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A Giant Problem

IMG_0081[1]Harren Fireleaf rules in Fire oak, but for how long?  He convinced the Fire oaks to betray all other Oak Kin, and at first the act was profitable.  centuries of old grudges against the other Oaks allowed the payback to be sweet.  But soon, Randolph Fire Oak decided the cost was too high.  honor and a sense of family was lost, and no amount of profit could compensate.  But Harren, cousin to the ruling family, anticipated this weakness, and after consultation was a one Milas Homar, moved a robust group of Hill Giants to a nearby hill fort, to watch over and guard the Fire Oaks.

Push came to shove finally, as Randolph announced the end of the alliance of the fire oaks and the Hill Giants, upon which Harren had Randolph arrested and taken to the Giant Stedding as a prisoner.  derrick, oldest son of Randolph, barely escaped the Orc, Bugbear, and Hill Giant patrols, and made his way to Silver Oak.  There, was no expectation, but only hope, he asked the party to aid him in the liberation of his father, and thus, all Fire Oaks.  The Prophsy of the Oak gathering foretold that all the Oak Clans would reunite, and depart these lands.  Justin and Kurst agreed to come to the Fire Oaks aid on one and only one condition.  That the Fire Oaks would help lift the siege of Silverthorne, and allow all the Oaks escape.  They agreed.

Upon their arrival at Fire Oak, the party quickly dispatched a group of bugbears, and restoked the everlasting Fire Oak Flame (that had almost been extinguished).  Harren fled to the Giant Stedding, where the party followed. Storr, the intrepid and tentative rogue, scouted the Stedding, to find overwhelming numbers of Giants, Harren Fireleaf, and another human, the Old Man in White, in the Stedding.  Awoken and losing surprise, the party set upon a battle to end all battles, taking on one giant after another.  Who knows what the result will be…

The Society of the Nine Knives

IMG_0090[1]The Oaks discovered that Milas Homar, banker extraordinaire, supplier of fruit in bozes throughout Westcrown and Westmarch, may not be the friend people keep telling the party he is.  Yes, Milas Homar evidently sent a team of assassins to infiltrate the Society of the Nine Knives.  After uncovering the conspiracy to murder the Silver Oaks, and the conspiracy to let Orcs and bugbears into Silverthorne, the other shoe dropped.  Yes.  Milas Homar has been manipulating the Nine Knives and the Orcs and the Dragonborn to cause chaos and destruction.  And who has profited from the warring and Chaos?  None other than Milas Homar, humble proprietor of the Lock and Leave Bank in Westcrown. now the party must undo the damage, if there is still time.

The Great Wylie Apocalypse

It’s been a rough month! I’m ever so thankful for everyone’s concern and support. Here’s a quick recap on the notable apocalyptic events of recent weeks.

March 24

I live in Wylie, TX. My wife Janine and I wake up around 10:30pm to hear what sounds like a freight train bearing down on us. Hail was coming down in various sizes, much of it quarter or golf-ball sized. Entire ground was white with hail. Was so loud we did not realize till after the fact that we had double-paned windows both upstairs and downstairs that were shattered as a result. Some hail bounced across the gameroom and was at our stairwell — traveling over half the width of our house inside.

The next day there were dead birds everywhere, victims of the deadly, large hail.

In the aftermath, we took stock of the damage. We’ll have to:

  • Replace our roof
  • Replace our gutters
  • Replace several windows
  • Replace most of our window screens (it looks like werewolves were clawing to get inside)
  • Replace many of our blinds
  • Replace our pergola (it was twisted and damaged and we had to tear it down for safety reasons)
  • Sandblast and refinish our wood fences (looks like someone took a machine gun to them)

All this work is underway and our insurance is paying for almost everything, but it’s still exhausting to work with so many contractors, etc.

hail3 hail2 hail1

March 31

A head cold was making the circuit among my sons, and I eventually got it around March 31. We have plastic sheeting duct-taped around our many broken windows, but despite that the outside air flows freely in the house around the edges, which is really bad for my allergies and asthma. I think that was a contributing factor to what happened next. It couldn’t get any worse, right?

Wrong.

April 4

April 4 my cold turned into pneumonia. Spent most of the week in bed just trying to breathe.

April 11

Mostly over pneumonia at this point, not contagious but will still take a few days for my lungs to clear up. Then we had another round of hail! Our house was unscathed, but my sons got caught in it.

My oldest son Matt was driving (with my son Paul in the passenger seat) in Wylie about 5 minutes NW of his place (10 minutes SE of my house). Rain had not yet hit, but on the edge of the impending storm, BASEBALL-sized hail started raining down on them. One piece of hail hit and knocked completely off the rear-view mirror. Another few hard hits shattered the rear windshield. The front window was a spider-web of cracks at this point. It was a pretty dangerous situation.

Matt knew if the front window gave way they’d be in a world of hurt. They were in a rural area and visibility was near zero, but Matt knew there was a school nearby, so he did some crazy driving (including hopping a concrete curb and possibly damaging the car) in order to get to safety. They ended up in the lee (non-wind) side of the school and escaped further baseball sized hail. Their car looks like someone took a baseball bat to it, but aside from Matt having one cut on his arm from broken glass, our boys made it through this safely.

Boys Rear Window

Boys’ Car Rear Window

Boys' Car Front Window

Boys’ Car Front Window

Neighbor's Picture of some of the Hail

Neighbor’s Picture of some of the Hail

April 12

My friend Jeff from my gaming group who also lives in Wylie found his trampoline over in his neighbor’s yard — tossed around by the wind! I believe he’s otherwise unscathed.

Jeff's Trampoline

Jeff’s Trampoline

Wylie schools are closed due to the latest hail damage. But, everyone is safe! I hope our family is done with adventures for a while!

Now adding dealing with a totaled car to our long list of repairs. :-0

Battle at Silver Oak Cathedral

Long Live Rodrik Silver Oak, heir to the Silver Oak family! Oh how cruel his death was, ambushed in a back alley by assassins, orcs, and bugbears.  He had steadfastly defendedIMG_0503[1] the walls of Silverthorne for months, only to be cut down the day before his brother, Kurst, arrived back in Silverthorne with help in the form of our intrepid adventurers.

Laying on that large tree stump, in his funeral finest, Rodrik had one last thing to give.  His sword, The Singing Sword, Silverthorne itself.  Cleaver of Orcs, Orsbane, the sword dropped from Rodrik’s hand just as Kurst approached his now stiff and cold remains.  And not a moment too soon.  At the Cathedral door awaited three score orcs, bugbears, and even two hill giants.  After several fireballs from Maldrin, sneaky shots from Storr, and a valiant effort from Sebastien and Justin, Kurst with his new-found Orcsbane waded into the sea of orcs, and parted them with orcs blood.  Soon, all that remained of the siege was orcslain.  And Kurst and company triumphant.

IA Skirmish Debrief – 3/24/2016

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The IA Lunch League is back in action with another exciting match up. Coming off a stretch of great matches in which both players honed their skills and strategies with the same list, they were looking to try something new. Mason was ready to the take the Imperials for a spin while Jim Bob was excited to try out some of the newly acquired Rebel expansions.

Be sure to click the List names to the right to see the specific figures and command cards.
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Mason
The Spice of Weiss
Jim Bob
The Wamprats

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Rebel Stomping

swi03_previewTrying out new lists means all new capabilities and strategies and plenty of room for error. But it also means lots of fun like running around in a giant AT-ST, stomping on fleeing Rebels. Or setting loose a couple of raging Wookies to run interference for your elusive Smuggler. The only thing more fun that putting a new list together is actually getting to play it. So enough talk, let’s get to it.

Imperial Command Hub – Uplink

map-imperial_command_hubThis map was new to both players so strategy was mainly being worked out on the fly. Mason took the upper deployment zone and Jim Bob set up at the bottom. The object of this mission is to the retrieve the datalink and upload it to the red terminal. There’s only one datalink though, worth 16 victory points, so the victor will undoubtedly be decided the hard way. On the surface this looks to be an advantage to Mason whose list is built for power as opposed to Jim Bob’s light and mobile squad.

Using the nimble smuggler, Jim Bob attempted a quick smash and grab for the datalink while Luke and the wookies tried to create a diversion. Mason was not to be fooled, using the powerful General Weiss and superb positioning to cover both approaches and take out Luke early in the second round. Luke’s sacrifice allowed the smuggler to escape with the goods and began a dangerous game of cat and mouse between the two sides. Jim Bob’s Wookies dove into the Imperial line with the Saboteurs backing them up, but the AT-ST proved particularly good at soaking up damage. (where are those stupid ewoks when you need them?)

smugglers-runTrying desparately to avoid the awesome firepower of General Weiss, the datalink carrying smuggler slipped back and forth across the map while both sides traded fire. The Wookies were able to take out the Imperial Officer and a Royal Guard but fell before they could stop Weiss. The trio of Jyn, Gideon, and C-3PO were able to put an end to the E-Web Engineer, but the remaining Royal Guard slipped through their ranks to chase after the Saboteurs attempting to finish off the General. In all the fray, the Smuggler made a run through the enemy deployment zone to pick up 5 critical points before the AT-ST picked him off.

Beginning with the last activation of the 3rd round, there were 4 lead changes with the outcome being decided on the final roll of the game when Jyn was able to take out that last Royal Guard. All in all this was an extremely close game to the very end. Had the game not been stopped for time, it may very well have turned out differently.

FINAL SCORE

Jim Bob 26 – Mason 22
(time limit)

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