Bitter Winds
The bitter winds howled as Eyvindr made his way up the steep yet wide path that led to Upakrau. Upakrau was the largest settlement in the area, but for half the year it was little more than the ancient stone temple and a few wooden longhouses to house the chosen guardians of that fateful place. In Spring and Summer, however, when the cold retreated it would blossom into full life, a veritable city of tents, and wagons as merchants from across the north and beyond made camp here to trade in the shadow of the Ancestors.
Eyvindr pulled his furs tightly about him as the path transitioned into the settlement’s entrance. The waist-high runestones that marked the boundary to Upakrau were ordinarily a comforting sight; tonight, however, their jagged irregularity promised only menace as he passed them. The ancient blessings and curses carved upon them seemed almost malefic in the wan light of his torch.
Upakrau was deserted this time of year, the long dark winter was too cold for travellers, and the first traders wouldn’t arrive until the great thaw in the spring. Alarming, then, to have to bring news of travellers to the Seiðfólk at the temple.
The ancient stones of the temple, the Ættargodahof loomed large over Upakrau. It had clearly been part of a much larger structure once; now all that remained was this tower. The Seiðfólk had always been here, of course. Ever since the time the Gods walked among men and had chosen the Ancestors to dwell with them.
Or at least that is what they claimed, and who was Eyvindr to argue?
Four heavily armed and armoured Huskarls guarded the entrance, bedecked in mail and fur they stood immobile, seemingly impervious to the cold. Eyvindr shuddered, only the largest and fiercest of the Northmen were ever chosen to be Huskarls and those chosen by the Seiðfólk of Upakrau were a breed apart. One already sported a Goðmark, his eyes were an evil yellow under his helmet, red-pinprick pupils glaring into the night.
What happened to his eyelids?
“Hold Karl. The scouts aren’t due back for days yet.” Yellow eyes. He was clearly the leader of the four, no doubt due to being blessed with Goðmark.
“Yes, Huskarl I have news for the Seiðfólk” Eyvindr replied quietly, careful not to make sudden movements or make eye contact.
“What news would you bother the Seiðfólk with in the dead of night?” Yellow eyes glared at Eyvindr with a mixture of disdain and amusement.
“Travellers on horseback. Maybe a day’s ride from here” Eyvindr shuddered at the memory of them. “They were Goðmarked lord, riding great black horses all save the leader wearing plate.”
The Huskarls exchanged level looks before Yellow eyes turned back to Eyvindr, crossing the distance between them in two great strides, his breath stank of blood.
“And what else?”
“Their leader, he was…” Eyvindr shuddered again at the memory of the wizened grotesque borne aloft in its chair by a seething mass of… things. “He was some kind of Seiðmaðr carried aloft by spirits of the Old Gods… the stink…”
Eyvindr took a step back as the Huskarls closed in around him, each of them carried an axe, far more ornate than the woodsman’s axe that also served as Eyvindr’s weapon of war. Instinctively he reached for his own weapon, but Yellow eyes grabbed him by the back of the neck and marched him towards to great wooden doors of the Ættargodahof as the other Huskarl’s followed closely behind.
“Fear not Eyvindr” Yellow Eyes chuckled, how did he know Eyvindr’s name? “The Seiðfólk told us to expect you.”
This Post has been a long time coming
It has been a whirlwind few months! I had intended to get a minimum of one post out a month, preferably one or more a week, but that was probably ambitious with Christmas coming up as well as my children’s, and my wife’s birthdays either side of Christmas.
I also failed my last university module which is intensely annoying, and seems largely based on using tables to circumvent the limited word count (which I thought was standard practice but whatevs) and then I switched jobs, I am still a webdev/software engineer but now I work fully remote for a marketing agency. Which is alright, I can take care of the school run which has been priority number one since Rory started school.
Ultimately there just hasn’t been any free time for hobby! However, the last birthday of the season was yesterday, I’ve just got my grubby mitts on Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness and Realm of Chaos: Lost and Damned, I’ve just procured a substantial nurgle army, filled with 6th ed Plaguebearers and Pestigors along with some of the old Forge World Death guard marines and now Dan and I are marching into the new year with a new idea of what our gaming schedule is going to be.
In addition to getting some gaming going again, I have been diving headlong into digital sculpting and 3d modelling with nomad sculpt and blender respectively, as well as doing a lot of stuff with green…stuff. So I’m hoping that becomes a regular feature. I’m in the process of setting up a shop on this website so I can start selling STLs if anyone is interested. I am but a humble middle-aged apprentice, every little helps.
Great stuff But what about a Tale of Two Gamers?!
Well… We’re at a crossroads here. Before Christmas, Dan and I had intended for this to be a Warhammer: The Old World campaign, Dan was probably going to use his Tomb Kings or Skaven and I my Nurglesque Chaos army. That might still happen, however we have been talking about getting some 2nd edition WH40K going for a long time, either that or Rogue Trader, and now we have the two Realm of Chaos books it seems certain we’re going to go that way.
Now I am a big Chaos fan, always have been going right back to the early 90s when I started playing. I flirt with Orks/Orcs & Goblins and Eldar/High Elves sometimes, but I go home to Papa Nurgle every night… I have a lot of 80s/90s Nurgle Champions of various kinds is what I’m saying. I don’t try and collect all of the oldhammer minis, a token few that I genuinely believe are better (for various reasons) than modern equivalents that are cheaper and easier to get. However I draw the line at Oldhammer Nurgle Champions. I collect them obsessively and use them everywhere, scale creep be (lost & …) damned!
However this is also too good, a conversion opportunity pass up and so I decided I want to do some era appropriate conversions. I wanted plague marines with loads of tentacles, ribbed hoses, cloven hoofs etc. and so I grabbed the green stuff and and my massive pile of unbuilt Horus Heresy MKII Tactical Space Marines that I probably won’t use for heresy. My Word Bearer’s army already tops about 6000 and I’ve never played more than 2000pts at a time due to time constraints.
Citadel Contrast Paints are rubbish
This also marks the first time I ever tried to use contrast paints as advertised rather than a wash. I won’t be doing it again they look rubbish. I’m not a brilliant painter, but the expensive tools and materials should ideally help me make my toys look better than I could do myself. Contrast paints, used as advertised, made them look worse. But they are handy as an extra sort of wash, and Skeleton Horde, Wyldwood, Snakebite Leather, and Aggaros Dunes make a nice little Blanchitsu palette.
What’s next then for the Realm of Chaos campaign
Dan has already been poring through the books, and is currently torn between Khorne and Slaanesh, we’ve got enough bits of various kinds to convert champions for both.
What is really getting us excited though, is the charts.
I love a good chart, but I also love the idea that my warband might be led by a Chaos Eldar, or Squat or something more esoteric like a Chaos Slann, Zoat or “Tyranid”. The Realm of Chaos charts are what has been missing from my hobby all this time. I realise of course that many gamers even back in the day didn’t use the chart they chose whatever champion they had to hand, but we are going to roll for a champions and either acquire or convert the model necessary.
My first roll was a pretty good I thought but not as zany as I would have liked. I rolled a Psyker Minor Hero with a Hide of Nurgle, and Rotting Flesh. I will use my Renegade Apostate Preacher for that though I will probably roll again and try and get something more interesting.
Fleshing out the Chaos Warband
So for the campaign itself, we’re using Slaves to Darkness as our source of truth, but as it’s just two of us we’re adding in bits ad hoc as we need to, it’s been a while since I’ve played Rogue Trader. I can’t remember if it had rules for Psychology in the same way Warhammer Fantasy Battle and 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 did, but Realm of Chaos definitely needs those rules. However Rogue Trader and 2nd are similar enough that we could nab the psychology rules directly from it if we need to. That being said, between 4th/5th ed Warhammer Fantasy and 2nd ed 40k, we’ve got all the rules and profiles we need so we could run the Realm of Chaos using a slightly later game engine, and either bolt on the expanded mental stats or ignore them. We could also just run it directly from Rogue Trader and ignore the psychology rules or improvise. It doesn’t really matter to be honest, there’s no purists here.
So that mad tangent aside, fleshing out the chaos warband is probably the most exciting thing about Realm of Chaos, I want Chaos Cultists, Chaos Goblins, Beastmen and Space Marines in the same army led by a mutant Elf or Dwarf (or Weirder), I don’t want a cookie cutter, overly optimised force that every one else who plays my faction will field. I don’t want to play wargames as a sport, I want to have a cuppa and tell stories at the tabletop on Friday night wiv me bruvva. Realm of Chaos scratches that itch very completely.
To that end my naff dice rolls were such that I only got one roll on the retinue table and I rolled 2D6 Coven Members, which we agreed I could use to take Diseased Flagellants, a grand total of 9. Good job I have an unopened box of Empire Flagellants I can use, just a pity that they won’t need much converting. Thinking I might some of the old multipart plastic zombie heads. They’re the right scale, get the point across, and all of us Nurglesque Generals from 90s and 00s used these in our conversions as standard.
But there was a definite theme starting to emerge now. I decided this warband had splintered from a greater gathering of flagellants on the Plague Planet, under the leadership of the Magos Sevrass Corpuscle, now one of Nurgle’s chosen and fighting across the Eye of Terror in the name of Mortarion and the God of Plagues.
Path to Glory Campaign next steps!
Next steps are to get the models converted up and painted, then have a few games with them. Simple as that really. As we’re setting our games in the eye of terror this is also a really good opportunity to do some scenery building so we have suitably thematic tables to play on. I’m a bit of a terrainiac at heart so I’m pretty excited about getting some of that going.
So yeah, in a nutshell that will be the bulk of the content over the coming months. We’ve gone a bit Realm of Chaos mad in this house, even Rory is getting involved although he is insisting that his army be entirely skeletons so I’m sure we can handle that. I would in time like to convert the Realm of Chaos/Path to Glory rules for Warlords of Erehwon, but that is for another time. Right that is the end of this rant for now, see ya!