Warhammer Underworlds - Another Four-Player Sunday

As if playing Warhammer Underworlds at the Warhammer store on Friday evening, and a 2000 point practice game of Warhammer 40,000 (10th Edition) on Saturday wasn't enough gaming for one weekend.... Nic and Orion came by to join Amanda and myself to play a pair of four-player games of Warhammer Underworlds (for a second Sunday in a row!) 

GAME ONE

For our first game I was pretty excited to try out the freshly painted Grinkrak's Looncourt. Amanda decided to change it up and try out Lady Harrow's Mournflight. Nic wanted to try out the Grymmwatch. Orion played with the Chosen Axes - which she was determined to make work (The warband was recently acquired, fully-painted, and she'd played one game with them and they were handed their asses!) 

Amanda and I were just playing with the Rivals decks for our warbands. I'm not sure if the deck Nic used was the Relic deck I'd put together for the Grymwatch (like, years ago... before they were even CALLED "Relic Decks") of if he sorted out the Grymwatch's and just used a Rivals deck as well... Orion was either using Fearsome Fortress... or perhaps had just shuffled the full Chosen Axes deck in with the Fearsome Fortress deck and played with whatever she drew?! 

I don't remember who ended up picking boards first... but the Looncourt ended up on the Chamber of Genesis board (from the Harrowdeep Core Box). Nic also selected a watery board - The Tortured Coil (from the Nethermaze Core Box) - so it ended up looking like the Beastgrave was suddenly a waterfront property with the watery grave of Harrowdeep washing up on its shores! Amanda played on Ambertrap Nest board (from the Direchasm Core Box) and Orion played on the Shrine of the Silent People board (from the Beastgrave Core Box).

Grinkrak's Looncourt all set up and ready to go! 

The Looncourt started the hostilities - as I went first in the first round - with Skolko and Pronk launching a squig at The Widow Caitha... and taking her out of action!!!

Yikes... Had a bad feeling those ghosties would be coming for me! 

(I was not wrong!) 

I did get three Quest Objective cards right off and assigned them to three of my crew. the Quest Objective cards are a new sort of mechanic for the Looncourt. Rather than holding them in hand, they can be assigned to specific goblins who, when they achieve the Quest (Scoring the Objective Card!) are inspired (with the exception of Grinkrak - who inspires when three of the others are inspired). Half of the deck is Quest Objectives and MOST of them are Surge Objectives. 

I probably need to spend some time reading and re-reading these and figuring out who really would be the best to assign them too as they come up... I feel like part way through the game I may have made a mistake - or sould have, at least, chosen a little better as others did the thing that someone else needed to do to score their Quest Objective.

Regardless, it was fun and a bit different. 

Dwarves and Ghould went right at it and started smashing each other. 

The Myrmourn Banshees of Lady Harrow's Mournflight did, in fact, come for my goblinses! 

But they also fought over all the objecive markers on the border with the Dwarves... so it wasn't a total onslaught... 

though for a little bit it looked like a crowded goblin/ghost mosh-pit over at my end of the table... 

Ghouls joining in the party - sending bats after Grinkrak and The Butcher after Da Wonky Lance! 

In the second round, I drew objectives that involved being in enemy territory, so I kind of disengaged and tried to score those, hoping the Banshees would be kept occupied by the Fyreslayers and Ghouls they were fighting elsewhere! 

And... that largely succeeded! 

Huzzah!... though I think that frightening Fireslayer knew we were up to something... luckily he had a charge token and coudln't really mess with my plans! 

Grinkrak, with some help from Skolko and Pronk, chased off the Ghouly bats. 

In the third round, I had an Objective that scored two Glory Points if each surviving friendly fighter is Inspired and/or has one or more upgrades... and Snorbo was the only fighter left in my warband that has neither... so I kind of charged him into combat with the leader of the Fyreslayers - who only had one wound left... I figured I'd either take him out and score some glory, or he'd take Snorbo out and I'd score the card! In the end I think it was Duke Crakmarrow that moved up and took out Snorbo..

The ghosties finally did come for me and took Nagz out of action... 

But Pokin' Snark got out of there and made another attack at the leader of the Chosen Axes... and... I MIGHT have taken him out of action... or maybe it was SOMEONE else I took out of action with a card called "Stick in the Boot" played on a Vulnerable Enemy (with only one wound remainging) adjacent to a friendly fighter... deals the enemy one damage! Ha! Mean little goblinses! I love them! 

No, it was someone else, somewhere else because that fucking stubborn little dwarf was still holding the Objective Marker at the end of the game. 

IN the end, the Goblins did pretty okay for themselves! I scored SIXTEEN Glory... which TIED with the Chosen Axes... who won.. 

Because they were holding an objective at the end of the game and I was not! 

Considering the game had started with boards looking pretty crowded with 22 fighters (7 Ghould, 7 Goblins, 4 Fyreslayers, 4 Banshees) things were looking pretty empty at the end. Ghouls and Fyreslayers only had one left, each. There were two goblins and two Banshees (Okay, technically goblins started with eight and ended with three - but two of them, Skolko and Pronk, are on the same base!) 

The Goblins were a LOT of fun to play... I think one-on-one play with them could have been an entirely different ketttle of squigs... but I think they'll be a regular on my Underworlds boards! 

GAME TWO

For our second game, I switched things up and tried out Hrothgorn's Mantrappers. I've only played them once before and it... did not go well... Amanda, playing Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven just slaughtered them - taking out Hrothgorn at the beginning of the second round, leaving nothing but a couple of the useless gitz and the sabretooth cat. I figured it was time to give him another chance... Just played with his Rivals Deck. 

Nic took the Thorns of the Briar Queen and quickly put some sort of Nemesis deck together for them. Amanda stuck with Lady Harrow's Mournflight. Orion decided to try the Eyes of Nine with the Force of Frost deck...? I think it was just the Force of Frost rivals deck on its own, none of the Eyes of Nine cards mixed in...?

They were not painted... I... I didn't say anthing. Maybe I just have to get over that. It seems like it's the way things are with Warhammer Underworlds - some people just play with unpainted stuff. 

Or I just say, MY HOUSE MY RULES - get them painted for NEXT TIME!!! 

Eyes of Nine was a warband I'd always wished I could have tracked down - just because they looked really neat... which is, honestly, the main motivating factor in any miniature purchases!? (I also thought they could be handy in Souldbound - the role-playing game - as a number of the canned adventures have Tzeentch minions as opponents!). Never did managed to track them down, and I kind of let the idea go, now that I have Ephilim's Pandemonium (a NEW Tzeentch Warband that came with Wyrdhollow!) 

I digress... 

I was set up on Penitent's Throne board (from the Nightvault Core Box). Amanda picked The Arcane Nexus (from the Shattered City Board Pack). Nic took the Shyishian Stardial board (from the Shadespire Core Box). Orion completely messed up our nearly all Shadespire board with The Iceswirl Maw board (from the Deathgorge Core Box) - which kind of made sense though, playing the Forces of Frost deck!

In the first round, Lady Harrow swooped into my territory and took out Bushwakka - who can set up little traps on the board... but then didn't like being surrounded by other little grots and floated off elsewhere =, 

The Screaming Maiden floated right into the middle of the Eyes of Nine and battled with them for a bit. 

The other Banshees mixed it up with the Chainrasps of the Thorns of the Briar Queen... 

Eventually it was down to Hrothgorn and Luggit and Thwak... trying to deal with a pair of Brimstone Horrors in our territory... I had an objective card that I'd misread and thought it required no enemy in my territory, so Luggit and Thwak stuck around to try and take it out.. but instead were finished off by the pair of horrors... 

Other than the brimstone horrow, the Eyes of Nine had been whittled down to only only their leader; Vortemis the All-Seeing... 

Hrothgorn charged and killed Vortemis... then turned and Shanked the Briar Queen. 

It was a weird game... Nic had started off with a few Glory points - gaining four fairly quickly. I don't think I scored any in the first round. Amanda caught up to nic and went flying past as we went into the third round. Orion and I were fighting over third and fourth place, it seemed... I started the third round with only two Glory Poinsts, and I don't think Orion was much further ahead... but we both kind of pulled it out of the fire! Both Orion and I scored a BUNCH in the final round and the End Game... She ended up with 12 and I had 9 (though, if I'd read the card properly, I would have scored another two (Always Moving - Scored in an end phase if there is at least one surviving friendly fighter AND there are no FRIENDLY fighters in your territory....) I'd thought it said ENEMY and there was that Brimstone Horror... so I would have had 11 which would have propelled me into.... second place... AGAIN!!!

Really having a lot of fun with Warhammer Underworlds at the moment... The obsession has lead me to LISTENING TO PODCASTS about Warhammer Underworlds - where I learned the player that one the Las Vegas Open a few weeks back - for the second time in a row - is from Calgary (for those that aren't Canadian, Calgary is the largest city in the prairie provinces of Western Canada, where I live. I've lived in Calgary, and a small town outside of Calgary, and it one of the places I visit the most - when I ever actually leave Saskatoon!?) 

April Games

Another month went by. We played some games. 

Friday, 2 April 2021

Kicking off this month's gaming, Amanda and I played some Warhammer Underworlds on Friday evening. After a few games in Shadespire, we switched scenes again and moved back to playing with the Direchasm board. I was trying out a new warband - Morgok's Krushas! 

Full Game Report can be found here:

Warhammer Underworlds: Return to the Direchasm (Game 13)

Saturday, 3 April 2021

On Saturday, Finnegan's D&D game was cancelled, so Amanda roped him into trying out a 3-player game of Warhammer Underworlds. 

You can read all about it here:

Warhammer Underworlds: Battle Royale (Game 14)

Sunday, 4 April 2021

MORE Warhammer Underworlds

Could almost call it MOREhammer Underworlds at this point. 

As always, there is another post with more pictures describing how it all went down... 

Warhammer Underworlds - Game 15

Thursday 8 April 2021

This week I finally got around to painting the walls in the Game Room. Over the last month or so, I've been on-again-off-again working on putting on layers and layers of drywall mud over the textured surface on the plaster that coats our basement walls and then so much sanding all to make it look somewhat even and smooth. 

back in the fall, Amanda had been in a panic to get the paint before it snowed and dragged me out to the paint sotore one day and said "YOU MUST CHOOSE SOMETHING NOW!!!" I couldn't decide. It'd been a rough summer and worse fall and i was at peak decision fatigue and I couldn't decided on anything and I ended up just picking something to make her shut up and we could all go home. It was something like dusty rose... or ducky raspberry or... something like that...? Anyway, in my minds eye, over the intervening months, the colour had darkened somewhat. 

So I was pretty shocked when I opened the can and it was a BRIGHT PINK!? WTF?! Is THIS what I picked?! 

Well, it's what I had and I wasn't going to even suggest getting something else... 

It did dry a bit darker and I was feeling a bit better once some of it got on the wall. 

Once I started rolling I was feeling less like I'd made a big mistake. 

In the evening we played Azul. 

Crushed it. 

Friday,  9 April 2021

While I was just starting to cut the second coat Amanda Palmer's cover of Pretty in Pink came on my ipod and. for a brief moment, I felt like everything was alright in the world. 

Second coat complete. Just need to do the trim and clean up and touch up the floors and then move everything back in! 

It still looks brighter in this picture to me. Amanda keeps calling it "pink" but it looks more like a warm purple to me... I guess I don't really care what anyone calls it, though. Call it pink if you like. I still like it. 

Another game of Warhammer Underworlds - trying out the freshly painted Grymwatch.

Full Game Report here:

Warhammer Underworlds - Game 16

Saturday, 10 April 2021

After finishing up the Grymwatch, I told myself I was going to clear off my little hobby station, to make space for working on all the Cursed City miniatures... That didn't work out... instead MORE and MORE things kept piling up there (I was suffering under the delusion that I might get one or two other things finsihed up before the weekend...) this is what it looked like Saturday morning before I headed out to pick up the game... I DID manage to clear most of it off after I got home.  

Saturday morning I rolled out to be FLGS and picked up the copy of Warhammer Quest: Cursed City that they were holding for me. Unfortunately they did NOT receive ANY copies of the novel tie-in that I was hoping to read with Amanda, while I'm still a pinting the minis,  to get us both fired up to play... (also, to get the card for Morrvahl Lobrecht, which came with the book...) 

It begins... 

Another evening of hobby chat with The Guyz. I was assembling Cursed City miniatures. Jon was painting stuff. Woody was assembling Orks he got for Xmas. Chris was just there to chat this week. 

Sunday, 11 April 2021

Century golem

Sunday evening we played a relatively quick game of Century Golem Edition: Eastern Mountains. 

Friday, 16 April 2021

Just for something a little different... we played Carcassonne. 

Saturday got together with The Guyz and chatted while assembling a few new Warhammer Underworlds warbands - the newly-released Crimson Court, along with Wurmspat and Hrothgorn's Mantrappers. I may have a problem... 

If I had to guess, I'd say Wurmspat will likely be the first to be finished. mostly because there are only three... and they're worshippers of Nurgle... so it's okay if they look a mess... 

No game on Sunday, as it was Graphic Novel Book Club night. 

Wednesday, 21 April 2021

Amanda turned 50 on the 21st. We had a bit of a bird theme going on - we all painted pird pictures and got her a copy of Wingspan. 

(As a bit of an afterthought, we ALSO got Century Golem Edition: Endless World - because she found out it was now available and SUGGESTED we git it for her) 

Amanda and I tried out Endless World. we'd played the original (Century: New World) with our Friend Kurtis a while back... like... BEFORE the pandemic... so it took a bit, but it all came back to us eventually. Amanda, despite not having a clue at the beginning of the game, totally won.. Damn, if she's starting off with winning this one, I'll probably NEVER win... 

we also tried out Wingspan with the kids. It was a SUPER close game. I think I ended with 79 points, Finnegan had 76, and Amanda and Keira both had 75. 

There is a separate post about all of the days activities with more pictures. 

Amanda's 50th Birthday

Amanda was pretty excited about the game and suggested we play Wingspan every night for the next five days

Thursday, 22 April 2021

More Wingspan! Just me and Amanda, though. 

We tired out the more 'competitive' side of the Round End Scoring sheet. 

My board at the end of the game. 

Won the game. Things learned: a)Winning End-of-Round Goals is important - more important is, at the very least, having SOME of the goal - even if you don't win it. Amanda didn't have ANY of the nest types for the first two - and that put me WAY ahead, b) egg-producing engines. It can be FAR more efficient to get birds out with lots of egg capacity and just FILL those next with eggs - every egg is a point at the end of the game. 

She did have a lot of tucked cards - because she'd seen how many points that had gained me the previous evening - so she made sure to have some of THAT in her sanctuary. 

The two player game went much quicker, so Amanda suggested we play AGAIN! 

Different End-of-Round Goals

My board at the end of the game. Got a little more efficient at getting birds out there. 

Amanda pays attention and learns quickly... I was feeling like this would probably be the last game I'd win...  It's fun making engines, though, and seeing how efficient you can get. It's like running marathons. People don't run to WIN the marathon (unless you're, y'know in the top 1% of professional runners that actually does win marathons...), 99% of runners are just there to challenge themselves to beat their personal best! 

Friday, 23 April 2021

MORE Wingspan!

Amanda (purple) is catching on to the playing the End-of-Round goals - and realizing, at least in a two-player game, you only need ONE of the thing to come in second. (She only ever had ONE bird in her wetlands. but one is enough to score second place in a two-player game! Same with the Round Three goal - she only had one egg on one bird with ground nest) 

My board at the end of the game. 

Close. But not as close as the previous evening. 

So, we played again... 

Sets of Eggs in all three zones is a HARD goal for round one... I had two sets... Amanda just let that one go and focused on trying to get the other ones. 

I think she's cottoned on to the fact that you don't NEED to win all the end-of-round goals - or even play to the bonus cards... you can get a tonne of points just getting EGGS on the cards you have in play. 

I figured that out a few games back - and had thought of doing it... but I was just so determined to get the max points for both of my bonus cards - just to see if I could. 

Of course that meant four of the five actions in the last round I spent playing birds... the last one was picking up more cards. and the last few actions of round three was getting food to play those birds... If I'd just played easier-to-play birds (i.e. ones requiring only one food - ideally bugs or grain) and then just repeatedly doing the Lay Eggs action to fill all those bird's nests with eggs... I could have had a LOT more points... but... LOOK AT ALL THE BIG BIRDS I got into play!? 

Amanda can't be too disappointed with her present... She's actually asked about expansions - which she NEVER does - she always tries to convince me we DON'T need expansions! "We don't play that game enough"... "The base game is just fine"... I have a feeling I'll be looking into those expansions soon. 

I am curious to see how this plays with multiple players that actually know what they're doing! 

Saturday, 24 April 2021

Early in the morning Amanda went out to get her hair done. 

When she got back, we played some MORE Wingspan.

Finding that in a two-player game, this doesn't make THAT much of a difference. As long as you have ONE of the thing, you come in second place. I wonder if we should use the blue side for two player games...? 

My board at the end of Game One

"Let's Play AGAIN!" 

My board at the end of Game Two. 

Yeah... seems I'm done with winning this game. 

She suggested "Best two out of three...?" and I had to point out that that doesn't really work when you've already won the first two..? We played a third game, regardless. 

Round Three for Saturday.

Almost every game has worked out the same - one has been tied, one person wins two (and ends up with 17 points) and the other wins one (and ends up with 14 points) 

My board at the end of Game Three on Satuday. 

I mean, most are still pretty CLOSE games... 

In the evening I had a online paint-and-chat with these guys. 

Afterwards, Amanda and I stayed up stupid late and finished off Homeland Season Five - which we'd started watching earlier in the week. 

Sunday, 25 April 2021

I stopped by our FLGS and came home with these... 

So... of course we played it in the evening. 

spent the game looking across the table at a nice pair of tits. 

(like, the BIRD CARDS, on Amanda's board!) 

We tried out a few of the new end-of-round goals - which were a nice change of pace. 

Gah... just couldn't get it together... I ALMOST got the 7 birds with tcuked cards - had them in my hand, but I'd have needed one or two more actions to get them out there... 

Still... it was a close game. 

That's a lot of wingspan we've been playing. 

Almost enough to start calling it WingSPAM! 

Through the week I finally got around to cleaning up the floors. I had refinished them when we moved in (almost 20 years ago!?) and there isn't nearly enough wood to refinish them again - so I just did some light sanding and scraping to remove some spilled paint and other gunk and then did a few more coats of finish and hope that sees us through a couple more decades. 

Friday, 30 April 2021

Amanda took the day off on Friday - just using up some of the absurd amount of "flex-time" she's accumulated - let's not even talk about the vacation time she has accumulated. It would probably make someone in HR cry... 

In the morning we got the furniture in and all the mini boxes... but they weren't in any particular order. 

The new table and book shelves. 

Chairs that go with the table. 

We actually bought these a couple years ago and they've just been squirrelled away about the house until I got around to finishing up the room. 

The rest of the day was spent trying to reorganize everything. I started trying to sort out the drawers. 

But Amanda just kept bringing down more and more books!? 

So I gave up on the drawers, for the time being and tried to sort out the bookshelves. 

I will need to do some purging. 

More pics when I get it a bit more tidied up and organized. 

I'd hoped to have it sorted out in the afternoon and be able to sit down to a game in the evening - and Friday is normally "Game Night" - ad we've been pretty good at keeping up that tradition for the last few months.... but after spending the day moving stuff around, Amanda and i were pretty tired and the kids wanted to finish watching She-Ra (they only had a few episodes left in the final season) - so they did that and Amanda sat and watched it with them. I watched a bit, but mostly hauled more stuff downstairs and shifted things about in the basement. Maybe we'll get in some gaming over the weekend... 

I haven't gotten much painting done the last week of so. Basement. Other things. I tied ordering a couple of rollers from Green Stuff World to make some fancy bases for the Cursed City models... not that I NEED to get them BEFORE I paint them or anything... I don't know... I just haven't been motivated to paint anything - but I keep telling myself that maybe when they arrive I'll get back to it! When I checked the tracking number this morning, it did say the package had finally arrived in Canada! So, hopefully next week!