My goblins have met an untimely end. Mainly due to my disinterest
in the list I was playing, and the options for development as the war
band ‘grew’. So they won’t be featuring on this blog any more. In their
place have risen warriors of unlikely legend: The Seven Samurats.
They are the spiritual successors to my war band from my previous
Mordheim campaign, the Ratmificent Seven; they all wielded pistols
except one who was armed with fighting claws and got real close ‘n’
personal with anyone who survived the Warplock pistol volley from Hidden
positions. It met with great success until I had to street fight versus
six Dwarf crossbowmen. They live on in my memory as one of the most fun
yet fluffy lists I’ve written.
After a slightly drunken night playing World of Warships with some
other guys in the campaign I put together a Skaven list modelled on the
Seven Samurai – lots of swords and some throwing stars, very strictly
kept to six heroes and one verminkin (Kikuchiru, or the comic
relief/not-a-real-samurai dude). I will recruit no new henchmen, only
upgrade my current samurats and replace those who fall.
I picked clan Eshin (for hopefully obvious thematic reasons) and formed my brave band (for the third time in the campaign):
Assassin, Weeping Blades, Sling, Light Armour.
Sorcerer, Warplock Pistol Brace, Sword (Spell: Warpfire).
Black Skaven, Halberd, Sling, Light Armour.
Black Skaven, Fighting Claws.
Gutterrunner, Spear, Throwing Stars.
Gutterrunner, Sword, Dagger, Throwing Stars.
Verminkin, Sword, Sling.
What a glorious group of heroes! Almost. Not quite. There is another
Skaven player, Ric of Clan Moulder, who is running a horde of
experimental mutants. He outnumbers me two to one, as do a few human war
bands. As with my goblins, I’m sharing a model count with some tough
customers – mainly T4 or BS4 or another non-leadership statistic of
four. I’m be outmanned, out-muscled or out-classed in nearly every game I
play.
Is there a bright side? Of course! Have you seen my equipment? Weeping Blades are
hideous! Automatically wounding on 6’s, but still allowed to crit,
and
they cause a critical hit on a five or a six! Having checked the rules,
that means that they always wound on a 5 or 6, so Toughness six beasts
are that much easier to bring down! They might be rare in the first
place, but these things are going to help make them even rarer!
Halberds are perfect for my Black Skaven – bring them to Strength
five while still fighting at Initiative, I should be able to bring down
enemies before they get a chance to fight back. Fighting Claws give my
other Black Skaven spider-like agility when scaling buildings and
getting about the board, as well as being pretty dangerous in a fight.
The spear on one Gutterunner is for style more than anything – none of
the Seven Samurai used a spear, but it’s cool. And might help my WS2
Gutterrunner not die immediately when charged. I’m trying twin swords on
the other one to test the parry ability, as I think that’s going to be a
big player in the campaign.
I will admit the sorcerer with Warplock Pistols is somewhat
not-samurai-esque. I am putting this down as a Kabuki/Magician
character, or is basically the special effects guy for my group. A
little bit of ranged firepower is going to be very welcome, and the
short range means he’s going to be stuck at the front with the others
anyway. His spell also has an 8” range so the pistols will only be fired
when I can’t risk collateral damage. Usually that is pretty rare, but
when you have seven tooled up furballs it may come into play.
Game 1: Vengeance in Fur Form
My first game was against my roommate who had slaughtered half my
original war band. Did I feel any more confident now that I had started
again? Not a chance. We rolled Warpstone Hunt, so I wasn’t going to have
my rats picked off one by one. Matt’s goat blokes were still fast, but
slightly slower than my rats so I hoped to get some positioning
advantage. I also hoped that with a take and hold objective he would
break his war band up and I could deal with it piecemeal.
Was that malicious? Vengeful? Dare I say petty? Yes. I had played
goblins, and was now playing Skaven. If I could nobble the minotaur and
make him run bleating I’d be happy. Nothing less.
We set up on opposite board edges, he with a bridge for his billy
goats and me with a church and a house built by our vampire player which
he’d claimed as his own. There was a distinctly open square in the
middle and while tactically it was okay to rush the middle as there was a
wyrdstone token in the bell tower there, I lost first turn and didn’t
fancy trying to force the goat blokes off it. I contented myself with
nabbing the tokens in the church and vampire-home, then settling in for
the duration.
Matt grabbed the token under the bridge and the one in the bell
tower. He was less content with a draw however, and was very aware of
how stabby my list could be given half a chance – he’d been playing
World of Warships with me at the time it was designed. So while my pack
was split between the two buildings, he ran his whole war band at the
vampire-home, leaving my Sorcerer, Claw-wielding Black Skaven and the
Spear wielding Gutterrunner two turns away. I sent a hail of slingshots
and knives at his dudes and miraculously knocked a bestigor down and my
sorcerer managed to take two wounds of the minotaur!
Then things got messy. The minotaur couldn’t quite charge into the
building due to lines of sight and me being on three different floors,
so instead bulled (ha ha) its way in through a window space/wall. The
other goats spaced themselves around the outside, ready to jump in. His
Shaman, Bad Trip, failed to cast Wings of Darkness so couldn’t catapult
himself into my Assassin – a fact I was pretty grateful for!
In my turn I issued four charges against the minotaur, and had my
first encounter with my leadership stat: The minotaur caused fear, and
we misplayed the rules (I think) so that if I failed my LD check I
couldn’t charge. With LD seven (Thanks, ‘great’ leader…) I hit the
average and passed two out of four tests – except rather than either my
Assassin with Weeping Blades or Black Skaven with Halberd making it in,
who could have made short work of a single wound, no save model, my
Verminkin and Gutterrunner did. In a panic my Sorcerer threw a ball of
Warpfire at the muscle-bound cow and instead of cooking his ass managed
to knock over my Gutterrunner in base contact and do the same to my
Assassin on the floor above.
Suffice to say, my Verminkin did not kill the cow.
He was only stunned in return but this meant that someone was dying
in Matt’s next turn. My leader and Black Skaven got charged on the upper
floors while the other goats failed Initiative tests to get into the
house, thankfully. The Shaman Dark Wings’d into my Black Skaven, and the
stage was set for a three-floor brawl in the vampire-home.
Tables were broken, windows smash and a book-cased violently
dismantled over someone’s head. Blod, fur, gristle and spit decorated
the interior and the enighbours were kept awake with roars, squeals,
braying and bleats. At the end of the combat phase, one goat and the
minotaur were down as was my Verminkin – what a fan-fucking-tastic trade
that was! Sadly my Skaven bottled it and ran with their two wyrdstone,
even if I wanted them to stick it out a bit longer, and Matt took the
victory.
We both got two bonus wyrdstone, his minotaur didn’t in fact die –
although nor did Kikuchiru, which wasn’t as great a cause of
celebration. His shaman lost an eye and my Gutterrunner suffered a deep
chest wound and was reduced to Toughness two! I picked up a ton of
wyrdstone, maybe six, and also salvaged two pairs of bracers from the
black market along with some Heavy Armour for my leader and a lot of
light armour for my other chaps. I banked about 40gp and three wyrdstone
and looked for my next opponent.
Game 2 – Rumble in the Ruins
Or opponent
s! Four of us got together for the first
multiplayer free for all of the campaign – another wyrdstone hunt, but
this time there was a massive eleven wyrdstone on offer! Matt’s Gors
were back, bringing a Centigor (presumably the tour bus) with them and
their bassist, who had missed the last game. He was on my right after
deployment; on my left was Captain Bloodbeard and his undead crew
commanded by David Dys, and on the far side of the table Felix’s so-far
unlucky Carnival of Chaos lurked. There was one large, central ruin that
was about 2’x2’ and a might four flours high (at some sections); most
of the wyrdstone ended up here, with one being suspiciously close to
each player’s deployment areas. Clearly no one was 100% confident that
they could take and hold the ruined mansion.
I split my seven rats into two groups again, this time my Sorcerer
and Halberd Skaven on the right near a house with a wyrdstone shard in
and everyone else in the centre, facing an apparently sheer wall. I was
trusting my high Initiative and movement to get me to the top, and a
hopefully commanding position. Turn one everyone shambled, scurried,
trotted, lurched or walked towards the centre except the Carnival, who
were suffering severe PTSD and hung back in a nearby building, cradling a
single wyrdstone shard. David D’s dogs scampered into to grab wyrdstone
and Matt’s shaman Dark Wings’d into the manor ruins. Over the next
three turns they battled for position until Matt’s minotaur caught a pig
and began either trying to kill it or mate with it, we weren’t sure
from the combat rolls. In that time the Carnival hadn’t moved except for
one enterprising swarm of grubs which managed to sneak in and steal a
shard from the manor despite having a movement of three. I failed
dismally to pick off a strangler from Matt’s band, threw some rather
ineffective gravel at Dys’s Blooddragon Vampire pirate and my claw-armed
dude ran up the side of the manor, trying to corner the bray shaman who
hadn’t failed to cast his spell once, and was now carting two wyrdstone
by himself.
I had planned to nobble him, swipe the wyrdstone and then hide in a
corner/voluntarily rout as soon as possible with my three shards. Matt
took offense to my not-so-subtle plan (I’d shot at one dude and used my
claw-Skaven’s zone of control to ensure his shaman couldn’t walk out) so
pulled his entire band out of the manor ruins and back towards me –
fortunately the small door space and woods interrupted this, and only a
lone Gor got into combat with my Sorcerer. Oh, and of course the shaman
cast his spell to escape not-quite-certain death and charge into my
unlucky magician. Combat saw him removed by the Gor, so that was an
issue.
In my turn I counter charged, surprising Matt with how far most of my
dudes could go, and abandoned any kind of board control – with the
shaman in my lines, my prize was easily within reach! And I only had to
get my Verminkin sliced up to rout! That plan failed as I took down both
the bray shaman and the Gor in combat. Dys brought his angry dead
(slowly) around the manor, having been misled about my willingness to
fight on two fronts, and caught by surprise at how quickly I could run
away (‘redeploy’) and the Carnival unlocked the windows of their hovel,
confused why they couldn’t hear the sounds of combat any more.
Matt charged in with everything except a Bestigor and the Minotaur,
who had charge lines blocked by the manor wall and doors. In a truly
surprising display of skill my entire war band won their fights,
stunning or eliminating their opponents – except my leader who, charged
by Matt’s chieftain, only managed to knock him down. Matt’s dice had
been terrible and I could see him weighing up whether he was going to
rout next turn – Dys’s remaining pig and vampire had already reached our
brawl (swiftly becoming a tradition for our war bands) and his
shambling horde were only a turn away. My verminkin had been destroyed
by the vampire, which was a fortunately bad tactical move by Dys as it
meant that in my next turn I could voluntarily rout – with a total of
five wyrdstone, thanks to Matt’s unfortunate combat rolls!
I rolled first turn next, for the first time all game and really the
only time it mattered. I spent a pretty intense seven seconds deciding
if I wanted to roll into the vampire with everything, near definitely
removing him but opening myself up for a counter charge by less stabby
but not that much softer undead. Matt’s minotaur was lurking in the
wings as was his last Bestigor, late to the gig for reasons best left
unexplored, and they could have made pretty short work of something
themselves and I could see him eyeing up the so far undefeated vampire.
Glorious victory shined bright in my eyes, the promise of riches and
renown filling my mind…
Then I remembered I was a Samurat. I fought not for glory or riches,
but mainly to stab people in the back when they weren’t looking and
steal things back to the hovel I’d been hired to ‘protect’/enrich. So I
put down my dice and declared I was off, taking my five remaining rats
and five shiny wyrdstone with me.
Dys finished off Matt’s leader but his Wight couldn’t manage the
Bestigor in one round, the Carnival came out of hiding and began to
prance about a bit and Matt also routed, with only one shard despite an
serious lead in the early game. Dys then made the somewhat suspect
decision to rout, on the basis he’d lost two pigs and didn’t want to
risk losing something else – this left a very surprised Felix with a
wholly unexpected victory, if not much wyrdstone for it.
In the after game my Sorcerer recovered fully (more like had faked
it…), Kikuchiru the First died and was instantly replaced, and I rolled
another five wyrdstone on my exploration. Pretty ratting good game! So
far I’d lost two games and come out with enough surplus wyrdstone to see
me through for at least two more! I went shopping again, although since
I only sold six shards to avoid a glut I could only afford helmets for
every one and the hiring of Kikuchiru the Second, complete with two
swords, a helmet and light armour. Spoilt bloody henchman he was too…
I also got some skill ups, far more excitingly! My Sorcerer went up
to BS4, making him mildly more useful with his pistol, and some bracers
which allowed me to swap out his sword for a halberd. My halberd Skaven
got himself Lightning Reflexes and Tail Fighting, giving him and extra
sword attack and a parry bonus with his bracers while also ensuring he
was going to be striking at Initiative with chargers. Claws only got one
advance, which was Tail Fighting avec new sword for the bonus attack.
My Toughness two Gutterrunner, now dubbed Heihachi, got Knife Master,
allowing him to throw his knives three times a turn, while the other
received an additional Attack and Initiative making him a pretty scary
prospect one on one. My leader also picked up Lightning Reflexes; my
thinking was that, while I could almost guarantee a charge with my high
movement and climbing ability, if I could bait people into making
mistakes by charging into my Reflexed people then I’d half my work done!
So the Samurats were bloodied and bruised, technically beaten but
bouncing back better than before! They were also a lot of fun to play,
the options available on each of them and the different equipment I’d
dished out making them each a little more characterful. Yes, I could
have done this with goblins and if I re-rack again I’ll probably go back
to them with a fresh plan that I’ve put together. But first the sun had
to set on the legend of the Seven Samurats, and it looks like it’s
going to be a long, long day.
