Slayers: A Reason.

This one is for you T.

In Karak Kadrin there is a very special Slayer. Specifically the King Ungrim Ironfist. Long long ago there was a Dwarf King who undertook the Oath of the Slayer. He did the normal, shaved his hair, spiked the rest, tattoos. The lot of it.

Unfortunately, his oath of kingship came first. He couldn't well abandon his rule and his people. So then the original king passed on this grudge and this Slayer Oath to all his descendants. Ungrim Ironfist is a King first, a Slayer second. He cannot simply throw away his duty for an honorable death.

Now we have Slayers in the Age of Reckoning. Dwarfs join the Oathbearers. From the Armies of WAR page:

Such was the importance of their task; any Dwarf wishing to join the Oathbearers
would be required to swear an oath to the High King himself.

Any Oathbearer active, has sworn their service to the High King. Any Dwarf who shamed themselves while in said service could become a Slayer. In this way you can argue for Slayers for the game. They fight, recklessly as they would, but accept aid from the others because they've not yet fulfilled the oath. To see the Doomstrikers forged and the armies ranged against all Dwarfs fought.

The best (or worst) Slayers grow in power. They can't just commit suicide and be freed of the shame. They have to always improve in skill and power. They are supposed to seek the toughest foes and greatest evils to fight an epic battle. One that will destroy them and wipe away the shame.


You know... that or Mythic can just say they've popped over from the Slayer keep.
"'Ere lads, go smack up those armies. Live long enough and you'll get a fine axe and we'll go invade the Inevitable City"

Some bits and pieces

You know... I sometimes compose blog entries in my head. What I'll write about, what I won't. What has just occured to me.

It's part of why I am considering chaning my mobile phone so I can try my hand at mobile blogging and actually get those thoughts down when they are thunked.

Blame The Healer has beaten me to one of those topics today. Specifically, the Boon of the Impalpable Tome Tactic.

Farting about yesterday on my Engineer, I was overcome with the urge to get myself a pistol. After much browsing of WarDB I located one below T3. Norri is still 21 and Im happy with him there until such time as Orrekai slows back down or I hit my head off something in T3/T4 and need a break.

As a result I met the Ironbreaker Durndon and a nice Rune Priest Falgrim (or something to that effect, I've gone and forgotten sadly. See why I need to write things down?). Chapter 6 lied to me. It said the epic reward was a handgun. It's still a rifle. Chapter 7 however does have a handgun as the PQ Epic Reward.
The problem is Chapter 7 has only one PQ. It's rated Hard as well.
No matter, I set up my turret and merrily started culling Orcs. After a few run throughs (I can only imagine how the Rune Priest enjoyed it, apart from the odd blip in my health he was free to loot to his hearts content) I finally got my handgun. Seeing as I was in Barak Varr, I decided to visit the Slayer ship and get my tactic. I had long since completed the Wanted part of the tactic when I was out getting my Tracker Armor set. Durndon had stuck with me, so I thought I'd get him the tactic as well. Off we went to talk to the Captain.

For bonus points, or rather for a Tome Unlock, also talk to the First Mate on the ship for the entry on Slayers.

Quick trip over to Ostland, even quicker stomping on the chap we needed. To Altdorf!

At this point I realised a few things. Firstly, there's alot in Altdorf to do that people don't know. They figure it's a high level place or something, I am not entirely sure. So tomorrow, I shall ramble aimlessly about Altdorf.
Secondly, Ostermark has a channel on the Order side of things for co-ordinating open field RvR. /channeljoin OrderRvR to get in on the action. All tiers, all the time. Mostly you'll find t3 or t4 action and after a few days, familiar names at certain times.

Also, Massively.com has reported on the Age of Blogging initiative. Rock on!

Whose your Dawi?

I've been lax lately I know. Work has been a bit mad and there are other factors, as usual.

So for this entry, I'm going to ramble, babble and generally wander around my recent experiences in RvR Scenarios. Speaking of which Hammer of War has two of my guides up so far, with more to come as I get them done (sorry for the delay boss). Here and here.

First let's discuss reasonable expectation.

In Mourikains Temple, I tend not to follow the main path. All of this will be explained in a soon to go up guide. Suffice to say, in one of my recent runs, after getting dead I decided to try flank the main battle and make a nuisance of myself. As it happened at the same time an Ironbreaker on my team manged to kill the dude with the thing and snag it. He by some good fortune ran down the same way I was coming up. Hiding behind a wall to give myself a few seconds cover I started spamming heals. Rune of Shielding to give me some time to work while it absorbs damage. Heal over times, direct heals, an Oath Rune for extra resists.
Basically I did my job. I did what one can reasonably expect of my class.

The Ironbreaker died. Contrary to his complaint "Oh great I ran past a Rune Priest and no heals" I did heal. He died because the majority of available destruction chased him down and turned him into paste.
I'm good, but I'm not that good. Half a dozen? I'd have kept you going. More? It was always a losing proposition.

You can reasonably expect a tank to tank, a healer to heal and a Bright Wizard to cause trouble. Sometimes though, they hit the limit of what they can do. It isn't anyones fault, eventually it gets too much.

Before anyone ever yells at anyone in a scenario, think. Did they do everything you could reasonably expect? If so, bite down on the frustration.


Secondly. Short jokes.

I love playing my Dwarf. It's brought in a slight advantage for me. I can break line of sight easier. Lanky Elves are easy to spot. Manlings inevitably mark their position with fire or the favour of Sigmar. Dwarves though, Dwarves are small, unassuming and not flashy.
As a result I love Phoenix Gate (Guide coming soon).

I've captured the flag on more than one occasion and reported troop movements on many more by virtue of the fact, I can't be seen. That and people don't appear to look around much if you hold off on spamming attacks.

So to the people in that Phoenix Gate run a while back where we were stalemated. To those people who valiantly distracted the forces of Destruction while a lone Dwarf waltzed up to the flag. To those who watched my victory lap because short guys are hard to target (trust me, try pick out a Shaman in a group). I have one thing to say about my sucessful capture, the only capture that time, that won us the match.

Whose your Dawi?

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Apothecary

I'm sure anyone who has picked up the skill already will have worked it out. Just in case, here is the quick and dirty guide to brewing potions, making gold and grounding dye.

Requirements.
Apothecary skill (available in Chapter 2 camps)
Container (available from the trainer and merchants)
Main ingredient.

Supplements.
Additional ingredients.
Supporting gathering skill - Cultivation, Butchery or Scavenging.

The nitty gritty basics.

To brew a potion, you need a thingie to put it in (Container), a thing to put in the thingie (main ingredient) and some other stuff to jazz it up a little. As you can tell, my vocabulary has been influenced by the Gamespy comic.

Main ingredients can either be bought from vendors, grown (Cultivation, which in itself needs seeds), butchered presumably or scavenged. Dont be squeamish, reach into that still warm corpse.Mousing over them will give you an idea what level you need to be to cook them and what they'll do.

Vendors will always sell the level 1 ingredients needed to make Accuracy, Strength, Healing or Intelligence potions. (I could be wrong on the fourth, the memory is shoddy and I'm in work).Other random scavenged bits I've come across are below.

Skaven Spit - Intelligence
Leeches - Healing
Ticks/Fleas - AP
Grave Dirt - Spirit resistance
Dryad Husks - Thorny Concotions


The additives at level one are Cloudy Water, Callous Gobsworth or Dusty Fusk.

The Parsley gives your brewing a chance of making more than one potion from one set of ingredients.
The mushroom gives your brewed potions effect a chance to last longer.
The water is your friend and should always be carried. It will stabilise the potion, moving that little bar from failure, through volatile (one water) to garunteed brew (generally two waters, sometimes three depending on level).

Basic prices. Used Vial and Cloudy Water - 5 bronze. Callous Gobsworth and Dusty Fusk - 25 bronze.
You can, therefore, brew up stable but short duration potions if you have a main ingredient to hand for as little as 10-15 bronze.

While stabilisers are needed to move the sucess meter into the green, a potion can be brewed while in the orange range. It will be a volatile potion as a result. This means that it may do exactly what it says on the tin, or it may backfire when you drink it and have a negative effect.

How to brew.
Open your abilities tab. Click the tab in the top right and find Apothecary. Drag it to whatever hotbar button suits you best. You can now open your little bunsen burner that way. Place a container. Place a main ingredient. Add any additional ingredients you want. It must be done in that order initially for everything to lock in. If you run out of main ingredient but have alot of the rest, you can swap other mains in as you please. Hnady for when you want to cook several items in a go. Just make sure you have enough vials, water and whatever else you wish to use.

Your basic low level potion will look something like:
Used Vial (level 1)
Shattered Bear Tooth (Level 1 - Strength)
Cloudy Water (level 1) - Cloudy Water - Callous Gobsworth

Hit the brew button and that should garuntee a nice 5-10 minute strength potion, for when you really need to smash things.

GOLD!
Golden cores are an important ingredient for Talisman making. Sure the tailisman guys can buy them, but you can also make them.

You will need some different kit than your potions. Specifically an Alchemical condenser, some Goldweed, some gold dust and some quicksilver.

The quicksilver and condenser are available at most vendors (though oddly, not in Altdorf from what I've seen) and you can carry a supply around if you want.

Gold Dust is obtained by scavenging. Goldweed tends to be gotten through cultivation. My advice? Make friends with someone who has whichever skill you do not. Scavengers will come across the seeds for Goldweed and cant grow them. Similarly Cultivators wont have a means of getting Gold dust except probably via auction.

To make a Gold nugget and make a Tailsman maker very happy here's how it goes.

Alchemical Condenser
-Goldweed
-Gold Dust
-Quicksilver

Hit brew and you get your nugget. So far I've never had a failure and I don't know if it can fail.The level of the nugget depends on the level of the Goldweed and the gold dust.

No Mr Bond, I want you to DYE

I've not had much experience with making dyes, if only because I've not come across the raw material. Likely it's either from cultivation or butchering. However, whatever the main ingredient, it is much like Gold in that you have a Pestle and Mortar and some Alum.

Pestle And Mortar
Main Ingredient
Alum

Out comes a dye which you can then use or sell on as you please.

In the Field.
I always carry at least three vials of appropriate level (the next ones appear in tier two and are level 10 iirc) and 3 times as many water. Apothecary can be done on the fly and takes seconds. I keep the containers around because sometimes it's just worth brewing up in the field, especially if there's a new ingredient taking up room in your bag, begging to be tried. I also carry as many condensers and quicksilver balls as I have gold dust scavenged. I rely on others to give me the weed so I can make gold, and it's always a good idea to have them to hand just in case. Figure out what works for you. Maybe you dont like carrying materials you may or may not use until back in a town. They're reasonably cheap so there is no harm in stocking up only when you need to. I hope this quick mash up was helpful and that you enjoy giving people bottles of leeches or skaven spit and telling them with a straight face that it is indeed good for them.

Edit
As Pete mentioned in the comments, I had some of my names mixed up. They've been fixed and any other corrections are welcome :)