerhal!

Warhammer Underworlds - Thundrik's Profiteers

When I started playing Warhammer Underworlds, I got pretty excited about the game and went a little overboard and started trying to track down ALL THE WARBANDS!? I ordered a copy of Thundrik's Profiteers and Ylthari's Guardians from a game store in Barrie, Ontario at the time - and they were still selling them for the original price! (or maybe even at a bit of a discount as it was dead stock to them, so I got it for the original price, including shipping...?) 

Upon opening the box and looking at their cards, motivation to paint them dropped sharply... they are... NOT GREAT. Despite the entire warband all having Range 3 attacks... they only do ONE DAMAGE!? Khazgan Drakkskewer has a 2 Damage attack - his range 2 Sky Pike... but that's it... Most of them inspire to 2 damage (and Drakkskewer's Sky Pike to 3 Damage)... but wow... they are not going to be a killer warband... What's even worse is that, again, with the exception of Drakkskewer, they all start with a Move of 2!? So they're not going to get anywhere fast to win by holding any objectives?!

They do all get significantly better when they inspire - almost all of them get faster, gain a wound and deal more damage when inspired... But they only inspire when they score an objective card... and only if Thundrick is on teh board... so you really have to try and protect one of your best fighters!? 

I don't know... they're fun looking models, and I'll definitely try them and play them occasionally because they look cool, but I don't have high hopes for them winning too many - or really ANY games... 

I was considering bringing them to the event on the 20th - but I'd have to pair them with a Generic Rivals deck, and I'm not really sure if any of them are really going to make up for any (let along ALL) of their shortfalls... Still it'd be fun to bring them, just to turn some heads - as NO ONE has played them around here. I don't think anyone I know even has a copy. There has to be at least ONE other copy in Saskatoon, though... because AFTER I got my copy from the store in Ontario, I notice MY OWN FLGS (Dragon's Den Games) actually HAD a copy tucked away behind some other stuff?! And I haven't seen it lately... so... SOMEONE must have picked it up!? 

Thundrik's Profiteers

Bjorgen Thundrik

Khazgan Drakkskewer

Dead-Eye Lund

Enrik Ironhail

Garodd Arnesen

I'll have to try them out with Amanda one of these nights and see if I can find some rivals deck that they don't TOTALLY suck with... Or... maybe I just do something totally silly with them, like take Breakneck Slaughter and shoot for the Wooden Spoon! 

And with these (and the Chosen Axes - posted earlier today), I am back in the black! I have now painted 96 x 28mm foot figures so far this year, and have only purchased 91!! With no othey purchases planned in the immediate future, I will hopefully keep ahead of the game for the rest of the year!! There WILL be some new Warhammer Underworlds warbands over the summer and fall, and a core box later in the fall... and if I keep it to JUST THAT I should be good... the only thing that could wreck that is if I do something stupid like buy a Spearhead box to play in some new Age of Sigmar league at the Warhammer Store through the summer... 

Grombrindal, The White Dwarf - FINISHED!

 In addition to Glaurio Ven Alten III, I finished up Grombrindal, The White Dwarf this week! 

Grombrindal, the White Dwarf. 

This was one of those minis that felt like painting it went on and on and oooooonnnnnnnn.... Everytime I THOUGHT I was finished, I'd turn it round and realize, nope I'd forgotten this little detail or that... eventually I had to just say, Nope... that's all I'm doing... I'm calling this done. 

Grombrindal's back

There were rules for Grombrindal in ALL THE GAMES in the 500th issue of the White Dwarf magazine (Age of Sigmar, Warcry, Warhammer Quest, and Warhammer Underworlds). I'm MOSTLY interested in the Warhammer Underworlds (at the moment) but will at SOME point this year get playing Warhammer Quest and I would like to play Warcry... (all the hubbub about the NEW EDITION of Age of Sigmar has even gotten me thinking about playing THAT again!? though the rules on this card won't be relevant as they are overhauling all the stats and stuff, again...) 

(I momentarily had a panic when I went to take the above photo and I COULD NOT FIND THE WARHAMMER UNDERWORLDS CARD!?!? It took some searching, but the card was located... everything is fine now... relatively speaking...) 

Grombrindal in the Deathgorge. 

I am hoping to try out playing Gombrindal in a game of Warhammer Underworlds Tomorrow evening at the local Warhammer Store! Stay tuned for a game report. 

Cities of Sigmar!

Well, I don't have any more Stormcast Eternals to add to Finnegan's force in our little narrative campaign, so I thought we could ignore the army limits for allies and just let him take Cities of Sigmar forces whenever he wants to add to the force. It makes narrative sense to do so - The Stormcast are the shock troops of Sigmar to clear the way for all the Free Peoples that had been hiding out in Azyr during the whole Age of Chaos thing. Stormcast clear the war, Free Peoples build the Cities of Sigmar in their wake. 

The Island we've set our campaign on is small, so Sigmar figured it didn't need THAT many Stormcast to clear away the Chaos inhabitants and sent in settlers as soon as the Realmgate was secured... These are some of the Free Peoples that will be joining Finnegan's forces in the weeks to come. 

Most of these are miniatures I've had for AGES. I've repainted some since I bought and originally painted them (in the late 1980s and into the 1990s). They have all be recently rebased. Some are newly painted (or newly repainted!) 

I struggled with how to paint the sides of the plastic bases. I'd painted the sides of the Duardin bases grey originally and the Aelves and Vikings were brown... but they didn't look right next to each other and neither looked good next to a lot of the other Age of Sigmar miniatures I've based - especially those from Warhammer Underworlds with sculpted bases - that I've painted black on the sides. So, for consistency, I ended up painting them all black on the sides. Still not totally happy with it... but at least they're all the same now and that's not triggering 

First the Duardin that Finnegan has already added to his roster. These are old Dwarven Thunderers that I've had since I was playing Mordheim... uh... was that the late '90s? early '00s? Regardless, no new painting here, just rebasing and some touch-ups. We'll be using them as Duardin Irondrakes - which are basically a slightly newer version of Dwarves With Guns... 

I've also rebased a swarm of old Wood Elf Wardancers.... 

I figure we'll field them as Wildwood Rangers. There are stats for Wardancers in the "Legends" but they haven't been updated in ages and I figured it'd just be easier to use these as "counts as" a current unit. The Wildwood Rangers are a bit faster moving than human foot, have more attacks with a bit more reach, are hard hitting (wound on 3+)... so... bad ass enough I think the stats work well enough. 

Unfortunately I don't have QUITE enough for a second full unit of ten... there are only seven in the second unit. I need to track down three more (or seven more - to make two units of twelve for Dragon Rampant!) 

 Leading these guys will be this Freeguild General. The miniature is actually out of a boxed set Games Workshop once sold called Eternal Champions - characters of Michael Moorcock. This model is Erekosë -  I've had the model since the late 80s, but never painted it. The only Moorcock I read was Elric and Jerry Cornelius - so those were the only ones I painted at the time. I've still not read any of the books in which Erekosë appears, but it is a cool model - from Citadel Miniatures - that looks the part of a Freeguild General, so... 

I have a bunch of other minis from the box I may paint up to use as characters or add them into units of other Freeguild forces. 

Also newly painted/re-painted are these two - so freshly painted/re-painted are then that the glue isn't dry and there is flock stuck to the chieftan's face!? Both are OLD Citadel miniatures I've owned since the 80s. The Chieftan is actually a Pre-slotta miniature Fantasy Tribe Fighters line (FTF-76 - Norse Chieftain in Horned Helm) the Horn Blower is from the later F4 series Men-at-Arms, Vikings - designed by Alan and Michael Perry (I think this one was called "Redwald" in the 1988 Citadel miniatures catalogue). Teh latter line, I think was sold to Wargames Foundry at some point (as were many early Citadel ranges - though, sadly, not ALL of the old ranges!) 

 

The two above were knocked off to finish up a unit of ten "Freeguild Guard". One of the options for Freeguild Guard is to be armed with sword and shield - we could say "HAND WEAPON and shield and then these are all, pretty much, close enough!). The front row are all pre-slotta miniature from the aforementioned FTF line, and the second rank are all from the later F4-Men-at-Arms, Vikings line. 

I do have a few more Vikings from the Citadel Miniatures Dark Ages (DA) line... but I'm not sure if there are enough to make another unit of ten... also, some of them are currently on DBA Viking bases! 

Most of the Freeguild look like old WFB Empire soldiers, but, narratively-speaking, there are a LOT of different peoples that fled to Azyr during the Age of Chaos - I thought these vikings looked like they could be rough warriors originally from some remote fjord in Ghur...  

I also have an old Amber Wizard (probably from the 90s) that I'm just finishing up. It's wearing a bearskin, so I thought it would fit right in with Erekosë and the others. Of course, Finnegan's force ALREADY had two units of wizards, so I won't be rushing to complete that one. I also thought these might make a fun  Frostgrave Warband - the Amber wizard with the Norse as warriors and Erekosë as either a Captain or Knight or whatever. Just need to find a suitable apprentice... 

This should keep Finnegan's forces growing as the campaign progresses... so, now I need to crank out some more Daemons for myself.... Or finish up another force... or start painting all the Daughters of Khaine - to entice Amanda to join... or Cursed City... or Warhammer Underworlds... or... or... 

Yeah, I don't know what will be painted next. There are a LOT of things on the Workbench - could be any of them!? 

The PLAN is to play more Age of Sigmar tomorrow - so hopefully there will be a game report in the next day or two. 

Free Peoples of the Mortal Realms: Duardin

 So, I've gone down this Age of Sigmar rabbit hole and been busy reorganizing and rebasing old Warhammer Fantasy figures for reuse in the Mortal Realms. In some cases, I've even been repainting - or simply painting anew (figures I've had in storage forever and never got around to painting before!). Mostly looking for low-hanging fruit here - stuff that can be turned into a Warcry Warband - so we can get playing right away! Or, at least, sooner, rather than later... 

Some forces I have enough that I might actually be able to play full games of Age of Sigmar - at least a smaller meeting engagement of 1000 points... Definitely the Skaven, Hedonites of Slaanesh, and possibly the daughters of Khaine and Blades of Khorne - though all will require some significant amounts of painting - and I might need to pick up a unit or two for the latter two to make 1000 points. Others I might be able to put together a force for Age of Sigmar Skirmish. 

For Warcry I definitely have Slaanesh and Khorne Daemon Warbands and enough Skaven for at least two ready to go. I have a few more organized, but need some painting - Ogors, Orrucks, MORE Free Peoples (Darklings, possibly Wanderers), and maybe some sort of Undead mish-mash... (I have Vampires and Ghouls - which are, technically, part of different factions - Legions of Nagash and Flesheater Courts, but might be able to work together as allies...?) 

For now, however, here are the Duardin of the Free Peoples I've cobbled together... 

THE DUARDIN

The Duardin (Dwarves) seem to be in three main factions; Disposesed/Free Peoples, Fyreslayers, and Kharadron. The Fyreslayers are like the old Troll/Giantslayers of old - muscled, unarmoured manias with axes. The Kharadron are like dirigible-riding steampunk dwarves. The Duardin of the Free Peoples, the Disposesed, are more like the Dwarves of the Old Warhammer Fantasy world and live among the Humans and Aelves in the Cities of Sigmar, so thats what I'll be using these as. 

Four Longbeards and twelve Irondrakes (old Thunderers). The current Irondrake models seem to be a bit more heavily armoured than the old Thunderers... but... whatevs... 

I don't really have a figure that I'm calling their leader just yet. Ideally, I'd like to find an old metal Dwarf Lord or Runesmith or Cogsmith or at least some sort of old unit champion to lead them... 

Four Longbeards with Ancestral Weapons and Gromril Sheilds. 

These were all rebased from washers I'd had them on and two of the shields were replaced - so they could all be of the same type. The ones I replaced were flat and had handpainted runes that just didn't look as nice as the embossed symbols - and also I happened to HAVE two extra embossed shields, so that's what they got! 

One I did a little differently - did gold embossing (though it looks like in my haste to get these done, I forgot to go back in and highlight the gold after doing a wash!?). This is so, in a pinch, I might be able to use him as the leader of the warband - calling my an Old Guard with Ancestral Weapon and Gromril Shield. 

Irondrakes!

If using all four Longbeards, I really only need five of these for a Warcry Warband. 

Because I had so many Thunderers, I put one of them on a larger base - to identify it as a Leader, of some sort - but then realized it wouldn't really work as a leader... It doesn't really look like a Cogsmith, and The Irondrake leaders are armed with GRUDGEHAMMER TORPEDOs... that don't look much like a Torpedo he's holding... I guess I could always say it's a super powerful and accurate gun that is as powerful as a Grudgehammer Torpedo...? I don't know. I like the idea of a leader of Dwarves being a WARRIOR that's cool with getting into it hand-to-hand... 

Maybe I should go in and touch up some of the gun with some brass - to look fancier than the rest of the gunners guns... and maybe remember to paint those eyes!? 

I do need to decide which city they're from. That, rather than race, determines which abilities can be used. 

OTHER FREE PEOPLES

Now, the Duardin Free Peoples are all part of the Cities of Sigmar list and, technically, any of them can all be put into the same warband together... So, also technically, I COULD have a Human or an Aelf leading them!? I'm not sure Duardin would be entirely cool with that... unless it was some very RICH and powerful Human (or ever RICHER Aelf) that hired them as mercenaries to accompany on them for a personal quest of some sort...? 

Here are a few of the others I have ready for battle. 

Old Empire Hero... He's got a flail and a great big book strapped to his back... I was thinking of calling him a Prophet - leader of flagellants (of which I DO have a few that could be painted up). Maybe the Duardin are serious converts to Sigmar and have been radicalized and follow this most devoted of his prophets... not so radicalized to have given up their axes or gun in favour of flails and bare chests, though. 

Or I could just call him a Freeguild Sergeant. 

Regardless, it's occurring to me I could re-rebase this guy onto a 32mm base to make him stand out as a leader. Not required, but I like the idea of leaders that immediately stand out from the rest of the warband. 

A pair of Shadow Warriors. 

These guys definitely saw action in Mordheim. Shadow Warriors are still a thing... unfortunately I only have the two of them... so... not enough for a Warband of their own. Maybe with some other Azyrite Aelves.

Aelves of the Scourge Privateers or Darkling Covens?.

They used to be called Dark Elf Marauders. Darkling Coven Bleakswords? 

I do have a fair few other Aelves (Wanderers, Darklings, and others) and Humans to put together into Cities of Sigmar warbands. 

I could probably put together two just of Aelves from the Darkling Coven. One of old assorted metal minis - like the Marauder/Bleakswords above - including some with halberds that could be passed off as Black Guard. Another could be made up entirely of plastic Darkshards (crossbow-armed Dark Elves). 

I have a few old Imperial types that can be used as Freeguilders and Flagellants. Again, I probably have enough for two! One could be entirely Freeguilders - a mix of Handgunners and Greatswords, led by a Sergeant of General - or a Battlemage! The other could be mostly Flagellants - with the Prophet above and a bunch of old metal Flagellants I'd originally picked up to convert for use with my Red Redemptionists in  Necromunda!? Together they'd make a nice small force for Age of Sigmar! 

I have an assortment of other Wood Elves and High Elves... but I'm not what to call them in Age of Sigmar... I have PILES of Lothern Sea Guard, for example, which don't seem to be a thing anymore... I'm sure I'll figure it out when I get around to painting them.  

Other Stuff

The state of the workbench. I've acquired Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm and have been working on the warbands within - hoping to maybe get those finished today or tomorrow, so I can get in a few games over the weekend! They might also be expanded into Warcry warbands at some point....? Stay tuned for those!

Shadespire: The Chosen Axes

More Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire miniatures for my friend John. 

He dropped these off for me to paint for him... probably around the time I finished the last batch... Yeah, that was two years ago. Good Thing he's a patient guy! I got work on these because part of my Q1 Game Plan was to finish off a few things I have to paint for others AND it seems I've gone down the Age of Sigmar rabbithole, so this worked in with my current interests. (I find it REALLY hard to paint anything I'm actually interested in at the moment - which is why I generally DON'T do commission work!)

The Chosen Axes

Fjul-Grimnir - the leader of the gang

Tefk Flamebearer 

Vol Orrukbane 

Mad Maegrim

These are for Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire - the first in the series of Warhammer Underworlds series of games, released in 2017. There have been three more major, stand along expansions Nightvault (2018), Beastgrave (2019), and Direchasm (2020) each with numerous warband expansions, such as this. 

I've actually been looking at possibly picking up Direchasm to try it out. I have to admit, initially, I was uninterested in Warhammer Underworlds..... but for it to have survived THIS long, it can't have sucked THAT much.

Also, it's a way to pick up a small number of Age of Sigmar figures from a variety of factions - which could be used in Age of Sigmar (stats are available to use each of these warbands as a unit in the game) or Warcry (the figure types are all useable in Warcry - though not as specific names characters, as they are in Age of Sigmar AND they are not enough on their own to make a complete Warcry warband) or the Soulbound role-playing game or, y'know, the game they were actually MADE for - Warhmmer Underworlds. (I've already picked up Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven - since I already have a bunch of Daughters of Khaine in the Shadow & Pain box I picked up in December) 

I have one more of these to paint for John - Spiteclaw's Swarm - SKAVEN!