The Breaking of the Rovers
'And that would be how your Kalyustar ended the Runt Waaagh?' intervened the inn-keeper of the Prancing Gryph-hound. 'By just blasting a Loonboss nobody ever heard about?'
'Is that what I've said? Is it? No!' Steve's snappy reply drew a chuckle from the crowd, as always quite fond of the two's constant bickering.
'We knew Gripe Backstabba was just an underling to Badruk 'Eadsplitta, but if he had taken an interest in us, it meant the Warboss couldn't be far. So, at dawn we set off, keeping to the edges of the swamp and venturing deeper into Pale Gorge.
We could still see the sunken gate in the distance and suddenly it pulsed, brawny orruks and a few grots rushing out of it.
The grots and some arrer boyz pushed ahead, their crooked arrows pattering against the trees where we had taken position.
We returned fire and halted the grots' advance, but the arrer boyz made it through and surrounded Kalyustar. But we had learned a thing or two in matters of strategic defence and Rodrick was quick to jump in and send most of the orruks flying in dissaray.
Still, the one stubborn orruk that stood his ground bought time enough for a bunch of Ardboyz to kick the grots back into line and charge in.
Rodrick and Kalyustar stood back to back, pouring hammer blows and arcane bolts onto the Ardboyz. As for me, I used the trees to my advantage and felled two grots as they came forward.
Kalyustar broke off and I could sense he drew onto the realmblood of Ghyran to heal himself while Rodrick and I sorted things out with the grot boss and arrer boy.
We regrouped and realised that a few boyz had lingered back and were coming for us now. As they advanced, we felt obliged to introduce them to properly placed arrows and pistol shots.
And as the boss alone trudged through the muck, I met him in single combat.
And then Rodrick stepped in and robbed me of the kill'.
As one, the woodsmen burst into laughter. Steve looked around, his carefully staged outrage at Rodrick's intervention turning into uncomfortable disbelief.
'Fellows, you should know, the Little People are much better fighters on solid, wooded ground'.
It was the Shyishan Trade Priooner that spoke, his voice strangely silencing the laughter.
'I am sure he would have had the orruk boss on the tip of his short sword if it wasn't for the mud sucking at his feet. Isn't it so, sir?'
'Well... yes... indeed... That was it, the mud! Anyway... where was I? Ah, yes! So... the orruks were gone and we turned away from the swamp towards more solid ground. We came upon a rocky arch and there found a corpse, one of those Azyrite witch hunters, by the look of his half-rotten gear. The only salvageable thing was a whickedly sharp and warm stake that Rodrick took for himself. .
As we were busy searching the corpse, the orruk came back and sprung an ambush on us. At our backs, arrer boyz loosed a salvo.
Boarboyz emerged from the woods in front of us and leveled their spears.
And from our left two massive boulders came whistling down, hurled by troggoths.
We retread out of range, putting the base of the arch between us and the troggoths, but the boarboyz were quick to redirect their charge and came roaring for us.
With the troggoths and arrer boyz slowed down by the rocky terrain, we managed to push back the boarboyz.
Arrows and boulders started to fall around us again and the only thing we could do was falling back into a thicket.
The troggoths tried to charge, but they were still on treacherous ground and didn't reach us.
We took our chance and countercharged. I saw Rodrick drawing the witch hunter's stake and slamm it into the belly of the closest troggoth. It splintered against its rocky hide and the brute pushed forward, sending me arse over tit. But if nothing else, Kalyustar blasted the other down.
From the ground and blinded by my own blood, the commontion of the fight came to me as a distant noise. Whistling of arrows, bestial grunts, the ring of metal on stony skin and then a deep thud.
The ringing of hooves and armoured boots on rocks, guttural screams... and then blackness and the deepest silence'.
***
The Venythian Rovers
Exploration rolls: 8 - Threat Level: 3 - Map Fragments: 0 - Spectral Lanterns: 1 - Battles Won: 5
Kalyustar of the Gilded Hand (Archmage, from Grand Alliance: Order): Realmblood (Ghyran Spell), Master of Defence (Order Trait). Wounds suffered: 2 - Enemies killed: 18
Captain Rodrik (Freeguild General, from Grand Alliance: Order): Tenacious (Order Trait). Wounds suffered: 5 - Enemies killed: 23
Steve Boffin (Huntmarshal, from The Empire Compendium). Wounds suffered: 5, DEAD - Enemies killed: 14
***
Silver Tower: the Knight and the Daemons
Knights-Questor have vowed to stand as shields between the denizens of the Mortal Realms and the depredations of Chaos. It falls to these heroes to undertake great quests in Sigmar's name. They adventure across the Realms and beyond to slay terrible enemies or recover arcane artefacts whose power can turn the tides of war.
Gibbering with lunatic energy, the luminescent Pink Horrors whirl and flail, generating raw magic that can manifest as blasts of unnatural fire that scour the enemy. Should they be slain, Horrors split in twain to form two lesser incarnations.
Work on my backlog progresses at pace, even if I couldn't blog about it for a couple of weeks.
I have to be honest and admit that Stormcast Eternals are not among my favourite models, in fact that's the first ever I've painted. Since I don't expect to use it much outside Silver Tower games, I didn't bother converting it, but I took it as a chance to test my yellow painting skills. We all know it is a difficult colour, and if the results were not particularly great I wouldn't have regreted the choice as I don't really care for the model.
In the end, it was my best effort at using yellow as the main colour on a model, so a win on all fronts! I stuck to the canonical distribution of colours on Stormcast, with the shield field, right shoulder pauldron, knee pads, mantle and helmet in a contrasting colour, picking black. Red on the tabard and plume and the metalic details complement both yellow and black. As I have no 40mm Shattered Dominion bases, but wanted to keep the model in line with the others, I used the topper from the limited edition Grombrindal the Vampireslayer which I had sitting on the bits box.
The Pink Horrors too are unconverted and painted canonically, although in a slightly darker pink than the Heavy Metal's one.
I actually wantred to convert one to represent the Librarian, the boss of the first Silver Tower trial. I was sure there still were the Plague Monk hands holding a book and a scroll in the bits box, but they were all gone. The only book I could find was that from the Cities of Sigmar Battlemage. Because it is held in the right hand and I didn't want to loose the Horror's dagger, I clipped the hand off and glued the book to the base. This way, it matches the art on the Library tile, which has all kind of books and torn pages scattered on the floor.
Silver Tower: the Familiars
These diminutive, capricious beings are physical manifestations of the raw magical energies that permeate the Mortal Realms. Their behaviour is strange, and their presence can prove to be a boon to warriors and mages as often as it is a curse.
Are they cute, aren't they? From left to right: Pug, Blot, Slop and Tweak.
I've painted all 8 models, each pair in exactly the same way. After all, they are actually the same entity! For Blot and Tweak I kept the same palette I've used on the Tzaangors, Kairic Acolytes and Ogroid Thaumaturge. For Pug and Slop, while keeping the yellow, I've swapped the blue and purple for shades of green.
They are all so characterful, but I particularly love the fact that Slop is the symbol of Tzeentch! And I dare anyone to claim that Blot is a spineless creature!
A Knife in the Gloom
Steve paused for a moment, letting the woodsmen and Trade Pioneer chuckle at his remarks about the poor quality of orruk boars. He sipped from his tankard, smacked his lips and started again.
'Yes, it was the worst boar I've ever roasted, but in the morning we were well rested and ready for another day. We picked up the trail of the fleeing orruks and started off, the sun shining on the bright green leaves of Naive Hope. But as we followed the trail deep into Pale Gorge the air around us turned clammy and the bright sunlight slowly gave way to an oppressive gloom.
Glowing lichens and malformed mushrooms grew nearly everywhere and crude sigils were scratched onto the bark of trees. Kalyustar was able to make some sense out of them. Threats mostly and a recurring name... Backstabba...
We knew what to expect, but really were not prepared to find our path barred by a small horde of Gloomspite Gitz. And if you think that the damned creatures were enough to give anyone second thaughts, they also had troggoths with them!
And behind them, we could hear the screeching of their leader, taunting us to come and face the mighty Gripe Backstabba!
Rodrik chuckled, unstoppered the flask of Aqua Ghyranis he had collected, guzzled it down and moved forward, his pistol barking. Kalyustar and I added our own shots, all of us aiming for the nearest troggoth.
We heard it bellowing in pain, but that was not enough to stop it. He and his mate came crushing through the trees, a mob of grots behind them. They surrounded Rodrik, while Gripe stood back shouting orders.
Rodrik took a few serious blows, but he was nothing but tenacious and managed to fell the wounded troggoth.
Gripe then gave a high pitched shout and another mob of grots crested the hill in front of me while the Loonboss waded into combat.
I was quickly surrounded, but managed to kill one grot. Rodrik wasn't that lucky. Backstabba's knife pierced his armour right above his heart and Rodrik crashed to the ground to be pocked by the grots and trampled by the troggoth.
And then, the most amazing thing happened. Kalyustar smashed a vase to the ground and fanned the purplish dust towards where Rodrik had fallen. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the dust moved back and forth, as if it had a will of its own. And when it cleared... Rodrik stood next to the wizard, bleeding but alive!
Kalyustar then blasted a grot and with Rodrik charged to my rescue.
The grots started to run away. That bit of arcane trickery had spooked them for good, I'll tell you that!
But that was still not enough. Backstabba kicked the nearest grots and they made for us, poking the troggoth forwards.
We were all bleeding from many wounds and Kalyustar cast a shimmering shield around us while we tried to keep our distance and get a few shots at the cursed gits. And yet, they kept coming for us.
Kalyustar's shield spared us the worse blows and we even managed to fend off the grots, but the troggoth was too stupid to die or even just flee. And then the Loonboss came in, his cutta aimed for Kalyustar's horse.
I jumped at him, but he was nothing if not sneaky. It ducked under my swing, rolled between the horse's legs and slammed his shield onto Rodrik.
But the captain had again planted his feet and grinding his teeth returned the blow. I heard Kalyustar cursing as he let the magic shield down to rain arcane bolts onto the troggoth.
I stepped over the downed brute to Rodrik's side and together we managed to corner Backstabba against a rock. But as we landed what we thought would be the final blows, he kicked a cluster of mushrooms. As we chocked on the spore cloud, that slippery git rushed away, screaming curses.
Flight Through the Swamp
We barely had the time to patch up our worst wounds when we heard his shrill cries again. And by the sound of them, he had gathered the grots that had fled and was coming for revenge.
"We run!" whispered Kalyustar. And though I could see Rodrik's disgust at the idea of turning our back to the enemy, he knew he was not fit for another fight.
And run we did! But still the grot were gaining on us. Things got worse as we found ourselves in the midst of a stinking swamp. We had just passed a half sunk gate pulsing with sorcerous energies when Backstabba and his mob got sight of us.
They surged forward, but couldn't reach us through the sucking mud.
"Fall back and shoot!" Kalyustar's order rung loud and clear and my arrows flew true, straight into Backstabba.
He shouted, but it wasn't pain. It was a call! In a rumbling of hooves, a mob of boarboyz crested a hill and splashed onto the swamp.
They got stuck, but the grots rushed past them and through the sunken gate and charged Rodrik.
And as he parried and responded, Kalyustar and I countercharged, dispatching most of the grots.
We pressed on, and while Rodrik dealt with the last few grots I rained arrows onto the boarboyz.
"Again! Fall back and shoot!" Kalyustar was still orchestrating our defence.
Him and I aimed for Backstabba, while Rodrik unloaded his pistol onto the boarboyz. And as the smoke of his shot cleared I could see the boarboy boss spurring his stinky pig away and trampling the smoking shape of Gripe Backstabba deep into the swamp.'
Steve paused again, savouring the hush of relief coming from the woodsmen.
'We dragged ourselves out of the swamp and made camp. Rodrik soon fell into a deep sleep. I'm still amazed at how much that strapping lad could take! Sitting next to the fire, I turned to Kalyustar. As always, he was wearing his mask, but I could tell he was in a bad mood.
"That was some defensive tactics!" I said, trying to cheer him up.
"What? Oh, yes... Thanks... Did you hear it? That voice when I smashed the vase..."
For the life of me, I had no idea what he was talking about. Surely that day fighting had shacken him up...'
At this, the Shiyshian Trade Pioneer smiled. Such a subtle smile that nobody, nor Steve, nor any of the woodsmen, noted it.
***
The Venythian Rovers
Exploration rolls: 7 - Threat Level: 2 - Map Fragments: 0 - Spectral Lanterns: 0 - Battles Won: 3
Kalyustar of the Gilded Hand (Archmage, from Grand Alliance: Order): Realmblood (Ghyran Spell), Master of Defence (Order Trait). Wounds suffered: 0 - Enemies killed: 9
Captain Rodrik (Freeguild General, from Grand Alliance: Order): Tenacious (Order Trait), Aqshian Flamewood Stake. Wounds suffered: 3 - Enemies killed: 15
Steve Boffin (Huntmarshal, from The Empire Compendium). Scroll of Translocation. Wounds suffered: 1 - Enemis killed: 6
***
