Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective Session 6

Session 6 of the world of darkness game involved the majority of the players passing through the hedge and trying to rescue Eile. This happened outside of my characters realm of knowledge and can be read about here. To be honest I'm quite glad my character wasn't involved as I had reservations about taking him into the hedge and playing the character he would have had reservations about it as well. Add in the fact that I had to leave the game early due to working the next day and you can tell it wouldn't have ended well. So, Calin was totally absent from the actual game that night. What I did do is sit down with one of the assistant ST's and hash out some character details and background stuff. This was a pretty good talk for me as it led me to change my character concept around. I originally had Calin as a defender of the weak and poor kind of a Robin Hood without the theft type character, but after answering some questions I began to get a different view of him. My revised concept is that he functions as part of the Internal Affairs Department of the Adamantine Arrows. He is a "fixer" of sorts. Finding the problems in cabals and setting them right again. This view explains away some of the things I was having difficulty with such as why he didn't really have any close companions and why he wasn't in a formal cabal himself. He IS in a cabal but it is more of a loose affialation of the "lone wolves" of the Arrows called the "Arrows Fletching" for those of you who don't know, the fletching of an arrow is the feathers at the back of an arrow that give it stability and make it fly straight. In other words the guides for the arrows. Which is exactly what I imagine my character doing. He's there to correct the mistakes by whatever means and set the cabal flying straight again.

Austin TX:An Awakened Perspective session 5

I'm a little behind on these. This is actually from the Feb. 19th session and is a direct continuation of the other post I have here since we were "time frozen" in the two weeks in between games.

     Calin stood his eyes fixed upon the faint blue glow of the workshop room at the top of the Hedgerow, he knew somehow he had to get this place secured and this energy point into service for the Arrows. Standing in the awe of it, it took him a minute to hear a little of the racket downstairs. Deciding that this needed to be planned a little more carefully he headed down to check everything out. The bar was pretty well empty of patrons save for the motley supernatural crew that he had come to expect. The Shimmer Strikes were all there with their alpha, having come late to the party after Wacco had disappeared into that void. The topic of discussion: how best to get Eile back. It became apparent that going tonight would be a bad idea since the one person who knew where she was just vanished into a black hole.

Amid the talking and arguing a stranger walked into the bar, had a seat and ask for a menu. Nothing very remarkable but since he had arrived here Calin had taken to looking at everyone with suspicion. Rolling his eyes back a bit and shifting his focus he looked at the stranger with the eyes of heaven and that is when his heart sank. Calin jumped immediately as chills of fear ran down his spine. He had seen the strangers true nature. Large fiery wings stood out from his back and he was surrounded with a pure unblemished white light. "No. It can't be. One of THEM? Here?" he thought. "The denizens of the Aether should never be in this world!" Fear, anxiety, hate all filled his body till he was about to vomit. He remembered hearing Memento tell of an angel that slew his friend but had dismissed that as just an impostor pretending to be one of THEM. Now after looking at the stranger, even though it's form was wrong, he knew it had to be one of the Heavenly Host. Quickly turning from the stranger he looked at Giovanni the young Thyrsus mage that stayed at the cemetery house too. Breaking into high speech so others couldn't understand, he confirmed that Gio had noticed the same thing. Being a life mage Gio mentioned that the stranger was more full of life than he had ever felt before. After discussing that this could be the one who killed Walker Lee, Gio suggested that Avere be let in on what was going on. Calin moved toward Avere and ask if she would be able to recognize Michael if she saw him again. Asking her to open her mind he allowed his sight to overtake and fill her mind. She gasp at what she saw and immediately suggested that Ed be informed. Calin hesitated a little. He trusted Avere, but was unsure how much he could trust the wolves that everyone seemed so attached to. Putting his reservations aside he showed the true world to Ed, and that's when everything collapsed. Ed in a fit of recklessness decided that as an officer he had to take the stranger in for questioning. Calin pulled him aside and tried to reason with him, explaining that the stranger could kill him with barely a thought and if he were pushed to anger he could kill them all without much effort. The headstrong cur wouldn't be dis-swayed from his course of action and Calin braced for the worst.  He watched as Ed approached the stranger and was told repeatedly to leave, both by the stranger and by the manager of the Hedgerow, but Ed persisted on. Sensing a boiling point Calin protected himself with a barrier of pure Prime energy, but it was all for nothing, as the stranger finally relented and simply allowed himself to be taken into custody. Then, as quickly as they arrived the shimmer strikes all fled the Hedgerow as if something was chasing or was about to chase them.

The next two weeks passed fairly uneventfully for Calin. He went about business as usual but with the thought of the stranger firmly in the back of his head. He stayed fairly quiet away from the group until being called by David one of Ed's pack. He needed help locating someone and possibly more. Calin agreed to help locate the people David was after but no more. An eerie sort of calm had descended upon Austin and Calin knew it was just the calm before the storm. If there was an Angel walking around town, death couldn't be far behind it. 

I'm still here

I know, I know. The whole purpose of a blog is to post stuff and I will be, I just haven't had any material to put up. My painting has slowed to a halt due to no budget and I've been having trouble getting back into writing for World of Darkness. Things are coming it's just taking a while.

The First One is Always the Hardest

Got my first Wolf done. I'm actually pretty pleased with it. I don't have it based yet since I plan on doing snow bases on them and don't have the materials yet.

Special project

Got ask by my good friend Loq to build her Storm Raven for her. I took it as an honor since I will probably never be able to buy one myself (no real reason to). After reading some stuff online it appeared a daunting task. Everything from it being a VERY hard model to assemble to taking a whole bottle of glue to assemble. None of the rumors were true. I had very little trouble putting the thing together, and barely used a quarter of a bottle of glue. It did take a long time to assemble. I worked on it about 9 hours total which is more than I've ever put into assembly on one model. That did include though the magnetization of the wings, the turret and the weapons and the drilling out of the heavy bolters up front and the assault cannon. Priming however did take an entire can and I still could have used a little more, so keep that in mind if you build one. Pics are after the break. The only thing I haven't done is the doors cause I'm still waiting on a response from Loq on how she wants them, it is  her model after all.

Space Puppies WIP

Finally picked up my Rune Priest from the Gopher today and like usual I've spent all night working on it. Just thought I'd throw up a shot to show how it's going.

I'm pretty happy with it so far. The hardest thing for me is going to be learning how to paint faces, something I've managed to avoid with my Eldar.

The Slow Grind of Time

Made a trip back to my southern Illinois home this weekend to see the family and got kind of a shock. When I grew up down here I got to listen to one of the best rock stations I've ever heard on the radio period. I've always listened to it every trip back down here even though I have satellite radio in the car, I still switch over to Rock 105.1 WTAO. Till this trip. I haven't been as vigilant listening as I first was and when I turned the station on, I didn't hear Godsmack, Metallica, or Slipknot blasting the speakers. No, what I heard instead was top 40 pop music. You know Lady Gaga and the like. I was sick, one of my favorite stations of all time, a bastion of hard rock had fallen. I don't know what happened, if they sold to a new company or just decided to change formats, but the effect was still the same. I'm starting to believe the phrase "you can't go home again" time just keeps marching along and changing everything in it's wake.

A swing and a.....hit?

Had my first game with the Space Wolves army I've put together. Got to play against the youngest member of the Gopher family which is always a blast. He's a good kid and if you don't have fun playing him there must be something wrong with your head. Hell, before the match even started I was already laughing cause in a somewhat ironic twist, he had brought his Eldar army. So now I'm facing off against the army I'm leaving behind. Here's a condensed form of what happened. He won first turn and kept it. I placed my guys down and then started to roll to seize the initiative. Here's where my night first revealed how it was going to go. I picked up my die said "hey this is the first time seizing has been important to me" and then promptly rolled a 1. Yup it was gonna be a long night.

First turn saw his Dark Reaper squad (a sentimental favorite of mine) launch an attack on my poor Long Fangs squad that had been deployed to deal just with the Reapers. Two 4/3 ignoring cover blast templates later, there were only 2 guys left alive (mistake number one on my part I forgot wound allocation) and I of course fail morale and run 11 inches to the edge of the board. Also he popped one of my razorbacks and stunned the other cutting my mobility in half from the start. All I could do was sigh. Bottom of 1 my two ML long fangs regroup (thank you ATSKNF) and move back to their position. My thunderwolves rolled to move out of cover and my fastest unit decided that they didn't really want to move today and only got a 3. The two RB's that could move went 6 toward the objective. Shooting, Lascannon from RB to his wave serpent HIT! woot my first shot with a lascannon and it hits. Damage roll: 1 ahh, so that's what it feels like to be on the other end of the wave serpent energy field. I shot the rest of what I had at the same serpent and finally managed an immobilized result.

Turn 2 saw more of the same from turn one. The grey hunter squad that lost their ride, lost a lot more to the dark reaper exarch (who at this point had already paid for himself) and another RB went boom. My turn saw one ML out of two manage a kill from the dark reaper squad and the rest of my shooting only managed another wave serpent immobilized. I did however manage to move my remaining las/plas RB closer to the objective with the other displaced squad hiding behind it for cover.

Turn 3 another round and another group of kills for the reapers. This time my thunderwolves who had barely managed to get out of cover got decimated by the reapers leaving only one alive with one wound, which was promtley taken down by the wraithlord they should have been in combat with by now. Bottom of 3 I moved my RB screen and my grey hunter units on top of my left side objective, while my assault cannon RB moved toward the right side obj. Shooting didn't consist of much seeing how I had little to no army left. The untouched long fang squad readied ML's to fire and I roll three 2's. Yup it's been that kind of night. So, my shooting sees no damage on my part to him at all.

Turn 4 This was the worst round my opponent had. He managed no kills on me and managed to do nothing to my vehicles. My turn 4 was spent moving my assault RB to the objective, getting my guys out and setting them right on top of it. On the left side there was not much going on plasma and missile alike were having difficulty taking the wave serpents all the way down and the best I managed to do was take a TL bright lance.

Turn 5 Shooting again opens up with the reapers into my newly disembarked grey hunter squad killing all but one who made his morale check and stays put. Other than that it was pretty quiet again this turn (probably cause there wasn't much to shoot at) My turn 5 I move nothing. I have one chance to still pull this game out and that's to take down his as still yet mobile wave serpent. ML's fire- immobilized, Plasma's fire, weapon destroyed. Ugh, one chance left. Assault cannon fire- 4 hits, damage- one 6, rending. Penetrating result- 4(+1 for ap1) wrecked. This left his DA's out of range for the objective. Now I just need a 1 to end the game, shouldn't be an issue been rolling them all night, and yup it was pretty easy I got my 1. Game end on turn 5. Result- Space Wolf victory? I held 2 objectives to his one so I technically won even though I lost like half my army.

So, what did I learn from all of this. Well, I learned that the Eldar gods are vengeful and they do not like deserters, I also learned that Marines are so very survivable. Losses like that taken with my Eldar would have totally lost me the game, but the Wolves managed to hang on and pull a victory completely out of their ass. I also learned that Dark Reapers + tempest launcher + crack shot + guide = lotsa dead marines, well, I kinda already knew that but I just never utilized it. So I soldier on to another free play week next week and I'll see how they fair against a different opponent. I also learned that I'm a little rusty on some of my rules. Take wound allocation which I screwed up on. I hadn't really used it or been forced to use it with my Eldar since everything is pretty much uniform in a squad save for an odd Exarch, Autarch or Farseer joined in. But that just makes it more exciting since now I have a use for that heavy book and codex I lug around with me all the time.

Once more with feeling

Ok, we're gonna do this again. Since I learned that my second Wolf list is illegal I decided to write up a new one.

HQ - Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning, Tempests Wrath

Elites - Wolf Guard Pack x4 w/ Frost Axe x4

Troops - Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
               Razorback w/ TL Assault Cannon

               Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
               Razorback w/ TL Assault Cannon

               Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
               Razorback w/ Lascannon & TL Plasma gun

              Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
              Razorback w/ Lascannon & TL Plasma gun

Heavy Support - Long Fangs x5 w/ ML x3, Plasma Cannon x2
                          Squad Leader

                          Long Fangs x5 w/ ML x3, Plasma Cannon x2
                          Squad Leader

There now the list is legal but I've now got 188 points to play with. So, a couple of options.
1). 2nd Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf. Make first RP Master of Runes and Termi armor. Leaves 18 points.
2.) 3 Thunder Wolf cavalry w/ Frost Axe, Mark of the Wulfen. Give RP storm bolter and melta bomb just to even out the points. This is my favorite option.
There are a couple more options floating around in my head but they involve taking the assault cannons off the razorbacks to save points and I'm not convinced that's a good idea.

Edit: Fixed my retardation in the rune priest power.