I have just about completed running The Gathering Storm with my group and I thought it worth posting a quick review and highlight a few issues I encountered whilst running it.

This is the first published adventure that I have run for many years. Whilst I do have some issues with balance I think on the whole it is pretty well produced. On a side note I found it harder work to prepare for a published adventure than write one of my own. I am not sure if this is a common experience. Whilst it would not put me off buying another FFG adventure I doubt I will be running another one straight from the book.

The basics. It took us eight session to get to the point where the PCs killed Schulmann (who was one round away from breaking the Ward). I knew I only had a limited amount of time to run this adventure so I chose not to add any additional elements between the published chapter (aside from the Interludes). I regret this requirement because it did result in the campaign seeming to be very scripted and railroaded. The biggest complaint from the players was that it was rather too focused on combat. Most of my players are more socially rogue type characters and there are certain chapters which are very hard to switch to social based encounters rather than combat based ones. If you had no time restrictions I would expect this campaign to take 10-12 sessions of 3-4 hours.

The Party: 5 humans and a dwarf. Started out as Burgher, Gambler, Thief, Pit Fighter, Barber Surgeon and Rat Catcher each Rank 1 with about 6 advances. They transitioned during the campaign respectively into an Agent, Hedge Wizard, Gambler, Mercenary, Student and Bounty Hunter. There were no character deaths but they did finish with a few permanent insanities and some uncured critical wounds.

Stromdorf - The interacting with the people of Stromdorf went well (although one of my characters almost got killed in a duel with Eduardo on the first day). The town and its people are well detailed and give ample opportunity to help characters with career transitions (for example one of my PC became a student via Professor Kopfchen). If the town survives the campaign then it cold easily be used as a base of further adventures. However because the next three chapters all involve leaving Stromdorf this initial interaction with the town became more difficult to maintain. I would recommend anyone running this to expand the interludes a lot to develop the stories in the town.

The Lesser Evil:
For those who haven’t got TGS this opening chapter deals the with the hunter for a missing merchant that leads to a group of inbred farmers that in turns leads to the herd stone of a group of beastmen and the first plot coupon - The Lightning Stone.

This Chapter ran pretty well. The final fight with Izka proved to be pretty deadly even though I scaled down the beastman numbers to fit in with my non-combat focused group. They just about managed to get off the swamp and back to town. However the first thing they then tried to do was to convince the Temple of Sigma to destroy the lightning stone. When this failed they ended up giving it to Schulmann, who they had already meet.

Note on the stones: Once the players realized there were more than one stone several did roll their eyes and go “oh plot coupons”. Not sure how to avoid this but be aware it probably will happen in your group too. After their first attempt to have the stones destroyed my PCs pretty much just handed them over the Wizard. However once they uncovered the hole in the floor of Tempest Knapp and worked out that is where the map stones came from they did start planning to take them back and stick them in the ground. Events got in the way but it does show that you can never predict the characters actions.

A Time To Mourn :
Again for those without TGS this chapter starts with the trial and execution of the farms from the previous chapter. They they rise from the dead that night and attack the PC. The next morning they a hired to go to the garden of Morr and eventually end up fighting a necromancer.

I really found it hard to sell this chapter to my players. Looking back on it I think either the night time zombie attack or Alder hiring them to go to the garden of Morr would have worked. Combining them made it feel a bit too D&D. If I was running this again I would probably re-work this chapter. Once in the Garden of Morr the mass of undead almost took out the party but the one they were face to face with Lazarus they killed his body pretty quickly. They never actually destroyed the Pendant of Nectanubis but instead took it with them. I chose not to have Lazarus possess a corpse at this point (I think my players had had their fill of combat). I planned to do it in “When Night Falls” but the PC burnt all of the goblin bodies. Instead I will leave it a while until they have forgotten they are carrying the pendant and then bring Mourn back into play. (One of the PC has stolen the distinctive sword and armor of Olaus Stichelm which could well lead to bounty hunters being put on his trail once the people of Stromdorf find this out. All in all this chapter might have repercussions for some while in my campaign.

When Night Falls
This chapter involve the PC being hired hunt down some rustlers. This leaad to a conflict with a farm full of goblins lead by a shaman with a pet troll.

This Chapter could easily prove deadly. My PCs tends towards the sneaky but even they could not get to explore the Goblin’s farm without waking up most of the greenskins. This then turned into a pretty big fight but luckily they managed to burn most of the goblins alive in the barn. This balanced things out and they just about survived. The troll got out but was relatively easily killed with lots of arrows (but not before vomiting on a character and given them an insanity and a critical wound at the same time). It is tough but if you have a more combat focused group I would recommend increasing the regeneration rate. Healing 1 point a round does not make much difference if it is facing a group dishing out 10 or more points of damage per hit. As a side note they also almost killed Flea. One of them saw movement through the roof of the smithy and swung in through the door hitting the little girl with an acrobatic strike. She was knocked out with two criticals and it took the barber surgeon’s best efforts to keep her alive till they got back.

Schulmann’s Gambit.
This chapter involves them getting the forth and final stone (buried in the temple of Sigma) and then getting into a fight with a wizard who is trying to open the seal on a nexus of magical power. If they fail the town and surrounding area is inundated and turned into a lake.

I thought getting the final stone from the temple would prove to be problematic but it went pretty quickly. The storm tracker played an unplanned role here. The PCs had located the Seer stone and were trying to convince Gottschalk to allow them to take it. They were arguing that it posses a threat to the temple and they could get rid of it. At this point one of their skill checks generated a timer which pushed the tracker to 10 on sheet 3 - meaning that the temple was struck by lightning. Factoring this effect into a bunch of fortune dice gave them the edge they need to convince the priest to give them the stone.

The PCs then gave the stone straight to Schulmann which quickly set off the chase to the nexus. The PCs took their time giving chase and I thought this would spell the end of Stromdorf. So far I have found the boss battles hard to predict. Izka almost took out three PCs on this own but Lazarus and Gobspite posed little threat. However Schulmann, with his magically increased defense and Soak proved a really good balance. The fight lasted 5 rounds during which he focused his efforts on the ward because most of the PC attacks were missing or causing nothing but flesh wounds. A final strike form a longbow eventually took him out just before he broke the ward.

In summary : If Eye for an Eye was an introduction to Cults then this is a bit of a whistle stop tour of the other threats in the warhammer world. Lots of good material to work with but if your group isn't keen on combat then I recommend taking it slowly and adding lots of other stuff in to balance it up. In addition there are a number of elements (Necromancer spells etc) which are re-usable once the campaign is finished. I would recommend its purchase.

Points for making a very creative review of the campaign

Very usefull including both what your group did, and what you'd suggest GM's do to counter/help etc... to keep the campaign rolling.

Still havn't played it, but looking forward to playing it. Will likely do 1-2 introduction scenarios to make sure the players knows the rules well.

Captain Fluffy said:

lol

I'm about to start this campaign too...(whit 2xp characters)

..i'm thinking about the possibility to make the first encounter whit Stromdorf more of a sandbox like experience, in which the player hears various rumors and red herrings that leads to each single adventure or custom made encounters...for example

1- searching the merchant >>>first part of the lesser evil

2-meeting whit the swamp-mutant>>>izka confrontation

3-hearing about problems at mountain farms>>>when night falls

4-hearing about a possible treasure at tempest keep>>>encounter whit the ghost and discovering of the missing floor-stone

I will leave out only time to mourn, since it suit well after the trial against the holtz clan, but maybe i will leave more free days between the capture and the execution, so the players have time to engage in other things and less forced down the road. Problem is: do u think the goblins adventure is an overkill for 2xp characters or can be possible (anyway also Izka encounter seems pretty thought)? we have a thief, a sigmar novice, a combat oriented boatman and (maybe) a marksman scout....

I am concerned about a good deal of the Gathering Storm combat myself especially since like you I want the pc's to have a chance to explore and have some options in what order to tackle the campaign. I suppose there is just the obvious solution of rolling some dice and see how it would go and then adjusting the difficulty accordingly. Alternatively there are a number of points where some clever thinking could easily balance the odds, like burning down the barn with the goblins in it during the Holtz ordeal, or finding a way to provide a distraction that some of the beastmen might fall for with an appropriate folklore check the scout might be aware of an old hunting path that might get them closer to the herdstone or have Foaldeath (if a character has an appropriate talent, action, or skill) give up some weakness Izka might have that would otherwise go unnoticed. Another option to tone down Izka's encounter could be that some infighting breaks out over some newly aquired loot between a few of the gors and/or Izka was critically wounded in a recent raid where the madteeth got thier new found loot. I dont know just a few ideas maybe one of them would work for your group.

Ghiacciolo said:

The key to the farm full of goblins is probably to let your players know just how many of the things there are. My characters did not leave the Ackerman's farm until the morning after the first attack. They had captured a goblin and used it to find out where the farm was. They arrived at midday when all of the goblins were sleeping and there were no signs of guards. As written there are two groups of guards (each equal in size to the number of PCs) one at the watchtower and one at the gate. During the day half of these guards are asleep. However that would still require my party to take out 6 awake Goblins without any of them making any noise. My party includes two Agility 5 rogues but they are not Ninjas. I reduced the number of guards but they did not manage to do enough damage to the first one they attacked to silence him. He managed a strangled cry and that caused the other PCs (who were watching from nearby) to rush down like they were the cavalry. At this point they had no idea that they were over 60 goblins in the farm. Luckily before the assualt on the watchtower one of the PCs had crept into the barn, seen that it contained hay and goblins and set fire to it before sneaking out again. It was this that saved the day.

With your party it sounds like they would need to take out 2 guards at the watchtower and two at the gate. With a thief and a scout they should stand a chance. If the PC arrive at night they will see how many goblins there are and prepare a suitabe plan (you hope). However if, like mine, they arrive at the farrm during the day you may want to give them some additional evidence of the sheer numbers of the greenskins they face so they can adjust their plan accordingly. Goblin henchmen are pretty easy to kill but not if you are outnumbered 10 to 1.

Thanks for advices!

Yeah i like those adventure where players have to find the weak point of the situation in order to crack it open...i still feel that they will have to avoid also the troll, or use it as a distraction for the rest of the goblin meanwhile they confront the shaman...

Anyway i'm not even sure IF they will go in the farm as first adventure, and in that case i will follow your suggestion to give them a real glimpse of the forces in play, so they will have the freedom to choose if to get in the farm or maybe wait better days/more aid

Let us know how it ends up for your characters and what ends up happening, I think it will help all of us GM's out there running TGS or thinking about it to see as many outcomes and potential hang ups as possible. Good luck with you game monkeylite!

wow missread there, I wanted to say good luck to Ghiacciolo with his campaign, however good luck to monkeylite too in yours as well and everyone else I suppose while Im going through the effort here.

Likewise just finished running it. Took about 12 weeks, give or take. I had five players, but one moved away early, so the majority was with four players. Ironbreaker, Waywatcher, Priest of Sigmar and a Celestial Wizard.

I don't think my group considered it too combat intensive, but three of them really like combat, so was less a worry for me. However, they spent about as much time, it seemed, drinking the casks of ale they got from the farm (taken over by goblins) as they did killing them.

All in all, I thought it was a nice adventure (though did have me flipping back and forth in the booklet quite a bit.