Geheimnisnacht Colliding - Round Up

Shaar was no more.

Magnar had made it to the blustery peak just in time, the moons were aligning overhead and the vampire was being elevated by a dark sickly power. Loec and Shaar were already dire enemies, but the Wood Elf lord had decided to keep his distance from him in an attempt to stop a unity of men sweeping across the battlefield - the Vampire was the Dwarf Lord's for the taking. But the battle wouldn't be so easy...

Shaar could sense the presence of four different forces making their way across the battlefield to eachother and his blustery outpost but cared not, the Dark Gods had promised his survival. The Wood Elves and Dwarfs had put their differences aside and were fighting for the same causes much to Shaar's displeasure, he thought that enough blood had been spilt on both of their accounts for any truce to be unnegotiable. Celine and an alliance of men were also drawing arms on one side of the battlefield, surely the magical surge had roused their attention and they were intent on stopping the dark ceremony before it could begin - but there would be no blows held against Loec and Magnar's forces. Much to Shaar's delight the forces of order began to trade blows, "Fantastic, this will buy me time", Shaar hissed as he used all of his power to cast a handful of purple orbs of destruction into the fray.

Shaar had barely noticed the rabble of Beastmen that had appeared behind him, Gorgarron had roused his herd once more for a fate unknown. The herd couldn't be trusted, Shaar knew that the chaos gods favoured him, but their children may have not got the message, especially a leader so deranged as Gorgarron. To the flank of the Beastmen came the unlikely force of Orcs and Undead, who had struck an alliance in an attempt to kill Shaar and allow the Orcs to get their revenge against the other generals as they cared little for a lowly Vampire on a hill.

And so the conflict erupted, the allied force of men attempted to sweep through the Elves and Dwarfs right flank but the wily Asrai surged with a counter attack. And at this moment Shaar loosed a devastating Purple Sun which he was hoping would take care of both forces but only blasted through the knights of Bretonnia. In the meantime the Orcs pressed their offensive against the men of the Empire and began drawing a battleline against the Beastmen whilst dealing with a monstrous beast known as a Jabberslythe, Gorgarronn roared in fury as he saw Magnar making his way to the foot of the Blustery Peak.

And thus the moons aligned and geheimnisnacht begun...

Magnar could sense the magic swirling around the peak as the energies culminated into an almighty blast that headed skywards. Shaar was being wracked with powerful energies and even Magnar could hear the whispers of Tzeentch promising the Vampire glory. Shaar had a few moments to cast some pink fire into the ranks of men before the Dwarf Lord was upon him.

"This madness ends now", Magnar shouted as he grasped his axes and swung them round into defence, he knew the Vampire would be faster than he. Shaar turned, his eyes ablaze with the changing fire of Tzeentch and smiled, "I have been favoured by the Chaos Gods, I am a new creation a perfect fusion of two ideals - what chance do you think you have?"



Magnar could see the runes on his axes smouldering and setting alight, the magical power swirling around them was charging the runes to overload. "Better be quick," Magnar whispered to himself as Shaar drew his duelling blades, closed his eyes and whispered a dark prayer. "You will not defy me again Dwarf..."

With that Shaar raced into a dive bomb with blades piercing out, but the Dwarf side footed the blow and parried the Vampire to the floor but in a flurry Shaar was back on his feet and slicing against Magnar's breastplate. The Gromil held up against the onslaught as Magnar brought round an elbow smashing Shaar's abdomen and shunted him aside. Shaar reeled in shock, but the winds were changing and another was whispering in his ear, Slaanesh was gifting him now and the mood of the Vampire changed once more. "The Dark Prince wants you dead Dwarf, and his power is mine to execute you with..."

Magnar's eyes opened ablaze as Shaar sprouted two rending claws from his back, they were razor sharp and extended high above Shaar's head. "Dear Grungi, what is this evil?"

"This, dear Dwarf is my ascension", Magnar could barely brace himself for impact as Shaar ripped through him with a flurry of claws and blades. Magnar had barely recovered when a pale silver blade went straight through the back of his shoulder, Shaar stood behind blade extended grinning at his death blow. Magnar heaved painfully as he felt his arm and lung struggling to function but in a last heroic effort, grabbed the protruding blade and fell forwards - this was his chance. The Vampire fell off balance as the blade twisted in his hand, this Dwarf had such resilience to death... Shaar tried to steady himself so that he could unleash his other blade to decapitate Magnar but the Dwarf was already falling whilst swinging his axe in a powerful arc, Shaar saw this too late and the impact crumpled his chestplate and threw him many feet across the floor.

Magnar crumpled to the ground, his arm was paralyzed and he spluttered in pain as his body began to relate to the trauma it had been through. "Be gone Vampire, be gone", he stuttered as he looked across at the broken and frail body of Shaar - surely he'd done enough. At that moment the power surrounding the Blustery Peak began to elevate, and dark whispers of another enemy began to ring in Magnar's ears, he had been resurrected and the world would never be the same again.

Shaar's body had been broken, the Vampire tried to move but he could feel his conscious being torn between the Dark Gods and a new deity that he could only imagine was Nagash.

He had failed.

Shaar looked up and knew that his time was up, Magnar had made sure of that, the Dark Gods wouldn't favour him now and Nagash wouldn't look fondly on his actions to halt the resurrection. But as the power surrounding the blustery peak diminished a voice spoke into Shaar's ear, "You served me well, at the end, we were so close... The others have forsaken you, but I wish to elevate you."

"Leave this body now and join me and fight for us again!"

Shaar couldn't believe his luck, at least one of them had favoured his intentions and strife. And with that Shaar of undeath passed into the darkest of histories but his spirit was extracted as the magical power surrounding the peak was extinguished. Magnar hoisted himself off the floor holding the breach in his frame, he needed to make sure the Vampire was dead. Looking down he could see the shrivelled face of Shaar, his life force was gone, Magnar had done enough. The battle was still waging, he could see that most of the alliance of men had been either killed or routed and that the Beastmen were being overrun by the Orcs and Undead, this seemed like as good a time as any to make an exit, Magnar knew that he would need to keep as many warriors fighting fit for the coming months as war is coming and every warrior would be tested.

GOLD EARNED/SPENT

Melvin   12 / 9 (+3)
Ben    10 / 5 (+5)
Gareth    12 / 2 (+10)
Hendrik     12 / 12 (0)
Sam     6 / 7 (-1)
Jack     6 / 3 (+3)
Mark      3 / 6 (-3)

OVERALL STANDINGS

Melvin     46
Ben     41
Hendrik    35
Francis     38
Simon     29
Mark     26
Jack    26

Gareth    24
James     22
Will B     17
Henry     16
Will S     10
Sam     9
Fred     6
Hugh     6

THE FUTURE

Nagash has finally been resurrected and Shaar has been eliminated by Magnar's last minute assault, the lands are now teeming with Undeath and the world will never be the same again. From this point forth your Campaign Generals and regions will be tested by the night and the horrors that come with it, will they survive these harrowing times or will the darkness consume them and their followers like a swamp of black tar? The Chaos Gods have spoken their intent, and the Thirteen are clawing at the ground beneath your feet and what happens next is up to you...

CHANGES TO CAMPAIGN PLAY

For the future I'll be making some small amends to the way we play our weekly games, each of the Regions will be amended to showcase the darkening of the lands as well as some other additional pieces you'll have to choose for your force. There will also be a change to the way you earn Gold, instead of one player gaining the majority for a victory, each player will gain a certain amount of Gold depending on their Victory Points. This will reward players who attempt to get stuck in with the chance of earning more and offer your opponent more reward for attempting to do the same.

PRINTED COPIES

The final 3 Months End games will be detailed in paperback alongside the previous 3 scenarios and the generic rulespack for your reading pleasure. More details of this are to follow, so watch this space!

Also thank you to everyone who has taken part in the campaign so far, it's been a great deal of fun and I hope you've enjoyed it too. We'll be getting started again in the new year so will see you all then,

Cheers,

Mark

Geheimnisnacht Colliding - Month's End Scenario

"On this night, the moons of Morrsleib and Mannsleib align, the horror of the Geheimnisnacht endures and Nagash rises...

Nothing will be the same - ever - again."

THE SETTING

Geheimnisnacht Colliding is a monstrous scenario which includes every player taking part in 'The Impending Darkness' and is based in parallel with the events happening at 'The Nine Daemons' which is the battle swirling around the resurrection of Nagash. The scenario puts the players at the precipice of Nagash's return and reveals a bitter twist that sees Shaar, who is now wanted dead by Mannfred, aligning with the Chaos Gods and attempting to throw Arkhan and his previous master's plans into turmoil. For if the Gods of the north can prevent Nagash from returning, or potentially weakening him, then their everlasting glory will come to pass without any real opposition. Shaar however has chosen a new path with his new masters, but he is not sure whether he'll live past the gods plans to make a new existence - he can only hope that he isn't torn apart by the magical power soon to be invested in him.

THE SCENARIO

Shaar has ventured up the steep slopes of the Blustery Peak, a spindly mountain which in times of great magical storms glows green with the power of sickly Warpstone. The peak would have been mined by the Skaven long ago if they could but make a machine big enough and precise enough to drill the peak without it completely collapsing in on itself. Most say that the peak is a shard of Morrsleib that fell from the moon thousands of years ago when its lunar orbits first began, and only on Geheimnisnacht does its true nature come to light. The Players will be attacking the peak in an attempt to stop the Vampire, who they have wrongly been informed, is attempting to summon a great host of Undeath - but that could not be further from the truth.

Geheimnisnacht Colliding is a Triumph & Treachery game with a few differences, firstly there will be 6 teams of players. Each team will consist of players of the same alignment *if possible* and reach a total of 3000Pts per allegiance. The table itself will be a tremendous 8' by 8' mega battlefield with Shaar in the centre preparing to wreak havoc on the incantations resurrecting Nagash. Shaar himself has his own pre-turn phase which will see him blasting opposing armies to pieces and raising the dead in an attempt to protect himself, this will be done by randomly determining a team that will get to use him for that turn. The rest of the game will run like a normal game of Triumph & Treachery until the third turn which, in this case, is when the moons align.

Once this happens, the battlefield divulges into a magical hurricane... Every wizard will become a Loremaster and each magic phase will use 4D6 as opposed to 2D6, in a similar way to a standard Storm of Magic game. This is to represent the sudden injection of raw magic that is wracking the battlefield and the peak that Shaar is standing on. And now it is game set to see if Shaar and the Chaos Gods can have any say in stopping the rise of Nagash, or whether their attempts have boiled down to nothing... We'll have to wait and see!

THE PACK

Geheimnisnacht Colliding - Scenario

You can find the pack by clicking the link above.

DARKENING OF THE LANDS - REGION RULES

So we've all got used to using the Region Rules in our games, but now as the setting is darkening and the dark lord is returning it's time for the lands of the Warhammer World to feel the full force of impending war. Each region maintains their 'Generic' region rule and gains the additional rules that can be found in this pack. Each is slightly different and offers up a few gaming amendments in an attempt to make fighting at this time ever so slightly more perilous.

The Impending Darkness - End of Part 1

THE IMPENDING DARKNESS - End of Part 1.

The Impending Darkness has just finished its eigth week and a whole lot has happened in the two months since it started. There's been unbeatable Wood Elves, maniacal Vampires, unstoppable Dwarfs and a lot of barmy Warhammer fun - and there's still more of this to come as Part 2 will be beginning on the 20th of November. But in the meantime here's some highlights of what's been going on for the past eight week:

There's been a total of 17 players vying for power.

There's currently 244 Gold between all of the players.

Magnar Grimlokson (Ben) has control of the Cursed Orb.

11 Armies are present in The Impending Darkness.

Shaar the Vampire was successfully repelled from regaining the Orb by the Dwarfs.

Malagor and Shael did not find their revenge, and Shaar has been sentenced to death by Mannfred...

There's been at least 4 games going on every week since the campaign began.

GEHEIMNISNACHT COLLIDING

Part 2 begins, and the darkness is reaching a deafening crescendo... Geheimnisnacht is approaching and the dark powers are coalescing to resurrect the dark lord Nagash, and his return will be on this darkest of nights. But the Chaos Gods have a plan to spoil this ceremony and stop a potential adversary returning too the world, and their vessel is one so recently scorned. The next few weeks will build up to the lunar equinox which will culminate in the night that Nagash returns, however not in such simple circumstances.

 
 

Geheimnisnacht Collides...

Mannfred must have finally discovered the truth of Shaar's failings. The vampire had sent a host of winged Vargheists screaming after him in the dead of night in an attempt to bring him before his master to answer for his failures. Thankfully the Vargheists had alerted him to their presence as they had screeched into his dormant ranks of Skeleton warriors that were standing guard outside. Shaar looked out at the slaughter and knew that his time was up if he couldn't get away, he'd have to answer to Mannfred before being made an example of to the other Vampires to show what happens if you fail the Von Carsteins...

He'd already lost one of the Bryar sisters to Malagor's chaotic impulses and the Orb had become fractured and unassailable due to the Grimloksson Clan's stubbornness to die. Overall his attempt to gather artefacts had been a complete failure, but he wasn't suprised, Mannfred hadn't truly given him the tools to deal with the foes that had beset him - Shaar thought back and cursed at his struggles.

One of the Vargheists looked up in this moment, with an animated skeleton writhing in its maw, and locked onto to Shaar as he stared out across the battle. It preceded to rampage like a hurricane towards him, its master had been ample in his instruction to ravage the vampire but ensure that it lived long enough to answer to him. The Vargheist crashed home within seconds, smashing Shaar into the floor with a sound of cracking bones and ripping flesh, the bulk of the creature and the tremendous impact had left Shaar flattened and broken. "Curse you beast", Shaar spluttered as his body began to heal from the horrific injuries. The Vargheist roared goadingly as it grasped its jaws around the Vampires leg and threw him out into the fray where the others could encircle him and restrict him from getting away easily. Shaar's guards were being obliterated around him, his Crypt Ghouls had fled upon sight of the winged terrors whilst his skeletal legion had all but been turned to dust - and then the pain began again as razor sharp teeth pierced his undead skin, cutting deep at first and then tearing an arm from his body. Shaar thought it was over then, the Vargheists had lost control in their frenzy and forgotten Mannfred's orders as more of the beasts encircled the stricken Vampire - it went quiet as more teeth grasped his abdomen but Shaar closed his eyes and thought that although one path had closed, another had now opened.

---------------

They had come from the woods, a pack of snarling, matted, stench induced Wolves that were hungry for flesh. Bounding down into the open field that separated the forest was a pack of Skin Wolves the likes that had never been seen, it was rare to see three or four of these beasts together but for some dark reason a hundred of the creatures had descended on the ensuing Carnage.

The Vargheists didn't know what had hit them, in one moment there was a soul throttling howl and the next a sea of claws and fur had began to rip them apart. The Vargheists were bestial creatures but they were very rarely on the receiving end of such mindless savagery. The initial impact shattered the Vargheists core, but the creatures of undeath were not easily broken as they took to the skies and began to dive bomb the main bulk of the Skin Wolves. Certain Skin Wolves would ravage an attacking Vargheist ripping it limb from limb upon impact before eating it's dead heart whilst unlucky Skin Wolves would be grasped with mighty talons and lifted high above the battlefield before being dropped on their slobbering comrades.

The battle lasted for hours until dawn had begun to break, but eventually the Vargheists that remained took flight and made their way back to Sylvania. The air rung with the howls of the Skin Wolves as they feasted on the dead, but one black haired creature lumbered away from the pack and found Shaar's broken body. The Vampire was at the point of death, but the Skin Wolf did not finish him off, growing urges in his mind had driven his pack here and those same urges drove the beast to let this sion of the unliving live. The gods plans were truly unfathomable but the beast was a slave to their will and he would deliver what they requested.

Shaar had noticed the snarling creatures appear on the horizon but his mind had quickly washed out into unconsciousness, he had no idea that he had been saved by the most unlikely of creatures. His dreams had been wracked with visions, he couldn't determine whether it was Nagash's great teachings or some other dark tongue attempting to acquire his services. But the voice was whsipering, "You've been betrayed dearest Shaar, but I can offer you unlimited power, and a life of glory - your broken body will become mighty - isn't that what you've always wanted?"

The dreams continued and Shaar had been poised at the crest of a wave, in preparation for it to come crashing down on the world.