Warhammer: Vermintide 2 News

Welcome to Year 2, Season 2 of the community-run Onslaught Tournament Series!

• Rules and format walkthrough: 9th of September, 4-7pm UTC, 12-3pm ET, 6-9 CEST, 5-8pm BST (streamed at twitch.tv/exanimia_).
  
• Tier 1 (Cata 1 Deathwish Onslaught) games: 10th of September, same time as above (streamed at twitch.tv/fightthetide).
  
• Tier 2 (Cata 3 Deathwish Onslaught) games: 11th of September, same time as above (streamed at twitch.tv/fightthetide).
  
• Tier 3 (Cata 3 Deathwish Onslaught+) games: 12th of September, same time as above (streamed at twitch.tv/fightthetide).

The tournament format tests consistency and skill, giving teams of four players three hours to complete four maps in a specific order with three attempts each map. Each failed attempt deducts points from a team’s overall score, with forfeited maps deducting the full amount of points for that map.

To access the rules and regulations, as well as to participate, please sign up in the event Discord.

There are three tiers to compete in:

Tier 1 (Cataclysm 1 Deathwish Onslaught)
• Empire in Flames
  
• Into the Nest (interchangeable with Engines of War),
  
• Righteous Stand
  
• Engines of War (interchangeable with Into the Nest)
Tier 2 (Cataclysm 3 Deathwish Onslaught)
• Hunger in the Dark
  
• Old Haunts (interchangeable with Engines of War)
  
• Righteous Stand
  
• Engines of War (interchangeable with Old Haunts)
Tier 3 (Cataclysm 3 Deathwish Onslaught+)
• Righteous Stand
  
• Blood in the Darkness (interchangeable with Convocation of Decay)
  
• Old Haunts
  
• Convocation of Decay (interchangeable with Blood in Darkness)

There's also a prize pool accrued by the tournament organiser and Fatshark, up for grabs by the winners and runner-ups for each respective tier:

Tier 1:
• 2 Vermintide posters
  
• 2 Warhammer 40k: Sanctus Reach collections
  
• 2 Forgotten Relics codes
  
• 2 Sister of the Thorn codes
Tier 2:
• 2 VT2 tees
  
• 2 character premium cosmetic packs
  
• 4 $20 Games Workshop Giftcards
Tier 3:
• 4 serpent frames
  
• 2 VT2 Hoodies
  
• 2 $40 Games Workshop Giftcards

There is a comprehensive set of rules which can be found in the Discord, but three notable rules worth mentioning here are as follows:

• All teams MUST be able to produce a recording on the same day as the tournament, or stream it and have an accessible vod to review, or risk disqualification.
  
• In order to give players more team and career variety while creating a more-balanced competitive environment, teams MUST use the Tourney Balance Mod (patch notes document can be found here).
• Iceolator is currently in the process of overhauling Onslaught+. Please ensure teams download and utilize the archived version of the mod found here.
• Participating tourney staff are NOT eligible for prizes.

On top of this, as normal there will be a shoutcast of the event streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/fightthetide, with shoutcasters Ishka, Corbec, and the original creator of Onslaught, Grimalackt. Portions of the proceeds from the channel subscriptions/bits/etc this season will go towards supporting those affected by the floods in Germany and supporting Moopshark during his family’s crisis.

The signups are now open! In the appropriate channel in the discord, please state your team name, the names of each of your players and which tier you'd like to compete in.

Hope to see you all there!

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.



Every day that passes, I’m learning more and more about the northlands. I mean, that ain’t to say I’m glad to be doing so – there are some pretty ghastly tales told up there, and no mistake – but they do say that knowledge is the true wealth of a life lived to its fullest. As I’ve little enough in the way of actual wealth, I guess that’ll have to do.

Where was I? That’s right: The Forbidden Trail.

Obviously, describing something as forbidden ain’t exactly the closer it might otherwise be, not around here. Old Saltzpyre will describe anything as “forbidden” or “cursed” if he gets even a wisp of something unsavoury. Once of my biggest bugbears with the Order of the Silver Hammer, that. When everything’s an abomination, how do you tell the truly dangerous from the slightly sinful? Lacks nuance, and in my trade you can’t rely on things beings black and white – you’ve got to be able to read the murky bits in between.

But anyway, this Forbidden Trail the Five have found really is one of the bad ones. Seems there used to be a prosperous northlander kingdom where those trees now stand. Coragoz, it was called, and its denizens went in for unholy worship in a big way. You know the sort of thing. Sacrifices running day and night, with all the vile and bloody ritual that goes alongside. Brought captives from clear across the world to feed the fires keep the gutters running with blood. Worse than that, there was no joy in it. I mean, say what you like about Kerillian’s Naggarothi cousins, they’re at least getting a kick out of being inhuman monsters. This lot were like bureaucrats with flensing knives. Dispassionate. Like being smothered by the colour grey.

Centuries, this went on. Untold thousands with slit thrones, gone to the leaping azure flames. And not a peep of thanks from the Dark Gods. But you know what? The Chaos Gods are, more than anything, captives of passion. Vile, unholy, corrupting abominations they may be, but they do love their work. So while the joyless citizens of Coragoz were trying to garner their gods’ attention, those same deities were looking elsewhere for their jollies, and found it with several of the neighbouring tribes who’d suffered at Coragozi hands.

The result was, quite literally, a hell of a battle. Four god-favoured tribes against a city grown strong on slaughter. It was, as Kruber’s old middenball-playing associates might say, a no-score draw. Coragoz was cast down, and the four tribes wiped out to the last frothing lunatic.

What remains of the city – and its colossal wealth – is now buried deep beneath the trees. Draws the occasional treasure-seeker, but I’ve yet to find one who laid his mitts on something valuable and lived to tell of it. Like I said, it’s not called the Forbidden Trail for nothing. Could be there’s still something living beneath the surface. Could be that the gods still hold a grudge against the place. Could be anything, really. That’s the trouble with attempting to make sense of the divine. For every answer, another question comes trundling along, and brings a few mates alongside.

I’ll keep digging. Like I said, knowledge is true wealth. But in the meantime, I’ll be advising the Five to leave their shovels at home when hiking the Forbidden Trail. I’m not that desperate for answers …

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.



So here’s a funny thing. You know how we went tromping up to the Citadel of Eternity looking for the favour of the gods? (That’s the royal “we”, obviously. Franz Lohner doesn’t go tromping anywhere for nothing or nobody these days. Strictly managerial, I am.) Well, seems that we’ve drawn the eye of rather more than we expected.

Before you go getting all flustered, I’m not talking about those Chaos weirdos. While they’re still afflicting the land around the Citadel with all kinds of curses and malign manifestations, that’s more what you’d call business than personal. So far – touch wood – there’s been no indication whatsoever that the dark brothers have even noticed my lot poking around the northlands, and long may it continue.

Nor is it just the five we went a-courting. No, I’m talking about, well, pretty much every other god ever to put on a funny hat and start craving mortal worship. They’re dishing out boons and blessings as if it’s the end of the world, and they’ve a stockpile they’re wanting to blast through before the great cosmic inventory at the end of time.

The gods of elves, dwarfs and men? Well, I guess that was to be expected. Nothing gets a god more jealous than a sibling poking meddling on their territory, so that accounts for Ulric, Ursun, Asuryan, Grimnir and the like. But some of these others? Hailing from every civilisation the light touches, or at least that’s how it feels.

Added to the mix, we’ve got Lustrian Old Ones (which are as near to gods as makes no difference, or so Olesya says) as well as a couple of barbaric deities. The Great Maw (no relation to Morr, one assumes) is worshipped by ogres. Less a deity, that one, and more a bag of endless appetite, but what works, works. Might say the same about the Nehekharan gods, who’ve also nodded a sage animal bonce of favour in our direction a time or two. And then we’ve got a real surprise: Hashut, the dark and brooding deity of what most call Chaos Dwarfs, and about whom Bardin has nothing good to say. By most reckonings, Hashut’s a Chaos God himself – if strictly small fry – so why he’s lending a hand? Probably just likes watching things burn. You get people like that, so why not gods?

About all we’re missing at this point is the Great Horned Rat. I mean yes, technically he’s on the other team, but skaven have made treachery a bit of a sport, and I don’t imagine their god would be any different. Not that I’d want the Horned Rat pitching in. It’s not just that some victories aren’t worth the price. It’s more that it’d be proof that whatever’s going on in the world just got bigger than our little squabble with the ratmen. When the fat’s really in the fire, there are only two sides: the Chaos Gods, and everybody else.

Seems to me it’s getting a mite warmer. I’ve a feeling it’ll get worse before it gets better.

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.



So, Kruber was asking about Mannax Grimblood – you know, the fellow whom Grimblood’s Stronghold is named for? – and I’ll be honest, there’s not much to tell.

By that, I don’t mean to say that Grimblood’s not an accomplished chap, far from it. He’s earned a bleak reputation all along the northern coast. Places big or small, they all know him. Or at least, they know of his ships, and his flag of writhing tentacles on a black field. Made a real mess of Erengrad a few years back, and the number of fisher villages Grimblood’s wiped off the face of the map truly beggars belief.

Thing is – and I mean this with all the deference due to our northlander cousins, which isn’t a very great deal, if I’m honest – so what? Raiding chieftains are ten a pfennig on the Sea of Claws. Worse than that, they tend to show up as a job lot. No sooner has one raid ended than another begins. Murder, pillage, the slaughter of the defenceless … doesn’t exactly help you stand out from the next man, not when the next man’s just burned the same village you’re eying up for tomorrow’s raid.

I think that’s what really gets me about northlanders, if I’m honest. No imagination. No effort to build something that’ll last. It’s just “might makes right” and “victor takes all” to that lot. Sure, it takes guts to charge a shield wall, but it takes a damn sight more to hold the line against a frothing maniac, knowing that even if you survive the day, there’ll be another just like him come hoving into view before the week’s out. Especially when he’s bigger than you, and likely better armed. Because that’s the other thing about northlanders: they’re bullies, through and through.

So yes, Mannax Grimblood? An unremarkable bully. If he’s not dead, he soon will be, and another ruffian like him will take his place. Northlanders might think that’s worthy of song, but that just goes to show what questionable judgement they have. The stronghold, on the other hand … ?

You see, that particular patch of ice has a much longer history than the stockade raised above it. They do say that there was a battle there, some centuries back. Classic last stand stuff. An Ulthuani expedition got itself a bit lost – as folk so often do up there – and made matters worse by somehow drawing the attention of every northlander tribe for miles around.

Ten days the elves held out, despite being outnumbered and undersupplied. But Ulthuani are like that. They’re proud, shading hard into stubborn, and don’t like to admit when they’ve made a dog’s breakfast of the whole thing. Then, just as it looked like they were about to be overwhelmed, the weather changed. The ice, which had been hard as rock to that very moment, shattered, and the grim seas claimed every one of those battling souls, northlander or elf.

They’re still there, trapped beneath the surface – frozen, but kept cruelly alive in all the years since. Like I’ve said before, time flows funny up in the wastes, so maybe to them its still the moment after their heads went under the waves for the last time. Then again, could be they’ve been like that for centuries, trapped, frozen solid and steadily going mad. Or maybe there’s nothing truly alive down there any longer, just undead spirits sealed in the ice. It’s enough to make anyone shiver.

Olesya reckons that’s why Grimblood made the place his lair. Having tortured souls close by lends a certain … puissance … to prophecy, and northlanders like their portents as much as anyone.

All told, I think it’s better that the Five don’t go swimming in those waters any time soon.

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.



I find myself with what you might call a conundrum.

One of my lads brought me a letter this morning. Not an unusual occurrence in itself, of course. Folk like writing to me. Others write to me because it’s the only way I’ll sign off on their expenses. And still more drop me the occasional line with interesting titbits out of hope it’ll stop me exposing their gross financial irregularities to the Imperial court. But I digress.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t expecting this particular letter, which purports to be from one Sofia Fuegonasus, our own Sienna Fuegonasus’ twin sister. Hard to tell whether that part’s true. By all accounts, Sofia’s dead and gone – at Sienna’s hand no less – but necromancers have a way of floating to the surface of the spiritual mire, don’t they?

Now, I hear you ask, why would Sofia Fuegonasus – if Sofia Fuegonasus she truly is – be writing to Franz Lohner, innkeeper, raconteur and journeyman poet? Surely she’d be writing to her sister? Well, leaving aside the whole “incineration” incident, Sofia’s more interested in twisting the arm of yours truly. Specifically, she wants an assurance of my cooperation in some future deed. No details, not as yet, but you can bet it involves Sienna. There’s also an implicit promise that if I don’t do exactly as she asks, then some of my secrets will mysteriously come to light.

Which secrets? Well, the letter was a bit vague on that score and all, but there are certainly plenty to choose from, and more than a few that wouldn’t exactly endear me to current associates. Might get a bit ugly, you might say. The real question – and I speak as something of an expert in the field of arm twisting – is whether Sofia really knows anything, or whether this is a bit of a bluff on her part. Trouble is, there’s no way to know without actually calling said bluff.

Only thing I know for certain is that I’m not going to talk to Sienna about this. At least, not yet. There’s still every possibility that it’s one of the lads playing a prank on their Uncle Franz, and I’ve got me pride – I don’t want to be thought a complete muggins. Yes, maybe it’s that. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.

If it isn’t, and this really is Sofia Fuegonasus, back from the dead and looking to involve me in something I’d rather be no part of? Well, that’s going to require a bit of careful consideration. I’ve a few tricks in me yet. Could be I manage to resolve this without anyone else finding out about it. That’d be nice. A man’s secrets are sacred.

Related note: I should probably hide this journal better.