Kalyustar's Revenge
Kalyustar paced restlessly in his mausoleum chambers.
Ever since the night of the Sorowmœn, the Rotmoons had vanished, surely flown away on their patched up skyship. That the wood of the Twisted Oak had been wasted in such a way filled the Soulchemist with barely restrained rage.
'But it is just indignation at those orruks' meddling with your efforts that fuels your rage?'
The voice of the Shadeglass Skull came, as always slightly mocking and yet soothing.
"No, old friend. Something else has changed".
'Has it? And what is it?'
"I'm not sure... It is not just the energies of Shyish blewing weaker across the cosmos. Something has taken their place, something far more alive and feral."
'Ah, yes, Soulchemist! Look at those minions of yours that were closer to Ghur in life...'
"The Orruk, the Ogors, even the Gor and the Skaven... they could not stay still. They twitch and jerk, they beat their weapons and shield rhythmically...'
'And don't you hear that same pounding in the aether?'
"I do... and it is that that fuels my rage further".
'And is that not something you should look into?'
"Maybe... but where to start?"
'In Ghur. There is a place they call the Gnarlwood, hiding a great source of power. Could it be that perturbing the aether?'
"That's worth finding out, old friend. We leave the Harrowmark. We move at once for the Haunted Gate".
'Good Soulchemist, good! But remember, even in Ghur, you still serve the Master...'
***
As Kalyustar stepped through the shimmering light of the Haunted Gate a vista of half constructed structures welcomed him. He had heard of the Dawnbringer Crusades, and that seemed one of their outposts. The Orruk, which he had taken with him, immediately jerked forward, as if called by something. That was a clear enough sign that they were in Ghur.
In the distance, he heard a commotion. Human and duardin voices raised high in a quarrel over shares, obbligations and profits. He spotted them, a company of Freeguilders and a crew of Kharadron Overlords, splitting off and lining up on opposite sides of the outpost. They were clearly gearing up to solve their issues with weapons. The Soulchemist was considering to leave them to the futile businesses of the living, but then another sound called his attention.
It was an all too familiar shanty, sung in a tuneless and guttural voice. And though the orruks were far bigger than the Rotmoons and their crew markings unknown to him, Kalyustar knew they belonged to the Ironfang Fleet.
Their captain sprung forward, his Brutes shortly behind, clearly eager to gave a a good thumping to the Freeguilders.
The Freeguilder leader spurred his Demi-gryph, steering it towards the orruks, but his charge was intercepted by a flying Kharadron.
Unhindered, the orruk captain barrelled through a cloud of musket smoke, shouting loud and brash encouragements to his crew. Soon, they were smashing Freeguilders left and right.
Kalyustar saw an opportunity to have some revenge on the orruk pirates, even if that meant giving up his position. In quick succession, he hurled two necrotic bolts against the Kharadron's endrin-rig, sending the duardin spinning to the ground. As he shouted for the Freeguilder to deal with the orruks, a thunderous salvo erupted from the Kharadron lines and engulfed his skeletons.
The Demi-gryph pounded towards the orruk captain and his rider's spear slammed onto the brute's broad chest.
Kalyustar needed more time to see his plan coming to fruition, but the Kharadron were still pouring aether-shots towards him. So he sent Grond forward to soak up the incoming fire.
Finally, the orruk captain fell under the Demi-gryph's claws and beak. His crew immediately lost their will to fight and withdrew.
Kalyustar laughed manically, while the Kharadron kept firing on him. The Soulchemist ducked for cover, summoning his minions to his side and leaving humans and duardins to fight over the Dawnbringer outpost.
He had had what he wanted, and revenge never had tasted so sweet to him.
Return to Rainy Manchester
As I had said a couple of months ago, even though I had left Manchester, the plan to meet with Saul and Lee at Warhammer Fest had been in the making for far longer.
So, on a typically grey Mancunian morning on Saturday 29th April, we crossed each other as the queue to the event snaked back on itself. And then, we had a great three days of modelling, gaming and general geekyness.
Saul's already published about the event and now it's my turn to give a summary. Over the next few days I'll post narrative battle reports of the games we had.
Day 1: Hobby Challenge & Multiplayer Warcry
I had bought the ticket for the Hobby Challenge, so as soon as I was inside (about 8.30ish) I rushed for it and, once I had collected my Event Exclusive Darkoath Chieftain, I was among the first browsing the mountain of sprues available on the day.
I gasped when I saw tons of sprues from the Stormvault kit and grabbed as many as I could, instantly forgetting about the Darkoath Chieftain.
I started assembling madly, taking full advantage of the modularity of that kit. I was so enraptured that after about 4 hours, I had built enough to fill a Warcry board.
Since I was travelling only with a small backpack, I called it on the terrain building, confident that all the various pieces could have been easily stacked inside each other. so, I texted Saul and Lee to have a Warcry game.
Saul was basically already onto it, having hooked up with a friend from Discord and having arranged for a table and we all played There Can Be Only One, giving me a chance to play as Kalyustar and his Cursed Company once more.
Once the game was done, I went back to the Hobby Challenge area to polish some of the rough joints and mould lines on the models I had built. It was then I realised there were plenty of the Easy-to-Build Sequitors sprues and even of the Knight-Incantor from the Mortal Realms magazine, so I helped myself to some and a few extra bits to convert them and added all to the loot of the day.
Day 2: The Warcry Rumble
That was the day we had looked for the most. Seeing a line-up of 56 Warcry players (even if one dropped out just last minute) was pretty amazing. Everybody was clearly in love with the game, both veterans and novices alike, and most importantly with its spirit as an essentially narrative game. Everyone I played against had a story for their warband or had made some really nice conversions.
I wish I could have taken pictures of all 55 warbands, but alas it wasn't possible, but here are the ones I managed to take, even if in some cases I don't know who their owners are. Anyway, as we started playing, I wasn't expecting anything more but to have four nice games. I had that... and a lot more!
It turned out that Kalyustar's Cursed Company, since its inception a shambling horde of skeletons, is particularly good at the Warcry Rumble battleplans. Put it very simply, the weight of their numbers means that opponents often cannot take objectives away from them. It doesn't matter that the skeletons fall in droves and don't inflict as much casualties in return, there is always enough of them to keep controlling the objectives.
Still, the games were all tense, in no small part thanks to the fact that the Side Quests gave my opponents plenty of chances to score Victory Points without contesting objectives. Nonetheless, and to my surprise, I won all my first three games... and by turn four ended up playing on Table 1 with a chance at winning the whole tournament.
That was the tensest game of the day, and I was in the lead for the first two turns. Then, in turn 3 I got cocky, completely forgot about the Side Quest and gave a chance for my opponent to equalise the score. Turn 4 was a constant back and forth, but by the end of it I was a single Victory Point behind my opponent and finished the tournament in 6th position. Still... a lot higher than I had expected I would have finished!
But the most important thing, was that I had some truly great games, and I can't thank enough my opponents Eloi Garrido, Mathias Brusselaers, Lars Nordal Jensen and Michael Appleton!
Day 3: Casual Gaming and Goodbyes
On the Monday we were all rather tired and agreed to meet at 10ish. I had to be at the airport by 1.30ish, so that gave us time for one last game, which I played with Lee while Saul played another Rumbler we had met the day before.
It was good fun, but then, for the second time in a very short time, I had to say goodbye to a place and people that have meant so much for me and my hobbying.
Oh well! Let's look at the bright side and forward to painting a full Stormvault board for my future games!
