A Message For Khan Parsnak III from Publius Fulminator Amicus, Prelate of Yoesville

Most Honored Khan Parsnak,

I hope this message finds you well. Please accept the 1,000 gp worth of lavish gifts my messenger has delivered. As you might know, the blight of Lucius Bastardo and his rule of banditry have fallen to your North. I am now in command of the domain he once ruled, which is now renamed Yoesville in honor of my patron deity - Mighty Jupiter. I am in the process of rebuilding my forces and I have a need for brave and noble horsemen such as your people to fill the ranks of my cavalry. I anticipate trouble from our East shortly, so I require your help. Specifically, I would ask your permission to hire mercenaries from throughout your mighty domain over the span of the next 18 months. I would be open to negotiations and treaty discussions, but I'm afraid that I would be very disappointed if you refuse my reasonable request. I await your response.

Sincerely,

Amicus

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So, basically I want to be able to hire more mercenaries from another domain as outlined in the new ACKS Domains at War section. I should be able to put together some light cavalry units (and perhaps more infantry as well) just by being allowed to recruit within his domain. I'll need to know a domain size, and the number families within it to calculate how much it costs and how many mercenaries I can "harvest". I can only do that with the Khan's full cooperation.

Annex the Therks!

I've been thinking "in character" recently.

Amicus is trying to put together a kick-ass army for the inevitable conquering that will be coming soon in Adventurer, Conqueror, King. However, he is having a terrible time putting together cavalry. He's been training up mercenaries into a reasonable infantry force. He's got over 120 heavy infantry through recruitment and training. Now he needs some horsemen.

That's where the Therks directly to the South come in. I would like someone (Jason?) to adjudicate Amicus' outreach to the Therkish warlord/warlords to the South to first try to bring them on board as my henchmen. If that doesn't work, Amicus is not above hiring the Masked Archer to take out the current leader so that Amicus might make another offer to the new leader. If *that* doesn't work, Amicus would like to investigate taking the Therkish domain (or domains?) by force.

What strangeness could happen? Maybe Amicus is asked to marry the Therkish Warlord's backwards daughter. Perhaps the Therks demand that Amicus pays a tribute to them. Maybe the Therks are just asshats who need to be crushed by Rotwang and Murderface. In any case, Amicus is ready to annex more domains in order to build a more powerful fighting force.

Once the Therks are under Yoesville's flag, I'll be able to command a more balanced force and use it to drive the forces of Denguir from the Badlands.

Which reminds me. We need to drive all the bad guys from the badlands! Anyone want the forest of Hod as their domain? Amicus would support any foray into the Hag's domain. We may even want to do that before clearing the Island of the Dead.

Jason, what is the state of Yoesville's treaty with BadAxe Hold? Do you know what forces are under Badaxe Jack's command?

rewcon - my very own Mini-Convention

With new home comes great responsibility -- to game in the basement. Early in the new year, I hope to celebrate my 44th birthday with a sort of mini-convention. I would like to have all my gaming friends (past and present) by and have a rolling schedule of games to play and enjoy. Maybe we'll even do some dinner? However, I'm looking for ideas for games that folks will try out or even run for folks who may or may not be strangers.

Since it is my convention, I want to run Blood Bowl. This has long been my most favorite wargame, and I would love to start a league back up. It is so cheap to put together an army (team), the rules are free, and all you need is a board. I want to showcase this game first.

I've also had a LARP ruleset that I've been toying with. I don't want to play a LARP game necessarily, but I would like to take an hour or two to try out the system. But that won't take long.

Should we schedule a huge battle from our ACKS campaign that weekend? Maybe we can have some help fielding units of bad/good guys in a pitched miniatures wargame battle? Bob, do you have any boardgames we might wrap the night up with?

Comment below, please.

Old Ones Ambush

First of all, a big "welcome back" to Toby! It was great to have another familiar face at the Lords of Hack table. We look forward to seeing you more often.

Other than that, check out this photo of the first Old Ones' ambush that happened in our game on Sunday. We've got to get better at not getting bushwhacked like that! Thanks for running a great game, Dave!

Fall-In

On November 8th, I'm planning to take a day-trip to the "FALL-IN" historical miniatures convention in Lancaster.   If anyone is interested in joining me, let me know and we can confab about pre-registering.


Downside of Pre-registering:   if you have to pay the whole weekend rate, which runs to about $45.  I think the one-day visitor rate is less expensive, but you can't do it ahead of time.


Upside of Pre-registering:  you can be sure of getting into the game event you want to do, and you avoid the long registration line (can save you up to an hour in some cases).


I've had fun at all the game events I've gone to in the past, and the shopping for miniatures opportunities are pretty cool, there's a large dealer hall.


Let me know if anyone's interested.


Dave N

The Portchester Temple Caper

Here is a nutty photo of the Skull Collectors looting the Portchester Temple vault. The hydra summoned by Tiberio fights off some animated statuary while Rotwang under the power of a growth spell (and turned green like the hulk!) fights the Ghost of St. Josey Wales. Behind them the Masked Archer engages an avenging angel of Bor, and the parked dwarven mole machine sits once its work is done. To the left Rinaldo drives off the Ghost of St. Chisum and Portchester sharpshooters (represented by Celts?!?) run down the stairs in the foreground to join the fight.