Adventures in Questing – Second expedition, Gearing up

Aaaaaand we’re back. After barely escaping their first foray into the underworld (mostly due to some bad decisions, caused by lack of experience), my AHQ heroes are finally ready to brave the darkness once again.

This time, instead of playing an entire expedition and doing a long write-up when I’m finished (a process that might take weeks, depending on circumstances and the whims of the tiny human being that’s now in charge of my schedule), I’ll post updates as I play along.

But before the party could continue their quest, they had to return to town to rest and restock. You can see the relevant page of the rulebook here:

The heroes recovered all wounds and fate points but didn’t gain any more as they hadn’t completed the quest yet. You’ll notice that they’ve already missed the chance to gain two fate points in one go, but as long as they get the job done in no more than three expeditions, they at least get one.

After totaling up their treasure, they had 535 gold crowns (GC) combined, which I didn’t bother dividing up yet. As they didn’t have any henchmen, living expenses ran up at 80 GC, leaving them with 455 to spend.

I then rolled a “19” on the random events table (Risk Pay) – one of the few results that didn’t actively hurt, since, once again, there are no henchmen to demand the extra salary.

Which meant that I’d finally gotten to the good part, i.e. buying stuff.

Croaker seems to be doing all right. I might buy a set of plate armor for him eventually, but not now. Allum, on the other hand, got a chainmail. This makes him damn near immobile in combat, with an effective movement of two, but he could really use the extra protection. I may have to increase his speed at some point, but I didn’t feel like shelling out the 200 GC right now.

I couldn’t find the rules about selling stuff (I’m almost certain I’ve seen something about it somewhere…), so he’s keeping the leather armor in his backpack for now. Don’t know if it’s technically legal, but who cares.

Finally, Allum got two flasks of Greek Fire, which can be used to clear away a variety of obstacles, but are also illegal, so I just hope he doesn’t get caught by the city watch!

I bought six spell components for Hans – four Fire dust (for casting Fireball), one dose of Red Dragon Dust and a Phoenix Feather (magical armor and healing respectively).

Last up was Ellandiel. He’d given me the most headaches during the last expedition by running out of arrows and only then realizing that he’d forgotten to bring a back-up weapon (what are you looking at? It was obviously a tiny plastic elf, and not I, who made such a dumb mistake!), so I bought him a plentiful supply of arrows (12) and a spear. A sword would give him an extra damage die, but I really don’t want him (and his rubbish statline) up front, where he can get hurt, and a spear allows him to attack diagonally, which provides him with a bit more protection since most monsters can’t then hit back.

After all this shopping, I was left with 175 GC, which I distributed amongst the heroes. Their updated character-sheets look like this:

And now it’s back to the dungeon (right after I go to a wedding this weekend that is…).

Croaker

Slogging on

Finally! After no less than two months work, I finally managed to complete these three guys:

It’s been an arduous process to say the least. One day, when I sat down to paint, I only managed to finish their belt-buckles before getting called away, which was a kinda frustrating experience.

Between the numerous distractions I’ve experienced lately, I suppose I should be thankful it didn’t take even longer, but it’s still a relief to finally be done with them. I dearly love my Dragon Company troopers, but I also really, really don’t want to paint any more of them right now. That’s probably not a healthy way to feel about a hobby, so I’m going to take a short break from painting and play some Advanced Heroquest instead.

When I’m done playing, I have some Skaven weapons-teams lined up, which should provide a nice change of pace. Already looking forward to it…

Croaker

Getting sidetracked (in space!)

I have a batch of miniatures mere hours away from completion, though to be fair this could translate into several days due to the current demands on my time. What bugs me is that they’ve been in this state for about a week.

Why? Because Battlefleet Gothic: Armada came out, that’s why.

For the uninitiated, it’s a pc-reimplementation of the 1999 Battlefleet Gothic board game (BFG from now on). This one:

I’ve always had a soft spot for BFG. It’s not because it’s the most lavish product ever produced by GW (with only eight actual models in the base game it might even be accused of outright stingyness), but everything inside is just soooo lovely. From the components:

A (sadly) low-rez photo of the box contents

 To the rule book:

To the wonderfully moody art:

And the (surprisingly) interesting background and short stories inside the book.

I don’t know why, but everyone involved in the project just seemed to be doing some of their best work. It’s truly a labor of love and, unsurprisingly, it was quickly discontinued by GW.

I never got a copy of it myself when it was in print, which is one of my greatest hobby-related regrets, but I played a friend’s game a bunch, and I really, really liked it.

The best way to describe why I love BFG, is probably to tell a short anecdote from one of my first games.

First a bit of rules; You see, ships in BFG have a certain amount of inertia, which means that they have to move each round and can’t turn until they’ve moved a certain distance, unless you give them a “burn Retros” special order, which requires making a leadership test.

These things became very important when I, in my excitement to “get up close and personal” with my opponent’s Chaos ships, I flew my entire fleet too close to the edge of the table. Ships that leave the table count as having disengaged and can’t take further part in the battle, which meant that suddenly my entire fleet was scrambling to issue “Burn Retros” orders. Some made it, and some didn’t, and in the meantime, my opponent had moved behind my remaining ships (where I couldn’t return fire) and promptly crippled half my remaining fleet. 

How awesome is that!?
I made a huge tactical mistake and was promptly punished for it, but the episode taught me to always think movement at least a turn ahead.

Anyway, even amidst rumors of a new edition, I’ve been jonesing to play a game of space combat in the Warhammer universe for years, and now I finally can!

BFG: Armada is a fairly faithful interpretation of the board game. I could certainly point out some faults (mostly on the technical side) if I was in a mood for nitpicking, but I won’t, because it really would be nitpicking.

Still have to finish painting those models though…

Croaker

All right, all right! I’ll do it! – Pantheon of Chaos

So, I finally broke down and pledged for the Pantheon of Chaos kickstarter, with less than 48 hours to spare.

If you don’t know what it is, I suggest you head over here and check it out.

I’ve never really been as much of a Chaos-nutter as the rest of the Oldhammer community seems to be, but it’s likely because I only got into Warhammer in the nineties – i.e. after Chaos got boring. Even I must admit that the older stuff (and now the new, unofficial, stuff as well) is pretty cool.

Also, I totally want a Greater demon of Malal, erh, Malice.

Croaker