I have just moved the blog from Nethosted to Justhost, which explains the up-and-down nature of the blog these last 24 hours.

Nethosted provide a fine service, but I was regularly seeing +10Gb in bandwidth per month towards the end of last year, which was starting to cost me.  Justhost offer unlimited space and bandwidth, so we’ll see how that works out for the money.

I think it is time to change the appearance of the blog. Any suggestions?

Also, I submitted a couple of stories to some magazines.  I hereby promise to share the rejection letters with you…

Page 19:-

“Castellan Crask wasted no time in declaring the Tau to be weaklings. This viewpoint was the chief precipitating factor in the commencement of the Iron Hammer campaign, which soon escalated into the greatest confrontation yet seen between the Imperium of Man and the Tau Empire. But that is another story…”

Along with talk of prototype pulse rifles and other goodies, there is some interesting stuff for the Tau player in here.

Ebravil has been sitting on a time bomb since the joyous days of the War of Liberation ninety years ago.

After the Great Plague sixty years ago and the outbreak at [CENSORED] hab-block thirty years ago [File Ref: Eb/Barb/M39.778/P325] it became clear to the Inquisition that something foul and spiteful had remained buried even after the forces of the Great Enemy were scoured from the face of the planet. Investigations after the incident thirty years ago identified the presence of a daemon, Barbatus (class. Malleus Extremis), thought to have been exterminated on two previous occasions. It has, once again, returned.

Despite your team’s best efforts Barbatus has arisen and a plague has swept through Ebravil, putrefying the flesh of all it touches and withering them in clouds of rot flies. The dead walk the streets, the dying wait to join them. An orbital bombardment from your ships in orbit have given you some breathing space, although the collateral damage is impeding your team’s efforts to move about the city. You must reach the shielded Arbites Precincthouse in the Lantern Quarter, from where you can plan your next move.

That was the briefing for the Inquisition player in Tuesday’s game – “City Of The Dead”. I wrote some rules for Plague Zombies and a Plague Lord, which worked pretty well. There were dozens of zombies on the table at one point, although I don’t think we ever used all of the 71(!) Gary had painted.

Memorable moments included an acolyte being shot and badly wounded by the Plague Lord. Pinned and with a wounded leg, he turned to see his colleagues run away and leave him to die. Six zombies plus the Plague Lord closed in on him – and in an astonishing display of Imperial might he killed one zombie, managed to break off from the combat and just managed to make it into a nearby crashed Chimera – which he managed to repair! Sadly, a zombie had wounded him as he broke off, meaning that soon, the warp would take his soul…

But not before he drove over some zombies in a Chimera!

As you can see from the pictures, I used the cardstock terrain as well as other ruins to represent the freshly bombed city of Ebravil (and if you’ve read Killing Time, then it is indeed the same city and the same daemon). It represented a Mechanicus facility, but overall I am not impressed with cardstock terrain. It feels too insubstantial and looks – bendy.

So this is my proposed solution. Cut all the tabs and other bits off, and glue the remaining walls and floors and so on to pieces of black foamcore. Here’s my test piece I did tonight:-

I much prefer this. It is much sturdier and probably much more durable. It also looks much better, and is not that much harder to make. I cut the wall corners at 45 degrees, but for future pieces I will just butt them together and overlap the card to hide the join. That will be stronger and better looking, and easier to make.

Turns out PVA glue is good for sticking foamcore to itself, while the normal scrapbookers’ glue I used for the cardstock is best for sticking the card to the foamcore.

The other thing I can do with the foamcore backed pieces is make them modular:-

I used the card template to cut notches in the base. With matching notches in all the other pieces, I can use little foamcore pieces to hold them securely. That’s the idea, anyway.

No doubt you have already seen this [video link] and, if not, I suggest you take a look.

Quick primer for those unfamiliar with the concept: “augmented reality” is where information and/ or images are overlaid onto a live video stream, so, for example, you activate the video camera on your Android phone and on the screen you will see not just whatever streets and buildings you are pointing it at, but you will also see tags and labels floating over those streets and buildings telling you what they are, as well as a sign showing you how many inches it is to the nearest Starbucks. The video linked above shows another example of how augmented reality might work, using silly glasses.

Augmented reality is another of those annoying phrases that will either go the way of “virtual reality” (a dated and worn cliche) or the way of “high definition” (a concept now so familiar that it will soon vanish as a meaningful term in itself). For so long as it involves wearing a pair of small televisions in front of your eyes or standing in the street holding your iPhone up like it’s the Lion King, it may struggle to catch on, but I don’t want to get all cynical about the future here. We’re in an election cycle here in the UK, and I’ve already got all the cynicism I can handle. Instead, I want to image what this kind of technology might do for table top wargaming.

While I like what has been done with the Lego figures in the video, I am more impressed with the effort than the concept, and would be strongly tempted to take augmented reality foe wargames in a completely different direction. In the video, the figures are the focus of the AR, and the overlaid images are used to give them weapons, special effects and, most of all, controls around the base. I don’t fancy that much. Wargamers love their figures (well, the hobby-ist ones do) and I don’t particularly want someone else’s fancy graphics interfering with my modelling and my paintjob. So we’ll leave the minis alone. For now.

That leaves terrain.

There is no reason why an AR system cannot overlay an entire tabletop’s worth of terrain in front of your very eyes. Picture this. You take your GW gaming table out, in its handy 2′x2′ sections, and assemble your normal 6′x4′ gaming surface. Except the surface is a uniform matt black with neon blue grid lines. You take out some other pieces – large cubes roughly the shape of buildings, also in matt black with grid lines. Other geometric shapes; some tall and thin, some broad and flat.

You set out your minis. They are just normal minis (in this imaginary world you have painted them all – if we’re going to have imaginary worlds they should be perfect. There should also be cake), but each has an RFID chip in its base. Simple, programmable and wireless with no need for a battery, each RFID chip can tell the AR software what model it is and exactly where it is on the table.

Then you stick your goggles on.

The matt black pieces with gridlines vanish, and the AR software paints a shattered cityscape in Hollywood levels of detail, complete with drifting smoke and burning fires, and lays it over the ‘terrain’ you placed down. It matches the buildings and streets and higher ground to the geometric shapes you placed. Don’t like where that ruined cathedral is? Pick it up and move it – the AR software can take that in its stride. Some pieces of masonry break lose and slide down in an avalanche of dust. You can see rats scurrying clear if you look closely enough.

What about your minis? Well, provided they are not matt black with blue grid lines on them, you can see them perfectly well. They are not augmented at all, and are placed seamlessly within the chosen environment.

But hang on. My minis are Tau. What are they doing in a ruined Imperial city? Change a few options and the battlefield changes in the blink of an eye to a Tau outpost. Or an Eldar craftworld. Or a Space Hulk with hissing steam and dripping water. Or a lush tropical forest with tyranid spore towers. The trees even sway in the breeze as brightly coloured birds flock and wheel.

Let’s take it further. The software knows what minis you have and exactly where they are to within the millimetre. Automated battle reports? Easy. Or do you want to see the battlefield from your commander’s point of view? That, too, is easy. Fancy a video of what the model could “see” as it moved through the terrain Turn by Turn? No problem – you can even stick it in your batrep. The software will have to put in graphics to represent the minis the model can “see”, but since it knows what the minis are and (if you used Army Painter recently) what colours you’ve painted them, the software can also work out which other minis are in line of sight, where they are and blend them in seamlessly. It doesn’t animate the minis, but we don’t want that. We just want to play our games in the kind of environment Forgeworld couldn’t make in its wildest dreams.

And, best of all, there’s no annoying virtual reality to deal with. You can still see the rest of the room, your dice, your opponent, your rulebook – everything – as clear as day without needing to take your goggles off or turn off the system.

You get all the social, real-world benefits of tabletop gaming, you get to keep the hobby elements of modelling and painting, but you also get the very best technology has to offer in terms of turning any game into a cinematic experience. And that is the future of wargaming.

I had quite a few misgivings about trying cardstock terrain, but seeing a friend’s efforts finally persuaded me to give it a try.

If you don’t know what it is, cardstock terrain is terrain printed (at home, or on your work printer if your boss isn’t around) on thick card. PDFs are purchased and downloaded from a variety of sites. The main benefits of cardstock terrain are that it is very low cost (printer ink and card are the main consumables) and that if you break something, sit on it or just decide you want more (and more and more) you can print more off. It is also easily modifiable.

I started with the Firstlight kit from World Works Games, which comes in at $17 (a colonial currency – about £10 in real money )

What you see here is the product of two night’s work. Once you get the hang of printing properly (ie. best quality and no page scaling) and cutting the pieces out, assembly can actually be very quick. My top tip is to use your ruler to cut the edges of printed sections, and just freehand the tabs. Given the number of tabs, freehanding them saves a lot of time.

In terms of tools, this is all you need:-

The obvious ones (and the ones you probably already have) are the cutting mat, the steel ruler with cork backing and an el cheapo cutting tool. For cutting, make sure the blade is kept fresh, as results are quicker and better with a sharp edge. For the glue you want something that dries fast, does not distort the card and is easy to apply. I picked this glue up at John Lewis, but any stationers will have it. It does everything I want. The other must-have is kirby grips (not sure what name they are known by outside the UK). These are tailor made for holding your tabs and corners together while the glue sets up. Get some – £1 from Asda.

When this is finished, I plan to use it in my games of 40k (and Throne Agent!) as a hi-tech lab or a bunker compound or a crashed cargo ship (etc etc). No doubt it would work for Space Hulk, too.

Once it is done I will post up completed pics.

Pearlygates asked in the comments section of the last post whether I had written any fiction for 40k. The answer is ‘yes’ and, if you go to this link, you’ll see most of them. Not all of them, and not the most recent ones, but most of them. And you might also work out where this blog gets its name from…

Since there is a lot of stuff waiting for you if you follow that link, here’s one that I have yet to put up there. I wrote it for a Halloween competition on one of the forums (forget which one). It’s pretty short, so you should be able to read it in about five minutes. You’ve got five minutes, haven’t you?

Feel free to leave comments and crit.

Hollow’s Eve

by Sholto

#

I remember it was cold that night. Very cold. The kind of night that left Devil’s Pies in the morning – the tops of the nightsoil buckets frozen solid, and some poor ’script or unlucky sod on a warrant had to go around and crack them open just so he could slop them out. I don’t need to paint you a picture of what that was like, but it happened a lot. This was a Throne-forsaken outpost on a Throne-forsaken world that had everything a man could want, provided all he wanted was endless miles of broken, frozen dirt, grit in places it should never be and freezing, pitch-black nights to keep watch on all the endless dirt and grit as it failed to do anything interesting. It hurt to breathe air that cold, and my coat felt like it was sucking the heat from my body rather than keeping me warm, so when Vennick came back late from the latrine sheds I wasn’t best pleased.

“You fecking fall in or something?” It wasn’t that I had anywhere else to go when he came back or anything to do; I was just being annoyed on basic principles. Misery loves company, even when it’s someone like Vennick.

He had his coat clutched tight around him and his sparkling repartee quick to hand. “It’s cold,” was all he said, then crouched down on his haunches next to the magnoculars and our rifles, looking out away from the camp.

Truth be told, it wasn’t just misery that loved company. Fear loved company, too, and I had a little dose of it that night. Enough of a dose to have paced a few anxious steps waiting for the constipated Vennick to return. Word around the camp was that the dirt and the grit might not have been as dead and uninteresting as we had all thought. Some unusual people had been seen visiting the outpost, and their kind didn’t turn up unless there was something worth turning up for. What kind were they? The inquisitive kind, if you catch my drift. Well, wasn’t that just fecking marvellous. Strange as it may seem, as much as I hated dead and uninteresting, I hated the opposite even more.

I wedged myself into a sandbag corner like a mouse in its burrow, took the mailslate out for the billionth time and tucked the earpiece in. I would have to hand it back in come the morning, and some masochistic part of me wanted to see how many times I could listen to Ellie breaking my heart between now and then. It was like, maybe if I just soak all this up now, really steep myself in it, it won’t still be hurting weeks or months down the line. Kind of get it all over with. Yeah. Good luck with that.

“You know what they used to call this night?” Vennick said out of nowhere, probably mercifully for my dangerously self-pitying state of mind. His voice didn’t sound sandpaper-dry like mine did, which made me suspect he had some sump-liquor and was holding out on me. Would explain the ‘delay’ at the latrines. B*****d.

“Fecked if I know, Vennick.” I dredged a little wit. “Tomorrow?”

“Hollow’s Eve,” he said, still looking out at nothing. “From old Terra. Very old Terra. All Hollow’s Eve.”

Conversation was conversation, and I couldn’t listen to the letter, especially the bit about how she wasn’t going to tell the baby I was his father – for his sake – while Vennick was giving off vapours. “What’s that mean? Hollow what?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. They used to dress up, the story goes, on Hollow’s Eve. Put on devil masks and daemon horns and frighten the children.” Vennick shrugged. At least I think he did; he still had his arms wrapped tight around him and his hands inside his coat. It was more of a shudder than a shrug. “Maybe it was they were hollow inside. They got dressed up to be someone else, because there was nothing underneath. Maybe that’s why they called it Hollow’s Eve.” He turned his head, his face invisible in the dark. “You think that might be it?”

I didn’t like him staring at me like that when I couldn’t see his face, so I waited until he turned away again. This night was getting to me if I was starting to be creeped out by Vennick. The man chewed his own toenails, for Throne’s sake. “Sure. Why not. Makes sense.”

“It’s cold,” Vennick said, after a few minutes had gone by.

“It’s that coat. Told you not to take the lining out, but you said it rustled, that it gave your position away when you were-”

“It’s getting colder.”

“Fine. Whatever, Vennick. I’m cold. You’re cold. You know what? The whole fecking planet is cold, so let’s just drop it and get the cards out.”

“I want to remember what it was like,” he said, “before there was nothing. I need something warm to wear.” At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. For a moment it sounded like he said ’someone’, but you start to hear things when you’ve been on watch for hours.

I was about to come out with a killer line about self-heating ration packs, his current squatting position and just how far I could shove said pack when I noticed his arms. There was something wrong about them. They were too long.

They were wrapped around his body, so it was hard to tell, but with a sensation that made the cold feel like an old, much loved friend, I could see they went just a bit too far. There was something glinting under there, where his hands should be. Suddenly, I wished I could see his face, and then just as quickly tried to wish that away. Things got a bit muddled, and I forget the order in which some of them happened to be honest, but it was around about this point, with my heart dumping adrenaline into my system like a sewage plant on overflow and my mind shouting at itself like a barracks in uproar, that I realised he was crouched next to the only guns in the watchpost.

I may have laughed, or it might have been a cough. Whatever it was I did, it was clumsy, and as I stood up, so did he. Those arms were still wrapped around his body, and I prayed to the Emperor like I had never prayed before that they stayed there.

“Have to,” I waved a hand vaguely, feebly trying to sound casual, “have to, you know. Gotta take a leak.” Holy Throne, he was walking towards me.

I took a step towards the exit and then he was inches from me. It was so dark, all I could see was the starlight on his helmet. There was a smell; not sump liquor, not latrine odour, but something red and wet and very familiar. He tilted his head sideways; I saw a silver hint of his face. It looked like Vennick, but slumped, as if he had been wax left next to a heater. What had he been saying about being hollow?

And then I dropped it. The noise was so sudden, when the mailslate hit the packed dirt, I think my blood stopped moving in my veins.

The slate lay there between us, the soft light from the screen shining on our boots. Vennick’s were darkly wet.

Please don’t pick it it up. Please don’t pick it up. Please don’t pick it up.

I didn’t want to see those arms.

“Aren’t you going to pick that up?” Venner asked. His lips moved, but it was all wrong, and then the dumb mailslate must have thought I pressed a button when it fell and the letter from Ellie started playing.

I couldn’t take my eyes from the dark shadow where Vennick’s face lurked, while Ellie’s voice drifted up from the tiny vox panel on the slate. I stared at him, while she told me about Adam, which wasn’t the name we had picked, but that was okay because Adam was a good name, and she told me about his first smile, which I had missed, but that was okay because she would send a vid, soon, and she told me about how his tiny fingers wrapped around her own so tight she thought he would never let go, and that was okay too, because I knew once you had Ellie you never wanted to let her go, and she told me about his eyes, and how they reminded her of me, and how that was going to be the hardest thing of all, having Adam remind her of me, because you see…

And I stared at Vennick, too scared to move, as Ellie ripped my heart out all over again. Flayed it, right there, like it was the first time.

And then it was over, and the slate beeped and the light went out and I realised I hadn’t been breathing and that now I was going to die.

Tiny wisps of vapour drifted up in front of me when I breathed the tiny breaths I forced myself to take, but from him came nothing. I had faced death before, of course, but this was different. This felt – intimate. And then, Emperor be praised till the day I die but I will never understand why, he or it or whatever Vennick was turned and walked slowly away to the edge of the foxhole.

“Go,” was all he said, in a voice that was not Vennick’s any longer, and I was not about to argue with him.

I came back, armed with a lasrifle and half the outpost, but he was gone. So was the mailslate.

We found Vennick’s body, down by the latrines, although it took a while to properly identify him. Just the bones and the major organs. A few scraps of flesh. The rest had been stripped clean away with tools that were razor sharp. I just kept thinking about those arms, and the things that weren’t hands that glinted in the starlight.

We left that world not long after, amid much talk of strange tombs rising from the frozen dirt. I never saw Ellie or Adam again.

THE END

NOTE: If you take a look at the picture on the blog masthead (click below for a much embiggened version), that was done by my good mate Ricky, inspired by this story of all things.

In the first of a non-going series, here are some random blurts from my thought engine:-

1. Reading Titanicus by Dan Abnett. It’s been a while since I read a BL book, and Dan Abnett is usually a safe bet. The last BL book I read was Mechanicus, and I keep needing to remind myself that this one is not set during the Heresy. Titanicus features an ensemble cast of (frankly) disposable characters, none of whom really stand out for me. The murderous moderati seemed to have promise, but then got dumped into a predictable B-plot about an inexperienced princeps. Inexperienced as in; “How many combat drops?” Yeah, you know the one I mean. I hope Mr Abnett gives a convincing explanation as to why this guy is put in charge of a Warlord Titan. I expect he will. As for the book itself, I haven’t finished it yet, but it feels too long. The book mid-story takes a noticeable dip until the plot returns later on, and the action doesn’t really cover for it. An interesting plot, certainly (for Mechanicus-lovers), but if Mr Abnett doesn’t explain what’s in that document I will throw a Maltese Falcon at him every day from now until Martinmas. At least.

   Despite my griping, I am actually enjoying the book. I’m just a flint-hearted, old misanthrope, is all

2. Conflict Scotland 2010 is coming up, as in April. The 2009 event was the first tournament I ever attended. Despite doing much better than we expected, I didn’t enjoy the tournament so much (45 mins to play a complete game? Seriously? There’s a lot of things I can do in 45 mins, including forcing a squad of Fire Warriors so far up a tourny organiser’s dark-and-painful that he’ll crap in rapid fire for a month, but playing a game of 40k isn’t one of them), but I hear it will be better organised this year. 1000 points doubles, with FOC limitations (eg. you cannot take a second Elite, FA or Heavy slot until you have one of each already). I would take Tau, and complement them with something fast and aggressive. I am thinking new Tyranids, as it gives me a reason to buy and paint the models! I haven’t seen the codex yet, but I like the sound of Deathleaper & Lictors for some backfield frights, a Tervigon and Gaunts for a very tough Troops choice and some rending/ scything Warriors for inconveniencing future biomass in close combat. No way I can fit all that in 500 points, but it gives me something to work from. Close combat monsters popping up all over the place – a theme close to my heart. An alternative, albeit boring, idea would be TH/SS Termies in a LR Crusader with a MM attack bike. Send that lot out to worry the enemy while 500 points of railguns and MPs pops their transports. Any thoughts?
3. Speaking of new Tyranids, I like what I hear. I had a Tyranid army but sold it a year ago (almost to the day). What I have read of the new codex, and seen of the models, makes me want some bugs, bad. Maybe I can model little drone antennae on their heads, and pretend that the Tau have supplanted the Hive Mind with smarty-pants tech
4. One of my short stories is up for a critical mauling tonight at the Glasgow SF Writers Circle. I’ll let you know what they make of it. Unless, you know, they just laugh and fall off their chairs. Again.
5. Finally saw District 9 on DVD (which reminds me – the repair shop has had my TV in for four weeks. I need to call them). 9 out of 10. Loved it. What’s that, imaginary person I just made up? You’ve already seen it? I need to get out more? Well, you try it with kids and a 2 hour commute. Nothing to say to that, eh? Well, no, obviously, since I’m just talking to myself, but then I am about to be laughed at by SF writers who haven’t even mastered the art of sitting in a chair properly.

   I’m kidding. They’re lovely people.

6. Best film review ever. And it’s done in character. If you get put off by his mispronunciation of “Pro-tu-gonist” all I can say is, “don’t be”. Persevere.

Just a quick look at my Bastion, made with the remains of the two Bastion kits and some Cities of Death pieces. I will be attaching a Landing Pad (scratchbuilt) to the back, and might make them separable for storage purposes.

Just to the right, you can see I finally finishing assembling my drop pod for my Spectral Tigers Marines (allies for my Witchhunters).

And the terrain piece behind that is another WIP you can see here.

As you might have guessed by now, I love making terrain, mainly because I love playing games with lots of terrain in it. See my batreps for details! Despite the fact I play Tau (who are supposed to love planet Bowling Ball), I enjoy (and remember) the games with loads of terrain far more than I do the games with a few pieces scattered here and there with little thought to what they are doing there and why.

I can feel a lengthy terrain post coming on, but I’ll stop there for now

We are starting to get into our stride with playing/ testing Throne Agent!, and got another good game in yesterday. Here are some photos and highlights.

(EDIT: and, per Suneokun, a list of the combatants)

Hounds of Zhufor – A Chaos Warband

Quarr the Bloodrender (Leader)
Slaught, Hound of Xaphan (counts as Cyber Mastiff)
Magos Darmalian Fract (counts as Interrogator)
Servo Skull (stays with Fract)
Braxus Spect (Forces Veteran)
G for Grinder (Mutant)
Maledict Strange (Unsanctioned Psyker)
Oberunt The Worm (Penitent)
Varlak the Bloated (Priest of Nurgle)

Khabala’s Illustrious Warband

Inquisitor Malefoso Khabala
Interrogator Anastasio Laudro (Psyker)
Explicator Gabriel Vincento
Pariah the Shrivening (with Box) (Bound Psyker)
Forces Veteran ‘Papa’ Luigi Brutelus
Forces Veteran Henargus Rench
Forces Veteran Warret Lamarr
Torturer Doctor Lambretto Tease
Excoriator Tenchy Hrunk
Four inducted PDF troopers (their names will be recorded should their deeds warrant same)

The mission was a GM’d scenario for two players. An ancient ruin lies at the centre of the table, containing two rooms, one large and one small. At some point in the next six rounds, an dark ritual will be completed and a daemon will be summoned. The heretic’s band is there to bind the daemon, the inquisitor’s is there to destroy it.

Secondary objectives (some of which only came up during play as events unfolded) included occupying the larger of the ruin’s two rooms, opening and reading a strange scroll and capturing and interrogating a member of the opposing force. In addition, powerful sand storms scoured the valley of the ruins, meaning that dangerous whirlwinds might (and did!) appear at random throughout the game.

Both teams deployed 6″ in on opposite sides, although the heretics were allowed to start with one model in the large room of the ancient ruin. It seemed only fitting that the leader, Quarr the Bloodrender, Chosen of Zhufor, would select that honour. You cannot see him in this shot, but he’s inside that central building.

After the last game, my team had spent some of their experience points, thus increasing their total points cost. The forces of the Imperium, who had not earned as many XP (despite earning a draw in that last game), got to induct some local PDF troopers to make up the difference. They are the Steel Legion soldiers in the bottom of the picture (the one who is lying down is just crouching – small target and +1 to his cover save).

Quarr was a bit concerned that the hated Inquisition would be on him quickly, storming the central ruin and taking tactical control of the confrontation. He ordered his mind-slaved puppet, Magos Dharmalian Fract to race to his side, both to ensure that Fract could take wounds for Quarr (which he can do if within 3″) and to have a look at that odd disappearing casket in the small room of the ruin. Quarr held the onrushing forces of the Corpse God at bay with a well-thrown frag grenade, following up with a shot from his plasma pistol that burned one of the psyker witches in blue flames. This was handy, because she had been about to unleash the power of the machine god and wreck his treasured plasma pistol for D3 Turns.

Quarr sent his favourite Hound of Xaphan, Slaught, to charge at the masked Inquisitor Khabala and his Explicator Gabriel Vincento and keep them at bay. Slaught managed to disembowel The Shrivening (another pskyer) before Malafoso scorched his bones to dust, but the job was done and neither the Inquisitor nor his Explicator made it into the central ruin all game.

Varlak the Bloated proved his worth as a superb support character, hurling tear-gas grenades every turn (as he is a Nurgle priest, this seems only fitting – although we call them blight grenades instead) and so providing valuable mobile cover to the charging G for Grinder.

G for Grinder (a Forgeworld Renegade Ogryn boss) has to be one of my favourite models of all time. He didn’t do well last game, so I was hoping he would restore my faith. Oh, yes! Despite an early flaming he charged and killed one of the Inquisition’s combat veterans, but was left in the open. Six separate enemy models drew back and lined up to fire. Seeing his plight, Varlak hurled a blight grenade right at G for Grinder, scoring a hit. The raging Ogryn was safe from the effects of the gas thanks to his respirator (all of Quarr’s team have them) but none of the enemy could see him any more! Next Turn he charged out of the cloud, tore another veteran off a wall and then rampaged off after Inquisitor Malafoso, severely wounding him and forcing him to fall back. What a guy!

Meanwhile, Magos Fract opened and read the ancient scroll, learning powerful lore on how to bind the deamon, but before he could pass this information on (via the team’s comm net), one of Malafoso’s men leapt on him from atop the ruins and rendered him unconscious. The unsanctioned psyker, Maledict Strange, then used the power of his diseased mind to choke the assailant (Pinning him for 3 Turns) and managed to revive Magos Fract.

Elsewhere, Quarr himself was keeping his men in line, providing them with re-rolls on leadership checks through sheer force of personality (Dark Charisma skill), while also finding time to restrain and torture another of the Imperial lackeys, managing to learn the identity of the masked inquisitor.

Towards the end of the game the daemon appeared. Quarr and his servants had the ruins pretty well secured by now, but with only 10 wounds, a 5+ save and a penchant for attacking the nearest character on either side, the daemon might be killed at any moment. Quarr used his Fast Talk skill to convince the daemon he was not its enemy, thus persuading it (temporarily) not to attack his team, before launching himself at it and grappling with it. Although the daemon managed to break free and attack the unlucky Oberunt the Worm, the mysterious Maledict Strange hurled himself into the fray and successfully bound the daemon with the very last dice roll of the game!

Result: Complete victory to the forces of darkness! The ruinous powers favoured their most brutal of servants this day, and the brazen dogs of Inquisitor Malafoso were forced to run away and lick their wounds.

Sadly, Slaught did not recover from his wounds and died (there is a post-game table for characters who go below -10 wounds, and I got unlucky with my rolling). My comms operator Braxus Spect joined him on the charnel-pile, but all Quarr said was, “So? The Blood God has his due. Send me more meat!”

I got plenty of XP from that game, so my guys will have a few new skills and cunning tricks up their sleeve the next time the dark gods send for them

A quick look at the kitbashed Shrine of the Aquila I am working on. This one uses some bits from the Bastion kit to fortify the base. The platform at the front is scratchbuilt from foamcore and other bits and pieces. I have some Basilica sets to do the ruined interior of the Shrine with.

I also have everything in duplicate, so this will be one of a pair. They will join up to make a single, enormous terrain piece, or can be used separately.

The other models are just there for scale.