After the last game left us in a somber mood we decided to run this game as a prime example of damage control.

What happened so far…

Roland von Metternich hired a group of maximum diversity for a minimum of cash to accompany him to Lands Far Away. He was promised a sizeable inheritance from a remote uncle who recently passed. Roland intends to pick it up in person. 

To get rid of authorities and debt-collectors who were after them our adventurers heroically fled into beastmen-infested forests. After having slipped through the grasp of the beastmen horde they finally arrived at the town of Trondberg which promised safety, supplies and a good base of operations for journeying on. 

The beastmen, seeing as Roland’s gang massacred a lot of their fellow tribespeople, want Roland and his friends dead and launch a raid on Trondberg. During this raid our heroes manage to save most of the civilians from the grasp of the nasty beastmen and hole up in a fortified manor by the town square. Unfortunately Thrasher Garglurk, a promising Blood Bowl talent with rage issues, was killed by the beastmen.

Yorimasu, disgraced master archer from the far lands of Nippon, along with two civilians, didn’t make it to the fortified manor in time and were taken prisoner by the beastmen.

After spending the night in the fortified manor, trying to rest up while the occasional drunk band of beastmen launches an attack against the manor, Roland dresses the ranks of civilians, remaining city watch and …others who seeked shelter in the fortified manor. He needs to assemble a band of warriors to launch a counter-attack and save the prisoners.

 

The Heroes

As per Erwin von Metternich’s military manuals on infantry combat which Roland had to study as a kid he knows that four is the perfect number of warriors in each team of heroic good guys.

Roland’s first choice is an athletic looking chap who comes with the perk of bringing his own equipment and not charging any money to fight, because he needs to get out of the belaguered town as much as anybody else. He introduces himself as Genericus, wears ancient Tilean show fighter kit, and is a bit disappointed that nobody in the room has head of him. 

For the fourth member of the game the mayor’s old secretary volunteers. Much to everyone’s surprise he claims to have an adventuring past. He went by the name of Dashing Robert, and, so the old man explains, he expects to be addressed as such in the field. He leaves the room and has a boy help him get his stuff from a box in the attic. About half an hour later Dashing Robert returns with his old uniform, a leather skull cap and a Hochland long rifle.

So here they are, once more ready for action.

Dashing Robert is armed with a dagger and a Hochland long rifle. Rules-wise we treat it as an arbalest. He has the traits Crossbow (Arbalest) III, Sniper, Fire into Melée, Slow Move. So basically a shooty man with a bad foot.

Genericus is armed with sword, shield and light armour. He has the following traits: Horde Fighter II, Fighter (Sword) II, Armour I, Shield II, Greedy.

 

The Scenario

Our heroes are ready to move out and attack the pillaging bands of beastmen. They just finished the general looting and trashing of the neighborhood and loaded all carts they could find with riches and wine. Unconscious Yorimasu is also loaded onto one of the carts, and the townsfolks taken prisoner got their hands tied to the other carts. If Roland’s warband is to free them they have to do it now before the carts get away.

This is the table layout:

The player characters start at the red line. The objective is to stop the three carts (yellow dots) from leaving the table at either of the exit points indicated by yellow arrows.

The two carts to either side have one townsfolk prisoner with them and are pulled by a group of three Ungor warriors each. The centre cart contains Yorimasu on top of a heap of loot. The cart is drawn by a Bestigor who claims the loot and the prisoner as his personal treasure.

Apart from that a group of three beastmen warriors starts on the table, along with four more single beastmen and one Bestigor. As opposed to the last game house doors now count as Ambush points and Trap! cards are in effect.

I basically made the scenario up on the spot. Well, an hour before the game, sitting down at the computer.

 

The Game

Dashing Robert starts by firing at the solitary Bestigor running around. These will be his prime targets since his gun does 2 points of damage per hit. Genericus and Roland move forward through the torn down barricades on the town square. Meanwhile Tasha tries to get in position to destroy the horde of beastmen on the town square with a well placed death cloud.

Robert starts reloading his rifle (which is quite a procedure; 2 actions). Tasha, gritting her teeth as she realizes that things look dim for a good death cloud, throws magic darts at the nearest beastmen and kills the creature.

Genericus jogs towards the first cart as the burning Inn’s door slams open and a beastman with a young woman (kicking and screaming) in tow appears, trying to carry her off the table.

Genericus dashes forward, throws himself against the horde of Ungors and makes short work of the nasty creatures.

Roland, seeing that the situation is in hand here, moves on to the centre cart.

The Bestigor’s wounded by a musket ball courtesy of Dashing Robert, so Roland charges in and kills the beast. Yorimasu is still unconscious, but safe for now. Without losing a moment’s time he charges on to stop the third cart from getting away.

Meanwhile Tasha and Robert’s situation is getting increasingly tense. Robert has been busy shooting at Bestigors a long stretches of reloading in between shots. Tasha’s magic darts prove to be less effective than they should. Clearly, the presence of so much evil negatively impacts the delicate balance of the winds of magic.

The beastmen start breaking through and Tasha finds herself locked in close combat.

After a quick and violent duel she kills the beastman with her huge, impressive dagger. Another beast storms at her, wounds her lightly, but in turn she disposes of the second attacker as well.

After having secured the first cart, Genericus instantly moves on to save the girl from the claws of the nasty beastman from the inn. They commence duelling as another beastman lunges from the door and at Genericus.

The gladiator manages to cut both of the creatures down and helps the girl up who introduces herself as Gretchen, the waitress at the Inn. She was in the winecellar when the beastmen attacked and couldn’t get out fast enough, so she hid in an empty barrel. When the beastmen emptied one barrel after another they eventually found her and came to take her away (ha-haaa).

While Gretchen and Genericus share a tender moment Roland reduces the horde of three Ungors to just one. He’s a feisty one though. He uses his banner to startle Roland’s warhorse. The nobleman gets thrown off the saddle and takes a hard fall onto the cobblestone road.

This is far from the first time this happens to Roland though. Once more applying the Metternich Maneuver the Ungor is dealt with.

As he gets up and tells the just freed peasant to help him get the cart back to the fortified manor another beastman ambushes Roland!

The creature must have slept off the effects of the past night in the stable across the road. Roland spins around and slays the monster.

Here’s an overview of this phase of the game:

Tasha and Dashing Robert hang back at the entrance to the fortified manor and keep opposition away. Easier said than done since the winds of magic seem to get weaker by the minute and on top of it all it’s starting to rain.

Roland just resolved problems at his end of things and grabs for the cart to get it (along with the old man) back to safety as several beastmen are rushing at him.

Genericus is still delighted with the waitress’s presence, but eventually the two snap out of it and Genericus starts pulling the wine cart towards the manor.

Tasha, getting frustrated with her magic darts fizzling out (she’d been hit by two Mana Flux cards in quick succession, for a total of -4 on all magic rolls for the rest of the game), decides to help pulling carts. She takes control of the wine cart and leading Gretchen and the boy towards the manor. Slightly disgruntled Genericus takes care of pulling the big cart with Yorimasu on top. Tasha isn’t having a great time either as she steps onto one of these ever-present scorpions (reducing her to 1 hit point).

 

Dashing Robert slowly hobbles (his feet aren’t that well anyway, the huge rifle and the bad weather don’t help) behind the market tables. He gives some fire support to keep that nasty bestigor coming up from the right flank in check.

Soon thereafter the inevitable traffic jam comes to be. Genericus has to wait for Tasha and Roland to get their carts sorted.

Tasha realizes that parking a wine cart is really tricky. Roland shouts useful advice (in his mind) to Tasha. One of the town guardsmen chimes in with different useful advice, but is quickly silenced by a witchy stare.

While all of this is happening two more beastmen storm out of the Inn, filled to the tip of their horns with ill intent.

In a swift flurry of action Genericus hacks down the attackers and resumes his waiting position in front of the cart. Eventually the traffic jam is resolved and Genericus steers the big cart to the manor’s entrance.

The beastmen realize that the party is over and withdraw. Tasha is exhausted and sinks down on a chair by one of the heaps of market wares. She notices a little bag of fine coffee beans right next to her and pockets it. I deserve that, she decides.

 

Debriefing

Roland gets Yorimasu off the cart and gets out a small bottle of smelling salts to help get the bowman back on his feet. The news of Thrasher’s demise sadden him, but he takes comfort in knowing that the Orc died in an honorable way (more or less).

Genericus joins Roland von Metternich’s party and thus fills Thrasher’s spot. Dashing Robert of course stays in Trondberg. This last ride as an adventurer was fun, but he has a job here, running admin for the still-absent mayor.

Having a Roland and a Robert in the group would lead to endless confusion as well, so it’s for the best.

Well, that went much better than last time. I’m okay with Sellswords and Spellslingers again. 😛 In hindsight I think the scenario would be a bit more gripping if the carts got to move more often. To keep things simple we just kept to the carts to activate as the baddies would usually by event cards. One possible rule for the cart movement would be to have them activate each time the last of the player characters activated. During this game the carts barely moved before they were stopped. To be fair though, we rolled really well this time, especially me. Genericus had three or more turns in which he got four actions each.

So yeah, that was one of the game in which everything goes as planned, apart from the Mana Flux problems.

Here we got our heroes, ready for new adventures.

Don’t worry, Roland’s warhorse will return.

But is this the end of the onslaught of the beastmen tribe? Or is the biggest attack yet to come? Stay tuned for further adventures!