This session began immediately after the last one ended. With the Burgomaster lying dead, slain by the parties ranger under the control of Strahd. The fair Ireena huddled over his body in tears, and the party as a whole somewhat in shock.
I grew up playing 2nd edition D&D, and my two favorite worlds were the deserts of DarkSun and the mists of Ravenloft. So when our group’s DM decided he wanted to take a break, I stepped in to take the party to the gothic horror realm of Barovia with my take on the fifth edition Curse of Strahd module.
Episode 3: Shot in the Dark
In the small and dusty town of Groundhaul our crew members saunter through a pair of saloon doors. Immediately upon entering the drinking establishment three drunken locals, clearly miners by the dirt on their rugged clothes, pick a fight. They loudly complain about too many claim jumping outsiders around of late.
Episode 2: Pie-th-on
We open with The Carl hurtling towards the edge of Persephone’s gravity well so that it might begin a full burn towards its next destination. The crew, sans the Engineer and his wife, sit around the large table in the lounge, at the aft end of the ship. M is attempting to keep the details regarding the child in the crate quiet. However Dr Yuan-Qi has very strong feelings about protecting children from harm and demands answers. The private eye finally reveals that he is reuniting Zenith with her mother and knowing any more would put them all at great risk. Zenith’s reaction to M seemed to corroborate this, she was happy to see M and is currently resting in his cabin.
I have a backlog of Warhammer 40k posts to compose and post. For now how about a summary of a session of the Firefly RPG? This marks my return to running RPGs after three or four years off. The total player count is eight but only six were able to attend this first session, which was somewhat of a relief! I hope to post a follow up to this soon, with some relevant details of the crew members.
Episode 1: Where the F— is Valentine?
The episode opens late afternoon at the Eavesdown Docks on Persephone. The crew has just landed, eager to take care of their planet-side business.
M and Bobbi head to a local ship outfitters, Redworth Provisioners. They interact with the proprietor, one Hugh Bowery, and with Doctor Yuan-Qi’s generous accounts they have no problem securing their supplies.
Valentine heads off to attend to his own business. Including a nice (relatively) meal, a bath, and a shave and trim for his mandarin style goatee.
Grace retires to her quarters after successfully landing the ship, to entertain herself. With the ship on the ground and the engines shut off Graden takes the opportunity to tackle various inspection and maintenance tasks.
Joleen escorts the Doctor to obtain various biomedical supplies, to make sure the wealthy Core Worlder avoids trouble of the local variety.
As night begins to fall word has spread that there is a rich ship in the local berths. The local gang moves to collect their due.
In the ruins of a former Imperial world on the edge of the great Warp rift known to the Orks as Mork’s Grin, the warband of Zagbad Tankkrusher searches for an ancient power source, a task set to him by his master Warboss Gorzag Shadbrac. Unbeknownst to him, Chaos too searches the ruins for some unknown prize.
Fractured Kingdom
Weeks of planetary bombardment have broken the crust of the planet. Relics of an ancient kingdom rise, emanating immense power, as the land sinks. The sleeping guardians awake to defend what is eternally theirs.
The Heldrake has a special place in my heart. I’m not exactly sure why but ever since I saw that first artwork and conceived to implement it on the tabletop I’ve been in to this foul hell beast. Now that my army has been trending Nurgle and Death Guard I plan to build a set of three kit bashed drakes. I’ll primarily be using two Heldrake kits and one Terrorgheist. The Terrorgheist has also been on my list for a long time, since I saw it in a White Dwarf years ago.
So much more sculpting to do. Next will be that fleshy mass on the upper spine. The tail will be a mass of cables impaling some unfortunate enemy.
You can check out my google photos gallery for more pictures. I’ll be adding future progress pics there as well.
Introduction
With the leaks of 8th edition floating around everywhere and the release just around the corner, we couldn’t wait to get a game in. I quickly prepped some of my favorite unites and some stuff I never play, while Will prepped a lot of his newest stuff. Curious about the Power Level system, we elected to use it and built our armies at Power Level 60. In effect I think it felt like about 1850 in 7th edition.
It’s been a while since I wrote a batrep, so I kept forgetting to take pictures of the board setup, and I didn’t take notes of exactly what happened.
We played the basic mission and rather than role the objective, we selected Dominion. We also setup on my smallish dining table with a play space of about 3’x4′. We decided to play along long edges, and since my army was slightly lower power level (2 points difference), I was the Underdog and got to choose whether to go first. So, first I went.
Dominion calls for setting up 4 objectives, 2 per player placed in an alternating fashion. These are scored at the end of each player’s turn. We placed them roughly in the corners of the map. Unfortunately, I placed mine in spots that were hard to control for both of us.
Blood Angels
I hadn’t looked at the rules for any of his stuff so I really didn’t know what to expect. I figured a mix of light and heavy weapons and some strong melee should serve both as an all takers army, and as a good test of many of the new mechanics. Corbulo and Lemartes should help the Death Company stay alive and hit hard, and the Assault Squad in the Razorback should serve as a good anti armor unit. The Scouts should do their job to kill characters, and the Stormraven can mop up whatever is left.
- Brother Corbulo
- Lemartes
- Death Company x10 (Plasma Pistols & Chainswords)
- Assault Squad x5 (4x Plasma Pistols & Chainsword, 1 Eviscerator)
- Razorback (Lascannon, Twin Plasmaguns & Stormbolter)
- Scouts x5 (Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks)
- Stormraven (Twin Assaultcannon, Hurrican Bolters, Typhoon Missile Launcher)
Assault Squad embarked on the Razorback, and Lemartes and the Death Company flying around in the air.
Inquisition
Will brought a lot of anti-psyker and heavy armor. The Custodes in particular had me a little worried.
- Inquisitor Grayfax
- Custodial Guard (3x Guardian Spears & Custodes Vexila)
- Sisters of Silence Vigilators
- Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought
- Venerable Land Raider
- Scout Squad x5 (Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks)
- Null-maiden Rhino
Custodial Guard embarked on the Land Raider, and the Sisters embarked on the Rhino.
I’d been working on this on and off for roughly three years. Nearly every step of the project was something I’d never attempted before. Casting, sculpting, weathering. The hardest to overcome was the procrastination, but here it is. Finally!
