A Realmgate Too Far

Battleplan: The Trap We recently played the next game in the Realmgate Wars series – The Trap. We’re still fighting in Ghyran, the Realm of Life, and this game gives us a bit of background and feel to what’s happening in Ghyran prior to the Stormcast Eternals arriving. For many centuries, Nurgle’s forces have spread across and corrupted Ghyran, polluting rivers, corrupting flora and fauna alike, turning the Jade Kingdoms into twisted, blighted realms. Alarielle has hidden herself away, grown disconnected with her realm and people. Despite Alarielle’s disinterest, the Sylvaneth are still motivated to fight on, and to destroy the forces of Nurgle where possible. The Trap is an example of the kind of fighting that is going on all over Ghyran. At the centre of the Greenglades lies the Shimmertarn, an ornately carved standing stone from whence rivulets and streams flow, purifying the surrounding lands and providing a pocket of resistance against Nurgle’s encroachment. As s...

Battleplan: Raze to the Ground This Battleplan, from Battletome: Chaos Dreadhold, follows the attack of a group of Sylvaneth upon a fortification known as the Fangs of Decay, built by the Nurgle Rotbringers to corrupt the power of Alarielle’s sacred Lifewells. The Sylvaneth seek to destroy the fortifications and cleanse the Lifewells of Nurgle's filth. We used forces from Battletomes: Sylvaneth and Maggotkin of Nurgle for this battle, along with each side's allegiance abilities (so the Sylvaneth could use the Navigate Realmroots ability to move between forests, for instance). Forces: Sylvaneth: Treelord Ancient Spirit of Durthu Branchwraith 20 Dryads 3 x 5 Tree Revenants Nurgle: Lord of Plagues Nurgle Sorcerer 3 x 5 Blight Kings Both forces have approximately the same number of wounds (ish) – which is roughly how I’ve been balancing them. I’m aware that it’s not the most balanced system, but I’m deliberately trying to avoid points for t...

As I previously mentioned, we've actually played a few games already, and we didn't take any pictures and so on, mainly because I hadn't thought about blogging any of this before recently. So, prior to any further games, I thought a summary of the action so far was worth putting together, to set the scene. The battles so far have taken place in the Brimstone Peninsula, within the Realm of Aqshy. Here, Khorne's forces have overrun much of the land, destroying previous civilizations, and generally killing, maiming and possibly even burning their way across the realm. Enter the Stormcast Eternals. The original starter box and the book  The Gates of Azyr , by Chris Wraight, cover these events. In short, the Hammers of Sigmar end up with a beachhead in the Brimstone Peninsula, having successfully opened a Realmgate to Azyr, allowing both reinforcements to arrive, and possibly crucially, allowing Stormcasts to return to Azyr without dying, and being reforged. During thi...

Since I haven't finished basing any Stormcasts since the last post, lets have a chat about how our campaign is going to work. Get yourself a brew, and lets have a look at the rules. AoS has changed a bit since the Realmgate Wars campaign books have come out. Mostly just tweaks, here and there, incorporation of things that came in via matched play into the main rules, that kind of thing. But it is worth having a think about this, and how it might affect the scenarios we're going to be playing. Now, we could play the books with AoS v1, as it was when these books first came out. There's a copy of the rules in pretty much every early AoS book, nice and conveniently. But we're not going to do that. We're going to play using the newer core rules, as found in the new main rulebook, supplied online or in starter sets and so on. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first is that it's easier for us to play using the newer rules - it's w...

So, what's the actual plan with this blog then? A little about me first, I guess: I've been into wargaming since I was a young 'un, originally with Heroquest & Space Crusade , before getting into Warhammer 40,000 in '94. Since then, I've played & painted many GW systems, as well as a variety of other games, including various historical, fantasy & sci-fi games. This blog may end up containing things from a variety of systems, but initially it will probably be Warhammer: Age of Sigmar (AoS), or possibly the odd Warhammer 40,000 (40k) thing. Lets see how that goes. I have tried blogging before - there were a couple of attempts with a different google account, which didn't get very far (horse & musket stuff and oldhammer models I think... though it was a while ago). There's also a second blog, tied to this account, which I set up to support the A Gathering of Might tournaments that I used to help support. Mainly pictures from the events...