No Night Without Stars--A Cities of Gold Campiagn

ANOTHER PERFECT REPORT...lots of oh-so-cool photos & just enough text to bring it all to life without taxing my morning-be-dimmed mind. GREAT STUFF!

Last one of this campaign, DeafNala, so read real slow and make it last.



For picture clarity please note:
Playtable's ship has no conversions as yet and the MegaBlock decks and rails are very lumpy,
And, the Amazon's are WarMachine based models and have real trouble standing up at the rails with thier larger round bases.
So..if it looks like a gal is laying down on the job, she's probably not.

And, in case you don't see it right away, the Evil Doers have 2 access points to the ship, the rocks and ramp at the stern and the dock.
The Guardians have only 1 wide ramp to use.
Playtable


Week 13—Naufragio Cala Coda
Welcome to the official end of the No Night Without Stars campaign. Unfortunately Chadwicc could not attend Thursday night’s meeting so the campaign ended as it began with only three players in attendance.

“King of the Hull”
A Tale of Greed and Revenge.
Narration by Von Kurst, photos by Playtable

Bergdis, the priestess huddled in her cloak and peered into the driving rain. She had led the tribe on this raid of the Vampire’s shipyard. Now the tribe looked to her to lead them back to safety. The sudden, fierce storm had halted their looting of the Ghost Ship. Apparently it also concealed the approach of their enemies.

The warriors of the Azure band line the rails of the Flying Dutchman.
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The Evil Doers begin their attack.
With the water route so narrow, one group goes in the boat and a 2nd group goes right overland to get to the dock. While a 3rd group goes for the rear ramp.
(Von Kirst looks on in the background.)
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The Guardians jump off as well. Saurus warriors prepare to cross the boarding plank while the skinks row forward. (The threat of sharks keep the skinks from just swimming for it.)
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Borghild and Bothildr the berserk totem warriors challenge the saurus, who fall back before the ‘no armor save’ Claws of the Old Ones (and the Lightning Reflexes of the pair).
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The Evil Doers attack develops slowly as well. The warriors on the land are slowed by terrain and weather. The boat of ghouls comes under fire from a Sun Staff.
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The Guardians develop their strategy of luring the totem warriors further on to the bridge. Spells and missiles seek the three women on the bridge with not much success.
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The Totem Warriors jeer at the cowardly Dragon folk. (Then a bolt of lightning strikes the henchwoman in the lead! She falls off the bridge and is lost in the shark-infested lagoon.)
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The Evil Doers southern strategy comes to fruition. Wolfy and the ghoul pack surge across the aft bridge and board the hulk through the main cabin. (The quarterdeck is removed for the rest of the game to access the fighting in the cramped cabin.)
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The ghoul’s boat reaches the dock. As it does the Necromancer, Dead Eye Doug, casts Life Stealer at Thyra. The Amazon topples over the rail of the Dutchman into the boat full of ghouls below. After a brief struggle she is dumped into the lagoon. (Cue ominous theme from Jaws…)
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Vaulten prepares to leap aboard and a ghoul gets ready to climb.
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The Guardians surge forward in the face of the Amazons uncertainty. (Bothildr moved to repel the Evil Doer boarding parties.) Javelins and arrows fly toward the women on the ship and the lizardmen’s boats. Another henchwoman pitches over the rail of the Dutchman. Xiuhpilli’s boat suffers a disabled rudder.
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Chimalli’s boat reaches the Dutchman and skinks swarm up the sides of the boat. Chac leads his saurus braves to attack Borghild who holds the bridge alone.
Yoatl uses the Pendant of the Old Ones to teleport into combat with Aunt Hulda, the Amazon’s Cunning Woman hired sword.
(At the far left on the bow of the ship.)
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As a startled Atl looks on, Chac is swept off the bridge by a sword cut. Huehue pitched off the bridge after him. Only the youngest brave Peque fought on. Another Amazon joined Borghild (who failed to dispatch Peque again.) Atl rushed to aid Peque but was too late.

Valten easily gains the deck of the Dutchman. His first opponent falls stunned to the deck. Ghouls follow Valten up the ladder. The Amazons are engaged in combat all over the ship. The white shark waits in vain for another tid bit to fall in the water.
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Dead Eye Doug gains the deck as well (and will turn the tide, since he is not afraid to fight with his 5 wounds---3 due to Life Stealer). More Evil Doers crowd the dock waiting to board.
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Bothildr knocked down Valten (repeatedly), but the Dead Eye (and Valten’s T6) kept the Amazons from finishing him.
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The swirling melee moves to the Dutchman’s main deck. Lizardmen and undead surround the few survivors.
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Post Battle
The Azure Band fought to the last heroine (Bergdis) to try to cut Valten down. In the end all of the Amazons fell but one henchwoman, who fled! Despite the horrendous casualties only 4 henchwomen die. All the heroines and the Cunning Woman survive (including a Survives Against the Odds for Bothildr.) The Amazons have no exploration but did keep the Superior Gunpowder they found before the attack.

The Guardians suffered all their henchmen out of action except for one skink and Chac (who did not sink when he fell into the lagoon and was pulled to safety before the sharks could get him.) Only Chimalli was wounded (by Bergdis). He became Hardened. One skink is killed (also by Bergdis).

Despite his complaints that the Guardians would fight to the last ghoul, Playtable’s Evil Doers suffer minimal casualties in the assault. (Many of his warriors were stuck in the cabin or on the dock until the final turns.) Valten was the focus of the many of the Amazon’s attacks but he was never wounded by anyone but Bothildr.
The Evil Doers win the final battle and claim the treasures of the Ghost Ship.
(Cue ominous theme music from Young Frankenstein and film clip of lightning flashes against a stormy sky.)

By Playtable:
And in the end, the dead get their due.

Great report and a fine end for an epic campaign.

Love the report and the pictures.

What did the undead horde found as treasure?

Do you play with the warbands of this campaign again?

How many experinece points received the most experienced warrior of all warbands during the campaign?

Which model was at the end of the campaign the killer due to perfect level ups?

Were all warbands on the same level? I asked this because the Lustrian warbands tend to be a little bit stronger than the original ones. But in your campaign it worked fine and the undead won.

Question, question and question.

Hope you have time to answer them.

SerialMoM

To SerialMoM:

The undead did not have time to search because the store was closing.
I'll do it later.

No, we won't use these warbands again except to test out a new scenario with experienced warbands or some such other reason.

The Undead were not the high warband (373 with the Lizardmen a little lower) and I don't know about the others (Amazons were over 400), but Vaulten the Vampire ended up with 85 exp. points after this battle. The closest I've ever come to maxing out a character.

The best killers had to be the Amazon totem warriors because they worked as a pair.
One had 4 or 5 attacks at S5 and S6 no armor save and T5 & multiple wounds.
TheVampire was good too though. ws4, s4, t5 with resileint for a t6, 3 w, i4 (injued), 4a, and Ld 10.
Von Kirst should know more.

The Amazom warband was the highest through most of the campaign and at the end.
Which is probably why they got ambushed in this last scenario.

Yes, the Undead won this last battle but mostly because the Amazons had no where to run and were surrounded and ganged up on.
And when the Amazons were down to their last gal, the Lizardmen failed a rout test at the end before we could see if they could beat the undead.

SerialMoM wrote:

Great report and a fine end for an epic campaign. Love the report and the pictures.

Thanks mate.

SerialMoM wrote:

Do you play with the warbands of this campaign again?

I like to get them out for one off games during a campaign (like the last battle report on page 3). That way I get to play Mordheim without getting too far ahead of the others in the campaign. On this occasion I had already asked the Amazon player to save the list because I wanted to play against that band again with the Guardians to settle some feuds.

SerialMoM wrote:

How many experinece points received the most experienced warrior of all warbands during the campaign?

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I'd say Valten's 85 is tops. Both Borghild and Bothildr have a lot of kills, but they started with 12 less exp. than Valten. Yaotl (my totem warrior) suffered from not getting into combat in too many games.

SerialMoM wrote:

Which model was at the end of the campaign the killer due to perfect level ups?

Borghild and Bothildr are kind of twins except Bothildr has 3 wounds while Borghild has I 5 and Ld 9. Otherwise they had Step Aside, Resilient, Expert Swordsman and Lightning Reflexes.
Yaotl never got a strength or T increase but he wears 4+ Stegadon Bone Armor (that counts as Light Armor) for a 2+ Armor Save, the Cloak of Mists and Shadows (-1 to hit with missiles and in melee) with Step Aside, Resilient, Expert Swordsman, Strike to Injure and Pit Fighter. Yaotl and Borghild both had only one wound.

SerialMoM wrote:

Were all warbands on the same level? I asked this because the Lustrian warbands tend to be a little bit stronger than the original ones. But in your campaign it worked fine and the undead won

The campaign is in Lustria which makes a huge difference in how things play out, The Lizardmen and the Amazons were able to use their special rules to full effect (especially the hate Lizardmen one. Ouch!) Weather and other special rules from our campaign add other modifiers. We play with the Lustrian Major and Minor Artifacts as well and those could have really affected the game if I could have always remembered to use them...

A few weeks ago I decided to wind things up because the undead warbands were always getting clobbered. Naturally Valten rolls a strength increase and the balance of power changes again. The Necrarchs had started to use more hired swords but Chadwicc missed too many games to judge how that would have worked out.

Thanks for the questions.

Beyond savoring the final battle report of an EPIC CAMPAIGN, reading slowly was more or less necessary in my present state of what-passes-for-a-mind...it's all that lip moving that does it.I hate it when a campaign comes to a close...it's like losing an old friend.
Oh well...ON TO SUNNY ESTALIA!

Thanks for your answers.

Did you use hired swords a lot?

Have you tested the blood pact rules? And if yes, did they work?

SerialMoM

SerialMoMs wrote:

Quote :

Did you use hired swords a lot?

Personally, I use very few. Three main reasons:
1. The upkeep cost adds up over lots of games so that you could have bought some really nice equipment.
2. Some are so good that they steal experience point kills from your own heroes. (Minor reason.)
3. My recovery rolls are legendary, in the worst way.
So, I usually have little gold left over after replacing lost warband members.

And no to the Blood Pact rules.

SerialMoM wrote:

Thanks for your answers.

Did you use hired swords a lot?

You are welcome. As for your first question it depends on what you mean by 'a lot'.

ALL of the warbands employed a hired sword at some point in the campaign and we all use hired swords in all the campaigns we play.

Lustria is kind of a unique environment because the Amazons and the Lizardmen are limited in their choice of HS to begin with. Amazons have none (until Styro wrote some for us).
Lizardmen only have one unless you can find the rules for the Cold One riding skink, which I have misplaced, but used to use.
Also there is no 'free HS' entry in the Exploration table (or we have never rolled it if there is) so there is no possibility of waving the hire fee.
Finally, Lustria is the land of really expensive HS which makes the 'native' HS more of an investment compared to those written for other supplements or Mordheim itself.

I think we use HS a lot compared to the comments I have seen from some other forum members.

We haven't used the Blood Pact rules yet, mainly because I see no need for them in our campaigns, since we use HS all the time. (Even Playtable)

DeafNala wrote:

.I hate it when a campaign comes to a close...it's like losing an old friend.
Oh well...ON TO SUNNY ESTALIA!

Interlude

The Deadly Channel
Captain Herman de Guzman wiped the rain from his eyes. The water fell from the leaden sky in a steady curtain. Juan leaned on his oar and the simple raft responded sluggishly. Despite their defeat at the Dragon folk's ruined city the Free Company had escaped with some loot as well as their lives. Soon they would be free of the river delta, then they could regain their ship.

A beam of pure light lanced through the rain. The Amazons had overtaken them again.

(To be continued)

HOORAY! YET ANOTHER STIRRING EPISODE is imminent...maybe!

The Deadly Channel (cont'd)



Two makeshift rafts appeared from behind a small island in the middle of the channel. Both rafts were crewed by women warriors in smeared paint and drooping feathers. Despite their bedraggled appearance the women handled their bows and magical staffs with skill. Arrows and energy beams sought Ensign La Paz's raft as it struggled against the current.

Fortunately no one was injured by the barrage. "Fire on the lead raft!" ordered Captain de Guzman. The men of the free company returned fire with their crossbows and bows. They were cheered by the sight of one of their attackers slumping to the deck of the raft. In addition a lucky hit on the Amazon's rudder disabled the lead raft's steering.

The Amazon's damaged raft drifted with the current as the women attempted to rig a temporary rudder. The repairs only occupied half of the crew however, the Serpent Priestess chanted spells while archers kept up a rain of arrows. The second raft disappeared back behind the island.

The men of La Paz's raft were shocked as lizards and water snakes swarmed on to the raft and overwhelmed Senor Capone the marksman. Ensign La Paz ordered the rowers to close with the enemy craft. La Paz was able to skewer one of the women with his pike. A hail of crossbow bolts also forced several of the enemy rowers to drop their oars. (Speed permanently reduced by 2.) One of the women was stunned by a bolt and fell overboard. Crocodiles immediately began to converge on the embattled rafts.

The Amazon raft crashed into Ensign La Paz's craft. The warrior women attempted to force their way onto the men's raft, but Montoya and Ensign La Paz held them. La Paz fell to a lucky blow from an Amazon club. Senor Montoya nearly defeated the Serpent Priestess but she was able to ensorcel him and cut him down. With out their leaders the rest of the crew were cut down one by one.

Captain de Guzman's raft was disabled by the destruction of its rudder. The stricken raft ran aground on the central island. De Guzman leapt ashore and fought with the Amazon's pygmy scout. The little man was no match for the seasoned captain, but as they fought an energy beam killed Brother Tomas Torcamarda.

Post Battle
The Free Company was thoroughly beaten, however only Brother Tomas died. The recently promoted Diego III was robbed, otherwise everyone recovered from their wounds.

The Amazons lost 2 henchwomen and the pygmy killed. They did gain LOTS of treasure from the captured raft.

HOORAY FOR THE JUNGLE BABES!...mostly.

Duel on the High Seas
The Pale Moons attempt piracy. A tale in which the Priest Xiuhpilli commands the ancient Oom Paaa.



Xiuhpilli the priest of Tzunki paced the upper deck of the howda. Beneath his feet the deck strained as the great Oom Paaa swam effortlessly through the World Pond. Xiuhpilli was charged with delivering the ancient plaques of sublime Lord Adskhio to the lords of Tlaxtlan in the far north. Rather than risk a long march through the treacherous jungle, the priest had been instructed to summon the Venerable One and transport the plaques by sea.

Oom the Implacable had suffered a platform to be constructed on his shell and consented to bear the plaques and their guards to the ruins of Xahutec. From there the Guardians would make the relatively short march to the Temple City of Tlaxtlan.

Suddenly Xiuhpilli's thoughts were interrupted by a mental message from Oom. "Island... move...near. Warm-blood...food?"

The priest attempted to determine how near the 'moving island of warm-bloods' was but he could not understand the Ancient's perception of distance. Instead he thanked the Venerable One.

"To arms!" Xiuhpilli called to his troops.

(to be continued...)

Duel on the High Seas (cont'd)
The Golden One climbed higher in the sky as Oom Paaa swam tirelessly forward.

"Cloud-on-the-Water!" called a lookout. Xiuhpilli saw an odd shaped cloud appear on the horizon. The enemy had been sighted. It was indeed on of the Warm-blood's floating islands. The Venerable One surged forward in response to the excitement of his passengers. Xiuhpilli doubted that the Great Being could see the enemy yet, but perhaps he could sense their proximity in other ways.

Soon the sharp eyes of the skinks could see activity on the enemy decks. BOOM! One of the enemy thunderwagons spoke. Oom Paaa seemed to flinch for an instant, then he swam on without missing a stroke.



Xiuhpilli chanted litanies of protection for his warriors and the Venerable One. Skinks checked their weapons all along the rails but the enemy ship was too far for their puny missiles to reach. As they closed the enemy thunderwagon spoke many times but the Venerable One paid the attacks no more mind than gnat bites.



Soon however arrows and lances of energy arced toward them. Only little Totlotl had a weapon that could challenge the enemy archers. Skinks and saurus warriors began to suffer light wounds as the enemy found their range. But shortly thereafter the skink's short bows were finally in range. Clouds of arrows lifted and fell between the two combatants. Warriors fell wounded on both sides.

Oom Paaa closes on the becalmed Amazons.


The Venerable One rips a huge hole in the bow of the enemy ship!


Yoatl teleports onto the bow of the enemy. The female warriors fall before his flashing blades. Chac has less success. Nimble skinks have even less. Three of them fail to leap the gap and end up in the churning waves between the vessel and the leviathan.


Chac falls and Yoatl is ensorceled, but more of the Guardians press the attack.


Post Battle
The Pale Moons lose a gunner and perhaps some henchwomen.

The Guardians gain much treasure from the abandoned ship. Two skinks are added to the crew to guard against further depredations.

Duel on the High Seas II
The Pale Moons' Revenge, or Playtable demands a re-match

The Pale Moons intercepted the Guardians' return cruise. Since the first battle had gone so well Xiuhpilli allowed the Ancient to attack at will. The only real difference in the Guardians' approach to the interlopers was to place more skink archers to the fore.

The Pale Moons had the wind but decided to attempt to damage the great turtle at long range with their guns. This strategy did not work any better the second time then it had for the first skirmish. Their archery was vastly more effective as the Sunstaffs blasted skink after skink off the rails. (Curse those no armor save lasguns!)

Oom Paaa closes on the Pale Moons a second time.


The Pale Moons abandon the futile guns and come about in an attempt to bring more warriors into the fight.


Oom Paaa crashes into the Warm-blood ship! This time both ships are along side. A general melee ensues.


Yoatl teleports onto the enemy's aft castle in an attempt to disrupt the Amazons' missile reserves.


Unfortunately Yoatl was not under the enchantment of Tinci's Rage. He hacked down one slinger. Then the Saurus Totem Warrior was surrounded and cut down by a Claw of the Old Ones.

Saurus and skink warriors force their way on to the Amazon ship, but the defeat of Yoatl stiffens the Amazons' resolve to fight on.


Chicomecoatl attacks a hapless Amazon archer in the water.


The soggy pygmy scout comes up for air after falling overboard.


One of the sharks of the World Pond attacks before the pygmy can be rescued. Poor pygmy.


The Pale Moons had suffered significant casualties but the Serpent Priestess urged them on. The Amazon Totem Warriors had finally pressed their way to the fighting. The Guardians' boarding party melted away before the crackling power of the Claws of the Old Ones. The warrior women cleared their ship of Scaled Ones, then leapt on to the howda of the Ancient Oom Paaa.

Post Battle
The Guardians lost the unpainted Peque, the newest Saurus recruit. All other casualties recovered including Yoatl who survived against the odds!

The Pale Moons report several henchwomen killed. They do steal a great deal of treasure from the defeated Guadians.

Learning Points
We were using the Generals Compendium era Living Ship rules in addition to the usual Warhammer Ahoy! (Second Edition). We haven't used 3rd Edition rules yet.

Aside from being able to ignore wind direction for movement the turtle had little effect on the battle. I completely forgot to bother attacking the ship in the second game. But since we limited the monster to attacking only the ship, it probably would have had no impact on the boarding action. Maybe next time I will remember that monsters can hit crew on a roll of 5+...

Surprise Attack
Grootka and the Ladz meet Captain Blackwater



The crew of the good ship Smasha were spread all over the ruined jetty. There were some tumbledown buildings scattered about in the jungle, but the ladz were having too much fun tossing the holds of the derelict wrecks that dotted the harbor to pay any attention to the buildings yet. Kaptain Grootka had led a small shore party further inland to have a look see. Yo'and had set the boyz to lootin' as soon as the Kap'n had disappeared from view. All except Nameless, the troll was standing over by the ruins of an old fort drooling and humming a puppy song. Nameless was watchin' out, he was.

Engaged in profitable pursuits as they were the ladz didn't notice the mist at first. Unlike normal mists it didn't roll in from the sea. It kinda crept out of the jungle, sneaky, like. All of a sudden the ladz couldn't see each other. They couldn't see the jolly boats they had come in. They couldn't see Da Smasha.

There were some shuffilin' sounds off to the north. "Avast! Who go dere?" called Rum Runna. THUNK!

"Rum Runna?" called Yo'and. THUNK!

"Puppy?" murmured Nameless, kinda hopefully. Nameless hadn't seen a puppy in a long time.

"Yuz no puppy!" griped Nameless. To the ladz listening, he sounded some put out. Then a strange chanting echoed along the fog bound jetty, followed by a loud CRASH! Something big had just fallen over, say something troll sized...

"Close up ladz!" ordered Yo'and (about ten minutes too late). Off in the white mist something was chopping meat. Sounded like they were butchering a steer. Or cutting up a troll...

The ladz tried to move toward where they thought Yo'and was. "Ize cain't see!" wailed Arra' Scut. "Cain't sees nuffin!"

Yo'and was helping matters by moving himself. He faced north as he backed toward the unseen boats. He was desperately peering into the swirling white clouds when he saw a shape walking toward him from the north.

"Runna?" he called, "Give da sign or Ise kill ye!" Then the shape got closer. Yo'and saw the ruined face of a long dead sailor moving toward him. Behind it came walking human skeletons wrapped in chains but carrying weapons. BOOM! Yo'and fired his booma into them point blank. A clawed hand grabbed the barrel of the booma. Yo'and let go and drew his cutlasses. Once its head came off the thing stopped attacking.

All along the jetty the air rang with the clash of weapons and the cries of desperate warriors. Orcs fought dead fings and mad-eyed humies in the mist. 'Ead Taker chopped his axe into a fantastically robed humie, git even had one of them pointy hats! Teach him to fight an axe-warrior with a piece of fire wood! YAAR!

Then the mist began to clear and all of the orcs took heart at the deep bellowing voice roaring, "Grootka! Grootka! To me ladz! Grootka!"

The Kaptain hit the Dead Uns on their right flank. KaBOOM! Big Face opened up with his Long Booma from the left. Then those tricksy elf gits attacked from the Dead Uns rear. Da Dead Uns, they might a fought on forever, you know dead uns, gots no fear. But them nasty humies, them gits run right quick! Da Dead Uns shuffled along after.

Post Battle
Captain Blackwater lost a couple of humies kilt and a zombie crumbled to dust. Marley IV survived against the odds. The rest of them recovered as well. A Dark Elf is captured and joins the crew.

Captain Blackwater plots revenge.

[size=18]
The crew of the Smasha was some depleted despite the victory. One of the elfs run off with the Dead Uns in the confusion. (Cain't trust the gits, no how.) Old Arra' Scut lost his head and ended up dead. "Ead Taker took a nasty cut to one of his wings. The lad will be laid up a bit. On a positive note, Rum Runna survived his wounds and was promoted to Gunna for not squealing when stuck with a rusty cutlas.