Battle reports : Vengeance of the Lichemaster and Rogue Trader

These freaks are here to party !

Well it's quite unusual for me but for once I can tell you I managed to play with some those models I seem to paint for no other purpose than keeping my mind off of the utter non-sense of our world.

That's right, you read it perfectly well, I got some games in this WE and this was fun AND I didn't have to go to Canada or England to do it !

Pour une fois que j'ai pas a me bouger au Canada ou en Angleterre pour pouvoir jouer à de l'ancien il fallait saisir l'occasion !

Just look at how awesome that was :

Vengeance of the Lichemaster !

We played the final act of Kemler's adventures leading to his final vengeance. In this scenario, Kemler comes back to the Maisontaal abbey to desecrate the temple and get his revenge from the templars themselves. The skaven are also here for a very good reason too (don't want to spoil the scenario for you lot). The poor templars will have a hard time saving their skin !

La première partie que l'on a jouée était le dernier scénario de la campagne du Lichmaster où Kemler revient à la Maisontaal pour profaner el temple et assouvir sa vengeance à l'encontre de Bagrian. Les skavens étaient quant à eux là pour des raisons toutes personnelles (je vais pas vous gâcher le scénar quand même).

picture from Solegend

The game was mastered by Nico who prepared an awful amount of models and scenery which were all to the very high high standard you'd expect of him, just take a look at the related blogposts of his on his preparation and prepare your jaw to its impending fall.

C'ets Nico qui a maitrisé la partie et qui nous a régalé avec une tonne de figurine et de décors de folie (voir lien au dessus pour voir son travail)

Nico and his friend Cédric played the human faction defending the abbey :

Nico et Cédric jouaient les prêtres guerriers de la Maisontaal denfendant l'abbaye :

While Bruno and Benoit were leading the forces of undeath :
Tandis que Bruno et Benoit menaient les forces mort-vivantes :

With Charles and myself leading (or was it closer to "directing") the rat-things :
Avec Charles et moi-même à la tête des Skavens :

The game began in an immediately good mood (despite all the participants being french) and after the usual gaming preparations, we were good to go !
La partie a tout de suite débuté avec une super ambiance (comme quoi les français font pas que râler) et on a décidé de faire les choses bien :

"yeah, keep on pouring, that one's mine... thaaaaat's right, till the top !"

The game started right away with the undead unfairly (and for absolutely no reason) aiming at the skaven by throwing skulls and undead horsemen at them...
Les morts-vivants ont engagé les hostilité de manière totalement déloyaleet sans raison en envoyant des crânes à coups de catapulte dans nos pauvres skavens (accompagnés de cavaliers pour faire bonne mesure).

With the courtesy that characterises skaven (especially when played by french), the gutter runners who arrived during turn 2 decided to pay a little friendly visit to their adorable neighbours...
Avec toute la courtoisie caractérisant les skavens, les coureurs d'égoûts décidèrent de rendre une petite visite à l'arrière des lignes de squelettes...

"let's pay a visit-visit to the bone-things"

 And they quickly found the perfect place to meet...
Et ils n'ont pas tardé à trouver l'endroit parfait pour le faire...

"that's the thing that sent us those man-thing skull-skulls"

Confident in his catapult being secure due to its remote position,  Krell decided to lead the zombies himself (but from a little distance, their stench offending even his noseless lack of sense of smell).
Confiant dans la sécurité de sa catapulte, Krell se décida à mener les zombies au combat (bon unpeu à distance parceque même pour lui l'odeur était insoutenable).

Always late to the party, that's when the skaven beasmaster (mounted on a beast himself) decided to appear.
Encore à la bourre, le maitre des bêtes se décidé quand même à rappliquer.

"We said 11 AM sharp right ?"

 He quickly had to decide where to bring his might and influence to help his own caus... COUGH... the skaven course of course...
Il allait devoir trouver fissa un endroit où porter le combat pour son prop... enfin pour le bien commun quoi...

"Oh damnit-damnit, looks like the party's already started"

Meanwhile, Gnawdoom and Thanquol both secure in the same unit (also containing a warpfire thrower because Skaven do tend to have a very peculiar sense of safety...) managed to reach the abbey. That's when young Snitch decided to admit he could no longer wait and needed to go to the toilets. In a frentic whirlwind of fur and steel, he ran as fast as he could to the abbey...
Pendant ce temps, Thanquol et Gnawdoom qui se sentaient en sécurité dans une unité qui contenait pourtant une lance-feu , arrivèrent à l'abbaye. c'est alors que l'encenseur décida qu'il en pouvait plus et qu'il devait sortir pour aller pisser.

"GYAAAAAAH ! CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMOOOOORE !"

 Killing a few man-things that were on his way in the process...
Dans sa route jusqu'aux toilettes, ils percuta (à mort) quelques moines au passage...

"Where's the restroom, man-thing ?"

 Gnawdoom and Thanquol made it to the temple and began to ask for the awesome black ark...
Gnawdoom et Thanquol purent donc arriver jusqu'à l'abbaye afin de récupérer l'arche noire...

"Well, see, if you could be kind enough to tell me where the ark is..."

And during all that time, the gutter runners didn't manage to do any harm to the skull catapult... Their fight only second to Skip's and Napoleon's.
Pendant ce temps là, les coureurs d'égouts et les servants de la catapulte se livrèrent à un combat d'armes en mousse...

Bagrian remembered he had left unfinished business in some other place so he decided a fisful of warrior monks could manage a skaven army with an undead one on top in his absence...
Bagrian n'écouta que son courage et décida de fuir l'abbaye et de la laisser à la poignée de moines et aux villageois contre les 2 armées qui l'assaillait !

"Come with me, I have to... well I've got this thing I really need to do right now... Flee? no, you're not seeing this the right way, this is merely a retreat..."

 But good ol' Sikrit spotted the odd couple escaping the abbey...
Mais quelqu'un le repéra...

A threat easily handled with a couple of fireballs...
Rien qu'une paire de boules de feu à la face ne puissent règler cependant...

"oh look ! how cute, he's trying to stop us !"

The second unit of clan rats were not doing as well though, their progress had been stopped by an evil elf-thing that was at least 10 feet tall and with 3 pairs of arms plus firy skin... (that's what they all reported anyway).
Le deuxième unité de guerriers skaven se trouva bloquée contre une maudite elfe est-allemande qui refusait obstinément de mourrir ou de fuir...

But the objective was secure, the black ark at last ! It did release some lightning bolts here and there (one of them misteriously vanishing into the abbey itself) but apart from the few casualties, the rats were good to get back home !

Mais les skavens avaient récupéré l'arche (on pense à l'objectif quand même). ce faisant ils arrosèrent la zone d'éclairs dont un se perdit dans l'abbaye...

It seems the lightning bolt that went loose wasn't lost to everyone ! Some freaky steel machine emerged from the depths of the temple with a rather menacing pose which was more than Gnawdoom was willing to cope with...

L'éclair perdu ne l'avait pas été pour tout le monde et ils semble que cet éclat de magie réveilla une machine étrange des tréfonds du temple...

"Yeah, alright guys, you know what? take that chest and let's get the hell outta here presto-presto mkay?

Kemler (late thanks to some of Gnawdoom's spells) arrived just on time to get the full attention of the strange iron creature between  him and the abbey.
Kemler, en retard grâces à quelques tempêtes de vent (cadeaux de Gnawdoom) arriva juste à temps pour avoir toute l'attention de la machine qui gardait l'abbaye.

The skaven beatsmaster still mounted on his rat-ogre, finally realised there was no escaping the actual fight and engaged the zombies and the strange looking (and quite menacing) warrior with them...
Le maitre des bêtes se rendit compte qu'il ne pourrait pas échapper au combat et décida donc de charger l'unité de zombies et le guerrier bizarre qui se trouvait au milieu d'eux...

The beastmaster knew this warrior couldn't be great enough to oppose any difficulty so he challenged him to a duel :
Le guerrier en question n'avait pas l'air bien menacant alors il le provoqua en duel :

And the horned god was clearly with him, he could see his tale being told through all Skavenblight and being raised as a great hero ! They would all see what an incredible warrior he was !
Le dieu cornu semblait avec lui, les morts-vivants allaient voir de quelle étoffe il était taillé !

Unfortunately, it seems Krell wasn't told any of that and he killed the skaven hero after a few rounds of pointless slap fight...
Mais il semble que Krell n'en avait cure et il finit par le rosser après quelques rounds d'observation.

And that's how it all ended :
Et tout s'acheva :

Gnawdoom and Thanquol escaped with the ark :
Gnowdoom et Thanquol s'enfuyant avec l'arche :

Bagrian escaped with his life (and a very nice looking young monk he appreciated) :
Bagrian s'échapant avec un jeune éphèbe (et la vie sauve) :

While Kemler was still stuck with the iron machine at the temple :
Et Kemler bloqué au temple devant ce satané robot !

"Now get the hell outta here you stupid machine !  I've come to piss on the wall paintings and desecrate this silly place and those who prevented me from conquering the world some time ago, move aside NOW !

So that's how the game ended, with all 3 sides having great feats to praise and... well moments they would probably keep silent (stories are nice because of the untold part right?).

The whole game was great fun thanks to Nico's amazing work as a GM and for the wonderful elements (models, scenery and al) which just left us the fun part of playing and pushing models !  The game was also a fabulous example of fairplay with the undead allowing us (skaven) to use the leadership of a character we had forgotten at the back of a unit) not getting the strong leadership could have meant serious trouble for the rats. All the game, everything was a good reason to laugh and the mood around the table was absolutely delightful.

Une super partie à 3 maitrisée avec brio par Nico qui nous a permis de nous concentrer sur les parties fun du jeu et moins sur les mécaniques qu'il connait sur le bout des doigts. Il y eut juste ce qu'il fallait de petits coups tordus et de fairplay ce qui a rendu (avec le whiskey) la partie vraiment agréable !

After such a good time , getting a bit of sci-fi for good measures was almost mandatory !

One flew over the rogue's nest :

 With the Fantasy game taking a good part of the day, we found the time to get a far more humble game of Rogue Trader. I mastered that one and as usual the game terribly lacked good preparation (some models and scenery involved being finished the night before). Anyway, the game was meant to be relatively simple to serve as an entry point o Nico who had never played any 40k.

At the border of Helsreach's colony 86, the imperial shuttle "Divine Talon" has crashed because of damages received during an encounter with some ork space pirates. The pilots managed to make it but the cargo was mostly lost apart from a very precious device they were meant to deliver. Authorities dispatched the nearest agent to retrieve the device (at all cost) and save the pilots (if possible).

Some local creatures were already scavenging the remnants of the shuttle and whatever was inside wouldn't stay so for long...

The sad thing for the pilots is that in the bar they chose to hide in, some orks heard part of their conversation and decided to report to the rest of the crew...

The imperial agents then came to save the pilots and get the position of the artefact they had to retrieve the aircraft had exploded in too man parts to check...

As they were getting the information they needed from the pilots, the robot' sensors felt the presence of ork pirates around...

That's when the rogue trader decided to eliminate the "leaks", the pilots had mentioned a drunken ork hearing them right ? Well the place seemed flooded in drunken orks so a little cleansing seems in order...

Unfortunately, that was also the moment when his squat right-hand failed at ignoring the sensual calling of the sex worker facing him...

"You really think what you just said? You know there's a heart inside this suit and beard ! Oh you meant 50 space credits, well... seems OK, can I just keep my armour on ? I feel a little diminished without it..."

 The ork pirates on their side managed to retrieve a robot and  hack it for their interest...

For some reason (men will be men) this had to end in a BIG ROBOT BASH ! (some will ask, nope we did not use those programming rules but the good ol' stats found in the rulebook otherwise we would still be playing this as I write).

The imperial agents learnt a crucial lesson meanwhile : NEVER EVER go retrieve an artefact on your own when a bunch of orks are around. They WILL shoot you dead.

Lesson learnt the hard way : all men must die but they don't all have to die under ork fire...

Rather than interogating and asking question wich would have taken ages (and mental ressources) the orks decided to search in every debris of the aircraft.

To do so, they attacked some of the scavengers that were already trying to salvage all they could. What they hadn't planned though was that the poor creatures ( I had chosen the lowest profile in the whole rulebook for the scavengers to be just a delay and not a threat) would actually defeat them and make them rout !

Right through their colleagues who immediately panicked too and started to flee as well !

While the orks were running away from the leathal threat some mutated crippled scrunts seemed to pose, the stolen robot seemed to be doing most of the heavy work... 

The rogue trader tried to knock it down with two blows that were so weak it seemed he would have done more damage with his bare heads (the Jokaero would owe him some explanations for not charging that powerglove properly).

The pilots clearly had enough and when the rogue trader asked them to get back to safety, he should have stated which way safety was...

"- not THAT way you idiots !
- You could also tell us which way to go FIRST !"

With the robot in position and the orks getting back in the game, things looked a little better for the red Sturz...

... but they had somehow forgotten that the real goal was the device the squat had just found in the last debris of the shuttle...

With the squat getting the device, the imperial agents could almost touch victory with their fingertips... But maybe giving the job to the slowest of all their members wasn't the right idea from the start. It gave pleeeeeenty of time to tehe orks to aim and shoot.

In an act of courage, the rogue trader used his tremendous leadership to send the drunken boy to get the device. 

(GM note : I had decided to allow the rogue trader to send the drunk get the device on the squat corpse and not only did he pass the leadership test to do so but the drunk also moved in the right randomly generated direction)

Which wasn't much of a change :

The rogue trader realised if you want something done in this grimdark world, you better do it yourself...

Which lead to the conclusion of it all...

The rogue trader has the moral victory of saving the pilots but he and his whole crew perished in the encounter and more importantly, he let the device fall into the green hands...

____________________________

So that was it, a game of fantasy and a game of 40k, both with great guys in for the fun and having a good time so just the perfect kind of experience really !

I got to see Nico's wonderful models up close :

I actually got to take part in a big convention (which I had never done before) :

I got to see many great tables I could get inspiration from :

And Charles even had the kindness to offer me a Dominator Battleship he had got from his Battlefleet Gothic days !

Temptation was avoided (though those republished FF adventure books with original illustrations inside were winking at me...) :

More temptation was avoided :

And the usual lot of strange people was met (always handy to spot these fellows when you don't know where the convention is, you can spot those guys from miles away and just follow them).

So here we are, we can now say here is a french oldhammer community and it is awesome !

I'll soon present you photos of the models and scenery I made for the Rogue trader game but I suppose this post is already long enough as is, take care ;)