After a fine supper at Amigo’s Cantina we launched into the third and final year of our campaign…
YEAR THREE
Spring
T’was the season of unsuccessful sieges…?
Having overwintered in Buttercupford, King Aethelbert the Almost Ready decided to carve himself out an empire by his own sword – at the expense of the newly founded Elvish Empire... So he marched north to the former orc territory of the Broken Tusks. There he spent most of the spring fighting off ambushing parties of elvish archers and doing little of any real affect.
The Elves, for their part, marched on Buttercupford and tried to bring it back into the fold of their empire but the garrison left behind were sturdy folk and not willing to give up easily. The siege dragged on into the summer.
Over the winter the Orcs and Wildmen of Mørke negotiated a peace with Aarkland and submitted to their overlordship. Together the Army of Mørke (if you could call it an “army”) and Aarkland marched on Argha and besieged it once more. Knowing what happened to the last garrison that gave up the town the halfbads fought on ferociously through the spring!
The movements of the Halfbad Army and the Dwarves stank of some sort of secret negotiations between orcs and dwarves that at least one party – if not both then reneged on!? The Army of halfbad marched first to Grog and then on to Glurg… The Dwarven Army, which, for the most part, had overwintered in Glurg marched straight on to Halfbad’s capitol of Drek! Neither were successful at winkling out the defenders.
The Army of Florin was the only aggressor in this campaign that did not lay siege to an areas this spring. They instead remained in their capitol of Rugenville plotting their next move…
Summer
Furious with the Treacherous Dwarves Skimpi the Sneak stormed back to his capitol of Drek and launched themselves upon the dwarves siege lines! The battle was another frantic melee. The Dwarves sold themselves dearly but eventually were overwhelmed by the goblins that seemed to come at them from all directions out of the wilderness!
Bjorn Bjarnetson, High King of the Dwarves (Bob) arrays his forces for battle against Skimpi the Sneak (“other Tim”) of Halfbad.
The Dwarves forces were split by a forest running down the center of the battle field.
South of the forest there was a fierce action between some Dwarven foot (Blades and Shooters) and the Goblin Hero, riders, and Spear General.
After they were taken care of the Goblins concentrated on the force lined up north of the forest.
That battle was also fierce with abit of back and forth.
Ultimately the Dwarven line was broken and they retired to Glurg.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the continent, The Anglanders succeeded in subduing the Land of the Broken Tusks and cleared out all the Elvish immigrants. The Elves were not so successful in their continued siege of Buttercupford, which lingered on through the summer.
The armies of Aarkland and Mørke continued their siege of Argha but the desperate defenders held on! Conveniently, being Orcs, they had no trouble at all eating their fallen comrades – of which there were many!
Through the summer King Humperdinck was rarely seen outside his bedchambers, though many messengers came and went (not to mention a number of fine ladies… and the occasional effeminate young man….).
Everyone’s positions at the end of summer/beginning of fall.
Autumn
In the last season of the campaign Anni-frid became a tributary of Aarkland – pretty much assuring Aarkland;s victory in the campaign… I’m not entirely sure why….? Anyway, being now the overlord of the Dwarves, the Aarkalnders retired from the Siege of Argha to Glurg where the Dwarves had retired to after their Defeat at Drek (of course they could have done that simply with the permission of the Dwarves…). The two armies sat in Glurg waiting for the Orcs to come out and play. The Orcs didn’t oblige them. They sat in their capitol and waited for the Dwarves and Aarklanders to come to him…
The Army of Mørke stayed on at Argha to continue the siege, but was unable to take back the city…
King Aethelbert the Almost Ready led his army back to Buttercupford to relieve the siege. In yet another treacherous back-stabbing move the Army of Florin marched out of Rugenville to aid in the relief of Buttercupford…. Would they make it in time…!?
Surprise! The Elvish Mounted Column flanked the main line, dispatched the single stand of Blade actind as a picket, and….
…captured the stronghold!! Wow! No ne saw that coming…!? At least it seems Aethelbert didn’t… maybe that’s why he’s the “Almost Ready”…?
THE END
AND SO… that brought us to the end of our campaign. We were actually done at a decent hour and I don’t think anyone really felt the urge to carry on. I tallied up all the statistics and presented some awards…
The overall winner was Terry with a whopping 72 Prestige points!? Half of that coming from tributaries! Congratulations Terry! Terry got to take home the map I painted and I had picked up a gift certificate from the Dragon’s Den for him.
I gave out three other prizes – they were sort of like trophies but double as “barker markers” (for 28mm figures) – You can see them Here.
The Lord of Battle Award went to the player who won the most battles – that would be the “other” Tim, who won five!!
The Future Necromancer Award went to the player who lost the most stands over the course of the campaign – that would be Jackson, who lost NINETEEN!?
Finally the Bloody Daggar Award went to the most treacherous player who – Chris was voted so!
Once again it was an awesome campaign, thanks again to all the fine gentlemen who came out and made it so!!
It has been brought to my attention that I referred to King Skimpi the Sneak of Halfbad as being a “hero” in the Year One report – Skimpi the Sneak was in fact a Spear General… The Hero in the Army of Half bad was some other nameless Orc goon
Here are the statistics:
Player: Bob
Race: Dwarves
Country: Anni-Frid – tributary of Aarkland
Head of State/Army: Bjorn Bjarnetson, High King of the Dwarves
Cities: Agnetha, Faltskog, Ulvaeus, Lyngstad, Glurg,
Battle Prestige: 0
Prestige from Cities: 30
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 30
Battles Won: 0
Stands Lost: 12
Player: Rick
Race: Elves
Country: Seroza
Head of State/Army: General Venerable Bede
Cities: Horta, Lajes, Pico, Morgond, Black Rock, Buttercupford
Battle Prestige: 20
Prestige from Cities: 36
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 56
Battles Won: 4
Stands Lost: 3
Player: Cory
Race: Anglo-Saxon-ish
Country: Angland
Head of State/Army: King Aethelbert the Almost Ready
Cities: Galordon, Scael, Broken Tusks
Battle Prestige: 12
Prestige from Cities: 18
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 30
Battles Won: 1
Stands Lost: 7
Player: Chris
Race: Norman-ish
Country: Florin
Head of State/Army: King Humperdinck
Cities: Rugenville, West-Leigh,
Battle Prestige: 0
Prestige from Cities: 12
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 12
Battles Won: 0
Stands Lost: 8
Player: Terry Silverthorn
Race: Norsemen
Country: Aarkland
Tributaries: Angland, Anni-frid, Mørke
Head of State: King Häggis
Head of Army: General Lutefisk
Cities: Harag, Drelt, Svaug Gnurl
Battle Prestige: 12
Prestige from Cities: 24
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 36
Total Prestige: 72
Battles Won: 2
Stands Lost: 5
Player: Jackson
Race: Orcs
Country: Mørke
Head of State/Army: Hannurbull
Cities: Waruk
Battle Prestige: 0
Prestige from Cities: 6
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 6
Battles Won: 0
Stands Lost: 19
Player: Tim
Race: Orcs
Country: Halfbad
Head of State/Army: Skimpi the Sneak
Cities: Drek, Grog, Argha
Battle Prestige: 35
Prestige from Cities: 18
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 53
Battles Won: 5
Stands Lost: 10
Player: Christian
Race: Orc
Country: Land of the Bloody Suns
Head of State/Army: Warlord Bork Redtooth of the Bloody Suns Tribe
Cities: None
Battle Prestige: 0
Prestige from Cities: 0
Prestige from Tributaries Cities: 0
Total Prestige: 0
Battles Won: 0
Stands Lost: 4
Awesome after action report there. It's inspiring to see, and I think I will take some inspiration from yours if you don't mind!
ReplyDeleteI certainly learned something though: make those horsey type armies come to you! Don't give them any room to get behind your lines. Either that or feint that you are marching, and then drop back to crush and destroy that small group of elements that were advanced alone. Pretty interesting that it worked three times in a row :)
Great stuff, congrats on your first successful campaign! It was a joy to read and to see it come together over all these months :)
n.
I'll second that. Well done. I look forward to reading more in the future.
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