Shadows of Commorragh - part 21, game 2

Cornered and Surrounded

"Come in, sweet one, come in!" said Lakbyrn, with a voice like honeyed cakes and a grin like silvered needles.

"I will continue my tale if I may?

When last we spoke I told of how the Void Phoenixes bested the Bleaksouls, driving them back and sabotaging the works of their mistress, did I not?

Well, the tail is not done, oh no! Not by half, nor even half of a half. The Bleaksouls were not so foolish or naive as the Void Phoenixes took them to be. There was no elixir secreted into the Voidfall Tower! It is not so, nor was it ever so. Not a drop. It was a ruse, a trick, and the Bleaksouls were fully aware of it, so they were. They were not used by their kind, and generous mistress Lady Anielyn, to lay a trap for Lord Daisan's puppets. It is not so, nor was it ever so.

When the Void Phoenixes discovered the deception, they fled the Faded Obelisk and made for a webway portal that would return them to Daisan's fortress. But the Bleaksouls knew their territory and stepped ahead of them using hidden pathways, and waited in their path in the ruins of the Shuddervault.

~ 🝁 ~

The light grew bruised, as though the stolen sun was suddenly curtained by an encroaching storm. But the colour was wrong, as was the quality of that glow, its texture, and the smell of air, damp earth and still water, menaced with its eldritch promise. In that strange, wild, drowning light, no one looked as they did before.

Two of the Void Phoenixes were separated from their kin, and the Bleaksouls closed the noose around them, in a clatter of laughter and a rattle of blades.

Jair and Torc found themselves hunted and outnumbered.

The shadows squirmed and the trap was sprung.

The Bleaksouls were all around them.

The two Void Phoenixes did their best to escape, but the net was cast around them.

They backed themselves into a corner.

Izurad pounced, his hektari blade slashed at Torc!

Morghdrax laughed as his followers closed in.

The Void Phoenixes fired at the nearest Bleaksouls.

Morghdrax was saved by luck and sheer spite.

Jair deftly climbed up a ruin to a webway portal, but it was cold and unresponsive.

Torc tried to fend off Izurad's attacks.

Lann of the Unyielding Fire and more Void Phoenixes arrived to try to rescue their cohorts.

The other Void Phoenixes arrived in the Shuddervault, behind the Bleaksouls.

Torc fell back from Izurad but the Wych chased her into Lakbyrn's waiting blade!

Morghdrax was about to fire on Torc and Jair...

When a warning shout from Ravneth alerted Morghdrax to the Void Phoenixes behind him!

Lann tried to extract his followers.

He raced into the fray to try to save Torc.

Ravneth was wounded!

Izurad finally defeated Torc and leapt toward Lann.

Blades clashed and sang!

Bahreneq caught Jair as she jumped down from the platform. The Wych made short, bloody work of her.

Ravneth and Morghdrax lunged at the newcomers.

Lakbyrn and Izurad fought Lann, and Inghfar the Ranger was ambushed by Yariaq who leapt out of the shadows.

Bahreneq gloated over her opponent's corpse.

The Ranger was stabbed in the back by Yariaq.

Morghdrax revelled in his victory!

Lann was the lone survivor of the Void Phoenixes!

Suddenly there was silence in the Shuddervault.

"Let him go!" Morghdrax Bleaksoul called across the ravaged street as he drew himself up to his full height, swept his sword vertical into a mocking salute and bowed with an ostentatious flourish.

"Let him flee back to his master and tell of what happened here. And let him pass along Lady Anielyn's kindest regards."

~ 🝁 ~

This ended up being such a brutal game! The mission was Surrounded, from Elites. Viktor was the defender and I was the attacker. To win the game I had to makes sure every one of his Kill Team were either Out of Action or Shaken, otherwise victory would be his. At the end of turn 2 that was looking unlikely but I had a cracking turn 3! I managed to successfully charge with every single model in my warband and (making full use of the Combat Drug I rolled and the Power Through Pain bonuses!) managed to successfully eviscerate 5 models one after another. That left Viktor with only his Leader and a very tough Nerve Check! Lucky for me, he rolled badly and Lann of the Unyielding Fire was Shaken!

But even if I hadn't won, it still would have been a great game. Viktor's side of the story is here.

Soul Points:

Viktor 2

Saul 7

Shadows of Commorragh - part 20, game 1

A Knife in the Dark

“Hello little one, I’m glad you have returned to hear my story. Sit, sit, get comfortable. Our tale begins when Lady Anielyn, Succubus of the Blade Denied, instructed Morghdrax Bleaksoul to gather his warband at The Fading Obelisk, in Low Commorragh, to protect her project.

Far from the glories of the titanic central spires of the Dark City, are the trading districts of the old Aeldari empire. Even the lowliest of ports was once a realm of beauty, an architectural masterpiece… but that was millennia ago, and the ravages of civil war have not been kind.

Low Commorragh, an under-city of shattered and scavenged former glories: A realm teethed with ruins. Dilapidated fortress complexes and barter-ports spread out in every direction. Lesser Kabals riddle the extremities of the angular malachite-black spires with opportunistic growth. The labyrinthine depths of the outer zones are so congested that a traveller could roam and roam for months on-end without so much as a fleeting glimpse of a stolen sun.

Many are the realms that have been twisted beyond recognition by the tremendous upheaval of the Fall, and all are haunted by scavengers and spectres. Within the pitch-black catacombs of Low Commorragh lurk far larger and uglier creatures than the Drukhari, for they are prowled by the lost, and the feral thrive here. And this is where the Bleaksouls prowled the boarders of their employer’s dominion, lithe as cats set to watching for reaving dogs.

In the cerulean light of a dying sun, down where the past has grooved itself in the stones, down, down into places where men should not go, Morghdrax regarded his quarry with the half-moon of his needled grin as bright as a predator’s maw. They were here. He was sure. Here, sang his heart. Here, snarled the broken-backed need at the roots of his soul: The gasping, miserable whine of his want for revenge. Here in streets that might once have been marble and gold, glass and silver.

~ 🜾 ~

In the byzantine streets of the sprawls, his blood ran cold and his blade thirsted. He was both bold and desperate. Jaenis, a slender pilot masked in ruby-mirrors, laid her hand on Morghdrax’s shoulder and pointed at a distant ruin, half hidden by myrtle-darkness. Lissom figures moved through the streets. Through the ruins. Through the dark.

This day Morghdrax was accompanied by myself, Lakbyrn the Parched, and Ravneth, Jaenis, Bahreneq and Yariaq. You do not know those names yet, little one, but oh you will soon. And their tale is bloody and bitter.

Morghdrax uttered a single word and the gathered warband scattered to meet the threat, like hounds full of hate.

Some of those who passed through a shattered shrine secretly touched the statue of Khaine in the hope it would bring them luck. You know little one, of course, it would not.

The traitorous ex-Wych known as Excrucia Kharavyxis, Howling Banshee Exarch of The Void Phoenixes, led a group of followers of the Whispering God, and they slipped through the shadows cast by a cerulean stolen sun. Their footfalls as silent as moonlight.

They had been secretly recruited, or coerced, by Daisan Verkosian, Drachon of the Dying Sun.

Daisan ordered them to sabotage the elixir storage, hidden in the Voidfall Tower, owned by Lady Anielyn.

Bahreneq and Yariaq were elated at the prospect of the fight, they were eager to take on the Ynnari. Bahreneq twirled and laughed and her hydra gauntlets gleamed.

Ravneth and I hurried through the darkened streets below the tower. I knew those dismal streets all too well.

Morghdrax was twisted with raged as he watched the Ynnari use a webway portal to jump to the top of the tower. "How did they know where to look?" He wondered aloud. "Are we already betrayed?"

Most of the warband gathered in the street below.

While Morghdrax and Bahreneq used another webway portal to contest the tower and defend the elixir.

Torc the Dire Avenger paused his search and levelled his shuriken catapult at Morghdrax.

And fired a screeching burst of hypervelocity crystal projectiles. Morghdrax fell!

The Bleaksouls closed on the Void Phoenixes to prevent them from using the webway portal too.

Excrucia pounced on Jaenis with a haunting cry that heralded death.

Aeldari power swords blurred and clashed against hektari blades. But the Banshee knew all the tricks that the young Wych had in her repertoire.

Jaenis was no match for such an experienced and skilful fighter and she fell.

Excrucia gloated. For all her new ways, it seemed she was still a Drukhari at heart.

Ravneth crashed into the Banshee with bitter thirst for revenge filling his heart.

Bahreneq leapt across the platform at the top of the tower and slaughtered the Guardian.

Yariaq duelled with Uless the Banshee. She bested him but the potions coursing through his veins innured him to the wound she inflicted .

The Dire Avenger intercepted Bahreneq...

But it was merely to delay her - behind him a plasma grenade detonated and destroyed the stash of the elixir hidden in the pyramid.

The Bleaksouls fell back from the tower and disappeared through another webway portal with words of hate and spite on their lips. Down they went, down, down to the oubliette of the Hex. They would be healed and rejuvenated and return.

They would be back and they would have bloody retribution."

~ 🜃 ~

And so, finally, we began the Shadows of Commorragh campaign! We have been planning, building and looking forward to this moment for so long! I think it has taken 18 months so far.

The first game was fast and fairly brutal (even if I seem to have forgotten how to play Kill Team in the last month!) and even though we didn't play many turns (!) it was still really fun and satisfying. The mission was Vital Sabotage (from Elites) and we used just under 60 points worth of models each.

Viktor was lucky to find the location of the elixir in the first objective marker he searched, and even luckier to roll the 6 he needed to sabotage it on the first attempt!

Soul Points:

Viktor 2

Saul 2

Viktor's version of the first clash is here.