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Newsletter July 2001 |
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Newsletter July 2001 |
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Next meeting:
Saturday July 14th 2001, at St. Johns Church Hall, Norrie St., Drury, starting at 9a.m.
Games arranged:
Morning session: 9.30 am to 1.00pm
| Peter Colson v Glenn C | WHFB | 2000 points |
| Andrew McGill v Damien Neems | WHFB | 2000 points |
| Wade Mitchell v Antony Hurndell | WHFB | 1000 points |
| Alan H v Chris P | WHFB | 2500 points |
| Kevin Carberry v Arthur Young | Rapidfire | Recon |
Afternoon session: 1.30pm to 5.00pm
| Andrew McGill v Wade Mitchell | WHFB | 1000 points |
| Chris P v Glenn C | WHFB | 1000 points |
| Bryan Orsbourne v Robert "Dictator" Davies | WHFB | 2000 points |
| Kevin Carberry v Noel Tobin | Rapidfire | 1000 points |
| Arthur Young, Ken Snow | Rapidfire | 1000 points |
| Peter Colson, Damien Neems, Antony Hurndell | Mordheim |
Copy for the news letter needs to be to me by week before we meet .- Kevin
| Well, I’ll start this with the obligatory Rumours section. |
| High Elves are close to getting released. |
| Apparently, High Elf characters will all be toughness 3, and have access to Magic Items and Abilities at a 20% discount. |
| In addition to his other spells, a High Elf mage has access to "Drain Magic", which has three casting values and tampers with an opponents successful power dice. |
| "Intrigue at Court" - before the battle, the general is determined randomly. Now this has been causing quite a stir, as people don’t want their general to be randomly determined. However, the Elves have supposedly had three trial army lists written up, and this rule is the only one that has been present in all of them. As far as I know, the way the general is determined is you get all your characters and line them up. Lords go first, and then on to heroes. You roll a D6 and go that far down the line. If you roll a number that has no character allocated to it (because you have less than six characters) you get to choose who your general is. As in most 2000 point games the most likely number of characters will be four, you have a 50% chance of the guy you want leading to lead. |
| All High Elves are "Disciplined" - they may turn, or add up to two ranks AND move normally. |
| Citizen Levy - Spears can still fight in three ranks, Archers no longer get it. |
| Swordmasters do not get "Killing Blow", but instead strike in order of initiative with their Great Weapons. |
| Phoenix Guard cause Fear. |
| All High Elves are "Immune to Panic" when facing Dark Elves. |
| Of course, these are just rumours, so we’ll have to wait and see about what actually DOES end up in the book. |
| However, I AM certain that there will be new models. |
| Namely, a nice set of plastics for Spearmen (look absolutely AWESOME, blows the old spearmen out of the water) and likely a set for the Silver Helm cavalry also. |
| AFFORDABLE ARMIES! HURRAH!!! |
| Also, the new game, Inquisitor, is finally out. |
| We can all appreciate that the miniatures are absolutely beautiful, albeit costly. |
| The game itself… |
| Well, it is on a level of detail never seen before. It makes Necromunda look like checkers as far as detail goes. |
| The major drawback is that the rulebook is damn near impenetrable! |
| Even the basic rules would give most gamers a bit of difficulty. You’d have to devote a week to studying these rules before attempting to understand how the game works, and a successful game will probably only occur if both you, your opponent, and the Games Master ALL have an in-depth, comprehensive understanding of the rules |
| This game doesn’t appear to be taking off here in New Zealand. |
| Now, onto club matters. |
YE OLDE WARHAMMER FANTASY TOURNAMENT |
| I am considering running a Fantasy tournament this December. |
| At present, we’re looking at a 1,500 tournament, with all the options and restrictions thereof. |
| The list used must be from the army’s Army Book if it has been released, or from the Ravening Hoards book if no proper Army Book has been released. The Lizardmen must use the updated list from the White Dwarf. If you are unable to get this list, I can provide it for you. |
| The optional ‘special’ army lists at the back of the Army Books may be used if you consult with me prior to the tournament. |
| Although nothing is yet set-in-stone, so to speak, what I hope to happen will follow |
| The tournament will hopefully enable four games in a day. If not, I’ll settle for three (chances are it will be a three-game tournament really) |
| People will be scored on their games (how well you play, how much you win/lose by), their army composition (a force consisting entirely of Chaos Knights won’t really get that good an Army Composition score), Sportsmanship (how sporting the you are, how you conduct yourself), and finally, your painting (speaks for itself). |
| Apart from your game score (victory points and whether or not you won) all the other scores are confidential, and you won’t know how well you did in them until the end of the tournament. |
| I will NOT have a repeat of the sportsmanship BRIBERY that took place in the 40K tournament. Score this all honestly, your opponent will never find out until it’s too late. |
| The closer we get to December, the more clearly I will explain everything |
| And as for prizes, well, I haven’t talked with the SAMWC financial consultant yet, but I’[m sure there’ll be a good prize up for grabs (but who cares about prizes? The chance to humiliate your opponents with a crushing defeat is the REAL reason, isn’t it?) |
| And seeing as this thing is 6months away (or round about that long) it gives you ample time to trash-talk and idly threaten your opponents. |
| Please give your opinions to me, I want to make this even more successful than the 40K tournament, and it’s up to you guys to tell me what you want (apart from the prize, that’s a given). |
CAMPAIGNING!!! |
| Okay, you know your humble sub-editor is getting bored when he decides to organise TWO events at the same time. |
| I’m thinking of running a fantasy campaign, much akin to the one described in the 5th Edition Battle Book (that system looks like it would work better than the example given in the 6th Edition rulebook, and I think I’ve adapted it quite well). |
| I have no specific time to start this campaign, but if I get enough support, I could even kick it off at the August meeting! |
| If you are interested, talk to me at the July meeting, I’ve been wanting a Fantasy Campaign for quite some time, and I’m sure it’ll be fun |
| Your humble sub-editor |
| Peter |
Battle Reports
Peter Colson and Marcel (sorry if I spelled your name wrong) ORKS, beat Paul Kravenko Dark Angels |
| "WOTZ ALL DIS DEN?" the blood-axe boss bellowed. |
| "Dere’s a bunch of Orks wot fink dey’z gonna attack da beekees, boss" one of Grimboss Grubrukk’s subordinates proffered. "They’z Goffs, boss" |
| "Zog it, I ain’t letting no Goffs mess up my straterjy!" the hulking boss muttered as he stalked through the forest to the source of the disturbance. |
| "ORRIGHT! Wot wun of ya naff runts is da boss ‘ere?" Grubrukk barked at the assembled Goff orks. |
| A large, scarred ork in a mechanical exoskeleton stepped forward, gears grinding inside his armour. |
| "I is da boss ‘ere" he said, "I’m da goff war-" |
| "Shuddup!" Grubrukk cut him off. "I’ve got only one thing ter say to ya-" |
| WHACK! The Blood Axe boss grabbed the Goff by the neck of his shirt and pulled him in close to deliver a crushing head-butt. |
| "-you got that, or does I needs ter tell ya again?" |
| Green blood beginning to trickle out of the goffs nose, he nodded and said "Got it boss" |
| "Right, it’s sorted!" Grubrukk dusted his hands together, showing that the situation was resolved and it’s time to get down to business. |
| A little later the lead orks were poring over a battle-map scratched into the ground with a stick. |
| "Right, dat’s gunna be da plan" Grubrukk concluded. |
| The Goff boss snorted derisively at the mention of the word ‘plan’. Grubrukk glared at him daggers, and the goff hurriedly looked away, with a sullen expression on his face. |
| "I made it easy for you, goff" Grubrukk said, voice simply dripping with sarcasm, "All you’z gotta do is guard da basilisk. Easy" |
| The goff only grunted sourly. |
| As the Orks scurried through the undergrowth, one of the goffs tapped a blood-axe on the shoulder. |
| "Why’z you wearin’ dat shirt wot is green an’ brown?" the puzzled goff asked |
| "It’s cammyflage" the blood-axe replied, as if explaining that water is wet, "it’s green an’ brown like da forest so da beekees won’t know wots forest and wots Orks to shoot at, yer see" |
| "But then why’z yer gun got yeller on it? Trees ain’t yeller, da beekees’ll see yer gun and shoot at yer" |
| "Da beekees’ll shoot at my gun den, not me, stoopid!" |
| "Oh" the somewhat flawed logic impressed itself upon the goffs mind and for some reason convinced him it made sense. |
| "I fink I’ll just stick ter me black meself" the goff concluded. |
| "Suit yerself, but if yer get shot and die, don’t come crying ter me like some weedy grot" |
| A short while after, Ork scouts hurried back to the main body to advise their boss on the situation ahead |
| "Boss, da beekees is over da next ridge. Dey don’t even know we’z ‘ere" |
| "Good. You get a look at wot dey’z got den, sarjint?" |
| "Yessir!" the ork ‘sergeant’ saluted the boss. |
| "Well wot’s we up against?" |
| "Well boss, dey’z got tankz-" |
| "Tankz?" |
| "Yeah, dey’z got da big one wot ‘as da big laskannonz, and da ‘eavy bolterz in da top. And dey’z got da one wiff da big battlekannon, yer know, the one wot don’t fire as far but ‘as more dakka in it?" |
| "Yeah, da vindaloo I fink" |
| "Yeah, dat one. Well, dey’z got a dreddy too. And dere be two beekee mobs, both got…" the ork counted how many fingers he had up, "…more den dis. And dey’z got a speeda too". The blood-axe shuddered. Flight. The beekees had to be crazy! Only a fool would agree to flying, it wasn’t natural. If Orks were meant to fly, Mork and Gork would’ve given them wings. |
| "Orright, soundz easy dis. Okay, run an’ tell da mob, we’z gonna need da anti-tank, da field artillery, da special issue mob, and we might as well bring in da grunts too, get the runtherd and ‘is grots out ‘ere" |
| At this point the Goff boss broke in with an angry whisper |
| "Why aren’t yer using all da ladz?" |
| "Dis is why I’M da boss yer idjit! Dere ain’t dat many beekeez, but dey’z got tankz, and if dey’z got tankz, dey can call up dere bosses and tell dem wotz up if a big mob of Orkz attacks dem. Dey’ll alert uvverz if dey fink it’z a invasion. If I send in sum Orkz, a small mob of dem, we can stomp dem beekees wiffout dem finking dey need ter call da uvvers, and if dey don’t call da uvvers, den nobody will know what we’z got until it’s too late, see?" |
| The goff warboss grudgingly admitted to the intelligence of it. Gimboss Grubrukk hadn’t got to be the chief taktikal advizer to Warlord Tuffgitt Badskaga by being stupid. |
| "Right ladz, yer remember yer orders?" |
| "Kill da beekees, don’t get shot" one of the assembled Orks replied just back from the edge of the forrest. |
| "Good, we’z gonna just sit out dere and give ‘em a taste of good old Orky dakka dakka dakka, okay boyz?" |
| "Right boss" |
| "Right, orright, CHARGE!" |
| With a resounding WAAAAAGH! The orks erupted from the forest, melting into the clearing as if appearing from nowhere. It’s amazing how useful green skin is in a forest. |
| The orks immediately dug in their boots and let fly with their guns, while the field artillery was quickly attached to their firing bases ready to unload into the space marine lines. |
| The gretchin cannon-fodder was pushed forward towards the marine lines, hoping to drag attention away from the other Orks. |
| A small group of orks armed with rocket launchers crept forward, and opened fire on the Vindicator tank, but unfortunately missed the tank completely, rockets exploding harmlessly in the dirt around it. Unfortunately this drew the attention of the tank to the rocket-bearing orks, and all but one fell to the deadly explosion from the huge siege-shell it lobbed at them. |
| The basilisk let rip with a roar, aiming toward the offending vindicator tank. Unfortunately, the shell was blown off-target by the wind, and impacted off to the left side of the tank, missing it completely, but not to no effect, as a single space marine was caught in the blast and had his internal organs spread about a five metre radius. |
| The ork field artillery drew a bead on the increasingly stubborn Space Marine tank, and fired, two shells managing to score direct hits! One, unfortunately, bounced off the armour, and the second blew off the tracks, immobilising it, but not lessening its effectiveness in the slightest. |
| At the command of the battle-educated warboss Grimboss Grubrukk, the ork flash gits, and ‘command HQ’ opened fire with their weaponry, mowing down one of the squads of marines in next to no time. |
| The orks laughed in glee as their weapons kicked-back with wild force as countless high-powered bullets streaked towards the imperial lines. |
| The land raider and land speeder on the marines left flank advanced cautiously towards better firing positions, managing to gun-down a few goffs, but nothing dramatic in all. |
| The dreadnought stalked ominously forward, and blew off the arm of one of Grubrukk’s most trusted lieutenants with its plasma cannon. Grubrukk called on a ‘medic’ to fix the nob up. Nodding, the pain-boy tied the orks arteries shut, burned the exposed veins and capillaries away, and sewed the tough leathery skin remaining on the orks’ arm up. Further work would probably occur, maybe a bionic arm with an even faster power-claw, or maybe a built-in mega-blasta, or maybe a detacheable exploding arm… |
| Whilst his attention was elsewhere, Grubrukks prized basilisk was destroyed by the space marine landraider, probably. Most distressing, Grubrukk thought to himself. Most distressing. |
| Out of nowhere a blue shimmering light materialised into the forms of Deathwing terminators led by a black-armoured Chaplain. As they appeared near the goff mob, they opened up with their weapons, killing a couple of the orks, but not making a dent on the mobs morale. Suddenly alerted to the presence of the heavily armoured marines, the goffs surrounded them, levelling a couple with their bolt pistols, and then tearing apart the remaining two, and the chaplain, with their weighty choppers. |
| The Vindicator fell to the shell of one of the ork field artillery pieces in short order, exploding in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics as the ammunition detonated inside the hull, to much cheering from the Orks lines. |
| By this time the marine dreadnought had engaged the gretchin in combat, and started killing indiscriminately, but failing to kill the runt-herd. They held, and the goff boss took the moment to charge into combat with the hulking form of the dreadnought, and tear it asunder with his mighty power claw! |
| All that was left to do was shoot down the land speeder, land raider, and remaining tactical squad of marines. |
| Grubrukk noted that he could most quickly achieve the downfall of the marines or speeder, but the marines could potentially lay down more fire. |
| The marines were quickly reduced to one marine, and a librarian. Foolishly they charged the Orks, and the librarian fell to the solid hand-to-hand ability of the ork nobs and their ‘kombat knives’ |
| The remaining marine withdrew, and was swiftly gunned down by Orks |
| And now they turned their sights to the land raider and speeder. The only two remaining pieces of the marine army, in the face of an ork army minus only one small unit and one tank. |
| Things were looking pretty grim for the dark angels, oh yes… |
Peter Colson Middenheimers beat Wade Mitchell Orcs |
| "Captain Odin, sir, there’s greenskins up ahead" |
| "I know Hamish, I can smell them" captain Odin grunted sourly. "Greenscum again, this is getting to be a habit. Alright you lot, you know the drill, there’s treasure here somewhere, I want a full detail search, split up in groups of twos or threes, I want that loot found NOW!" |
| Like a well-oiled machine, the hard-bitten mercenaries leaped into action. Hamish and Kurt scaled the walls of the closest building to hand, and set up behind cover, ready to assassinate anyone important looking, while the hired Tilean marksman found another building to cover fire from. |
| Erik, the berserk Norseman, accompanied by Old Thom and a few of the others, made a mad dash towards the closest ruin, ferreting through the debris and loose boards, in search of the treasure supposedly in the area. The rest ran for the large coaching inn to their left. |
| As dictated by Murphy’s Law, what you seek will ALWAYS be in the last place you look, and so the bounty was not to be found within the buildings searched then. |
| A massive thunderhead cloud gathered above the poor quarter of this forgotten district of the damned town of Mordheim. |
| The men gathered felt chills in their spines. A little water never hurt anyone, but a little water laced with acid might, as many have learned |
| As the winds shifted, a massive, thunderous boom of thunder (funny that…) echoed over the ruins, and from the clouds fell a multitude of slimy wet fish! |
| Braining a particularly large fish, Captain Odin muttered an unsavoury comparison between the rain of fish and the last brothel he had frequented… |
| …Recovering quickly from his surprise, the orc shaman boasted to his mob "I’z called fish from da sky to enku… incum… encome… to slow down da ‘umies!" |
| "Next time call down sumfin wot don’t slow US down too, you idjit!" the orc boss growled at the rather unconvincing Shaman, before setting off, with some degree of difficulty, towards the nearest building. Several of his cronies followed suit, but all found nothing of value, and an abundance of fish. |
| Poking his head around a corner, Odin quickly drew back with a start. |
| "Ulric’s Teeth they’re close. Perrin, I’m going to get you to sprint to that tower in the middle of the square out there, do you think you can do that, lad?" the youngster nodded in assurance "Good, if you get in any trouble, that door looks solid. You lock it, and bar it tight, you hear? If you want to help, there’s plenty of arrow slits, and a battlement at the top you can use your bow from. I don’t hire men to die, remember that." The boy nodded again. |
| "Now go!" |
| Young Perrin sprinted to the courtyard tower, wrenched open the door, and slammed it behind him. |
| After a minute or two of frantic ransacking, he gave up the search and opened the door again… |
| …and stepped into sheer and utter chaos. |
| There were goblins EVERYWHERE! |
| Orcs with bows, and goblins too, were lining the windows at the far end of the courtyard. There were goblins with large, wickedly barbed spears rushing in between cover in the courtyard too, and some strange looking creatures seemingly composed entirely of teeth, legs, and muscle between, were slavering and biting at some of his compatriots. Before he fully realised the situation, one of the strange creatures leapt up the tower steps, lunging to bite him, but stumbled and tripped on one of the steps. Righting its footing, the red ball of teeth and maliciousness growled and tensed its legs, ready to jump. A sudden explosion of movement from the little round killing machine caused young Perrin Aybara to flinch and throw up his arms protectively, eyes closed and waiting for the inevitable feeling of sharp teeth piercing skin. |
| When he opened his eyes, what he saw was the homicidal squig pinned to the step by Odin Alfather’s sword. |
| "Now lad" said he "I told you not to get yourself killed, didn’t I?" Odin flashed a sarcastic but good-humoured grin as the boy nodded, and then turned to duck behind an upturned cart for cover from the orc archers above the square. Perrin jumped behind the tower steps and raised his bow… |
| "Cor’ blimey, dat looks ‘eavy" the large orc muttered to itself as he looked upon the treasure chest he’d stumbled upon. "Da boss is gonna be ‘appy wiff dis" |
| The orc grabbed one of the handles on the end of the chest and made to drag it out of the tavern. With a sharp metallic CLINK! The handle broke clean off, and the orc crashed onto its posterior with a loud "ZOG!" |
| Grumbling to himself, the orc laid his halberd on top of the chest, went around to the other side, and started pushing with all his might. The chest laboriously scraped across the floorboards and out the door. This was going to be a while |
| After several minutes of punishing exertion, the result of which left the treasure chest about 20 meters from the tavern, the orcs concentration was broken by a streaking green figure travelling at a great rate of knots. A moment or two later, he was once more distracted by another high-speed green figure. |
| The orc turned around in time to be trampled by a wall of his green-skinned companions. |
| Dusting himself off, he arose to survey the situation. Upon closer inspection of the large number of humans making their way through the courtyard, the orc weighed up the value of his vital organs and appendages in gold, and found it to be in excess of what the treasure chest had to offer. |
| Hasty retreat, excellent course of action. |
| As the mercenaries gathered around the chest, Odin inspected the lock. |
| "Althalus, you’re a thief, you should be able to shimmy this lock open. Give it a go" |
| Althalus stepped up to the chest, spent a minute studying the lock, then turned to his captain. |
| "I’ve seen this type of lock before, I think I know a way of picking it that’s completely infallible. You’ll have to watch carefully, it’s an intricate process" |
| He raised his massive hammer, and brought it down with a resounding CRACK!!! And the lock fell away in pieces |
| "That’s all a bit too complicated for the likes of me" Captain Odin muttered dryly as his men began to fish around the contents of the chest. |
This newsletter is edited by Kevin Carberry so anything you would like included in the newsletter should be sent to me at 48 Beaumonts way, Manurewa, South Auckland. Phone 2670319, kevin@profax.co.nz
Robert "Dictator" Davies is the Club President so any queries, problems, issues or suggestions about the club should go to him at 14 Grebe Street, Manurewa. Phone 2670899.