Silly Narrative: The Quest for Snacks

 
    Yolig had been told by the stones to expect a lot of things from the surface. He'd been told it was a bright, horrible place. He'd been told it was an empty, roofless wasteland, ravaged by the followers of the mad god of blood. And it had all been true. What he hadn't been told was how much fun he would have there.

    Still, it was a wasteland, and sadly short of the delicious fungi and cave mushrooms that he and the other troggoths loved to eat. If they were going to break down the gates to heaven, they would need full bellies. Yolig didn't need the stones to sing that to him. Fortunately, the little one they had saved had somehow found a way to some food. Even more fortunately, the mad god's minions were there too. This would be fun.

They had a couple of the skull giant things with them this time, and Yolig and the boys charged, quickly bashing the thing about with stones and hammers. Olvarn wasn't about to be outdone, and he crushed one of the barbarian in his fist.

The mad barbarians didn't seem too troubled by that. Yolig wasn't surprised, what with them being mad. They instead crowded around Olvarn, and he roared in annoyance as they managed to hack a few wounds into his stony skin. Yolig had a bit more luck, as he smashed the skull monster's... skull in with his trusty boulder.

 

After that, things began to go a bit awry. There were still more of the skull giants between Yolig and the food, and the next one dealt one of his companions a horrific wound, felling the bold Troggoth. Olvarn was having more luck casually slaughtering the barbarians, but it wasn't enough to break them.

Telek was about to have troubles of her own. A band of the blood maddened warriors had managed to somehow sneak around the flank, even though they were screaming about blood the entire time. Telek managed to bash one of them over the head with her staff, but the others closed in... and things might have gone very badly had they not been suddenly doused with buckets of acidic vomit. The few who survived the deluge fled.

 This was now the second time that Telek had been saved by fortuitous vomit, and frankly, she thought, it had better be the last.

After that, things got a bit wild. The blood worshipers weren't about to give up the food (whatever it might be) without a fight, and Yolig wasn't going to let them get away with hurting his buddy. Olvarn had finally managed to fight free of the band he'd been stuck dealing with, and with a roar, he lumbered into the fray, knocking down a wall as he went. Still bellowing, he called out to Telek. "We need help, little wizard! Call the beast!"

g

Telek had no idea what he meant. She'd been able to do... something during the last battle, but what did summon the beast even mean? Summon the beast... within? No, that was nonsense. Olvarn had his damned prophecy and this was probably part of it. With nothing else coming to mind, Telek closed her eyes and concentrated

None of them really expected what happened next. The grate in the middle of the ruins had gone ignored, after all, there was a whole lot of food next to it. The first thing Telek heard was a horrifying war cry. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a dwarf, leaping out of the now open grate with his axe swinging. There were a few bloody moments, and then the skull giant fell, dead. The surviving barbarians fled.

Olvarn looked over the carnage, and the crates of liberated food, and smiled broadly once again. "Well done! A tiny beast like you! That is good too."

The dwarf still looked... quite furious. Good might not be the right word.

(to be continued)

The Silly Narrative Continues

 Heck yeah, I'm going to keep this going. Games are still happening! Plus it's keeping mew writing. It might not be great writing, it might not even be good or make sense, but writing it is. Onward!

....................................

From the Journals of Telik, Last of the Sepa tribe

I was sure I was dead. Everyone else had been killed after all, so why not me? I'm still asking myself that, really.

My tribe had managed to hide for a long time in that cave, even as the followers of the mad blood god had slaughtered... just about everyone else, it seemed. But nothing good (or for that matter, just not horrible) lasts forever, and they found us. And they did what they do best. Really, I don't want to go into the details here, the point is that everyone I knew died. I got away for about an hour, and then they found me, and then... things got strange.

I'm still not sure why they saved me. The one who I've learned is called Yolig tried to explain in his own way, talking about singing stones and breaking the bright walls. It's all very mystical and all very confusing. 

But here I am, alive, and in the company of giant creatures from the deep caverns. I'm sure they'll eat me eventually, but until then, we've got to "find the swamp friends" whatever that means.

..................................

What it meant, it turned out, was sneaking into some ancient ruins, where the "swamp friends" were said to live. Yolig tried to explain to Telik (in his own way) that she'd have to prove to them that she was worthy of "the gifts of the swamp"

She followed after one of the other troggoths, feeling very uncertain.

Of course the ruins were haunted. The real challenge would have been finding ruins that weren't. The risen spirits in these particular ruins were not happy at being disturbed. Risen spirits never are.

One particular spirit holding a bell drifted through the crumbling wall until it met the troggoth guarding Telik, and with its strange bell, it dealt him a fearsome wound.

Yolig found himself fighting strange ghosts that seemed part man, part horse. They stalked through the ruins, holding long glaives, so Yolig started thinking of them as "spiky horse ghosts".

Luckily for all of them, the ghosts of various kinds still responded to being beaten up with clubs and boulders in the same way that most non ghosts did.

That is, until the leader of the spirits arrived. Drifting on a wave of cold horror, and bearing an executioner's axe, it felled the troggoth guarding Telik with a single sweeping blow.

Telik did the wisest thing and ran, once again proving her worth to Yolig

"Tiny one! Say the good words! Make the swamp friends come!" Yolig bellowed, which was pretty much the only way he talked. With that, he charged the axe-ghost, he favorite boulder held high.

Telik wanted to shout back that she had no idea what he was talking about, that she didn't know any words, good or otherwise, but that didn't seem like a path to survival right now. Nothing did.

But she had to do something. For some reason, her mind went back to an old rhyme, a nursery rhyme really, that her father once told her, something involving mice and cats. She said it. Nothing happened, and she could hear Yolig yelling in pain. 

With nothing left to lose, and more spirits closing, she shut her eyes, and shouted it as loud as she could.

What followed was not what she expected. There was an overpowering smell of rotting fish, for one. That was unexpected. And there were the swamp friends, popping out of the strange plant that she hadn't even really noticed.,.

Yolig was barely hanging on, his stony hide bleeding from several deep wounds, but he grinned hugely and said "Yes, good! Olvarn will be pleased!"

The swamp troggoths lumbered into battle, and to Yolig's rescue. At least, that's what they seemed to be doing at first. Telik was also caught off guard by what happened next. The troggoths opened their mouths as if for a mighty roar, and then instead.... they vomited. Profusely. All over the ghost.

It worked. Whether the spirit was truly slain, or just so profoundly humiliated that it fled the world of the living, Telik would never be sure. But it was gone, either way. They had won.

Telik could only wonder at what might come next.

A Little Narrative Game and a Silly Goal

 Well, it's been a bit again. The world is still a mess, so I'm messing about with tiny people because that's what I've got to do to keep myself busy for now. 

So, this will be a battle report of sorts, and it's for Age of Sigmar, and this one... has a story (oh no). I've got a goal, you see. I'm going to be putting up a series of these as me and my friend who is part of my quarantine bubble work together to have some fun and tell a story through... tiny figures. I can't promise it will be good, the painting will definitely not be good, and the story will be about as far from canon as you can get. It will be, and I mean this, extremely silly.

So, let's start! Our story begins in the dang old Age of Chaos, in the Realm of Ghur, with our heroes... the troggoths.

"The story is in the stone and the stone is the story". That's what Yolig knew even before the great dig up began. He and the other boys, they weren't sure where they were digging to, or why, but the stone was telling them it was the right idea. Olvarn, the king, who had lived longer and lived deeper than any other troggoth Yolig knew, he could hear the stories the stones were saying as clear as a drop of water in a still pool. They said "go up, find the last of the little ones in the caves where the sun can see, and keep them safe. That one is a good one. They will help you, good Troggoths. They will help you find the door to heaven, and you will tear it out of the ground".

 There was more to it than that, that was just the part that Yolig could hear. Olvarn heard it all, and he sang back to the stones as they dug. That's why he was the king.

Soon they came out into a cave where the sun could see them. The sun wasn't a friendly thing, but for the stones they would face it. And when they found those caves, where the sun could look in edgeways and see them, Yolig was the second one through, standing behind Olvarn as the huge king watched, and grinned. There below them were the mad warriors of the mad god, and there was the last of the little ones. The stones were silent now, but that was because they didn't need to say anything more. The troggoths knew what they had to do.

The mad warriors were quick, of course, as mad warriors usually are. They charged in, frothing and screaming about various things that Yolig couldn't really follow. They surrounded the little one, though, and that was a problem.

And there were quite a few of them too. Yolig and his brothers thought about charging in and stomping them into the ground, but the stones didn't seem to like the idea just yet, so they waited. 

The king, on the other hand, had spotted the strange crazed beast, sneaking up between some cave pines and cave coral (troggoths aren't known for naming things with any originality). The beast growled out something about skulls, and Olvarn, giving this statement the full consideration it deserved, bashed the beast's skull in. The stones seemed to approve of that.

The followers of the mad god had surrounded a grave site. Even Yolig knew that was a bad idea, and the raging spirit that awoke and slew two of the warriors was just further proof that you should never mess with raging spirits.

Yolig had to admit later that he'd spent a little too much time thinking and to little time listening, because when he looked up a human with an axe was trying to disembowel him. Luckily, his thick skin saved him from getting anything more than a deep scratch, and he and his brothers laid about themselves with club and boulder

It was quite effective. The lone survivor fled the field, or in this case, the cave.

The other mad warriors were feeling a bit less mad now, as they tried to escape with their prize. And escape they might have, as Yolig had started thinking again, and only made it as far as the grave stones. King Olvarn was a better thinker, and had already thought out a solution: He crushed one of the warriors in his hand, and smashed the rest to pieces. Not elegant, but it was the kind of solution that the stones liked.

He looked down, and saw the last of the little ones. They seemed concerned, even after Yolig told them "We not eat!" which should have allayed any concerns. But they had done right, as good Troggoths should, and now, the story would continue.

(So, that's that! You may notice that the battle was a little... one sided. That may have been on purpose, for this post. The next one should be a bit more even.)

A Fourth Starter Set Post!

So here we are, on the fourth scenario. I finished this one a bit ago, and to be honest, by this point I was getting pretty tired of these games! Which is unfortunate, but each one just seemed to work out... not well! Each time the facet of the game the scenario was meant to be highlighting just wouldn't happen! and that carries on in this game, where the focus is meant to be on command abilities and spells. None of which had much effect on the game.

All of this is a way of saying that I'm just going to give a quick summary of the game with a couple of pictures, and then move on!

So this was a battle over a temple and or crypt once more, with the ghosts having a leader! They faced off against three stormcast wizardly types.

Everyone just kind of ran at each other, trying and failing to cast spells.

The lord executioner and the... stormcast main wizard (who i gave a pet pig) ended up dueling! And missing each other repeatedly. They were just... so terrible at everything. Including, once again, spells.

The evocators did their thing, and beat up some chain ghosts.

The executioner did his thing too, and finally triumphed against the villainous/heroic wizard! The pig escaped, of course.

Meanwhile these guys beat up more ghosts, and actually cast a spell that beat up some more! And the rest ran, or floated off, freeing them to avenge themselves on the gallows ghost. A Win for the stormcast! 2-2 now.

And that was that. I'm taking a break from this, as it's probably clear from the tone of this post that I'm tired of these scenarios. But I will finish the last one, at some point.

Next? Things!

Starter Sets And Such Part 3

Well, here it is then, another battle report from the starter set! There's not too much to say in introduction, so here we go!

This is the scenario that's meant to teach about battleshock (aka gw's way of handling morale) and you can bet that it... basically didn't come up during the whole fight.

The scenario begins with some storm guys on top of a box, waiting for the approach of chain ghosts! They approach the crypt and/or temple and the crossbow knights fire mightily! And miss every shot. Again. *sigh*

The chainghosts do their thing (float) and reach the top of the temple and/or crypt, but they cannot charge! The other group does manage to charge in, yelling, and they take down one of the storm fellows, losing one of their own in return.

The fight grows fierce (as fights often do, and the other ghosts jump on into the fray. Meanwhile, another ghost is unghosted.

It's not enough though, and the ghosts keep on hitting with their hitting stick, taking down yet another of our heroes/villains (depending on your perspective)

They can't hold out against the relentless onslaught of spirit fists, and they too... give up the ghost.

Another victory for the nighthaunt (not to be confused with nightstalkers) and another staggering defeat for the crossbows! They have missed every time in these scenarios, i think. That's fun.

Next: The next one in the book!

Starter Set Gaming Part Two

Let's keep this going! On to scenario two of the Tempest of Souls starter set, one that is meant to teach how ranged combat works.

Time to see how I can mess that up.


Our scenario begins with one castigator (which is a silly name, so let's call her Hattie) facing off against four GRIMGHAST REAPERS (which is also a silly name, but they're ghosts and don't get names, I guess.) On the first turn they casually drift up towards Hattie, who fires a single shot and removes one ghost from the board!

The ghosts are clearly perturbed by this, at least as perturbed as any ghost can be, and they show that by... failing to charge and just drifting around a bit more. This allows Hattie to triumphantly get off another shot that kills another ghost!

 At this point I kind of got bored of all the aimless drifting and decided to have Hattie charge the ghosts, confident that her skills with a crossbow would see her through!

They did not.

 And so, alas, the mighty Hattie fell, though she may return some day. The ghosts returned to their unlives of wandering about the place. And the record stands at Stormcast 1, Nighthaunt 1.

Next: The Next Scenario, which may involve more than one person on the stormcast side!

For Love of Starter Sets

So as you can probably guess from the title, I've always been really fond of starter sets in miniature games. They're just... exciting, you know? Especially the ones that actually come with full rule books. That's another i'm fond of collecting, to be honest. Rule books of all kinds.

With the pandemic and everything (what a phrase that is!) i'm quite obviously not doing any shopping, and that's not much of a much in the situation. But I have had a starter set sitting around that i wanted to get started on, and now i have! It's the Tempest of Souls set from age of sigmar, ghostly fellows vs wizardly knights, and it comes with an... ok rule book. It's gw so it's far more concerned with selling you things, but it does have one of my favorite other things: a set of intro games to play.

So that's what my next few posts will be. I'm going to play through this... not too complex intro games and paint and just have fun with them. I actually already started a bit ago, so without further ado, here we go!

The battle begins as our hero (or villain, depending on which side you're one) is charged by some ghostly horse fellows. Using their stabbing sticks, they stab him up good, dealing out a whole 1 wound! Our hero (his name is... Wilberforce. It's Wilberforce now) is in a spot of trouble.

But Wilberforce isn't about to give up, that's not the Wilberforce way! And with a mighty swing or two, he lays the ghost horsemen low.

The tide has truly begun to turn, and the turns have too, and Wilberforce the Decent (that's his name now. His full name.) Wilberforce the Decent charges his enemies and knocks them out  too! He's survived the day, and can now continue on with whatever it is he was doing. Going for a walk, I think.

 So, that's the first scenario! It's a pretty simple one obviously, meant to teach the basics of combat, but I'm having fun with this project so far, silly as it may be. Next, shooting!

A Battle Report of Sorts!

I say a battle report of sorts, because it was a battle against myself, played on a smaller than normal space. But that's how we do things, and it's better to have a bit of fun in these times than to sit around doing nothing at all. I ain't going to be in any tournaments anyhow, quarantine or no.

 So, in this epic matchup of me against me, the Nightstalkers fought the Kingdoms of Men! Many mistakes were made by both sides.

The men had two bold regiments of fanatics bolstered by bowmen and two generals, which at this level may have been a... bad choice. The nightstalkers were led by a horror and fielded butchers, scarecrows, and spectres, all as regiments.

Battle was soon joined, as battles often are. The butchers did their thing with mixed results, and the scarecrows managed only a bit of fighting before being wiped out. But eventually the damage done to the crazed fanatics began to tell, and in one single turn...

They were all wiped out. Only the generals survived to return home and say "Dang, we really messed that up."

So that was that. Fanatics hit pretty hard as always, but they're fragile too. Probably not the best for fights that drag on too long, but I can see them being more useful if I actually position them right!

Will there be more actual posts soon? Only time will tell.

Hello and Night!

Well now it's been a bit hasn't it? And now here we all are, cooped up and sad and confused. That's where I am at least! I've been busy with so many things, mainly pacing,  dancing around aimlessly, and cooking. But i've had some room for some hobby related stuff to so here it is. I've been working on a force of nightstalkers for kings of war:

They're still very much a work in progress of course It's never going to be a pretty looking army, but that's not my intention. I want to get them done! And i think with the colors, they'll still look nicely creepy. Hopefully I will actually have more soon!