Majestic 13: Operation Turkey Drop

 Today is Thanksgiving in the United States; we're neither hosting nor traveling to see family today (and a sudden positive Covid test at my parents' house has cancelled our plans for traveling this weekend), but my wife and I had a nice meal together, the cat got a rare treat of wet food (and sunk a claw into the sole of my foot, for my first-ever Thanksgiving injury), and I made the time to clear the table off and set myself up with a solo game. 

Snarling Badger Studios' Majestic 13 has been getting talked about a lot in the wargaming Discord servers I'm in, and it sparked me to dust things off and get a game in; I've assembled and painted quite a bit of urban terrain since my last game, so I got my table set up, pulled out my crew, and grabbed my monster; I went with the Avenkian Shrieking Shock Trooper again, as I felt a little more confident going after it after my original playtest back in June. And the miniature was still *cough* out from last time.

My team, Keel's Killers, deployed from their remote observation base when the Avenkian was spotted lurking around the roof of the Bingo Hall; their primary objective being the creature's destruction (before it could spoil the Senior Ladies' Bingo League's Black Friday Special), with a secondary objective of mapping the terrain on that side of the board. Johanna Keel briefed her crew behind the "Donut Worry" doughnut shop, and the crew spread out into cover.

The Avenkian spotted Agent Moseley, leapt down from the Bingo Hall and charged across the street, vaulting over the chainlink fence towards Moseley's position.

The crew fanned out and began firing into the creature; Moseley and Keel were both caught in the blast radius of, and stunned by, the creature's sonic scream. After killing Moseley, the Avenkian turned its attention towards the wounded Keel, though Agent Barker managed to call in aid and hit the creature with a drone strike. 

Using a Fistful of Lead "Shock" marker to designate Keel as "Stunned."

Agent Arnold managed to dart in and apply a medi-kit to Keel's wounds, and the surviving team-members began a series of hit-and-run attacks, trying to keep everyone out of range of the creature's retaliatory sonic blast as best they could. The Avenkian ultimately struck down Keel, but drew the fire of long range artillery.

In Turn 5, the Avenkian went "In Extremis" (a condition where, once reduced below a certain HP threshold, the creature gains an extra action but begins taking bonus damage). It looked like I might not manage to kill it, but I'd get close, and I was pretty happy for that; however, on its second activation, I rolled 2D6 to see how much Extremis damage it took and...IT DIED!

Keel's Killers pumped dozens of rounds of ammunition into the creature, and right as they were on the cusp of failing their mission...the monster exploded on its own. We'll call that a win. And the surviving crew members - Arnold, Barker and Klass - got tacos out of the deal.

This 3D-printed taco truck is one of the best things my wife's ever bought for my table.

Going into the post-game, both Keel and Moseley recovered just fine from their injuries, and will be available for the next mission with no complications. The team rating goes from 0 to 1, and Barker, Arnold and Klass each got to boost an attribute - Barker and Arnold boosting their Combat rating, while Klass raised his Dexterity. Impressively, they actually managed to get all the new gear they requisitioned after this mission - they replenished medi-kits, added shock pads to their repertoire, and most excitingly, added an Internet Communications Monitoring Station to their base - this allows me to basically negate a FUBAR roll (each turn in Majestic 13, you roll to see if anything goes wrong, and the longer the game goes on the more likely something goes wrong). I was really pleased with these results - as Roughnecks (one of the 13 groups comprising Majestic 13), Keel's Killers take a penalty to Bureaucracy rolls during the post-game phase, making it harder to requisition new gear. But I had enough bonuses and rolled well enough to actually get everything I wanted.

Orc Siege Gun

 I'll be taking part in the Old World Army Challenge again in 2024, with an amusing little WHFB 3rd edition Empire Army with Halfling Allies. In prepping for January 1st, I've been very much in an Oldhammer frame of mind, and have been keeping myself busy with some of the orcs in my collection; even if I'm taking a break for the duration of the OWAC, I'm thinking the Oldhammer Orc project is going to be a constant for me, because there will always be something to add to it, and it gives me so much joy. 

The latest figure to be completed is this bunch from Warmonger Miniatures - Here we have mercenary orc "Curroneth" with his Orcquebus siege gun and crew. Another Kev Adams sculpt (like the bulk of my army), I think the mercenary orcs he did for Warmonger are some of his best and most underrated sculpts; the landsknecht style clothing and the sheer volume of looted goods they're crusted with cry out for bright colors and reward the patient painter. 

The "orclings" forming the gun rest as well as the reloading crew all came with Curroneth, but I added another one, similarly dressed in puff-and-slash and admiring himself in a hand mirror; I painted his clothes to match Curroneth's, with quartered red-yellow and blue-white. 

I also drilled out the gun barrels; I'd gotten a little bit of flack on social media for not drilling out the horns some of my musicians were blowing, so I figured I'd get ahead of that. 

Other than the "Leadbelcher" cannon in the 3rd edition list, orcs have not had access to gunpowder weapons in Warhammer Fantasy Battles; I figure I'll use this as a proxy Rock Lobba catapult if I ever get a chance to play. 

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Finally, I have something very cool to share. Last week, my wife Gina found out that I have hobby "white whales" - old figures that I'd love to get my hands on given a chance. She asked for a list of what some of these white whales were, and got to work. 

Top of the list was the 6th edition WHFB "Orc Warboss on Wyvern" - I fell in love with this kit the very first time I walked into a Games Workshop store in August 2001. They had a painted example on a turntable in the display case and I was absolutely entranced - the short neck and bulldog face on the wyvern was so cool to 14 year old me.

Alas, I had neither the money nor the attention span to focus long enough to build a 2000-pt 6th edition army; I bought a few boxed sets here and there - Night Goblins, Orcs, Skeletons, Chaos Warriors - but never managed to get far enough to be thinking about characters. So I never bought the Warboss on Wyvern. 

Earlier this week, it arrived:

It feels surreal to hold it in my hands. It had become a pipe dream, a mythical "if I see one for sale that's not in too-terrible a shape, that doesn't cost a kidney." I don't think I was expecting to ever actually get one. It might not get painted until spring, because my priming window is rapidly closing for the year, but I'm excited to finally get a chance to paint it.