Pirate Borg - The Quest to activate The Heart of the Sea

 

Over the October long weekend, I managed to get to play a lot of games. The rest of the family were away and that left me free to game. With MOAB over that weekend, much rest and gaming was had.

Added to this the fact that the lads were finally able to come over that Sunday afternoon and we played a marathon 7.5hr roleplaying session. Fortunately, none of us had to work on Monday. Below are some highlights from the session.

The other wonderful thing was that I got to play my character and one of the other lads was the GM this game. My class was The Zealot. And I chose to be a Priest of the One True God. Seemed funny to me to be a Haunted Soul Skeleton Pirate and yet also a Priest. Hey everyone, including pirates, needs salvation, right?

I put my predicament down to having drunk too much alter wine in life (and occasionally helping myself to the church coffers) as being why I find myself needing redemption. Anyway, I digress.

The first combat saw us make landfall on a beach full of bones. As we headed up the sand, we were quickly surrounded by the fast-forming accursed things.

This should have been an easy fight. But we kept rolling very badly and the Skeletons incredibly well. I think I must have missed eight rolls to hit in a row. I put that down to my lack of martial training and these "misses" really being me parrying my foes attacks. A few of the guys suffered Fumbles and ended up in a very bad way. And we quickly burnt through all our Luck Dice.

(NOTE: If you don't know what Luck Dice are, they aren't a Pirate Borg mechanic. Look up DM Scotty's Luck Dice. I highly recommend using this, or a modified version of this system like we do.)

After finally vanquishing the foe, we strode on to an abandoned Fort at the base of a ravine. There we were confronted by a series of riddles. This was the first of three key challenges we had to overcome this adventure. 

Once the riddles were solved, we passed on through the ravine behind the fort and were promptly assaulted by drowned zombies. Great! That was another fun fight where a few of us were grabbed and dragged towards an ice-cold stream that ran along the ravine. Icy death awaited there. However, fending off the zombies, we finally liberated our captured comrades and escaped to complete the second challenge of three that we had to accomplish.

The ravine however led to a Labyrinth which we negotiated without too many setbacks. From there we arrived at a castle that rested in a giant cavern and set about our final challenge.

This final challenge saw us face off against four very nasty crabs and The Guardian. This was supposed to be the fight of all fights for the evening. However, after all the adversity from the previous fights, we slaughtered to crabs in short order, much to the surprise of the GM.

But the real part of this last challenge was to take down The Guardian. This dude was a total pain. Lots of hit points and a real pain dealer. We eventually settled on a strategy where I fell back and prayed for healing for the other lads while they remained up close and personal with The Guardian. This worked well and after much near death we finally brought down the hated foe.

With that, this first adventure came to an end, and we had successfully recovered the McGuffins we needed for the next quest. But that is for a future post.

MOAB 2026 - Mother Of All Battles this October long weekend

MOAB 2026

The main hall's retail area at the front.

This year's Bring-n-Buy bargain buy area located in the main hall.

MOAB has been on this long weekend. The Southerland Shire Wargaming Clubs Mother of all Battles, Sydney's largest wargaming convention is always well attended. Once again, I made the long journey to visit and spend way too much money on cool stuff. But it is always worth it. I managed to get around the main hall and some of the side galleries. But didn't get to see all the games in action. Here's the photos I took on the Saturday.

Chain of Command

Warmaster

Ogre Kingdoms

Star Wars

Display and Historical Games

This table was a display game for Fjord Serpents and Blade Wrath.

Ma.K. in both 28mm and 15mm from Slave2Gaming.

This was a 15mm historical game from Two Fat Lardies, I believe.

I have an interesting observation on MOAB recently that I shared in another post. But that's it for this year's MOAB.

MOAB - an observation

The game table allocations at MOAB 2026

Where has all the Warhammer 40k players gone?

I've noticed a trend at MOAB the last few years and it's been reflected in the mid-year ShireCon event as well. Warhammer 40K used to dominate the table space every convention. However, I noticed its footprint decrease over the last few years. Now, at this latest MOAB, its nowhere to be seen.

What am I missing here? I don't play 11th Edition. I stick to 3rd Edition as its still slightly gonzo (not as wonderfully gonzo as 2nd Edition however). I also play it in 15mm scale for that more epic feel.

I know 11th Edition is now more designed to be a tournament game rather than a fun wargame played with mates over the home gaming table. But to be non-existent at MOAB. What happened?

The Bring-n-Buy has always been packed with 40k models and they sell very well. So, I don't think the game has died. It's just no longer appearing at MOAB and perhaps 11th Edition isn't what players are gravitating too.

Warhammer 40k tournaments aren't even listed at MOAB this year.

So, what happened?

No painting competition

Sadly, there was no painting competition at MOAB this year. There is usually one with the finalists displayed in the glass case for all to marvel upon. But nothing this year. So that's a bummer. Some truly excellent paint work has been on display in previous years.

Rise of the Other Games

I noticed more of a presence of games like Warmaster, Turnip28, Bloodbowl, The 9th Age, Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition, etc. What once was dominated by Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40k is now taken over by Flames of War, Chain of Command and older GW games. That's a lot more choice and very welcome to see in my opinion.

Anyway, just an observation from a MOAB attendee.

Rogue Trader era Dreadnaught - a 3d print

I recently experimented with printing a Rogue Trader era Dreadnaught and thought I would show off the result. Once again, this was printed in FDM on my Bambu Lab A1 3d printer using a 0.4" nozzle.

I set the layer to 0.16mm layer height. You can see the layer lines on the model in the photos below. I've since realised that I get much better results on the 0.4" nozzle with a layer height of 0.08mm. Something I expected was too small a scale for a 0.4" nozzle but am pleasantly surprised to discover that it handles easily. So, I plan to make another print of the model to compare between the two.

Here the Dreadnaught is printed for the original 28mm scale. But I plan to use it for my 15mm 40K scale miniatures. I'm thinking of making it an Iron Man rogue AI model that has survived over 20 millennia and comes from the Dark Times of Technology. I have printed more "modern" 40K dreadnaughts for my Space Marines hence why I plan to use this fellow as a rogue AI. It's also going to feature in future adventures for my roleplaying group.

Fort Rust'N Nails is built with Gaslands and 15mm 40K Orks in mind. But ol' Rogie here looks menacingly like he could have some fun at the Orks expense using the Space Marines Dreadnaught profile. I use Warhammer 40K Third Edition rules, by the way.

Love the massive bolters this guy is packing.

The heavy wire here that you can see below the arm and feeding to the back power unit is white string that's about the diameter of a shoelace. I twisted the ends of the string and glued them with Superglue. Once that was set, I glued each end to the attachment points on the model. Once that was set, I covered the remaining string in PVA White Glue and let it set. Once that was dry, it was simply a matter of priming the model and then painting the 'wire' in a Gunbolt metal. He is based on a 40mm round base.

Menacing!