The Lair of the Beast

After looking for clues in The Dreaded Ambull, our intrepid group of explorers (they've stuck together long enough that, despite the fluff, I don't think we can really call them Allies of Convenience) have determined the location of the Ambull's lair and now mount a mission to steal three of it's eggs!

To reach the Lair of the Beast, though, the explorers have to go through an Access Route of four random Exploration Cards - I used one of the exploration cards from The Dreaded Ambull expansion that we didn't get to in the previous expedition, plus three others.

Now we had THREE characters that all started Uninspired and had specific things to do to flip their card to the Inspired side. Pious Vorne had to take out three hostiles with a single Cleansing Flame action. Dorg "The Wall" Brogan had to take out a hostile - on THEIR activation - which mean one of Dorg's actions had to be to go on Defence... and not have hostiles in contact... BUT be close enough to one that could... but ideally one that would be weak enough he could take it out with a single smash of his Power Maul... And then there is Grekh. The only way Grekh gets inspired is by spending inspiration points. He's slightly more likely to get them than others - he doubles the wound value of hostiles take out during his activation before rolling the Blackstone dice (d20) to see if he gains inspiration (by rolling equal to or less than said number. So that was one of our main things to try and do in the four Access Route cards - which COULD be all combats... or ALL challenges... or any mix... Not knowing how many Combats there might be, we would want to try and do all three of these things as quick as possible!


Exploration Card One - Combat 



Off to a good start... not overwhelming number of terrifying, deadly hostiles... some conveniently groups for some Cleansing Flame!



And so that is what Pious Vorne did, right off the hop....



Ur-Ghuls burned. Card flipped. Check!



Mind you that didn't leave much for Grekh or Dorg...



WE kept repositioning Dorg and letting things charge up against him... but he just couldn't take them out!? Grekh stepped in and finished things off... but rolled too high on the Blackstone Die to gain inspiration... Killed everything... Picked up some ARchaeotech no one really needed all that badly and wandered out of there...


Exploration Card Two - Challenge... Sort of... 



Card Number Two was kind of a Challenge... I mean, it was a Challenge card... but it was really a VERY SHORT POTENTIALLY DEADLY COMBAT... facing the Ambull!



Aaaaaand it was going first!



Time to use the Clarion's Infra-Wave Laud Hailers to distract the Am-Bull!

FOR ONCE the Laud Hailers worked and EVERYONE ended up going BEFORE the Ambull!!



So how to do this... there was much debate... Since Vorne already had her card flipped, we thought maybe Grekh could use up all the Destiny Dice to have a go at the Ambull. I mean, if he took it down, he'd automatically get ONE point of inspiration (only needing two more to gain Inspiration!)



So Vorne laid down some flame and scarpered off to the escape chamber.



Grekh moved up and took a few shots at the Ambull...



He used his Warpgate Amulet AND the Antedil Orb... neither worked... so he ran for it!



Everyone else ran for it - and all made it into the Escape Chamber - BUT it doesn't leave until the END of the turn, which meant the Ambull got to go before we left!



On it's first activation it charged - and got a little burned running through Vorne's flames.

Shadowguide, who was on overwatch, took a shot and did some more damage!



His second activation was to FALL BACK!! So Lucky!? So... Strange!?  I guess it was taken aback by the Aeldari's acurate - and painful - long rifle fire, and that gave it pause... long enough for us to escape!


Exploration Card Three - Challenge



Espern Locarno was the leader at this time, so we took him out and shuffled them and revealed one to Amanda. This was easy-peasy! I had two questions

#1 Are you Xenos? If no, it's Pious Vorne. If yes, go on to Question #2

#2 Are you Green? If yes, Grekh. If no, Amallyn Shadowguide.

Only needed the first one...



As it was Pious Vorne!


Exploration Card Four - Combat



Last card before the Lair and... hardly anyone there!? So Grekh was on a murder Rampage, trying desperately to get some Inspiration points!



He blammed the two Spindle Drones...



He hunted down the Boreworms...



Alas... he gained no inspiration for such easy kills... and would remain uninspired as we entered...


The Lair of the Beast...



Ah yeah!



So this was interesting - the hostile groups started hidden and would not activate until revealed... so we didn't know what was where, exactly... but could do SOME sneaking about before things got really crazy and do some positioning. To succeed we needed to remove three egg counters - getting them safely to one of the escape chambers. picking one up required an action (4+) just like a search action - and then they filled one of the action squares on the card of the character that was carrying it (much like a wound does) reducing the number of activation dice it can roll (and, consequently, the number of action it could carry out in a turn.

WE figured the egg cluster that was closest to me - near the bottom of the picture above (and below...) could only be seen by one hostile group... so we could take them out and grab two of the eggs, summon the nearby chamber and get those eggs in there - then Shadow guide could sneak up as close as possible without being seen by any of the other hostiles and then SPRINT - using ALL the Destiny Dice - to get there and back in one activation...



Grekh had made a run at that first hostile group but was completely unable to do ANYTHING to any of the Spindle Drones that popped up. So Locarno - bearing the Spindle Amulet moved up to deal with them. Amallyn Shadow guide sprinted forward and summoned a Maglev Chamber.



The next turn everyone moved into position. Grekh grabbed BOTH of the eggs from the first cluster. Vorne set up some fire to give any hostiles that might pop up some disincentive to come our way.



Grekh got back to the chamber with the eggs and everyone was ready to cover Shadowguide rum for a third egg!




Unfortunately at the end of the turn, the event made a Boreworm show up in the Egg Cluster Shaodwguide was moving towards and moved out and blocked her way - so she would have to kill it (slowing her down some) before making her run for the egg and arousing the remaining Hostiles (one the second group was revealed ALL were revealed!)

She had little trouble slaying the Boreworm and made her run, grabbed the egg and made it back to the Maglev chamber!



It was clear that Dorg wasn't going to make it there in ONE turn... and the Enraged Ambull was VRY close... So Locarno ran up and smashed it with his Thunder Hammer - if a hostile is wounded by it, it is also STUNNED - and that would mean it would lose it's FIRST activation, just standing up.







Dorg slowing making his way to the escape chamber - but blocking the Ur-Ghuls from swarming in from the flank!

The first one had charged and set off a boobytrap Grekh had set on the very first turn, killing it. the Second charged Dorg and Dorg smashed it (finally flipping to his Inspired side). The other two smelling the charged remains of the first and hearing the death squeals of the second decided to just hand out where they were - both rolled Hold actions!



Locarno got out of there and Vorne burned the Ambull as best she could and then laid down some flame for it to move through once it got up and inevitably charged!






More flaming... more wounds on the Ambull - not nearly enough though!



The following turn the Ur-Ghuls went first - which was handy, because this one just bumped up against Dorg and though Dorg couldn't hit it back, the ur-Ghul wasn't able to do much to him.



The second one was still thinking about discretion being the better part of valour...



Then the Ambull got up and CHARGED!

This was actually (potentially) REALLY BAD - as Dorg could not possibly get into the Mag-lev chamber this turn as it was four hexes away - and with the Ambull being in the adjacent hex, Dorg would have to stop before getting in! Luckily most of the explorers had gone earlier in the initiative order and were all able to unload on it with Overwatch fire...



And... By the Light of the Emperor... they took it out!?



With no Ambull in the way, Dorg waltzed into the Maglev chamber and off they went!!!



And so... to see what was in the secret envelope!



At the beginning of the Quest the Sett VII facility was set up on the "under construction" side and, as there were no instruction in the rules on how it was to ever COMPLETE construction, I had pretty much guessed something in the envelope would say it's completed and what it would do ONCE it was complete



Sure enough, there was a card saying it's all set up now and it adds an extra step BERORE each expedition, where explorers with extra Archeotech saved up in their stasis chambers can go buy any of the goodies held within before heading into off on a new Expedition.



Locarno went and picked up another Mindsigil Trap (as they've come in handy)



And Grekh bought EVERYTHING at Kraav'cha-to... just because he could.

Amallyn Shadowguide actually gave up one of the things she's been carrying - just to keep one Archaeotech aside - so she could buy some Rad Maggot Salival Extract before our next expedition!



Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Tomorrow.... or... rather... later today (but after I go to sleep for a bit) we'll be playing Blackstone Fortress again and hopefully it won't take a week to get the next game report done!

I was planning on posting another June Games update on Monday or Tuesday as well.

As for painting... Well... The Cultists and new explorers for Blackstone Fortress were shoved aside by the Aaronautica Imperialis distraction - but I was hoping to finish up the Ork Dakkajets and get back to work on the Cultists... but now work on the Dakkajets have been stalled by the arrival of the ZOAT from the new Dark Alliance expansion for Blackstone Fortress (just released this past weekend) AND the new Fabius Bile miniature - and his little assistant (also just released this past weekend!)!?

Hopefully I'll find some time to get some paint on those and get them off the table... and the dakka jets... AND the Cultists and explorers in the next two weeks... because there is sure to be ANOTHER distraction the first week of July when the final book of the Psychic Awakening is released - and a few new figures with it!

Finnegan has agreed, in principle, to play some Kill Team sometime this week, now that he is officially DONE school for the term! So perhaps there will be another game report later in the week. He was suggesting he'd like to fight against Kreuger's Unvalids - because they just "seem fun"!

The Dreaded Ambull

Having finished the Quest for the Hidden Vault, we weren't about to just sit around on our laurels! Monday evening is now "Blackstone Fortress Night" - Amanda and I are planning on playing every Monday evening until... well... we run out of Quests!? So this week, we played on Tuesday... and... Wednesday....Long story, but at least we still got to play!


A rogue Adeptus Mechanicus Genetor has established a presence at Precipice and was in a position to offer great rewards to anyone able to secure the eggs of an Ambull Hulk that is rumoured to have been sighted in the Blackstone Fortress. Our intrepid explorers have decided to take on this quest. The Ratlings, however, decided that sounded like SUICIDE and decided to sit this one out, so the rest of the team sought out Dahyak Grekh, the Kroot Tracker they'd worked with for some time, while the Ratlings were recovering from their previous death... or... something like that...?

To succeed in this quest the explorers have to return to precipice with three Ambull eggs - which need to be retrieved from it's lair. But before doing so, said lair must be LOCATED. To do this, one must find Ambull Spoor and an Ambull Trail token - similar to the clues required to do Stronghold Assaults in the original Quest for the Hidden Vaults. The Dreaded Ambull has it's own discovery deck which includes Ambull Spoor Cards and it's own Exploration, which form the deck to be used for the initial exploration. It wasn't clear in the rules how one was to obtain an Ambull Trail token, but I figured there would be an Exploration Card (either a Challenge or Combat) that could allow the explorers to obtain one - I suppose I could have read through them and found out for sure, but I wanted them to be bit of a surprise!

To make the Encounter Deck for explorations in The Dreaded Ambull, the Encounter Cards from the base set are shuffled and nine are drawn at random - to these three Ambull Encounter cards are added. The Ambull appears if the card is set up in discovery location #1, in locations 2 and 3 it's a bore worm (or two?) and in four it's an Condition.

I thought briefly about upping the ante and including some of the cards from Abominal Intellect - and expansion that has "more challenging" encounter cards. I picked it up ages ago, but haven't even looked at it (I pick up card expansions whenever they come out, as they often sell out immediately and are never reprinted for some reason!?). So I cracked the deck and had a look...



First card I looked at... 21 Traitor Guard... TWENTY-ONE!?

Maybe not quite ready for THAT sort of challenge!

Ended up just using the Encounter cards from the base set! (The Abominable Intellect also uses a number of hostiles from other expansions that I don't even have painted yet, so... that's my excuse... and I'm sticking with it!)


Expedition Round One - Challenge



Miraculously, despite having a couple d6 agilities, everyone got through this one just fine!


Expedition Round Two: Combat



Short and nasty... four Ur-Ghuls and a Boreworm (and Ambull larvae)



Amanda's commentary on the Boreworm was "Awwwww! What's this little thing, it's so cute! Wait, it's a hostile? Well it can't be that bad..."



Morgan Freeman Narration Voice: "It WAS that bad!"

(Actually, Amalyn Shadowguide shot it dead - BLAM!)

They aren't fun. Sure, it's only a d6... But it attacks three times! Odds are it's going to miss twice, and then cause one wound or one grievous wound... OUCH!



Of course it just showed up again later in the turn and bit her in the ass. That'll teach her for suggesting anything in the Blackstone Fortress is "cute"!

She survived.

The Boreworm didn't.



Killted the last of the Ur-Ghuls and we were on our way. Amanda was disappointed as Vorne wasn't able to burn three of them in one go and get Insprired. Grekh didn't even get ONE point of inspiration - the ONLY way he gets Inspired is by spending three inspiration tokens - he does gain them a little easier than others, but it's still not THAT easy... despite killing most of the Ur-Ghuls, no inspiration tokens were acquired.


Expedition Round Three: Combat



Another Combat. Grekh snuck forward and planted his booby trap in a nice bottleneck before the first round started (as his special ability allows)...



But then he happened to go first and decided to run off in the other direction to hunt down the Boreworm and collect the goodies it was sitting on.

It felt like it was a safe place to be - out of range of the Chaos Beastmen's charge...



Forgetting entirely that they have a special action: Rush - take one move, THEN Charge the nearest explorer... Whoopsie! He only took one wound because of this momentary lapse in judgement.

All the others came rushing to his aid...



Then MORE Beastmen arrived as reinforcements.



Finally, just as everyone was about to leave, another Boreworm showed up as part of a "Not Dead Yet" event...

Everyone got away safely - no inspiration, but having picked up a couple pieces of Ambul Spoor.


Expedition Round Four: COMBAT! 



Another Combat! All of the Combats in this set are in tight little areas - like a knife-fight in a Phone Booth! So most only had 2-3 hostile groups.



And they were pretty quick to play through...



Always waiting for Brogan... most of the time he spends the entire combat just moving towards the exit... and we STILL have to wait a couple of turns for him. There are, however, the occasional moments where he has been VERY handy plugging a hole and denying Hostiles the ability to get past - and AT the rest of the explorers. He can take a LOT of damage - and just shrugs a lot of it off, with his d12 Defence!


Expedition Round Five: Challenge!



Vorne and Shadowguide both got cards... Grekh and Locarno... not so much.


Expedition Round Six: Combat! 



Another short combat in a tight area... and an ambush at that... and... wait... is that...?



Oh, yes, that's Obsidius Mallex alright! (I though we Killed Him!?)

(I guess that's the miracles of Transhuman Physiology for you!)

(Wait... and Espern Locarno is still carrying his Thunder Hammer!? I guess he found - or fashioned - a new one! Does someone get to pic THAT one up if we survive this and finish him off!?)

At this point it was getting a bit late, so we left things set up on the table to finish off the following evening - Wow! What a Cliffhanger!?

Luckily card three introduced a beneficial Condition rather than ANOTHER Hostile group - might have been the end of us if it had been another hostile group!



Amanda plotting and planning and trying to get her head around how we were going to survive this.



Mallex was the first to go and fell for the old Grekh-sneaks-forward-and-plants-booby-traps schtick! Conveniently, in addition to causing a grievous wound, the boobytrap also STUNS hostiles. As the move was his second action (the first was... sneak..? or... hold...? I forget now, but he wasted it, moved up, and then blew up and remained stunned and was unable to attack Grekh!



Others moved up and shot or charged... I think Dorg took a belter round from one of the Chaos Space Marines?



Shadowguide was the first of the explorers to go. Grekh assured her that he had it under control and would finish off the Chaos Lord - and then FOR SURE get some inspiration, so she went and slaughtered a Traitor Guard and one of the Chaos Space Marine. Grekh missed. Like, a LOT. So then Dorg stepped up and started pounding on Mallex with his shock-club-thingy (I forget what it is called...?) Then, Locarno finished him off with his Third Eye!

BAM!

Chaos Lords ain't so TOUGH!



Vorne then Burned the remaining guard. She ran up to the Rogue Psykers... but then realized she's not awesome up close...



So she stepped away from them and roasted the remaining Chaos Space Marine!



Or... at least grievously wounded him..  This is the end of Round One

In the second round the Chaos Space Marine and Psykers were finished off.

I think by the end of the third round the discovery markers were searched and all were in the escape chamber!


Expedition Round Seven: Combat (and THE AMBULL!) 



YIKES! The AMBULL!

Well, at least we now knew how to get a Ambull Trail token.




All set up and ready to go.



Thought maybe we'd let THEM come to US...



Vorne laid down some fire - everyone else got into position and went on overwatch.

Kind of forgot to give Dorg a spot at the front...



BOOM! Those booby traps are handy!

And Fire. So much fire.



BAM! Ambull driven off! Oh, you don't kill the thing... You just make it annoyed enough that it decides it's had enough and burrows a hole in the wall and bolts. A token is left where he left and if rolled for reinforcements, it just pops right back up at full health - 16 wounds - more than Obsidius Mallex!



So it was time for us to get out of Dodge!







WE did take a moment to grab a few treasures and finish off that last skulking Ur-Ghul.

There were two more Exploration cards in the deck... but, at that point, we had more than Three Ambull Spoor and the Ambull Trail token, so there was no real reason to continue...


Precipice

There is no Legacy step. We're working on the assumption that, since there is no Legacy step, that none of the legacy card effects are still in effect...



The aforementioned Three Ambull Spoor and the Ambull Trail token!



At this point, everyone else pretty much has everything they need (or at least as much as they can carry!) so everyone gave all their Archaeotech and spare Spoor to Grekh and he went on a spending spree at Kraav'Cha'To! Woo!

So... Next Monday... we shall face The Lair of the Beast!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

While having a very productive burst at the beginning of the week, things have slowed, slightly. Just about don't the XV-86 Coldstar Commander for Finnegan's T'au... but other distractions have arrived on the workbench.

Monday is the next Blackstone Fortress game - and that will be our first crack at the Lair of the Beast - expect a game report shortly after that. On Tuesday I'll probably post June Games Part Two.