Rags to riches: the road from Sogg Bottom to Slick City

[CaptainDangerous]

....................................................................sigh...
I told him to stay vigilant ....I told him!
Why Jared why?...
*a single tear rolls down the captains cheek*
Goodbye friend
*rimmer salute*
.......................*the captain wipes away the tear*
Now....who supplies the area with melta gas cylinders??....
It can't be those crazies, sure they'll come across pockets of prometium gas working the mines, but I very much doubt they have the sense to bottle it!......hmm.... Who could it be..............

No......not.......Kelos Wiseman? Surely he wouldn't be supplying second rate melta fuel!?!
........would he........???

Another fantastic write up llewy! Although I can't say I'm impressed with the outcome, this is truly necromunda at its finest!
You know you've come to right place when a maurauding horde of sexually promiscuous, psycoopathic, cybernetically enhanced techno barbarians are the protagonists!!

(....I'm almost certain I shouldn't feel this sad about a fictional character....sigh.....)
I think you should retire them and promote one of the gangers who was part of the original team, give him a melta gun (the repaired remains of jareds prized posession - the gun that saved the crew from certain death - old reliable), and call them the sons of work team 8? (Work team 8.5 possibly?) ....... Whenever jareds replacement kills anyone his catchphrase could be "you don't know what it's like.....you weren't there man!" Hope this might give you ideas, look forward to see what you do!

 

[Llewy]

RIP Jared

He made for a great and stoic leader. However his detractors are saying in recent trials he had become more cowardly, tending to move forward with a juve surreptitiously positioned between him and the enemy, something his younger self would have frowned bitterly upon. The mystery remains, were the malfunctioning meltaguns merely accidents, coincidence, was Ben Niatoe the new juve to blame, the Crazies, Quinn the Isotrope?! Kelos Wiseman!?!

Regardless, one last appreciative glance at the man that Jared had become, a solid mid campaign leader:

 

[Ptrix]

As news of Work Team 8's savage double loss of Jared and then Will Stern reverberated through the S.0.gg, Persephone thought back to her two most recent clashes with her most hated and long running rival, Jared Diamond.

The Crazies had celebrated long into the night when Madchen had been dragged back to their expanding corner of the S.0.gg. Their newly acquired workshop had been chosen as the stopping off point before the onward journey to the mines. A constant demand for new strong backs to work the walls meant that any and all bodies wound up in the depths to toil in the dark. Given the feud between the two gangs, the Crazies had unanimously agreed to have a night of fun and torment with their latest acquisition.

And what better location than the place where Madchen used to restore and clean Work Team 8's weapons and equipment. After a few hours of playtime with the heavy they Crazies felt pity on the Orlock, given Sally had further mutilated the left side of his body. Having got bored of tormenting their quarry Persephone had released the rest of the Crazies to head to the Only Ok to continue the celebrations there, leaving just herself and Molly-sue to watch over the stricken House of Iron man.

I've been trying to get a captured gangers down one of my mines since I started the campaign with 3 in my territory list. So after capturing @Llewy's heavy I was determined to retain him! Alas it was not to be.

Only rolling up 2 sentries to be on patrol to start with hampered my ability to form a defensive net around the captured Madchen. You can see Persephone and Sally tucked into towers with Madchen on the bridge between them, as @Llewy makes his initial moves.

Sounding the alarm wan't a worry as he elected to open fire on Sally to try and put her down, to safeguard their advance form close quarters attack.

Fortunately @Llewy suffered two failed ammo roles in his first turn hampering his long range ability, and also missed with a grenade over Persephone's head from Flynn's grenade launcher.

She returned the favour taking 2 wounds off Flynn with some well placed hellfire shots.

A forward advance team of Work Team 8 moved up to free Madchen, with the lead being taken by some hired help in the form of Quinn the Bounty Hunter. A S.0.gg resident for longer than anyone can remember, and former hireling of the Catwalk Crazies themselves, he has an unearthly ability to dodge shots and refuse to go down. A sensible choice to march forth and free the captured heavy as he dodged past hellfire bolts from Persephone's lofty perch in what would be a game hinging roll!

By this time Crazies' reinforcements were beginning to arrive on the scene, headed up by One Eyed Sally with her sprint ability. Not wanting to see the prize that she had fought so well to capture to slip away, at the hands of the turncoat Quinn of all people, she charged into the fray overcoming his gruesome appearance to lock swords with him. This tangle of sweat and metal would result in two round of drawn h2h, both ending in draws. Quinn easily beat Sally's inferior Initiative, dilapidated by one of her many serious injuries.

Unable to help her sister in battle, Lexy looks on at the newly freed Madchen with rage. Such was the emotion she missed her shot. As Quinn took Sally down, she promptly levelled her Lasgun and landed a rare shot on him.

A second wave of the Crazie's reinforcements approached the pinned Quinn, hoping to burn the traitor with their newest recruit Sasha's flamer. He again lived up to his grizzled reputation and failed to be wounded, or set alight by the fire that engulfed him. He promptly returned the favour by taking Sasha out with his bolt pistol before turning his gaze onto Lil Vicky. Lil Vicky had just dispatched Madchen, further butchering the poor Orlock's left hand side. By the time Quinn engaged her, she was weary from the combat and surge forward on her gammy leg. Quinn buried his chainsword deep in her body, sending her to meet the Hive spirits.

Work Team 8 took used the distraction caused by the carnage caused by Quinn as means to cover their tactical retreat into the badlands, with their tales firmly between their legs.

All in all, Quinn landed 5 wounding hits on the Crazies, one of which resulted in the death of poor Lil Vicky an expert sword smith who'd risen through the ranks as a fresh Juve. This secured himself as marked man, who will no doubt feel the retribution from the Catwalk Crazies he deserves.

Hell hath no fury like a Crazie scorned!

+++++++++++++++

@Llewy and I had the time and the inclination to move straight into another game. However this one lacked any particular effort on our parts to photograph or record notes.

He did roll, rather befittingly, a grudge match and opted for a straight gang fight (I think in a fools hope to re-acquire the lost workshop back into the Orlock fold).

With two wounding hits a piece, the last of which was a masterful grenade shot straight onto the head of the now dead Jared, putting him down and WT8 in bottle roll territory. They beat a tactical retreat and ended the game after a few turns.

The feud between the Crazies and Work Team 8 continues, and now looks almost hopeless with the loss of their notorious leader, and then subsequently his stand in. Can they ever recover their former glory...?

Edit: Couple of typos, and new contrasty photos!

 

[spafe]

Wait... was Quinn a bounty hunter? shouldn't he have insta captured any he took out in combat?

 

[Ptrix]

Any captured results in rescue missions results in Full Recovery is one of our house rules, so managed to avoid that nicely

 

[Llewy]

The fall and fall and further fall of Work Team 8

Well, things have been quiet in the S.0.gg in recent times. Not much news has made it out. And it's fair to say a factor in that might be the deplorable luck of Work Team 8. Tracking back through Malo's battle tracker I can see that in the past five games I've fought, four times my leader has died, proper died, like an 11-15 on the serious injury chart. If only I could've taken the the Captain's advice and salvaged some of their respectability after the first death of Jared Diamond:

I think you should retire them and promote one of the gangers who was part of the original team, give him a melta gun (the repaired remains of jareds prized posession - the gun that saved the crew from certain death - old reliable), and call them the sons of work team 8? (Work team 8.5 possibly?)

Alas, hubris led me to lead them to the field again and again, and despite some very excellent coaching from @spafe, things went from bad to worse. After Jared came Will Stern, flanked in battle by Edwin of the Van Duh Sarrs and brutally garroted with the lace from a football boot. After Will Stern came Zip Delares shot to shit in a four-player, and following Zip's death, Porter. And that's where we rejoin the story.

It should be mentioned that simultaneously to the accursed mantle of leadership I have lost my two key territories. My Workshop early in the campaign to the Catwalk Crazies and an Archeotech Hoard to the dastardly King Khronus and his Brass Brotherhood. I clawed back at least a tiny bit of my pride with the Crazies, destroying the Workshop they had stolen from me in a Raid and along with it their auto-repairer. When it came to the Brass Brotherhood though, following the death of Zip, Porter was prepared to let bygones be bygones and form an uneasy alliance to loot and pillage together the Crazies, currently the top dogs of the Rags to Riches campaign. A few shots from the tense three-player follow.

The game began moments after Lasgun Lexy had sounded the alarm.

A wave of pitslaves crept forward, eyeing up the five loot counters bunched beneath the watchtower but mindful of the cool Escher crackshot guards and especially the dreadful Molly Sue with her two bionic legs.

Behind them the hulking Madchen provided area denial with his beady eyes finding clean lines of sight for the brutal heavy bolter.

The plan was however temporarily stymied by a very well placed smoke bomb thrown by the devilish Molly Sue that lingered for turns and turns. King Khronus has never been one to miss a photo opportunity in front of the billowing smoke though.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, two Orlocks and a pitslave popped up thru vents and tunnels known only to them and made good the pincer. This shot shows the two Orlocks in one of the key gambits of the game. Beneath them Kaal the Krusher and One eyed Sally are both bleeding out in the shadows. I put my boys on this precarious edge to get a good shot on Persephone, the Crazies' ballistic skill 6 leader, and promptly failed to do any damage with any of my bullets. The next turn I spent on tenterhooks, cursing King Khronus for being stuck behind a smoke cloud and waiting for retribution, but in true necromunda style @Ptrix then also missed with all the guns he brought to bare on my fighters.

We were closing in on the hemmed in Eschers, and as their reinforcements came on in drips and drabs they were split too thin to be much help.

Here a little tête à tête that happened on the fringes of the board.

The tower now swamped, I scored a bit of an own goal, downing the juve Lucky Ben with one of Madchen's bullets that strayed too far. It meant that next turn when Persephone charged and eviscerated Porter, I was nudged into bottle roll territory and promptly fled the field!

It was up to the Brass Brotherhood to deal the death blow which they performed with ease. Here, in one of the last shots of the game, Sasha, the Escher heavy with flamer, is holed up behind one of the Kelos promethium barrels with pitslaves shrieking and yelling all around her. The Crazies thought discretion the better part of valour next turn and abandoned their loot to the Brotherhood, leaving the pitslaves incredibly rich!

And after the game as well there was one last flick of drama. Lucky Ben got survival against the odds along with a few other injuries and decided that, in the wake of being shot by his own side, he had nothing to lose by challenging Porter to the death in a knife fight:

In a reversal of how things usually are the pitslaves watched and laughed as the two weaponskill 1 Orlocks tried to kill each other. Lucky Ben got lucky and embarrassed Porter so badly that Porter had no choice but to wander off into the wastes destitute. And to add final insult to injury (though actually I asked for it) the Crazies successfully reported the Orlocks for hanging out with dirty rotten no good outlaws and got them branded as outlaws as well.

Three men standing, outlawed and with a gang rating of under a thousand, this is not the last you've heard of Work Team 8!!!

 

[MedMos]

Wow, fall after fall indeed! This is quite the ride for Workteam 8, or what's left of'em anyway.

Great pictures! It looks like a very nice table and models you guys have going. Love the stories, keep them coming!

 

[Insurgent]

Nice Picks. What's the key to good in game photography?

 

[scavvyjay]

Kudos for perseverance, I tend to do that myself. Stories like that make necromunda the fantastic game that it is! Thanks for the update.

 

[Llewy]

Nice Picks. What's the key to good in game photography?

Playing against @The Duke is great as he takes loads of pics. Then I can sift thru and choose my favourites. Camera phones are perfect for that. Other things that work really well I think are shooting low to the table and close to the models.

 

[spafe]

@Llewy ....I just don't know... what to say... we had a plan... we went through the plan... we studied the plan... WHY DIDNT YOU FOLLOW THE PLAN???????

That's a pretty hard slog dude, are you confident of how to recover this and rebound? Going outlaw was a good move. This has to be one of my favorite ever gangs that I've seen over the years!

 

[Fold]

Great read and atmospheric pictures, what more can you ask for!

 

[Ptrix]

The Crazies do admire the fortitude of the beleaguered Workteam 8, if only as means to continue their persecution further. One scalp they've yet to claim is Madchen's, and after having captured him not long ago the bitterness of him slipping through their fingers is not forgotten. Nor are the wounds inflicted from being on the wrong end of his heavy bolter, or the advanced tinkering skills that make ammo roles more of a formality rather than a worry.

Rest assured, with yet another leader ousted and their expulsion to the badlands following their outlaw status, the Catwalk Crazies will pursue their foes where ever they are until the blood feud is settled.

 

[King Redwart]

Just catching up with this thread. What a great read and nice photos. Gotta feel for the Orlocks but I have to side with the Brass Brotherhood being a fellow freedom fighter n all.

When you guys play at a gaming club/venue where do you play? I'd be interested in popping along one time to check it out. See the gangs in real and take a look at the Wiseman Industries set up.

 

[The Duke]

Just catching up with this thread. What a great read and nice photos. Gotta feel for the Orlocks but I have to side with the Brass Brotherhood being a fellow freedom fighter n all.

When you guys play at a gaming club/venue where do you play? I'd be interested in popping along one time to check it out. See the gangs in real and take a look at the Wiseman Industries set up.

Huzzah!!, from one grizzled "(twisted) freedom-fighter" King to another - "King Khronus" salutes you (and almost decapitates himself in the process, having neglected to turn his chainsaw off first!)

Yeeeeeeaaaaaaghhhh!!!!!

 

[Llewy]

@King Redwart we're just kinda rotating between our three houses - mine, @The Duke, @Ptrix, and @fergyo joins in when he's in London. Would love to get you in on a game though if we can figure the logistics. Just thinking out loud but a couple of possibilities occur to me - we're planning a storming the barricades, maybe June 4th, with the allied Pitslaves and Work Team 8 holed up in an outlander watering hole and some lawful gangs, including the Crazies, attacking. We're really loose about the campaign so you could mix in a gang, either then or any time, that's played a bunch of games or come as a spectator or arbitrator - probs be nice to have you in on the action though or as arbitrator, can't speak for the other boys but I tend to zone over in concentration as soon as the first dice is thrown . Could bring one of the other Lagnogg guys too to balance the numbers. If not that then maybe some other kind of s.0.gg / Lagnogg meeting/ clash/ special edition could be on the cards. Or we can come to your club where there might be a bit more space . Anyway definitely hoping this happens.

 

[Llewy]

Another update on the action in this uncharitable corner of the Hive. I hit the necromunda hard this weekend with a couple of games against @Ptrix on Friday night and three games against @The Duke on Saturday, in an effort to raise the embattled and often starving Orlocks from their network of rusty vents in the badlands. To this end I had to play some really dirty tactics remorselessly, tricks I wouldn't usually try to pull but backed up against the sump I had no choice. Mostly revolving around ways to win games very quickly using my star-player Madchen and his (t)rusty heavy bolter. Here's a very quick rundown of the first two games.

Game 1 - Raid

With a lower gang rating against the Crazies by some twelve hundred points I won the scenario roll and picked Raid. Setting up centrally on my side of the board (I've been flanked by reinforcements too many times in the past!) I put my squad in cover at the edge of their deployment zone with Madchen already drawing a bead on Ptrix's avant garde placement of the Gateway. It took two salvos from the heavy bolter to take it down - the alarm unsurprisingly went on the first. (As an aside, was very impressed with @TakUnderhand's fluorescent necro-gauge top left)

All would be well for a quick getaway except for Ptrix's unwomanly Molly Sue with two bionic legs and sprint plus so many attack dice it's hard to pick them up in one go. She crossed the board in two turns and Ptrix placed her brilliantly within 8" of my men but in perfect cover so I was unable to run.

Most frightening of all was my prized fighter Madchen's limp, his 3" move making it very hard to cross the 8" to the safety of the board's edge. I ummed and ahhed for ages about how to play it - Flynn's smoke bombs, a charge, overwatch stale mate, In the end I charged in with Flynn hoping his 3 wounds and toughness 4 would give the others chance to escape. Needless to say, Molly Sue made quick work of Flynn and then carved up Madchen too; neverthless @Malo 's post game bots were kind and the serious injuries not too serious. I had won the scenario and got one hell of a payday from the giant killer bonus. Next game!

Game 2 - Scavengers

Ptrix employed one of his old ratskin hirelings which allowed him to nudge the scenario roll into a Scavengers mission. We rolled a one for loot counters, I won the dice to see who placed it, and I gambled by putting it on the very edge of one of the deployment zones - if I won the roll to pick sides I could grab the loot and be out of there quicker than you can say 'Helmawr's cat'. This time Crazies won the dice and chose that side of the board but showed absolutely no interest in the loot. And therefore in trepidation I placed all my fighters in one corner behind a cake-tin riser in the hope I could meet the scattered Crazies in waves. I did quite well out of this, picked off the ratskin early and then downed a juve - I suddenly got hopeful as I realised Crazies were nearly in bottle roll territory.

Mainly for fluff reasons I had employed the famous bounty hunter Quinn the Isotrope (dumb way to spend those creds when you're an outlaw and every last cred counts, but perhaps I was hoping for a cc capture). Anyway, he went down. Then the game defining moment as Molly Sue, using her seven league boots, declared another charge against Madchen. Flynn pinned her with an overwatch shot at close range and then in my turn I watched in horror as all my fighters missed the bionic monster at point blank range, including Madchen who in his excitement ammo jammed; Work Team 8 are so poor he doesn't have a secondary weapon...

In Ptrix's turn my juve got exploded by a ball of plasma and when my turn rolled around I voluntarily bottled. Was quite happy with how I'd fared - at least keeping my key fighters off the serious injury table - until the accursed Work Team 8 lost their juve (who'd already levelled up to a ganger) in the postgame due to a death result. Bloody plasma left it one step forward one step back for the Orlocks!

Will write up the next three games against the Duke soon where I employ some even more underhand tactics!

 

[scavvyjay]

That's poxily unlucky for Work Team 8. Nice write up too. I must send a reporter from the Slag Valley Bullett round to do an interview or maybe half a dozen obituaries.

 

[Llewy]

Before it slips completely from my memory - continuing on from the previous post - there's three games still to write up against the Duke. Still the theme was very much quick and dirty, and I've got mixed feelings about these sort of tactics - especially when combined with a bit of luck. But I used them purely in service of my beloved, malnourished Orlocks. I kind of imagine this stage in their career, having hit rock bottom, as a bit like the adventures of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a montage of daring raids from the badlands into the underhive. The opening credits here - www.artofthetitle.com/title/butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid/#

Game 1 - The Hit

Both the Duke and I felt it necessary for him to leave King Khronus and the Brass Brotherhood behind for fluff reasons - they are currently dubious allies of Work Team 8 and we have hopes to have a bunch of lawful gangs attacking them in one of the settlements they frequent - Mole's Creek - Storming the Barricades style. And so he brought instead one of his war torn Delaque gangs.

I won the roll for scenario, declared a hit on his leader, his namesake, the Duke (henceforth in italics when referring to the fleabag ridden Delaque leader and not my esteemed real life comrade). We deployed and I won the roll for first turn (although, even if I hadn't, I could've put my heavy Madchen on overwatch (d3 fighters can start the game on overwatch) and therefore was bound to get at least one salvo off at the Duke).

I'd stripped back the gang as much as possible, pawning everything of value, leaving me just enough creds to hire a new juve - a starving wastrel Thin Jim we'd found tapping rhythms to himself on the walls of a metal pipe - and gave him two smoke grenades, telling him to lob them at the snake boys if he sensed any trouble. Here the enemy is moving in in the shadows, suspicious that something is about to go wrong:

And here Thin Jim's excellent placement blocking their sight:

All this meant Flynn and Madchen could unleash seven shades of hell:

Flynn pinned the closest target (although Madchen could've strafed across if he hadn't) and Madchen took the Duke to pieces, eviscerating his three wounds and causing enough damage to give a good chance that an out of action would be rolled. Which it was. The game ended immediately and the most crushing thing happened in the post battle, the Duke rolled a dead serious injury:

Was gonna write the other two games up but just saw @Kon-rad 's ridiculously dope ork boyz for the yak comp so gonna stop procrastinating and get painting!

RIP The Duke (who apparently is just pretending to be dead @The Duke). More to follow soon.

 

[spafe]

Well done! it might not be pretty but a win is a win!

Thin Jim eh? well beggars cant be choosers, just dont leave him alone for too long or he'll go wandering off into a puddle and drown! High hopes for the boy!