Playing solo games of Warcry had me itching to play some full Age of Sigmar, but I didn’t have the time, space, or inclination to run 2000-point games. So I decided on a mini-campaign starting with forces of 500 points. I built a few lists of the factions I have on hand (Khorne, Stormcast, and Cities of Sigmar) and looked for some interesting battleplans in those Battletomes and the General’s Handbook (GHB) 2019. Since the forces were small, I decided to quarter the normal table size (4′ x 6′) into a manageable 2′ x 3′, adjusting the various measurements within for deployment and objectives.

I decided upon three battleplans: “A Call for Aid” in the Cities of Sigmar book, in which a Cities force attempts to break through a siege to get out a message for help; “Battle for the Pass” in the GHB 2019, in which two armies attempt to clear and hold a vital mountain pass; and, finally, “Bloodstorm” in the Blades of Khorne book, in which a Khorne force raises a Skull Altar outside of a besieged city in an attempt to utterly destroy it.

The first game pitted 500-point forces of Cities of Sigmar (Tempest’s Eye) and Khorne (Bloodlords) against each other. The CoS objective was to nominate three units as messengers and attempt to get at least two of them across the board, to petition a Stormkeep to aid the city of Galrin. Standing in their way were a Daemon Prince of Khorne, two units of Bloodletters, and a unit of Untamed Beasts allies. The Aelven Wild Riders made a break for it, but one of them got tagged by a harpoon from the Untamed Beasts’ First Fang, and the Daemon Prince engaged. The Prince, however, was not able to kill them all off, and so two of them escaped with the message, earning CoS a Minor Victory. After his failure, the Daemon Prince rushed the other CoS heroes, killing the Battlemage and driving the Nomad Princess into a net of Bloodletters, who tore her apart. Nevertheless, the call for aid got through to the Stormkeep, and the Stormcast were alerted to the growing Khorne threat. Because of their Minor Victory, I rewarded the Stormcast in the second game with an extra 100 points for their list.

In the second game, a Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury faced down a Stormcast warband. Bloodletters swarmed the objectives early, but Castigators thinned them out with exploding shots, and a unit of Liberators marched on and cleaned up. The Lord-Celestant on Dracoth made a direct challenge to the Bloodthirster, and in their duel came out on top. The Khorne warband was wiped out, and the game ended with a Major Victory for the Stormcast. With these two victories, I awarded the Stormcast 250 extra points for the final battle.

The third game saw a Khorne force (Skullfiend Tribe) raising a Skull Altar in a desperate bid to destroy Galrin. A Slaughterpriest, aunit of Blood Warriors, and three Khorgoraths attempted to protect the altar from the ascendant Stormcast army. The Vanguard-Hunters and Vanguard-Palladors engaged the Khorgoraths, tying up two of them, while Sequitors advanced on the Altar. The Sequitors charged the Altar, and channeled Aetheric energy into making their hits count. The Slaughterpriest’s faith failed him at a crucial moment, and the Stormcast took advantage of a battleplan-unique Command Ability to fight first and thus smashed the Altar to bits. A Major Victory for the Stormcast, and for the city of Galrin.

It was certainly an interesting experiment, and I enjoyed the narrative more than I enjoyed the Warcry campaign I had started a few weeks ago. I’m not a game designer, so I suspect I probably unbalanced the game wildly: the constricted board meant that everyone was in combat immediately, and shooting and spells were never out of range. Also, 250 points might have been too many for the final game. I need to look at the Path to Glory tables and see if some minor artefacts or boons would be better than adding points; although, thematically, the Stormcast army growing with successes seemed to make sense. Also, it is dang hard keeping two armies’ abilities straight! I had to do AoS Reminders printouts, and even then I struggled!

I think I’m going to go back to Warcry for my next solo Warhammer campaign, but I won’t follow the campaign book material. Instead I’ll build a tree of games based on wins and losses, with a modified reward system. I realize that I don’t like Warcry’s insistence on completing Convergence missions–missions that you have to succeed to continue on the campaign. It’s so far led to a lot of boring grinding: My Stormcast Sacrosanct warband has played the same mission three times now, and I’m just tired of it. So that’s the next project! And maybe I can develop that into a league for when quarantine ends!

I have, at last painted my 20-model Astra Militarum roster for all those Kill Team games I’m not playing due to QUARANTINE. I took the boys out for pictures this afternoon, because I’m rather proud of how they turned out. Put together, they look like a really cool fighting force, and there’s a lot of story potential in them, a lot of that delightful work of picking names and personalities, etc. They just may have to wait to get actual games in to develop their individual service records.

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I enjoyed painting these models for the most part, although I have to admit to Scion armor trim fatigue, among other ailments. The Bullgryns were my favorite models of the bunch, although I have a soft spot for my Medic specialist, with his servo skull helper. I’m hoping once the Covid curve flattens I can bring these out for some games, because–win or lose–there’s nothing like pushing a fully-painted force across the table.

In the meantime, I’ve begun work on a dark counterpart to these Scions: using some spare Bloodreavers and Scion, Bullgryn, and random chaos-y bits, I’m working on a small (100-pt) Traitor Guard kill team. It’s mainly a painting project, although I think they’ll be fun to trot out every now and again when I feel like being the bad guys.

I did it! I painted my Bloodthirster! I’ve assembled a 2000-point list starring him, and I plan to retouch all the models in that list for my Armies on Parade board.

I’d bought the Bloodthirster model last year to reward myself for completing my Black Library submission. I finally got him painted, and I am REALLY pleased with him (so pleased, in fact, that I entered him in a painting competition on The Grand Alliance forums!). Here he is, if you haven’t seen him there.

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I’ll do another post soon about the rest of the army. Plus, I need to talk about my entry to 2+ Tough’s lore contest (spoiler alert–didn’t win), and my Kill Team Astra Militarum roster, which is my Isolation Army Project.

I knew going in that I was not going to have the time to “win” the league or compete in the big final; but I did get in five fun games against some factions I’ve never fought against, and I got to support my friend’s first foray into LEAGUE ORGANIZATION.

Last night was my game against that friend’s Ogor Mawtribes, and it was a doozy!

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We both played it fairly safe, moving up the field bit by bit until we could be sure to pull off our charges with support. The MVP of this game for me was the Daemon Prince’s command ability, Blood-slick Ground, which halves all run and charge rolls started within 18″ of him. I slapped the Crimson Crown artefact on him so he could do it for free every round. That way I shut down the mortal-wounding charges and had time to move my slower models into position. The Daemon Prince, himself, however, whiffed a bunch of attacks and thus failed to be the melee powerhouse I needed to chew through Leadbelchers before they could unleash their salvos.

I got off to a slow start getting victory points, but I eventually got to a tie. The league scenario didn’t mention anything about a tiebreaker, but I’m going to declare victory because I ended up killing all but one of his units–and that’s what counts for Khorne!

So that’s the end of league play for now, although there will be a 2000-point AoS tournament in a few months, which I hope I’ll be able to go to! I’m already working on my list–and I have to finish painting my beautiful Bloodthirster!

The Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop, holds an open submission period every year for writers to pitch story ideas in any of their universes, adhering to a predetermined theme. This past year’s theme was “Brothers-in-Arms,” and submissions thus had to develop a band of warriors, establish their relationships, and put them in some danger–such is life for those in any Warhammer world.

I submitted my pitch in September and heard back just this week. They have chosen not to proceed with it, but the news is not entirely bad: after all, my pitch made it under the eyes of Black Library readers; and that’s as good a first step as any!

Below I have included the three parts of my submission: biographical sketches of the main characters; a synopsis of the story, “Plaguecross”; and a 500-word sample of the full written text.

Biographies of the Aspereathi

GRUGGOR is the young chief of the Fedelthi clan, whose ancestral land lies on the outskirts of the thriving free city of Salvesin. He is proud of his heritage and the hunting prowess of the Aspereathi, his trusted council. This pride, however, makes him quick to anger at the sign of any disrespect, even with those he cares for most.

KALVER idolizes his older brother, Gruggor, but fears that he will never be able to emerge from his shadow, especially now that the clan’s hunting grounds have been taken away. Nevertheless, Kalver has earned his place in the Aspereathi with his unerring aim and unwavering loyalty.

SEBETINE is a stout brawler devoted to emulating the example of the legendary hunter-god Asperea, to the extent that she has eschewed the training of women and asks to be called Brother in the Aspereathi. Though Gruggor respects her identity, there are many in the clan who do not–and even Banja’s intentions seem weighted with the expectation that she will become a wife one day.

BANJA specializes in tricks and traps, and his cunning makes him both a formidable hunter and a delightful drinking-companion. He is generally of good humor, although his feelings for Sebetine complicate their relationship as Brothers in the Aspereathi, and these complications often sour his humor.

“Plaguecross” Synopsis

In the wake of the Tempest Lords’ triumph over Lord Eyebile, the Silva Lacrimalis blooms with strongholds of Order. For many clans that have inhabited the forest for centuries, however, civilization affords a stark choice: adapt, or be outlawed. The Fedelthi clan was among the first to become a Client Tribe of the city of Salvesin, choosing the erosion of their freedoms to preserve something of their traditions. When GRUGGOR becomes chief on his father’s death, however, he discovers that the nobles of Salvesin plan to rescind the Fedelthi’s hunting rights on their own ancestral land. Gruggor assembles his Aspereathi–KALVER, SEBETINE, and BANJA–for a hunt worthy of their clan and their legendary hunter-god Asperea, the namesake of their band. They travel north into the overgrown ruins of Plaguecross, a former colony for those left permanently disfigured by Lord Eyebile’s plague. There the Aspereathi encounter a heinous, bloody-eyed beast more terrifying than any they’ve ever encountered. The beast’s master, CLAUSTUL, however, is an even deadlier threat as he manipulates and toys with Gruggor. As Gruggor witnesses his friends fighting for him, he has a vision of Asperea and realizes that his pride and the hate in his heart endanger his people, and he cannot be a strong leader if he throws their lives away on satisfying his hubris. Together, the Aspereathi engineer a trap to defeat Claustul, who, convinced that he has won Gruggor over to his side, fails to see the net closing around him; and his destruction, in turn, purges the last taint of corruption from the land, which becomes the new home of the Fedelthi, earned with honor and forever their own.

“Plaguecross” Sample (~490 Words)

The deputy ushered Gruggor and Kalver into the Clerk’s office. Kalver gawped at the unearned splendor until Gruggor directed him to take a seat on the rough bench before the Clerk’s desk. Gruggor noted the resemblance of the bench to one he had seen a soldier kick his feet up on as he entered the city. Two upholstered chairs sat unused in the corner of the room, out of conspicuous disrespect, Gruggor assumed.

When the Clerk arrived, Kalver began to rise, but noticing Gruggor remaining still, he froze in an odd squat then sat back down. If the Clerk took it as a slight, he didn’t show it; in fact, he acknowledged neither man until he had come to rest in his high-backed leather chair, the very creaking of it driving Gruggor to grip the bench edge tight.

“Gruggor,” the Clerk said, sorting through his papers, “of the Fedelthi clan. Am I saying that right?”

“Yes.”

“Your witness?” he asked, nodding at Kalver.

“Yes. My brother, Kalver of the Fedelthi. Of the Aspereathi,” he clarified, to give his brother his due.

“Right,” the Clerk replied and stood up with the disconcerting speed of an assassin; but instead of proffering a dagger, he held out a quill. “Sign your Tribal Performance license here, please.”

Gruggor looked at the quill and back at the Clerk. “Excuse me–Tribal Performance license? What does that mean?”

The Clerk groaned at the indignity of having to explain the apparent. “It grants you permission to perform your tribal rituals at specified functions.”

“Specified functions?”

“City festivals and the like.”

“You mean as…party entertainment?”

“Well, we like to think of it as heritage preservation. You see–”

Gruggor could see the condescension swelling and cut the Clerk off. “We are not jugglers and sword-swallowers. We have lived here before there even was a Salvesin.”

“We recognize this,” the Clerk responded, putting his hands up in a conciliatory manner, “but we can’t just let tribal cult activity–”

“Cult?” Gruggor rose, Kalver following suit. “Asperea gave us strength, gave us honor! She took care of us while the Harthi and the Yeddera and the Vellta turned to chaos worship!”

The door opened, and the deputy and two soldiers entered, their arms and armor clattering against the door frame. It gave Gruggor some satisfaction that these men could never take him or Kalver in open combat, but then when did civilization ever fight fair?

“The Tempest Lords have made it clear–”

“We were here before Sigmar gave a damn about this land!” Gruggor shouted.  Then there was a silence in the room so profound it was like the effect of a spell: he didn’t even hear the soldiers until they had hold of his arms. He saw Kalver pleading with the Clerk not to rip up the papers on the spot, and then he felt the fatal quill pressed between his fingers, poised to deliver a deathblow to the dignity of the Fedelthi.

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So, what’s next for the Fedelthi? Well, I’m planning now to adapt this setting and history for a campaign setting, with a proper map and historic battlefields, cultures, rivalries! Maybe I can turn all of this into a league or tournament backdrop at a local shop–who knows!

The Kill Team league is over, and now I’m turning my attention to the last three weeks of the Age of Sigmar slow-grow league. I’ve played three games so far, against Nighthaunt, Disciples of Tzeentch, and Flesheater Courts. I’ve tasted victory and defeat so far, and it’s been fun! It’s been exactly what I wanted: a chance to roll up and challenge people I’ve never played before, and test my bloody Khorne boys against them.

In the first game, I played Nighthaunt in a custom scenario in which the edges of the board were slowly sinking underneath burning lava! This scenario favored me because it really cramped my opponent’s ability to place reserves or teleport, or get those long-bomb fight-immediately charges that Nighthaunt loves. We were forced to the center basically, so by round three all of my units were engaged with enemies and in range of the Bloodsecrator. I managed to kill his units and win the game.

I won my game against Tzeentch in the least Khorne fashion possible: running away. The scenario involved scoring points by having the most units in your opponent’s territory. Well, things started BADLY when my Daemon Prince flew face-first into a Flamer firing squad. But, that swift and brutal loss made his wizards cocky, and they flew into my territory–to be killed by my Slaughterpriests. Meanwhile, a mass of Horrors got hung up on a unit of Blood Warriors, and so the rest of my army took the opportunity to run to his side of the board. And then I summoned two units of Bloodletters just for more points and ran out the clock!

Khorne must not have been pleased with that victory, because my next opponent was Flesheater Courts!

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In this scenario we had to hold quadrants and kill units to score points. My Daemon Prince charged a Terrorgheist and got in 13 wounds on the beast! Unfortunately, Terrorgheists have 14 wounds, and in retaliation it got off two rolls of six on its bites and killed my Prince outright! The Bloodreavers didn’t even get a chance to swing before screams and claws cut them down.

The Skullreapers in the middle fared better, actually managing to kill the other Terrorgheist, before they were surrounded and picked apart. I used blood tithe to summon Bloodletters and book it to an undefended quadrant, but my run rolls came up way short, and the ghouls caught them.

My army was slaughtered, and I was down on points, but I wasn’t ready to quit yet. I insisted on taking my turn in the next round, so that I could move my Wrath-Axe judgement across his general in a final murder attempt, and to summon ten Bloodletters to drop on a quadrant near the Skull Altar and claim one little point. That point was CONTESTED because no one at the table was willing to believe that I could summon without a Hero on the board. But my summoning rules said that I could summon near a Hero OR an Altar. The league organizer ruled I could do it, and so I lost, but still MADE MY POINT. It was an intense game. I then played a quick Warcry game with my Nighthaunt friend, and it was just so rejuvenating! I lost that one too, but it was close, brutal, and fun as hell.

I’m going to play at least two more games before league’s end, and I’ll post a write-up after those games and at the conclusion of the league.

Well, I got in four of the possible eight games for the Kill Team league, and the results show that I am still terrible at Kill Team!

I fought Tau, Necrons, Raven Guard, and Adeptus Mechanicus. I had a fighting chance with the first two, but then the second two–played back-to-back–I got slaughtered 19-0 and 28-4 respectively. Yikes.

Kill Team is a complex game, and even after a year and a half of playing it, I still don’t get some of the rules; and the sheer number of strategems that you can use is just bewildering! I made a list of them before my last two games to keep track of them, and I still forgot most of them. I think in the future I’ll just pick ten and memorize them, so I’m not sitting there holding a sheet in front of my face desperate to find something that will get me out of the predicament in which I find myself.

“Please God, surely there’s something that will suddenly give a Guardsman a 3+ invuln save! THERE JUST HAS TO BE!”

But there isn’t. Ah well. Despite losing all my games, I had fun, and I did learn my army better. I also got to play an Arena game for the first time (vs Raven Guard) and JESUS it’s fast and intense! It might be worth picking up a copy if my hobby budget allows, since the boards and scatter terrain are very nice, and the narrow corridors make for some brutal pile-ups.

Now that this league is over, I’ll take some time to paint up the rest of my Scions and the Bullgryns in anticipation of another league. Once I paint them up, I think I’ll feel a little more attached to them and ready to get back out there and get my heart broken…er, play some games! There’s a tournament coming up, but even if I weren’t already working that day, I would still hold off. I’m going to do a game a week of AoS for another store league, then jump into the Warcry league after that. I’ll have to post pictures of what I’m running in those too!

I have played only one Kill Team game this year for the league I’m in, but I have managed to buy $100 worth of models to fill out my roster!

But no regrets, because I now have all the tools I need to build out a few different Astra Militarum teams to learn this year. And, these kits have already given me some fun modeling opportunities. I wanted to bring up a few of these that have developed from working with the Bullgryns kit that I picked up recently.

In the arms race of league play, I have been at last driven to include the Emperor’s Chonkiest Boys, and they have been a delight to build. I made a set of 2 Bullgryns and their leader, a Bone’ead. I dig the sort of post-apocalyptic gladiator look with their clubs and bucklers and tank-tread armor. But digging through the bits on the sprue as well as a few in my craft boxes, I found a few little things to make a story to make them MY BOYS.

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I have a bunch of armor and weapons left over from a Daemon Prince and a Bloodthirster kit, and so I was looking for some kind of trophy to make them look as though they’d been battling through hell. So I took the shoulderpad from the Prince (the unprimed gray piece in the second picture) and cut it in half to fit neatly to the back. I gave one piece to each of the Bullgryns, and made up the story for it that the two of them had gotten into a fistfight over it until their leader split it in half, Solomon-like, with a single swing of his great maul. Notice also the Bone’ead has a small Daemon armor piece attached to the right of his tank-tread vest. The Bone’ead also carries a ball and chain (from the Iron Golems kit for Warcry), which is no mere holdout weapon. The Bone’ead’s dedication to the Emperor is such that he carries this very painful “rosary” with him at all times.

One last little bit is my Bullgryn who keeps a unique canteen and cup with him. The Bullgryns kit came with several jerry cans, which I think are supposed to be their canteens? But hell, why drink out of a gas can when you can drink out of a tank of flamer fuel? And why drink out of a ceramic mug when you can drink out of a spent artillery shell? I’m excited to paint them up and get them on the table at some point, and see how all these little bits stories can coalesce into a larger narrative!

In partial fulfillment of my hobby goals for 2020, I joined a local Kill Team league. I don’t anticipate being able to play the full schedule of games, but I’ve gotten one in so far, and it was incredibly fun and reminded me why I got so obsessed with Kill Team in the first place.

I have resolved to play Astra Militarum until I’m decent with them. Well, I have a ways to go yet, but I certainly did better than my first two outings–as I texted a friend after the game, I’d gone “from salty embarrassment to mere failure!” So, progress! Steps in the correct direction! I even got a decent little story out of the game, which was the Disrupt Supply Lines mission, versus Tau: Karsk, my Medic specialist, was a total MVP, shooting up the Tempestor with Stimms so he could punch drones out of the sky, and then dashing towards an occupied building to burn an objective–all the while being shot at by Tau! My Comms specialist, Kolson, wasn’t so lucky, getting blown off his feet by a sniper shot and succumbing to his wounds in the Casualty Roll.

But Kolson’s death presented me with a fun opportunity to modify Karsk: I took a Servo Skull from the Tempestor Prime, filed the top of it down so I could put a Guardsman helmet on it, and then replaced the attached brazier with a speaker from an extra vox-caster. So now Guardsman Kolson serves the Emperor by broadcasting tips on health and hygiene and assisting Karsk with field surgeries. Here’s a picture:

I’ve had a great time with the league so far, and I can’t wait to see what horrible deaths modeling opportunities the next missions afford me!

Kill Team is my favorite game that I am TERRIBLE at.

I’ve been playing it since its release in 2018, and I think I’ve won maybe three games of it. So far I’ve run Adeptus Astartes (Space Maureens), Drukhari, Astra Militarum, and Chaos Daemons. I did come in Second Place among Astartes players in a local league, though I won only one game. Low standards, you say? ACHIEVABLE GOALS, I say!

But this year I have made a commitment to focus on a team and GIT GUD. Or at least win, say, three games. I’ve picked Astra Militarum because no one in the local Kill Team group plays them, so I may be able to get away with some trickery until I’m inevitably found out as a bad player.

There’s going to be a Kill Team tournament at one of the shops here in February, and I intend to bring my soldier boys, hang out, and lose a whole lotta buncha. It’ll be great! I just bought the Drop Force Imperator box to add some more Scions to my list and get my hands on the useful game aids, thinking about buying some Ogryns just in case Elites are on the table in the tournament.