The Zorn Artefact Campaign Part I

"This Artefact looks like it may be some sort of map, or guide." said Candor Blau placing the roughly disk-shaped object Hulka found on the wooden table. "A map huh? Well can you read it?" asked Hulka.

Candor was always interested in geography as well as ciphers, having studied those disciplines in his days as a youth at the Imperial Academy on Hroth Primus. He pointed at the symbols on the disk and explained, "As you can see here, there are four symbols indicating perhaps the cardinal directions like on a map or compass. We can infer this is the planet it is referring to because of the symbol in the center which corresponds to this planetary system we are in right now. Four planets orbiting a star."

"So besides planets and the directional symbols what else does the piece indicate?" asked Alisa. "Well it would appear that there are directions to some sort of cave system. Do you know of any caves on this planet?"

"Well there are probably many caves and mines below the surface because of this places' past." Responded Hulka. "Perhaps this was what Lan was searching for. He did mention to me in passing many months ago about an underground chamber of some sort."

"Maybe we can use the Eldar's skills in finding the entrance to these caverns." put in the every scheming assassin, Alcorn.

"Brilliant idea, I need you to convey a message to them Alissa. Tell them they can have Quasar if they help us in finding the entrance to underground caverns." Responded Hulka. "But how will they find these caverns?" Asked Candor. "The Eldar have means which you can only guess at. They will be able to find them. I will send them a message." said Alissa.


Mission 1: The Hunt for the Caverns

This mission will be played out with the Eldar taking up the task of finding the entrance to the underground caverns and reporting that entrance back to Hulka's crew. In return they will get their Rogue Trader back.

I will play the part of the GM and I will control the NPCs. The mission will take place in the frontier town where the first mission of the prologue took place. They will need to gather information from the townsfolk and do some investigation to find the clues as to the whereabouts of the cavern entrance.

There will be many NPC townsfolk and buildings to examine. They must do this without getting too much attention from the authorities. While this is still a frontier world and not really controlled by the Imperium, aliens are not totally welcome here.

The board will be a 6'X4' board with a setup similar to the setup of the first game but with more buildings. Each building will be inhabited by at least one member of the town. To question the townsfolk they must move into base contact with them and make a successful nerve check. This will extract the info from the townsfolk.

roll a d10 after questioning the townsfolk, subtract 1 from the number rolled if it is the first time a townsfolk was questioned and look at the chart below:

1-2 - "I don't know what yer talking about! Get out of my house before I call the authorities!!" get a minus -1 on all further rolls, and add +1 on the alarm counter.

3-5 - "I have only heard of the caverns in passing, I cannot help you."

6-7 - "I know who you should talk to!" +1 on future rolls.

8-9 - "I think you should talk to Gregor!" +2 on future rolls.

10 - "I know where it is!" You have the info!


For every failed Nerve check add +1 to the alarm counter.

When the alarm counter reaches 6, the authorities will be alerted to your presence.

The Authorities:

At the beginning of the game disperse the authorities as per the fisrt game from the 4 prologue missions. They respond as described in that mission. If the authorities are alerted to what the Eldar are doing they will respond accordingly. They stop being controlled randomly and I will control them. Also an Armoured Toad vehicle will arrive off a random board edge carrying 4 more Enforcers.

The alarm counter will be set to 6 if any of the Eldar get within 4" of any of the Enforcers as well.



Once the info has been obtained the Eldar must exit off the board edge that they deployed on. As shown in the map below:



Each townsfolk can only be questioned once.

There is another way to find the actual entrance to the caverns. Each building an Eldar unit enters can be searched. They must do nothing for an entire turn and must make a Leadership check. If the check is passed they may then roll on the chart below:

d10 -

1-4 They search for quite a long time and are totally absorbed in the effort of searching. They unfortunately make too much noise in the effort and add +1 to the alarm counter.

5-9 While digging around in the building for awhile they are unable to find anything of value, but are more determined then ever to find the entrance. add +1 to the alarm counter and +4 onto this chart the next time they roll on this chart

10 - They have found the secret entrance to the underground caverns!

Hopefully this scenario will work I may need to update it further.

The Zorn Artefact Campaign kicks off

The previous 4 scenarios from the Book of the Aribtrator that I played can be called the prologue to this new campaign that I will be playing. This new campaign will pit my crew of adventurers led by Sargent Bruhm Hulka against the crew of Rogue Trader Miguel Quasar.

The last game we played ended with Hulka escaping with an ancient piece of Xenos tech from a downed alien space craft. Miguel Quasar was wounded badly by the alien guard robots at the space craft's landing site. My crew was able to secure the wounded Quasar and escape to a safe house much to the chagrin of his Eldar allies.

And now to the story...

Darkness surrounded him. The cool concrete floor of the room made him shiver as he lay on his side. Slowly the Rogue Trader sat up and rubbed his eyes. Blinking, he tried to make out some details of this room that he some how ended up in.

He looked around noticing the room he was in was only about eight feet by ten. A door with light streaming through a crack at its foot beckoned to Quasar. He could hear talking coming from the far side of the door. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying but they sounded agitated.

Standing was tough, using one of the walls to prop himself up he slowly shuffled to the door. He tried the door knob and it, unsurprisingly wouldn't turn. Reaching down to his belt he noticed that he didn't have any of his equipment on him. "Damn." he whispered.

Suddenly the door opened. Light streamed into the room making Quasar blink quickly trying to fend off the abrasive light. "So I see you're up. Good It looks like we will have something to bargain with." Hulka put his hand on Quasar's head and pushed him to the ground. "You should probably rest some more, you'll want to be at your best when they come for you."

"Why are you holding me?" asked Quasar. "We have reached an agreement with your Xenos allies." said Hulka. "They will do something for us in exchange for your release. Now shut up and stay put. Oh and there is no sense trying to escape, Rocky has been keeping watch out side this door since we captured you. His Heavy Stubber would certainly rip you to shreds if you tried to do anything foolish." With that he closed and locked the door, plunging the room back into darkness.


Cassius III:

Cassius III is a worls on the edge of the Kronus Expanse. It is at the very edge of Imperial space. It is ruled by the Arch-Techno Magus Arduro Lexcrusio Germanus Excelon the XVII. He is an old Tech priest who is clinging to life and has a very loose hold on the comings and goings of his planet. His tech guard who are the law on this planet are seldom seen and their numbers are believed to be less than 20. The Enforcers of Vrall are the police force whom he has contracted with to maintain order. They are actually a private army from the Agrarian Mafia house of Vrall which is said to be the actual house of the Rogue Trader Arminious Vrall who founded the planet 3,000 years ago. He named it after his eldest son Cassius Vrall.

Shortly after colonization, the Adeptus Mechanicus moved in because of the great riches of minerals that the planet had. The Mechanicus made a pact with Vrall that they would be the rulers of the planet but Vrall could be the figure head of the new regime. After 2,500 years of mining, most of the planet has become a wasteland and nearly all of its mineral wealth has dried up. Most of the Mechanicus has moved on and left the aging Excelon in charge.

The Agrarian Mafia of Vrall had taken over five hundred years ago and began the process of terra forming the planet into a more agricultural world. It has only partially worked. There are some farms and they all pay a tax to the house of Vrall. Most of the planet is littered with old decrepit mining vehicles and abandoned cities where thousands of workers once lived and worked for the Mechanicus.

The farming communities are small but make enough food to survive. Because of the planet's location this food is sold in the larger cities and trading posts on Cassius III to Rogue Traders and others who are embarking on long voyages into the Koronus Expanse.


More to come...

Genestealer Hybrids, Civilian Vehicles and Inspiration

Well I haven't done any work in the last week, but I have found some neat things to inspire me on the interwebs!

Check out this forum blog of a dude making a Genestealer Cult army:
http://s3.zetaboards.com/The_Ammobunker/topic/7425881/1/

I also found this awesome article on 40k Civilian Vehicles on Dakka:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Civilian_vehicles_in_40k

And check out Combat Zone Chronicles:
http://www.combatzonechronicles.net/table.htm

One more thing, I have always been interested in Inq28 which I first heard about on DakkaDakka many years ago. It has been very inspirational and in many ways kept me interested in trying something of that sort. One reason why I wanted to try Book Of The Arbitrator was because I could do campaigns with a small group of minis.
Well here is the blog for Inq28:
http://inq28.blogspot.com/


I am also adding on Migsula's Blog:
http://legionofplastic.blogspot.com/

Enjoy, until next time.

New Blog and Planetstrike!

I found a new blog today from one of my new followers:

http://daedeluskraetyr.blogspot.com

Check it out its another Minotaurs player.

Also thanks to all my followers its a great feeling to know people actually are reading this blog. I had a while when I wasn't doing a whole lot of updating but I am going to try and do more updates on a more regular basis as I've got a lot of new projects I'm working on at the moment.

My newest project will be Planetstrike. I've been talking to one of my friends and he wants to do some Planetstrike games. I've reread the book and I think I will begin making some bastions and other things from scratch for our up coming games.

We have been talking about doing an Iron Warrior and Daemons game as well as some Minotaurs and Space Wolves games. Stay tuned...

Campaign Game 4 Battle Report

After having been defeated by Rogue Trader Miguel Quasar and their leader Inquisitor Arkhan Lan dead, Sargent Hulka and the remnants of Lan's crew fled the scene and had to regroup.

"We won't let Arkhan's plans fail," said Sargent Hulka. "We must push on and try to take the artefact, its what he would've wanted."

"But what will we do with the artefact if we do succeed?" asked Alisa, obviously disheartened by the loss of her leader and close confidant.

"We will cross that bridge when we get to it. We must lick our wounds, pick ourselves up, and continue our journey to the space craft."

With that Hulka sheathed his knife and stood up, straightened his jacket and began to walk on down the trail. The grizzled war veteran obviously wanted to keep the crew moving and keep their minds off of Lan's death. He secretly wasn't so sure as to what their role would be in the future of this tale the Inquisitor had begun so many years before, but he knew even though Lan may be dead he couldn't let the man down.

He was nervous about their next encounter with the Rogue Trader because he had proven to be a worthy foe, but he wasn't about to let his comrades in on his secret.

Rocky, Fyord, and UgSplag the ogryn packed up their stuff and began to follow Hulka into the next encounter.


The scene is set:



Alisa, Fyord and Candor advance towards the Armoured Ground car, fingers crossed that it still works.



Sargent Hulka's plan is simple, commandeer a Toad vehicle and drive straight towards the alien space craft.



On the other side of town meanwhile, the Rogue Trader, Miguel Quasar and his Eldar allies sneaking from cover cautiously advance unsure as to what to expect. The roaring of primitive vehicles in the distance and the large wrecked space craft warning them of the coming conflict.



The Eldar sharpshooter takes up position...



Sargent Hulka's crew gets closer to the space craft while the Eldar Hiro jumps into another vehicle and begins a round about way to cut off Hulka's escape.



Rocky meanwhile begins sneaking around behind a building to get into a flanking position.



Alisa and her crew got into the Armoured Ground Car and zoomed up close to the crashed space craft but Oblio, the Eldar marksman spotted their advance. He opened fire and hit with his las weapon penetrating the car's armour, Alisa was forced to take a nerve test which she promptly failed. She then sent the car spinning around 180 degrees and it slammed into the building behind her, immobilizing the car!



Hiro, in his newly acquired assault bus zooms around behind some buildings, knowing he'll need to be in position to cut off my crew's escape.



At this point in the battle, both Miguel Quasar's and Hulka's crew are both close enough to the space craft to trigger its self defense mechanism which in turn wakes up defense robots. Sargent Hulka, sensing the danger quickly hops off the Toad and runs into the ruined space craft attempting to grab whatever he can find of value.

Rocky moves up to the corner of the building and seeing a robot opens fire with his heavy stubber. The robot explodes after being pelted with high velocity solid rounds.



With Hulka inside the space craft the Eldar, led by Rogue Trader Miguel Quasar move up and start taking on the Robots at close range. Miguel and Yog Sothoth assault the robots. Yog has success and destroys one utterly with his powerfist. Miguel stuck in hand to hand combat for several rounds can not take down the robot. It eventually fells Quasar. Quasar drops to the ground apparently lifeless but the Eldar know the fights not over yet, they can still salvage a victory.



Another robot wanders over to the wreckage of the ground car and opens up with its pulse carbine into Fyord Fairlane. Fyord has no chance and gets shredded, falling to the ground.



Sargent Hulka emerges from the space craft with an ancient xenos artefact emitting strange sounds. Hulka jumps into the back of the Toad. "Lets get the hell out of here!" Putting the Toad into gear, they back away from the space craft, turn around and start back the way they came. At that moment Hiro jumps out from his armoured bus and jumps in from of their Toad, levels his pistol and fires.



Hiros shots bounce harmlessly off the Toad, but one of Hiro's mates opens up with his long las and hits home, sending the Toad out of control. Fiery and Hulka jump off. Hulka tells Fiery to take care of that Eldar, while he continues on foot with the artefact.



Hulka escapes with the artefact. He has shown he can lead this crew without their venerable leader Arkhan.

Later on that night at the appointed meeting point agreed to before the final push to the space craft, the rest of the crew meet up. Rocky and UgSplag arrive late with a prisoner in tow.

"Well, well, well. What have we got 'ere?" says Hulka. "We've got a prisoner boss!" UgSplag spurts out.

"So we meet again, Hulka." Says Rogue Trader Miguel Quasar.

Campaign Game 3 Battle Report

So this past weekend we played through the third scenario I made for Book of the Arbitrator. Our crews had both become smaller since the second game. I had lost only one henchman but my adversary had lost several. He added on a couple of extra henchmen using the Citizens of the Imperium generic entry in the Book of the Arbitrator to make up some points and make the game a bit more even.

The game started off with my Inquisitor leader, Arkhan Lan and his crew having escaped the Rogue Trader and his Eldar allies. Lan had gotten the information as to the location of a downed alien space craft and the Rogue Trader was hot on his heels.

Arkhan Lan decided to make a last stand before reaching the space craft and hope to dissuade his pursuers from continuing their chase.

All the way to the right is the old ruined Imperial Guard outpost where Arkhan Lan and his boys have decided to make their last stand:



The Sneaky Eldar deploy:



Arkhan Lan and his crew deploy in and around the outpost:



Sargent Bruhm Hulka and crew set up on one side of the outpost:



On the other side Lan and his crew setup. Inquisitor Lan decides to take the fight to the enemy in this scenario, he will not hold back and wants to discourage these Xenos and their Rogue Trader leader to just walk away and stop pursuing the Xenos tech.



The Rogue Trader gets the initiative and turn one begins with the Eldar advancing:



As the Rogue Trader and his Eldar allies advance on Lan's position, he throws a smoke grenade to mask their advance:



Arkhan Lan decides that its time to act, he and his crew advance down the road using the smoke as cover just as those sneaky Xenos are doing.



Three of the Eldar work their way around a building and try to catch Lan's crew at unawares.



The Rogue Trader throws another smoke grenade but Arkhan Lan is not phased, his power armour comes equipped with enhanced vision allowing him to see right through the smoke screen. Arkhan Lan get a surge of adrenaline and yells out a fierce battle cry and charges through the smoke straight into an Eldar with a power fist. Arkhan is not phased and slashes his chainsword down to decapitate the xenos scum. The Eldar is not so easily defeated however, and side steps the blow. He then smashes his powerfist into the armored ceramite of the Inquisitor's power armour and cracks open the breastplate sending spears of pain into Lan's body. Lan falls to his knees and spits up blood onto the ground. He lets out a last scream of pain as he falls his last breath of life escaping from is mouth. Inquisitor Lan is dead.

His allies looked stunned for a moment and Sargent Hulka rallies his troops with a battle cry. Trooper Fiery McPhee hurdles a barrier and tries to avenge is former master. As he gets into a position to hurl flaming promethium into the xenos line he too is felled by a well-placed las shot and falls to the ground.



Ogyrn UgSplag lets out a gutteral yell and opens up with his heavy stubber into the Eldar who felled Fiery and quickly dispatches him. The Rogue Trader seeing Sargent Hulka rally his troops decided to put an end to this new potential rival steps up into hand to hand with him. One quick attack later, Hulka too goes down.



The assassin Tor Alcorn decides to take thing into his own hands and leaps over a pipes and tries to get closer to the out flanking Eldar. Alcorn leans too heavily on his over blown ego and over stretches himself. While briefly out in the open, the Eldar warrior steps up and unleahes a hail of deadly shuriken blades and down too goes Alcorn.



Things are looking bleak now for the whats left of the Inquisitor's crew. Alisa T'Kar knew these Eldar would be tough and she had questions about Lan's strategy coming into this encounter. She surveys the field of battle and decides the discretion is the better part of valor. She signals a retreat and at the end of turn six, my crew bottles.



In the aftermath of the battle, Fiery, Tor, and Hulka all survive and my crew regroups for the coming investigation of the downed space craft. Inquisitor Arkhan Lan has seen his final action, however, and muttering a prayer to the God-Emperor, Sargent Hulka takes command of the crew for the final push.

Since I bottled on turn 6, I lost the scenario. I had to survive for 8 full turns and was unable to do so. I only received d6 experience and promptly rolled a 1. Only my Ogryn ally gained a point. The Rogue Trader's crew gained a lot of experience and going into the final scenario would have a small 5 man crew but they would be battle-hardened. I knew the final scenario would be a difficult fight without my Inquisitor but I would do my best the next day.

Scenario 4 battle report coming soon......

Pics of Ramshackle Vehicles

So I was meaning to do an update last Thursday or Friday but I just didn't get my act together on time. I finished painting up these vehicles Friday afternoon.

So here is the first one, the Toad:



Here is the Armoured Toad:



The Hotrod:



The Armoured Ground Car:



I love the drivers in these vehicles, the are so characterful! I have to admit, while these kits are pretty straight forward they are a pain to assemble, I needed to use a bunch of green stuff and some sprues glued to the bottom to keep them together.

They painted up really well and I think I did a decent job for not spending much time on them.

This past weekend i got to play through the final two Book of the Arbitrator Scenarios I made up. I had a great time and I love the rules for vehicles, the damage chart is hilarious! I will do a detailed battle report for both battles hopefully later today or maybe tomorrow.

laters.