Hmm. I was trying to figure out why I -couldn't- purchase the fangs and couldn't locate a rule that prevented me from doing it.
pp. 121 has the item entry without mention of it being specific to Catachans. It does say it's 'favored,' by them, which makes sense given that their officers receive them for free, but doesn't seem to prevent their purchase by normal warbands. Pp. 168 says that Catachan officers are equipped with them by default (doesn't clarify if they replace combat knives or are free, in addition, to combat knives,) and that they may be purchased for recruits, (Not sure what that means, perhaps that they don't have to roll rarity?) Is there something I'm missing?
You're right that they're not an integral part of the warband one way or another, we're now on our second game arc (first one ran about eight games, a sort of shake down to make sure we knew the rules,) and I think I've swung one of the fangs at someone exactly three times. I'm going to record the development on this track; I'll leave the Catachan Fangs on with an asterisk for now. I think the most important thing is that I discussed it with Kartofelkopf before we started the game, and he knew what I was doing it and the basis for it.
Again, not a problem if I'm missing something, we'll just reconfigure and move on.
Day 1, Game 1
We're playing with the optional plotting rules. Kart wins the first roll off, and subsequent leadership check and picks Hidden Artefacts. This is an old familiar one to me from my Mordheim days, and I was eager to pay Kart back for finding it on his second search roll and dragging it off the table in two turns without a shot fired during the last arc.
Setup- we establish terrain, with myself moving buildings into corners (where they couldn't be searchable buildings,) and [/b]Kart[/b] trying to crowd the middle to create clear approaches to my building, which he's largely successful at. In the end, we both have two large multi-level buildings in our deployment, and 5 in the pattern of a X in the center of the board which are possible hiding spots for the treasure. We deploy, and I win a critical first turn. The board is set such that we can both reach two buildings in the first turn, but Kart has the advantage of Sneaky Boss, an infiltrator! Kart can touch three buildings.
Turn 1 - Neph
The trick I had to have used on me a few times to learn is to run out and try to tag your opponent's buildings while saving a pristine building in your backfield, with an officer waiting to steal the chest, should it become the last. An infantryman breaks off of his sergeant's fire team to search one building. No luck, of course. The remainder, 2 infantry and the sergeant, surge toward the middle building where the infiltrator is. At least I hope to force Sneaky Boss into pillaging the house while he doesn't have support to help him fast-move the chest. The second infantry/sergeant team spreads out in front of my 'pocket' house, hoping to prevent any intrusions on my ace-in-the-hole.
Turn 1 - Kart
Sneaky takes the bait and searches, no luck. Kart searches one of his buildings, but doesn't notice that one of the 2nd fire team Infantry has splayed far enough out to reach the other building near his deployment zone (it's a big one!.) The move was kinda close (7 1/2 inches!) but it was there. His models surge up the center expecting a confrontation with 2nd fire team, and he realizes too late what's about to happen.
Turn 2 - Neph
1st fire team falls back, 2nd fire team falls back, leaving one of their infantry to take the long shot at Kart's building. He makes it. Luckily for me, it's not there and my over-extended Infantryman doesn't have to lug the box back from the mid-table. One of my Lieutenants in the backfield is right next to the last search target, and walks in to collect his prize. It takes me two turns to lug the chest off. The Orks surge forward across the board again, but by now I'm in full retreat to the table edge. The Lieutenant who isn't lugging around my ill-gotten gains crit-kills Sneaky Boss on turn 3, but the Orks never make it into hth. At the top of Turn 4, I've left with the treasure.
Aftermath
It turns out the easy chest isn't the only good thing that was going to happen to me in game 1. For exploration I roll 5,5,5,5,4,1. Quadruples on the first roll! I choose to rob the graves for the ERs. I resolve the chest and these effects and wind up with 9 ERs at the end of the first game. Since we had agreed to use stored ERs as a metric of success for our warbands at the end of the game arc, I stow 6 and sell 3. Even after saving so many, given the bonuses for looting the crypt and finding the chest, I walked away with 111 credits to Kart's 85. The Lieutenant who grabbed the chest ears a level, a skill, and selects one of my favorites, Eagle Eye. I use some of the money to buy a new recruit for Fire Team B, bringing both squads to 3. For the officers, I acquire a pair of bolters and a pair of telescopic sights. I'm inclined to pick up some more meat for the squad, but, I've seen Kart's list and I know he has a Trash Kan! We're going to need some good str 4 to put that thing down! My Warband Rating goes from 99 to 119. Kart's band goes from 146 to 147.
Day 1, Game 2
Defend the Find. My turn to pick the first scenario. We haven't done Defend the Find yet, and I like the idea of making the orks have to deal with being encircled. I loose some of my nerve in deployment after watching him deploy, and think I may have made a mistake in choosing this mission... but I do have a plan!
Setup- Orks are clustered under a larger Necromunda building, within 6' of the objective marker. My plan as I deploy is to place my bolter-toting officers on one of our tallest bulidings and take pot shots and what I can see. Of course he'll hide, so I'll need to send some folks in to flush them out. I'm going to use my fire teams as bait! One is angled to taunt the Kan away from the rest of the defenders, and the others such that attempts to attack them would expose the Orks to fire from the boltgun battery.
Turn 1- Neph
I'm setting up- the guys on the elevated platform take a few pot-shots at the orks but don't manage to do anything with them. The fire teams move forward, one to the side of the building to bait out the Warboss and crew, the other to taunt the Trash Kan and Weirdboy.
Turn 1- Kart
Kart hides everything under the large central building, within 6" of the marker save for the Weirdboy and Trash Kan which approach my fire team on their side.
Turn 2- Neph
The officers at elevation can't see anything. I push the warboss-oriented bait forward more, threatening to get within Initiative range and prevent hiding. My other team reverses direction and back tracks- they are hoping to bait the Trash Kan out into view of the Bolter team.
Turn 2- Kart
So, the golden horseshoe in my rear shows it's head again. The Trash Kan goes nuts and smashes into the building while moving randomly. The result is bad- 3 turns of random movement! I have some more time on this flank than I think. The weirdboy manages to knock-down a infantryman, but he'll be back up next round!
An interesting rule came up- we realized there was nothing preventing a Kan from declaring a charge that he knew he was out of range of to pick up a total of 9" of movement on a failed charge. It does require two malfunction rolls, however.
Turn 3- Neph & Kart
With the Trash Kan rampaging, the fire team near it shooting at it ineffectually, and the Weirdboy failing Psychic tests, turn 3 was pretty uneventful, save for a fact that I decided to finally bait the hook by moving a single infantryman within LOS of some of the hiding models, and Sneaky Boss! On Kart's turn, Sneaky bolts forward and slays the infantryman with a single savage blow. Turns out, he probably could have used some cover!
Turn 4- Neph & Kart
Sneaky has no cover, he's standing out in the open next to the slain guardsman. Bolts rain from on high, and he's pulped by a round from one of my Lt's boltgun. Nearby (within 6"!) the fire team with a missing infantryman approaches a gap in the wall of the building the Orks are hiding in. They'll have to do something about me soon!
Turn 5- Neph
My infantrymen pour fire into the building, but, wisely, Kart has engineered the situation so that the nearest model was a grot. It takes two volleys to kill the runt.
Turn 5- Kart
The Weird boy finally puts an end to his own hijinx with a Perils of the Warp check. That flank is in danger of folding to me, but the Kan will come back to life next turn!
Turn 6- Neph
The fire team under the until-now silent bolters are finally standing next to the base of the building that the Orks are hiding in. The nearest is a hero, The Yellow-clad 'Ard Boy, Hastork! He takes all four autogun bursts without a wound, one of my last chances to kill an officer before the clock ticks is blown, and worse...
Turn 6- Kart
DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA! The Warboss steps out into the open and kills the Sergent of the fire team with a burst from his Kustom Blaster! The Trash Kan lurches out of it's hold and crashes into my guys, causing a casualty.
Turn 7- Neph & Kart
At the end of turn 7 I was ready to quit! The game went on according to the roll, but I withdrew on 8 due to the fact that I had a pair of Infantry toe-to-toe with the warboss, and two stunned troopers based with the Kan. Things weren't looking up, so I got going!
Aftermath-
Decent luck in the defeat. Kart's damaged officer corps only produced 3 ERs, plus the two for having 2 heroes within the objective area. I managed to match his take of 5 with a roll of 22 and triple 5's! We both cashed in a pair of resources and I picked up 20 credits on the triple. There was a lot of action off the field this game. My injured Sergeant got a bum leg and was set to miss the next game when I fired him to make room for some new Officers- a promoted infantryman and a promoted Medic. I know firing the wounded guy to make room for might raise some eyebrows, but elevating the Medic to an Officer prevents him from accumulating a large amount of experience and remaining useless as a henchman. Hopefully I can train him to hold some sort of gun. The medic got a BS upon becoming an officer, the infantryman, a toughness. Also, the Captain gained Hunch, one of the Lts gained a leadership, the remaining sgt, a toughness. Both squads, after one spawned a lad, got initiative! With 85 credits, I was able to get a bolter, and two new recruits to tote some of those autoguns left over from when my officers upgraded. My warband goes from 119-137 and Kart's goes from 157 to 171. I'm now storing 9 exchangeable resources.
There's more coming!
Subject: Re: Nephilim's Mordian Adventures... 
Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:06 pm
