"The Most Coveted Treasure" - The Hidden Vault

 Your journey into the darkness has led you here,

and all that remains for you to do is fight for

and claim what is rightfully yours.

- Blackstone Fortress Rulebook

Welcome one and all to the grand finale of Blackstone Fortress, that's right, it's the Hidden Vault!

I feel like I have a lot of history with Blackstone Fortress. I really loved its precursor, Silver Tower (which was the first dungeon crawler that my wife and I played together) and so I was avidly anticipating any morsel of information leading up to the launch of Blackstone Fortress in November 2018. Such was my excitement, that when my wife got it for me for my birthday at the end of November, she was anxious using the occasion of my birthday to tell me that she was pregnant with our first child for fear that it would overshadow my excitement for Blackstone Fortress! Hahahah...it didn't. 

Come hither...

I have been working away on Blackstone Fortress over the past few years: painting a bunch of minis and then playing every night of my birthday week each year. You can find every single BSF miniature painted on the blog here. 

For the record, I finished painting the last model for the game a mere few weeks after the blog's last birthday (it was one of my goals for last year that so narrowly missed). We finished this final mission (the Hidden Vault) back in April, but it has taken me until now to make the time to write this post. Time flies when you're...a parent. 

Amallyn, as badass as ever...

...surveying her targets. 

Anyway, enough preamble! Onward! 

WAIT! One more word of warning. Here be spoilers (if you can still consider them spoilers for a game that is now 4 years old and out of production). I will be discussing the final mission of the game and I will mention the secret reward for winning the game (though I won't do this until the very end and will preface it with another spoiler warning. 

Rein and Raus double-teaming a chaos beastman, and almost dying in the process!

Janus showing those Negavolt Cultists wot's wot!

The images above are from prior missions that I had not yet posted to the blog, but below lies the Hidden Vault itself. 

You start on the left-hand side and have to make your way over to the right to activate the Hidden Vault itself while avoiding certain annihilation from the laser turret in the middle. All the while endless hoards of randomized goons are charging in to stop you. 

By this late stage in the game we had accumulated loads of powers and abilities (we even had one that would have allowed Amallyn to start up right beside the objective, but luckily we forgot about that one). We went ham: chucking grenades, using stims, and utilizing the relics that we had gained from the 4 previous strongholds with wanton abandon. This was the last level after all. 

We managed to get Amallyn and one of the Ratling twins up to the Hidden Vault while Janus and Pious played interference (while trying to dodge the death laser!). They turned the Hidden doohickey once...twice but before they could turn it the final time and open the vault, two cultists popped out beside them to welcome them to the party with their electro-goads. 

Amallyn went beastmode and Rein (or Raus)...watched. Technically the Ratling was next in line to actually open the Hidden Vault, but we noted from the wording in the rule book that it seemed to be important specifically who opened it, so we gave that honour to Amallyn - who had been the MVP of the campaign. 

Okay, here comes the second spoiler shield. If you don't want to know what is in the hidden envelope that was burning a hole in my game box for 4 years, then leave now (I'll see you back on The Art of Caesura next week). If you do want to know, then scroll quickly past the unnecessarily creepy picture of me and my whiskey  

So, you're still here? Nice! I haven't scared you off yet!

Well, upon opening the secret envelope we learned that Amallyn was imbued with some of the power of the Fortress! Not only did she gain an ability that will make her more powerful against future enemies (in the expansions / future campaigns) but she has also been rendered immortal! When she dies she isn't given a Mortis card, and is instead resurrected! 

Pretty cool stuff!

So wow, after years in the playing, we finally beat Blackstone Fortress! I look forward to returning to the Fortress in the future (I own an expansion or two) and there were also a few missions published in White Dwarf over the years, but for now we can rest and Amallyn can enjoy her well deserved godhood. 

Thanks as always for joining me. I'll see you next Friday on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: An Immense World - Ed Yong

Listening: Sprues and Brews Podcast

Next Week:

Back to Black (Templars)...