the Dark Times session 13 (unlucky for some)

The cast:-

Corran Montari: human assassin (Tony)
Kel Orta: Kel Dor jedi knight (Kev)
Cyrus: human jedi knight (Dave)
Captain Kidd: human pirate (Chris)

 Back aboard the Hunter, Vrask debriefs the team. Again Cyrus interrupts and has to be discilplined several times. Given the success of the mission and that he has no immediate need of them he gives the team a week off. He sends Corran off on a recon mission, and asks Cyrus to stay and give him all the information he has about the Blazing Chain pirates. Cyrus gives info as to disposition, bases and contacts for his old pirate gang, and then volunteers information about Kel Orta’s padawan and the other padawans that fled at the end of the war. Vrask thanks him for the info and dismisses him.

 Kel Orta and Cpt Kidd spend a few days working on their ship, fitting a concussion missile launcher to it. Cyrus spends his time constructing a lightsaber, and completes it apart from the crystal which he needs to synthesise or acquire. Thinking that Kel Orta will not let him have shore leave, he speaks to the ships fixer the droid EDE, who arranges 48 hour pass for him for a few hundred credits.

 Cyrus arrives on Cularin and immediately starts making enquiries about arena/gladiator fighting. After a day, the agent he speaks to is unwilling to pay him top credit price, so he reveals himself to be the infamous wookie killer, the agent gladly agrees to pay him 50,000Cr and tells him to come back in 3 days.

 Back aboard the Hunter, the deck officer contacts Kel Orta regarding the whereabouts of Cyrus. Kel Orta is shortly summonsed by Vrask, and told to retrieve Cyrus immediately. 

 Arriving on the surface, Kel Orta and Cpt Kidd start hitting the street to locate Cyrus. After a day Kidd finds Cyrus whilst Kel Orta learns that the wookie killer is on the bill for a fight the next night. Kidd tries to persuade Cyrus to return to the Hunter but he won’t.

 The night of the fight arrives. Quite a crowd assembles at the venue, and old factory in the industrial district. Kel Orta observers from the crowd, and Cpt Kidd puts a bet on Cyrus winning. Cyrus enters the makeshift arena, and in stomp two large loader droids. Droids hover overhead to record and transmit the fight.  Its a hard fight for Cyrus until he calls on the force to lift both droids in the air and slam them together to finish the fight. The racket of the crowd ceases immediately, then they start to run. Over the noise and chaos some of the team can hear sirens as local enforcement officers approach.

 Cyrus looks for his agent but he is nowhere to be seen. Cpt Kidd decides it is time to leave the area. Kel Orta receives a message from the Hunter, a force user has been reported in their area, they are to apprehend him and bring him into custody. In the distance the team can see Imperial shuttles landing in the city.

 Thinking better of trying to bypass the enforcement officers and Imperials, Kel Orta gives his ID code and the team returns to the Hunter. Vrask questions Kel Orta, asking why Cyrus was using his abilities openly, and how he had gotten off the ship without authorisation. Vrask orders Cyrus to confinement (the floating cell in space), and once he is out of earshot then orders Kel Orta to interrogate then execute Cyrus. The Empire executes force users and given the public display on the planet someone has to pay the price.

 As he is being escorted, Cyrus breaks free of his guards, and runs into the depths of the Hunter. He accesses the computer but can only get the escape pods to eject, not being skilled enough or having the time to cause anymore distractions. The alarm is raised that Cyrus has escaped, and Kel Orta doubles back to the hangar bay. As Cyrus enters he sees Kel Orta stood in front of the freighter. Kel Orta gets Cyrsu in a force grip starting to choke him, but Cyrus force slams him to break the grip. Kel Orta comes back at him with his lightsaber. Cyrus force disarms him and slices at him but misses. Kel Orta uses force disarm himself and gets the saber back. Cyrus force slams Kel Orta away, and dashes into the freighter as Cpt Kidd arrives and opens up with his blaster rifle. Cyrus seals the hatch and limps into the cockpit. Kel Orta and Cot Kidd head to the fighters as Cyrus struggles with getting the ship to take off, his lack of training and injuries making it harder to get the thing moving.

 Soon enough he lifts off and is out of the bay, only to get caught by the Hunters tractor beams. He redlines the engines but its not enough to break free. The fighters launch and come round on approach to the freighter.

 Cyrus tries to lock a concussion missile onto the tractor beam projector, missing with his first shot. His second shot catches one of the projectors, knocking it out. He fires the engines again and eventually breaks free, with 6 fighters in his tail. Kel Orta and Cpt Kidd lead the attack, repeatedly firing on the freighter as Cyrus desperately tries to get away.

 The freighter is soon disabled, and drifting in space. The fighters come round for another run and finish it off, it explodes into a ball of flame. Cyrus makes it to the escape pod, in the confusion only Kel Orta picks up the pod on his sensors, Kidd and the other pilots think its a confirmed kill. Kel Orta goes after the pod, blasting it repeatedly until there is nothing left.

the Dark Times, sessions 11 and 12

The cast:-

Corran Montari: human assassin (Tony)
Kel Orta: Kel Dor jedi knight (Kev)
Cyrus: human jedi knight (Dave)
Captain Kidd: human pirate (Chris)

 The team arrived on Ryloth and staked out Jazzers club, after staking it out for a while they realised that he was not there. After some discussion Corran set up a observation post to keep a watch on the club whilst the rest of the team kept out of sight. Cyrus quickly got bored of this and headed off to gather information in his own unique way.

 After spreading some credits around and visiting several bars and drinking with various space scum, he got very drunk but learned that Jazzer has a house in the country he is probably at. Unfortunately the alcohol gets the better of Cyrus and he collapses, only to wake up hours later to find all his gear and credits are missing.

Returning to the team Cyrus shares his information with them, and the team heads out of town in two speeders to check on Jazzers country house. They park up 5kn away and head in on foot to recon the place.

After checking the place out, the frontal approach is across 200m of open ground, the other 3 sides protected in a small valley, the rear of which is near to the landing pad at the back of the house. On the pad a shuttle sits on standby. Also guards can be seen patrolling inside the house and 2 of them guard the shuttle.

The team decides that Cyrus should assault the front as a distraction, whilst the rest sneak in at the back. Cyrus powers up a speeder and zooms across the open ground firing his blaster. Sadly his rapid approach sets off several grav traps that slam the speeder into the ground. As the distraction starts Kel Orta, Cpt Kidd and Corran sneak down the slope at the back towards the house.

Out front, blaster shots are getting closer to Cyrus and the speeder power plant is starting to smoke and crackle with electricity, Cyrus bails out and starts sprinting towards the house drawing lots of fire. Using the force he is able to shake off the worst effects of the blaster fire, taking only flesh wounds as he closes the distance.

Moving down the slope, Kel Orta and Cpt Kidd are spotted and start taking fire, unfortunately the captain takes a blaster bolt to the chest, putting him out of the fight. Kel Orta charges into the shuttle whilst Corran sneaks into the house, where he meets up with Cyrus. Kel Orta sets the self destruct on the shuttle then heads into the house. Corran and Cyrus keep the guards busy whilst Kel Orta checks for Jazzer, but he is not there, instead they find the comms room and see a holo of Jazzer asking what is going on. They download the holonet data for decryption and leave the area, collecting Cpt Kidds unconscious body along the way, the building explodes as they zoom off into the distance only receiving minor radiation poisoning from the shuttles self destruct.

The team decodes the data, learning that Jazzer is on an ice moon in the Melidaa/Daan system. Calling up the Empire they requisition a destroyer and make good time to the system, on arrival they send probe droids ahead to scout as they approach on silent running from the edge of the system.

The droids report back that they have detected fighters near the moon, and shortly afterwards stop transmitting. Cpt Kidd puts the ship to minimal power and plots a course to avoid the fighters, which sensor analysis show to be Z95’s. The course works well and they are not detected, but passive sensors pick up a armed freighter directly ahead of them, Cpt Kidd plots another course correction before they are detected, unfortunately this makes their approach angle too steep for the landing.

After some skilful piloting, the teams ship skids to a halt on the snow and ice just short of a rockface, 20-30Km away from Jazzers hideout. After some bickering, the team decides to use the ship to approach travel to the hideout as the weather is atrocious outside, and walking would take too long. They ditch the ship 5km away from the hideout and cover the remaining distance on foot. Ahead they can see the hideout on on top of a rocky outcropping, protected by an energy shield which flares randomly as the snow builds up on it causing min avalanches. On foot in cold weather gear they rope together with Kel Orta leading the way and approach the hideout, fighting off a snow panther and getting caught in a small avalanche as they travel.

Reaching the top of the outcropping the team spots the hideout in the middle of a large open area, a few outbuildings scattered around and a central tower that looks inhabited. The team spreads out and sneaks across to the tower, as they do small turrets pop out of the snow and fire blasters at Cyrus and Cpt Kidd. They quickly take out the turrets and the team makes it to the tower. Bypassing the lock the team gets inside and ditches the cold weather gear. Checking out the lower levels first the team encounters a few battle droids as they head toward the power generators 8 levels down.

The team gets to the generators and takes out the droids, shutting down the power and getting a level listing for the tower, Jazzer is on the top floor. Connor takes point as they head back up, getting blasted back down by the grenade trap he had failed to spot. Kel Orta and Cyrus both surge up the stairs, setting off more grenade traps as they go, although these only enrage them. Reaching the entrance level they both take blaster fire from the guards set up in ambush position, Kel Orta deflect some bolts with his lightsaber, but Cyrus takes a few hits but they only make him angrier. Calling on the dark side they both rip through the guards enjoying the slaughter and screams.

The team reach the top floor and find Jazzer frantically calling down the freighter from orbit so he can escape. He offers the team credits and riches. Cyrus empties two blasters on full auto into him, blasting him out of the windopw and onto the snow below.

The team commandeers the freighter coming in to land, and flies back to the Hunter.

Honour guard assembled

Not liking the honour guard set that GW produces I decided to kitbash my own version.
Heads: Centurion & scrounged from bits box,
Torsos: Sternguard & scrounged from bits box
Legs: Vanguard (running), Chaos raptors (I think)(the ones 'jumping') and sternguard(cloths)
Arms & weapons: Too many to mention but powerswords from any chapter kits that have cool ones, bolt pistol arms are mostly space wolf bits and salvaged from the bits box.

Am damn glad I have been saving/collection all those spare bits & pieces from various kits since I got back into painting minis.

Blood Angels tabletop ready

Finished the Blood Angels I started. Really happy with how they came out in the end, the airbrush was a great time saver for getting undercoat, basecoat and a simple highlight on them. After a bit of detailing they are definitely tabletop ready!

Still some work left to be done on them, but I need to get some Ultramarines done...

Blood angels WIP

After the airbrush practice, have been making good progress on Blood Angels space marines for my friend James.

The Death company ones are nearly finished, just need skin and some minor details.

The remainder need a bit more work but should be finished by tonight!

Airbrush practice

Being lucky enough to get an airbrush and spray booth for my recent 40th, time to start practising with it!
Luckily I have a large box full of reaper bones to experiment with, as well as some space marines to paint for my friend James.

So far the hardest part was stripping the paint off the marines, they were in various states & qualities so took them back to bare plastic, then a black undercoat and a dark red basecoat. The airbrush makes the whole process really quick and easy, normally I would use a regular spray can to undercoat but that can't be done inside so another plus for the airbrush

 

 

Also had a go at a hot blade, meant to look like its cool at the base, getting hotter towards the tip, could maybe do with some white at the end, although am happy with it for a first attempt.

 

 

 

 

the Dark Times, session 10

Given the events of session 9, the group discussed how the campaign should proceed. There were 3 main options:-

1.       Play a dark side campaign, where 2 new characters join Kel Orta and Cyrus.

2.       Play  light side campaign, where 2 new characters join Darjan and Sai Rye.

3.       All 4 players do up new characters and start a totally new story.

By unanimous decision option 1 was chosen, as a group we usually play games more on the good side of things than the bad, so would be interesting to play the other side for a change.

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the Dark times, session 10

The cast:-

Corran Montari: Human assassin (Tony)
Kel Orta: Kel Dor jedi knight (Kev)
Cyrus: Human jedi knight (Dave)
Captain Kidd: Human pirate (Chris)

 

 Aboard the Hunter, Vrask explains to Kel Orta how things are going to work. Kel Orta will be in charge of a small team who will perform tasks for Vrask. They will all be well paid. Kel Orta is responsible for disclipline and order amongst the team, if Vrask feels that he is not enforcing things properly he will punish Kel Orta and the miscreant. Also, discretion and a low profile are required in all missions. His standing orders are to capture any force users they come across (kill them if they cannot be captured), and to destroy the enemies of the Empire.

 Cyrus is brought to the briefing room. Vrask tells him that Kel Orta is now his master and he must follow his orders. He also informs him that he will not have a lightsaber until he has proven he can be discreet. Cyrus belligerently questions Vrask. Vrask looks to Kel Orta, who uses his force choke to silence Cyrus. Vrask continues with his briefing, the team is to travel to Ryloth and kill Jazzer. Cyrus asks more questions, and again questioning about having a saber, Vrask looks at Kel Orta, who flicks his hand and sends Cyrus slamming out of his chair and into the wall.

 Vrask then dismisses Kel Orta and Cyrus, telling them to meet their new teammates in the hangar bay. After meeting up, and gathering gear from the armory and upgrading the assigned YT1300, the team sets off to Ryloth.

 A few days later the team touches down on Ryloths secondary spaceport, then travels to the city and stakes out Jazzers cantina till late in the evening to try and find him. Montari sneaks and cases the place, figuring not too many guards but cannot determine if Jazzer is present. Cyrus gets bored of waiting and heads down the street to storm into the cantina and kill Jazzer, disobeying Kel Ortas orders.

 Outside the cantina, Cyrus is told to go away by the doormen, as the cantina is closed. Thinking better of it he returns to the team. As moring approaches the team leaves and returns to their ship. The next day they try to come up with a plan, bored with inaction Cyrus heads out to find some entertainment in the bars and brothels. Pretty soon he is drunk and knackered, but manages to make some enquiries and learns that Jazzer is at his ‘country retreat’ some 200km to the north. Not long after he is recognised as the famous ‘wookie killer’ and attracts quite a crowd, many more drinks are consumed and he eventually passes out... he comes to in a back alley only to find his cred chip and most of his possessions are missing

The rest of the team rests in the ship, until Cyrus rolls in and shares his information. The team tries to put together a plan to visit Jazzer...

the Dark Times, session 9

A writeup of Monday nights Star Wars Saga edition rpg session.

the Dark times, session 9

The cast:-

Darjan: Human force adept (Tony)
Kel Orta: Kel Dor jedi knight (Kev)
Cyrus: human jedi knight (Dave)
Sai Rye: human soldier (Chris)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away

 Cyrus, Darjan, Kel Orta and Sai Rye each awakes to find themselves floating in small metal cubes, through the limited viewports they can see the Relentess.

 Sai Rye is brought over first. He meets Inquisitor Vrask, who offers him 500,000 Cr to work for the Empire, but he refuses and is sent back to his cube.

  Darjan is brought over, Vrask offers him 1,000,000 Cr to work for the Empire, as well as whatever else he might want. Vrask simply states that if he won’t take the money other means will be used to ‘persuade’ him. Darjan refuses and is sent back to his cube.

  Cyrus is brought over, shackled and with a blindfold on, Vrask offers him 1,000,000 Cr to work for the Empire, as well as whatever else he might want. Cyrus says he will need time to consider the offer, and is sent back to his cube.

  Kel Orta is brought over, he accepts Vrask’s offer. I order to prove his loyalty Vrask asks him to kill some prisoners from the planet. 30 unarmed men, women and children are brought out, and Vrask hands Kel Orta his lightsaber...

The screaming does not last long. In the cubes, Cyrus and Darjan feel Kel Orta’s soul darken as he embraces the dark side.

  Vrask asks Kel Orta which of his associates is likely to turn next, and Cyrus is brought over. Vrask again makes his offer to Cyrus, this time he accepts. In order to prove his loyalty Vrask asks him to order an Imperial ship to destroy a freighter carrying medical supplies. He gives the order and goes on to order the ship to fire all weapons at the surface of the planet.

  In his cube, Darjan feels more torment in the force as Cyrus abandons the light side.

  Sai Rye is brought over. He still refuses to work for the Empire. A trooper injects him with something. Vrask explains that it is Synox, a poison that kills its victims slowly. The antidote injector is given to Kel Orta so he can keep him in line.

  Darjan is brought over, but again refuses to join the dark side. He is led away to receive some ‘persuasion’. As he gets away from Vrask and the others he force slams the troopers, and runs and hides in the air ducts of the old ship.

  Sai Rye is locked in a cell whilst Vrask orders Kel Orta and Cyrus to deal with Darjan. The ship is put on lockdown, Kel Orta heads to the bridge and Cyrus to engineering, the most obvious places that Darjan will head to. They order the clone troopers to search the ship and locate Darjan. The clones put mouse droids into the ducts to try and locate him.

  As Darjan sneaks through the ducts, he looks down through a grille and sees Sai Rye in a cell. Freeing him, they both head deeper into the ducts and try to avoid the droids.

  Sai Rye comes up with a plan, they stun a mouse droid and he hacks it to give a false location for them. This distracts Kel Orta and Cyrus long enough to allow them to activate the emergency bridge separation detonators and create a system overload to prevent the tractor beam working. As the bridge section separates with Kel Orta, Cyrus and Vrask on it, Darjan and Sai Rye escape on a freighter in the confusion...

 

 

the Dark Times, session 8

A writeup of Monday nights Star Wars Saga edition rpg session.

the Dark times, session 8

The cast:-

Darjan: Human force adept (Tony)
Kel Orta: Kel Dor jedi knight (Kev)
Cyrus: human jedi knight (Dave)
Sai Rye: human soldier (Chris)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away

 Heading into the wreckage of a Venator destroyer, Cyrus meets up with Darjan and they discuss their options.

 On board the Hunter in orbit, Sai Rye and Kel Orta are interrogated by Lt Bardak, as she tries to get information about Darjan and Cyrus.

 Hiding in the wreckage, Cyrus and Darjan hear fighters flying overhead, then the wreckage is rocked as the fighters drop bombs on it to try and drive them out.

Between offers of credits and threats of imprisonment, Lt Bardak persuades Kel Orta and Sai Rye to assist with the capture of the 2 jedi on the surface.

 Searching in the wreck, Cyrus and Darjan find a couple of speederbikes and wait till nightfall before trying to make a break for it.

 Playing along with the Imperials, Kel Orta and Sai Rye are sent to the surface by shuttle to assist the clone troopers with the capture of the 2 jedi to prove their loyalty.

 2 Speeder bikes zoom out from the wreck, as they do they trip light mines illuminating them and giving away their position, above them the jedi hear more fighters approaching.

 Inside the shuttle, Kel Orta and Sai Rye hear on the comm. System that the jedi are being pursued.

 The bikes race at full speed but its not enough to outrun the fighters, a burst of cannon fire catches Cyrus’s speeder and he goes one way as it goes the other, only his jedi reflexes allow him to survive the crash as he rolls with the impact. Darjan swings round and picks him up. Slowed by the extra passenger its not long until Darjan’s bike is blasted as well, and both are flung to the ground and knocked out by the explosion of the bike.

  The shuttle puts down near the unconscious bodies and wreckage, the clone troopers give Kel Orta and Sai Rye blasters and hang back, waiting for them to get the jedi. They stun the jedi and bring them aboard the shuttle.

 Climbing back to orbit the Kel Orta and Sai Rye hear on the comm. System that the shuttle is to divert to the Relentless, as they consider this new development the troopers in the passenger compartment stun them as well....