Monday, March 28, 2016

A Murder of Crows - part I

Finally we can present the first part of the battle report from last Saturday´s epic clash.

Our bard-in-residence Alexander, opted to write up the report in his signature "norse saga"- esque style. Over to you Alexander:

As an age of darkness fell across the world, the Crimson Crow cawed.

In answer, from the south sea, the Sea of Claws, the Great Beast emerged. And on his head was the Third Crown and he bore the Mark of Pain. And the Host of Colours cried out a name to the uncaring gods. That name was Chargul Doldrekk.


Then the Golden Crow cawed.

And from the North Sea rose the Raven Lord, answering the call. The Aetheric Raider, the Knight Scholar, the true child of chaos. In his left hand he held the Tome of Fate and in his wake followed a glittering multitude of neophytes. From their souls a tortured whisper echoed across the Chaos Wastes. Kithelon.


Finally the Black Crow cawed, at long last awakening the Great Wolf.

As the wolf howled, the third host shambled forth across the Isles of the Dead. The jovial killers - the diseased followers of Nurgle. Sardonic laughter filled the air as they approached, for only they truly saw the world for what is was. And the champion chosen to deliver the final pun of that great cosmic joke was Mawgut Gloop, favoured child of Grandfather Nurgle. 




And as the three lords met on the field of Vigrid, the Great Wolf rose up and devoured the sun. It was the red sign. The blood eclipse. The final call to war. Blades were bared in joy and shields were rattled. The withered grass would soon drink its fill of blood. And the gods roared with delight. 


Zelgul Scalecackle led his knights in a headlong charge upon Spleech and his blightkings. Schemes and plans set aside, now was the time for steel. Ancient scores would be settled and one of the champions sent to the narrow house. 






A chilling wind rose, turning into a screaming vortex from which a coven of chaos trolls shambled out into the material realm. Hate burned within them as they laid eyes upon their bloated cousins. Twisted abominations stared at each other with malice.



While the children of decay and progress fought in blind frenzy a shadow fell over the sorcerer Feldrek Flameborn. Surtr, giant lord of Muspell, was upon him. Twice sang Laevatein, the blade of flames, and in a burst of colours Feldrek disappeared.  



Having held back at first Chargul Doldrekk - Gods Hand - stormed across the field. The Chaos Lords claws were soon stained vermilion as he laid waste to the Fatekin that served Kithelon. 


The Great Beast Chargul Doldrekk howled in triumph over his broken foes.


Spleech and his followers cut the Ascendants ascendance short and turned their attention upon the fish trolls. In a daring and deceitful move the Order of the Gash attacked the two chaos lords as they dueled.



Snarling Doldrekk threw himself upon the festering Blightkings. Claws rending and tearing, fangs bared in a frenzied scream. Following closely Surtr followed his lord into the mêlée. Where even the magical trolls had failed the combined might of these two primordial beings would triumph. Bones broke and decaying flesh was torn apart.




The slaaneshii centaurs - the Order of the Seed hunted well. Nergal the Plague Sorcerer, was soon added to the trophy rack.


Neither man nor beast could best Mawgut Gloop. Even as his flesh was torn asunder it reknitted itself and formed new disgusting shapes. His spear struck again and again, every strike a killing blow.




But in the end the day belonged to The prince of Pleasure. For while the children of Nurgle and Tzeentch fought well they could not defeat the sly cunning of Chargul Doldrekk and his childen dominated the battlefield.


So to recap - in our first battle Alexander cleverly held back while the forces of Nurgle and Tzeentch clashed. Then he swept in and decimated our already weakened forces. After six rounds he was the only one with any models left (other than champions) so we decided the victory belonged to him.
It was also time for lunch...

This game was a real brawl without much strategy as we simply wanted to get a feel for the rules. All in all we were all pretty pleased with the game mechanics - though the fact that we had three players and we initially didn´t know the rules slowed the game down. We´ll be back soon with round two where some actual tactics came into play.




25 comments:

  1. Wow, thanks for posting all of this! Alexander's narrative was very evocative, and with the great pictures, and even better models, this first game really came alive! It sounds like quite a great experience. I cannot wait to hear about the other games too. Do you think you will try to play again at some point? I realize it requires quite a bit of travel for everyone, but it looks as though it was really worth it!

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    1. Cheers Eric!

      It was fun. I quite like the fast and easy ruleset of AoS ( the setting is a different matter). The plan is to meet up in Helsinki some time later this year to have another go.

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    2. Thanks Eric!

      A little travel never hurt nobody. It was well worth it indeed and we had a ton of fun. I'm game for an other battle at some point this year. There are some other projects to be finished first :)

      I sent you a pm on the Bunker ;)

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  2. Absolutely beautiful all around - looks like a tremendously fun time!

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    1. It was really fun. The AoS rules were surprisingly fitting for this kind of game and gamers.

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  3. A fitting write-up for the prelude that has been your plogs :)

    Interestingly enough I employed a similar strategy as Alexander in my first game against 3 other warband. Kudos albeit the wrong god won ;)

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    1. Yes, well... Another god came out on top in round two so stay tuned.

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    2. Rather the beginning of the end, for me the climax was the second game. My strategy probably had more to do with me going last than a planned tactic. Worked out well :)

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  4. Epic looking warbands, epic write up (love the style of the wording), epic tear up . . . . to surmise. . . . . EPIC!!!!

    Love the picture of the Giant looming over the Wizard.

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    1. We were all rather pleased with that David vs Goliath shot... Goliath won this time though.

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    2. Thanks, glad you like our little saga.

      All hail Goliath!

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  5. All three warbands are stunning! I really enjoyed this battle report.

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    1. I'm glad you liked it Ana. Part two should be up soon once Erik and Johan are done editing the text.

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  6. Simply stunning! I hope you don't mind me asking where can we find close ups of the two other warbands?? both slaaneshi and tzeentchians look sweet!

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    1. http://s3.zetaboards.com/The_Ammobunker/single/?p=8351330&t=7800788

      http://s3.zetaboards.com/The_Ammobunker/single/?p=8351255&t=7822092

      Here you go. Alexander did the slaanesh band and I did the Tzeentch band.

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  7. Fantastic write up, certainly adds to the wonderful images of you three's painted warbands.

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  8. So amazing to see pics of these fantastic paintjobs in action! While one could argue that the dedicated painters (ie non gamers) out there have really pushed mini painting as an art form over the last decade or two, I really miss seeing paintjobs of this calibre on a gaming table. And these models in particular make me feel like I'm a kid again, looking through late '80s White Dwarf battle reports and the old Lost and Damned rulebooks.

    Thanks for sharing this! And keep up the awesome work!

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  9. Thanks for posting the report; the epic style of writing really suits the over the top, rock-operatic, apocalyptic themes of AoS.

    The warbands are all lovely. My favourite, though, probably because I am a fan of the Symbolist painters, is the weirdly wonderful Great Beast Chargul Doldrekk. I imagine him being voiced by George Sanders, like Shere Khan in the old, animated Jungle Book.

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    1. Punk rock opera indeed :-)

      Thanks for the kind words mate.

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  10. You guys seem to have had a lot of fun! :-)
    Lovely warbands (I have got to say yours is my favourite) with loads of weird ideas.
    And it is nice to see a bit of wargaming on your blog. We want more!

    --
    morbäck

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  11. So I'm not sure who exactly made and painted that Tzeentch army, but I'm super curious what you did to get the green armor color on the fish knights?

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  12. Bloody marvellous, this is! The narrative is great and the models are so cool- really neat and interesting conversions. Makes me want to try my hand at converting some chaos too.

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