Paths to Glory 3rd Edition Campaign

    With 3rd edition coming out, my friend Michael, wanted to run a paths to glory campaign. Something gentle for us to get used to the new rules - also keeping it open for new players in the area to jump in and learn. 

    We would start in August at a 600pt Vanguard list increasing monthly, September Warband 1k, and by October have a 1500pt Brigade. For August I played one game, a beginner game with Xander. I built my list around cavalry, Bladebringers, Seekers and Daemonettes (for the batteline tax). The Bladebringer  Herald on Exalted Chariot, was 60 points too expensive, so I went with the Bladebringer Herald on Seeker Chariot. Just squeezing into the list at a hefty 190 points! 

    Sslithian Luxsion could feel a ripple in the atmosphere atop of her exalted chariot. There was something stirring in the Realm of Ulgu, their search for their Lord of Excess was communicating to his loyal servants. "Our search is nearing an end." Daraetha Heartslake, the Heartseeker, affirmed to the leader of the Pining Thrust. Sslithian smiled, "Don't be so eager to reach the zenith of our journey so quickly. Ghur is such a wretched place, full of creatures that are blemish on life, murdering and eating, no grace or finesse." Looking over the vegetation littered clearing, kruleboyz camped out gorging their selves on weak prey, no thought or reasoning to their slaughter, she felt the yearning call of her master. His need for overindulgence, massacres, debauchery, idolizers and Sslithian would give all that her master desired, and it wouldn't be a quick death for these fowl foes.

Battlepack

Xander rolled off to see which mission we would be playing, I don't recall the name, and don't have the core rules (only the smaller version - which doesn't include battlepacks or the path to glory rules) But the objective was for the attacking player to get half their force to their opponent's deployment zone. After rolling of for roles, I won and chose to be the attacker. 

Forces

Pining Thrust - Slaanesh

Sslithian Luxsion - Bladebringer Herald on Exalted Chariot (190 pts)

Daraetha Heartslake - Seekers x 10 (300 pts)

Terashon Mhal'Pr'athis - Daemoettes (110 pts)

Total - 600 pts

Da Pale Boys - Kruleboyz

Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof  (200 pts)

Gutrippaz (180 pts)

Hobgrots Slittaz (95 pts)

Man-skewer Boltboyz (120 pts)

Total - 595 pts

    On the initiative, Slaanesh won, also choosing to go first, like the greedy daemons they are. Seekers and Daemonettes advanced up the flanks, they they both could run and still charge later in the turn.

First round setup

Seekers quickly close in on their prey.

    

    Seekers move at 14" and they get to roll 2D6 instead of D6 for their run, making it super easy for them to sprint right across the board in the first turn and charge! Unlike all my other units, the Chariot could instead retreat and charge on the same turn. I moved it up, because caution is for chumps, and my daemonettes, bless their good intentions, tried to tie up the Gutrippaz. 

Chariot hiding till next turn.

    My Seekers and my Daemonettes had charged into battle on the same turn, choosing to attack first with the Seekers, meant that the Daemonettes fought after the Gutrippaz. These cruel orks tore them to shreds with their 6's to hit cause mortal wounds. Xander had rolled 9!? 6s on his first swing. Yeouch! The remaining single Daemonette didn't roll a 1 on her mortal test to blink back more daemons into existence. I forget if she survived for a turn or not, as Depravity Points are based on how many models less a unit has, in this case 9 points! 

    The Seekers did some damage, suffering a couple loses, by the bottom of turn 1, I had around 20 DP. At the end of next turn's movement, my hero could summon one unit to the battlefield. To put this into perspective, a Keeper of Secrets was worth 12 Depravity Points. Lucky for Xander, I am poor and don't own a Keeper, so instead a unit of 5 Seekers were spawned.

Turn 1 Orks

       Gutrippaz charged into combat with the Chariot, lucky for her, there was WAY less 6s being tossed around. Striking hard at the orks, but they were tough at two wounds a piece. Sslithian slaughter close to half before running away, summoning Seekers the next turn.

    As always when I have the choice of winning a game or asking myself What Would Slaanesh Do? I retreated from one battle only to CHARGE right back into the remaining Boltboyz and Hobgrots on the opposite flank hoping to fight with the big bad Killaboss too!

I believe the wounds were counting up, otherwise this would have been more silly.

    Sslithian's chariot bounded over the uneven terrain, tearing up dirt and foliage as it crossed to meet the Killaboss. The Gnashtoof growled as the Seekers neared, gnashing at one of the front mounts. Sslithian cracked her whip across the Killaboss' chest. Furious, the savage ork ignited his jagged boss-stikka, flames licking the air around it. His wide swing toppled riders from the Chariot, sending it off a deep ravine. Shaken, the crew gathers up the Seekers, and the mistress to fight another day. Sslithian felt she was off her game, maybe she was more excited then she let on to see Slaanesh back in the mortal realms again.

    With only one unit reaching the opponent's deployment zone - they need to be 9" away from enemies and stay for one turn if I recall. We didn't count summoned units as part of half of my army, but either way I would have needed 2 units to stay alive for a turn in Xander's side.

    Clearly, that did not happen. But it was fun playing the hedonites, glass cannons for sure.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I haven't had another chance to play in the Path to Glory campaign, Rachel had a minor surgery at the beginning of August. Which meant no bending or like picking up a 15lb baby, pretty hard when you breastfeed a baby several times a day. Rachel is doing much better now. I have a bunch of painting to show off, and also a bunch of purchases from over the summer.

How I spent my summer parental leave

         In Saskatchewan there is a new(ish) parental leave system in place for fathers to take 5 weeks of parental leave. This doesn't affect the mother's maternity allowance, and it can be split up or taken in once giant chunk. Naturally, with two brothers being teachers, I was always jealous of their 2 months vacation. Now I get to have a month off in July!

    For the last four years, my parents have been renting cabins at different parks for a few days every summer. Went to Waskesiu this year, each household got their own cabin, just in case the Covid restrictions suddenly became much more strict. Everyone in the family was fully vaccinated by the beginning July, most two weeks post as well.

    Prince Albert National Park, has the boreal forest surrounding you on your drive into the park. Larch trees and pine trees stand as sentinels for eager explorers in deep reverence for these ancient growths. 

    My family fell in love with Waskesiu in 2018 the first time most of us experienced it's majesty - despite the lousy rainy weather which lasted almost the whole first week of July. Rachel and I traveled back in 2020 in the fall to witness the rich tapestry of fall colours on the larch trees, we even met a new fox "friend" 

Foxy friend just wanting food

View in the fall on Height of Land lookout tower

Boundary Bog Trail

    This year was much better, only raining a couple of times. We didn't go on as many hiking trails, but there was some swimming in their crystal clear lakes and hammock time. Much to Rachel's mild displeasure, Bauche's are pretty laid back, so much so that we would just agree with any and all activities. ("We can do that or that, whichever you want to do.") I think this is mostly due to how little we actually saw each other throughout the pandemic, so hanging out and talking felt like catching up for a year of isolation. Rachel might disagree, saying we are always non-committal.

    So far, every trip to Waskesiu has an Elk walking through our cabins. I mean they were here first, he was probably checking out his old mating grounds. 

    I took basically zero photos while out on trails or at the beach, so enjoy photos from the shutterbugs in my family.

My sister in-law entertaining Rosalind in the hammock

Checking out the beach with mom

View from parent's cabin, definitely didn't look like THAT cabin

Candid papa photo, this was after Rosalind's walk with Uncle Shawn, so she was getting a bit hungry.

Staple Height of Land Outlook Tower photo

    Originally, the plan was to visit Rachel's family, after our Waskesiu trip, all over British Columbia and Alberta, showing off Rosalind - now 4 months old as of writing. Where does the time go!? 

    While in Waskesiu, Rachel's mother had a major surgery so we went to Fort Saskatchewan to help out the following weeks. Doctor's orders was no bending or lifting and you know lots of rest.

    During out stay in Alberta, we visited a few places, I found a gaming store right in the Fort. It was carrying Everdell, which Rachel as been wanting since the beginning of the pandemic. Alberta's Covid restrictions were lifted at the beginning of July, so the store had events without masks. In fact, I was the only person in the hobby stores with a mask on. 

    Juggling baby schedule and adult schedule, we made it into Edmonton for one day - if you go to Edmonton and DON'T do a Ikea trip, did you really go? Yes, but we didn't want to find out and they had air conditioning for a baby Tula walk instead of in the blazing sun. 

    Industrial Park Games was the one hobby store I wanted to check out, it was well reviewed and lined up with our southern route through the city we were planning to use. With so many options, I wanted to be as quick with the hobby browsing as possible, one and done. My wallet would thank me. 

    The new Age of Sigmar tiered starter sets were supposed to be out, after much debate, I would only sample the new models and get the Warrior set. With the Warrior set, you get the sweet Killaboss and the Knight-Arcanum. Vindictors don't have too much Sigmar iconography on them, making them perfect to be come kitbashed Myrmidesh Painbringers or Chaos Chosen? Could even use the kit's spears and weapons on the lamer posed Liberators I have collecting dust.

    While I was in IPG, Rachel did some quick googling to find, The Clumsy Dragon Tabletop Guild. It was right on the way to Ikea, it would be fine to deviate a little.

    Still in the heart of the industrial area, this store had a small retail area up front and a large warehouse in the back for a subscription gaming club area. For a monthly fee, gamers have access to terrain, tables, painting supplies, and 3D printed models which could be bought after painting them. Really great place, focusing on building community in the Edmonton area. I really liked the setup and had a good chat with the owner, highly recommend checking it out if you live in the city.

    This was the haul that I picked up, the Age of Sigmar Warrior box was from Dragon's Den in Saskatoon. All the other places had Dominion, but their starters weren't shipped out in time. The Sentinels of Order hasn't been in stock anywhere I have looked, glad to finally pick it up. And hey, might as well get a Death Guard codex in Alberta for lower sales taxes. Was hoping to play a casual tournament in Estevan, which is why I grabbed the codex, but we had some health concerns to look after when we got home. The Tournament also was focused on being beginner friendly, but asked people to bring 2000pts? That seems like a big ask for people just learning the hobby. Epic Encounters has some pretty sweet looking Snakefolk.

    

    Resident Evil 2 expansion was 50% off at IPG, it adds two survivors - Hunk, an Umbrella agent attempting to flee a zombie infested Raccoon City with a stolen sample of the T-virus and Tofu - a parody character of Hunk, who is a giant walking piece of Tofu that only had a knife to fight off the horde.

    The drive to Alberta was quite hot in mid-July, by the end of the month it was cooler. We didn't have air conditioning, so we left early so that I could start the journey home as the girls slept in the back. 

Rosalind was pumped to cross the border into her birth province

    We still had 6 hours of driving to go, but did Rosalind care? She slept great for such long drive, only needing to 2 stops to tank up. It was nice to see family and friends in another province, but we definitely missed our cats and I'll miss my summer off, back to work now. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

One of my friends, Michael, has organized a Paths to Glory campaign that started once I got back home. It will be running for 3 months, increasing in points each month. First game was the day after we got back, small game to try out 3rd edition, only 600pts. Should be posting it soon. 

What's this? There's colour everywhere!?

    My painting habits have gone WiLdlY out of control! I started out painting some Rising Sun, Koi Clan Bushi. Finishing most of the ones I was working on, I moved on to making some animals for PrimeEVO. Then switched to Warhammer terrain as I was cleaning out my hobby hole, and back and forth. What!? Dwarves? WHO INVITED DWARVES!? 

    This was also over a month or so, with baby, work and a good smattering of video games to distract me. Heck it took me like a week to actually take pictures of the stuff I finished, wearing a baby while shooting photos near the natural light, does not good bedfellows make. So without further a due, here is my showcase of mostly random stuff I have been tossing paint on.

    These Sector Fronteris Environment terrain were from the Theta-7 Acquisitus Kill Team box. They popped onto the paint table after I cleaned up my hobby desk, noticing how little work that needed to be done to them to get them onto the table. The Tech-priest has been completed for my Crusade last year, the 3 ruststalkers are primed, don't think the Infiltrators are off their sprue yet. Eventually, I'll get around to making a Kill Team out of them. No plans to make full units for 40k, so might just do two Infiltrators.

Front

Back

    Besides Slaanesh models this year, Blackstone Fortress figures are hitting the table. In heavy doses of FOMO and wanting to support Comic Readers at the start of the pandemic. I picked up Escalation, then Ascension, and The Dreaded Ambull (the latter being from Dragon's Den as it was sold out in Regina) throughout the lock down.

    Escalation will be prioritized first, being filled with sweet miniatures and required for Ascension. The Ambull was painted with contrast paints, for a quick paint job. 

    All the Escalation kit has been assembled, the Crusader being the first to be painted.

    Besides battling rival tribes in PrimEVO, the primatives will take on deadly prehistoric beasts for the betterment of their tribe, using their bones, meat and fur for survival in the wild.

Prehistoric Deer

    I went the cheap way with these figures, buying them from toy stores instead of an actual hobby store. Scale might be a bit off for some but whatcha going to do? Could be fully grown or infant age.

Generally in PrimEvo, before setting up, players would determine a size of a herd of deer, mammoths, etc. I felt that I could still do this, but add some variety of what herbivores were around, instead of just all deer. Prehistoric mammals would all be mostly around the same watering hole. 

Ground Sloths were all made in China.

    I decided a Macrauchenia would be the closest looking mammal for the "elephant", which in fact is actually thought to be a relative to a llama. Guess I should have checked what it might be before painting it like an elephant. 

A couple more deadly hunts.

    And what's a prehistoric skirmish game without some deadly creatures to maim your tribes? The woolly mammoth, is definitely a youth, I'll need to find a much older (and larger) parental unit. 

    A few more prehistoric mammals, and dinosaurs are on the workbench. Would be nice to get several more painted up to really fill out the table. The Zulu tribesman from frostgrave might work for a rival tribe, might as well get paint on them too! 

    While putting off this blog update, seriously, like a month since I had opened this post!? , I have painted up a few more models, a Lord of Pain is now ready to take to the battlefield.

sorry about the quick pics.

    I did paint a couple dwarves for Song of Blades and Heroes but I'll post them once I get the warband finished off. Why do fantasy vikings, when you can do sci-fi vikins? While procrastinating on dwarves, my accidental eBay purchase arrived. I can bid on this, clearly, I won't win it, right? Awhile ago, I had picked up some Grey Hunters for possibly making into a Kill Teams with possible options for gun loadouts. Terminators would really be cool to add to a Kill Team as well would they? Anyways, here I am, 4 Space Wolves Terminators richer, only one painted for Kill Team so far.

Brother Brand "Fiery Torch", Brother Manning, and Brother Steinar

Brother Amund - Leader

The crew ready to cleanse a derelict Space Hulk 

    I painted up all the fun weapon loadouts first, it just squeaks into a regular list of Kill Team at 99 points. I don't really have a Commander to add to this warband, as most of the options are Primaris marines which would look a bit tall to their elderly brethren. The Terminators that remain all have boltguns with chainfist or power fist and don't have as much Space Wolfie-ness to them. That is, till I add a pelt with greenstuff or find bits.

    Now why do you have your Space Wolves Kill Team on a Space Hulk board? Well, a bit of a long story, as went down three or four rabbit holes, then through a swamp and past grandma's house to end up here. I started by looking up Stormtonnian models as I was debating on buying one of the older starter sets after buying Sorrowmourn Choir. Anyways, I found, Tears of Envy's blog, which might make me want to collect some Stormcast for kitbashs, maybe do some chaos stormcast too? 

    After looking back in the blog, I found some amazing looking Space Hulk 3D terrain, mostly kit bashed from several other terrain kits. 3rd party custom rules also were on my mind as well, like adding different chapters, factions and the like into Space Hulk. This will definitely be a long hole to dig myself out of.

Oh yeah, reading to Rosalind is the other hobby of mine I have been working on.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Time to finish up the dwarves? I have will eventually pick up the new rule book for Age of Sigmar. That might wait till August when GW announces the new smaller starter sets. Part of the reason for my frantic hobby habits, might partially be due to not getting games in, might need to fix that.

 

May Update

     With the newborn, my gosh, she is a month and a half now!? I haven't been doing a whole heck of a lot of my hobbies. Mostly coming home from work, wear the baby for awhile. Watch an episode or two of "The Expanse" then go for a walk with the sleeping beandle. She has moved out..... of her parents room and into her own room. They grow up so fast! Now to get her to drop a feed at night.

    As much as everyone would love for me to prattle on about parenting, this in a war gaming blog. Where is the excitement about the new edition of Age of Sigmar? Or what was my favourite models of Warhammer Fest at the beginning of the month? Yes and no, with the population getting vaccinated, I am hopeful that we will be getting closer to getting miniatures on the table. I haven't played a game of Sigmar in sometime, so it doesn't matter to me at the moment. I am excited to see what the new starter boxes will contain. Of course, the sweet Sigmarites from Warhammer Fest will be in the box, but what of this unknown enemy in Ghurr? 

    Quickly checking out the unsolved rumours to find what looks to be a beastly mount?

       Will we see more "taur" like creatures like Lauka Vai and Kragnos? There are also some primitive clubs and spears that seem to be hinting at some new goblin models. The new edition is less then 2 weeks away, whatever it is, the miniatures will be what I'll be looking forward to seeing, not so much the rules. At least, until I have time to play again. 

Update as I take too long to post: With GW posting more and more rumour pictures of beasts as we lead up to the new edition, I am PRETTY sure we are getting some goblins riding some sort of beasts in the starter box.

    One of my goals throughout the pandemic is to support local business, or Canadian businesses. (or at least try to.) One company I supported was Cardboard Dungeon Games, a hobby store that sells gaming mats, Green Stuff rollers and more. They also have created two rule books for skirmish games, The Cariverse, a post-apocalyptic game that has survivors searching for resources as they dodge the jaws of hungry dinosaurs. And PrimEVO, which I picked up, a caveman survival game, will you lead your tribe on a spiritual path or forge a path forward with tools and weapons to fend off rival tribes. 

    Reading through the rules, PrimEVO looks like it can go wrong very quickly for your tribe, from environmental hazards, like freezing to death if you don't have clothes or the deadliest foe, time, seriously, negatives penalties start to affect your tribe as soon as they turn 25! PrimEVO also has solo rules, which is always nice to start playing the game. I bought the book to use the cavemen/woman that I painted up earlier in the pandemic last year. Now to build some huts and paint some prehistoric animals.

    So like I was saying, I WAS trying to support locally, but then I fell of the bus a bit and got it in my head that I could run an easy quick rule set at Prairie expo or even for my Little Brother or some of the younger kids that are friends of the family. Wouldn't it be great to have a day of skirmish games maybe in the garage or outside now that it's nice? Song of Blades and Heroes popped into my head as a really good rule system that could be easily ran for young, old, mutants.. anyone that wants to play! Lulu.com does runs of print on demand of a bunch of independent authors.

 

Print on Demand from Lulu.com

    Well, if you are shipping and printing off one book, you might as well get two books from Genesha games! These showed up this passed Friday, got some reading ahead of me now so stopping buy so many books!!

These most certainly are Dwarves

        Last but not least, I traded some Primaris Space Marines that I probably won't have gotten to anyways, for some old dwarves! 14 exactly double Snow White's as Rachel pointed out, but unlike her's these are all BASHful.... or Cleaveful depending on what they are wielding. Hope to paint these up for Song of Blades and Heroes!

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I do have some models painted, just need to get some nice looking pictures and varnish them before posting them up on the blog. Most of my free time is at night, which doesn't give me the best lighting for the minis. Should be able to do it next week if I am not lazy.

    

Baby's Arrival

     Well, guess I didn't have the motivation to post this before the baby arrived but you know how it is. The anticipation before a new nugget comes to the house is a bit of a whirlwind. Are we prepared? Do we have everything? How are the cats going to react to the tiny human? Is the Bladebringer of Slaanesh done? Okay, well, that last one might've been fairly low on the priorities. Rachel needed some affirming that, yes, we are as ready as we ever will be to become parents. This will be our Trial by Fire.

Rosalind in her classic sleepy pose.

    Rosy is now 10 days old. We have learned more and slept a lot less. We are thankful for all the generous friends that are reaching out and offering us support and food. This is much appreciated, if it wasn't for covid, our transition to parenthood would be way different. Relatives coming and going, lots of hands to hold and snuggle the baby. Always surrounded by loved ones, but for now we have each other and daily stroller walks with friends and family. Different, but we will feel supported all the same.

    While, I am positive the baby will enjoy our hobbies as much as we do, for now, we will enjoy them for her till she can hold a dice or brush...

Bladebringer Exalted chariot of Slaanesh

    In the Age of Myth, Heralds of Slaanesh were assigned the task of concealing daemonic blades all over the Realms. It was not enough for the heralds to only transport the weapons, they yearned to wield the blades in combat. Chariots were fashioned with a multitude of blades, allowing the operator to deal out maximum amounts of carnage on the battlefield.

Final two Slaves to Darkness Endless Spells

    The Eightfold Doom-Sigil empowers Chaotic units around it, while the Realmscourge Rapture slows down enemy units while damaging them. They now join the Darkfire Daemonrift, completing the Endless Spells I have and the only faction specific ones. (the last ones I bought were the Malign Sorcery)

When a Daemonic rift opens, you run the other way.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    This weekend is the release of Cursed City, and as much as I would love to run out and grab it. I still have 3 expansions of Blackstone Fortress to paint. (Dreaded Ambull, Escalation and Ascension) It has only seen the table a handful of times, and looking at the figures I am definitely interested in continuing to do both. But who knows, maybe that cheap Dreadfleet I saw at my local shop might mysteriously pop onto my workbench?!
    

    

Dread Pageant on Parade

    With the rapid approach of the parenthood coming at us full speed, I convinced Rachel to play some Warhammer Underworlds with me. This readers, might be the last game for awhile as we will be knee deep in diaper changes and sleepless nights! Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic. This gives me a chance to play with the Dread Pageant now that they are painted. It also increases the chance of the Myari's Purifiers being painted by Rachel, as she always comments about how nice the models look once we start playing. 

Rachel (unseen 37 week baby bump under the table)

    Rachel picked me to place the board first, I chose one with no lethal hexes because I guess I am nice. While Rachel decided on one that had 3 clumped together. At first I thought the extra lethal hexes could be joined to them, like a grand canyon you'd have to see to believe! With a quick rules read, this is not the case, all hexes need to be separate. Which is good, I think the Ylthari's Guardians are still a bit bum hurt from all the falling they did last game.

    For the roll off to see who went first, Rachel and I ties, so we rolled again with the assumption that Rachel still got the extra critical for the roll for finishing placing first. She wanted me to go first, to get me in closer for her spell attacks.

My starting objectives.

    The Dread Pageant is all about giving or receiving damage to get inspired. Once 6 wounds on all surviving fighters on the board have been placed, the member just needs to finish an activation to be inspired. My first turn would be completing the Endless Revel, then the other two objectives would fall in place as they came up. Ylthari's Guardians need to remove wounds to become inspired, something which was a bit hard for Rachel as the starting deck only had 2 healing items in it. Ylthari makes it a bit easier to inspire, critical hits on a spell attack will remove wounds (even if she has none).

Glissete, the best a man can get, charges in to miss completely at the leader.

    While I don't believe charging head long into combat will be the best strategy for this warband, it would be in my benefit to get some damage on the table, the objectives also fell in line with the tactic as well. Glissete is quite weak, only having two wounds. She is always on guard, rolls of shields are successes. On Rachel's turn, Skhathael toddles up to Glissete, but his leafy heart isn't into the swing and misses as well. Before starting the game I did read an objective called Bloodless Skirmish, scoring it on the third round if all fighters are on the table, maybe I should have picked it up if this was how the game was going to go.

Glissete and Skhathael stare off, fuming with disappointment.

    Betwix turns, I played Dark Desires on Rachel's Leader, giving her a move token. This turns out to be a silly move as Ylthari was within 3 hexes of range for her spells anyways. D'oh! No take backsies in this game, Rachel plays for keeps now. Vasillac drove his spear into Skhathael, finally blood was drawn and Slaanesh was pleased.... for the moment. Following up, that bloodshed, Ylthari casts The Reaping on Vasillac, wounding for 1 point of damage, inspiring her with a critical in the roll. Oh yes, more wounds please! Rachel power step, she used Last Guardians, placing a guard token on her leader.

If only I moved to the objective.

    Hadzu charges into the fry, shooting an arrow of desire into Skhathael with 2 support on him! BIG OL' MISS! That's it, you're off the team Hadzu! Ahnslaine shows Hadzu how it's done, wounding her for one damage. Wrapping up round 1, Slakeslash and Gallanghan moves up from the back of the board.

Slakeslash scoffs at your objectives!

    I scored Endless Revel at the end of the turn, upgrading Vasillac with Strength from Pain, adding 1 damage to his attack actions while he has a wound. Rachel played Domain Denied, scoring one glory for "denying" your enemy objectives, clearly I need to make that more of a priority next time. Going into the second round tied 1:1

Round 2

    Rachel rolls well, picking to go first because why not? Ylthari was shaking in her branch skirt, that Slaangor didn't look all too friendly. But The Reaping missed it's make this time. Slakeslash wasn't all too pleased with being missed at, charged into Ylthari and Ahnslaine, scoring a hit on Ahnslaine to for 2 damage, taking the total wounds on the board to 6! Hehehehe Slakeslash inspires, you thought he was trouble before with his 5 wounds? What about an increase to movement for the lumbering beast? I score Excess of Gluttony for being adjacent to two enemy fighters. Now I just need to keep the wounds on the board. I spend the glory on, what else? Upgrading my Leader with Swift as Desire, adding 1 movement when unwounded, but 2 when he was wounded. 

Slakeslash shows off his might to Ahnslaine.

    Poor one shot Hadzu, he wasn't long for this world, and yet, he had the most easily pronounced name. I will miss him dearly. Skhathael advanced, toppling the archer with a decisive blow. First blood goes to Rachel! To be fair, killing isn't really what the Dread Pageant wants, they prefer the drawn out suffering instead. I believe at the end of round 1 I had picked up Beautiful Deaths, a duel objective for keeping three members of the Dread Pageant alive AND killing off 3 of the opposing warband. This would net you 6 (the number of slaanesh of course) glory! With Hadzu being all but useless this match, I don't think that would happen.

At least I will leave a beautiful corpse.

    

    With Excess of Paramountcy still in hand, I ran my very swift leader ,now moving at 7 hexes, over to an enemy objective. And while I was there, I might as well strike Gallanghan in the back for more wounds! But Gallanghan was surprisingly ready for this attack! His reaction allows him to bounce back damage if he gets a critical hit on his defense. BUT Vasillac ALSO has a reaction that triggers on the damage deal step, choosing to heal or deal damage to himself. I chose to heal, as at this point, only Glissete was the only one uninspired and she already had a wound on her. With 6, maybe 7 wounds on the board now, Vasillac inspires. Gallanghan had a few upgrades on him, can't recall which, I used Sword-Shatterer on, the only member of my warband it seems, my leader. This would give me a chance to remove an upgrade from an enemy after an attack action.

Learning from my mistake of last round.

    Ahnslaine tries to finish off Glissete, but her gaurd came in handy, shrugging off the attack. She charges in to finish off the wounded Ylthari guardian. Glory was used to upgrade Slakeslash with a Sadistic Goad, which increases in damage for every wound on the enemy fighter. Probably not very helpful at this moment as most of Rachel's fighters only had one or two wounds left on them. Gallanghan strikes Glissete in the back to let her know how it feels, but she defends. With all my fighters tired or out of action, I used my final action to pick up an objective card.

Glissete takes Ahnslaine out of action.

Round 3

    My note taking gets really sloppy as we get closer to the end of the game. I just get too into the game! We were 4:2 at this point. Rachel casted Pangs of the Great Lack, Glissete would suffer 1 wound, taking her out of action for the end of round 2. We couldn't find rolls to find the difference between suffer and dealt, so Glissete didn't roll a defense dice for this damage. 4:3

Start of round 3

    Slakeslash slashes at Ylthari with his massive blade, removing her from the skirmish, freeing up the objective. Rachel played a bunch of gambits during this power step, I didn't take notes of them, I believe one made my movement a bit slower, but even with 3 move it was easy to get around. Oh I remember! She put a move token on Slakeslash, legitimately denying the objective to me. Excess of Idolency was in my hand, I just needed two objectives.

Skhathael's turn to lay the beast low.

Skhathael moves in to strike, I don't think it hit. Vasillac would move beside Slakeslash for support? Guess it didn't really matter where Vasillac was. Gallanghan was struck by the Leader, driving him back without damage. Gal retaliates, wounding him. On my last two turns, I picked up objectives hoping I might have one that was already completed. If only I was so lucky.

    The final score was 6:3 for the Dread Pageant. Rachel had Vengeful Revenants, scoring 2 points for taking 2 enemy fighters of out action and only having one out yourself, in her hand when Vasillac was on the objective. If she used her standard attack instead of the Enraged Spite, which uses more swords but less accurate she might've scored that. Another one was if we had remembered to drive back Slakeslash into a lethal hex instead of attacking Vasillac, for another point for taking him out of action. 

This was much better then our last game, it was much closer in points. With Rachel doing some post game analysis, or shoulda woulda coulda-ing, we might see more of Underworlds on the table!

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Not that it will be on the hobby desk, but the baby should be coming next week sometime! I do have some finished painting to show off, these Slaanesh models are going to be a pain to transport around when that becomes a thing again with all their whips whirling about. I have some metal Fiends on table now which are a breath of fresh air after the delicate Seeker chariot.