The Rock in The Badlands – Eleonore’s First Letter

Excerpt from the records of the Dukedom of Parravon. Correspondence dated c1550 (2528 Imperial) to Sir Redemond of Parravon, from Eleonore (a damsel of The Lady, attached to the court of Sir Redemond).

 

 

My Noble Lord,

 

I write to you with heavy heart, for events have not been kind to your kin. We entered the Badlands ahead of schedule and accordingly made camp at the foot of the Dragonback Mountains. From there I took a small detachment of knights and men and proceeded towards the area highlighted in The Lady Madeline’s prophecy. We were however not the first to arrive in this benighted realm.

 

On the third day we encountered a small force of undead ransacking a small settlement. I took advice from your nephew, Sir Eldred, who claimed that these creatures posed no threat to those whose cause was just and carried The Lady’s blessing. How wrong we were. Unbeknownst to us they were lead by a Wraith of considerable power, no matter what casualties we inflicted by blade or by arrow, his magics continued to swell the enemy’s ranks. We were overcome and, to my everlasting shame, had no choice but to leave the field.

 

If only this was all I had to report. That night we made camp about half a league from the site of battle. While I slumbered a vision of The Lady came to me, imploring me to return to the village to make amends for my failure. Had only I known what was awaiting me there I would have fallen on my sword and spared you and the Kingdom further shame.

 

We returned at first light and found the village deserted, of the undead we encountered the day before, nothing remained bar the stench of evil and decay. As we were making preparations to advance towards our objective I fell to the ground as a wave of pure malevolence swept through the aether.

 

As I was returned to my mount I saw creatures of pure evil coalescing on the village boundary. Quickly we formed a battle line to meet this dire threat however once again we were cruelly outmatched. The daemons outmanoeuvred our forces with merciless ease and we had no choice but to retreat. As we were disengaging I saw in the distance that a unit of bowmen had been cut off by the vile creatures. I am proud to report that they sold their lives dearly, taking many of these aberrations with them on their final journey.

 

We marched at speed back to our camp to resupply and two days later we again set out to our objective. This time I decided to guide our forces through a forested area farther south to our original fateful route and, for a time, the fates were kind to us. On the fifth day our outriders reported a small force of armed men who were also heading, albeit on a different trajectory, to our destination. After hearing the scouts’ description of their livery, Sir Hugues (who as you no doubt recall has spent must time with our Imperial neighbours) concluded that they were most likely members of the Averland State Army.

 

While I was sorely tempted to parlay with the Imperial troops, as our armies drew closer I senses a disquieting presence emanating from within their ranks. This person or thing within their army was shielding himself from me, I could not ascertain his intentions and with the deepest regret I ordered our forces to make ready for battle.

 

To my dying day I will never forget the ferocity of what followed. Battle was joined in earnest with both sides trading missiles of arrow and shot while our respective warriors manoeuvred for position. Our Knights struck first and inflicted a terrible toll on the servants of Karl Franz all the while our bowmen mercilessly cut down all that their arrows could find.

 

The men of Averland did not stand idly by met our charge with a steely resolve one cannot help but admire. We were evenly matched; all it would take would be one singular moment or individual to break this bloody deadlock. 

 

It was at this point that a unit of spearmen appeared led by formidable warrior, evidently the man in command of the army. Our Knights and I charged this unit and each side inflicted terrible casualties, all of a sudden your nephew was thrown from his horse by this captain and before I could draw breath I was fighting him for my very life.

 

With one stroke of his sword he broke my blade and as he prepared to strike again I made myself ready to meet The Lady. However death did not find me today, he turned his blade at the last moment and instead delivered a blow to my head with the side of his blade and I fell into darkness.

 

I woke in the Imperial camp to find my wounds dressed and my body unsullied. At my bedside was the warrior who bested me who introduced himself as Captain Helmut Gerstein. He told me that he and his men had respected our code of honour and those Knights who survived the battle had been treated for their wounds and were residing in the tent next to mine.

 

Captain Gerstein told me that he and his men were here at the behest of a mage called Emmanuel Gant who is travelling with them, I am certain that this Gant is the source of the presence I sensed just before the bloodbath. The Captain proceeded to tell me that once I felt strong enough he would escort our survivors back to our camp under a flag of truce, seeing true honour in his heart I accepted.

 

Three days later, as good as his word, we were taken back to our camp. It pains me to tell you that of the knights that I left with only Sir Hugues of Quenelles, Sir Jacques or Lyonesse, Sir Aldebald of Montfort and Sir Hrodbert of Carcassonne survive.

 

Upon the return to our camp I received news that your son has encountered difficulty on his journey to meet us. Sir Aymeric reports that upon entering the Forest of Loren they encountered a sizeable force of Beastmen intent on pillaging the realm. Honour bound to assist he dispatched your younger son, Sir Ectorde, with your standard, thirty brave knights and as many men as could be spared to continue the journey to meet us. Once the Beastmen are vanquished, Sir Aymeric and the rest of his force will complete their journey.

 

I pray to The Lady that they are not too late

 

 

I am your humble servant,

 

Eleonore

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parravon Expeditionary Force Men-At-Arms

The first round of The Rock in The Badlands was played at the weekend, more or that in a later post.  Anyway, while I hadn’t got the whole army ready in time I had at least managed to get some of my peasant scum ready.

I chose to keep the colours fairly simple by sticking to colours available in the middle ages, mainly dark green and brown for the clothes with red and yellow used for the Lord’s livery.  Thus far I’m really happy with how these are turning out, hopefully I’ll have more for you next week.

How to paint Space Marines the eversoslightlyracist way!

I work colleague forwarded this on to me, I guess the hordes of minis on my desk in the office told him I was a gamer!  Anyway, here ‘s the zen way to paint Space Marines.

I really should to a Scottish version where I vomit a mix of Buckfast, chips and deep-fried Mars Bar over an unsuspecting mini…

 

40K Flyers Revealed

I’m certainly not the first to post these (thank you, Father Shell Case), but just in case you’ve been living under a rock, here are pictures of the new flyers for 40K.

The Damsel Eleonore

I’ve finally finished my first major model for the first round of The Rock in The Badlands campaign.

This is the first Warhammer Fantasy miniature I’ve painted since ’94 and in truth, while I really enjoyed the process it’s very obvious that some more work is required on the face. Unfortunately since I want to have at least half my army ready in time for this weekend I’ve had to swallow my pride and move on for now. After my gallant knights have crushed all before them I’ll add some more detail and soften up the skin tone.

Letting the 5th Edition Rest in Peace

Since it’s pretty much guaranteed that the 6th edition of 40K will be with us in one or two months, many of us will have now already played our last game under the current rule set.

Is this a bad thing? That’s for everyone to decide for themselves however TastyTaste on the Blood of Kittens website has written an interesting article exploring why now is a time to rest and reflect before the new edition hits.

You can read the article here.

Charging in WHFB

Since I consider myself to be a Warhammer Fantasy Battle Rookie (my 4th edition days are long behind me!), I’m always on the lookout for decent articles which can help my gaming improve.

The random charge rules have been, to me, somewhat confusing since it makes my brain’s Tactical Cortex (located just beside the Shiny Appreciation Synapse and the Beer Lobe) run away and cry. This article from Bell of Lost Souls however has helped me get my head around it and not before time!

Gaming on a Budget 2: The Return!

At the start of this year I introduced my Hobby Tin idea to the world and by way of follow up I’d like to talk briefly about another way that I (and lets face it, most of you) also can maintain our Shiny Addiction during these hard times.

I am, of course, talking about the second hand market.

Like many gamers, I’m a bit of a hoarder.  My parents’ attic is full of shoe boxes and bin bags containing the plethora of tat that I left with them when I moved out almost fourteen years ago.  About two years ago I started going through this for models with a view to keeping what I actually needed for my current armies (as well as the extremely sentimental ones) but also to select those I thought I could sell on.  To date I’ve made about £400 pounds, mainly through eBay but also the occasional sale to friends or friends of friends.

As with the Hobby Tin, this money is reinvested into my current armies but increasingly I’ve been trawling eBay for good bargains to help my Bretonnian army get off the ground.  Last week this bore significant fruit as on Friday these lovely things arrived in the post:

These were all unpainted and on-sprue, all from different sellers and together they cost only £22 which is only just more than the current Knights of The Realm set costs new from GW.  While you can get better deals if you’re happy to buy assembled or non-pro painted minis this approach should allow me to get at least the core of my army up to strength as cheaply and conveniently as possible.

Now all I have to worry about is getting them painted in time for the campaign start in three weeks time!

Anniversary Gift

Last year I posted about the cake toppers I made out of Chaos Spawn for my own wedding.  Well, last week was our second anniversary and my wonderful, talented wife had secretly been composing a fantastic gift for me, here it is:

As you can see it features the speech she wrote for our wedding as well as some images related to the art she created for the invitations and the day itself.  However, and this is where the wargaming bit comes in, she’s also included our Wedding Spawn as well as an amalgam of the buildings I wrote about here.

I think this is really fantastic, not only is it a wonderful piece of art, it’s also given me some fresh inspiration for some new terrain! 😀