The Empire Responds to the invasion of the Uruk Hai

To the sea!

“Get aboard your ships, set sail to the south west and find pirate cove on skull island. Reclaim the lost treasure of the pirate sorcerer. Among this legendary horde is rumoured to be warpstone and the all powerful soul orb.” Such was the wild calls among the taverns my lord and as feared that message had spread.

It seems the rumours are true, there was warpstone, ancient lore, rare magic items from across the world, gems and coin aplenty and the soul orb. More strange still, was a little yellow rubber duck held within a pentagram with what seemed to be summoning runes around the edges of the circle.

The dwarf commander swears this was the case when making the investigations of the island ruins. He has of course now become a slayer for his failure. I shall recount his tale, leaving out the more lurid language and the divergent tales attached randomly through his narrative, he was quite, quite drunk.

The geography of the island forced the competing treasure seekers into one cove to attempt a landing. So many ships from such an array of nations and lords had arrived that a truce of sorts had been made between ships captains, two factions had formed via communication of flags shouts and gesturing. A lot of gesturing.

On one alliance was two factions of the empire of man, each representing their respective Counts of their home province. Alongside them was the haughty Duke of some obscure Bretonian province, who had brought WOOD ELVES with them! The dwarf was most put out by this last point. The dwarfs reluctantly agreed to a minor truce but on the understanding that the elves were on the other side of the cove.

The other faction had the evil wizards Uruk hai, whom had rented the services of the chaos dwarfs and taken an evil submersible vessel! Who joined the Goblin mega barge, a ramshackle vessel to be sure, with the two Norse longships and a Rat-Man vessel of strange design. A form of paddle wheel with a giant ogre type rat turning the paddle. A most foul looking collection of critters to be sure.

Almost instantly on approaching the sand spit, all and sundry engaged in a race for the booty. As a strange form of starting signal, a realm gate engaged on the spit. The giant puddle of light spat out a bedraggled looking human wizard, who calmly dusted himself off while casually turning around taking in his surroundings. Muttering to himself. Eventually saw the mass of ships bearing down on him, soiled himself and ran away from the ships towards the treasure chamber with such a turn of speed that has never been seen from a human! The dwarf is sure it has something to do with his strange magical chant that may well be a spell of haste, he claims it sounds something like “ URGGH SIT OH SIT OH SIT OHHHHH SIIIITTT!”

Perhaps our college wizards can investigate this spell for our own uses?

The ships redoubled their efforts. The skaven attacked almost immediately, assaulting a human ship, blowing up their own ship in the process killing all paws on the vessel bar a token few. But among the few was an assassin whom had been briefed that if he killed a ‘man-thing pack leader’ he could sacrifice the man’s soul to power a teleport spell to send the rat a medium distance towards a source of magic. The sneaky assassin managed this task and found himself alone on top of skull temple. The rat discovered the temple was shut. The orcs also started dodgy dealings almost immediately, with a magical flurry of treachery the Uruk hai sent Arnazipals black horror across the surface of the ocean consuming many souls including their ‘allies’ of the Norse. The goblins then used their foul magics to hand of Gork the Uruk hai onto other boats as well as sending some black orcs of their own onto the weakened human ship and attempt to seize control of it! This keeping the way clear for the goblins to approach the island.

Much blood, magic, shooting and fighting ensued. Many creatures of the deeps became aware of the commotion. Sharks and undead tentacles. On the island, undead trolls awakened and started to patrol the shores, among them was a zombie giant.

The rogue wizard continued to run at natural speed. The lone skaven assassin hid among the jungle and sent a warp token summons for ratty reinforcements.

The dwarf blimp pits its nose ahead of the main pack by flying over a Norse ship, depositing some dwarf rappelling warriors onto the longship deck. One poor dwarf fell

Into the ocean and was busy beating sharks around the nose.

This caused the human ‘allies’ to panic and open fire on the dwarf flying fort. The alliances must truly have been meaningless words!

The black orcs continued to fight for the Mordheim human vessel. The bretonians rammed the goblin war barge, destroying it and all greenskins bar two. Luckily the goblins had completed their treachery on the Uruk hai, magically clearing their submarine of all warriors and taking control of the ship. The goblins enjoyed their sneaky guy victory for 10 minutes before The great sea leviathan Cthulu was summoned and tore apart the chaos dwarf vessel in a blink of an eye.

The Uruk hai who had been magically transported onto the smaller mordheim ship had just managed to take control of this vessel to see their comrades torn apart by a giant squid god. What comes around goes around.

At this point the running wizard reached the giant stone head in front of the skull temple. The head came to life and spoke for all to hear ‘HEY, JEFF DUM DUM! Make a sacrifice in the pit at top of hill and skull house will open for dum dum to get his duck back. Don’t take other shiny things dum dum!’

Yes, the wily wizard of unexpected haste was none other than a Jeff of the multi verse! Come to reclaim his rubber ducky, his last vestige of his old life and his one true companion that keeps him ‘sane’ across the multiverse of chaos hells he was being forced to travel. The demon familiar Br’yan de Ansell will expect him back soon to claim the next treasure to further understanding of the realm gates and get Jeff and ducky home! But he must get ducky first, that blasted pirate sorcerer stole him in the temples of lustria, using it to try and summon Br’yan. Well Jeff is getting ducky back. He has come farting and belching magical energy this time however. Jeff spells are not going to plan. Too much magical turbulence. He turns his sword into a flaming fish, a smoking kipper it seems…..well maybe his sword will stay a sword next time he tries a Ensorcelled weapon spell.

The skaven assassin now understands! He climbs up to the sacrifice pit and waits. He sees reinforcements arrive at the head of the cove! Another rat ship powered by rat ogre! The reinforcements blow themselves up using the warp lightning cannon, again.

The assassin asks for another ship…..

The dwarf blimp flies forward and is forced to land during a magic storm. The captain chooses to have all dwarfs jump down to the beach leaving the blimp to the non warrior crew.

Two curving Uruk hai paddle to the shore and are stomped by undead trolls. The Norse long ships, now thoroughly destroyed, have their commander swim to shore and race down the spit!

Two goblins magically beam onto the spit to escape death by sharks and tentacles.

The Norse commander on his chaotic steed races unhindered towards the empty dwarf blimp……

The dwarfs are headed off by the wandering giant. They slay the giant in an epic battle! This slows there advance however.

The two surviving goblins are consumed by an unknown soul storm that happens to manifest exactly on their heads. What goes around comes around.

Jeff arrives at the base of the hill, gathers his energies to prepare to face the sorcerer! His magic goes wrong, the skull temple comes alive and sprouts legs, still carrying its treasures within it. The temple seems to attack a rat in the undergrowth. The rat damages the new magical construct. The contstruct falls over and destroys itself leaving the treasure on the side of the volcano for all to see. The rat collects the soul orb, warp stone and a hand full of other objects.

All surviving forces continue to run up the beach. The rats have a 3rd ship come!

The assassin moves to the upper parts of the hill to signal his brethren.

The Norse commander takes his chance and leaps aboard the unguarded dwarf blimp. Forces it to take flight stranding the dwarfs on the island! The Norse commander heads for the top of the volcano hill signalling the skaven saying he will destroy him unless he shares the treasure with him on this blimp.

The skaven reinforcements destroy themselves, again. Same warp lightning cannon problems.

Jeff reaches the hill top and tries to attack the sorcerer, his magical luggage is summoned instead. And rather than rampage around killing all of Jeff’s enemies it sits still, pretending to be asleep or just luggage or something.

The rat man sees he has a rubber duck among his loot, cries ‘useless man-thing rubbish yes yes’ drops it into the volcano. Jeff erupts with hatred, his rubber DUCK! You ratty bastard! With duckies name on his lips ‘Winston!’ Jeff casts spells toward the rat man, strips the skaven of all clothing. It was meant to strip him of flesh but this is what happened. The skaven leaps for Jeff’s throat, slashing at him. A certain death for Jeff. Br’yan pulls Jeff out of there through a warp bubble, just in time! Jeff will have to get Winston back some ather way, some other time.

The blimp comes closer to the hill top, the dwarfs, furious at this outrage shoot all crossbows at the Norse captain. Killing him! The empty blimp floats along past the hill. If the skaven can leap aboard and not plunge to his death while the ship floats past, he will have accomplished his mission.

With daring leap and chittering teeth, fuelled by the musk of fear, the skaven just manages to leap aboard the dwarf blimp and sail away.

A few notes on gameplay. This all really did happen in the game, no tricks. No, I made it happen. All Jeff spells where rolled for on his d20 table. The monsters and spells really did arrive and happen in this manner and in this order. The skaven player, Ed, had a dead rat dropped on his landing that morning by his cat. A sign from the horned rat?!?

His game was plagued by misfortune and weirdness and yet victory was still snatched with a death defying Leap at the end, through opportunities that could not have been predicted! Duckie fell in the volcano because Ed had collected the treasure tokens used in game and accidentally dropped duckie down the model of the volcano in front of the Jeff model. So we all cried, well Jeff would now hate him! And instantly attack.

The dwarves really did leave their ship unattended. The blimp would not have floated past if the Norse ,run by Jim, had not stolen it and left it floating in that direction when the dwarfs killed him.

The skaven would not have had the treasure had the temple not been transformed by Jeff into a wandering stone giant, fallen over on its last would and killed itself. We had intended the players sacrifice a model at the top of the hill to open the skull at the bottom of the hill, so as to mean tactics required in being at two locations or forging alliances. None of that happened.

Then for the skaven to burn through 3 ships to no avail! When I thought a rule of when your ships are totally destroyed you may have one ship respawn at the back of the board to allow players to feel like they are still involved would be a minor thing. It turned out to be majorly entertaining! And have the skaven assassin make a leap needing a 5/6 on a d6 to survive the jump and doing it!?!? On the final turn!

Awesome game. It makes me start to think that we’ve created something that may well be real and beyond our knowledge in this Jeff…….

Apart from the ship respawning rule, I had made the Jeff scenario and mark had produced the wonderful skull island concept. The other minor rules was wind direction affecting ships, monster spawning, flighing ships, underwater ships and how ships can only attack ships and warbands can only attack warbands. Otherwise I felt like the ships could wipe out whole warbands before anything happened! Everything else happened as per the rules and mutual agreement among players to see the scenario out to its ‘logical?’ Comclusion. This is as per the spirit of the Rick Priestley articles of playing game mastered games in the 80’s. A forgotten way of playing Warhammer.

Forgotten no more.

The only two things that were curated was that the stone head needed to be activated to state the rules of opening the temple. And that Jeff would do that. Second was that the skaven assassin would be able to assassinate a rival commander to leap to the island as i thought it would be funny as GM. I had no idea that it could turn out like this.

I feel like this was the best and most entertaining game I’ve had in my life so far. It feels a bit like my golden years have just had a resurgence, this may well be my golden years. And this community of players growing around me is what’s doing it.

Some key moments from commanders:

Ed the skaven player:

My grey seer losing his teleport spell and then blowing up his life raft which was all that was left from my warp lightning cannon! with a reflected warp lighting spell. Such is the ways of 4th edition magic.

Jim the Norse player:

The minor detail for my war band was one of my marauders fighting off AND KILLING a shark on his swim from shipwreck to shore. His brothers in the shield-wall now call him Eric Sharkslayer and I have adorned him with some shark teeth around his neck to commemorate his actions. Not bad for a basic trooper in proper trouble!

Jason the Uruk hai player:

Excluding leviathans killing allll my stuff, sharks, tentacles, rival goblins being super gits and undead trolls blotting out any survivors I would say the goblin wolf rider captain. Poor sod, thought his moment had arrived and was about to row his way to shore away from a very depressing submarine/giant monster situation and run like the wind to grab the treasure when a farting Jeff spell turned him into a chicken. He then fluttered to the nearest rocky outcrop and watched the rest of the game as his team be pulled down with the destroyed submarine. Probably haloed by the setting sun……

It seems I’m a lucky boy, god smiles on me this day and says ‘good boy Jason’.

Somehow, I’ve been given the opportunity to run a participation game on the main event table for BOYL 2025. The big 12×6 in the main tent at the Ansells carriage court site home to foundry and warmonger miniatures.

What an opportunity! I’m a bit intimidated to be clear, but I’m very excited too. I’ve got high hopes I can put on enough of a spectacle to deserve the slot. I want to draw in participants as much as possible.

Ive decided on a tried and tested scenario, assault the baggage train. This is so I can keep calmer about things. I know the scenario works and that I can easily bring people forward to participate at any point of play. The fun comes from not knowing where the halfling howitzers are located but needing to find out in order to capture baggage and win the day. The baggage defenders will have to decide how to protect the baggage, make a dash for the end of the board and hope to make a break out manoeuvre? Link up in the centre and assault a portion of the enemy line? Form a defensive wagon ring and treat it as a siege? Plenty to think about on both sides.

Best of all my empire, Uruk hai and undead will get an airing. The finest warlord games skeletons (best skeleton sprue ever Gerry) will be christened! In total I expect some 15000 points of enemy’s descending upon 8-9000 points of defenders. 12000 if I can paint enough between now and then. I’m hoping to complete my flagellants with carrachio war wagons for this outing. The table may well not be big enough! I am used to 20×6 at this point after all.

I think I will take the attitude that I am a master of ceremonies and a facilitator of play. There could be a lot going on and I need to be sure the flow of play continues and players feel welcome and get set up nicely regardless of when they join in.
To this end I shall bring some special hats to help show whose side people are on!

I don’t know if I am doing the right things to have a smooth event, let’s hope.

Wish me luck ladies and Gents, and please do consider coming along on the Friday or Saturday to say hi and join in! I will be relieved and grateful to see you!

Best wishes.

Jason

p.s warlord skellies forever!

The warlord skeletons are superb, this whole undead force is entirely warlord games skeletons. Every conversion uses the same sprue, just one sprue did alll these minis. The chariots conversions, the romans, the cannon, the war mammoth, the halberds, the crossbows, the foot knights and yes even the base sprue troops like spears and great shields and bows. Absolutely magnificent conversion opportunities and they look splendiferous as is in my humble estimation. This whole army is one years work in total.
that’s just of the odd evenings, while chatting to the misses in front of the telly. Not too long a time frame.
this sprue is the best skeletons I’ve ever come across. Just give them a go. They blend beautifully with any Lord of the rings minis and any historics. Perfect conversion sprue.

sorry Gerry, the other skeleton sprues may well be quicker, but these warlord games ones are lovely. I believe you’re too hasty in dismissing them.