Rogue Stars: The Ucrian Harbingers

The latest crew to enlist at the Battleshed Barracks are five hardnosed and rather hirsute mercenaries calling themselves the Ucrian Harbingers. My first crew for Rogue Stars!

Ramming Speed with a chariot?!

A welcome return to further play testing of the Faustus Furius chariot racing rules in the Battleshed last night. With a few more rule tweaks and the addition of optional rules providing a race variation with more 'historical context' - or hard-core racing - the chariots were once again put through their paces.

Project Simian Ultra X

I can’t resist this one. A set of five new sculpts of tooled-up simians for use with any SF/RPG game.

A set of bio-engineered apes are sure to find a ledge somewhere on my lead mountain. After all, it’s a pretty inclusive mountain. Maybe these can sit alongside the Fightin’ Fungi on the totally bonkers but cool section. 

Heavybraids' Lads

Rampaging Beastmen are back. And once gain it was the resolute Dwarves in the front line, readying axe and maul to stop the brutes from their bestial tyranny. Or more importantly, getting their paws on a sizeable hoard of gold and trinkets. 

With the long - too long - awaited final release of the Hammer and Forge Dwarf supplement and the Advanced rules from Ganesha Games, it was an evocative step back into the Battleshed's numerous encounters and campaigns in the world of Songs of Blades and Heroes.

It's probing time!

 

Aliens have landed. They are the archetypical Greys that according to their advance spokesperson on Earth, the self-titled protagonist from the movie, Paul, have been totally misrepresented and us earthlings have nothing to fear. As he explained to two, rather incredulous Brits on a geek trip to the USA:

Graeme Willy: You are an alien!

Paul: To you I am, yes.

Graeme Willy: Are you gonna probe us?

Paul:  Why does everyone always assume that? What am I doing? Am I harvesting farts? How much can I learn from an ass?

An axe to the kneecaps always levels a fight

Valgen's Lads - my veteran Songs of Blades and Heroes Dwarf warband - enjoyed a good bit of blade work today. They were up against a new Barbarian warband, Wulfs's Warriors, controlled by a member of my local club who wanted a re-introduction to the delights of this most elegant game.

Of course, I was delighted to assist, SoBH being my favourite fantasy skirmish system. As my opponent was looking for a refresher, we played the Standard Rules (400 points) but included the Reaction system from the recently published Advanced SoBH.

A clearing full of barbarians!

It was a welcome return to Songs of Blades and Heroes in the Battleshed this week. 

It's been a few months since I last played my favourite fantasy skirmish system, with the veritable smorgasbord of alternative skirmish systems I'd just had to try in the intervening time. My regular gaming buddy and I, Sam Pate of Wee Blokes, set up a quick 400 point game using the new Advanced rules (ASOBH) from the Fightin' Fungi release.  

As neither of us have a painted our Fungi Fighters yet, it was an excuse for me to deploy my favourite warband instead - Dwarfs led by the old campaign leader, Valgen Maest.

Really Fightin' Fungi

A whole bunch of mushrooms were pushed through my letterbox recently.

No, not some illicit dealings in fungi narcotics, this was the culmination of Ganesha game's recently successful 'Fightin' Fungi' Kickstarter.

The Advanced fantasy skirmish rules and miniatures based on Songs of Blades and Heroes.

 

Fightin Fungi - rules playtest #1

"Why was the mushroom happy? Because he was a fun-gi!"

With both Arabianknight and I backing Ganesha Games Kickstarter for the SoBH game, Fightin Fungi, we were keen to play test the new rules available to backers. So down at Arabianknight’s Gaming Emporium we both deployed a quickly assembled 350 point warband for a simple Capture the Shard of Power, (or something like that!), scenario.

As this was a rules play test, our rosters – certainly mine anyway – were created primarily towards testing out some of the expanded array of abilities (traits), the new weapon/armour rules and the Reaction system. We both forewent the long list of new Magic abilities for this time, leaving that for another playtest.

Fightin' Fungi!

As my follower knows, I'm a big fan of Ganesha Game's popular Song of Blades and Heroes, so it was no surprise to see their first Kickstarter, Fightin' Fungi, being quickly backed. 

Not only do we have a very entertaining new range of beguiling characters to play with, we'll be getting the much anticipated new rule expansion for Magic, new attributes tables such as individual weaponry and most intriguingly, a Reaction system! 

The play test rules are available to backers. SoBH just gets better and better!

The First Law's last stand

Galan and his elf retinue, the Woodland Guardians, have been commissioned by a very shady business-man from the Gurkish Empire to acquire potential 'human resources' from an number of small, weakly defended locations - including Ostenlet. Thankfully for the townsfolk, The First Law crew are billeted in the town and are certainly not about to let themselves and the poor wee townsfolk be snatched. However, the frightened peasants will fiercely fight off any attempts to enslave them but unfortunately, due to their panic, might also resist any assistance from their would-be rescuers!

After they failed to rescue Frederik dan Ferengis's caravan from both the Ogre attack and Galan's scheming elves, the First Law warband made a slow and dissonant trek back from The Wilds to Ostenlet, where the crew were planning to disband the expedition and depart on their separate ways. Unfortunately, The Wilds lived up to its name. A poorly concealed hunter's trap whilst they were negotiating a thick patch of wooded undergrowth, seriously wounded an unusually distracted Ferro Maljinn. It was likely to be back to the mud for the ex-slave from the arid Gurkish south. However, Bayaz was curiously instant she recovered and resolved to get her back to Ostenlet.

Caravan of Forlorn Hope

Happy New Year!

It's been a few weeks since my last post, what with all the annual holiday festivity malarkey creating the usual distractions. Now normal service is slowly resuming, with the long, dark wintry Scottish winter well into its stride and limiting me to mostly indoor activities, I can look forward to embarking on my hugely over-ambitious gaming projects for 2015. Some of which will no doubt be encouraged by my first trade convention visit of the year to York (Vapnartak), down in Englandshire, at the end of this month.

The first After Action Report of 2015 is actually from the last tabletop rumble of the old year - battle 10 of our long running Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign between my 'First Law' humans and Arabianknight's Guardian elves. This scenario, The Lost Caravan, was taken from Hour11's excellent scenario conversions  The scoring was 1VP for killing an Ogre and 1 VP for every 20 points of the opposing warband taken out. Most VPs wins...

A 'spiked' keg, Zombies and the Scooby Gang!

This week I made the regular, but a rather bracing brisk walk on this occasion, down the hill to Arabianknight’s refuge of gaming delight, on a dreich Scottish winter evening. We’d planned to re-visit the congenial Star Wars: Pod Racing, however with one thing or another, we ended up playing a hastily arranged game of Fear and Faith instead. Arabianknight had selected another delightfully wacky scenario from the ‘Kooky Teenage Monster Hunters’ supplement, Zombie Kegger!

Nothing says you’re grown up like going to collect a college kegger…they’re totally great…except when some big bad nasty spikes the hooch with zombie juice!

Our game had the zombie hoard protecting the 'spiked' keg from the Scooby Gang. Yep, they’re back! They were last seen in Zoinks! It's Freddy Kreugar!  I opted for the zombies, but quickly regretted the decision after having a closer look at their anaemic stats! But hey, what did I expect – they’re zombies! The Zombie Kegger scenario included rules for picking up or throwing the keg, especially useful for the defenders. Also, any monster carrying the keg could deliver a dose of ‘zombie juice’ to any destroyed model, spending an action to raise the model as a Party zombie!

The Thief was robbed?!

Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign game 9, ‘The Heist’, was a fitting title as Bayaz and his lads "wuz robbed!"

Liquid Courage, a Buxom Barmaid, a drink spilled...

Bayaz, First of the Magi, suspecting mutinous thoughts amongst his weary warband, leads them to an infamous drinking establishment hoping to re-tie the bonds that have led them thus far on their adventure. As he enters the forecourt and sights the huge Ogre bouncer brooding next to the entrance, with snatches of laughter, pipe music and a curious mix of odours emanating from inside, he halts the warriors. "The Blue Oyster Bar: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."  With that warning, the warriors gleefully head inside...

Not so merrily down the river

After a long summer hiatus, our SoBH campaign game between arabianknight's Woodland Realm elves and my First Law humans resumed with an unusual challenge - a spot of river rafting! This scenario, The Haunted Wreck. 

The warbands have heard of the wreck of a treasure ship which was broken up by a violent storm. Only one sailor, by the name of McGuffin, survived and he was driven mad by his ordeal. He keeps saying, "their dead hands reached for me. They were dead I tell you! They reached for me..."

Both warbands seemingly commissioned the same carpenter to provide a couple of basic but hopefully sturdy rafts, so it was on a fresh autumn day the two parties found themselves anxiously standing on riverside beaches and arguing amongst themselves who would be the raft pilots. For the First Law crew, Black Dow was volunteered as he was still nursing an injury and new recruit 'Red Hat', wanting to impress, volunteered to pilot the second. Threetrees was recovering from his previous injuries and stayed ashore, although the others thought this was probably for the best as the muscle-mountain might sink the raft!

So it was that the first raft got awkwardly underway, with Red Hat, Logan, Ferro and Jezal on board. The remaining warriors followed on the second raft, with Black Dow grumbling at the helm, Bayaz unsuccessfully attempting to appear resolute and Curnden Craw shouting jibes to his compatriot, Red Hat in the lead raft. After a very nervous hour of crashing into banks, almost capsizing and a couple of crew overboard incidents, the bedraggled human warband headed down-river.

The humans eventually spot the elves ahead on their rafts - heading straight towards a large wreck beached on one of the rivers numerous islands. Game on! Bayaz watched the elves come alongside the wreck whilst letting one of their crew nimbly spring aboard. Almost immediately there is a loud pop, the air appearing to momentarily shimmer. A figure appears near the bow of the wreck in the garb of a pirate captain! The ethereal captain raises his sword and gives a rictus grin. More 'pops' and 'shimmers' follow; a nightmare crew of ghostly skeletal warriors and archers form up alongside the pirate captain.

Bayaz quickly recovers from his surprise and shouts orders for this rafts to steer clear of the wreck for now, hoping the elves and the mysterious pirate crew will be so pre-occupied with each other it'll allow his warband to take advantage of the situation. 

The elves board and quickly engage enemy skeleton warrior and archers. A hard fight ensues, with the elves valiantly skirmishing on the deck against the skeletal warriors, with supporting fire from their archers on the rafts. The skeletal archers return fire, with arrows grazing armour and shields on both sides. The elves eventually manage to get a couple of their warriors behind the pirate captain and, after overcoming their Fear, they attack. The pirate captain screeches and desperately attempts to counter the skilful and focused attack from the elves.

But it was too late, the elves rain blows  and with a deafening 'crack' which momentarily stuns all the combatants, the pirate captain quickly leeches out of existence. The skeletal warriors all stop fighting and as one run to the wrecks sides and jump overboard, following their captain into oblivion , their dry bones sending up an acrid smelling, hissing steam cloud wherever they hit the water.

The meantime humans eventually come alongside and try to take out the rearguard of elves still on ship (transfix from Bayaz, Curnden fluffs his boarding). Opportunistic? Och Aye!

Whilst the elves regrouped and uncouple from the wreck. Red Hat, quickly mastering his piloting skills , manoeuvres his raft against the current and blocks the elves. The elves, still battle high, take the initiative and board first. Melee ensues. A very hard fight, with blades and arrows flying. Ferro, Logan fall. Jezal is pushed overboard but comes up on downstream island. Red Hat sizes up the situation - being alone, outnumbered and still holding onto the tiller, abandons ship and ends up on same island as Red Hat.

The humans are all but in rout, so the elves confident and treasure-laden, but typically merciless...sent an arrow Red hat's way whilst semi-drowned and beached. It was all Bayaz could do but order his raft to divert to the other side of the island  to pick up Jezal and the injured Red Hat.

Bugger! Another CP lost. The First Law crew still weary after the last two rough encounters. However, with the tower of Threetrees and  the exuberant Nicomo Cosca back in action, the crew are seriously wanting to recover pride.. and treasure.

In the intertest of balance... the elves point of view.

Drunken dwarfs, feisty barbarians and one big chest!

My regular Saga opponent, Ian, has been following my SoBH adventures and was keen to give it a go. So he assembled a 350 point human/barbarian gang and made a visit to the Battltleshed. 

Strangers in the camp

Pictured below are the latest recruits to Magi Bayaz's First Law crew, ready for the resumption of our SoBH campaign. Bayaz's warband coffers are dangerously low at this point with Caul Shivers being gruesomely sent back to the mud by the devious elves and both Nicomo Cosca and Black Dow injured during the last encounter in the mountains. 

Whilst the warband recuperated for a few weeks after the battle, Bayaz gave the young Jezal dan Luthar the chance to use his verbal skills more productively, other than irritating the rest of the warband, and sent him off to negotiate for some half decent fighters at a very decent price. 

Upon his return Jezal was accompanied by two dangerous looking individuals by the names of Red Hat (left) and Curnden Craw (right). Both came with reputation, so how Jezal had managed to recruit such individuals, given his limited coinage, is now common speculation amongst the other fighters...