Mini Narrative Campaign - Opinion's and Thoughts

Chuck and I had originally recorded about 40 minute worth of content to go along with this, however when I returned to edit the sound files we discovered that the microphone I have appears to have been broken at some point in time.  There was a loud buzzing throughout the recording that no amount of noise reduction filters was going to get rid of.  Being a fair stickler for quality as I can manage I refused to let this go so Chuck and I have compiled our thoughts into writing instead.
I have provided a scan of the scenario's we used excepting the Siege Scenario from Blood in The Badlands as that book is both still in print and more of about 5 pages than 1.  Still, this will at least give you an idea of what we're talking about in each one.

Game 1: Scouts & Picketts
(Skirmish Scenario)

Scouts & Pickets Scenario: General's Compendium

Joe:
You can tell when playing with the Skirmish rules that the game clearly was not designed for 8th edition.  Beyond the obvious differences in movement being double for a charge and random the number despartiy for 2-4 point models probably didn't exist in 6th.  I'm sure they didn't intend for you to be able to field 80 men in a Skirmish game but with the low cost of troops in this edition you could easily field making it last far too long for what it is.  The scenario was interesting and fun.  I think that some of the rules are a bit over used or not strong enough such as the knock down/out of action results.

Chuck:
Definitely like Joe said above.  A game meant for another rules edition, but it did bring back the classic 6th style play.  The real fun was the ability to resort back to a Mordheim type of game play and move models individually of their unit making for a more free flowing game.

Joe:
The real difference in the game was model count.  Luckilly as Skaven all of my troops are cheap; so much so that I even went the expensive route purcahsing Stormvermin.  The reason I went this route was under the assumptiont that Chuck would be fielding Chaos Dwarfs and I would need the WS 4 to have a chance at success.  The choice of Stormvermin is in the end what won me this mission.

Chuck:
I ended up using Hobgoblins as the Dwarfs were not only too expensive, but they also broke the rules of the scenario that we couldn't have models with an AS better than 5+.  I thought the Sharp Stuff throwing would give me a little extra power and in the beginning it did take a couple of guys down, but eventually Joe's WS4 S4 won out.

Flat Con 2012

Hooray extra life is over for me this year and with it a great day of binge gaming.  If your keeping up with the blog you've probably already seen the post about Chuck and I's mini narrative campaign that we played early in the morning of Saturday the 27th.  Just in case you haven't though I've included the link here: Mini Narrative Campaign.  After that, some coffee, breakfast and showers we paraded ourselves to the Mini Expo building at the Interstate Center for Flat Con.  Traditionally Flat Con is a board game convention; however the interstate center is pretty large and there is plenty of table space so there are usually a couple of tournaments there for both Fantasy and 40k.

Our friend Kevin Flemming ran the fantasy event this year at 1,000 points and 3 rounds.  He also stepped in as ringer with his Dwarf army as we we're 1 player short of 8.  The participants names and armies are below.  Not pictured are my own Skaven army and Kevin's Dwarfs.

Brandon Prouty - Orcs & Goblins

Steve Gruenwald - Orcs & Goblins

Chuck Jiardina - Chaos Dwarfs

Aaron Lacey - Lizardmen

Unknown - Warriors of Chaos

Unknown - Skaven

So the games commenced and first up for me was:

The Waaagh Cast Cup! Season 2-Week 4 Newsletter

Hey Blood Bowl Fans!

Week 4 has closed and with a ton of other things on my plate right now we'll just get right to business.

Download the Waaagh Cast Courier Newsletter! : Week 4 Newsletter

Extra Life Mini Narrative Campaign

So Extra Life has come and gone.  Well technically it came and went two weeks ago.  However, as I had previous engagements (a wedding) to attend I had to postpone my participation one full week.  Luckily it happened to fall on the same date as Flat-Con.  A Board Game convention in Bloomington, IL.  As it had been a while since I've been off for some Warhammer and Chuck lives in Bloomington, we decided to attend the tournament as well as get up super early on Saturday to start my 24 hour gaming marathon and so we did.  We chose well ahead of time to do some narrative campaigning.  The General's Compendium has a small 3 tier tree campaign set up with a lot of nice narrative and so we decided to play that.  This is the resulting story.

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The Worlds Edge Mountains that borders the Chaos Waste is home to both the race of Dwarfs and Skaven.  The Skaven in their constant search for more of the fouls substance known as Warp Stone have always sought to delve deeply into the earth searching and when able have used the already constructed Dwarf miens, many times after lengthy wars with their inhabitants.  Sometimes a particularly greedy Warlord will even seek the precious magical rock on the far side of the mountains ranges in the Chaos Wastes itself.  This is one of those times.

Warlord Snarlsqueek of Clan Skaar and Greyseer Scarclaw have begun to encroach into the Wastes seeking the precious stone.  It isn’t long before they encounter settlement within the foul land in the form of Dwarfs.  Except that unlike the Dwarf’s that they are used to facing these appear to be a corrupt sect who enslave the greenskin race and bend metal to their will while encasing Demons into shells and constructing great machines of death.  An immediate strike would be unwise and the two lords send forth a scouting parting to obtain information about their soon to be enemy.

Knowing that simple slaves would only attempt escape so far from their captors and that regular warriors would be far to nervous to gain any real information the lords choose to send in a group of their elite Stormvermin aided by a small group of Night Runners hired from Clan Eshin.  The scouts had reconnoitered in the borderlands of the Dwarfs gaining valuable intelligence on troop movements, strongholds and defensive positions.  Unfortunately, unaware that it had happened a group of the Dwarfs had spotted them and had been tracking them for some time.  Uncertain as to the strength of the invaders the Dwarfs send a small contingent of their enslaved Hobgoblins ahead of the scouting force to lay in wait in an attempt to entrap and destroy them before they could return to their commanders with the gathered intelligence.

The Hobgoblins burst from a hidden position and with the element of surprise pelt the invades with many sharp things that they had scrounged from their masters.  Knowing that death lay both here and upon their return should they manage it they felt compelled to at least fight for their miserable lives.  The Skaven fought viciously and being better trained and armed they eventually felled the greenskins forcing the few who were not laying dead or dying to rout and return to what would surely be a terrible fate at the hands of their taskmasters.  The Skaven that remained returned to the lords with the information.  They had found a slim pass defended by a lone watchtower the garrison defending it left to watch for enemies, defend against marauding warbands and ward off fell beasts.  The pass beyond leads to a large castle which would surely provide much plunder as well as an excellent stronghold from which to cement their operations in this land.

Bretonnian Distraction - Rat Ogres

I've been sitting on these guys for ages and I finally got a reason to finish them up recently.  Namely that I hate painting Knights and I've been working on the Bretonnian's and I hate them.  You can see from the pictures that 7 of the 8 Ogres are all made from the Island of Blood models just with some variation in poses, pieces, etc...  I don't understand why GW didn't make some new plastic kits for these guys when they re-released all the other Skaven models, but who knows.  So these are them.  Hopefully you guys all think they look good.  The 1 Rat Ogre that isn't IoB is the bell ringer from the Screaming Bell with a flail I built him.  I dig it.