Covid's Lance

 

Numeriel gazed over the edge of the processing plant. The surrounding sump swamps would be easy to monitor while the abandoned buildings and scrap would provide the resources needed for base camp.

She should get a solo shot

"Everybody gather round...., we have some clean up to do before the hunt can begin in earnest. We must be ready for the beast" Numeriel called out. "Dale, Perseus and Kais I need you to clear the surrounding area of any critters that may have taken up residence here and reinforce the buildings where you can." 

"Draik I need you to go make sure our presence here is undisturbed, appease the guilds as need be". Numeriel thought for a moment. "Numa, you and I shall go into town to find clues about the beast and begin setting up shop, we need to ensure we have the provisions for the hunt so find us some work"

Prospero Numa was a mysterious figure, their body guards Sir Jonas and Darius never stray far. Though Numeriel could feel that Prospero likely had little need for them, for while Numeriel could not control the Empyrean like many of her kind she could still feel it and Prospero's presence could certainly be felt more than any other mortals.

 -----------

Well I played another game of Munda and well the starting roster has changed again. The gang has been split in half and I am going to have to work my income up to hire anyone else. This was meant to be a practice game trying out possible gangs for the campaign.

While having a crew of 4 vs a crew of 13 (A crew of 9 and he played a tactics card to get 4 more scum) did make things hard and while I lost really badly I won't take to much away from it as I rolled so many 1s.

I didn't take the lucky dice tray with me and it seems I left my luck at home with it. Any action I tried to get my leader to take resulted in them rolling a one or a two. Can they shoot nope, they miss. Try again it missed but it strayed into someone else ohh wait 1 to wound. Can you do some parkour... nope one to do a flip. In fact my opponent said ohh that flip would be really cool, just roll again... I rolled a 1 on the encouraged reroll. As such the only lesson I will take from that game is that I need to buy new dice.

We have our 4 starters in Numeriel, Prospero Numa (The Accountant), Sir Jonas and Darius while our other 2 Champs in Perseus and Albertus Draik will need to wait until I have hired Kais and Dale as I need to make sure I have just as many 'ganger' class characters as I do any other type. 

I got some Armourweave from the Blackmarket

Numeriel has a had some major upgrades, now coming in at 550pts over half of my starting 1000 but gets to swing around her custom Drukhari gun which counts as a lascannon with suspensor, her modeled on grenades are now flash grenades and her targeting system allows her to ignore light cover and make heavy cover not as effective, I got Reflec shroud on the starting line up but sold it for Armourweave which is cheaper and better.

And then Covid Struck.

I twiddled my thumbs for the first week but thankfully got a good payout on the first week and was able to hire Duckfoot Dale.

Goop

At first the Weather was nice and I wasn't so lethargic so me and Phoenix did some terrain stuff outside, not much was achieved. 

Paint - Hot Glue - Painted Mixed with PVA = Sump Sea

For my 2nd week I asked to play the Solo Play mission that GW released when Lockdown happened in the UK. It went a little something like this:

What they were going to fight but its to big

Numeriel had sourced several sightings and reports of the beast around a nearby Power station. This seemed reasonable as it could have been attracted by the heat of the generator. It would certainly present some problem, the only way in and out from their floor was through a single access elevator. She called Dale over, they were going to need the extra man power.

They exited the elevator into what appeared to be the main storage bay, her and Sir Jonas braced to cover while she got Darius and Dale to secure the room. The accountant was still fumbling about in the elevator however, Numeriel went to confront them about staying quiet when the floor of the Elevator imploded and creature leapt ontop of Prospero. It was smaller than Numeriel had hoped for and a sickly grey colour at that. As it pinned down Prospero you could hear forge in its chest building up but there was no stream of molten energy erupting from its jaws only a sulphuric belch. Darius saw his chance and charged in heroically only to be swatted aside instantly collapsing in a nearby pile of empty crates. Thankfully Jonas was ready and unloaded 2 heavy plasma blasts into it. This left a massive open wound on left flanks, blood dripping to the floor. Numeriel saw his chance and aimed for the head but the beast was quick and dove back down into its tunnel, her shot only catching its flicking tail.

Tactics

It wasn't gone though, she could hear it beneath the floor boards, and seeing how easily it wrecked the elevator it could easily come up at any moment. They were in its territory, it had nowhere else to go, it must attack. Numeriel eased her rifle onto her back and drew her power sword comforted by the soft orange glow of the Aeldari relic. Then in a screech she was covered in blood as it burst forth and ripped Dale in two before her eyes. The beast was quick but she was quicker before it could even let go of Dales detached torso she cut its arm off then plunged her blade into its exposed neck.

Dead Duckfoot Dale

It had all happened so fast, but looking at it now Numeriel could tell this wasn't the beast she sought. She had never known any of its kind to be such a sickly grey and clearly it could not even heat itself properly to attack them. Turning away from the sorry sight of Dale she went to check on the others. Prospero had seemingly passed out in the excitement and Darius seemed fine except for a few bruises. Slicing off the head as proof, they set about working their way back up the elevator shaft.

----

Dale died before he hit a game vs a real person and well at least I got enough credits to hire in Kais, lets hope he lasts longer.

Both in and one already out

Getting back into Munda

Munda Boards are the Best Boards

 

Well I am getting back into Munda and the thing to do is have a game. I convinced a mate who has always been impressed by the boards but isn't interested in the hobby side or have the time for a full campaign to give it a shot.

Bottomless drops, overlapping walkways

Seeing me as he was mostly interested in the 3D boards I tried to make the most interactive and layered board I could.

Could it get more of a Underhive feel?

And this is the result, 5 layers of Metro Morph stacked on top of the Death Watch Hive Boards. 

He was 1mm outside of flamer template

It took me about 3 hours to set up, and thanks to the layout there are lots of places to climb and jump. As well as the exciting risk of falling off the map as the Death Watch tiles have their own walkways and fall spaces.

Can't control the light and game

The game itself was great, I made a Venators gang and a Chaos Cult and even painted up some new Minis just for this. I even painted up the new dice tray another mate gave to me for Christmas.

Blue'z fa' lucky gitz ya 'ear me an dis 'er dice tray gonna make deese da luckiest dice eva

 I wanted some starting gangs and decided whoever won I would play in the next campaign.

He got Swag

My mate choose the Venators, mainly cause of how stylish Draik was looking. I was quite happy to play with Jhor'dan the new Chaos Leader I had put together.

We did the Border Dispute scenario as its my favorite, aim of the game destroy the enemy relic.

Howling Griffons Statue and a Cool Flag

He won with some smooth moves finding good firing lines in amongst the mess of walkways.

Maybe I could have blocked out more firing lines..

Highlights were when he played a tactics card which let him drop a sump monster tentacle next to my leader then walk off the edge of a the building onto the tile and thanks to the Grav Chute get out unharmed. And when one of my gangers tripped and broke his neck on the same jump 4 or 5 others had made before him.

Winners of the Practice Match
Front - Perseus, Kais, Dale, Darius
Back - Relic, Numeriel, Draik

Losers

Then it took another hour to pack down.  Only after my son had a good half a day playing with it, can't keep the cool toy cities to myself you know. 

Necron Attack

As much as I love this terrain I am not sure the set up and pack down time can always be justified. I had been thinking about this for awhile as I had already found it a strain for 40k set up sometimes and that is mainly making boxes. I started looking into other cheap easy to store terrain options at the start of the year. 

First attempt at a layout

This is when I came across tenfold dungeon, basically is a big box with boxes in it but they are all nice pretty boxes and with some door clippers and wall dividers you can make have a necromunda 2D board or you can flip them all upside down and they are predone 40k terrain boxes.

Enforcers Complex

I did end up using the barricades that come with it for the Big Necromunda battle above and they matched in nicely.

Looks Good

Going forward into the upcoming campaign which wont use the classic Munda Territories instead our arbitrators have cooked up a monster hunt campaign (Sounds pretty good for a Gang called Kurnous's Lance)

The Starting Roster

As you need to have your special weapon ganger in the starting roster and cannot add them in later I needed to rejig the list. The arbitrators approved house rules saying my Venators can dip into the House of Books special stuff as well. So in comes Sir Jonas and The "Accountant" who gets to be a Psyker (as a Navigator should) thanks to House of Shadow. I also gave them the Fixer skill (I guess they are fixing the books) to make sure I have the creds to recruit the rest of the crew. First 110 Creds I earn are pre-spent on hiring Kais again.

"The Accountant"

What was and What will be

What Was

Well I can admit I was extremely slack last year. In terms of what I achieved since my last post we have 2 more marines painted (eeek Pathetic) . I stopped for a bit as I just wasn't quite happy with the paint scheme, it felt like it was missing something and the white on the arms just bothers me so I tried to change it slightly for these two with some recess shading, still not happy though.

I made and painted these 3 Warriors and their Alpha, I think honestly considering they give you 4 bodies and 4 heads that its just rude there are only 3 sets of legs. 

Thankfully I had a spare hive tyrant tail that made for a nice serpentine look that helps the Alpha differentiate a bit more.

And I painted my 'Exocrine'.

Not to mention I finished Ganesh and co who I am quite happy with and was probably the most interesting project of the year.

  

What Will Be

2022 is off to a good start with me having already painted 5 models which is almost as many as I painted last year. I started with the Christmas gift which was an infinity model and painted him using the new metallic paints I also got for Christmas.

I also knocked out these Blackstone Fortress/Necromunda Minis in record time. The Tau mini was from when I was a kid, he had already been painted (poorly) but adding several layers of stains and grime (also a new Christmas present) with some basing and his lens coloured in he actually looks decent

Now I am setting some goals for this year. I have things I need to get done, such as these 3 marines who are still waiting for me to figure out how to paint white.

These Enforcers who will be doubling up their patrols in both Necromunda and as Scouts in 40k.

              

And for some silly reason I got the new GSC codex and my Pure Genestealer Army is getting some new units.  

The Neophytes are looking okay and should be distinct enough I hope, I have some special weapons being printed for the mining laser and grenade launcher as I couldn't work out how to represent them with the parts I had.

Rockgrinder looks nothing like its GSC counterpart but at least its the right size or close enough.

As for the HQs the Space Hulk Genestealer I used has a terrible pose and is impossible to take a photo of but I am loving my Zen Magus the Spiritual leader for my army, though I am stuck as to what to do about making him an organic staff.

Well that all folks, hopefully I can keep myself honest this year and post more updates as well as start getting my photography skills back up to scratch.