Blood Bowl: Ravenous Raptors vs Vongalazthag Violators

 Kicking off the Blood Bowl League season 3 at TSA for my brave Chaos Dwarfs, I faced a team of ferocious lizardmen tonight in my first game in this edition.

Antonio brought 11 players to the field, including 6 of the strength 4 Saurus Blockers, so I'll be outpowered for sure, and hopefully my Iron Skin will hold the line as I will foul away!

The gameplan?  Foul whatever goes down to high heaven, and then try to score in the second half of the game!

Facing me where the lizardmen, in a way.  The story goes that the Black Orc team performed so badly last season, they went to train with a Slann in Lustria, returning to the pitch in Lizardmen style.  Ake, they where proxied as his lizardmen team wasn't painted yet and they suited the bill perfectly, the Black Orcs being Saurus and the Goblins being Skinks.

 

Under nice weather and a minor pitch invasion, the Violators team mascot riled up the fans so hard the Chaos Dwarfs got an extra re-roll as they lined up to kick off the ball.  Albeit one blocker decided to lie down after being hit by a crazed fan...

So the ball in play, the teams where off for a game of hard vs hard...

The Lizardmen started by focussing their opening push on the right flank, the big Saurus warriors converging at that side of the field.

A blocker was knocked KO'd after being pushed in the crowd, but his thick skull saved him, putting him on the bench instead.

Moving to stop the gap, a Saurus was knocked over and Bob went to make his already second foul.  Unfortunatly the referee noticed this and he was duly send off with a red card.

The line was being pushed severly on the far right flank now by the big Saurus blockers, Dievanons being pushed to the floor face down as a hole opened.

When Huey was subsequently knocked out, the gap became real for the Lizardmen team to flood through.

But it was on the other flank the actual breakthrough happened, one of the Skinks, Ortwin, being brought forward in a box.

He made the dash through the hole, easily outrunning both Chaos Dwarf and Hobgoblin alike.  The last efforts of the Violators to get back to him failed unfortunatly...

... and the Skink scored the opening touchdown of the game, putting the 1-0 on the board for the Raptors.

The teams lined up again, the Chaos Dwarfs making a Quick Snap to get better blocking odds.  The Stabbaz had sharpened their knives, putting both Saurus opposing them down (the only time it would work this game, but it felt good) as the third on their line was blocked over.  In addition, the Saurus where forced to use their apothecary to prevent a Saurus warrior from ending up with a niggling injury!

The Saurus on the scrimmage line now almost all downed, this was the moment for the Hobgoblins to shine and try to force a break out for the equalizer.

With some effort, after first fumbling the ball and as such costing a turn to allow the lizards to start recovering, a train of violence moved over on the right flank towards the Lustrian endzone.

The remainder of the team did their best to keep the rest of the Lizardmen team down and occupied, injuring Ortwin in the go and causing a badly hurt on him.

But that one turn they could recover was to much, and soon the big Saurus caught up, and knocked the ball carrier over, the ball ending on the edge of the brawling group.  

There was one desperate chance however, if my Hobgoblin could pick up the ball, throw a pass to the Flamesmith (who was the only one still able to reach the end zone) and he would catch it... which ended when the Hobgoblin failed to even pick the ball up uberhaubt.

So with a 1-0 we went into half time, and the teams set up for the second half.  The ball deviated to right next to my own endzone, so the hobgoblins would hopefully perform better now.

At the scrimmage line, the Chaos Dwarfs started causing their usual ruckus, buldozering over the Saurus with the aid of a crooked referee who had stunned one of the big beasts himself.

Over on the left flank, the skinks flooded over to try and recuperate the ball in my half.

Which wouldn't be hard, as trying to throw the ball to his teammate, The Dude fumbled the pass and the ball fell at his feet...

It deviated right in front of my own endzone, with a Skink poised nearby to pick it up and go score.

Which duly happened, and it became 2-0 for the Raptors as such.

The teams lined up once again, and knowing it was lost, I would try to score at least some SPP by beating (or trying to at least) the Lustrian daylights out of my opponents.  And my fans would be on the look-out with rocks to throw should the opposing ball carrier start stalling...

The Saurus line held rather okay though, and Huey found himself right behind the line with the ball in his possession.

 

Swarmed over, the Chaos Dwarfs tried to hold on for dear Hashut against all those ST 4 punches being thrown their way, managing to keep the line more or less intact.

But slowly and steadily the lizardmen worked their way towards poor Huey, who suddenly didn't like the idea anymore of being in possession of the ball.

While Duey had been put out of the game with a niggling injury (no way I would use an apothecary on a lowly Hobgoblin lineman), Huey finally lost the ball from against all the savagery.

As a skink picked up the ball, my line was completely smacked to the floor, and while they struggled back up they couldn't reach the lizardman ball carrier anymore.

Defended by a wall of Saurus, the skink then ran down the field, scoring the 3-0 in the final turn of the game and adding more salt to the injury, as I didn't manage to knock (or foul) anything higher anymore then a lowly KO for a skink.

And thus ended my first game of Blood Bowl in this edition, and one where I learned quite lot, especially for the two new player types.  The rest remained more or less the same: Blockers are reliable, Hobgoblins everything but...

But, we are currently leading the rankings of the League on pure violence statistics, so that counts for something as well!

Next month, my team will return to the pitch (albeit, down one Hobgoblin who misses the game), to face the Moot's Revenge, a Halfling team bringing along two mighty treemen, ouch...

Necropolis28

 Labelled as a "diorama skirmish game" in a horror fantasy theme, this free ruleset caught my attention recently.

 

And the catchphrase being "The age of the living ended long ago.  Only the dead remain." gives a good impression what this game is all about.

 

 

The book, 59 pages long, starts with the outline of the idea of the setting: most importantly, everything is undead.  It uses an alternation system with action points, and is played on a small area, focussed on Narrative campaign play, and the gameboard is only 16 x 16 inches in size to encourage the diorama like tables as mentioned above.

 

The setting of the game is the Endless City, the remains of a world that is now filled with Undead, and ruled by mysterious lords like the Rotten Goddess, all ruling from their towers in the city.

 

The ruleset is meant for a 2 player skirmish system, with options for solo and co-op play.  Needless to say, I grabbed it for the second mode, the occassional solo game, with all those Undead models I acquired over the years, even the heaps of them from the various Warhammer Underworlds warbands.   Every warband counts between 1 to 8 models, and for the rest you will need some D10's and some tokens.

All measurements, in inches, are taken from the bases of the models, and at deployment your leader gets his mana which can be of three different sorts.  The turns then start, and contain 4 steps: Initiative, Gathering, Others and End.

To determine Initiative, the highest roll of a D10 wins.  In the Gathering step, starting with the player with the Initiative, models begin activating, alternating, one by one.  In the Others step all the models not part of the Gathering step activate, these are the NPC's of the game system, and this happens by bidding with your mana dice to see who gets to control them.  And the End step is just that, the end of the turn.

Models can undertake a variety of actions, all costing an Action Point or even multitudes: Move, Attack (a pretty basic system is used for this, basically D10 result - armour = damage), Pick Up Relic, Lurk (a pass action until later in the turn), Traverse, and some Free Actions for minor things that won't cost any of your AP.

The Core Rules detail some special cases that models can perform or become inflicted with, and explains most of the terms used in the game.  And then we go into the creation of your warband, always a fun thing to do in any skirmish game.  With your 300 obols, the currency in the game, you first chose or forsake a Covenant, then you buy your Leader and his minions, and finally generate a lair.  Mind that for every battle, when your warband grows, you can only bring a maximum value of 350 obols to the table!

Covenants are the "houses" of the leaders of the city, and you can choose to join one, each granting other benefits, or forsake joining one and become a Wretched Undead with their own traits.  Your Leader can be a Lich, a Revenant or an Ascended Undead (this is a big beastie taking almost all your obols to recruit), then you buy them equipment and give them their Traits.  Minions come from a variety of stereotype Undead, like Husks, small Beasts or Horrors, all encompassing multiple archetypes.  

The next section goes about spellcasting, a rather important thing when playing a heap of Necromancers after all, and again pick your spell lores and the spells that come with it, restricted by your Covenant that you picked!  Finally you get to pick your Lair, and then we are off to the scenarios.

For these, you determine a few things, like the Environment where the battle is fought.  A game normally lasts 5 turns, and you roll for the victory condition next, which also details the lay-out and number of objectives.  Dread Omens can be brought in, which affect the whole battlefield both for good and bad.  

You also pick Ambitions, which are the things your Leader is really after, the battles and opponents just being obstacles on his way to his goal, and some minor ambitions which he sees as bonusses if they are achieved in the game.  The Campaign ofcourse also has an after action phase to go through, seeing the wins and losses you obtained during the game.  Here you can also see how many ambitions and minor ambitions are completed, in order to get more treasure, and if you recruit any sellswords or even named characters to your warband...

And that's it, you can now venture into the city and vie for becoming one of the high rulers of the Undead.  I will definitly be trying this game out in the future, although I can't put my finger on when exactly... but it has me intrigued and fascinated!

See you at the first battle report!

 

 

Shamaran season 2

 Back to back with the first season, me and Noshi dived in to watch more of this turkish fantasy romance.

And with Shamaran starting to awaken in Shashu and Lilith coming out of her well to get her vengeance, it looks like it will go up a notch.

And that it does right from the get go.  Maran's father Ural and his siters are slaughtered by the re-awakened Lilith, leaving him all alone and full of rage.  In the meantime, Lilith's followers gather as well, but Maran sniffs out Cihan's father as the murderer of one of his sisters, killing him as well in return.  

This causes Cihan to turn fully to Lilith, who wants to bring down Maran and Shashu by turning the basilisk people against them.  They both go into hiding in the basilisk area of the city, where the people are exploited in the local factory, working in bad and dangerous conditions.  Mirac fights mostly against this injustice, as a sort of union man, not caring to which side this means he must attach his fate.

But in order to awaken Shamaran, Shashu must undergo 3 trials, each at a personal loss of her own.  She accepts this fate, knowing it might be the only way to save humanity from her sister who is out to avenge the wrongs done to their people, caused in the far past by Camsap, who resides in Shashu's grandfather.  

Through her actions, Lilith even manages to create a revolt amongst the basilisks, something stopped by Shashu.  She revives Maran's youngest sister Diba as an assassin for her older brother, the attempt nearly succeeding but Shashu, awakening the power of Shamaran, prevents him from dying but costing him his snake part of his being.  Now a mortal, he never the less tries to fulfill the destiny still.  Camsap is finally freed from his curse, only to be immediatly killed by Lilith.

This means the cycle is broken, and the trials will end.  But Shashu / Shamaran sees one more way to restart the cycle after she seals her sister away again.  She allows herself to be awakened at last, and lures mr Mesut, Mirac's boss, to find her.  Terminally ill, he wants to slay her to gain the cure from her tale, and she allows this to happen before the eyes of a grief stricken Maran.  Maran was tricked by her into leading Mesut to her place, restarting the cycle a new, but poor Maran now having become the new Camsap as he who let the humans to Shamaran's hideout and causing her to be killed...

So that was a pretty good second series, and I really loved the conclusion and the all but happy ending this series has.  A very good Netflix find!

Relic Armor Legaciam

 Next on the backlog list, another oldschool mecha anime from 1987.

Created as a one episode ONA, this is another flashback to animation in "the good old days", even though I understand for newer anime lovers it might be something to get used to to watch.

 

Now, end of the 80s, Mecha was a very popular genre, and anime like Patlabor or Macross left a mark.  This one however, not so much, being just, well, generic.  Alcia is a young girl living on a harsh planet, that is warmed by the sunbeams being bend using big mirrors in orbit.  Her grandfather is building a mecha only she will be able to pilot, but he is kidnapped by a group that wants the machine for themselves.

 

 

Alcia and her friends set out to free him, and thanks to her ability to pilot the special heat shielded mecha, she manages to free him.  And well, that is basically all there is to this anime, a very thin, many times told before story with some generic animation for the day.  The main suit though I must say does look fine and sleek in design, but why for example a mysterious tower resides in the middle of Libertia, no-one knows.

Like the title kind of says, this anime is a relic of a long gone time, and unless you are someone like me actively sniffing out old and obscure mecha anime (I found this one on YouTube), there is nothing that will ever point you in it's direction as a must see or gem you might have missed.

So, if you are a fan of the genre and a completionist, go watch it.  If not, nothing lost...

Warhammer Underworlds: Drepur's Wraithkeepers

 Okay, I admit, I don't have any direct intentions playing these horse headed Nighthaunt any time soon.

But as I'm struggling to fullfil my Battle against the Gray challenge over on Chaos Dwarfs Online for this year, due to the large collection I obtained, they are a relatively quick paint project.

 

A sudden almost 100 models big collection haul does these things, so with the models being mostly a cloak and stone scenery elements, I figured I could do them relatively fast "in between" other projects. 

Though I must say, I thought these quick paint jobs, but they are far more detailed then seen at first glance, especially for the bases with the thorns, roses and mist all flowing around the broken fences and gravestones.  The Wraithkeepers themselves are basically just a black cloak with a large spear and a skeletal horsehead though...

So they took me a bit longer then projected (not that much, but still) and are ready now to face, well, the Fomoroid Crusher in some solo games as they aren't yet in the "official 33" for edition 2, but all honesty forces me to say, they wouldn't be played probably anyways in Underworlds by myself.  They are actually painted up to play the role of villains in the various solo game adventures I have laid out coming in 2025, so you can expect to see them featured for sure!

But for now, they where probably the final warband I finished this year (unless time permits to tackle Hexbane, also for other uses then Underworlds), clocking me off at 10 warbands painted in 2024, not to bad at all...

Warhammer Underworlds tournament report: Benelux Clash II

 Well, guess this has to be the first international tournament I'm playing for Underworlds, as the 3rd of november I journeyed with "Team Antwerp" to the vicinity of Rotterdam.

Here the second edition of Benelux Clash took place, the first one falling in the water for most Belgians due to being organised on election day this year, and in Belgium voting is mandatory.

But arriving at the venue, the Het Wapen van Alblasserdam in Alblasserdam near Rotterdam, there where 18 candidates for the glory, with 9 hauling from The Netherlands (technically 10, but the TO's played as a tagteam) and 9 Belgians.  No Luxemburgian to be spotted though...

Initially I wanted to take The Crimson Court combined with Path of Prophecy, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work.  I then decided to take Hrothgorn's Mantrappers along, using Breakneck Slaughter for some sheer, pure brutality, and that played rather fun.  But when the dust of the casual night testing set, I just didn,t get the right vibes of them, and ended up taking my Elathain's Soulraid with Force of Frost after all.  Old habbits, great loves, you know the mantra's...  

My goals? End in the top half of the table, and above the other Elathain's Soulraid warband I read that would be attending.  But of course, one can not leave for a tournament without providing sustenance for the whole team!

 

 

Running paralel with the event, there was also a Heresy 30k tournament taking place, organised by the local club Rotterdam White Scars.

 

But with the lanyards for the participants divided and the briefing made, we where ready to go for 6 rounds of Underworlds best of 1 Nemesis format.

My first round put me against Simon, who brought his nicely converted Gnarlspirit Pack with Breakneck Slaughter.  Unfortunatly I lost 10-11 as I had to make a gamble in my last activation: move on an objective to draw thanks to my Chasm key, or guess on my objective cards.  I had three remaining, and two would win me the game.  Needless to say, I pulled the only one that wasn't suitable, Cold of the Void.

The second game was against Peter, from Team Antwerp and our driver, with Zondara's Gravebreakers and Beastbound Assault.  I lost heavily in this one with 6 to 13, tabled in round 2 bar Spinefin.  But the critical moment was when a wounded and trapped Ferlain made a crit save or he would be out.  After that save, he could start the reaction of attacking with every Zondara attack and munched (pun intended) through my warband instead.

 

The price support had been brought to the table in the meantime, with certificates and accompanying medals for the top 3, best painted and best sportmanship.   The winner will also receive an Embergard box donated by their sponsor TTK upon release in two weeks.  Furthermore the top 4 in painting would receive the special Giant Card for multiplayer games in first edition, while the person ending last would take home a set of Inspiration tokens for his models.  All participants also received a D6.  

Right before lunch, the Best Painted voting was done amongst (most) warbands, the majority participating in the display moment.  Yes, those are the Zondara's Gravebreakers featured last week on the GW Hobby Hangout on their channel, painted by Peter that had trashed me mere moments ago.

 

 

Lunch consisted of chicken sate with fries and veggies, and a Hertog Jan to wash away the disappointing result-wise start of the day...

 

 

 And then we where off to a hopefully more succesfull second part of the day, with still 4 games remaining and the realisation that if I wanted to reach my goal, I needed to win them all.  I started out as such at the total rock bottom table, facing Jaco and his Skabbik's Plaguepack, coupled with Breakneck Slaughter.  This was okay in my book, a warband I didn't fear at all from past experiences and a swift 13-7 win was scored.  Honour at  least was saved for today.

 

 Next I faced Peter, again from our Antwerp Team, with the Hungering Parasyte Skittershank Clawpack, a band I had real problems with in preparations.  But he also wasn't having a good day, hovering in the bottom regions.  The game ended in 15-15, but as I snuck Fuirann with her Chasm Key onto an objective in the last activation, I drew in glory but won on tie-breaker as a result, circumventing this hard cliff on my hopefully way up.

 

 

Another familiar face in the next round, as I went against Wouter from Team Antwerp with his Thricefold Discord, boosted with Force of Frost. I scored a 12-10 win, and there was this hilarious moment at the end of round 1 we realised he had 4 objectives in hand (neither of us had noticed), yet still couldn't score it.  A fun battle, and at the end of the tournament I gave my Sportsmanship vote to Wouter as this was the most hilarious game of the day for me, not only for the above reason.

My final game, now standing at 3-2 so I would at least win 50% today, was against Nico and his The Exiled Dead with Beastbound Assault.  I saw Nico play last week in our weekly gathering, and that warband is a glory scoring machine.  But a small mistake from his side, after I took out his Apprentice Markov, allowed me to reach and take out his Deintalos in activation 2 of round 2, leaving it a shambling horde and no threat anymore, netting a 16-7 victory.  The setup picture however was to shabby to use, but I'll come back to this warband in a moment.

So, that was 6 rounds of Warhammer Underworlds, and I was still amazingly fresh in the head.  I had feared metal tiredness kicking in around round 4, but it all kept clear and working, and I netted a 4/2/0 with 72 Glory points.  In the end this gained me an 8th place (games against each other being the first tiebreaker, so hence why 2 people with less glory ended above me), reaching my objective of the top half of the table, AND I jumped over the other Soulraid player in the final round.  So both tournament goals achieved.

And then it was time for the two excellent organisers (and world championship qualifiers!) Valentin and Jan-Willem, who ran the tournament together with Thijs and Peter, to start the awards ceremony under the listening ears and intense gazes of the people present!

Tim from Team Halle came out as Best Sportmanship award winner.

 

(picture by Valentin Hornik)

Now, then it was a bit of a personal shock, as during the top 4 of the painting, I was actually called forward in third place.  My pink fish seemingly drew some votes and I was genuinly amazed considering I even left Peter's Zondara behind me... especially as pre the ceremony, we had a talk about painting outside at the smokestack, and I told people I never make any illusions as my style of drawing lines like Kevin Dallimore did 25+ years ago is out of date and not suitable for Fantasy miniatures...

(picture by Valentin Hornik)

But remember how I would come back to The Exiled Dead?  Well, Nico won the Best Painted award, he had my vote as well, with his lovely warband.  So here is a better picture of them then what a set-up picture could have done them justice.

(picture by Valentin Hornik)

The "inspirational prize" for finishing last went to Steven, with perhaps the most hardcore warband present: the still unpainted after 7 years, Original Bad-asses of Garrek's Reavers!  I was a fan for sure!

And then we went to the top spots of the tournament!  In third place, normally the tag team of Valentin and Willy ended, so their spot shifted one down.  This meant Kevin with his Gorechosen of Dromm took home the bronze medal.

Second place went to Joep, who had brought Domitan's Stormcoven to the event.

But finally, the winner of the Benelux Clash II: Vincent from Team Halle with his Hedkrakka's Madmob, and scoring a massive 110 glory (also, the only player to go into the triple digets on glory scoring today).

Thanks again to the Dutch community for organising this great day in a lovely setting, and next edition I will certainly be back!

And so ended the saga of Elathain's Soulraid with Force of Frost, and for many the first edition of Warhammer Underworlds after 7 years of fun and games.  I am running a last huzzaah for the system the 23rd of november, a week after the release of the second edition, at the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp clubhouse, but I'll wave out the first edition there with my Dread Pageant.  So for those still looking for a few final casual tournament games in the Nemesis format, there are still spots available over on T3 to register.  

 

Won't be as luxurious though, our clubhouse being a rumoured survivor of the Slag Van Ekeren in 1703...

 

 

Tatakae!! Iczer-1

 Time for the next backlog series to be watched, in a desperate attempt to make at least something still of those 2024 anime numbers.

And Tatakae!! is a three part OVA series that was on the list for the backlog clearance, which aired from 1985 to 1987.

And it is centered around Nagisa, a schoolgirl who does the normal schoolgirly things, before she encounters a woman dressed in uniform.  Earth however is attacked by an alien race known as the Cthulhu, parasitic creatures infiltating society by taking over hosts.

When this is thwarted by a giant robot called Iczer-1, they go to plan a full invasion instead.  Iczer needs to find her synchronisation partner to unleash the power of the robot at the fullest, finding this in Nagisa, who quickly becomes a target and sees her classmates and parents transform into devilish creatures, forcing them to be killed.

One of the alien top rank officers, Cobalt, attacks in a giant mecha herself, but Iczer-1 stops her as Nagisa's rage over the death of her parents consumes her, and killing Cobalt in the process.  Lord Violet, ruler of the aliens, builds a Iczer of his own, piloted by Cobalt's partner Sepia.  As the world becomes a battlefield, Nagisa finds Sayoko, a young girl tending to her mother.  But they quickly are hunted by the aliens, and when her mother turns into one herself, as Iczer-1 is defeated in battle and regroups with Nagisa.

But when they try to kill Sayoko, Nagisa enrages and defeats Sepia and her robots.  She is captured by the aliens however and Iczer-1 must single handedly come to her rescue.  But under a strong mind control, Iczer-1 is forced to kill Nagisa.  However, her spirit merges with the machine, and for the first time it fully synchronises.  It is revealed she and Iczer-1 where created in tandem by an ancient wishgranting machine, as where the aliens part of an ancient prophecy.  

Iczer-1 overcomes the enemies and makes them fade from memory, as Nagisa returns back to the moment the series started, as time is being reset and the Cthulu never assaulted Earth, as Iczer-1 sets of to find a new homeworld.

Okay, there is something to be said for old anime, and not only the art style which breaths sheer nostalgia.  If this series was made today, you would find it instead on Hentai Haven with all it's nakedness and tentacles.  But overal, it was a so-so anime, so watch it for old school mecha heroines, but don't expect something special out of this...