May Games

Here are the games we played in May of 2025. We did not play so many games this month. There's been a lot going on. It's a long story... 

Tuesday, 6 May 2025

On the first Tuesday evening in May, we continued the Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes campaign - the Campaign for Ravensflight. In this adventure, our heroes tried to track down the ratlings that had attacked the hamlet of Gromlet. While tracking them they were ambushed by Ratling Assassins, who were all despatched, and then they successfully found the Ratling camp and slayed more of the survivors of the raid... but there was clearly a larger base of operation deeper in the mountains and it was decided it would be best to return to Gromlet and try to raise a larger force to attack the ratling base of operations! 

You can read all about it (and see more pictures) here:

Campaign for Ravensflight - The Pursuit of the Ratlings

Sunday, 11 May 2025

The next journey planned for Warhammer Quest was a Decaptiation Journey, which tend to be a bit longer, so we decided not to play on Wednesday evening and held off until the following Sunday when we'd have more time... 

We played through the Whispers in the Dark Decapitation Journey - to take out Torgilius the Chamberlain! The Journey was a success as Torgilius and all his phylacteries were destroyed! 

There might be a Game Report at some point... I'm just a bit behind on those.. I did take pictures, though...

Tuesday, 13 May 2025

The following Tuesday evening we played another game in the Campaign for Ravensflight. In this game the retinue had returned to Gromlet to raise a larger group of conscripts to march on the Ratlings lair deep in the mountains... it... did NOT go well... 

You can read all about it here:

Campaign for Ravensflight - Assault on the Ratlings Lair! 

So disastrous was the outcome, that we needed to just start a whole new campaign!

Maybe... I'd like to... but with all the other stuff going on, it was hard enough to get the Warhammer Quest games in... and June is a VERY BUSY month for Orion... Perhaps later in the Summer. 

(Maybe I'll get some solo games in throughout June!?) 

Wednesday, 28 May 2025

It wasn't until almost the end of the month that we FINALLY back to playing Warhammer Underworlds! Amanda and Finnegan decided they wanted to go on one more Scavenge Journey before facing the Ven Alten Trio... to tool up with some badass vampire-slaying enhancements... it was largely a success, though there were a few tense moments! 

So... yeah... Not lots, but fun was had. 

After getting in this game of Warhammer Quest, I'm feeling a bit more positive that we'll get playing games again. As I mentioned, Orion is very busy through June, but hopefully we can get back to weekly Warhammer Quest games and maybe I'll FINALLY get in that next game of Five Parsecs from Home that I've been sitting on for over a year!?

Campaign for Ravensflight - Assault on the Ratlings Lair!

This is a game report for this week's adventure in our Campaign for Ravensflight - a tabletop adventure campaign using Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes!

After Pursuing the Ratling Raiders to their camp after the Defence of Gromlet, Lady Ismira Ravensflight returned to Gromlet to raise a larger force to assault the Ratlings lair, deeper into the mountains. Some were deeply saddened by the loss of their friends at the hands of the brutal Ratling Assassins that waylaid the party during the pursuit. Many more were buoyed by the tales of Lady Ismira's daring and bravery - and the number of Ratlings slain - at the Ratlings camp. A number of additional farmers and woodsmen volunteered to join the expedition. More importantly, two retired warriors were recruited! 

Karl was a soldier from the Vale of Ravensflight that marched off to war with Lady Ismira's parents over two decades earlier, campaigning with them for a dozen years or so. Ten years ago he returned to the Vale with a husband he'd met and married while on campaign and the two settled into a farmstead near Gromlet! Not the most deadly or well armed of warriors... They were definitely a step up from the farmers armed with pitchforks!  

Preparing to assault the Ratlings Lair... 

Lady Ismira and her retinue enter the Lair of the Ratlings... 

Erik charged after a Ratling slinger that had been harrying the party, pelting them with stones... unfortunately every time Erik took a swing at the filthy little beast, it would duck and slink back further into the shadows. 

Lady Ismira, always one to lead from the front, was attacked by a Ratling Assassin! It leapt upon her stabbing deeply into her neck! The group panicked and about half of them fled out of the cavern. Luckily a few had teh wherewithal to drag their wounded Lady with them! 

Kark and Erik continued trying to take down the Ratling slinger. Two of the woodsmen/archer remained along with Megan... 

Raloros regained his wits and returned to help out, though things were getting increasingly desperate! 

MORE Ratlings kept arriving - drawn by the sound of fighting! 

A pair of them assaulted Raloros. One tackled his legs bringing him down. The other lept on his chest stabbing him repeatedly while Raloros screamed... 

So... in Song of Blades and Heroes combat is worked out by each player rolling a d6 and adding or subtracting any modifiers and comparing rolls... if one character doubles the other, they have taken their opponent out of action - though the character taken out of action can roll for survival later to see if they survived their wounds... If one combatant triples the result of the other it is a gruesome kill... the character dies instantly and all friendlies within a certain distance make an instant morale check... 

Raloros rolled a one... to which nothing was added because his combat ability was cancelled out by being outnumbered and the powerful blow the Ratling dealt... 

The ratling attacker ended with modified roll of EIGHT.... so... EIGHT TIMES what Raloros rolled... so he was SUUUUUPER DEAD!? 

At this point it was decided to cut losses and make their way out... 

Unfortunately a Ratling warrior cut down Karl as he retreated. 

The Erik was knocked down while he tried to retrive his fallen lover... 

He briefly got up again, but was overwhelmed by Ratlings and cut down... 

After the battle Orion rolled to see if Lady Ismira survived her injuries... and rolled THREE FAILURES... and died... 

and... that was it for the campaign!? 

With Lady Ismira dead (along with Raloros...) there was no real point in continuing... 

It was decided that Megan and Amelia decided to settle on a farmstead near Gromlet and give up on their life of adventure. They adopted young Yorrick and raised her as their own. Amelia's sister Luciana stayed on with them for a time, but eventually heard the call of adventure and had to move on. 

We decided to reboot the campaign with a party of Dwarves that would enter the Vale of Ravensflight from the Northwest - tho opposite direction from which Lady Ismira and her retinue had approached. They would be tasked with recovering some artifacts which had been gifted the Ravensflight family, now that the last of their line had passed... 

And that's the Campaign for Ravensflight Game Reports all caught up! I still have three to do for Warhammer Quest and one for Bolt Action... 

Campaign for Ravensflight - The Pursuit of the Ratlings

This, finally, is the game report for the games played last week in our Campaign for Ravensflight - a tabletop adventure campaign using Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes!

After the Defence of Gromlet, Lady Ismira and her retinue decided to pursue the surviving Ratling Raiders hoping to track them back to their lair and destroy that threat once and for all... 

They were not able to pursue instantly... They waited for morning and quickly tried to press a number of Farmers and Woodsmen into service! They ended up with only a handful and left shortly after lunch... 

The progress was slow, but the tracks were clear and easy enough to follow. 

As evening approached it was decided to set up camp for the night. Watch shifts were detailed and those not standing sentry tried to get a few hours of fitful sleep. 

During the last shift before dawn, Raloros - the Spellcaster (Played by Finnegan), was standing guard with two farmers - brothers; Jake and Elwood. Jake and Elwood had secretly got into the supply of spirits and had gotten quite drunk and fallen asleep. 

A few Ratling Assassins snuck into camp and before Raloros could do anything or wake anyone, they struck - killing several of the farmers! So horrified was Raloros, they ran off into the woods in fear! 

Lady Ismira Ravensflight is a light sleeper and was one of the first up and fighting back against the Ratlings. 

Raloros also regained their composure and aided by Lady Ismira by making the Ratling Assassins fall into a magical slumber... 

Luciana killed one of the assassins with her crossbow! 

Ratling Assassin desperately tried to wake up his sleeping compatriot... but was cut down before he could! 

Teh following day the remains of the retinue buried their dead and continued tracking the ratlings... 

They came upon their raiding camp and approached it under cover of darkness... A lot more Ratlings were awake at night! 

Luciana shot down one of the sentries. 

Lady Ismira charged out into the camp, cutting down ratlings left and right! 

The others were bewildered by her insane bravery!?

Most hung back and shot at the scrambling Ratlings! 

Megan, who was STILL recovering from her initial injuries... was injured again... eventually the Ratlings were overpowered and when the Ratling Commander and Wizard were slain, the rest melted into the woods... 

The party scouted ahead and discovered this was not the Ratlings main base of operations, it was mearly a forward raiding camp. Though they did not go all the way there, it was clear there was a more permanent lair deeper in the mountains. It was decided they should return to Gromlet and raise a larger contingent to march on the Ratlings lair! 

Campaign for Ravensflight - The Defence of Gromlet!

I've gotten a bit behind on these as well... so... 

A few weeks back, the Retinue of Lady Ismira Ravensflight buried their companion Yodrick and continued along their way to the Hamlert of Gromlet. Along their way they noted abandoned farmsteads. It was difficult to tell what had become of the inhabitants. 

Had the families died of plague? Had they been murdered by raiding ratlings? Some had been burned down. Other simply abandoned. Some were abandoned long ago, others more recently. 

When they finally came upon an inhabited farmstead, they discovered they were very close to Gromlet. There were quite a few farmsteads now packed in tightly around the hamlet. Indeed, the hamlet itself was a small cluster of a half-dozen or so farmsteads with a small community hall and dilapidated chapel and a blacksmith.  

The community was ambivalent to the arrival of a feudal lord returned to reclaim their ancestral lands, complaining that they'd already been taxed twice this season... and it wasn't even harvest time! The tax collectors claimed to be the King's tax collectors, though when leaving the capitol, the King himself said taxes had not been collected from the region for many years and stated that was one of the main reasons he'd urged Lady Ismira to return to her lands

The community was shocked and dismayed that the retinue had encountered ratlings on the road, which they had slain, and now feared reprisals. The Ratlings had been a nuisance for more than a few years now, but the villagers had discovered if they put up no resistance and let the ratling raiders steal the occasional livestock (or small children) they wouldn't kill too many of villagers - to them it was just ANOTHER tax they had to pay. 

Originally, Lady Ismira had planned to continue her march to Ravendown, but stayed on to pacify and show she was willing and able to protect her peoples against the scourge of the ratlings.

As the villagers seemed to think they ratlings always came from the East, they camped out in the farmstead furthest to the east for the first night, saying they would sound Lady Ismira's war horn as a signal for all of the villagers to come to the defence of the town... Luckily, nothing happened. 

It occurred to them however, that there was likely little chance that anyone in the region would HEAR the warhorn in their farms, spread out over several miles, and fewer would bother to answer the call. The next day, they arranged for a group to stay each night at the community hall and some would keep watch and if there were signs of a raid, would march out from the central location. Some were not impressed with this idea - as it would mean the outlying farms - in which ever direction the ratlings came from would surly be razed (and possibly occupants killed!) be the response group could possibly get there... but they also could not be sure where the ratlings would come from and which farm would be hit first. 

A very small group of farmers and a woodsman armed with a bow gathered to stay at the community hall. As it turned out the second evening the ratlings did attack. The sentries keeping watch alerted and woke up the group in the hall after they spotted a fire off to the east. Shortly thereafter, farmers and their families from the eastern farmstead came running into the hamlet proper fleeing the ratlings. 

The group marched out to meet their foes... 

The met the Ratling Raiding Party near one of the farmsteads east of Gromlet! 

The defenders quickly took up positions at a hedge surrounding the farmstead.

The Ratlings attacked! 

The Ratlings had a wizard who was throwing fireballs around, lighting up the night! 

The Ratling Wizard (or "Rizard", as the players kept calling it?!) made the mistake of getting too close to Granny... 

pelting it with stones, the Rizard was taken out of action! 

(I think it might have been a Gruesome kill and half the ratlings failed morale and fled...? this is what happens when I write game reports three weeks after the fact...) 

Ratlings attack the other hedge line and Lady Ismira fights the Ratling Commander! 

At one point, Lady Ismira was knocked down and things looked a little perilous... 

But she got back up and cut that Ratling commander down and the rest of the Ratlings fled into the night! 

Of the Raiders, only about half were slain and it was decided that they should raise a force to track them back to their lair and deal with them for good! 

April Games

 Here is what we got up to in April... 

(Usually with any miniature games I provide a link to the game report... but I'm about a month behind on most battle reports... so.. maybe in May I'll get the April game reports done...?)

Wednesday, 2 April 2025

Back to Warhammer Quest! We took a week off while Finnegan finished up some school work for the end of term, but now he is done and we are free to continue our weekly game unabated! 

This week was a simple hunt, but saw the first appearance of Torgilius the Chamberlain... who isn't TOO much of a treat, if dealt with quickly! 

Wednesday, 9 April 2025

Another game of Warhammer Quest. This one was a Deliverance Journey. Same characters as the previous week. The Journey was a success and now half of them are at Level Three. 

Thursday, 10 April 2025

Thursday Orion stopped by and we played some more Bolt Action! 

Tuesday, 15 April 2025

Since the Soulbound game kind of fizzled, I started a NEW sort-of-role-playing campaign on Tuesday evenings! I'm using Advance Song of Blades and Heroes for the action and maybe a mix of campaign elements from Advance Song of Blades and Heroes (ASOBH), Song of Deeds and Glory, and Five Leagues from the Borderland... 

Amanda is playing an assassin named Megan, Finnegan is playing an apprentice wizard named Ralores, and Orion is playing a knight named Lady Ismira! With them were a few other attendants and warriors in their retinue! 

We made up the warband and played a quick encounter to learn the combat rules this evening. You can read a brief game report here:

Journey to the Vale of Ravensflight

You can find the Campaign Page here (to see the most up-to-date status of the adventuring party and find links to all their adventures...):

Campaign for Ravensflight

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

This week's Warhammer Quest game saw Radukar the Wolf show up for the first time... 

It... did not go well... 

Eventually I will write up a game report and you can read all about it.. 

Tuesday, 22 April 2025

We played the second adventure in our new fantasy sort-of-role-playing campaign this week. It was mostly role-playing, actually!? Which kind of set things up for a battle the following week! 

Tuesday, 29 April 2025

We played a third session of the Song of Blades and Heroes campaign. The Heroes defended the small hamlet of Gromlet against a horde of Ratlings bend on revenge after the heroes had slain a number of their kin along the road to Gromlet in the first session! 

Wednesday, 30 April 2025

Back to Warhammer Quest... 

And that was it... 

Campaign for Ravensflight - Journey to the Vale of Ravensflight

I've been kind of wanting to run a different sort of role-playing game since the Soulbound campaign kind of fizzled... and was thinking of using Five Leagues from the Borderlands for generating the events of the campaign, but maybe using A Song of Blades and Heroes for combat resolution (and maybe elements of Tales of Blades and Heroes for non-combat task resolution...?) 

It has been almost a decade since I last played A Song of Blades and Heroes - the last catalogued play on Board Game Geek was in November of 2015. The following year I picked up ADVANCED Song of Blades and Heroes (ASOBH) when it was released... but then never really got around to playing it until NOW!? 

Tuesday evening Amanda, Finnegan, Orion and I got together to make up a warband/adventuring party and played out a quick encounter to learn the rules for ASOBH!

The basic background I had set out for the campaign was there has been a protracted period of instability caused by a war (and/or civil war) followed by a plague. Their retinue was journeying to a remote region of The Realm that has fallen into chaos. The knight or baron that used to oversee the region had marched off to war a few decades earlier and never returned. Whether appointed to do so by a higher authority (the king or queen him/herself, or maybe a Duke...?) to bring the region back under control and help protect the common people or even permanently take control of the region themselves... or they were just going there on their own thinking there could be money to be made and opportunity to begin carving out a kingdom by their own sword... 

It was up to them how their party was formed... They could be a knight and their retinue... They could be a wizard with apprentices and guards... They could be a anarcho-syndicalist commune that each take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting...?

They chose the former option. Orion decided to play a Knight of the Realm - Largely as an excuse to finally paint her Emelda Braskov miniature from Warhammer Quest: cursed City! She is Lady Ismira - the daughter of the Knights that had left on campaign over two decades earlier, before their daughter was even born, and had never returned. Lady Ismira is leading a retinue to reclaim her ancestral lands! 

I said each could play about 100 points worth of stuff - which would make the warband/retinue about 300 points - the suggested size for an average game. Orion's Knight was just over 100 points. 

Amanda took an Assassin and a Veteran Archer. The Assassin, Megan, was trying to escape her life before it was ended prematurely by rivals or friends of victims bent of vengeance. Along the road she met up with Lady Ismira's retinue and offered up her services as a "scout". Amelia - the Veteran Archer - is the older sister of one of Finnegan's characters, who went off to serve in the army after her younger sister was conscripted - to protect her! 

Finnegan ended up with THREE characters! First was Ralores, an apprentice spellcaster, who'd spent almost all of his life living in the Capital serving the Grand Wizard of the Realm. At some point the Grand Wizard of the Realm decided Ralores was a little too "sheltered" and needed some "practical" experience of magic - and the world around them. So when a request for a wizard to accompany a Knight of the Realm on a quest to retake their ancestral homeland came up, Ralores was volunteered for the job! 

The others were Luciana, the younger of Amelia the Archer, a peasant who was conscripted to serve in the Realm's Army near the end of the long wars. She was trained with the Crossbow and fought in many battles alongside her sister under the command of Lady Ismira! And finally there was Yodrick, who had joined the Lady Isimira's Retinue after parting ways with a mercenary company he'd served with for many years during The Wars. 

They also decided they needed a pack animal and found on of my Dungeons and Doggies miniatures that fit the bill... and then a wee child they figured could be the "dog handler". 

I had determined that the Kingdom would be predominantly human. The society/technology level is very much early mediaeval-feudal. Dwarves and Halflings are common enough. Though halflings generally keep to their own in their own rural communities. Dwarves are often free tradesmen or miners. 

Elves are a bit less common. They very definitely prefer to keep to themselves in their own kingdoms deep in the forest or islands off in the sea. 

the adventure began with the group marching along a route they hoped would take them to Lady Ismira's ancestral homelands - a place she had never before visited! 

One afternoon they found their way blocked by a small group of shabby little ratlings, intent on robbing them! 

Lady Ismira's retinue held their ground! 

(I know... using unpainted miniatures... Finnegan insisted on wanting to use his own miniatures... which he has zero interest in painting... ever... and I didn't want to wait a week to play... so I allowed it just this ONCE)

(and now I have to paint his miniatures for him!?) 

Wow! Gregarious Ratlings with a leader can really move! in a turn or two they were upon them, swarming Lady Ismira and Megan the Assassin... er... SCOUT! 

Yodrick stepped in to aid Megan and knocked away one of the Ratlings, then moved to attack one that was swarming Lady Ismira, only to be stabbed in the side with one of their cruelly sharp rusty blades and topped over, blood pouring out of him... 

A ratling armed with a sling loosed a stone and hit Megan square in the forehead and she pitched down, quite unconscious! 

things were not looking great... the player were wondering if I was going to TPK the lot of them on THE FIRST GAME!? 

Eventually they got control of the situation, thanks in large part to Ralores, the Apprentice Spellcaster, who EVERYONE had expected very little from... but ended up being EXTREMELY helpful, being able to put hostile ratlings to sleep with his magiks! It didn't kill them or take them entirely out of the action... but it effectively removed them, if only temporarily, from the action and made them very easy to despatch! 

After the ratlings had been killed or driven off, they checked on Yodrick only to discover he'd bled out and died. Megan was in a very bad way as well - she'd been concussed very badly and in a coma-like-state. They draped her body over Hamlet the dog and hurried on their way hoping to come across a village that might have a healer! 

(she will miss the next encounter and the one after that will be at reduce Quality!) 

And thats where our story ended for the first session. Hopefully we'll be playing again next week and this will go a little better than the Soulbound campaign! 

I still have game reports from last week to do... but this was too much fun and I just would not have been able to concentrate on those until I got this out of my head!!