To reach the Lair of the Beast, though, the explorers have to go through an Access Route of four random Exploration Cards - I used one of the exploration cards from The Dreaded Ambull expansion that we didn't get to in the previous expedition, plus three others.
Now we had THREE characters that all started Uninspired and had specific things to do to flip their card to the Inspired side. Pious Vorne had to take out three hostiles with a single Cleansing Flame action. Dorg "The Wall" Brogan had to take out a hostile - on THEIR activation - which mean one of Dorg's actions had to be to go on Defence... and not have hostiles in contact... BUT be close enough to one that could... but ideally one that would be weak enough he could take it out with a single smash of his Power Maul... And then there is Grekh. The only way Grekh gets inspired is by spending inspiration points. He's slightly more likely to get them than others - he doubles the wound value of hostiles take out during his activation before rolling the Blackstone dice (d20) to see if he gains inspiration (by rolling equal to or less than said number. So that was one of our main things to try and do in the four Access Route cards - which COULD be all combats... or ALL challenges... or any mix... Not knowing how many Combats there might be, we would want to try and do all three of these things as quick as possible!
Exploration Card One - Combat
Off to a good start... not overwhelming number of terrifying, deadly hostiles... some conveniently groups for some Cleansing Flame!
And so that is what Pious Vorne did, right off the hop....
Ur-Ghuls burned. Card flipped. Check!
Mind you that didn't leave much for Grekh or Dorg...
WE kept repositioning Dorg and letting things charge up against him... but he just couldn't take them out!? Grekh stepped in and finished things off... but rolled too high on the Blackstone Die to gain inspiration... Killed everything... Picked up some ARchaeotech no one really needed all that badly and wandered out of there...
Exploration Card Two - Challenge... Sort of...
Card Number Two was kind of a Challenge... I mean, it was a Challenge card... but it was really a VERY SHORT POTENTIALLY DEADLY COMBAT... facing the Ambull!
Aaaaaand it was going first!
Time to use the Clarion's Infra-Wave Laud Hailers to distract the Am-Bull!
FOR ONCE the Laud Hailers worked and EVERYONE ended up going BEFORE the Ambull!!
So how to do this... there was much debate... Since Vorne already had her card flipped, we thought maybe Grekh could use up all the Destiny Dice to have a go at the Ambull. I mean, if he took it down, he'd automatically get ONE point of inspiration (only needing two more to gain Inspiration!)
So Vorne laid down some flame and scarpered off to the escape chamber.
Grekh moved up and took a few shots at the Ambull...
He used his Warpgate Amulet AND the Antedil Orb... neither worked... so he ran for it!
Everyone else ran for it - and all made it into the Escape Chamber - BUT it doesn't leave until the END of the turn, which meant the Ambull got to go before we left!
On it's first activation it charged - and got a little burned running through Vorne's flames.
Shadowguide, who was on overwatch, took a shot and did some more damage!
His second activation was to FALL BACK!! So Lucky!? So... Strange!? I guess it was taken aback by the Aeldari's acurate - and painful - long rifle fire, and that gave it pause... long enough for us to escape!
Exploration Card Three - Challenge
Espern Locarno was the leader at this time, so we took him out and shuffled them and revealed one to Amanda. This was easy-peasy! I had two questions
#1 Are you Xenos? If no, it's Pious Vorne. If yes, go on to Question #2
#2 Are you Green? If yes, Grekh. If no, Amallyn Shadowguide.
Only needed the first one...
As it was Pious Vorne!
Exploration Card Four - Combat
Last card before the Lair and... hardly anyone there!? So Grekh was on a murder Rampage, trying desperately to get some Inspiration points!
He blammed the two Spindle Drones...
He hunted down the Boreworms...
Alas... he gained no inspiration for such easy kills... and would remain uninspired as we entered...
The Lair of the Beast...
Ah yeah!
So this was interesting - the hostile groups started hidden and would not activate until revealed... so we didn't know what was where, exactly... but could do SOME sneaking about before things got really crazy and do some positioning. To succeed we needed to remove three egg counters - getting them safely to one of the escape chambers. picking one up required an action (4+) just like a search action - and then they filled one of the action squares on the card of the character that was carrying it (much like a wound does) reducing the number of activation dice it can roll (and, consequently, the number of action it could carry out in a turn.
WE figured the egg cluster that was closest to me - near the bottom of the picture above (and below...) could only be seen by one hostile group... so we could take them out and grab two of the eggs, summon the nearby chamber and get those eggs in there - then Shadow guide could sneak up as close as possible without being seen by any of the other hostiles and then SPRINT - using ALL the Destiny Dice - to get there and back in one activation...
Grekh had made a run at that first hostile group but was completely unable to do ANYTHING to any of the Spindle Drones that popped up. So Locarno - bearing the Spindle Amulet moved up to deal with them. Amallyn Shadow guide sprinted forward and summoned a Maglev Chamber.
The next turn everyone moved into position. Grekh grabbed BOTH of the eggs from the first cluster. Vorne set up some fire to give any hostiles that might pop up some disincentive to come our way.
Grekh got back to the chamber with the eggs and everyone was ready to cover Shadowguide rum for a third egg!
Unfortunately at the end of the turn, the event made a Boreworm show up in the Egg Cluster Shaodwguide was moving towards and moved out and blocked her way - so she would have to kill it (slowing her down some) before making her run for the egg and arousing the remaining Hostiles (one the second group was revealed ALL were revealed!)
She had little trouble slaying the Boreworm and made her run, grabbed the egg and made it back to the Maglev chamber!
It was clear that Dorg wasn't going to make it there in ONE turn... and the Enraged Ambull was VRY close... So Locarno ran up and smashed it with his Thunder Hammer - if a hostile is wounded by it, it is also STUNNED - and that would mean it would lose it's FIRST activation, just standing up.
Dorg slowing making his way to the escape chamber - but blocking the Ur-Ghuls from swarming in from the flank!
The first one had charged and set off a boobytrap Grekh had set on the very first turn, killing it. the Second charged Dorg and Dorg smashed it (finally flipping to his Inspired side). The other two smelling the charged remains of the first and hearing the death squeals of the second decided to just hand out where they were - both rolled Hold actions!
Locarno got out of there and Vorne burned the Ambull as best she could and then laid down some flame for it to move through once it got up and inevitably charged!
More flaming... more wounds on the Ambull - not nearly enough though!
The following turn the Ur-Ghuls went first - which was handy, because this one just bumped up against Dorg and though Dorg couldn't hit it back, the ur-Ghul wasn't able to do much to him.
The second one was still thinking about discretion being the better part of valour...
Then the Ambull got up and CHARGED!
This was actually (potentially) REALLY BAD - as Dorg could not possibly get into the Mag-lev chamber this turn as it was four hexes away - and with the Ambull being in the adjacent hex, Dorg would have to stop before getting in! Luckily most of the explorers had gone earlier in the initiative order and were all able to unload on it with Overwatch fire...
And... By the Light of the Emperor... they took it out!?
With no Ambull in the way, Dorg waltzed into the Maglev chamber and off they went!!!
And so... to see what was in the secret envelope!
At the beginning of the Quest the Sett VII facility was set up on the "under construction" side and, as there were no instruction in the rules on how it was to ever COMPLETE construction, I had pretty much guessed something in the envelope would say it's completed and what it would do ONCE it was complete
Sure enough, there was a card saying it's all set up now and it adds an extra step BERORE each expedition, where explorers with extra Archeotech saved up in their stasis chambers can go buy any of the goodies held within before heading into off on a new Expedition.
Locarno went and picked up another Mindsigil Trap (as they've come in handy)
And Grekh bought EVERYTHING at Kraav'cha-to... just because he could.
Amallyn Shadowguide actually gave up one of the things she's been carrying - just to keep one Archaeotech aside - so she could buy some Rad Maggot Salival Extract before our next expedition!
Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Tomorrow.... or... rather... later today (but after I go to sleep for a bit) we'll be playing Blackstone Fortress again and hopefully it won't take a week to get the next game report done!
I was planning on posting another June Games update on Monday or Tuesday as well.
As for painting... Well... The Cultists and new explorers for Blackstone Fortress were shoved aside by the Aaronautica Imperialis distraction - but I was hoping to finish up the Ork Dakkajets and get back to work on the Cultists... but now work on the Dakkajets have been stalled by the arrival of the ZOAT from the new Dark Alliance expansion for Blackstone Fortress (just released this past weekend) AND the new Fabius Bile miniature - and his little assistant (also just released this past weekend!)!?
Hopefully I'll find some time to get some paint on those and get them off the table... and the dakka jets... AND the Cultists and explorers in the next two weeks... because there is sure to be ANOTHER distraction the first week of July when the final book of the Psychic Awakening is released - and a few new figures with it!
Finnegan has agreed, in principle, to play some Kill Team sometime this week, now that he is officially DONE school for the term! So perhaps there will be another game report later in the week. He was suggesting he'd like to fight against Kreuger's Unvalids - because they just "seem fun"!
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