sho3box

Just John, Mr Saturday, theottovonbismark and I met up at a Limerick convention last weekend.  A previous post covered the very satisfactory Pulp Alley game that we played.  This post details the Realms of Chaos/Highlander/Necromunda multi-player mash up that took place afterwards.

The Quickening

The planet Zeist, Donorian Sector, Segmentum Solar, 4.270.986.M39

A kind of magic only known to only a select few in the Imperium of Man, the Sensei have been under pressure to return to Zeist due to one vision that they all share: the Gathering. Many decapitated Sensei subconsciously want to break free and merge with the Star Child as princes of the universe today.

There can be only one.

“The Quickening” is a multi-player participation game based on an obscure piece of ancient 40K nonsense known as “The Sensei”, with a large dollop of dodgy 1980s cult movie “Highlander” added. Space Clancy Brown, Space Sean Connery and Space Christopher Lambert will be provided. Queen soundtrack and indecipherable accents to be provided by participants.

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Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez, immortal son of the God-Emperor of Mankind. Probably.

I wrote this scenario with the intention of it being a beer and pretzels affair, something that could accommodate about eight players without grinding to a halt.  Not very taxing, but hopefully a bit of a laugh, a game designed for group play quickly at a convention.

Mechanically the rules are Necromunda/40K second edition, but with some changes and added on bits to make it work a little more appropriately for this environment.

The idea for the game came from some discussions with Whiskey Priest and Asslessman earlier this year.  Each of those gentlemen made Sensei warbands based on the rules from the old Realm of Chaos books which in turn led to chatting about Highlander (an obvious inspiration for the concept) which then led to planning a game using sensei, inspired by Highlander.

This scenario will run again at the Oldhammer/Bring Out Your Lead event in August, but as I was putting the rules for the game together anyway, the O’Hammerers decided to run it at Brocon too.

Still with me?

Although my feeling on the Sensei since I read the RoC books many years ago was that they were “shit”, the enthusiasm for the topic shown by Whiskey Priest and Asslessman proved contagious.  As a result I put together a small Sensei warband based on Ramirez from the Highlander movies a month or two ago.  theottovonbismark and Mr Saturday also got their Sensei ready for the event shown.  Additional three miniature strong Sensei warbands to suppley to other conattendees who wanted to take part were put together from suitable miniatures from our collections.

L to R: Eldar Outcast L’Oreal Wangst, Sensei Ramirez, Cyber Slayer Maximillian Reactorsmith

Holy Ground had a particular in-game effect.  As the Sensei are all sons and daughters of the Emperor Holy ground was represented with the two Honoured Imperium monument pieces that I painted a little while ago.  They were painted specifically for use in this game.

The game to be played at BOYL in a few weeks is a bring and battle affair, with each player supplying their own Sensei and his sidekicks.  I brought Ramirez and his entourage as depicted above, plus I had a dig around in my miniatures to see what other models could be supplied to people who wanted to take part in the game at Brocon.  Mr Saturday also supplied an extra Sensei and sidekicks from his collection along with his ‘stealer cult Magos  and theottovonbismark brought his soon to be unveiled Clancy Boys.  I dont have photos of those warbands though.

Photos of the various extra Sensei that I brought to the game are below.  Bear in mind that these miniatures were picked from a selection of miniatures painted using various different techniques over many years that were not always intended to be associated.  Some models were quickly dipped or drybrushed and others were painted to a higher standard, so they are a bit incoherent.

Sensei Stig Palomino

The Judge, Sensei

Sensei Leopold Horatio

Sensei Baron Samedi

The game played quickly due to the card based initiative and some other factors incorporated into the scenario to speed things along.  As might be expected from a game inspired by Highlander, narrative wasnt really a strong point, but cheesy one liners and leaping decapitations were pleasingly commonplace.

A game with a large number of players (we had seven for this game) is inevitably going to be a bit silly if it is to actually get finished in anything like a reasonable timeframe.  My preference is for achievable goals in preference to over-optimistic disasters.  In that regard this daft opportunity to push some miniatures around the table while humming Queen songs and doing bad Sean Connery impersonations was a success, although the scenario isnt going to win prizes for complex plot or anything.

In a display of enviable favourable randomness, Ramirez was victorious.  There can only be one.

The majesty of The Quickening. The flashing badge under the cup should have had some “smoke” over it, but the smoke had been packed into the car at that stage. SFX will be improved at the next Quickening game.

Finally, here is a very short clip from the old Highlander TV show that legitimises the entire project.

Filed under: Events, Games in Progress | Tagged: 2014, Brocon, Necromunda, O'Hammerers, Pulp Alley, Sci-fi |