Illerian Realms

So I'll be starting to DM a new campaign for realsies this time, based on the West Marches campaign. There will be an overlying storyline, stronger or weaker depending on the way players are enjoying the game. The continent the game takes place on is the Illerian Realms, and the characters start out in a town called Dragonhead Bay. I've taken a lot of ideas from Dragon Age for some stuff, and borrowed liberally from the DMG for the town itself, but I think it makes it something new and exciting.

The big thing is the campaign map. Taking a cue from West Marches and Penny Arcade's experiences, I'll be using a Chessex hex mat to let the characters explore the world. Each hex represents "1 day's travel", and over the course of this game I seriously doubt the characters will explore much more than their starting area. Since I intend to re-use this setting later, I'll still keep it, though. The rules will be 4e, and there will be 3 characters (played by Jackie, and our friends Dave and Tanya), and hopefully I'll be able to expand on that later.

Anyway, here is the starting history the characters get when they start the game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The History of Dragonhead Bay

Your characters don’t know much about the history of the area. They know that Dragonhead Bay used to be part of the Illerian Empire, a human empire from the west that spanned the continent. The Empire was the light of civilization until the Plague of the Ten Sufferings. The plague swept through the Empire and wiped much of it out. Even worse, most of the plague victims rose again as the walking dead, and terrorized the countryside. A horde of these undead attacked Dragonhead Bay 20 years ago and breached the city walls. They destroyed many of the buildings and slaughtered most of the people of the town, though a few managed to hide and survive. Eventually the Templars rallied against them and defeated the horde, and the town was able to begin rebuilding itself.

Now there is a rather decent town built on the remains of Old Dragonhead Bay, though the inhabitants know little about the history or the surrounding area. The population is mostly poor farmers and artisans, and is mainly human, Halfling, and dwarf, with some elves, eladrin, and half-elves. Dragonborn aren’t native to the area but might have travelled through, and Tieflings are considered to be infernal agents and are generally unwelcome.

Magic is distrusted and feared by many of the common people, and is tightly controlled by the Society Arcanus, the Circle of Magi, a mystical order which regulates what magic can be learned, and by whom. They also are intimately tied to the Church of Pelor, especially its military arm – the Templar Order. These holy knights seek out infernalists and necromancers and kill them and their minions at every opportunity to protect the populace from their depredations. While they generally don’t interfere with the day-to-day occurrences of the town for the most part, they are an ever-present force, acting as a shield for the town against the dark things in the world.

The town is run by the Governor Arcanus, the Lord Mage of the local chapter of the Circle. Most towns exist with a similar structure of the Governor Arcanus, supported by the might of the Templars. She is the most powerful wizard in the local chapter, and the politics of the Circle are secretive and dangerous to anyone who gets involved.

The old Imperial Road runs through the town and connects it with the Dwarven city of Hammerfast to the south. Many of the Dwarves in Dragonhead have connections with Hammerfast, and trade moves between the two over the Road. Not much is known about the lands further away, and no one really knows what happened to Illeria, the capital city of the old empire.

Grumble Grumble Battle Report

Well, I fell into a lava pit in Minecraft and lost all my items, so now I'm cranky and figured I'd do a blog post.

That being said, I'm going to try and start writing a little more on here, since Patrick said he'd like to see some battle reports, and I don't mind waxing poetic about getting owned.

So last night was a fight against Brian and his Cygnar at 50 points. He was playing pHaley and I was playing Borka, and we ended up with the Supply Lines scenario. The game went...poorly for me. His army consisted of 20 Sword Knights, 2 units of Storm Blades, a Centurion, Thorn, Squire, and Gun Mages. Mine was Kriel Warriors, Krielstone, Fell Caller, Chronicler, whelps, and then a Blitzer, Bomber, 2 Impalers, and a pyre troll.

Right off the bat I was really outnumbered. Kriel Warriors are a great tarpit, but there was just too damn many Sword Knights and I got chewed up. All 20 SKs were ARM 19 with Arcane Shield (from Haley and Jr.), so blast damage was useless against them. On the upside, the Gun Mages were kind of useless (their POW 10s just couldn't cut through my armor), but they ended up being useful. More on that in a minute.

Round 1 went roughly along the lines of "He runs all his stuff up, I run my Kriels up, slap Iron Flesh and Hero's Tragedy on them, position beasts for maximum boomage next turn."

Round 2 was brutal. Haley ran Thorn up behind my lines and popped her feat, then arced chain lightening (can be engaged and still arc!) into my back lines, killing the Kriel Standard, some of the warriors, and one of the KSB unit. Sword Knights charged, needed 9 to hit, got 2 attacks, and just had a huge numbers advantage. I didn't make a single tough roll, and lost about half the unit. Storm Blades were right behind them, meaning even if I chewed through that many SKs I had a world of pain in store. My counterattack was less than awesome. Blitzer killed 3 or 4 SKs, Bomber got a couple gun mages Pyre lit some SKs on fire, Kriels whiffed up and down the field, Fell Caller got 7 SKs in a spray and didn't kill a single one...it was bad news bears. Worse, I had one supply point and he had 2.

Round 3 started and he basically continued the death spree. I was down to 3 KWs, and he charged the Blitzer with the Centurion, doing some solid damage but not killing him. I was losing ground and if I couldn't get Haley it was gonna be all over. I could see that with Far Strike, the Blitzer could probably shoot her, but there was an angry Centurion in the way, and Thorn's Reach would also hamper the effort. I worked it out as best I could, clearing out SKs and casting Mosh Pit, then having the Pyre knock down Thorn. With Far Strike ready, the Blitzer activated. By my calculations, two boosted damage rolls would probably do it. All I needed to roll was 3 or better on my d3 shots with him, then get 11 to hit with a boost. This was doable. I rolled a 1. Shit. Well, gotta make do with what I got, I guess. Blitzer walked up, smacked the Centurion to knock him down, then took his shot at Haley - and missed. One chance, needed 11 on 3 dice, rolled about 5 if I recall correctly. I sighed, ended my turn, he got 2 more points, then won by just ending his turn and getting the requisite points.

Basically I feel like I got diced pretty hard. I only made 1 or two tough rolls for the entire game, and flubbed vast numbers of attacks which should have tipped the odds strongly in my favor. The Fell Caller's spray alone should have eaten up a chunk of the SKs and pushed the attrition back in my favor, but it just didn't happen.

That being said, I'm glad Brian got a chance to see that Sword Knights are awesome. They're tough, cheap, and plentiful - a great combination no matter how you look at them. They can clog up the board and hold important points, tie up enemy units and hold their own even against relatively durable infantry. They performed well enough that I expect to see him fielding them a lot more now, at least a single unit, and I'm always happy when I can give someone new reasons to put pewter on the table.

Stupid Blitzer...

Tournament on Saturday

Well, this is a test of the new Google Chrome extension I installed. We'll see if it works!

 

Anyway, I'm really excited about the upcoming 50pt tournament in Riverside this weekend. I'm making an effort to make less "competitive" lists and more lists that are just fun to put down and play. There's a guy who's been at Brookhurst lately (i should really learn his name...) who is really enjoyable to play against. He marks the game by the pile of dead models on both sides of the table, and how much cool stuff happened. It's something I've kind of lost at times, and it's refreshing to just play to have fun. To this end I'll be running pDoomshaper with a maxed unit of Scattergunners this time around, and I've gotten the entire 50 point list painted up (the most recent of which were the Scattergunners themselves, actually). I still need to base some models, but I'm excited to submit my models to the "fully painted" drawing. 

 

The fact that I'm using Trolls at all is kind of a fluke. I had hoped to start using Mercenaries (specifically Magnus), starting with this tournament, but between needing to get a ton of them painted and simply not being motivated to really get on that, I was already wavering. Then Pat told me that he wanted to play in the tournament, but lacked the models to get from 35 pts to 50. Weeeeelllllllll, that's a max unit of Steelhead Halberdiers and a max unit of Steelhead riflemen, so I decided to give up even bothering with Mercs and just going with Trolls, who I have recently painted and am excited to take out. I'll probably lose disastrously (my test game on Thursday night went...shall we say poorly?), but I think it'll be really enjoyable. There should be several painted armies at the tournament, and that'll make it a really fun and photogenic experience.

Stupid Pigs

Well, I was considering if I wanted to get into the Farrow minions or not...but now it's not a discussion. This event is happening. And it is because of this:


















I'm definitely not going to be able to avoid something this awesome now. Lord Carver is just a matter of time, and with him all kinds of bacon-y goodness.

And boom goes the dynamite

Captain Gunbjorn assembled his forces as he looked at the much larger horde of Cryxian thralls rushing toward them. He had his doubts about the effectiveness of the more traditional Kriel Warriors, but they had been all that Madrak could spare for him for this particular raid. He had plenty of powerful warbeasts, though, and with their combined firepower he looked forward to showing the Cryxians the true mettle of the Trolls.

His men formed up and his trolls began firing into the swarm of steam-fisted thralls surging at him, as well as the large helljack tearing forward with animal-like ferocity. He hit it with a rocket, and through his guiding influence his own beasts finished it and tore through many of the thralls. As many as he killed, though, more just charged forward to replace them.

The thralls hit his lines like an undead freight train, killing his kriel warriors and pounding his Blitzer, while an insidious worm-like machine eviscerated a couple more warriors. Bonejacks with vile corrosive sprays and explosive projectiles hit his left flank, even as he saw their leader, a glowing, iron monstrosity as big as he was with a massive cleft spear. The iron lich summoned green balefire to burn his men, and Gunbjorn knew how he would have to finish this.

While his Blitzer alternately pounded and shot the thralls that were assailing it, he moved up and cycled the next rocket into the chamber, firing it at the lich. The monster was quicker then it looked, however, and his rocket midded it completely to explode uselessly on the ground nearby. Cursing softly, Gunbjorn, raised a wall of stone from the earth to help defend him if this thing decided to charge at him. Then he called on his training with the Cygnaran army to hold his troops together, giving them cover from the deadly magics and bonejacks, if only for a moment. His remaining warriors finished off the last of the thralls on the one flank, while his Bomber killed the last ones on the other.

The next few minutes were a frenzied blur of activity, as bonejacks spewed venom and explosive projectiles, and the worm machine tried to attack him with a deadly looking bite (and missing), and his counterattack proved absolutely devastating. When the smoke cleared the three arc noded bonejacks were scrap piles, the thralls were dead, and only the iron lich, the worm, and a rune-covered thralls were left.

Gunbjorn saw the thrall move up and throw green hellfire at him, but he ducked out of the way. The lich moved onto a hill and Gunbjorn could feel the very earth withering around him and it drew in power. More hellfire came, this time finding its mark and burning him. With the last of his strength he sent it to his Impaler, but he knew he couldn't last much longer. In a blur the worm jack scurried around his Blitzer and bit right into his side, cutting through his protective armor like it was so much paper. He staggered and turned to face it, but it swung its tail around one last time, hitting him on the head.Gunbjorn's consciousness swam and he fell backwards.

He awoke later to see that his enemy had disappeared. Scorched and mangled corpses lay strewn across the battlefield, most of them the undead, but many of his own warriors as well. His beasts had run when he fell, but he could still sense them, and called them to return to him. He wondered at what had just happened, and why the Cryxian had left him alive, but then looked up and realized that the day was much later than he had thought. By the time he re-assembled his forces the defenders of the village he was going to raid would have had time to dig in, and would have heard the sounds of battle to warn them of his proximity. He would have to try again another time, and with more troops. Someday he would see that lich blown to pieces at the other end of his cannon.

Wow, what a fun game. I got to play some Warmachine yesterday with Micah, who was back in Elsinore from Ol' New York, and the second game was spectacular. He didn't have any models, so I let him use my Cryx, and I ran some trolls, and man was it fun. The first game was eDoomshaper, and while I won it was short and frankly not as awesome (though there was a particularly rad dire troll mauler trample where he got an entire unit of McThralls). It was the second game, where I had Gunbjorn, that was way more fun.

My list:

Gunbjorn

Blitzer

Bomber

Slag Troll

Impaler

Kriel Warriors (10)

- UA

Stone Scribe Chronicler

His list:

pAsphyxious

Seether

Defiler

Nightwretch

Nightwretch

Cankerwurm

Mechanithralls (10)

Mechanithralls (10)

Bloat Thrall

In summary: Gunbjorn is an absolute blast to play. Shooting rockets, bombs, and machine guns with high accuracy at everything in sight is just mad sexy. I made that other list for Micah in about a minute, and I'm kind of amazed by it. It's tier 1 Asphyxious, which means those mechanithralls are all AD. I'm gonna have to give it more test time, but I think this simple build is a really strong 35 point list.

I had a great time in Lake Elsinore this weekend, though I'm still a little upset I didn't know about the tournament in Riverside until it was too late. Maybe if Shane SAID something to me I could have planned ahead for it...jerk. :-P

"Impossible" Dream all right

Yeah, so this challenge is going poorly so far. It's the 4th of November and I'm behind. I've got 2 of my Krielstone members (the stone and one scribe) done-ish, and I'm hoping that the rest will go faster now that I have the scheme worked out. I've had to simplify the color palette, but I think it's a solid choice and looks pretty good. Once I get the details painted on it'll be great.

In other news, It appears that I'm officially making a game. Not a campaign for D&D or anything, but an actual game, with the intent to sell it. It's called Tir Cayad, and I'm co-creator with Adam Rosenblum. It's a three-tiered game, with an RPG tier, a skirmish-level tier, and a war-level tier. So far we're just looking at the RPG aspect, since it'll be the most complex (and the basis for the higher two levels), but it's shaping up to be something entirely new. I've never seen a system like this before, but it's certainly influenced by other things. The skill tree smacks a little of Diablo II, the attributes are more like WoD than D&D, but all in all it's very original. I'll post more when I have more to show for it, but we're hoping by next week to have a functional system we can stumble through for a basic RPG experience.

The Easy Stuff

Ok, well I made a little progress already on the list, and set myself backwards a little as well.

The Slag Troll is done, even thought I'm not super pleased with him. I don't really care for the model, so it's not a big deal, but I'll probably want to go back and fix him some day.

On the other hand, I painted Gunbjorn up, and he's looking mighty sexy (I should really take pics before I do these posts. Next time!). I really like the color scheme I worked out for him. It's got a military drab look to it, with a little Confederate grey-ish thrown in, but it's got a lot of spots of color so it doesn't look flat. His skin is a good blue color (the one I started with Borka and will now be my whole force's), he's got little brass buckles all over him, and his rockets are white, with yellow tips and red fins. I'm really pleased with him.

I also bought some new stuff from Brookhurst, which I'll have to fit into the schedule. I bought another blister to max out my Scattergunners, bought another Thumper Crew, bought another pack of Welps, the Runebearer (Troll Moses), and a Swamp Troll. The Scattergunners will get added to the rest of the unit when they get painted, and the Thumper will be a priority, not just because I friggin' LOVE that model, but also because it's needed for Gunbjorn's tier lists. I'm really looking forward to running a Troll ranged army with AD Thumpers and trenches.

I need to set an order I'm going to do the rest of these in, however flexible, so that I don't get paralyzed with indecision:
- Krielstone Bearer + UA (7 models)
- Pyg Bushwackers (10 models)
- Troll Impaler (1 model)
- Dire Troll Bomber (1 model)
- Scattergunners (10 models)
- Thumper Crew (3 models)
- Champions (5 models)
- Fennblades (10 models)
- Calandra (1 model)
- Pyg Burrowers (6 models)
- Runebearer (1 model)
- Welps (5 models)
- Swamp Troll (1 model)

Anyway, pics to follow.