#Busted out the Necrons

[sara-paints]

OH NO U GUYS IM GETTING BACK INTO 40K

I haven’t played in over a decade. But I have a 60% painted army, some cool kitbash/conversion models, and now I have an airbrush, a 3D printer, and a decade worth of painting experience on hand. Gonna give my army a fresh coat of paint and see where it takes me.

@copperforge I blame you for making it look cool.

[agbpaints]

2022, A year in minis

Well we're almost at the new year so I decided to drag everything I've painted out of its many boxes and lay it out to see what I've done. Overall I think this is the most productive year of painting I've had yet, with 123 figures finished in total. I crossed some big milestones with my admech, surpassing 1,000 and 1,500 pts of total painted models. I also started collecting necrons, started collecting battletech, and finished the last few stragglers from my cursed city box. My speed at painting increased this year considerably and I've definitely improved my confidence in my own skills- I've started using basic freehand and weathering techniques on my models and my airbrush is becoming a significantly more used tool even if my motor coordination isn't good enough for it to be a tool for anything more than monocolor base coats.

My favorite 2022 projects

Scrap-mech. Equal parts infuriating and awesome. Cawdor bodies have some of the jankiest connection points I've ever seen but their aesthetic is top notch and slots right into admech. This was the first project I did using citadel contrast paints, and while I don't think they're the one stop replacement for normal techniques they were billed as they work fantastically as like an 'extra thicc' wash.

Battletech. I really did not expect to have as much fun as I did with these big stompy murder bots. The models are appropriately chunky and gave me a lot of practice with panel lining. I also discovered how much fun flocking is!

Vargskyr: One of my favorite monsters that I've painted and my absolute most favorite piece from cursed city. I had a lot of fun getting the hair to blend in with the skin on this big chunky boy.

Tech-wraith Kitbash. This was an idea that came like a bolt from the blue while I was buying discount models that went from notion to build to done in less than 3 days. It's mostly bits and pieces from a kataphron kit welded into a cairn wraith but I'm super proud of it.

Flayed One Kitbashes. Flayed Ones are one of my favorite necron things period and after my initial spooktober idea hit a roadblock I fell into my backup plan, a flayer killteam. The lord is probably my favorite model I built out of the mix- he's mostly a primaris intercessor mashed together with an old warrior sprue.

Goals for 2023

Pile of shame busting: holy shit do I still have a lot of bare plastic to get rid of. My biggest goals for next year are going to be finishing my warcry and infinity starters that I've left to molder in their boxes and building/painting the rest of my admech backlog. In total I believe this is about 60 models

Spooktober project: last year I recieved a Seraptek heavy construct second hand that's been hiding in a box in my attic ever since. After reading twice dead king I've decided to make it the Seraptek from That Scene (you know the one) but life and the overwhelming size of the project meant I wussed out for spooktober this year. With another year of experience and time to plan ahead, it's gonna happen this time.

Advanced techniques: I've been experimenting recently with non-metalic metal and its absolutely nerd sniped me. I suck at it, but I see a glimmer of something I could get better at that I'm gonna try to claw towards. I'd also like yo try messing around more with various blending techniques in general.

Model photography: so far all of my models have had their photos taken using a desk lamp, a piece of calligraphy paper, and the phone camera on my Samsung. They're OK but I want to devote some time and resources into upgrading my kit and skills here.

[eyes-within-us]

Finally finished my eBay army of Necrons and painted my first model, a Night Scythe! I was hanging out with my Dad today and decided to learn to paint from him. I was going for a “A Royal Transport fit for a Dignified Necron” look with some midnight purple and glimmering gold… But I went a bit overboard with the wash and similarly went overboard with the highlights and wound up with “A Busted-Up Beauty fit for Aeldari Manslaughter”. I wish it was cleaner, but my dad was really proud of my first paint job, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.

Happy Father’s Day!

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #5

There is about twenty people waiting for them in the hangar as they arrive. Their gaze is drawn immediately to this massive grotesque form of a tech-priest. The Inquisitor herself is standing next to her; Uliana Genadiev is a small woman, dressed in fancy clothes and jewelry and heavily made-up. She is quite clearly a psyker.

She steps up to greet the players and there are introductions. Uliana asks a crewmate by the name of Daleyza to take the Deathwatch to her room, she herself will get acquaintanced with the Necron first.

Daleyza takes them first to their assigned rooms (a common room with 6 bedrooms) to drop off their belongings. Ortrecht does a quick sweep of his room and finds a discarded sweater under his bed, no bugs or vidfeeds though. After that, Daleyza takes them to the medbay, pointing at various places in the ship as they pass. In the medbay, the Astartes have their blood taken so that their badges will work on doors. Apparentlytheir clearance is quite high. After the medbay Daleyza takes them up to the Inquisitor’s wairing room and leaves them there.

It’s a pretty basic sitting room, with some food and drink left out and some nice abstract art of the void (as well as a bust of a male Inquisitor). There is also a cat sleeping next to a desk. Krevax goes to investigate it, not recognizing the creature and Ortrecht comments that of course it is Krevax that goes to investigate a xenos. Reigen (who is standing guard by the door) is the only one who recognizes a cat, having seen them used on voidships by crew against vermin.

Uliana soon joins them, asks them to take refreshments and to sit down. She herself takes some wine and takes a seat. When Reigen doesn’t sit down, Uliana says that to sit was an order, so Reigen sits. Ortrecht voxes to ask Reigen what he is so nervous about the door, and Reigen says it’s just a force of habit.

Uliana asks for a full report of their mission. Ortrecht gives the report, only leaving out the fact that Sonny and Ma held onto the Command Staff for a time. Uliana lets him talk, except she asks Krevax to clarify on his experiences about connecting with Khafset. When they are done talking, Uliana commends them on a job well done. She praises Krevax on quick thinking, but says that just in case, he will have to be checked over by her (his mind) and his armor checked over by a tech-priest in the repair shop. Krevax agrees. Uliana also liked that the staff was not given to the Necron, she is not sure if they can keep the Necron if he wants to leave, so some leverage is good to have. They should drop off the staff at the armory for safe-keeping.

Then it’s her turn to explain why she asked for assistance from the Deathwatch. She shows them a picture of a planet, a Death World name Old Saisea, that is not lived on but sometimes mined for resources. About two weeks ago, something happened to it. The next picture Uliana shows is of the same planet with literally a piece missing. It reminds Ortrecht of ork attacks, and Uliana agrees except there wasn’t any remnants of orks or their ships. To Krevax it looks a bit like what tyranids do, except they don’t usually stop in the middle of eating. Uliana says she was investigating this (and is indeed still investigating), when she received another distress call.

She puts up a picture of the planet Thetron and its moon Thetron-Psi, which had contained a research station of Adeptus Mechanicus and scholars from Thetron, studying the space around as the system’s sun is predicted to start getting a bit too radioactive in about hundred years. But around the time the Necron woke up, something happened. The next picture Uliana shows is of simply just rubble where the moon used to be. It all happened in an hour or so; there was no xenos ships around, no warp activity, nothing of note. Ortrecht suggests perhaps there was something inside the moon; Uliana says it’s not out of the question, though the research station noticed nothing. The only remains from the moon is a single vox message, which is only a long wailing scream that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a human.

Uliana says she is worried about these events being related, especially as she has no clue. If this is an attack on the Imperium she needs to know where it will land next so it can be stopped. There are a lot of strategically important planets in nearby systems.

So far the Necron appears the best lead. His waking at the same time as the scream can’t have been a coincidence. Uliana orders the Astartes to follow the Necron-lead as far as it goes. Uliana gives them free reign in that, just cautioning that Khafset should be treated well, as torture and imprisonment are not workable strategies.

Uliana gives them vox-contacts to her and the ship as well as sends them reports from Old Saisea and reports from other Inquisitors and Deathwatch (most notably from Gorm Oddmundson) about Necrons for them to study.

Then she asks if Krevax wants the others to be present when she probes into his mind. Krevax is fine with that. Uliana asks him to take his helmet off so she can see his eyes, so we get a first glimpse of any of our Astartes. Krevax has the pale skin, dark hair and near black eyes of his gene-father (and Uliana comments as much), he’s quite youthful for a 80-year old, mostly comparatively. Uliana grabs hold of his face and does some psychic probing, there’s glowing eyes and all that good jazz. All good on that front she says and sends the Astartes off (with a reminder to be nice to the xenos, the abhumans and the cats on board).

They go to the repairs next where they find a tech-priest named Yara who is in charge of repairs of Imperial gear on the Inquisitor’s ship. He looks over everyone’s power armors and does some basic fixing (ie he does some waving of incense and chanting). He offers that if anyone needs repairs or modified gear, they need only ask him. Ortrecht asks if his power-fist could be modified to contain a bolter in it. Yara takes a scan of the power-fist, and says he’ll look into it gladly. He is very appreciative of the Astartes’ gear. And also the inventor(?) of the famous(?) double-sided chainsword. He apparently sometimes wields it in battle (since he’s mostly made out of metal, it won’t hurt him).

After the repairs, they head out to drop the command staff to the armory. The armory is kept by the arms-mitress Kotre, who turns out to be a xenos bird-lady. She takes the staff and lets them know that if they need any equipment on their missions they need only ask her. Krevax wonders what she was, and Ortrecht lets him know that she was a kroot; one of the most dangerous xenos out there, a cannibal.

They return to their rooms to recoup and study. Krevax and Reigen both look over their rooms; Reigen finds a body of a mouse, a gift from a fierce hunter. Krevax finds the hunter, a cat sleeping in his bed. They agree to be careful about it. Ortrecht stays inside his room to read up on the reports the Inquisitor forwarded. Reigen heads out to the training hall to pump some iron and then goes on to do some reading as well. They learn more about how hard it is to kill a Necron, and what kind of Necron is (high ranking, hard to kill one).

Krevax, the curiousest one, heads to check out the cantine. It’s a rather cozy looking place. There’s a bartender behind the counter, who looks rather familiar, and who turns out to be their pilot’s sister Lulu. Lulu greets Krevax by calling him tall, dark and presumably handsome, and ask what he wants. He asks for something drink (even if he can’t get drunk with regular stuff) and something to eat.

There are other people in the cantine waiting for their food, and the cook soon arrives with their and Krevax’s food. The cook, it turns out is a great big ork with a nice apron and a little chef’s hat. The ork stops to wonder about Krevax (he hasn’t seen a “beakie” in a long while). The ork is named Grot ‘Eadbiter, a butcher and a cook. The food is quite good. There is a tip jar of teeth for the ork, and Lulu tells Krevax if he ever comes across loose teeth on his missions, he can bring them here.

After his meal Krevax gets back to the room with the others and gives the other a hint about bringing teeth to the cantine. Ortrecht may or may not know what that means, and he doesn’t seem happy about that.

They go to meet with Khafset, who has asked to go to the observation deck to look at the stars. Khafset lets them know that a lot of stars have gone out since he last saw them, and indeed, he has done some calculations and he may have been under somewhere between fifty and seventy million years, which is quite a lot.

The characters tell Khafset about the calamities that had befallen the planet/moon and show him pics and make him listen to the scream and ask his opinion. Khafset shrugs and says it could be a dozen or so things, none of he knows still exist. Truly have they no more information, no capabilities of looking back? No, humans don’t have that. Well, Khafset says, why don’t they do that, he’s no chronomancer, but surely he has some time stored somewhere, they can use on Old Saisea. This seems agreeable.

Khafset asks if he may be allowed a weapon if there is danger about. The Astartes say that they have no weapons for his hands, and he says he can get his own from somewhere, his scythe should still be usable. Ortrecht says that Khafset can get his weapon only when one of the Astartes is dead. Around here there is talk of Khafset not knowing the others’ names. (My) Warden apparently suffices for Reigen and Imperial Fist for Ortrecht. Khafset  grumbles at Krevax about his kin’s rudeness, but Krevax says they are a package deal.

Khafset asks for his quarters, and Ortrecht says there’s a nice cell for him in the brig. Khafset does not take it well, so Krevax steps in between and eventually Khafset gets his own room opposite the characters with guards in front. Ortrecht leaves his servitor Cornelius with Khafset, saying he can ask him for stuff he needs (and Ortrecht can keep an eye out on Khafset through Cornelius’s eyes).

Then it’s off to Old Saisea!

[luwupercal]

ok heres the doodled TDK character designs i have so far (plus Oltyx who i’m p sure is like Straight Up In The Cover, so there he is. chillin.) if there ACTUALLY are images of these characters please hmu i’m just doodling ideas in the meantime. theres only two design notes that matter and one of them is that the bags/marks under yenekh’s eyes are inspired by caesar zeppeli which seeing as how i havent finished the novel is uh. :smiling_grimace: certainly a Choice on my part LMFAO. but yea anyway also i didnt gaf enough to draw runes so you enjoy the easter eggs, they’re equivalent to when i draw the meme skeleton on mehreens also the yellow text around mentep says “come closer i am just a normal cryptek :)” because he gives me VIBES lmfao something is up with this dude

i’ll probably draw borakka, lysikor and djoseras later

i ended up kindaaaaa giving up on that Really Detailed Skinless Necron i was attempting to turn into oltyx bc it REALLY did not look how i pictured oltyx but i’ll put a screenshot of him below the cut and also image description

image description: three messy busts of three different necrons. on the left, there is one labeled “Oltyx” by a green and black text box; he’s a skeletal robot with a long, thin face and a crown shaped vaguely like a flower, with three interconnected little green lights. there are thin black lines all over the top of his face, under the line of his cheekbone, and on his chin, representing his exposed circuitry; there are also faded green circuits on his left cheek. his eyes are glowing bright green with black sclerae, and he has thick bags underneath, represented by more thin circuit lines. his face is shown from a 3/4ths perspective, facing right; he’s looking forwards, potentially towards the audience, with a disgruntled, inquisitive expression. oltyx has a complicated neck made out of cables, a collar with a coffin-shaped piece in its front (inside which there’s a loosely-scribbled dick in lieu of his dynasty’s proper rune), and he’s implied by some unfinished lines to be also wearing a pointy sort of pauldron-cape. below him and to his right, there is a bust of another skeleton, one with a slightly thicker face and one single, huge round green eye, labeled “Mentep”. he’s also 3/4ths, facing the left, and he’s looking to the right with a mischievous old man sort of smile. he has a singular eyebrow and is wearing a tall, round collar and two pairs of pauldrons, plus a long, striped scribble of a prosthetic beard, underneath which, loose, is the alchemical symbol for mercury. on the right side of his head, in very pale yellow, is the symbol for the number pi. above him, in yellow text, it reads “come closer”, and below him, “i am just a normal cryptek :)”. above mentep and to his right there is a third necron, “yenekh”, who has a crown shaped somewhat like a shield, with four lines carved out. yenekh has a broader face, with lines indicating his skull is separated in three segments, two delineated by the corners of his eyes and one making up the rest; near his nose, the segments run down to his nostrils. he has also bright glowing green eyes, and below them, equally bright green C-shaped marks. he’s got simple pauldrons and a simple collar.

OKAY all that done here’s the Luwu Goes Bonkuwus About Necrowon Circuits Dot Com

the image description for THIS one: it’s a sketch of something that resembles an abstracted, geometric human skull from the front, with a very long jawline and with its cheekbones delineated with clean black lines. it has lines drawn all over it in grey, mostly symmetrical and organic, as if dividing groups of muscles. inside each segment created by the grey lines, there are thinner grey lines and bright green spots and lines, indicating something between circuitry and muscle. the thinner grey lines are especially present on the top left of the face.  the long geometric skull’s nose is a simple black triangle, and its mouth is a line that at each of its ends splits in two before meeting the delineated cheekbones; its eyes are shaded in black with lines, with glowing green and white irises with no pupils. end id

[xenosgirlvents]

Hey can I rant to you about how I find the mono-focus on the very much human dominated forces of Chaos as the real bad guy of 40k to be honestly even worse than the Imperiaal focus?  You know what I always wanted in 40k?  Lizardmen, Alien Ogres, Space Dwarfs, Skaven, and some Vampire Counts to the Necrons’ Tomb Kings.   In WHFB only three playable armies were human (five if you count the undead as human) and WHFB had a larger number of independent factions than 40k.   Meanwhile in 40k about half of all the armies in the game are Imperial and another large chunk are the equally insufferable legions of Chaos as the two factions circlejerk over who is the more racist and xenophobic.   While in FB you had the annoying emphasis on Chaos as the one true threat (which is increasingly being emphasised in 40k including the awful, awful retcons they want to do to the war in heaven where what was supposed to be the xenos equivalent to the horus heresy gets “akshually the real bad guy is chaos lawl” shoved into it), humanity was just a part of the struggle against it or other forces such as Undeath or the Greenskins.  Not even the biggest part, with the High Elves, Lizardmen, and Dwarfs all bearing more of the burden than the Empire or Bretonnia.   Meanwhile, while theoretically 40k is a setting where non-chaos bad guys are more relevant and more able to defeat Chaos and take over as the one; the non-humans actually do less.  Chaos is the only bad guy faction allowed to have permanent wins, to be undefeatable without any asterisks marks and whose fanboys (including GW’s writing team) love to endlessly circlejerk about how opposing Chaos is useless because they’ll get you in the end. And how 40k is really about humanity’s inevitably doomed succumbing to Chaos and how the Chaos Space Marines and Daemons are the destined victors and blah-de-blah.  Any time an effective counter to chaos is written about in any other faction’s lore; the Chaos favouratism gets to show with “akshually chaos overcomes this because phhbbbbbt” with eye-rolling descriptions of how Chaos overwhelms say; the Tyranid hive mind by scattering it with the great rift, or how the death guard can infect nurgle, or how actually Tzeentch only pretended to lose to the Eldar or how Slaanesh actually pulled a fast one over the T'au.   Nobody is allowed to be more of a threat than the Chaos Space Marines and Daemons even though the former are literally a bunch of spoiled paramilitary stormtroopers salty about the Emperor saying they weren’t allowed to rule over normal humanity like god-kings and the latter have lore that is fifty million variations of “lol inevitable victory”.  The Chaos Space Marines are so lacking in numbers, so incapable of large scale cooperation not riven with petty fratricidal personal rivalries, so bereft of a functional logistical train, and are lead by such an insufferable band of edgy cartoon villains that they should honestly be little more than a nuisance that the Imperium only focuses on because of their symbolic threat. An annoyance compared to the much more organised and vastly more numerous and far better at exponentially scaling up power of the Necrons, the Tyranids, or the Orks. One that is carrying out an empty, pointless rivalry sparked largely over a bunch of stormtroopers being furious about not being allowed to be kings.  Wouldn’t it be more thematically meaningful and fit better into the cosmic horror that 40k wants to be if Chaos was actually mostly a symbolic threat that would be ignorable if the Imperium wasn’t still spooked over what amounted to an attempted religiously motivated military coup ten thousand years ago and that ultimately; this petty rivalry doesn’t matter? That the bitter hatred over Horus’ coup ultimately is meaningless in the face of the fact that this galaxy, this universe, has never belonged to humanity or anything spawned of it?  Khorne may feed off the violence of humanity and many minor xenos species; but Gork and Mork are a far more pure form of warmongering and what we now know as the Greenskins are just the tip of the iceberg compared to what they can really do when the WAAAGH! gets rolling. Nurgle may be an infestation of humanity’s despair and inability to progress but the Tyranids are the cancer that will kill the universe itself. Tzeentch may be clever and ancient as the firstborn of Chaos; but the Necrons have plans stretching back to before even the very idea of Tzeentch came into being.   And of course, unlike the Dark Elves; the Druklhari aren’t really a major villain or threat. Vect is just kind of an asshole in his own little corner, not one of the top big bads the way Malekith was.  But nah instead we get CHAOSCHAOSCHAOSCHAOSCHAOS coupled with ADB and Reynolds’ bizarre (but in hindsight, given what we’re shown of Chaos; sensible) revelation that actually Chaos is even more racist than the Imperium.  It leads to 40k’s central conflict being between Satanist Ethnonationalist AnCaps and TradCath Ethnonationalist Reactionaries. Creepy bloodthirsty edgelords versus Roman bust twitter pfps.  None of the other villains are ever allowed to “usurp” Chaos’ place as “the real threat” and any time non-chaotic bad guys get a time to shine, the Chaos writers pitch a fit and force in awful reminders that Chaos is actually the real threat behind everything and can never ever lose.   It makes Chaos come off less as an interesting villain and more of a childish edgelord fantasy written by a bunch of kids who go “nuh uh!” everytime they take the L or insinuate that spikelord edgy mcgee is anything less than the coolest bad guy ever made.  The fandom makes fun of Abaddon because he textually hasn’t really done much in thirteen tries? Well actually retcon in some outlandishly complicated super duper secret plan so that he and his army of *checks notes* less than one million racist storm troopers in ancap colours are actually totally the greatest threat in the setting and not the vastly more organised Tyranids or more tactically competent Necrons or the more numerous Orks.  People still make fun of abaddon because he looks like a goofy mook rather than an awesome overlord (at least Archaon looks like someone you’d immediately figure for as the big bad of a setting; Abaddon looks more like…the real bad guy’s stupid but strong brute muscle enforcer)? Have an entire novel series written to squee about how awesome and cool he is which literally none of the other “big bad” factions’ primary characters have ever gotten.   Also I am sick to death of how GW pushes Khorne as the unbeatable poster bad boy of the entire setting over and above even the rest of Chaos. Yeah his aesthetic is simple, marketable, and he’s incredibly easy to write into plots (even if I think there’s never been more interesting takes on Khorne where he’s shown as actually capable of cleverness in the pursuit of maximising mindless death and destruction as we see in Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2 Retribution; where the Khornate villains have an impressively clever scheme even if the end goal is just “kill people”) and you can explain his concept to anyone.  Please stop trying to throw him into literally everything and let other bad guys have even a little bit of spotlight.   Octarius and Armageddon? Khorne crashes the party. Tzeentch threatens Luna? Well akshually Khorne invades Terra, take that nerds.  Where does Khorne even get all these worshippers to yeet themselves into every warzone in existence when he probably offers the least to his followers that most people would want? 

So on some points I agree with you, others I disagree, and in some places I understand the general feeling you’re conveying but am not quite so vitriolic.

Yes; I wish 40k as a setting was more akin to WHFB and AoS in that it permitted more factions to matter. 40k is, I agree, so myopic in it’s focus that it becomes frustrating. If the other factions weren’t playable I would understand, certainly, but if you’re going to offer players a chance to invest in the Xenos factions but then just never give them any return on that investment it feels like nothing more than lying to people.

Similarly; I also wish we saw more of a non-Human (and even then more of a non-Chaos Space Marine) component to Chaos. I find it hard to take Chaos seriously as a universal force when, over their supposedly non-linear/infinite period of existence they seem to never have done anything other than obsess over one species who, compared to the majority of other playable species in the game, have been around insanely briefly.

Yes; I do agree that I wish at times Chaos wasn’t used to usurp Xenos threats just to pull the old ‘but Chaos was the true villain all along’, see what you mention about the Hive Mind and the Great Rift, about Chaos usurping Orks on Armageddon etc. etc.

However, I disagree that Chaos is remotely as irritatingly favoured in the lore as the Imperium. Yes, it is true, that it is not infrequently written in vague terms that ‘you are all doomed, Chaos comes for you,’ but, in the majority of cases, this is purely informed, never shown. It is akin to the lines that tell us ‘Aeldari are so smart and elite,’ but then we just get shown them being curbstomped over and over again. We’re ‘told’ Chaos is some great looming threat which will win...but in practise they do only mildly better than Xenos in the lore, with Chaos losing the vast majority of everything they ever do in the lore, just like Xenos. I will admit Chaos has, lately, done *marginally* better in the lore, and that is definitely connected, as you say, to the active focus to make Chaos the ‘big bad’ now, but it is still only marginal.

I do agree that I would prefer not to see Chaos made to eclipse all other threats but my main motivation here is just because in 40k, as you point out, Chaos is never separated from the Imperium. In WHFB and AoS Chaos can take on a plurality of forms and is not just a ‘spikier’ version of the main human faction. For this reason the recent feeling I have had is just that 40k is increasingly becoming a clone of the Horus Heresy which, as someone who likes Xenos, is obviously a disappointment.

I don’t share your very strong disdain for Chaos. For the most part, in 40k’s lore, I feel Chaos is largely akin to Xenos in that we’re all glorified punching bags for Space Marines (you yourself point out Abaddon’s memetic loser status). I concede Chaos does *marginally* better but, at current, that is so inconsequential to me that it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the treatment of Xenos vis-a-vise the Imperium.

My personal take is I think the favouritism as an antagonist, shown to Chaos, is less detrimental to the cause of Xenos agency in the lore than the raging boner GW and BL have for the Imperium and, in particular Space Marines. 

I also, in general, think Chaos would benefit from being developed in a more nuanced way. I don’t see them quite as cardboard-cut out as you seem too (not denying many are because BL and GW can’t write non-Imperium characters well mostly) but I think many of them have, and to an extent do also, get treated more nuanced in some of the literature. I do think a big failing here is that Black Library has made *some* efforts to make *some* of the Chaos characters interesting and nuanced but, for some reason, GW tends to just ignore this. Hence Magnus can in his own novels be portrayed as sympathetic due to his loyalty to his people and desire to not persecute Psykers, but then when appearing in a campaign supplement just makes the stock-generic ‘bow before me mortals/I am your doom/all shall fall’ comments with little to no character.

Personally, and this is recognizing as I said above that I do understand some of the points you’re making, I feel like Chaos players and Xenos players, in terms of the lore treating us like crap, have more in common than not. But, again, that’s just my personal opinion! 

[harbingersoftheapocalypse]

I have been busy with necrons recently and wanted to show some updates on them. Out with the meh painting before and in with the new refined method. I enjoy it much more recently especially with contrast paints and the new flourescent glow paint. Ill post more as I get them done.The destroyer lord was completely busted and fell apart so I took the 2nd box’s overlord from Indomitus and smacked him on top.

[fullymechanized-consoomer]

40K factions and you

Space Marines:

Your favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla, but occasionally you might try some Neapolitan, if you’re feeling dangerous. You’re faction’s lore is designed from the ground up to accept your self-inserts, and the models are some of the easiest to paint in the entire range. None of this matters because no matter how unique you think your super-cool “realistic marines who use real tactics maaaaan” are they’ll always come out looking like a slight variation of the ones below

8th edition has finally allowed you to feel a tiny sliver of the unbalanced and over-costed hell other factions have been stuck in for years, but unlike them, daddy GW is more than willing to spend a little extra on his bulky good bois so they still get all the coolest gear and lore. Like vanilla, small children love them, but they grow out of both eventually. 

edit: it was only a matter of time before GW stamped its foot down and made the inevitable decision that its favorite kid needs to be busted again. Then again in all fairness they toned down their overpoweredness from “godlike” to merely “demi-godlike” 

Imperial Guard:

You’re a big “history fan”. You’ve seen Enemy at the Gates, watched some history channel shows about Nazi wonder weapons, and make 54 karma post on r/history_memes recycling debunked Eastern Front jokes. Only your intelligent eye is able to conflate this factions obvious Metal Slug levels of cartoonish design and tactics with realism, and you make sure to remind everyone else of said realism by comparing your tabletop exploits to your military experience in the reserves. Everyone used to like you back when the faction was actually made up of underdogs and under appreciated, but the Guant’s Ghosts references have gotten kinda stale, and no one appreciates the brass balls of these Starship Trooper knockoffs now that 8th edition supports and rewards the very same mindless horde tactics the Guard used to be mocked for in Lore. Despite having some of the most tried and true designs in the game, as well as an incredible amount of options, you will quickly find how limiting the only “realistic” army is in terms of customization and paint schemes, as anything but camo, grey, or tan looks goofy and reveals how silly this faction actually is. 

edit: If your army consists of wrapping 30 guardsmen around basilisks I recommend you take a short fall down a long flight of stairs. Fuck you, Evan.

Eldar:

You’re a real shooter. You know what you like and you stick with it, cause lets face it, it takes a lot of loyalty to stick with these arrogant pricks. Their designs are unique but dated, their lore is a uneven mishmash of 40k grimdark schmultz Tolkien telephone, and Oliver Twist-esque whipping bois for whenever GW writers need to remind us how cool Space Marines are. But none of that matters because you know the truth: Eldar can kick tons of ass on the board, and look good doing it, as their unique designs lends them to all sorts of brilliant color combinations

And unlike other armies their rare design updates improve on their aesthetic while keeping their 40k-ness, something that is becoming increasingly rare in this era of Tacticool marines and Fantasy-creep. Just don’t expect to be taken seriously by anyone but the old-heads.

Edit: Leave it to the whipping bois to be outshined in their own event and get a single model update. Thanks GW, very cool. 

Dark Eldar

You are one of two people: a meta hopping smooth brain who only jumped ship once these guys got one of the best updates in 40k history, or a true intellectual who understood their hidden merit all along. Other faction players like to make fun of you for being edgy, when in reality you know that the Dark Eldar are just a bunch of sociopathic theater kids. They, like you, know how fucked from top to bottom this universe is, and instead of getting depressed they exclaimed “how can we be the best cartoon villains we can be?”. Despite having a relatively bare army list, the fact that these d-bags come in 3 flavors of crazy in a single army offers a ton of variety: the mustache twirling villainy of the Kabals, the crazy bloodstained snuff-stars of the Wych cults, and the BDSM horror show of the Covens. All three offer substantial benefits and drawbacks and must be played carefully in order t- 

Who am I kidding? You’re just gonna stuff  a bunch of Kabal warriors into Venoms and zoom around the map, aren’t you? Enjoy that speed, because your abysmal save stats wont protect you anything more than a furiously thrown walnut. At least your corpses will look rad clad in some of the grimest armor and gear in the game. 

edit: no longer anywhere near as dominent as they were in the earlier years of 8th, but they still look slick as hell and play great. 

Orks

Your IQ randomly jumps from 20 to 200 throughout the day. There is no predicting this, no planning around this, no stopping this. You’re best bet is just to go along with it, and that’s why you play Orks. Orks are roudy good-time buddies who love slapstick slaughter, not having thoughts, and occasionally pulling of cunning plans that human savants would struggle to comprehend. Orks seem to be the only faction that know what joy is, which is why you as a player spread it to everyone else. Yes, the memes and screaming can be a bit much to others sometimes, but like with any other mentally handicapped child  everyone around just grits their teeth through your bad episodes if it means not upsetting your unique sensibilities. And considering that this army’s aesthetic revolves around cobbled together nonsense, you have a lot of uniqueness to give. Orks are easily the most creative faction in the game when it comes to conversions. Nothing is too goofy, too dumb, or too silly to scrap together. As for performance on the tabletop? Go ham. This is an army that rewards merry bullshit and randomness. Remember, you didn’t pick Orks to win, you picked them to have fun. 

edit: So are Orks actually getting anything or what? GW’s plans for this faction is as chaotic as the minds of the ADHD scrambled minds who play them

Necrons

You have a very specific taste in... funky weird-science space Egyptians. Seriously, these guys are practically a completely different army to what they were a decade ago. Gone are the terminator references and eldritch lore nonsense, and here to stay is senility and glyphs. You lie to yourself, saying that you’re not really sure why you chose Necrons, but I know the truth: you chose them because they used to be busted. They used to be unfair. They used to be able to take out top-tier tanks with their version of pea shooters and come back after every turn. So overwhelmed were you by their dazzeling stats and bullshit cheese your brain’s wiring fried and the erratic firing of billions of flayed neurons made you think Necrons had cool lore and interesting models. But now they’ve been nerfed to hell, and you’re no longer stuck in that lasting state of sensory overload. Like a drunk snapping awake with a hangover you come to the painful reality: Necrons are kind of dull. So like me, you put them away in a shoebox forever, leaving their fragile sculpts to slowly fall apart.

Edit: FUCK WHERE IS THE SHOEBOX WHERE DID I LEAVE IT OH GOD OH OH NO OH FUCK THEY’RE ALL BROKEN MAYBE I CAN PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER BEFORE 9th EDITION LAUNCHES I’M SO SORRY FOR WHAT I DID TO YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER I NEED YOU, I NEED MY BOOOOOOOOYS!!!

Tau

You will forever be hated by the community unfairly. You are accuse being anime - and this is true - yet the Eldar get away with being copied wholesale from 80′s space anime and no one seems to notice. You are made fun of for your bad melee, despite having one of the most comprehensively designed niches in an otherwise sloppy game and dominating with nearly every edition. You are made fun of for your lore, despite being largely separate from the cliches and story traps that everyone else has fallen into. You are hated because you are different; hated because you are Asian. 

Tau are an anomaly in 40k: a completely new faction that wasn’t directly ripped off of some other franchise and with an aesthetic that is wholly their own. I won’t be making fun of them because they get enough of that, and you don’t deserve it. Just know this dirty secret: Tau outsell almost every other xenos faction, and despite the supposedly unanimous hate are probably one of the strongest factions in terms of play-style and modelling in the franchise. 

Edit: The tau are grittier than ever, happy now? They still do the same thing they have always done anyways.

Chaos

Unlike the DE you actually are edgy. You worship satan, you throw rocks at homeless people, you start fires because your dad doesn’t spank you enough. Chaos are the closest things that this cluster fuck of a universe can get to being the main villains. Their lore is at once intricate and stupid, both childish and metal as hell. You play chaos because getting your fingers pricked by the models’ spikes is the closest you can come to feeling anything anymore. Just like the chaos lore you love to hype yourself up, to puff your chest and revel in the darkness inside, but when confronted you tend to fold like wet tissue paper. You’ve stopped playing public games with these guys, because the other players don’t understand you and abuse the meta and make fun of your painting skills and  everything is so unfair and don’t you think that chaos marines should get buffs for their points cost, fuck?

Edit: The new models are slick and more power-metal minivan than ever, though the rules are still abysmal despite GW desperately wanting everyone to takes these guys seriously for once. 

Sisters of Battle

GW writers and designers hates Catholics and they hate women, so naturally they hate Sister of Battl. They also hate you for playing them. Because of this SoB are a monument to neglected potential. They have one of the best female armor designs in fiction, great lore, and an interesting playstyle that relies on faith/determination based feats of strength and valor... but GW hate Catholics and women, so SoB get shafted everywhere all the time. More often than not you will be disappointed reading about their exploits as they continually get unfairly slaughtered, corrupted into the horny service of the pervert god, or used as receptacles for blood-based paint when the writer’s favorite faction needs to fight demons. With no plastic models in sight for over a decade everyone began to come to the slow and dreadful realization that GW was looking to Squat our favorite estrogen warriors, until a new revamp was announced. Unfortunately the beta rules look as lackluster as ever, but that’s fine, because as a SoB fan you have learned to expect that GW hates you, Catholics, and women. 

Edit: GW found God and got woke because now they love women and Jesus’ one true Church, but let it be known that reformation doesn’t occur overnight, as the SOB’s faces still betray GW’s lingering discomfort in the female form:

Their rules are fun, and if every codex was designed like it 40k might actually be a fun game

Tyranids

nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom no- and that’s it that’s the Tyranids. I don’t know anything about them besides that, and neither do you, cause that’s their lore. Yes they have cool models, but next to no reliable updates. I’ll pray for you.  

Edit: it really looks like GW has just completely forgotten about you poor souls huh? The Night King, a character who is closely associated with the totally-not-reconned-Tyranid-invasion, comes back and not one word about you guys. They don’t even actively hate you like, say, they hate the Eldar. It’s just... apathy. 

Grey Knights

HAHA AHAHAHAHA HA HA UHAHAHA HAHAAHAHAAHAH HAHA ha ha Ah......... he. hehahaaaAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

edit: I hope you all realize that Grey Knights are far too specialized in fighting the permanently under performing forces of chaos to be 40ks “elite among elite.”  You and your entire faction has been made completely obsolescent by the Custodes. The rough times will continue, say hi to the Squats in heaven will you?

Custodes

You are either insufferably full of yourself or a fine practitioner of the model making craft. Most likely though you are neither, and you picked them because you only need gold and red paint to make them look good. Custodes are the space marine’s space marines, and they’re better than you and everyone else. period. At least in lore. On the table their incredible individual stats and elite status are reflected in points cost, so for most large games you will be fielding what amounts to any other faction’s skirmishing army. Unfortunately, since 40k is a stat-sheet battler that favors raw bulk of rolls and stats over the quality of them, you’d be hard-pressed to do well in any serious game. However, for the luminous of mind, the small size is a blessing in disguise since you don’t need to buy and paint as many units as the other armies, and no matter how hard the guard player trashes you his 50 unpainted manlets will never look as good as your 15 gloriously crafted golden Chads. Stick to smaller games, and the individual strength of each model will make up for the glaring absence caused by their loss.

Ironically enough despite being an elite faction from a relatively obscure part of 40k lore, these attributes make Custodes the perfect casual player’s faction. It is my personal theory that if GW didn’t grossly inflate their prices to such a high degree everyone would have a Custodes army. 

Oh yeah, Henry Cavil plays these guys, because of course he does. 

[recentanimenews]

The Misfit of Demon King Academy – 12 – The Necklace

Eleanor explains to Anos that Hero Kanon’s right-hand man Commander Jerga feared that the humans would forget their grudge against demons in time, rendering them vulnerable for destruction. So he used taboo magic to split his source into two distinct spells. One is Asc, the manifestation of his grudge that infects every human, including the hero academy students.

The other spell, Eleanor, was a “bust” because while she performed her role of creating source clones, she failed to absorb any of Jerga’s hatred. She believes Anos can end Jerga’s grudge by destroying her, but her clone children begin to gather around her and beg Anos to save their mother.

And, oh yeah…Jerga freaking murdered Kanon, when the hero wouldn’t support the generational spread of hatred into the future. While Hero could have instantly resurrected himself, he didn’t, apparently washing his hands of humans and their inevitably treacherous ways.

Anos and Eleanor are interrupted by Diego and his guards, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of the three remaining brainwashed Seven Elder Demon Emperors…along with a masked Avos Dilhevia himself.

Diego and Avos project their images over the human and demon capitals, respectively, in order to drum up support for a new war against each other. Both the human and demon crowds welcome a return to hostilities. It’s as if Diego and Avos were coordinating with each other.

Not content to sit back and let this play out, Anos resolves to prevent the war before it starts. Naturally, he is accompanied by Misha, Sasha, Ray, Misa, the Fan Union, and the four Elder Demon Emperors loyal to him.

The day before they head out, Ray comforts a nervous Misa, believing his own lack of nerves to be a sign he once fought in the war two thousand years ago. He also asks for half of Misa’s single-shell necklace, which tradition states is a essentially a proposal.

The next day, with the Fan Union providing rearguard support, the Necron sisters neutralize the advancing demon armies to the west, while Ray and Misa are tasked with neutralizing the armies to the east. Anos himself heads to Avos’ fortress, and Misa informs him remotely that she’s lost sight of Ray. Uh-oh…

As the two opposing groups of Demon Emperors fight (three on Avos’ side, four on Anos’), Anos and Avos meet in the field, and Anos connects the dots. After Jerga’s betrayal, Kanon resurrected as a demon: Ray Gransdori. As for Ray? Well, he’s Avos Dilhevia, and has been all along.

While Anos states Ray’s knowledge of the neckless and ability to wield both a Unique and Holy Sword as evidence Ray is Kanon, looking back there were other little clues here and there that in hindsight indicated Kanon/Ray was Avos. There’s…a lot that happens and is revealed this week, and it’s a bit rushed, but it all makes sense and holds together…somehow!

Anos also deduces that Kanon must be trying to “save something (or someone) new” by posing as a fake Demon King. Did he become Avos and stoke a new war knowing the true Demon King would stop him, and end the grudge Jerga had spread? Does he truly love Misa, or was he just playing her? Despite all we’ve learned, the final episode still has plenty to reveal.

By: magicalchurlsukui

[jakey-beefed-it]

Favorite “Lol what the fuck just happened” unlikely happenings in Warhammer 40k I have personally witnessed due to the vagaries of the dice:

The time seven fire dragons, including an exarch with a firepike, fired seven melta shots into the rear armor facing of my friend’s defiler and failed to so much as glance that fucking thing

The time I killed a Nemesis Dreadknight the very turn it arrived with nothing but 10 scout snipers

The time I had my Farseer scoot juuuust into range turn 1, cast ‘Horrify’ on a Riptide, neither I nor the Tau player knew that Riptides (as monstrous creatures) are immune to fear, so he rolled morale for it, and it ran off the board without firing a shot (i later bought him a soda when i realized our error since it pretty obviously cost him the game)

The time my drop pod scattered exactly 12″ in exactly the wrong direction to land where just barely a corner fell off the table, resulting in the only way a drop pod can mishap, costing me first blood and slay the warlord as my warlord was in there

The time I engineered a tempting backfield slot for my opponent’s drop pod after remembering the above incident like two years later; he scattered off the board, and i got first blood and slay the warlord

The time 10 of my dire avengers fell out of the wreck of their wave serpent like 2″ from the sanguinary guard who had busted their ride, and proceeded to roll so many fucking sixes on bladestorm that they mulched the entire sg squad in a hilarious display of prompt revenge

The time my Librarian tried to cast smite and ended up sucking his entire command squad into the warp

The time my friend’s obliterators all 3 fired plasma cannons at my just-teleported-in terminator squad, all rolled gets hot, took a wound each, and then got shot to death the next turn by 5 storm bolters

The 78,453 or so times I tried to deep strike a land speeder and it crashed into a mountain or smth, and the 1 time i actually landed it behind a predator and vaporized it

The time my fire prism rolled a 6 to shoot up a heldrake’s tailpipe and then rolled a 6 for armor pen and blew it right the fuck up, who needs skyfire

The time a dreadnought with an assault cannon shot my stormraven down in a single turn, who needs skyfire

The time I had three consecutive missies from my hunter tank piled up all at once following a necron flying croissant

[hobbyhoss]

Warhammer 40,000 and D&D  Updates

I don’t have much more 40k stuff painted since the last update, but here’s my Iron Warriors Warpsmith as he stands:

I’d like to tidy up the piece of Rhino that he’s standing on to make it more obviously an Imperial Fists one. The miniature itself was a bit of a pain to assemble, and I had to add the damaged vehicle parts to stop the mechatendrils falling through the floor. Any future ones that I get, I’ll definitely paint before putting the mechatendrils on as well - that made it more difficult than it needed to be.

Also finished a unit of Word Bearers Cultists pretty roughly:

I played a game with three friends at the end of December, which was a two-aside 4500 point game. I took Chaos Space Marines along with James’ Necrons, and we faced Mike’s Tau and Steve’s Space Marines. Steve has a very cool scratch built/heavily converted Iron Hands successor chapter. You can see more on them on his site here.

I used an Iron Warriors Combined Arms Detachment that consisted of:

1 Warpsmith (Warlord);

1 Sorcerer in Terminator Armour with the Cranium Malevolous and three mastery levels of the Heretech discipline;

5 Terminators with a Reaper Autocannon;

Helbrute with Multi-melta

3 Obliterators;

3 Mutilators in individual units of one (DISTRACTION);

Two units of 10 Cultists;

1 Heldrake with Hades Autocannon;

1 Vindicator;

1 Deflier;

1 Predator with twin-linked Lascannon (no sponsons);

Allied Detachment of Emperor’s Children:

Daemon Prince with Wings and two mastery levels of Slaanesh;

10 Cultists;

6 Chaos Space Marines with Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol and Icon of Excess.

James took a Combined Arms Detachment of Necrons:

Immotek the Stormlord;

Overlord on Catacomb Command Barge;

Shard of the Nightbringer;

5 Triarch Praetorians;

1 Triarch Stalker;

10 Immortals with Gauss Blaster;

17 Necron Warriors;

10 Necron Warriors in a Ghost Ark;

Two units of 3 Wraiths;

Two Doom Scythes;

One Monolith.

On the other side, Mike ran a Combined Arms Detachment of Tau. From memory, this was:

Commander in Coldstar Battle Suit;

One Ethereal;

One Crisis team of three;

One Stealth team of three;

One Riptide with Ion Accelerator;

Two units of 10 Fire Warriors;

10 Pathfinders;

A unit of Marker Drones (10, I think);

One Broadside team of three;

One Hammerhead with Railgun;

One Stormsurge.

And Steve had a Fist of Medusa Strikeforce containing:

Armoured Taskforce of Techmarine on Bike (Warlord), two Vindicators and one Whirlwind;

Armoured Taskforce of Techmarine, two Predator Annihilators, one Predator Destructor and two Thunderfire Cannons;

A cheap Captain (to confer the formation benefits to nearby vehicles);

A sh*tton of Dreadnaughts and Ironclads.

We played the Cleanse and Control Maelstrom of War mission using the standard Tactical Objectives deck, deploying on long table edges. Several images are below, taken over the few hours this game took:

My Warpsmith (who I’ve not yet named) rolled up the Technoviral Manipulator trait, meaning that Obliterators within 12″ of him can use the same weapons in consecutive shooting phases, I joined him to my unit of Obliterators to make the most of that.

I had the only Psykers on the table - Sabrisius (my Daemon Prince(ss)) took all of her powers from the new Slaanesh discipline, getting Delightful Agonies (4+ FNP), Apoplectic Glee (everyone in the target unit punches itself in the face) and the Primaris Power Sensory Overload (a shooting attack that causes pinning tests - giving her a slight chance to avoid Overwatch). Myrzial (Sorcerer) was built around dealing with vehicles, so took powers from the Heretech discipline to go with his relic that put down auto-Haywire hits on nearby vehicles every shooting phase. He drew Scrapcode Curse (D3 Haywire hits on a target vehicle), Fleshmetal Hide (+1 AV or Toughness on a friendly unit), Flayerstorm (D3 Hull Points from a target vehicle, inflicting hits on nearby units for each HP taken), and the Primaris Power Corrupt Machine (gives you a chance to fire a weapon from an enemy vehicle).

I’m not going to write up a whole Battle Report: I don’t have notes to do so for one thing. But some highlights were:

My Predator and Obliterators combining to take down an enemy Vindicator in turn one (those things are scary…).

Having a Deflier actually survive a whole game - even managing to make it across to the enemy deployment zone and slaughter the Broadsides.

Twice claiming objectives by having a single Objective Secured Cultist standing on it.

A brutal second turn where Immotek unleashed his storm, taking out both Predator Annihilators and at least three Dreadnaughts. The rest of the shooting phase continued in a similar vein…

Two friendly fire incidents where the Stormsurge was wounded by a stray Thunderfire shell, and said Stormsurge managed to miss the Monolith, but instead take out the Ironclad Dreadnaught that was poised to smash it to pieces.

A Warlord-off, where my Warpsmith and the Iron Guard Techmarine achieved Mutually Assured Destruction.

Mike’s Coldstar Battlesuit Commander being a very effective vehicle hunter.

Deep Striking a DISTRACTION Mutilator right between two Thunderfire Cannons and triggering panic…

A pretty fun game, and the first one I’d played in quite a while: haven’t managed one since then either, as other distractions in life (studying, work and moving house, mostly) have taken over. Have managed two D&D sessions in December though.

Dungeons & Dragons Our Elsir Vale group (including the three above that I’d played 40k with in December) got back together after a long break to continue where we left off. We’re one player short from where we were last year, and the adventure culminated in that player’s character meeting a mortal fate that defied all attempts at resurrection. It was quite sad from our characters’ points of view, but it did sort of work out quite tidily for us as a gaming group.

This is the group that I write up stories for on my FanFiction page, so I don’t want to give too much away plot-wise. This latest adventure did feature some call-back to the second instalment of our story, Eisenmond, and found us exploring an underground tunnel network populated with dangerous Drow, Spiders and some crippling psychological effects. John (DM) put together a really fun and challenging adventure that created some really tense game play, a fair bit of drama, and some really challenging situations. We were all level 11 going in, and for the first time, two characters died (which Mike had been hoping for for months) - one was able to be resurrected, and the other, due to the nature of the weapon that they were killed with, wasn’t. Even being far more careful after the first death, we still managed to get ourselves in some really sticky situations, and were grateful to make it out more-or-less intact… While we’re with this campaign, I finished painting up my wife’s character, our Bard Arden:

The Heldenhorne campaign (which I DM for) reached the small town of Red Lodge, where they have been employed to solve the kidnapping of the local Duke’s daughter. Most of this session was all about exploring and interacting in the town, which provided a very different set of challenges to the tomb exploration and combat grind of the first adventure, and also gave the less martial characters more of a chance to shine.

(Map drawn on Inkarnate).

The players’ did their job of surprising me quite excellently, as they easily picked apart red herrings (spotting an obvious loophole that I completely failed to notice in one instance - I made the NPC look stupid instead though: textbook deflection) and didn’t ask a lot of information or follow up on leads that I was prepared for. They also did what they were told by an NPC (the Duke), when I expected them to try to persuade him otherwise: a shame, because it would very likely have lead to a bar brawl that would have been quite fun to play out, but also great because it showed that they were becoming invested in the plot, not wanting to put the victim at risk by disobeying instructions.

They followed a trail of clues, and secured the services of a local spy who was able to feed them enough information to put things together enough to end the session having busted into an innocuous looking house, finding a hidden trap door and descending to a secret temple complex, the entrance to which was guarded by some zombies. We’ll pick up next session in this temple to Vecna, with time running short to save Shehenna Birch from a sacrificial ritual…

Above are some miniatures that I’ve finished for the Heldenhorne campaign. Left is Grukk Stein, the group’s Half-Orc Barbarian, along with two NPCs that they’ll likely run into as they continue to explore the temple.

Finally, some podcast recommendations:

I mentioned Preferred Enemies a previous post, but I’ve been so slow in posting, that they have produced three episodes in the meantime, each giving run downs of major new releases: Traitor Legions, Imperial Agents, and Fall of Cadia (with spoilers!).

New for me since last time though is Friends at the Table. This one is something else…

It’s a heavily narrative-focused RPG listen-along with excellent characterisation and world-building. They just nail it, right the way through. The first season uses the Dungeon World game system to follow through a fantasy adventure RPG in the land of Hieron, a post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, which has quite a few fantasy-as-we-know it things, but they’re all just a little different.

The first adventure sees a party of five (Hadrian, Human Paladin; Fantasmo, Elf Wizard; Lem, Orc Bard; Hella, Human Warrior; and Fero, Halfling Druid) venture out to an island to explore a tower. There’s more to it than that, but listening to the episodes is far too rewarding for me to really say much else.

As the season progresses, the party splits in two, both heading for separate objectives: Hella, Fero and Lem take a ship towards Rosemarrow, and Hadrian and Fantasmo are joined by a sixth character (Throndir, Elf Ranger) to travel over land. Both parties step into different, exciting parts of the world which are richly fleshed out and narrated, and brilliantly engaged with. The characters are all thoroughly challenged by the world (via GM Austin Walker), often in quite unexpected ways.

A ‘Holiday Special’ comes part way through this season (but after the culmination of the two adventures, chronologically), where the group get together to solve a murder, using some rules from Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. Like all the rest, it’s just a great listen.

I was a little disappointed with season two at first: I’ve since realised that this was due to initial disappointment that we had moved away from Hieron and into a totally different game and world. The second season, COUNTER/Weight, is a sci-fi RPG actual play, based on the Technoir/Mechnoir game, with wider lens faction-wide stuff happening in Stars Without Number and Another Game (FatT’s page is down at the time of typing, so I can’t check). The smaller party games later switch to another system, The Sprawl RPG, which is much closer in mechanics to Dungeon World (both based on the same system): this is the point that I’ve got up to as I write.

As I’ve settled into this one, I’ve found it pretty much every bit as enjoyable as the first season: all the world-building and characterisation of that first season is bought over to the new system, bringing us four interesting characters in a weird and wonderful sci-fi world. The episodes where they zoom out to look at several worlds and factions all at once are perhaps a little slower moving, but still contain some great moments and interactions: I do find myself preferring the smaller scale party-level game play in this series though.

I really can’t recommend this series enough… Special mention also needs to go to the music for the series, composed and recorded by Jack de Quidt (one of the players). Check it out at his Bandcamp page: not quite real. 

[buckmasterpatrick]

Buckmaster presents NecroNancy’s Halloween party theme John Waters! Take a dip in the filthy freaky (John) Waters and get your Halloween started right! Bust out your Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Serial Mom’s Hairspray, Mondo Trasho, Pecker, and get ready for some Divine Desperate Living! Tonight is the night for some serious Female Trouble! Celebrate the pope of filth and be The Filthiest Person Alive!! Costume contest for best John Waters character at midnight with the drag show immediately after! This jam packed show features: Diva Dott as Dawn Davenport Lady Coquine as Babs Johnson Isaiah Esquire as Serial Mom Johnny Nuriel as Cry Baby Autch Daddi Dott as Edith Massey with DJ/Host Buckmaster as John Waters all night! $10 cover. 21+ only! (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoPuQGlhxIB/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ligmkel671k

[thehappyaccidentsteamblog]

Chapter 2: Having Reckoned with the Dead

“Alright everyone settle in,” Leyendecker stood at the front of the room, hardly needing to give the instruction. Most had already sprawled on couches or chairs in the living and dining room and then onto the floor when all the seats filled up. Theoretically, there were folding chairs in one of the closets, but no one seemed motivated to get them. 

Leyendecker continued. “Coach wanted me to debrief all of you after our first game.” There was an assortment of noises from the other nine players - Rosa having been taken straight to the hospital from the pitch. “We had a lot of ground to make up for our first game of the season and coach says she's very proud of all of us and couldn't have imagined a better first game.”

This time assortment of noises, despite the air of exhaustion in the room, had more energy to it.

“So give yourselves a break,” Leyendecker gestured openly, attempting once again to prompt someone in the group to energy. “Only one injury and the Necrons only got that last touchdown because of sheer luck. We drew our first game - that’s amazing!”

Popping up from his chair, Stuart stumbled his way to the front of the room. After clapping Leyendecker on the back so hard it knocked the breath from him, Stuart turned to the room. “What my friend J.C. here is tryin’ ta say, and doin’ it badly, is congrajiate yourselves!” The words were slurred together, not quite as badly as they’d been before the game, but the sentiment came across nonetheless. “We did, like so goodly. Ya know I jus dunno whatta say.” He wiped a tear, real or imaginary one could not tell, from one eye and with a dramatic flick of his wrist flung it across the room.

Several other players chuckled and Tom recoiled in an equally dramatic dodge, though the imagined tear came nowhere near his vicinity. This doubled Gil over in laughter while Leyendecker look on warily. The expression he was wearing must have been funnier than he thought, because upon catching Edgelord’s eyes, they also joined the laughter. And so, as laughter does, tired giggles and chuckles eventually traveled around the room and ran their course as no one actually had the energy for a gut-busting guffaw.

As the room quieted, Leyendecker corralled his own grin into a more neutral expression. “But yes, Gil is right,” Leyendecker announced finally he received a room-wide emphatic nod. “But Coach does want us to open the floor and talk about what we could have done differently.”

Frida and Edgelord raised their hands. Leyendecker pointed to them. “We should have blitzed more,” Frida offered.

“I saw a block from a mile away. I could have gotten that werewolf,” Edgelord added with an amount of restraint Leyendecker didn’t know they were capable of.

“Alright, that seems fair. I’ll tell Coach.”

“Because, Elizabeth!” Edgelord suddenly shouted. Elizabeth jumped in her seat and her head snapped to Edgelord. “I can’t believe you got to foul the werewolf and get him out of the game. Was it fun?”

Elizabeth, who had always struck Leyendecker as rather even-tempered, remained passive for a split second. Then her face broke into a toothless grin and she nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Edgelord offered Elizabeth a cross-room first bump, which Elizabeth took. And Leyendecker added to his notes to send to Coach. 

“We can make more sketchy catches, J.” Tom said when Edgelord and Elizabeth’s moment had passed.

“Sounds good,” Leyendecker wrote down more notes.

“But we didn’t really have to,” Robert added. “And we know that you know all that.”

“Still. Coach said she wanted all feedback.”

“I...actually have somethin’ constructive to say,” Gil waved his hand in front of Leyendecker’s face and that’s when he noticed the Gil hadn’t actually moved from the front of the room. Instead, Gil was sitting in the chair Leyendecker had been sitting in.

Frowning at his loss of a seat for just a moment, Leyendecker nodded for Gil to continue. “So’s we’ve gat some strong lineves,” Gil shook his head firmly and stared at a fixed point somewhere on the back wall, seemingly coming to realize how slurred he sounded. “The Necrons couldn’t get past us, and I wanted to congratulate us on two very effective screens. Keep up the good work.” 

Leyendecker blinked down at Gil while Gil blinked up at Leyendecker. “I can’t believe I forgot to say that,” Leyendecker voiced a thought aloud, partially to himself and partially to Gil.

“I waz waitin’ fer it,” Gil’s drawl returned almost instantly and his gaze had shifted to Leyendecker. As Leyendecker would expect, Gil’s eyes were unfocused, but his head tilted slightly to the side and he was smiling slightly.

Leyendecker did not know what to make of this so he quickly turned to address the room. “That seems like a good enough stopping place. You have the next two days off then Coach is sending us to a challenge course before practice resumes.”

“Who are we playing next?” Tom asked.

“Let me…” Leyendecker flipped through the sheath of papers he had in his hand until he found the schedule. He read the name twice just to be sure. “Orc Ascension… oh dear.” Leyendecker let out a long whistle and looked up to to nine sets of very round eyes.

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #18

Things start getting spicy in Civitas A on this session of Wrath and Glory RP!

Our heroes head into the metro tunnels by hitching a ride on the back of a metro (standard practice by Saef’s account) and dropping off near the spot where Gorm heard the wail. 

They have about 4 minutes to search around before the next metro comes and flattens them. 

Gorm listens for another wail, and hears one right after the metro leaves the next station. 

Following that leads them to a stairway, that drops them off at a lower-level metro tunnel, where they find a door with a ”Keep out” -sign. 

Everyone tries to open the door, but the lock proves to be tougher than regular.

Gimlet manages to crack it. 

They get to a small room with two doors and an air-vent. 

One of the doors has a sign requesting protective gear, before entering. 

Gorm sniffs the air and catches three scents, Andrew Andrés, his birds and, for some reason, the AdMech sergeant they left behind on the Necron planet. 

As the birds are closest (in the vents), our heroes check on them first. 

Saef uses crumbs from the korvapuusti to lure the parakeets into the cage Gorm has been carrying around. 

One of the birds talks, mostly saying ”hello” and ”blessings of the Emperor”. 

Gorm tries to teach it to say ”fuck”, but it only says ”shit”. 

As a talkative lil’ birdie is not great for their stealth mission, they leave the cage outside the door. 

So then there’s two doors and two smells remaining. 

As neither Saef nor Gorm have any stakes in finding Andrew Andrés, it is decided to check the AdMech sergeant’s smell first. 

They open the door and get into a small room that appears to be filled with computers controlling the metro system. 

A servitor is manning the computers, they pay no mind to the intruders.

There’s also a tank, attached to the wall with a pipe, and filled with some strange liquid, and the sergeant’s severed, somewhat de-composing head (yikes). 

There’s no real reason our heroes can think of why the head would be there.

They leave it for the moment, in case grabbing it will cause alarm.

Then it’s the last door. Our heroes are somewhat lacking in protective equipment (well, Gorm isn’t). 

Saef gives Gimlet the Skitarius Vanguard helmet he picked up in the Necron planet, and Gimlet puts it on. 

Saef will stay behind while Gimlet and Gorm investigate the room. 

The second room is much larger than the first one, and it’s filled with tubes that are filled with goop and with people. 

Few of the tubes light up, and they can hear people screaming and then another voice saying that ”Number 12 has failed, extraction required”. 

That spurs something to life in the room as two servitors suddenly appear and make their way among the tanks to a certain one. 

Gorm and Gimlet go check it out and see the servitors extracting a man in horrible condition from the tube. 

Gorm smells that this is Andrew Andrés. 

The Servitors take Andrew to a side room filled with bodies, and Gorm follows in. 

He notices that Andrew is actively dying, so he gives him some first aid. 

Gimlet looks around and surmises that what’s going on here is that they are gathering energy from the people to power up the metros. 

Then he goes to let Gorm out and they debate on what to do with freeing these people. 

Saef is waiting at the door and suddenly starts hearing singing. 

He waves at Gimlet and Gorm, who hide in the room with the bodies. 

Saef goes to the control room and hides in the closet only to realize that the singing was coming from inside his head. 

Before he can really do anything about it, the earth around them moves as if an explosion has happened somewhere above them, and the glass tanks crack and break, letting out the people, some who collapse to the floor, but some who are very much alive, very much angry and very much psykers. 

Gimlet texts Saef to grab the head of the sergeant and hide until there’s a chance for him to escape. 

Saef does so, barely missing a psyker who blasts the control room’s computer and the servitor to bits. 

Gimlet orders Saef to go to the surface and teleport back to the ship, while he and Gorm see if they can clear the way for themselves. 

Most of the psykers have escaped, but there’s two still remaining in the room. 

Gorm sneaks out of the room towards one, only to realize there’s a third being in the room, a demon of sort. 

Gorm switches targets. 

Gimlet pulls out his extra-special anti-psyker arrows and shoots two of the psykers, killing one and severely hurting the other.

He does receive some smites as a response. 

Gorm has a hard time hitting the slippery demon. 

So he goes after the remaining psyker, so that Gimlet use his flamer to position the demon a bit better. 

It ends up with all three of them at the door to the room with the bodies.

Gorm tries to taunt the demon into the room, which sorta works? 

Except now the demon has its grip on Gorm. 

Gimlet shoots his flamer, forcing the demon and Gorm apart, and setting the corpses on fire. 

Gorm grabs Andrew and Gimlet closes the door. 

And off they run before the demon can come after them. 

Gimlet does grab the bird cage with him, while they run past.

Meanwhile Saef has waited for a good moment before rushing out of the room with the sergeant’s head under his arm. 

He tries to text Cayenne to get hold of Inpax, but Cayenne only replies that there’s a ”situation”. 

He gets to a metro station, but drops the tank when climbing onto the platform so he wraps the severed head into a piece of cloth and continues to run. 

On the surface it quickly becomes apparent what the aforementioned situation is, as the Tyranid invasion on Dew Mountain has begun. 

There are Sable Swords battling cultists and Santa Maria seems to be in battle with a Tyranid vessel in the skies. 

Saef calls Molly and gets himself a teleport up. 

When he is about to leave the teleporter room he hears a familiar voice and turns to see Kane Bullard, of BBS fame, and his cronies, with them his mentor Ahram, just like Rat said. 

Saef flees the scene, and gets to his room, where he stuffs Kuru’s head into the fridge.

Gimlet and Gorm on the surface also request a teleport from Saef, which Saef arranges, as well as getting a teleport for Rat. 

Waiting for the teleport, Gorm takes a chainsword from a dead Sable Sword. 

He also leaves Andrew on the ground, and Gimlet protests, but Gorm doesn’t seem to care. 

So Gimlet grabs Andrew’s hand and up they teleport. 

Immediately on the platform Gorm rushes off towards the infirmary. 

Gimlet leaves the birds on top of a crate and starts dragging Andrew through the ship. 

Saef gets to teleporter, where Molly complains about not getting the second person Saef asked. 

Saef feels a hand on his arm and says it’s alright. 

He goes to his room, grabs Theo, head and cat and as many fridge magnets Theo’s body can hold and starts towards a bomb shelter. 

Gorm gets to the infirmary where he finds Layla safe, helping a doctor. 

Layla asks for her mother, and Gorm promises to find her. 

As Jennifer works the arboretum, and as that was in the part of the ship that was badly damaged, Gorm heads there. 

The arboretum is in bad shape. Gorm calls out for Jennifer and gets a faint answer. 

He finds her, still alive, but her legs are crushed by a fallen tree. 

Gorm cuts the tree, picks up Jennifer and starts heading towards the medbay. 

Jennifer asks after Layla, and after learning she is alright, seems to lose consciousness. 

In the infirmary, Gorm inquires from Tabasco the state of the ship. Tabasco says there’s no xenos on board, only bombing, but same can’t be said of Peach Blossom’s neighboring ship. 

So Gorm starts for the teleporter. 

Gimlet finally gets Andrew to Tabasco, and Tabasco helps him put Andrew on a bed. 

Tabasco asks if Gimlet is okay, and Gimlet says he can self-medicate. 

Tabasco says he doesn’t recommend it, but Gimlet says he means just basic first-aid. 

Tabasco then gently pushes him out of the medbay, as they’re swamped with patients. 

Gimlet goes to Saef in the bomb shelter. 

Saef says he needs to go get his parents, and by the way does Gimlet have Inpax’ number. 

Gimlet nervously asks why Saef needs it. 

Saef says he needs to put Theo somewhere where he’ll be safe, and the only place he can think of is Inpax’ room. 

Gimlet reaches out for his contacts, and gets Saef the number, but unfortunately the message doesn’t get delivered.

Saef decides to get Theo & co there anyway, so he breaks in. 

Gimlet follows and if he notices Rat, he says nothing. 

Only the room is not empty, but has Lu Yan from the casino there. 

She says she can explain. 

Saef just drops his wards there (placing the head onto Theo’s lap so to not get into trouble) and off he goes. 

Gimlet stays behind to talk with Lu Yan. Lu Yan says she had been working on a BBS office for a bit, after the casino thing went bust and Inpax came to pick her up. Except there was something she needed to grab and then she never followed Lu Yan. Lu Yan is supposedly a prisoner of Inquisition, so she can’t really go after Inpax, so she orders Gimlet to do so, as that is her girlfriend and she’d like her back alive, thx. (wasn’t she your wife? Gimlet asks. We didn’t have the time, Lu Yan replies.) Gimlet says he’ll do so.

Saef and Gorm and Gorm’s wolf he had picked up from Alex meet at the teleporter. 

Gorm says he’ll be going to Peach Blossom’s ship. 

Saef says he’s gonna go get his folks. 

And off they teleport. 

Gimlet arrives soon after and asks Molly where the others went. 

He decides to follow Saef and teleports back down to Civitas A.

And that’s that for this session. Next time some actual war in this Warhammer 40k game I’ve been running for the past 5 months. Who would’ve thought.