Jump to content

Nacnudllah

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    199

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Nacnudllah

  1. Nacnudllah

    Naval Battles in AoS

    By Nacnudllah,

    Back in May, I ran a small local event featuring homemade rules for playing naval battles in AoS.  I received a lot of encouragement from the Narrative Play forum here, and eventually (after some tweaking from the original event) compiled my original rules with some additional naval homebrew content and photos from the event to make this book!  In addition to the basic rules for playing naval battles, I've added rules for weather, naval command abilities, and specialty munitions.  If you have any questions or feedback about it, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment, I will be using these rules again for future events, so the more finely tuned they are, the better those events will be.
    Enjoy!

  2. Nacnudllah

    Efengie Book 3

    By Nacnudllah,

    I've finished the third Efengie Campaign book.  These books are put together from the battleplans I use for the Age of Sigmar Game Days that I run more-or-less monthly at my FLGS.  In this one (as with the other two below) we've got five battleplans, a campaign system, and some fun little stories about what went down.  In the aftermath of the Coalescence War of the Ring, Sigmar's followers have been convinced of Efengie's strategic value.  Follow the story of Sigmar's invasion, interlopers from the grim darkness beyond the Eye of Terror, and an epic power struggle with Colossal Red, the Queen of the Monsters.
     
    In this book, I made some changes to the Clash of Empires battleplan framework.  The biggest change for anyone playing through the campaign book is that each battleplan now has two different battlefields with different secondary objectives.  This fits in really nicely with the campaign system since now the winner of each battle gets to choose the battlefield for the next one.  Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the book!
    Also, here are links to the first two books if you want to get the whole story so far.
     
  3. Nacnudllah
    Battleplan: Acquisition (from the Kharadron Overlords Battletome)
    Match-up: Order vs. Legion of Azorgh
    On the burning plains of Aqshy, Hazim the Blooded and his loyal Fireglaives approached an ancient Zharr Goroth ruin.  He and his Daemonsmith, Dray the Alchemist, had been searching the ruins of an old empire for weeks, seeking enchanted artefacts and other treasures.  So far, they had turned up only a few... an enchanted weapon that Hazim had claimed for himself, and a sacred duardin relic that was in Dray's possession.
    As Hazim began to climb the steps into the ruin, he heard cries of battle behind him.  He looked back to their base camp, fortified on a nearby butte, just in time to see a trio of Judicators assault their gun-line.  They opened with a thunderous barrage of hammers, battering the artillerists, and then, with a valorous battle cry, charged the Dreadquake Mortar.

    He readied his weapons to fight and began to look around for more enemies.  Sure enough, his scouts had done a terrible job.  The ruins were filled with Stormcast Eternals, but what would they want with the wreckage of the Zharr Goroth?  There must be some reason for their presence.  The question would have to wait for the moment.  He cast Mystic Shield on his Fireglaive unit, as Dray had taught him, and prepared for battle.

    Meanwhile, from camp, Dray spied a unit of Retributors and their Lord Relictor marching out of a nearby crypt.  While the Magma Cannon sent the winged Prosecutors back to Azyr where they belonged, Dray ordered his Dreadquake Mortar and Deathshrieker Rocket Battery to rain down devastation on their position.  
    Lord Relictor Gladion Sunseeker did his best to heal the Retributors with his heavenly lightning, but the unit was nearly wiped out.  He and his one remaining ally marched forward, intent on joining the fray.

    The reason for the Stormcast's interest in Duardin artefacts became suddenly apparent.  Fleet Admiral Skragnir the Recalcitrant and his Arkanaut crew opened fire from the base of the butte, slaying the crew of the Magma Cannon with their Aethergold-powered weaponry.  Apparently, the forces of Barak-Thryng were at work this day, presumably attempting to reclaim the salvaged duardin heirlooms.

    The Liberators charged the Fireglaives, fighting for control of the ruin.  They slew a few, but the combination of Mystic Shield, Blackshard Armour, and the cover provided by the ruin itself rendered the duardin nigh impervious.  Not so, however, when the surviving Retributor charged in, his hammer crackling with critical energy.  He was furious at the destruction of his battle brothers.  With little regard for the Fireglaives entrenched position, he hurled mortal wounds in all directions until the duardin, and their fearless leader Hazim, were no more.  Gladion picked up Hazim's enchanted weapon, hung it on his belt, and continued the fight.  There was still a sacred relic to be reclaimed.
       
    By the time Fleet Admiral Skragnir had climbed to the top of the butte, his Akanauts had been gunned down to a man.  They had acquitted themselves nobly, felling both the Magma Cannon, and the Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher, and nearly destroying the Dreadquake Mortar.  But the job that remained needed to be done right, so he would have to do it himself.  
    Though Dray's Blackshard Hammer nearly sundered Skragnir's plate armour and sent him back to the spirit in the sky, the Slave Ogor had been whipped too mercilessly during the battle and contributed nothing to the melee.  Skragnir set upon them with his Aethermatic Hammer, reassuring himself of his righteousness muttering under his breath "there's just no trading with some people".  

    His devastating hammer blows demolished the Dreadquake Mortar and sent Dray flying back off of the butte.  He looked on in shock, took one last puff of his pipe, and fell into the crackling lava below.  The sacred scroll he had been carrying drifted slowly to Gladion's feet.  Gladion collected it and gave a signal to Skragnir.  Then they began the long walk to rejoin their skyfleet.
    Crossposted from hive fleet charybdis.
  4. Nacnudllah
    In the final battle of the Big Trouble in Little Azyrheim campaign, Skragnir has the Letter of Marque in hand, and has to run a blockade of enemies between himself and Castle Reaper.  This last battleplan is pretty much the same as the breakthrough battleplan in Hinterlands, but that's what we actually played at the event, so here it is.

    In the actual event, the end came down to a tie between Skragnir and the von Hortlaks.  We used XP gained as our tie breaker, and Skragnir and his crew came out on top.  Fleet Admiral Skragnir now holds a seat on the high council in the Free City of Reaper.  Once my brother finishes painting his Kharadron Overlords, I can get pictures of Skragnir and his lot to populate the book, and I will release this whole thing as a proper skirmish campaign.  Enjoy!
    Below are the exposition, parts 1-4, and the campaign rules if you're playing along.








  5. Nacnudllah
    Welcome to Part 4 of Big Trouble in Little Azyrheim.  We've hit the home stretch.  After being betrayed by a member of his own crew, Skragnir and his Arkanauts have to survive the night hiding out in the Murderwood on the edge of town.

    This battleplan is a new take on an oft repeated concept.  Assassins are out to kill Skragnir the Recalcitrant, who has to start in the center of the battlefield.  The twist here is that the Defender gets to start off with all their models on the battlefield, but they've been spread out to stand watch.  They don't know which direction the Assassins will come from, so they'll have to watch every angle!
    If you missed it, here are Parts 1-3, which also include the campaign rules (in Part 2) if you want to play along!
     
  6. Nacnudllah
    In the third battle of the Big Trouble in Little Azyrheim campaign, I wanted to try something that I haven't seen in AoS before.  In MERCS (a kinda' neat skirmish game that I don't quite endorse, but have had some fun playing in the past) they ran a global narrative event at one point, and one of the scenarios revolved around having a mole in your opponent's team.  I liked that idea and hope that it translates well to AoS.

    Broken Trust is a very asymmetrical battle.  The Defender has the Letter of Marque (if you're playing the campaign) or a bonus Artefact (if you're not), but also a traitor in their ranks.  The Ambusher has their warband split between two battlefield edges, which could be a strength, but is definitely also a potential weakness.
    I had a lot of different ideas for approaching the "Traitor In Our Midst" rule.  
    I considered having the traitor be selected at the start of the battle, and then revealed at the opportune moment.  That would have been cool, because revealing the traitor at the opportune moment would be fun, but it would also involve additional book-keeping, and could lead to a lot of unpleasant traitor experiences (like the traitor having to flip early and being really badly positioned, or the traitor dying to deadly terrain before being revealed).
    I also considered having the traitor be random, but having the player choose when they would be revealed.  Ultimately, I ended up deciding that would lend too much power to killing off weaker units so that you could increase the value of your traitor.  It seemed a bit too gamey for what I wanted.
    I ended up settling on a random traitor at a fixed time.  The benefits of that are that there isn't much meta-gaming strategy to it, but it is still predictable.
     
    If you missed it, here are Part 1 and Part 2, which also include the campaign rules if you want to play along!
    Crossposted from http://hivefleetcharybdis.blogspot.com/
  7. Nacnudllah
    Welcome to the second installment of the Big Trouble in Little Azyrheim Campaign.  Since obviously, you'll need actual campaign rules to progress from Episode 1 to Episode 2, that's what I'll be covering today.  While I imagine most will use the Shadespire Campaign rules, I thought it would be good to just spit out ideas for campaign structures willy nilly because I can.  So first up here are the rules.

    This campaign is all about the acquisition of Overlord Grimni's Letter of Marque, so that you can claim his seat on the high council.  As such, I wanted the changing of hands of that Letter to be an important mechanic in the campaign at large.  So the Letter of Marque must be fielded in every battle once recovered.  I've got some proposed alternative campaign rules that eschew Renown Points and instead just use a simple Wounds based growth system.  It's nothing fancy, but if you are looking for something different to cobble together your own campaign system, here are some ideas :).
    I've also included an alternative form of Underdog Boons.  Instead of re-rolls, I dole out bonus Artefacts.  It's an idea, and I'm not sure it's a good one, but there it is.

    Next, we have the campaign flowchart, which contains spoilers.  You'll need this to play the campaign proper.

    And finally, the battleplan itself.  This battleplan is all about running around and picking up pieces of the Letter of Marque so that they can be combined and made whole again.  It's a weird concept, and a weird theme, but this was part of the story because the Hinterlands scenario that was originally played (at the event) was "The Lost Artefact", which involved collecting scroll fragments.  Tune in next time for part 3!
    And here's part 1!
     
  8. Nacnudllah
    I ran a Hinterlands event a few weekends ago (the same weekend the new Skirmish rules dropped, funny enough).  I used three of the Hinterlands battleplans for it, The Lost Artefact, Assassinate, and Breakthrough.  To tie it all together, I made up a story set in our local campaign setting (the Vale of Efengie) in which the players were trying to find and deliver a Letter of Marque that would grant one lucky general a seat on the Reaper King's council.  Normally I bake all of the events I run together into campaign books, but I thought that this story-line would make a fun Skirmish campaign.  So I've expanded it into a five battleplan campaign that I will be posting over the next week or two.
    Here's the first fluff page explaining the basic premise.  Call it exposition if you like.

    In the first battleplan, two warbands arrive at the scene of Overlord Grimni's murder to investigate.  I was inspired a little bit by the beginning of the Watchmen, when Rorschach is investigating the Comedian's murder.  I think Grimni and whoever killed him probably had a pretty severe rumble in the wee hours of the night, and whodunnit is still a mystery (we may never know, but I assume it was a Dark Elf), but the carrion are already descending because they know that if they want his council seat, they're going to have to act fast.

    This is going to be a five battleplan campaign, and I plan on posting the other battleplans over the next couple weeks, and hopefully by the time I'm done posting them piecemeal, I'll have the full campaign book finished!
  9. Nacnudllah
    The Skirmish Campaign rules have opened my eyes to a whole new way of playing narrative linked battles.  So I've added 2-player narrative campaign rules to the campaign books I've made based on the monthly Age of Sigmar events I run.  I finally feel like they are more or less complete!
    Each book includes five battleplans based on the Clash of Empires battleplan from Warhammer World, a Time of War, and a good chunk of fluff and pictures introducing you to the Vale of Efengie, its denizens, and their travails (along with the aforementioned 2-player campaign).
    The first book follows two invading forces from other Realms as they battle it out over the Vale of Efengie.  The second book takes a more personal direction, and follows one army through a realmgate into Shyish on a mission to defeat death, but enemies have followed them through the gate .
    I hope you enjoy the books!
     
  10. Nacnudllah
    I bought myself Gorechosen for Taxsmas (a traditional American gift giving holiday that occurs around February or April or whenever you get your tax returns), and decided that I would try out LAVA BASES!!!  I wouldn't post this tutorial unless I thought I'd come up with something I hadn't seen elsewhere.  After doing my research, I found a bunch of advice for doing lava, but nobody doing the super easy thing I had been envisioning, so I tried it, it worked, and I figured I'd share it with the world.
     

      Step 1: Put your model on the base, trace out where you want your lava floes to go.  I'm leaving flat spots on the base for this guy's feet, but you can do whatever you want for that (I think it depends heavily on the model).  
     

     
    Here are my traced out lava floes and spots for feet.  Nothing too wild and crazy or inspired, just some rivers of molten rock.
     

     
    Step 2: Glue down sand everywhere you didn't outline.  Basically, we're putting sand anywhere we don't want LAVA! (or feet, feet are good too).
     

     
    I just took this picture so you'd know what you're even looking at.  Which in this case is a headless Slaughterpriest.
     

     
    Step 3: Paint the lava.  I started with Wild Rider Red (which is really a nice red-orange).  This is the first step where I'm doing something kind of original, it is very important that we paint a wide margin of the sand with the Wild Rider Red, because this is going to get us a cool glowing lava effect later.
     

     
    Step 4: Fairly straightforward progression, we're going to paint the center of the lava flow with a brighter orange.  I'm still using a pot of Fiery Orange that's probably 10 years old, but I think the newer GW color that compares to it is probably Troll Slayer or Fire Dragon Orange).
     

     
    Step 4.5: Continue to highlight the center of the lava, I used Yriel Yellow.
     

     
    Step 5: Paint the sand black.  I've separated this into two steps.  First, paint everything that isn't orange with Abbadon Black.
     

     
    Step 5.5: Then, drybrush Abbadon Black over the rest of the sand.  
     

     
    Step 6: Drybrush the black parts of the sand with Dawnstone (dark grey) to make it look kind of ashen.
     

     
    And you're done!  Here's another finished one below.
     

     
    The WIP Slaughterpriest standing on it (the flash on my camera is really bringing out the Wild Rider Red on this one, it isn't nearly this harsh in real life)
     

     
    This is the only one I've finished so far, so this is what the finished product looks like (this pic looks more like real life, probably because it's just well lit and has no flash).
     

     
    Last but not least, here are some related ideas I tried out when experimenting, first one with cork basing on the White Dwarf Slaughterpriest.
     

     
    And then the Damsel of Distress, who I wanted to match aesthetically, but had already been fully based.  I just painted the lava colors in a few spots here and there, and then drybrushed the sand black to taste.
     

  11. Nacnudllah
    I played a battle tonight using my Narrative Battleplan "Stuff of Legends".  We rolled up about the most boring thing we could have, so I'll have to do a little work to make sure that things aren't boring, but even so it was a pretty fun battle.  On the Victory Conditions table, we rolled up "Monument" for the Objective, which is what made it a bit dull.  I had Flesh-eater Courts and got "Command" for my motivation while my brother brought Beastmen and appropriately got "Ruin".  We brough artefacts and since I picked the Cursed Book, I decided that my heroes had read the book and were trying to use the Dark Magic TM of Dreadstone Blight to reanimate Uncle Ivan's deceased wife, the Ghoul Queen.
          
    We also picked the Ashlands Time of War from Godbeasts.  Fortunately, my local game store has a nice selection of battlemats, so we were fighting over LAVA!

    I was glad we chose a large central objective because it helped break up the big battle in the middle that would have otherwise ensued.  We ended up having a Bullgor fight on one side of the Dreadstone Blight, and a Bestigor fight on the other side.

    Uncle Ivan is on the Terrorgeist, commanding the Dreadstone Blight.  Rurkar Festigor (Beastlord) is on the other side smashing the building to pieces.

    The Bestigors were determined to bring the tower down.  Sadly, in the end, the Brayherds were completely tabled.  We ended with 5 Victory Dice for the Flesh-eater Courts and 4 for the Brayherds.  After rolling, Uncle Ivan managed to resurrect his dead wife, for whom I will now have to find a suitable model.

    The Bestigors after they met Crypt Horrors (also got Death Shrieked by a Terrorgeist).
    I look forward to trying out the battleplan again.  The most cinematic moment the battleplan created was on the first turn when I offered my brother a Victory Dice to sacrifice Skreet the Warlock Engineer to the Pyroclasm (it's an Ashstorm thing).  The reason Skreet is not pictured is because it killed him  poor little rat.  However, I think that the low number of available Victory Dice applied downward pressure on our level of interest in awarding them to eachother.
     
     


  12. Nacnudllah
    I have officially completed the first Efengie Campaign Book!  This is the culmination of about six months of running themed Age of Sigmar events at my FLGS.  It came about because I was creating battleplans for the monthly Age of Sigmar Game Day (like a tournament, but more casual) at my FLGS.  In order to establish a narrative and give the events fun story-oriented stakes, I decided I would write a fluff piece after each event to describe what happened, and slowly flesh out the ongoing story of our not-quite-campaign.

    Efengie was the old tongue-in-cheek setting for my local store's Warhammer Fantasy campaigns, which we ran on a regular basis for roughly 10 years before Age of Sigmar was released.  The store owner drew the original map (I drew this one myself) based on the layout of the store, which resulted in us having locations like Fort Snack, and Mount Cola.  The Port City of Bludor was literally a blue door that was adjacent to a particularly flood prone area of the back storage area.  Some, like the Trade City of Register or the cities of North Couch and South Couch didn't make the cut because they were a little too silly.  I have given that setting a makeover to find it a home in Ghyran.
     
          
     
    This book includes five battleplans built on the framework of Warhammer World's Clash of Empires.  It includes two new Time of War rules representing the Vale of Efengie as well as the Gates of Eucebium, a ring of ancient Realmgates erected by the Wanderers.  It has plenty of fluff and photography from the events to round it out, and also includes a Map Campaign for use with the General's Handbook map campaign rules.
       
    Enjoy!
     

  13. Nacnudllah
    When I first played Age of Sigmar, I wasn't super impressed (obviously I've come around since then).  I was trying to play it like Warhammer Fantasy, and it isn't Warhammer Fantasy.  A few months later, I came back to it, but this time with a set of rules to make it Warhammer Fantasy, but without violating the things that made it Age of Sigmar.  There were things I missed like miscasts, artillery dice, and ranked infantry.  So I played AoS with the first page of these rules for a good little while, and then recently went back, made some revisions, and added a second page that includes challenges, mysterious terrain (and/or alternative terrain), and magic items.  I hope that these rules can be a fun throwback as well as a way to ease old players from Warhammer to Age of Sigmar without trying to leave everything behind.
     
×
×
  • Create New...