Thy Soul To Keep - part 13

The Night of the Comet

The portents show a star will fall from the heavens and three warbands race to collect the bounty they assume it will contain... but all is not as expected.

Battleplan (Open War cards):
Objective: The Comet
Twist: The Dead of Night

3 Players - Triumph & Treachery turn sequence

The Rotmoons: 76 Renown

Kapitán Alunzo da Leeva - Orruk Warboss

Hammerhead - Ogor Crusher
Rockeye Fuerte - Ogor Leadbelcher Thunderfist

Bortagno and 8 Orruk Boyz

Don Snotto - Grot

The Heralds of Nagash: 76 Renown

An'sec, the Knight of Shrouds
The Whyte Lady - Soulblight Vampire
Lord Radclyffe and the riders of Ordeschal - 4 Hex Wraiths

The Gilded Hand: 70 Renown

Kalyustar of the Gilded Hand, Soulchemist - Collegiate Arcane Battle Wizard

Fernando amd the Fancy Fencers - 6 Freeguild Guard

Lucius Scopos and the Venithyan Marksmen - 8 Freeguild Crossbowmen

Karol's Cuirassiers - 4 Freeguild Pistoliers

Arriving at the start of Battle Round 2:

The Raidho Othalas: 45 Renown
3 Endrinriggers
3 Skywardens

~ 🕱 ~

El Doctoro and Juan Dee both looked up as some of the Rotmoons entered their makeshift study. The candles guttered in the wind until the door was once more closed. The orruk shaman muttered his annoyance and got up. He shuffled around the room relighting the candles that the wind had snuffed out, using their still-lit neighbours flames. When he was done he settled back onto his chair and picked up another bundle of papers. After leafing through them for a few minutes he picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and held it above a notebook for a few moments while he stared at the ceiling.

He started writing When he reached the end of the page he tore it out and handed the paper to Juan Dee. Dee looked it over then added his own notes and passed it back. El Doctoro considered the additions for a moment then let the page fall to the floor, among a dozen others.

Don Snotto turned to Megellun and gave him a meaningful look. Megellun nodded and whispered "They is gonna be up all night again, ain't it alike I said to you already? Scratching away and chuckin' their scraps all over."

Don Snotto whispered back "What is it they're doing?"

"Jiggered if I know mate." hissed Megellun.

"More ink! You lazy swabs, jump to it!" The grots both jumped as El Doctoro shouted at them.

~ 🕱 ~

As daylight faded the Rotmoons set off into Wortbad again, with instructions from El Doctoro of where to find the landing site of the comet that should fall from the heavens that night.



It seemed that Juan Dee and El Doctoro were not the only mystics who had predicted the starfall.



The Heralds of Nagash and the Gilded Hand were all on the move in the darkness.





Kalyustar took up a vantage point in Deathwatch Hall, overlooking the Skydock.



His Fearsome Reputation and the Soul Steal portent combined to drain the wizened and fetid soul from the Troggoth, who fell to the ground with blank staring eyes. Even Trollumbus's mighty constitution could not knit together that kind of injury.



The Rotmoons Bold Rikk and Deestro were shot down by crossbowmen as the Gilded Hand hurried forward.



Da Leeva was charged by two crossbowmen and a pistoleer.



Rockeye the Thunderfist slammed a Hexwraith with his Leadbelcher cannon.



Another Hexwraith took on a pair of pistoleers.



The Kapitán killed the crossbowmen and wounded the pistoleer.



Two orruk privateers fled but the Kapitán impaled the pistoleer with his kutlass!



The Kapitán used the Sum of All Fears to make two Gilded Hand Swordsmen flee and the glimmer of light overhead turned out not to be the comet, but a Kharadron ship!





The Raidho Othalas dropped from the clouds!



Kalyustar's Fearsome Reputation combined with a portent of Precursor Wounds opened sorcerous injuries in the Kapitán's flesh.



...while Bortagno and the Ogors battled Hexwraiths.



The Endrinriggers and Skywardens swooped forward.



Another volley of crossbow fire darted through the trees.



Two pistoleers charged another Hexwraith and one of the pistoleers died.



Kapitán da Leeva got ready to charge Kalyustar but the wizard ordered his men to guard him.



The Fancy Fencers rushed through the grounds of Deathwatch Hall. So Da Leeva took another tack.



The Rotmoons charged the Skywardens and Endrinriggers, Kapitán da Leeva killed an Endrinrigger but the other killed the Kapitán by stabbing the big orruk in the back.

Tambor was pistol-whipped, Geedo was speared, Bortagno was cut down by a passing Hexwraith that then rode through the very walls of the Skydock, and galloped up to the landing platform!



The last two Rotmoons orruks, Percy Percy and Anzuelo, fled - only the Ogors were left from the privateer crew.

A huge volume of Kharadron gunfire at the Nighthaunts did nothing.



The White Lady caught up with kalyustar!



The actual comet finally landed - just outside Deathwatch Hall, right next to the crossbowmen, covering them with a shower of dirt and small bone fragments.



A Skywarden attacked the Skydock, killed the garrisoning Hexwraith and wounded the Knight of Shrouds that had joined him.



The Ogors and the Kharadron formed a hasty, and very temporary alliance.



The portent Sign of the Dead Flesh healed all the wounds the Knight of Shrouds had received as he occupied the Skydock.



The Ogors charged into the building in a cloud of blackpowder smoke.



Kalyustar used a Shield of Bones but the White Lady charged him. He used a Token of Time to heal 2 wounds then retreated! He ran back to Deathwatch Hall while a pistoleer dealt with the last Hexwraith.





A vast and sustained volley of fire was aimed at An'Sec but he shrugged it all off. The Fancy Fencers duelled with the White Lady. She killed their Piper, fed on his blood and rejuvenated herself!

Another volley of fire scattered the essence of An'Sec but the Knight of Shrouds was saved by the Ring of Immortality once more! His spirit coalesced again near Fallowsend House. The Kharadron chased him and shot him again. This time he could not reform himself and he was gone, dissipating like smoke in the wind.

Kalyustar aimed an Arcane Bolt at the White Lady.



And with that the Gilded Hand scored a Major Victory by securing the comet!

~ 🕱 ~

The next morning while nursing a mug of rum, Kapitán Alunzo da Leeva considered recent events. The Rotmoons had fought a long, and mostly unsuccessful, campaign around Wortbad and they seemed no closer to getting a ship. Their allies, Hammerhead and Rockeye the Ogors, and Bolet the Fungoid Cave Shaman, had not been a great deal of help. They had only achieved one big win on their own (and their only other win was in alliance with the Heralds of Nagash!). It may be time for desperate measures. It was time to fight fire with fire.



Viktor's side of this tale is here.

Oil and Blood, Tor Megiddo - part 4

The Stranger

The Slipgibbets' heavy truck. This beast of a transport was cobbled-together from about half a dozen other vehicles. Its two engines spewed black smoke as it thundered across the rust-coloured deserts of Tor Megiddo with the Slipgibbets riding in the open-topped flatbed, hiding behind heavy steel armour plates.

Flood tried, for a third time that morning, to clear the dust from the inside of his goggles but he only made it worse. Clouds of rust-orange desert dust swirled around the truck as it roared over the sands. Flood put his goggles back on and stood up again, hanging on to the armour plates as the Stranger bounced and rattled along.

On the horizon he could just make out the shape of the promethium refinery they were heading toward, Station 534, the shanty town around it known as False Hope was still invisible at this distance. Much easier to see was the column of black smoke that billowed from the refineries' towers.

The rest of the gang were hunched down in the back, doing their best to hold on and keep out if the wind and the flying sand. Atlas was asleep somehow. Flood was tempted to kick the brute but the thought was interrupted by a loud bang - a bullet hit the side of the truck! He ducked down and shouted at the others. They scrambled to grab weapons and get themselves into position. A second bullet hit the armour and more zipped overhead.

Flood checked his shotgun again and looked around. The gang were just about ready.

"Now!"

+++

The Stranger will mostly get used as narrative scenery, in the gang's deployment zone, but we might come up with other uses, such as the Convoy mission.

Painting: after painting a few semi-random splatters of Typhus Corrosion for a bit of gritty texture, I masked the wheels and chassis before spraying as the cannibalised Ork Trukk was already painted and I didn't need to repaint the underside. I black spray undercoated the whole thing, spot-coloured with Mournfang Brown spray and then zenithal basecoated it with Mechanicus Standard Grey spray.

When that was dry I dry-brushed everything Ushabti Bone. I free-hand painted the "stenciled" number 8 that can just be made out on both sides.  Washed with Agrax Earthshade all over. Then sponged-on some Mechanicus Standard Grey over the stenciled eights, to get a chipped-paint effect.

The weathering was a wash, on all the lower areas and a few random bits further up, with 1:10 Mournfang Brown :: water. The I washed it again, going over about 3/4 of the Mournfang'd areas with 1:10 Trollslayer Orange :: water.

The spotlight is painted white then washed with slightly watered-down Nihilakh Oxide. The "lens" next to the cab's front view port was painted Khorne Red and washed with Carroburg Crimson.

Oil and Blood, Tor Megiddo - part 3

The Stranger

The Slipgibbets' heavy truck. This beast of a transport was cobbled-together from about half a dozen other vehicles. Its two engines spewed black smoke as it thundered across the rust-coloured deserts of Tor Megiddo with the Slipgibbets riding in the open-topped flatbed, hiding behind heavy steel armour plates.

+++

The Stranger will mostly get used as narrative scenery, in the gang's deployment zone, but we might come up with other uses, such as the Convoy mission.

This was a heavily converted Ork Trukk that I ripped the Orks off and replaced the cab with a Dunecrawler hull. The slab-armoured sides are mostly made from plasticard and the double row of blades on the front is actually 4 Ork trukk rams stuck together.

So far it is just black undercoated, spot-coloured Mournfang Brown spray and zenithal basecoated Mechanicus Standard Grey (I masked the wheels and chassis before spraying as the Ork Trukk was already painted and I didn't need to repaint the underside). Its paint job will eventually be very battered and weathered, like my Mutant Mechanicus Sumpcralwer and Kastelans, with a stenciled number 8 that should just be made out on both sides.

Oil and Blood, Tor Megiddo - part 2

I have started making some "civilians" for Tor Megiddo - some mutant merchants and traders to hang around the shanty towns of False Hope and Malady. They will just be background models to make the settlements feel lived-in, they probably won't be active in the actual games.

They all need some baggage of one sort or another added - packs, water flasks, pouches, etc. Once they are painted I will try to make some kind of dreadful post-apocalyptic marketplace for them to sell their revolting goods from from.



Although I am making them as non-combatants this one is a kind of bodyguard for the merchants.















"Pebbles"

Oil and Blood, Tor Megiddo - part 1

Kastorax crouched in the shadow of a large rocky outcrop and watched the distant colossus crawl along the canyon floor. The giant walking machine lumbered along in a cloud of orange dust. At this distance no sound reached Katorax but the Techwitch knew its thunderous footsteps would be shaking the ground beneath the colossus. His augmented eyes whirred and clicked as he zoomed out and adjusted the focus, and brought a wider field of vision into view. A swarm of smaller vehicles accompanied the colossus, a mismatched collection of smaller walkers, grav and wheeled bikes, a tracked crawler and a wheeled truck.

As he watched a group of them peeled off from the colossus. Muzzle-flashes flickered from the lead elements and Kastorax followed the direct of fire and saw what they were shooting at: a pack of junk-skimmers raced over the nearest ridge! The convoy’s defenders outnumbered them three-to-one but the junk-skimmers powered toward them at full speed.

One of the wheeled bikes disappeared in a sphere of white light and Kastorax jumped: he knew suddenly why the junk-skimmers were so confident in their attack. They had an archeotech weapon! A second wheeled bike was immolated, then a third and a grav bike made four. The rest of the pack scattered and fled back to the colossus.

A cloud of black smoke and a stab of fire from the walking hulk was followed a few seconds later by a thump and a deep rumbling boom. The colossus had fired its main cannon. The kinetic round smashed a junk-skimmer to bouncing fragments but the other skimmers kept coming. They probably knew they had a minute or two before the cannon would be ready to fire again. A white sphere of light formed on the colossus’s front left leg and the monstrous machine pitched over at a precarious angle. A second white flash enveloped the cannon turret and a bloom of dirty yellow fire erupted as the magazine exploded. The colossus was ended.

+

Kastorax was gone from his shady lookout. He hurried back to the rest of his warband and their vehicle with uncharacteristic energy, born of excitement and greed. He wanted one of those archeotech energy weapons more than anything he could ever remember wanting!

+++

We are planning a Necromunda campaign, set in the rust-coloured deserts of Tor Megiddo, as a follow-up for the "event game" that took place in Helsinki last year (and is now featuring in White Dwarf in a series of 3 or 4 Blanchitsu articles). The campaign is called "Oil and Blood" and should start in about a month or two.

I plan to tie in the background to the Rhossum Secundus event game that is happening in Warhammer World this weekend. I know it is set on a different planet, but in my "headcanon" it is the same world as Tor Megiddo, though maybe on a different continent, as it seems to fit the spirit of that world perfectly. As I understand it, it's a kind of spiritual sequel: John Blanche liked Tor Megiddo and wanted to try a "big machines" themed game with a very similar feel. So he invited a group of like-minded gamers to each create a "colossus" and its crew. Details like choices of colour schemes and the style of the Techno-Barbarian gangs that have appeared for this game feel like the next evolution of the theme. From my point of view it feels like it is fleshing out the world a little more. Opening out the horizons to reveal a lot of possibilities for story-telling games within the Tor Megiddo setting.

So the Slipgibbets will actually get to see some action on the tabletop! I still regret not posting them to Helsinki so they could have featured in the background of the Tor Megiddo game, as NPCs or even inactive bystanders. And on that topic, I have started making some non-combatants for Tor Megiddo - some mutant merchants and traders to hang around the shanty towns of False Hope and Malady.