Cults, the undead and something to fight over

Last week was fairly productive, both minis and terrain were painted up along with a few games during the weekend.

I'll start off with some minis:

Their real name and patron unknown, the group is simply referred to as "The Blood Cult", due to their many and gruesome sacrifices. 

 The leaders are known as the touched, having been bestowed with physical and psionic "gifts" from their sinister patron.

The Blood Maidens are murderous fanatics, often the first to tear into the sacrifices. Along with the cult brothers, they make up the majority of the cults fighters.

The Brothers are the most numerous of the fighters of the blood cult, armed with a assorted array of firearms in various states of disrepair and a zealots conviction. On rare occations they have been seen with heavy military hardware like flamethrowers and machineguns.

The second set is just a small squad I named the Undying Commandos. They are my first attempt at sculpting 6mm heads from scratch, and some ended up better than others. Comicly oversized head aside, these undead mercs are a force to be reckoned with..


I also finished a few pieces of terrain that has been languishing in my to do pile for a while:

The sulphur pits are a piece made for post-apoc, but it will probably find it's way into a few fantasy games as well. In fact, it has already been in one of the playtest from this weekend, so you will see it again soon. The standing stones are of a more distinct fantasy feel, complete with magic runes and an stone altar in the middle (that you unfortunatly can't see from this angle). 

I started building these pieces when Ivan announced that there would be a post-apoc fivecore released later this year. Most of them would work fine as homes to the poor and downtrodden on a colony world as well.

Some shacks or various sizes, the one with a sign over the door will be the bar, since I've heard every town needs one.

Some tents to form the camp of the poor sod caught in the wasteland. I realized this could possibly be used for fantasy as well, since they are un-techy enough.

A bunch of more crates. 

Stacks of pipes, or possible metal poles. More useful in sci-fi colonies than post-apoc villages I gather, but useful none the less.

 

 

 

That's all I thought I'd share for now, I have a few hundred photos to go through before I can post more AAR's from the weekends playtest.

Another Warband appear

The latest warband I have finished is a Dark Elf one, bringing the total up to 5. I feel that I have to back over the old ones to flesh them out a bit, since both the last ones (Goblins and now Dark elves) have quite a few more members than the earlier warbands.

The full warband. 

Lineup of the possible leaders and champions. 

 

The Sorceress. A powerful magic-user that often leads the raiding parties of the dark elves, especially if they are on a quest from one of their gods.

The Champion. While less skilled in the magical arts than the sorceress, the champion has unrivaled martial prowess among his warriors.

The Bloodstar banner is an potent magical artifact given to the warriors of certain important quests, said to bring the favour of their gods with them. The ones chosen to bear it are the most devout warrior-priests of the temples in their homeland.

 

Young dark elf males who show promise in the magical arts are sometimes chosen to be trained as Shadowwytches. These warriors blend magic,martial skill and other secret dark arts to turn themselves into living weapons of the gods and their preisthood.

Most female dark elves have some affinity for magic, but to separate those worthy of further training from the rest, they must all serve as witchlings first. Trained to use some basic magic to enhance their blades, the best among them will be selected for further education to turn them into proper sorceresses.

The Reavers are somewhat like knights amongst humans, but their long lifespan makes them even deadlier, as they have more time to perfect the art of killing with the Reavers weapon of choice.

 

Many foreign slaves are taken by the raiding parties, and no small amount of them end up as slave gladiators. Ones that rise to prominence might be bought by a sorceress or even the priesthood. These slave warriors are magically bound to obey their masters, and prized as bodyguards, or in times of great conflict as the vanguard of the Dark Elven armies.

 The Crossbowmen of the dark elves is their one non-magical means of ranged assault, and as such they feature more heavily in the armies than the raiding parties, even if most are wise enough to bring a few along.



Since I started playtesting Starstrike (see my last post) I have a few units for sci-fi in the works, some cultists and a few non-zombie space-undeads.. I also have a few pieces of terrain for both sci-fi and fantasy that are almost done, hopefully most of this will be in my next post!

Til then!

First game of Starstrike (working title)

I got hold of this playtest draft for the latest game from Ivan, so naturally I dropped what I was doing and set up a game last week:

 The battlefield. When fighting broke out in the colony, various mines and supply posts were abandoned as workers fled or joined the rebels. This particular depot contained some precious minerals, and somehow a local gang of pirates and thugs had found out, as had the rebels..

The pirates force: 

Pirate Leader 1 model
Sp  5
Su  6
Tr   6
Mo 7
Di  5
Ld 1
Armed with Gauss rifle

Pirate squad 5 models
Sp  4
Su  6
Tr   5
Mo 6
Di  4
4 with carbines
1 with Marksman's rifle

Thugs 5 models
Sp  5
Su  5
Tr   4
Mo 4
Di  4
1 assault rifle
3 pistols
1 SMG

 

Rebels and their hired merc unit:

 

Rebel leader 1 model
Sp  5
Su  6
Tr   5
Mo 5
Di  5
Ld 1
Armed with Assault rifle

Rebels 6 models
Sp  5
Su  3
Tr   4
Mo 7
Di  4
6 assault rifles

Mercenaries 5 models
Sp  5
Su  5
Tr   6
Mo 7
Di  6
5 heavy rifles and grenades

All models are rated in; Training(Tr) used for initiative, shooting and meleé attacks, Morale(Mo) determines how likely the unit is to stay in the fight in the face of casualties and Discipline(Di) which is used for reaction fire and recovering from pinning.
 Speed(Sp) and Survival(Su) are dependant on equipment and physical capability of the model.

Leadership(Ld) is a special score reserved for the leaders of each side, numbered between 1-3, this indicates how many extra orders the leader can give when activated.

The mineral stash both sides were after. Grabbing more than the enemy would ensure victory in the scenario.

The first round consisted of movement on both sides, trying to get into an advantageous position.

First blood went to the mercs, who took out the pirates marksman with his Heavy fusion rifle. A bad start for the pirates!

Retaliation isn't long in the coming though, when the captain's Gauss rifle pins Another merc in cover.

 Blaster carbines blazing the pirate squad advance and take out the offending merc. 

With the kind of enthusiasm only found in rebels and zealots, the rebel squad fire on the thugs, knocking out one or their number. At the same time, two of the mercs move in to grab some mineral chunks.

Start of the third round. 

In a barrage of counter-fire, two rebels bit the dust. 

The incoming fire is heavy enough to pin down mercs and rebels both! 

When you are pinned you can still fire, but you can only do any damage if you roll a 1 on a d10. So the first time the merc fired while pinned, he hit the bullseye! The thug in question was no more.

The rebels, full of righteous fury, pours fire on the pirate squad. One pirate is hit, and goes down.

The thugs are in a bad way, after losing 2 of their number and failing both morale checks, they take -2 to Training, Morale and Discipline checks. Despite this, they manage to hit and kill another rebel, while his friend is pinned!

Start of the 4th turn. You'll notice that all 3 remaining rebels are pinned down, due to fire from pirates and thugs. In the far back the mercs carrying minerals are falling back to safety, they have what they came for.

The fighting around the depot is still fierce, as the pirate try to push back the rebels to gain some minerals of their own. Rebel fighters knock out one thug and pin one more.

The mercs hired by the rebels don't come cheap, but they are effective, most of the time anyway. In the far back of the photo you can see a small fire/explosion marker. That's where the grenade tossed by the merc landed after deviation. He was aiming for the pirate behind the crates and sacks infront of him...

The pirate captain fires his Gauss rifle again, taking out the closest rebel. 

Sensing that the fight is slipping away from them, the Pirates try a last push into the depot. Braving fire from the mercs, they run for the minerals. The reactions of the mercs are too fast however, and a single fusion blast stops the pirate dead in his tracks.

At this point, the game was called, since the pirates were down to about 40% of their force and couldn't have beaten the rebels 2 mineral pieces.

A rebel victory!

An enjoyable first game, and while a few trimmings are missing, the core gameplay is fun, the resolution mechanic is fast and easy to get, and make the different troops play differently depending on their statline.
This could be a serious contender to FiveCore for my skirmish games, when it's all done!