Happy Holidays from The Basement

Before I get things started, I wanted to offer up my thoughts and prayers to those affected by the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. With two small children of my own I can't imagine the sorrow and grief those families must be experiencing.

With Christmas being right around the corner, the busyness of the season in in full swing. Parties, plays, parades, you name it, all kinds of wonderful events. Hence the reason for the tardiness between postings.

In our household Christmas is a season of spending time family and with your loved ones. Being believers in the "Big Guy upstairs" .....God :-) we also take time to celebrate Christ's birth. Leading up to the big day our girls are getting anxious for the arrival of Santa.

For those with small kids and may not have seen this yet but there is a website called Portable North Pole. At this site you can upload a few pictures of your child and enter a few details and it creates a personalized video of Santa talking to your child. When I showed this to the girls they were besides themselves! "Santa is talking to me!" Emma said at one point in disbelief.

It is with that in mind and the inspiration from a follow blogger Rab that I take you to an afternoon of gaming with my eldest daughter Emma.

Emma has always asked about my "little men" or "little toys" and has shown interest. One afternoon while her sister was napping and her Mother was running errands I introduced her to Daddy's gaming world. Here is how the afternoon went.

I sent up the board with a few houses and trees and then let Emma choose a few models to use. Much to my surprise she chose the half painted Legion of Everblight Abbott model and a doggie to act as our own dog Abby.

Now it was time to get started. I noticed quickly that she enjoyed rolling different types of dice so I decided to my own spin on the D20 system. It should be noted that no model was harmed in this game and their were no deaths to wolves, spiders or people. The object was to try and "tickle" the wolves and spiders to make them happy. She is only four after all :-) 

The first thing Emma wanted to do was head to the house to see what "Mommy" was making for supper. While on her way two sad wolves came into town. Emma felt bad for them and wanted to cheer them up.

But she was shy and called her "Dad" (Me) to help. Its quite amazing what you will find out about your child by spending sometime having fun with them :-)

Once she seen that the wolves were nice she decided help in the tickle fight.

After this supper was ready (in game), Emma finished her meal and then went back outside. When she was playing in the backyard two sad spiders showed up that needed to be cheered up and this time she wasn't shy at all.

She decided she wanted to help the spiders all by herself, with Abby. At the end of the day she had fun and I did as well. She enjoyed rolling the d20 to hit the target to be able to tickle it. Then she rolled D6 or D8 to see how happy they became. Suffice to say it was fun to see the game through the eyes of my four year old daughter.

This will probably be my last post until the new year. With family and friends gathering it will be far to busy, but who knows I maybe able to sneak a short post.

But until then Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, Season Greetings and have a wonderful New Year.


Tenz

Impetus Teutonic Order: Veteran Order

Having 4 units of light cavalry completed I thought it was time to move on to my heavy units, specifically my Veteran order with general, Ulrich Victoris. This was my first attempt at horses with comparisons. I am happy with the end results.

The crosses were my first attempt at free hand. I have to say that more practice is definitely needed. It was much tougher then I anticipated.

The order is steadily growing and I am looking forward to fielding these units.

Thanks for looking,

Tenz

Delves Adventure Three: The Lost Goblin

Last weekend a few of us were able to get together for the third installment of our Delves adventuring. Due to some last minute business complications a few of the players were unable to make it. But the show must go on. To circumvent the issue Jason and Mark played two characters each.

Jason brought Hrothgar the Wild Slayer.

Mark brought Elowen the Wizard.

The players picked up where they left off, returning the surviving townsfolk back to Ironridge. After the townsfolk were safely with their families Alyanna and Orin went looking for information on their missing goblin comrade.

After talking to the guardsman the players find out the Capt has been missing and has been acting strangely. They find the crazy ole kook Madame Zaga, who was babbling of the end of days and evil being in town. Shortly after Gareth, the old woodman the characters rescued in the first adventure finds them. He brings information that Gor-Don was taken to the Webbed forest. Wasting no time the heroes, accompanied with Gareth set out to find their goblin ally.

When the adventures arrived at the edge of the Webbed forest Gareth informed them that he was unable to track them any further. Orin  then surveyed the area and was able to pick up the trail, and followed it deeper into the woods.

The Heroes arrived at a clearing, where they saw giant spiders and what looked like Gor-Don cocooned in the center.  They could also see a cultist and the captain of the guard discussing something by a cavern entrance.

The party rushed into battle to meet the many legged creatures head on. But the cultist and the Captain quickly evaded into the cavern.

The spiders proved to be more of a challenge then expected for Orin. Alyanna advanced to aid the ranger. Gareth was having troubles of his own with the Brood Mother and was immobilized by her webbing.

 The battle raged on until Hrothgar was able to cut a giant spider in half. Momentum seemed to shift as the Wild Slayer stared down the Brood Mother. With the aid of Alyanna the two were able to defeat the wretched Brood Mother. Orin and Elowen made short work of the remaining creepy crawler.

The adventures released Gor-don from his cocoon but find the goblin was weak and wounded. Gareth offered to take Gor-Don back to Ironridge for assistance and the two leave the party to return to town. (Ken who plays Gor-Don, was one of the players unable to make it).

The others take chase after the Captain and the cultist into the cavern.

The heroes arrived underground to find a horde of skeletons and mercenaries advancing toward them. "You fools, you will never stop us!" The cultist hissed from the back of the cavern.

Seeing the enemies strength was in numbers, Orin loosed multiple arrows, dropping three of the mercenaries. Hrothgar charged the remaining mercs swinging his axe wildly, carving up a number of the them. The skeletal warriors marched on the wild slayer surrounding him.

As the adventures were locked in the heat of battle the Captain and the cultist used the magical gateway to make their escape. "You fools played right into our trap. Now Ironridge will fall!" The cultist screamed.

With the news of a trap, the Heroes push the intensity of the battle. Elowen called forth her magical prowess and struck the skeletal horde with her magical lightning. The effect rippled through the horde crumbling a number of then where they stood. Alyanna sang the song of the moon and banished those that remained.

The remaining mercenaries fled in any direction they could find and our Heroes hurried to the magical device. "Hmm, interesting....how did they......Ahhh, inscriptions....Summa, Summma Lamma Tuiss" Elowen investigated the gateway and discovered its secrets.

The adventures gathered together while Elowen launched the magical gateway and teleported them to another destination.

.

The adventures were ported to the outskirts of Ironridge were the cultists were invading the town in full force. Innocent civilians were seen running in horror from the attack.

Hrothgar wasted no time to aid the town and charged the Earth Elemental. With one mighty blow the wild slayer crushed the elemental sending it back to the ground from which it came. The Captain and another cultist entered the fray with Hrothgar.

The cult leader Valek and his guardsman advanced the bridge bringing death the crazy Madame Zaga.

Alyanna and Elowen focused on the Captain taking him down and discovering him as an imposter. Hrothgar attempted to protect one of the townsfolk but the cultists arrow was deathly true.

Valek and his guardsman continued to the town keep were he bashed at the door with a crazed strength.

Hrothgar and Orin dashed to the bridge only to be intercepted a cultist and Valek's guardsman. A deadly accurate arrow proved more then the guardsman could handle.

Alyanna brought down her sword of light on the vile cultist ending its existence and continued to the injured civilians to offer magical healing. Orin ran to the keep to intercept Valek, but not before the cult leader was able to gain entry into the building. With a shout of battle rage Hrothgar smashed his axe over the head of the last cultist, cracking hit skull wide open.

The Wild Slayer and Ranger rushed to the keep but not in time. The ground shook and the sky grew dark with the clouds hazed in a redish glow.

A foul scream was heard from the top of the keep. "Mortals...the dark one lives, nothing can stop us."

The creature screamed again in a chaotic frenzy and took to the sky. Orin rose his bow and loosed an arrow at the dark winged being. The arrow hit only to bounce off the creatures hide. The creature continued on its path over the horizon.

Alyanna, Orin and the others aided the injured civilians. They discovered that an ancient artifact was buried under the keep and it must have been what Valek was after.

"Have you seen Gor-don or Gareth?" Alyanna asked the others......

I would have had this post up sooner but our family was celebrating the arrival of my niece Eve, who was born December 6 @ 10:17. 5lbs 6 ounces. I am one proud uncle!

Thanks for reading,


Tenz

GS Delves Resources

A quick post for today. This little treasure arrived on Friday, just in time for our Delves game. (Adventure post coming later this week) The book is top notch and extremely well done. (Mr Pyle and Co. have really out done themselves.) So much so that some fellow geeks in our gaming group will be ordering their own copy.

Since I started in on my Delves project I have created monsters, adventures, powers and of course painted many models. I figured it was time for me to share the wealth. With that in mind I created a Delves resource page. The intention is to centralize the materials I have used or created for my Delves gaming group.

You will find new monsters, powers, adventures and more. I will update the page with new material as I am able. Feel free to use any of the material provided and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

You can check it out here or by clicking The Delves Project page above.

Thanks for reading.

Chaos in Carpathia: Monsters Vs. Humans

After receiving the latest warband updates from Tom, Jet and I couldn't wait to to try them out.

The Nosferatu was one of the warbands with a major overhaul. They now have an evasive, take out your targets one by one kinda feel. Very skulky and stealthy, which I am a huge fan of.

Because of these changes I wanted to try them out. Enter my Nosferatu vs Jet's Hungarian Monster Hunters. Jet was kind enough to host for the evenings event and here is our playing area.

For objectives on my side of the table their were the statue, the grave and the alchemist table. On Jet's side their was the pagan statue, the lamp post and the old tree stump. The church was the key location.

The interiors for the buildings. The person of interest is located in brown building closest to the bridge.

For secret objectives I had The Hunt, The Score and The Search. For the score I choose Bjorn. Lucian was chosen for the search. Jet had The Search, The Score, and The Rescue. For the score he chose Lucien and for the search he choose Konrad Von Krumm. For campaign cards I had Feat:Resolve and Jet had The Apostate. You can view the rules for the secret objective and campaign cards on Jet's blog here.

Below is how the deployment for the game started. I decided to have Lucian closer to the objectives as I he was my searcher. The rest of the warband was centralized to advance in any direction needed.

Jet deployed most of his warband closer to the person of interest due to having the rescue secret objective.

The rest of his warband was centralized to challenge the oncoming threat.

The game was underway. The first turn Lucien was moved to the statue and claimed a clue from my side of the table. The rest of the warband rushed towards the small band of hunters, including Bjorn, my target for the score.

One ability I like about the Nosferatu is Mind Control. I made good use of this ability having The Baron command a wolf forward to charge one of Jet's hunters and tie them up in melee.

Jet sent the good doctor and Konrad to find clues from the pagan statue. He used this little strategy so I would have to try and guess which one was the actual searcher. Helmet and Ernst were rushed forward to the person of interest.

Seeing Helmet and Erst rushing to the person of interest I sent three of my ghouls to intercept.

 Lazlo and Bjorn were able to take out the wolf I had sent in earlier. I knew I had to keep them on the defensive. The Baron took the form of the Man bat and rushed in after Bjorn. He then ordered his wolf to attack Lazlo with another use of mind control. Ghoul, Chuckals Charlie charged in to aid the wolf against Lazlo.

One of the new abilities for the Nosferatu is Elusive. This allows the vampire to change a extra 3 inchs if the model stays out the enemies line of sight. I was able to use this power to creep up to the corner of the church. From there Lucien used his mind control on Charlie to attack Lazlo which killed the hunter.

While this was happening, Helmet was able to make his way into the building and almost all the way to the person of interest.

Georgie, Nameless and Freddie Three legs all rushed to the building with person of interest only to find the door was locked. Luckily Nameless was able to rip the door down for entry next turn.

Before rushing off to the next objective Lucien used his mind control on the wolf to move and attack Bjorn but was unable to bring the wolf under his control (TN4, Resolve check). Due to the elusive ability and staying out of sight, Lucien was able to almost make it to the objective to search next turn.

Charlie moved to engage Alder and with some marvelous rolls was able to take down the crossbowman. The Baron reverted back to vampire form and with the aid of the wolf was able to slay the slayer Bjorn. (It was a great turn for the Nosferatu). All the while Konrad was sneaking in the background across the river to get to the lampost clue.

Nameless and Georgie rushed into the building to engage Helmet and try and kidnap the person of interest. But Helmet proved too mighty and was able to keep the ghouls at bay.

Erst charged Freddie to prevent him from aiding the other two ghouls inside the building.

 

With the last clue in his grasp Lucian began to search the old tree stump only to come up empty. (What a time to flub a roll!) Viewing this as his chance Jet ran Konrad directly over to Lucien to stop him from searching next turn. The good Doctor after finding a clue at the lamp post charged toward his final objective, only to be headed off by Chuckals and The Baron.

Nameless and Georgie continued their melee with Helmet, but the Slayers resolve would not be broken.

At the beginning of the next turn I knew Lucien had to act to survive.  Unfortunately for me Jet played his Apostate campaign card, which nulled Lucien's activation unless I paid two fate, I only had one. Konrad proceeded to try and slay my vampire only to miss. (Lucky me)

 

After leading the good Doctor to his heavenly home The Baron and the wolf moved to surround the monster hunter leader.

After dealing with Freddie Three Legs, Erst moved into the building to aid his comrade. Helmet used all his resources to try to deal with the ghouls but their endurance proved stronger then expected.

The game then came to a close. The final score for the Nosferatu was four. Two for The Score for taking down Bjorn and two for the hunt. For destroying 50% of the monster hunter's warband while your warband stays above 50%.

The Hungarian Monster Hunters final score was three. One for The Search for obtaining two clues from his side of the table with Konrad. Two for The Rescue for holding the person of interest for two turns.

It was a game I thought I had in the bag until Lucien botched his roll on the search. Then Jet played The Apostate and I started to get nervous. Luckily I was able to hold on for the victory!

The new lists rock! Great job Tom!

P.s. Our next adventure of Delves is scheduled for this weekend. Stay tuned for the adventure recap.

Thanks for reading,

Tenz