This past weekend I started off a new A
Song of Blades and Heroes campaign. Large parts are borrowed from Song
of Deeds and Glory (character development, injuries and survival,
etc.), but I’ve added a bit more of an area control element with options to use
as a more abstract area control game or with a map. I don’t completely have the
rules completely hammered out, but when I do I’ll probably post them here. The
first bit of Saturday evening was just going over what I had so far with the
players that showed up. As I didn’t have
a map prepared yet we went with the more abstract area control element
to begin with.
To save some time most of us
decided to use warbands we’d created a month ago for the new fall campaign and
I decided, instead of doing a bunch of erasing on our campaign sheet to start
them as they originally were, we would just use them “as is” with the losses
taken and experience gained as I think each warband had only played one game.
GAME ONE
The Girl’s Kobolds fought Rick’s
Adventurers over a shrine/temple site.
SCENARIO
SCENARIO
The rolled the Take The Land Scenario
– victory points were awarded for holding each of three objectives for a turn
(which were pretty much ignored) or whoever defeated their foe (either from
eliminating them from the table or forcing them to surrender) or if either
group held all three objectives at the end of a turn.
FORCES
The Clan of the Broken Mug (The
Girl’s Kobold warband)
Territories: Village, Pasture
Yimoyik – Koblold Leader – 1XP
Q 3+, C 2, 44 points
Short Move, Leader
Shlugak – Koblold Shaman – 1XP
Q 4+, C 2, 33 points
Short Move, Magic-User
Koblold Chosen Archer – 1XP
Q 4+, C 2, 26 points
Short Move, Gregarious, Shooter
(Medium), Good Shot
14x Koblold Warriors – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 2, @15 points
Short Move, Gregarious
Jackson’s Jedi (Rick’s Band of
adventurers)
Territories: Village, Wood
General Jackson – Human Infantry
Leader
Q 3+, C 4, 70 points
Leader
The Boot – Human Warrior
Q 3+, C 3, 30 points
Boromir – Human Warrior
Q 3+, C 3, 30 points
Virgil – Human Elite Archer
Q 3+, C 3, 50 points
Shooter (long), Unerring Aim
Legolas – Elite Elf ARcher
Q 2+, C 3, 70 points
Shooter (long), Unerring Aim,
Good Shot
Curly - Dwarf Warrior
Q 3+, C 4, 34 points
Short Move
Stormy – Halfling Veteran
Q 4+, C 3, 18 points
Short Move
THE GAME
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)
Rick and The Girl set up and get
started.
The Girl’s Kobolds swarm the
mountain pass!
After a marathon like dash one
of the girls Kobold’s snuck past Rick’s adventurer’s to grab the third
objective location (which the adventurer’s had failed to post a guard on!?)
winning her the game!?
I totally didn’t see that one
coming… Koblods FTW!
It did not come without a cost,
however. A Koblod chosen archer and a Kobold Warrior died in the engagement and
another was injured (but will recover by next game!).
Tha Adventurer’s only casualty,
Virgil – the Elite Human Archer, died of his wounds as well!
The Clan of the Broken Mug
gained a Temple/Shrine site and collected 15 gold from the existing village and
pasture. Not really enough to replace her losses…
Jackson’s Jedi slunk back to
their village and only collected 15 gold as well…
GAME TWO
In the second game – played
concurrently with Rick and The Girl’s – Dave’s goblin horde four The Boy’s new
Bugbear warband over The Vale of Horses a broad pasture with a herd of wild
horses… I think both warbands were thinking they would be mighty tasty!
SCENARIO
SCENARIO
They rolled Burn Them Out
scenario – Dave’s Goblin’s were defending a new barn they’d erected for the
horses of the vale when The Boy’s Bugbears came along wanting to burn it down
and scatter the Goblins to claim the Vale of Horses for themselves!
FORCES
The Dark Mantle - Dave's Goblins
Territories: Village, Wood
Jorlund – Dark Elf Leader – 1XP
Q 2+, C 3, 88 points
EVIL! Heavy Armour, Leader
Loos – Goblin Standard Bearer –
1XP
Q 4+, C 2, 15 points
Standard Bearer
5x Goblin Warriors (Nogg, Crad,
Truj, Shos, Brez) – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 2, 15 points
5x Goblin Light Infantry (Orch,
Lesh, Pinn, Dorg, Crod) – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 1, 8 points
4x Goblin Archers (Nich, Onjj,
Plug, Drin) – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 2, 21 points
Shooter (Medium)
Clan Break Skull - The Boy's Bugbears
Territories: Village, Wood
Nasdreg XIV – bugbear Leader
Q 4+, C 4, 65 Points
Slow, Big, Long Move, Leader
Horgrift – Bugbear Elite Warrior
Q 4+, C 4, 47 points
Slow, Big, Long Move, Steadfast
Thrklod - Bugbear Warrior
Q 4+, C 3, 35 points
Slow, Big, Long Move
Manchuck - Bugbear Warrior
Q 4+, C 3, 35 points
Slow, Big, Long Move
Thur - Bugbear Warrior
Q 4+, C 3, 35 points
Slow, Big, Long Move
Vlur - Bugbear Warrior
Q 4+, C 3, 35 points
Slow, Big, Long Move
Old Ronrut - Bugbear Warrior
Q 4+, C 3, 35 points
Slow, Big, Long Move
Dave’s Goblins all set up within
one Long of the “barn” in the center of the table. The Boy’s Bugbears could set
up within one Short of any edge – but not within one Long of any of Dave’s
Goblins. Three of them are carrying torches (marked with red glass bead)
The Bugbears rushed in smashing
and stomping – but the Goblin’s held them off – for a spell…
Bugbears were even knocked down!
A gruesomly killed Goblin caused
some of his kin to run, but they quickly rallied and continued their brave
defence of their ramshackle barn-like building.
Eventually they started
suffering more losses…
Finally a Bugbear broke through
and set fire to the building. At that point the Goblins decided to call it a
day and fled!
The Bugbears only suffered one
casualty – Old Ronrut. Old Ronrut wasn’t long for this world anyway, and died
of his wounds.
The Bugbears added the Vale of
Horses to their territories and collected 15 gold from the Village and Wood
they already owned. Not enough to replace a good old Bugbear warrior like Old
Ronrut, but that seems to be a common theme to this first round of the new campaign
system…
Dave’s goblins suffered even
worse… Two of his warriors had been gruesomely killed on the battlefield. He’s
suffered six other casualties as well – four spearmen and two archers. Luckily
none of them actually died! Two suffered serious enough injuries that they will
miss a game, two others will be -1Q for their next game and the other two will
be fully recovered from their (relatively) minor injuries! Dave collected 15
gold for his Village and Wood.
GAME THREE
After Dave and The Boy finished
up, Patrick and I set up a game. My Halflings had discovered an old Witch’s
Cabin in the woods and decided to claim it as our own. just after our arrival
Nuri, Lord of the Frosted Vale, and his band of Dwarvish thugs arrived and
decided the old witch should be under THEIR “protection”…
SCENARIO
SCENARIO
We rolled the Place of Power
scenario – which we decided should be the Witch’s Cabin.
FORCES
The Halfling Hollow Defence
Committee
Territories: Village, Field
PIC
Randall Ferfut – Halfling
Leader – 1XP
Q 3+, C 3, 54 Points
Short Move, Leader
Baldwin the Bold – Halfling
Wizard – 1XP
Q 4+, C 1, 26Points
Short Move, Magic-User
5x Halfling Spearmen – Nigel,
Noddy, Francis, Terry, and Orville – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 2, @11Points
Short Move,
2x Halfling Veterans – Sandy and
Grenf – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 3, @18 Points
Short Move,
3x Halfling Villagers – Hollis,
Berg, Kinkle – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 1, @6 Points
Short Move, Shooter (short)
5x Halfling Archers – Corky,
Narned, Finkwit, Albernak, Ronwen – 1XP each
Q 4+, C 2, @17 Points
Short Move, Shooter (Medium)
Nuri, Lord of the Frosted Vale
(Patrick’s Dwarves)
Territories: Village, Wood
Nuri Frostbeard – Dwarf
Commander – 1XP
Q 2+, C 3, 95 points
Leader, Fearless
(Originally he was C4 but was
seriously injured in battle over a Dragon’s
Egg
Burik One-eye – Elite Warrior –
1XP
Q 3+, C 4, 46 points
Short Move, Steadfast, Fearless
Ertha Peakmaiden – Elite Warrior
Q 3+, C 4, 46 points
Short Move, Steadfast, Fearless
No XP because she was a new
recruit, replacing her sister Valia who died in the battle over the Dragon’s
Egg
Alvin “Bootless” Goodbarrel –
Halfling Theif – 1XP
Q 3+, C 1, 16 points
Short Move, Stealth, Free
Disengage
Duri Frostbeard– Elite Dwarf
Archer – 1XP
Q 3+, C 3, 38 points,
Shooter (Medium), Short Move,
Good Shot
THE GAME
THE GAME
The Halfling Hollow Defence
Committee, lead by Randall Ferfut, spies Nuri, Lord of the Frosted Vale, and
his band of Dwarvish thugs crossing the creek beyond the Witch’s Cabin.
Slowly, but surely the brave
Halflings advanced and advised the Dwarves this was now part of Halfling Hollow
and they’d best clear off!
Duri Frostbeard stepped forward
and put an arrow through poor Orvill Softoes
Due to the Greusome nature of
Poor Orvil’s death, the courage of some of the Halflings wavered and they were
temporarily put to flight.
(At least it wasn’t a total route like when Kane Pickledrum
took an arrow in the throat at Dragon’s
Pass…)
Terry Baconrind stood firm, not
wanting to leave the side of his fallen comrade. Nuri Frostbeard himself
charged in against him, hoping to set the rest of the Halflings to flight.
Inspired by Terry’s stand the
rest of the Halflings recovered their courage and returned to the fight.
Francis Breadboard was the first to come to Terry’s aid.
The rest of the Halflings
swarmed in as the situation with Terry and Francis looked pretty desperate with
all the Dwarves ganging up on them….
Then Ertha Peakmaiden cleaved
poor Francis Breadboard and his giant shield in two…
The hideous cry and fountain of
blood set many of the Halflings to flight AGAIN! Terry Baconrind himself could
stand it no further and turned to flee, only to be cut down by Nuri Frostbeard.
Hoping to capitalize on the flight
of the Halflings Nuri Frostbeard, Burik One-eye and the traitor Alvin
“bootless” Goodbarrel, surged forward to keep them fleeing. But Ronwen Clearbrew caught Nuri in the thigh with
a well-placed (lucky) shot and caused him to stumble, at that moment Corky
Oldroot fired a second shot and caught him in the chest – under his arm – and
Nuri Frostbeard fell…
The Dwarves held steady, but
traitor Alvin “bootless” Goodbarrel was shaken and fearing the retribution the
Halflings might exact on him should the rest of his Dwarven companions fall,
fled, temporarily and sought cover behind Ertha Peakmaiden. Alvin’s flight was
cut short when Ertha chided, “are there no MEN among your kind…?”
Sandy and Grenf Burfoot, the two
most experienced in the ways of war took this opportunity to charge Burik
One-Eye – hoping their numbers might take the giant of a Dwarf down. Nigel,
inspired by the brothers, joined in.
Before the Massive Dwarf could
be taken down, however, the rest of the band came to his aid. Sandy was taken
down by Ertha Peakmaiden, and then finished off with a quick stab from the
treacherous Alvin… Burrik took a wild swing with his axe and took Nigel’s head
was cut clean off. With the loss
of his brother on one side and being sprayed with Nigel’s blood from the other,
Grenf lost his will to carry on and turned to flee, only to be stabbed in the
back by Alvin…
This put the rest of the warband
to flight again…
With all of the spear swordsmen
gone, Randall Ferfut rallied the remaining archers and made one last desperate
attempt to drive off the dwarves under a hail of arrows.
Alvin caught one of those arrows
and was taken out of action. Then Ertha Peakmaiden was also felled by and arrow
– though there may have been some dark magic at work as well…
Burik One-Eye, fearless and enraged, charged the Halfling
archers on the hill and, despite being surrounded and outnumbered, cut three
more Halflings down before they finally gave up and fled…
The Halflings losses were severe. Orvill Softoes, Francis
Breadboard, and Nigel Withershins were all brutally slain in the battle. Sandy
and Grenf Burfoot and Terry Baconrind died of their wounds later in the day.
Ronwen Clearbrew’s leg was shattered and won’t be able to fight for some time.
Hollis Neircreek and Corky Oldroot were also wounded in the fight, but will
likely be back on their feet in short order… a paltry 15 gold was raised by the
village folk… not nearly enough to equip and train up enough new villagers to
replace these losses….
The traitorous Alvin Goodbarrel’s injuries proved grave,
but, unfortunately not fatal…
Ertha Peakmaiden died of her wounds and Nuri Frostbeard’s injuries
required expensive surgery – depleting the Dwarves coffers… The old witch
better come up with some good potions, because this foul little patch of the
valley was hardly worth the blood that was spilled over it otherwise…
Amanda also had a warband present Saturday night, but being
the odd one out decided to have an early night – we had been out late the night
before at our biweekly Savage
Worlds/Realms
of Cthulhu game. Perhaps her women warriors will see some action next
week!
Hopefully by next week I’ll have finished up the campaign
rules and we’ll forge ahead with some more of this campaign!
Saturday had been a busy day. Before these skirmish games in
the evening…
I’d hosted a four and a half hour, five-player game of Warrior
Knights… It was pretty awesome. The Boy and I played with Bruce (who runs the Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu game on Friday nights), Bob
Oh, and the kids and I played an
ECW-DBA
game on friday - if you missed that report…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Working on some English Civil War horse and 40K Imperial
Guard. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pictures of those before the week is
though.
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