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The Ordos Majoris - Hobby, Painting and Modelling => In the Field => Topic started by: Holiad on December 24, 2010, 01:37:37 AM

Title: Inquisition Vs Santa
Post by: Holiad on December 24, 2010, 01:37:37 AM
Hi everyone, with the festive season approaching, and thoroughly sick by now of 8th edition warhammer, I arranged a large inquisitor game for the final 2010 session of my local gaming club, and our last at our current venue. The objective was simple-apprehend a certain bearded seasonal icon, by any means possible. Whichevver team had him in their custody when time was called would be declared the winner, with any other result a victory for the fat man. What I haven't told the players is that their target is, in fact, the robotic Santa out of Futurama, who metes out seasonal justice with automatic weaponry and TOW missiles, and they've all been very naughty this year. Hohoho....

Please direct any complaints about the lack of pictures to Myriad, who forget to bring the camera.
On the day, I managed to gather 4 players, who took the following teams of two-

The mad tech-priest Daan, supported by the frankensteinesque monster, Abe.
The heavily armed and armoured Inquisitor Houden Iet, supported by his scout, Eyedanon.
Brother-hospitalier RJ, of the crusade of the seekers, supported by the order's archivist, brother-crusader Jools.
Inquisitorial acolyte Terwyn Awchus, backed up by the dual-chainsword wielding brother-crusader Jops.

The scenery greeting the four strike teams was dominated by two large features in the centre of the board-on one side a landing pad with a decrepit bunker on it, and opposite it a cratered hill. Various buildings, ruins and debris surroounded the two centrepieces, and a heavy blizzard coated all, making fast movement hazardous and impairing visibility.

The game starts quietly, with the characters edging in from their respective corners, careful in the icy conditions, but the peace and quiet is soon ruined. Shiny, wrapped parcels drift down through the snow, and Terwyn, quick to dash forward and seize the nearest, finds herself confronted by the large, clawed,  Daemonhost  Odere Re'mai, in an even worse rage than usual over having been gift-wrapped into an impossibly small box. Attempting to rush to her aid, Jops slips and falls face-down in the snow, joined a moment later by Terwyn, bleeding heavily from an arm and a leg. Meanwhile, a krak missile screams out of the snow, punches effortlessly through inquisitor Houden's armour, and knocks him sprawling into the snow, where he crawls into the cover of a nearby pillar to nurse his wound. Well, if you walk around everywhere looking like a tank, you shouldn't be surprised to get treated like one. Luckily for Houden, he was hit in the leg which, while severely debilitating, won't put him out of action just yet. Meanwhile, the insane tehpriest Daan, unaware of the drama, climbs a ruin, looks around at the pretty snowflakes, and leaps with a metallic shout of 'Geronimoo' into the snowdrift below, while Abe unwraps a present to discover a beautiful green parrot...

Despite having seen the direction of the missile that struck down her employer, Eyedanon allows the unseen assailant to flee, instead aiding Houden, who with her help is soon back on his feet, if limping somewhat. Flat on her back with Re'mei moving in for the kill,  Terwyn marshall her psychic powers and sends the demon flying backwards with a blast of raw force, then clambers to her feet and draws her demon sword, Jops moving to to her side with a wild shot from an autopistol. Emerging from a section of ruins just ahead of an archivist now drunk on christmas brandy and holding a shiny christmas bauble, RJ is the next victim of the unseen rocket launcher, a hit to the abdomen leaving him stunned and bleeding in the snow. Terwyn,  Jops, and Daan track the general direction to the crater. With Re'mai back on his feet, Terwyn dashes past him and to his right to open a present in hopes it might a weapon powerful enough to kill the daemon, and finds a second bottle of christmas brandy, also coming face to face with a bearded figure moving away from the crater with a rocket launcher. Well, at least she doesn't have to  face impending doom sober. Fortunately, Jops moves faster than the enraged daemon, and in an impressive display of swordsmanship manages to land two blows to Re'mai's(relatively) vulnerable head. The massive form crashes to the snow unconscious, leaving Terwyn able to focus on Santa. Unfortunately, with her injuries slowing her down she isn't quite fast enough, and Santa gets his shots in first, a single bullet clipping her wounded leg and leaving her unable to stand before drawing a massive candy cane. Even drunk, she manages to respond with a fireball that knocks the fat robot flat, and Jops charges in, taking the opportunity to land several blows on the prone form, but failing to inflict a serious injury.

Unknown to the combatants, however, crazed doom creeps up on them all, as techpriest Daan investigates the crater overlooking their brawl, discovering in the process the star present- a live vortex grenade, ready armed, primed, and merrily ticking away to the accompaniment of merry christmas jingles. Keeping his nerve, he looks out of the crater, spies his target, and forgetting the 'capture' part of the mission objective, throws the vortex grenade, which lands between the feet of the duelling figures, settles slightly, and keeps on ticking...

Undaunted, Santa climbs to his feet, while Terwyn hurriedly duct-tapes her ruined leg together in an attempt to escape at more than a crawl. Jops, however, attempts to flee from the festive doomsday device, but finds his attempt at flight forestalled by Santa's candy cane, right in the unmentionables. Meanwhile, Brother-crusader Jools faces off against Abe round the edges of the crater, the sub-human monstrosity opening fire with a christmas bauble, and a parrot. Bravely, Jools fends off the bird with his archives, and covers his eyes as the bauble explodes in a blinding flash. Abe, however, is a little slower, and is stunned by his own bauble!

As the characters pause to nurse their various injuries, catch their breath, and in the case of Jops moan in agony, the ticking stops, and silence falls over the ruined city....

Then, the vortex grenade detonates, enveloping Jops and Santa. The crusader is teleported to the other side of the hill, loses a large chunk of his chest in the process, and passes out, while Santa, with a final echoing HOHOHO of rage, is cast into the warp. A certain techpriest is going on the *extra* naughty list next year, but meanwhile, with Daan's incompetence having placed their objective out of reach, the remaining agents turn on each other. Brother-crusader Jool's is at the heart of the crossfire, and finds himself clipped by Houden's lasblaster, dodging Terwyn's armoured form as the vortex drags her in and throws her back out within a yard of him, miraculously unharmed, then raked by techno-sorcerous lightning as Daan follows up his previous actions with an imitation of the Sith emperor. Reeling on the edge of consciousness, he finds himself dragged into the screaming vortex, and emerges embedded in the wall of one of the buildings.

At this point, with time running short, the objective gone, and 2 of the teams near annihilation, I called time, and we packed up, wishes each other a merry christmas, and went home. Having evaded his pursuers through the imaginative means of a tech-priest dumb enough to use a vortex grenade for a capture mission, Santa is technically the winner, but points go to Jops for his heroism in the face of faceless monstrosities, and Jools for the most dramatically hideous demise. Most important, everyone had fun. 

Merry Xmas all..


Title: Re: Inquisition Vs Santa
Post by: Swarbie on December 24, 2010, 06:52:00 AM
Wowza. That sounds zany. Pity there aren't any pictures, but my mind has formed a series of quite amusing images, many centered around the thought of a daemonhost emerging from a small, gift-wrapped box  ;D .
Title: Re: Inquisition Vs Santa
Post by: Ulgavitch on January 27, 2011, 01:54:25 PM
Short, sweet and brilliant. Did you sing the Futurama song 'Santa Claus is Gunning You Down?'

Seems appropriate given the outcome.