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Mother of Mercy - 54mm INQ open event (18th November 2017 - Confirmed)

Started by RobSkib, July 05, 2017, 10:45:33 AM

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MarcoSkoll

It's a right [censored], particularly as I thought I was being cautious by testing the spray can on a spare Space Marine first. The stupidity was leaving the can outside to get cold while the test model dried.

Rhodes is this lot (although it seems I don't have a picture here of Maya, and they'd likely be backed up by some of my "don't have a warband yet" characters).
https://imgur.com/qkyJTbN
https://imgur.com/hgGzeJ1

They're the first set of sculpts I actually completed, so they're not exactly as pretty as Skoll's, but right now it's her or Riemann. (Everything else is either unfinished* or I've stripped the models down for improvement).

* Other than Skoll's warband, that list of shame includes Vance's warband having been sitting mostly sculpted for ages.
Well, actually, I suppose there's even two different incomplete versions of Vance - I actually still really like the first version (and I may even still finish it for something else), but I decided to redesign her part way through (she was originally based directly off a contact card from the 2010 Spring 'Clave, but I decided part way through sculpting that I wanted the design of the character to be more uniquely mine).
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

RobSkib

Quote from: Cortez on November 17, 2017, 10:09:30 AM
Looks like a good event. I noticed you were using the Sector Mechanicus terrain, how well does that scale for Inquisitor? I've been thinking about getting some for the new Necromunda so if it works for Inq. too it'll be a further incentive.

We only used a few bits but it seemed custom made for the job! I'll be giving it a proper look over tomorrow and getting plenty of scale photos.

The briefing pack is available for people to access, you can pick up a copy here.

Bear in mind I'll be bringing a bazillion copies along anyway, so don't feel compelled to print your own copy if you don't want to!
An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.


MarcoSkoll

S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles


RobSkib

An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: RobSkib on November 17, 2017, 12:05:21 PMOh knobs, what did/didn't I do?
The 'Clave's tags don't like quote marks around the URL - it causes links like http://"http://www.example.com"
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

RobSkib

An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

Cortez

Well I'm just about ready :).

Paintjobs complete, character sheets prepared, bags packed, dice, tape measure, superglue ;), I even managed to get the bases done this time.

See you all tomorrow.

Cortez

Well I made it back ok.

Thanks to Rob for running an excellent event and it was good to see so many new faces.

I really liked the first two scenarios and felt the secondary objectives added a bit of variety to the games. Only thing I would say is that a few more Chrono gladiators or something would have made the second battle last a bit longer and maybe would have kept it from turning into a mexican standoff followed by a negotiated agreement.

The final battle was a bit chaotic, no pun intended, and being so full on and frenetic didn't leave much room for any of the more subtle Inquisitorial interactions (I'm not sure my characters had more than a passing awareness that other teams were present until the valkyrie arrived. They certainly didn't have chance to interact with them in any meaningful way. Still it was a good scenario which certainly gave me a feeling of desperation.The assistance from the Valyrie and defence lasers were much appreciated.

The only issues that I can think of were the lack of any major league Heretics, Radicals or Aliens to rock the boat a bit. It was far to easy for the large number of goody, goody Puritans (or moderates) to come to a mutual accord and not backstab each other or try to preserve Old Mother One Eye. Not that Rob could do anything about it really, but I think in future a bit of communication beforehand about the general leanings of the team that people are planning to take would be a good idea. For example, I could have brought my Eldar team or used my Heretical Sorceress to stir up trouble if I had realised that there would be so many Puritans and Moderates around (Even an extreme Istvaanian like Cortez would have changed the dynamic a fair bit).

The other issue was the side table idea for the final battle. The problem with this method is that if you don't gain access to the main board somehow (or a means to influence that board) you really do end up feeling left out of it (especially if those tables finish quickly). Having everyone play one character on the main board doesn't work either though. The best solution I've seen yet at Conclave events is to have different end game objectives that are equally important, e.g One board could have taken on Mother One Eye, another could have attempted to destroy a warp gate linked to Mother One Eye and so weaken her abilities, the third board could have attempted to activate an ancient device that would work as a warp beacon and keep the passage to the Nomad stars open or something like that. That way everyone would have a chance to influence the outcome e.g. failing to destroy Mother One Eye, but activating the beacon could be a partial success i.e. preventing the closure of the warp passage, but maybe having dire consequences for the future (What else can see the beacon).

Anyway it was still an excellent event despite those minor gripes.

greenstuff_gav

i had a blast (quite literally in Josef's case); wish i'd kept some scenario sheets :)

so have a load of pictures!
http://buildyourimagination.co.uk/minis/conclave17.php
i make no apologies, i warned you my ability to roll ones was infectious...

Build Your Imagination

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: Cortez on November 18, 2017, 10:14:13 PMThe only issues that I can think of were the lack of any major league Heretics, Radicals or Aliens to rock the boat a bit.
It happens across a lot of events, because more-or-less-Puritan characters tend to be more common, and, even if you ignore that, many Radicals aren't exactly completely misguided.

In some ways I think this dilemma almost comes from there not being a dilemma.

To use today as the example (although this is definitely not mention to slight the event - I deeply enjoyed it), I didn't see a lot that would have made a moderate like Inquisitor Skoll (had I brought him) to pause over about whether Old Mother One-Eye should die, particularly had he made it onto the main board only to be met by daemons, raining blood and warp storms. There weren't exactly a lot of obvious redeeming qualities to her (or at least, I didn't come across many during my day - she was just generally creepy and mysterious).

This is why for the Legacy LGT, I'm planning on a fairly central plot - the question being "do you support a crusade or not?". The crusade is ill-advised, but the alternative is a possible civil war as the religious frenzy turns in on itself.
While hard-core Monodominants might automatically support the crusade and chaos cultists are probably deliberately trying to engineer the civil war instead, I am hoping that many characters, Puritan or Radical, are going to have to think carefully about which side they're on (and some might change their mind or not even decide until partway through the event).

Anyway... I don't want that to sound like a criticism. Like I said, I did hugely enjoy it. And I know a lot of others did too - I heard one comment (I'll leave it anonymous, as I may be slightly misquoting, but they may attach themselves to it if they wish) of not being able to remember when, if ever, they'd last enjoyed any tabletop gaming that much.

Still, as I'm typing right now, I'm suffering the combined effect of four hours of very sporadic sleep last night, three hours of (slightly sounder)sleep the night before and a caffeine crash, so I'm half surprised I'm still conscious, so I'm going to have to retire to bed - particularly if I want to have any hope in joining with VoIP Dark Heresy tomorrow.

Pictures may come later if any of them are even half acceptable.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

TheNephew

I had a great time Rob, many thanks for organising.
Really enjoyed the structure of the day, and the final set piece on the swanky finale board looked amazing.

I didn't feel like my role in the great space opera was minimised by being on the losers table, but I'm not habitually at the winners table at these gigs so perhaps my lads and lasses simply haven't acquired a taste for success.
Personally I very much enjoyed holding off the forces of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition until a dramatically appropriate amount of time had passed, and having the Valk and laser be such hard interrupts of the main event was cool.

As for inter-player conflict - I think we are perhaps all a little too friendly, yes.
When I put a gun on Cortez's thermal lance trooper in round two I felt like it was 50:50, but it turned out my demands were entirely too reasonable to provoke a bloodbath. Similarly in round one the conflict was almost incidental to the plot, using NPCs like crash test dummies rather than whomping other characters (Josefs did a very efficient job of whomping throughout).
Next time I'll maybe go for something a little less agreeable for a crew, or just be a bit more of an arrogant provocative tit about it.

Quote from: greenstuff_gav on November 18, 2017, 11:29:17 PM
i had a blast (quite literally in Josef's case)...

Yeah... Sorry about that.
So blast weapons are serious business, huh?
I'll have to remember that.
I was planning on having Robe Squad (TM) hold the line on the path/killing field across the middle of the board, but that missile launcher is ridiculous overkill, and Marco's operator was operating operationally up the flank, so it didn't quite work out like that.
Are there near miss/scatter rules for those kind of weapons?
I feel like I could have been far less hesitant to try and kill things if it wasn't such a guaranteed brutal dismemberment if I hit, so hiding in the ruins in the optimal range of the silly-big missile launcher wouldn't have been such a good plan.

realitybytes16

Quote from: MarcoSkoll on November 18, 2017, 11:31:46 PM
And I know a lot of others did too - I heard one comment (I'll leave it anonymous, as I may be slightly misquoting, but they may attach themselves to it if they wish) of not being able to remember when, if ever, they'd last enjoyed any tabletop gaming that much.

I believe that might have been me?

Yesterday absolutely was the best tabletop gaming experience of my life, and in spite of some comically poor dice rolls on my part I believe I've found 'my game' in Inquisitor, because up to this point any other tabletop games I've played (mostly 40k and a tiny baby little bit of AoS) have gone on too long and lost the fun long before the end of the game. Inquisitor was consistently fun despite the dice gods smiting me constantly, and I'm determined to have a warband of my own in the near future.

Thanks to all who were there for making it such a blast (especially Rob for organising the event and Gav for giving me a lift, providing great conversation/advice and generally being a smashing bloke ^^) after so many years (since 2009) lurking and very occasionally posting on the 'clave it was a great pleasure to meet you all.

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: TheNephew on November 19, 2017, 12:44:03 AMPersonally I very much enjoyed holding off the forces of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition until a dramatically appropriate amount of time had passed, and having the Valk and laser be such hard interrupts of the main event was cool.
A Rogue Trader rather than an Inquisitor (although not entirely beyond a bit of daring-do, she's somewhat more self serving than the Inquisition generally admit to), but yes. In the absence of actual bogeymen, the Mechanicus made some sense as an antagonist there - "No touchy sacred relics".

QuoteAs for inter-player conflict - I think we are perhaps all a little too friendly, yes.
If we count insults involving mothers and rubber tubing as friendly, yes. (For the benefit of those not on that table, yes, that really happened).

QuoteSo blast weapons are serious business, huh?
One thing I've found when writing RIA is that blast weapons are a very fine balance to make both dangerous and not an insta-mega-kill. Because damage and armour are effectively multiplied up across every hit from the blast, you often end up with weapons that turn unarmoured targets into mist, but barely dent armoured ones.

RIA chooses to reduce the blast values of most weapons and instead trades them special damage types. This both makes them faster to resolve (because fewer hits) and allows a lot more fine-tuning to make them good against their preferred targets without insta-killing everything else.
(I have several spreadsheets looking at the statistics for several different possible statlines for various different weapons in a lot of detail).

I would have also reduced the accuracy of things like grenades in RIA, but that's very difficult to make balance well against the LRB armoury. Maybe in IRE though (see below).

QuoteAre there near miss/scatter rules for those kind of weapons?
Yes. For grenades and direct fire blast, misses scatter D10 yards, plus an extra yard for each degree (or part) of failure. Indirect fire automatically scatters, but with -1 yard for each degree (or part) of success.
For direct-fire, scatter is limited to a quarter of the range to the target, but still, a miss by a single point can still theoretically scatter 11 yards.

IRE changes this to D3 yards, plus D3 per degree of failure, deliberately putting a lot more emphasis on the degree of failure. (Which means that I've been able to change indirect fire to just a simple to-hit penalty rather than it needing its own special scatter rules).

It may also mean that when I get to the armoury that I reduce the accuracy of blast weapons a bit. Because near misses are now actually near misses and thus likely to cause some damage, I will probably want to make hits a bit less likely.

Quote from: realitybytes16 on November 19, 2017, 10:26:29 PMI believe that might have been me?
It was, yes - but given my general level of tiredness*, I didn't want to attribute it in case I'd misunderstood or misremembered.

* The train ride home was not especially fun. You know the level of tiredness where every couple of moments you lose coherence for a split-second and then everything seems to melt while your brain tries to reboot? Yeah - that.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles