Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV: Army Feature Videos and a Blog!


Howdy all! Matt D. here again with some updates on the narrative campaign Rob and I are hosting this Friday. To get people pumped for the campaign, I've been doing Army Feature Videos, showcasing armies with cool music/sounds. So far, the campaign has two such videos completed, one of an Imperial Guard army, the other of my Chaos Lord. These are very much an experiment in video work for me as much as they are a little something extra for the community, so each one should hopefully get better with practice. Enjoy! More to come as time goes on. Additionally, we now have a blog that we will be posting content for the Narrative campaign to. Going is slow, starting out, but once we get the hang of this blogging thing it'll be a big beautiful monster: Blood God Gaming Blog!


The Icharan 501st, led by Colonel Arminius Maximillian. 

Accidentally uploaded this video to the wrong account lol. Going to have to change that at some point. Anyways, sound clip is from the YouTube vid, "Dawn of War is not Dead".



The Hand of Vulgaris, led by Vulgaris Manus

The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV: Phase 1 W/L Results, Side Missions, a Map, and a Video for Phase 2!


Hello everyone! Matt D. here again with updates on The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV Narrative Campaign! This past Friday was a HUGE success!! We had a turnout of 16 players throughout the day with two absentees planning on joining next week! It was a fantastic turnout for the first meet, to the point of actually running out of 40k terrain for all the players. But I digress, the campaign results from Phase 1: Invasion, are as follows:

Forces of the Imperium: 4W/3L
Forces of Chaos: 1W/4L
Tyranids: 2W/0L
Tau Empire: 1W/0L

There was one L that stood out because we had a guy who wanted to play but wasn't doing the campaign. We needed members so we said "heck, why not?". 

Highlights of the first phase include a Sororitas army just smashing their way through a Chaos force, a gorgeously painted Crimson Fist army (which will have an Army Feature Vid in the future), pink Tau with a Riptide named "Momo", Flappy the Tyrant (Flyrant conversion w/gargoyle wings), and another beautifully painted Chaos Flying Circus. For the map, Rob and I decided not to use the planetary empires board, as the exploding participation roster quickly turned this into a faction fight. So instead I found a detailed layout of a hive city on Google image search and we're going to use copies of that to mark faction progress (shown below). 

Now, for the Narrative Campaign during the week, we are introducing something new called Side Missions. If your warlord rolled on the Character Death Table and suffered wounds, he now has the potential to heal them up before the next campaign meet. To engage in a Side Mission, craft a 750pt list with your warlord as a part of it. If your warlord survives the mission without being reduced to zero wounds, then all Major and/or Minor Wounds are removed. If the warlord dies, you do not have to roll on the CDT, as such a minor skirmish cannot truly fell such mighty champions. Just try again! 

We're also going to start hosting special side missions (1k) during the week that, if players participate in them and win, their Warlord's next roll on the CDT becomes "Roll 2d6 and pick the lowest result". If the warlord is reduced to zero wounds, nothing happens because, once again, the skirmish is too minor (plot armor ftw). Our first Special Side Mission will be Emperor's Will vs. a Plague Zombie Horde led by Typhus. Points will be 1k, and the attacking player follows the Kill Team Restriction for Vehicles (No flyers and vehicles must have a combined AV of 33 or less). We may make an endless swarm style rule for the zombies, but that is undecided as of now. The goal of the mission is to attack a potential forward base that has reported enemy activity, but not to the level normally seen.

All in all, been a great start for the campaign, and I will post more content as it comes!




Here is the map! The Forces of Chaos still hold a lot of territory in this hive, but the invaders are pushing their way in. Who will win? And yes that is a to-scale graphic of Texas for size reference. 'Cuz in the grimdarkness of the grimdark grimdark everything is huge and grimdark :P


And here is the video for Phase 2: Attrition. The Imperium now has a foothold, planetside, but can they keep it?

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Warhammer 40k Announcement: The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV


Hi there! Matt D. here as a first time writer with some big news! Me and my buddy, Rob, are looking to promote a narrative campaign and its rule-set for Warhammer 40k. We've created a free-to-play event that, instead of drawing people in with the promise of prizes, features the stories of their characters on our community Facebook page and in our teaser videos (the first of which is already up on YouTube, linked below). A lot of this is inspired from Miniwargaming's Narrative Batreps but with some twists. Additionally, EVERYTHING is in. Superheavies, Lords of War, Allies, Supplements, Forgeworld, and all the extra goodies (like dataslates) are all legal for use. We are strongly encouraging narrative play, and as such have a very simple character creation system in addition to a death table heavily inspired from MWG's. Also dooing a shoutout to our flgs, Titan Games and Hobbies. Totally awesome place to do wargaming if you live in the area (location can be found on their Facebook page)! Also, the posters, video, data stream message, and the datasheets for the campaign are all my handiwork (Rob handles admin stuff, I make the pretty pictures). Here's what we have: 

A Community Page: Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV

A YouTube Video: 

Also a shout out to the group organizing the event: Blood God Gaming

And several supporting documents for the rules including fluff and posters (attached below):

DA ROOLZ:

General Rules;

The first Chapter of this campaign will be 4 weeks long. We will meet the following Fridays: 12/12, 12/19, 1/2, and 1/9. We will not be meeting on 12/5 but we will be starting character creation (pdf character sheets are available on the community facebook page and attached below). This campaign will use the Planetary Empires board and we will determine starting positions once player interest has been discerned. We will tally up the wins/losses at the end of each week. There are no teams. This is strictly free for all (if we get massive amounts of players from multiple different factions, we may reconsider that). 

IMPORTANT: If you miss a Friday, your square(s) is(are) automatically lost should an opponent attempt to seize it(them). You will still be able to play, but you will have to retake your territory. If you want to participate, but cannot make one of the dates, it is acceptable to do your game early and check off either with the Titan Hobby Manager or on the Facebook page. That way we can handle absences. But please please please communicate if there is a problem!

Rob and I were also discussing potentially filming some of the battles as well. We will be taking pictures of our battles and encouraging you to do the same, but if two players come in with fully painted armies, then a video batrep would not be out of the question.

Campaign Rules:

Your Warlord:

>Create a custom warlord with a name and a Warlord Trait of your choice. Your warlord must be normally eligible to roll for whatever trait you pick (so for example a Salamanders Captain could choose a Warlord Trait from the rulebook or the Space Marine Codex). Invest yourself in your character and discover their adventure with them! Choose your Warlord Trait carefully. It stays with you for the entire campaign! In the event of Maelstrom of War missions, you may roll on the Tactical Warlord Traits while keeping your fixed trait, applying bonuses for things like being battleforged as normal.

>Should a warlord fall in battle, you must roll on the Character Death Table. Subtract 1 from your roll if you won the battle.
1 = Gets away unscathed.
2-3 = Minor Wounds: -1 WS & -1 BS
4-5 = Major Wounds: -1 W & -1 A
6 = DEAD! Make a new warlord. The new warlord must choose a different Warlord Trait (Otherwise character deaths would be insignificant because you could just take the exact same warlord trait again)

>Your character heals from injuries by participating in future battles without being reduced to 0 wounds. One battle is sufficient to remove major and/or minor wounds.

>Minor wounds and major wounds can stack with each other, but each characteristic only ever affects a model once (so rolling major wounds after already having major wounds just means one more game of being wounded. No doubling of the same debuff.)

>Additionally, players get one Fate Point that they may use to modify their character death roll to a 
"1 = Gets away unscathed", should they so choose (before or after rolling). However, choose wisely because you only get one Fate Point for the entire campaign.

>It is encouraged, but not required, that you come up with a back story for your character. Additionally, it is also encouraged, but not required, that you record epic moments of your battles (IG sergeant kills a chaos lord, for example) in small sagas to recount their heroic feats.

>One final thing: Play to the spirit of the game and the flavor of your army. Most importantly, have fun! This campaign intends to celebrate the journey over the destination.

Errata:

>All daemonic gifts/ eotg rolls don't carry over from the battles in which they were acquired, including gift of mutation rolls, spawnhood, and apotheosis. There is a chaos portal present on the world that interrupts all attempts at apotheosis by virtue of draining all planetside daemon energy to stay open (it's also made of 100% pure plotdevicium). Spawnhood simply counts as being reduced to 0 wounds and being majorly wounded for the next battle. Saving your last wound with Feel No Pain does not count as being reduced to 0 wounds.

>There is no official points limit. You and your opponent can fight for your tiles with however many points you want, as long as you both agree on it. That being said, we are encouraging 1,850-2,000pts for the average game. All supplements, allies, fortifications, LOW, and forgeworld are allowed, and you may use special characters in your army. If you choose to use one as your warlord, just pick a warlord trait if he doesn't already have one. Relics are fine too. This is very much an everything goes throw down, so take whatever you want and will enjoy the most. That being said, we also strongly encourage you to develop a narrative for whatever it is you do bring. I personally want to see the community facebook page littered with epic sagas and tales of glory.

Specifically for the Map battles:

>It is assumed your battleforce will have enough non-command units to replenish losses.
>No escalation. This is a planet-wide throw down with all factions involved. So battles of all sizes will certainly be commonplace.
>It is assumed you have fast enough detection/transportation to redeploy and defend your squares. You do not need to garrison units.



Here is the poster for the campaign! I felt like having a little fun with the name of the group organizing the event :D


Our totally optional character sheets that you may use for convenience of keeping track of your character. It may save you from having to flip through several different books!


A reference card (4x6) for the Character Death Table. Also optional.


A small fluff piece of the Inquisitor responsible for requisitioning the Imperial Forces to defend/retake the planet. His first choices weren't pretty. They interrupted his morning coffee.