Greetings Terrans, it has been a while since I posted (again), been away on hols for a bit, plus work & study are both kicking the crap out of me at the moment… Finding the time to do anything else is just so damn difficult! That said, I did make my annual pilgrimage to Newark this past weekend – BOYL is one event I will always do my very best to attend. I has a blast this year, it was great to see so many familiar faces, plus I got to meet some awesome new people too. This year I put my Space Orks and my Praetorian Guard to good use, and I GM’d the ‘Last Stand at Glazer’s Creek’ scenario from WD222 on repeat. I managed to run the scenario three times, with a total of 11 individual games of Rogue Trader played (each run through has a variable number of assaults with each assault being a game). I didn’t get to see much else & I was bloody knackered by the end of the weekend, but it was so worth it. The results were as follows:
1st run through – James H (Orks) vs. Jesper (Praetorians), 5 games total. This was a bit of a practice run, refining rules & adjusting things for balance. Result was a narrow Orky win.
2nd -Paul D (Orks) vs. ‘other Paul’ (Praetorians), 3 games in total. Crushing Ork win – as an inexperienced Guard player, ‘other Paul’ was overwhelmed in the last round & couldn’t hold the farm.
3rd – Chris W (Orks) vs. ‘other Chris’ and Dan (Praetorians), 3 games in total. Narrow Praetorian win – mainly de to some masterful play from ‘other Chris’ in the final assault, (plus a little bit of luck with an out-of-control Ork Dreadnought torching a mob of Boyz!).
There were far too many twists and turns to list here, but suffice it to say that everyone got into the spirit, and this was a great narrative gaming experience. One highlight was having none other than Jervis Johnson (the gaming legend who wrote the scenario back in the day) stop by & chat a bit about the scenario! I was a bit star struck & didn’t dare ask for a photo, but he was a genuinely lovely guy who was so generous with his very limited time there. He probably doesn’t realise it but he made my bloody day 😊
Here are some pics to hopefully give you a flavour of the game:
The defending force – elements of the Dauntless 215th plus auxiliaries
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Ready for the 1st assault of the weekend
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Savage Orks closing quickly!
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Rogue Trader Arturo Lamina proves his skill in combat
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As does Captain Caine
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I think this is the start of the final assault of game 3 – look at all those Orks! Faasends of ’em!
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This mob of Orks were unimpressed with the imperial mortar fire!
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Rogue Trader Lamina at it again
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And Capt. Caine doing the same, despite sustaining grievous wounds to overwatch
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A heroic (and suicidal) dash over the barricade to deliver a devastating blast of flamer fire
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The Orks finally break, with just 5 humans left to defend Glazer’s Creek… Close!
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Huge thanks to Jesper & James, Paul & Paul, and Chris, Dan & Chris for being such excellent players – you all made it a great experience with tons of laughs, tension, excitement, and occasional flashes of tactical genius! I hope you lads all enjoyed it as much as I did.
Greetings Terrans, just a quicky from me today – been horribly busy of late, so not much done in the way of hobby. However, my pal Mark from Heresyofus has sent me a thing that I’m absolutely thrilled with. You might recall that Mark is a real-life Hephaestus with the old 3D printing, and he has produced some cracking stuff to support and enrich several of my projects, (including Kulo’s Castle and Talos!). Well now he is turning his hand to computer generated 2D art as well.
Inspired by my Realm of Warcry project and using a program called Midjourney AI, along with Photoshop, he gone done this for me:
Now I don’t know about you, but this has brought the whole Chaos aspect of the project bang into focus in a way that just isn’t possible with minis… This is what is in my head when am painting, and I absolutely love that Mark has been able to capture that on ‘paper’.
Greetings Terrans, how goes it? On my last RoW post I promised I’d have some Chaos Dwarves to share with you… I am a man of my word:
I am absolutely delighted by these – there are only two modern Chaos Dwarves that I know of (one in the Spire Tyrants set, and one in the Iron Golems set), so I knew I had to be creative. I first looked at the Warcry book for the forces of Order to make sure that Fyreslayers were in there. Happily they are, and so I got myself a set of 5 Fyreslayer ‘Hearthguard Berzerkers’ as my start point. I cut down the heads & replaced the original helmets with the top sections of various Chaos Space Marine helmets, (I’m not a fan of big-hat Chaos Dwarves, so this more classic look is perfect for me). A bit of Greenstuff was needed to create hair, add noses back in and so on, and I changed the belly-plate glyphs for skulls, but overall, the conversion work was actually pretty straight forward.
I went with a very pale flesh, and made the Fyreslayer runes look a bit more Chaotic and infected – very satisfying work. Here they are individually:
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I am beyond pleased with how these four turned out – this is exactly the kind of thing that got me excited about the project in the first place. Riding that wave of excitement, I did another write:
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The Tale of Scynir the Architect – Part 3
Scynir’s warband rested in shattered temple, warmed by the campfire, and feasting on the food and wine of the vanquished band of hunters. Her injured warriors had been patched up, and baring a few scars, all would make a full recovery. The Beastmen were in particularly boisterous form, and, delighted with the rescue of the shaman Gorshag, they were already drunk in celebration.
Scynir did not join in the drinking – she was unsettled. For a while she had been sensing a strange source of power, and it was growing closer. The captive elf sat next to Scynir, and the quiescence of her bovine skull indicated that there was no danger in the vicinity, yet still Scynir felt uneasy. She closed her eyes and meditated on the sensations. The power was sorcerous, but it was unlike her own power or that of Gorshag, which relied on the winds of magic. Instead, this power seemed to be self-contained, bound to objects that somehow gave the magic form. The magic itself was structured and ordered, but had the distinct taste of corruption and chaos. It was intriguing! She felt the whispers of her Lord Tzeentch caress her mind.
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“Relax little one, I have a gift for you.”
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She was drawn out of her meditation by shouts of alarm, and the angry bellowing of Beastmen. She looked across the fire, and saw that four Dwarves stood impassively in the midst of all the clamour. They all carried exquisitely crafted axes, and were clad only in loincloths, belly plates and horned helms, and of course, the full beards common to Dwarves everywhere. Their otherwise bare flesh was pallid in the firelight, and the unmistakable runic implants of the Fyreslayers were hammered into their heavily muscled flesh. Scynir had met this kind of Dwarf and their marvellous golden runes before, but these were not of the pure gold that she had previously seen… Rather they were of a dark blue steel, and they hummed with chaotic power.
One of the more hot-headed Ungors leapt at the Dwarves, the firelight glinting on the flint dagger that it held in its clenched fist. With a yell, it stabbed at the nearest dwarf, but instead of cutting through flesh, the blade shattered with a crack as it touched the skin, and the steel runes flared with a baleful blue light. The Beastman barely had had a moment to register surprise before a blow with the flat of the Dwarf’s axe blade sent the poor creature crashing unconscious to the ground. Scynir stood and shouted at her warband to hold any further attacks, and once order had been restored, she addressed the Dwarves.
“You are bold fellows to march into my camp unannounced… Who are you and what do you want” she demanded.
One of the Dwarfs stepped forward and held up a fist that clenched the long hair of four severed heads. Scynir recognised them as some of the hunters who had ran when her warband attacked the camp. The Dwarf spoke:
“I am Hathorn, called Oathbreaker, and we caught these worms out in the hills… We teased a merry tune out of them with fire and blade, and it seems that we have a common purpose. These are my brothers, Gurlaff, Figurt and Gorf, and we are exiled by our kin for following the word of Tzeentch and experimenting with the ancestral runes of our people. We serve the same master as you do, and we would join you if you will have us.”
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“See? Some delicious morsels of power for you to study little one – see how I reward your service?”
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Scynir nodded to the Dwarves and indicated a place at her side:
“Greetings Hathorn, our Master bids me to accept you and your kin into my warband. Come, sit with me and tell me about these experiments”
The remaining warband members settled down as the Dwarves made themselves comfortable. From just four warriors, the band had grown to fourteen plus Scynir herself, and was rapidly becoming a force to be feared.
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I hope you enjoyed that folks, more to follow.
Oh, and one other thing – I had a message last week that my Blog has just had its 8th Anniversary!! I don’t think I would’ve believed anyone if they had told me 8 years ago that Leadballoony would still be going strong in 2022, but here we are… Funny old world eh? :-)
Leadballoony - It's a lead thing 