Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress is already available to pre-order and hits the shelves in a mere six days’ time. With ‘Blackstone Friday’ drawing inexorably close, we thought it would be fun to showcase an expedition into the Blackstone Fortress – all we needed were some volunteers…
Warhammer Community’s Simon and Frank took up the challenge of pitting their wits (or in Simon’s case, mindless enthusiasm) against the myriad dangers of the Blackstone Fortress in our inaugural expedition showcase. First up, they each needed to pick a pair of explorers to form their exploration party. In a move that surprised exactly no-one, Simon chose the two most aggressive explorers in Pious Vorne and Dahyak Grekh, while Frank selected UR-025 and Taddeus the Purifier. Let’s get on with the action…
The first card drawn for the exploration deck was a combat card – the promise of impending violence had Simon chomping at the bit! Frank laid out chambers according to the map on the card and drew three encounter cards – one for each of the discovery markers on the map. In this combat, they would be facing two large groups of Traitor Guardsmen and a small pack of vicious Ur-Ghuls – a challenging combination of massed firepower and fearsome combat prowess.
Simon had lucked out with Pious Vorne’s activation roll, so used the covering fire rule to swap her position with Taddeus at the head of the randomly generated initiative tracker. This enabled her to rush forward and immolate a total of four Traitor Guardsmen with her deadly Cleansing Flames attack and another gout from her Vindictor Flamer. What’s more, her newly inspired profile enabled her to successfully fend off the subsequent onslaught of the Ur-Ghuls and firepower of the Traitor Guardsmen with nothing more than a single wound.
Dahyak Grekh responded to the aggression of the Ur-Ghuls in kind, tearing two of them to pieces with his rifle’s blades. Simon rolled to see if the Kroot gained an inspiration point (three of which can be traded in to inspire an explorer) after messily devouring its prey, and was successful! In a similarly deadly display, Taddeus and UR-025 cut down the remaining Traitor Guardsmen nearby, though Frank failed their respective inspiration rolls to reward their kills.
In the second combat turn, UR-025 headed up the initiative tracker, so Frank wasted no time in sending the deadly Imperial Robot on the offensive. The machine strode forward to crush the throat of a Traitor Guardsmen in its iron grip even as it shredded another further behind with a burst of fire from its assault cannon.
The surviving Traitor Guardsmen and Ur-Ghul failed to harm any of the explorers, nor were they reinforced by any new arrivals, enabling Simon and Frank to cement their control of the combat. Taddeus crushed the head of the last Ur-Ghul with a critical hit from his power maul and Dahyak Grekh ripped apart a pair of Traitor Guardsmen. With no foes in range to purge, Pious Vorne moved to search the nearest discovery marker and was rewarded with a piece of archeotech to trade back at Precipice.
In the following couple of combat turns, hostile reinforcements stubbornly refused to arrive, which bought enough time for the explorers to finish off the remaining threats and search the area. Pious Vorne found another bit of archeotech at a second discovery marker, while UR-025 found a clue to the location of the first stronghold – finding three more clues would enable them to mount an expedition to conquer it.
The final combat turn saw a handful of Traitor Guardsmen arrive from the nearby portal, but too late to prevent the explorers from piling into the maglev transport chamber that Dahyak Grekh had summoned to make their escape.
Frank drew the challenge card, A Test of Nerve, which would grant the players the opportunity to pick up some choice loot, but at a cost in wounds…
Though they had the opportunity to backstab each other by greedily snatching up an item at the first opportunity, Simon and Frank worked together to skip turns in the first round. This enabled UR-025 to secure a second clue for the cost of only a single wound.
As luck would have it, the subsequent recovery step saw UR-025 immediately recover from the damage it had just suffered! What’s more, Pious Vorne also recovered from her earlier injury, meaning that the explorers were all fighting fit once more.
This time, the explorers would be subjected to an ambush, meaning they would start the combat in a more central chamber rather than the relative safety of maglev transport chamber. To make matters even more challenging, the hostiles would have a significant advantage in the opening combat turn:
Acutely aware of the danger represented by a pack of four Ur-Ghuls getting the jump on them, let alone the combined firepower of eight Traitor Guardsmen, Simon and Frank activated the support abilities of their other two spacecraft, enabling them to retain the pair of 5s in their Destiny Pool and make free gambits:
Fortune clearly favoured Simon (for the moment at least), as he passed both of his gambit attempts with critical successes, meaning he could swap the positions of Pious Vorne and Dahyak Grekh with a group of hostiles on the initiative tracker, essentially ensuring they would activate first and second in place of the hostiles! He took full advantage, racing towards the Ur-Ghuls and incinerating three of them with gouts of searing flame.
He then used Dahyak Grekh’s ability to set up a trap in a bid to protect their flanks against any encroaching hostiles before opening fire with his Kroot rifle. Though he scored a critical hit that would’ve otherwise slain the Traitor Guardsmen outright, the damage was downgraded to a single wound due to the target’s position behind cover.
This time, hostile reinforcements were apparently waiting in the wings – much to Simon’s dismay, a pair of Ur-Ghuls arrived from the nearby portal and began stalking towards Pious Vorne even as they other leapt at her and wounded the Missionary Zealot.
The Traitor Guardsmen let rip at the other explorers with grenade, lasgun, blade and flamer, resulting in wounds being suffered by Taddeus and UR-025. Frank’s attacks in return were underwhelming at best, resulting in the deaths of only two Traitor Guardsmen between them. Things were starting to look bad for the explorers…
The second combat turn saw the Ur-Ghuls up first on the initiative tracker, despite multiple gambit attempts to deny them. The three Ur-Ghuls immediately demonstrated why they are so feared, shredding Pious Vorne in a terrifying onslaught (despite Simon deflecting three more critical hits with successful defence rolls)! To make matters worse, the Traitor Guardsmen hammered the other explorers, inflicting three wounds on Taddeus, as well as a grievous wound and another wound on Dahyak Grekh. The battered explorers responded as best they could, but it was UR-025 that struck back the hardest, gunning down an Ur-Ghul and a Traitor Guardsmen.
Combat turn three saw Dahyak Grekh fall to the combined attacks of the Traitor Guardsmen, forcing Frank’s explorers to fight for their lives just to escape – how quickly your fortunes can turn! Taddeus and UR-025 battled their way through the Traitor Guardsmen, pursued by the surviving Ur-Ghuls – though one was slain as it ran into Dahyak Grekh’s trap. Taddeus discovered an Empyrean Chronometer at a discovery marker on their way to the nearest portal, where he then summoned a maglev transport.
Though battered and bruised, Taddeus and UR-025 made good their escape. With only two of their exploration party left standing – and only just at that – Frank and Simon called an end to the expedition and made their way back to Precipice.
The first port of call was to draw a legacy card that would affect the rest of their campaign. They drew the Chaos Space Marines card, meaning that they would now potentially come face-to-face with Heretic Astartes as hostiles from that point on – far from ideal!
Simon chose to hoard the archeotech that Pious Vorne had earned rather than trade it, but Frank visited the Excruciation Chamber on the Clarion with Taddeus, sure in the knowledge that he could choose to re-roll the result due to it being his explorer’s vessel. This served him well, as he ended up securing a third clue for his efforts!
Well, that expedition sure took a turn for the worse after their initial success! Still, neither Pious Vorne nor Dahyak Grekh died from their wounds, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. Bring on the next expedition!
You can watch a game in action with Becca Scott and chums in the awesome How to Play video on the Blackstone Fortress website. If you’d like to read more about the dangers of entering the Blackstone Fortress, be sure to pick up Darius Hinks’ exciting novel of the same name.
Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress is available to pre-order now, and will hit the shelves on November 23 – ‘Blackstone Friday’ – this coming week. This is a bit different to our usual Saturday releases, and you'll also be able to join us on Twitch – from 4pm GMT Friday – for a special launch day episode of Hang Out and Play!