Midgard The Iron Valley Campaign, Game 1

 We decided to fight our way through The Iron Valley, a goblet-sized fantasy campaign for Midgard. Mark is playing the Orcs, I'm taking the Dwarves and Colin will sit in as a sub-general for which ever force is the largest.

Scenario A: The Liberation of Krumpendorf, Prinz Schlagbert leads an assault to drive off the orcish invaders. I went for a strong force with two units of Long Axes and a unit of Troll Foes, supported by a unit of Tree-Clawers (forest bears). I have only taken one weak unit of Old Warriors, which I'll try to hold back in support.

Mark went for a large mass of goblins and soldier-orcs, supported by a unit of Troll-Bloods, a giant and some wolves and wolf riders.

The battle opens, Othere's contingent of Dwarves have occupied the village, whilst Prinz Schlagbert  is positioned to rush to their support. On the right, Friedhelm has the unenviable task of keeping  the orcish host from getting around the flanks and rear.

With only 9 Dwarf units to the Orc's 15, the initial deployment looks intimidating. With the number of units involved, Colin took command of the Orc's left flank.

Turn One 

Prinz Schlagbert rushes forward, while Friedhelm hangs back, waiting to see what the orcs do.

Unsurprisingly, Othere keeps his contingent in the village, manning the palisade.

After all, what they are facing looks rather daunting!

First blood! Othere's bowmen score a kill on the orc archers, whose reply decorates the palisade with dark feathered shafts, but fails to find Dwarf flesh.

The orc advance is slow and patchy. Mark was trying a tactic of putting the goblin units in front to weaken my troops before contacting his stronger units, but the goblin's reluctance to move was screwing with his advance.

Turn Two

Pretty much a repeat of Turn One. Schlagbert and Friedhelm's comtingents kept advancing. The bears rushed ahead and got onto the flank of the Orcs threatening the village, effective pinning them in their killing zone. The orcs responded by retreating one unit and turning the other to face the bears, effective preventing any assault on the village.

The Orcs also advanced, with the wolves and wolf riders swinging around  the Dwarves flank, forcing Friedhelm to adjust the end of his line.

Another exchange of arrows left the orc archers at half strength.

Turn Three

Being so outnumbered the Dwarves resort to the age-old dwarven defence tactic, All Out Attack!

Othere leads two of his units out of the village to crash into the Orc archers.

All of Schlagbert's units charge, frontally hitting two units of goblins and catching the elite Troll-Bloods in the flank.

Friedhelm leads his Long Axes into the goblins in front of them. On the flank the Old warriors decide that it's better to charge the wolves before the wolf riders can join them, rather than just wait to be overwhelmed!

The Dwarves have banked a good bunch of Reputation tokens from all their heroes charging, whilst the Orc Reputation suffers as the archers and two goblin units dissolve into red mist!

With opponents on two sides the giant is unsure who to attack first! At this point Mark realised that he had put two giants out in error, in fact his army list only had one! As he hadn't fought yet, he took off the confused giant, saving him the pain of making a decision!

Elsewhere Schlagbert's troops are pushing their opponents back with heavy casualties. But now the giant charged into the melee in support of the Troll Bloods and the Dwarves lost their first unit.

The isolated Old Warriors on the flank successfully held the wolves to a draw, only to be additionally charged by the wolf riders in the Orc's phase.

But somehow fought this combined attack to a standstill (another drawn combat). But cumulating looses left the Old Warriors with thin ranks to continue the fight.

Turn Four

The Orc's reputation is down to 1 so the Dwarves continued to press their advantage. Another unit of goblins and a unit of orc soldiers collapse into red ruin.

On the flank the last of the Old Warriors are finally cut down, surrounded by a heap of wolf and orc corpses.

In a final attempt to stave off defeat the giant and Troll Bloods both charge the units in front of them, but it's too little, too late.

At the end of turn Four the Orc's Reputation is down to -3 while the Dwarves are still on a healthy 7. A  Crushing Victory to the Dwarves.

It was a fun game for all. Mark's tactic of swamping the Dwarves with numbers might have worked better if he had put his better troops in the front rank and used the goblins as supports or to outflank the Dwarves. Let's see what happens in the next game.

Sellswords of Traitor's Toll 2

 We played our second game using Sellswords and Spellslingers adapted for Guards of Traitor's Toll. This time we played The Body scenario from the Traitor's Toll rulebook.  Here's a brief summary of how thing unfolded.

And so it starts! A nicer part of town, not usually much trouble here. The Blue Jackets will enter from the lefthand road and the Red Cloaks from the right.

In the street lies a body just oozin' life (And someone’s sneakin' ‘round the corner

Could that someone be, well you get the idea). The three civilians with white tokens are hysterical witnesses, who need to be calmed and interviewed. One of them has useful information that will identify the two potential suspects. Examining the body will provide evidence of which of the suspects is the actual killer.

The Blue Jackets start well, the first guard passes three activations and rushes towards the commotion, the second fails all three and is overtaken by the corpse cart!

The cards aren't kind, fist a pickpocket steals from the rich bloke right in front of the guard and runs off. Then the rich bloke accosts the guard to complain about the lack of ability shown by the Watch, preventing the guard from pursuing the rogue.. To make matters worse, a small lost child wanders up, in tears, and tugs on the guards jerkin!

The situation is similar for the Red Cloaks, Varin moves towards the body for three actions, whilst his companion, Gardis, only passes one action. For his the first card activate a criminal, allowing the pickpocket to start to make his escape and the second starts a pub brawl in the tavern courtyard. As the Red Cloak is right next to the tavern he moves towards the yard entrance. 

The second Blue jacket runs after the pickpocket, but a combination or bad card draws speed the footpad away down the lane, leaving the guard puffing along behind him. In the next turn the pickpockets escapes off the table with his loot.

Varin in the meantime manages to calm his nearest witness, using his +1 Charisma, who can identify the two suspects who were closest to the victim when he fell to the ground. With actions to spare our budding Sherlock moves on to the body and spots a scrap of black cloth clutched in his hand. Only one of the suspects is wearing a black cloak, so the murderer is identified!

And is isn't the suspect the Blue Jackets were trying to nick! 

"I told you, it wasn't me, it was him!"

Back in the tavern Gardis spends the next two turns calming down the drunker brawlers, without resorting to violence and gaining more discontent.

While all this is going on, the unfortunate Blue jacket is still getting his ear bent by the outraged robbery victim!

The Blue jackets close in on the murderer and havoc erupts in the streets. The murderer proves to be a formidable opponent. Although he takes a wound from the Blue Jacket Captain, in the space of  a single turn he stabs one guard twice and pushes him back then stabs the Captain once and pushes him back. A third guard decides to pummel the murderer into submission, but is in turn knocked to the ground. The murderer then activates and breaks away from the circle of Blue Jackets.

Which brings him within reach of the Red Cloaks, Delgan promptly slips and falls over, possibly in shock at the mayhem he had just witnessed. Undeterred, Varin rushes up and knocks the murderer to the ground, restraining him.

At this point the Blue Jacket Captain runs up and slaps the manacles on the prisoner, claiming the arrest for himself and grabbing the glory. Bloody officers, they are all the same!

Whilst all this is going on, another pick pocket strikes at the far end of town. A succession of poor rolls and unlucky cards by the Blue Jackets allows that villain to escape off table before any guards can reach him.

As the Blue Jackets are showing no interest in escorting the prisoner to the city jail, Varin quietly sneaks the man away and takes him to jail himself (this allows him to claim half of the arrest fee!).

But now a fire breaks out in one of the houses.

Returning from the jail, Varin encounters a lost child and decides his time is best spent returning the snivelling wretch to it's mother. The Blue Jackets can get their hair singed dealing with the fire.

It was at this point we both realised that no-one had remembered to search the murderer, which means those greedy bastard jailers will have got his money!

Another pub brawl erupts amongst the tavern's drinkers but by now Reinald has joined Gardis and the two Red Cloaks soon calm things down.

Another moderately successful patrol.

The Blue Jackets ended the game with a +1 Reputation (which will help in the next game), but only 5 silver coins. The Red Cloaks gained another 20 SCs, which gives then 40 in the bank. Very similar result to the previous game. Although it had a shorter duration, so we did not accumulate as much Discontent, there were less opportunities to gain cash!

Still a lot of fun and we will try to fit another game in soon.

Painting in September

 A mixed bag this month, concentrating on wading through my 28mm Fantasy pile.

First up a few more models from the Wildspire Realm Reforged set.

A large crocodile. Lots of uses there, from fantsy to VSF and Pulp gaming.

This big guy had been sitting on the painting table, just undercoated for a while, then we went to see The Odyssy at the cinema and it just had to be done.

Then rest of the pack of Deep Ones to join the lonely gribbly I painted up in August.

 Some 3d printed terrain. I bought a set online "Moonwell Shrine". Unfortunately Evri, displaying their their usual level of care, managed to break the main piece by using the box as a football. Or at least that's what the box looked like when I received it! The vendor was quick to send me a replacement item, no no loss there.

I decided to see what I could do with the damaged piece first, using tufts and vegetation to hide the damaged areas and turn it into a woodland pond or sacred well.

I also painted up the separate standing stones that came with the set.

A bunch of guards for an upcoming Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign, inspired by Guards of Traitor's Toll.

A single gnoll (Alternative Armies Dogman). This was one of a set of four, but the casting's sword broke off in transit. I painted his companions back in January, so I thought I'd better get on with him. I found a suitable plastic axe and drilled his hand out to fit, so he might get on the table sometime soon.

On a different tack, I have recently been introduced to Void Admiral, an excellent (and simple) set of star ship combat rules. Sadly I'd disposed of my GZG and Kallistra fleets some years back, but I managed to pick up some painted models on Ebay. Mostly Kallistra, with a few 3d prints and two metal ships I didn't recognise. These two were just undercoated, so I quickly did them up with some acrylic pens.

I also managed to make a start on the Darkest Dungeon: The Crimson Court boxed set I picked up on a bit of a whim. I'm still not sure what I will end up using these for (Sellswords & Spellslingers, VSF, Fantasy renaissance?) but I didn't want these to be another project lost and unpainted in the Cupboard of Shame.

Firstly 3 Sycophants, dog-sized insects with long snouts/stingers (to my mind that have a hint of the old D&D stirges about them). Presumably these are responsible for introducing and spreading the mutating disease within the Crimson Court.

A group shot of what I've painted so far. From the left  Manservant, Esquire, Gatekeeper, Courtesan and Chevalier. I'll probably do a separate post on these later on, once I get some more painted.

Sellswords of Traitor's Toll

 Over last winter we played a campaign of Guards of Traitor's Toll. I'd been really excited about this and was more than happy to give it a go, but actually found it a bit of a disappointment. 

We talked it through afterwards and came to the conclusion that we found the games a bit slow. The rules were too fiddly and we often felt nothing much happened, despite a lot of dice rolling. Most of our PCs gained various advances during the campaign, but seldom found an opportunity to use them for any benefit. We loved the concept, but the mechanisms were not for us. It probably didn't help we were playing once every 4-5 weeks, if we could have played a couple of times each week we might had more success.

So I had the idea of keeping the concept, but adapting it to Sellswords and Spellslingers, a set of we were very familiar with and enjoyed playing.

Ian and I played our first test game, searching for contraband, and were really happy with the result, it still needs some tweaking, but we are going to play a campaign and make minor adjustments as we go. Here are a few piccis from the game.

Ian's squad of the Watch, the "Blue Jackets". 3D prints I quickly painted up for this.

And mine the "Red Cloaks". They are a touch on the big side. I saw them painted on Ebay and thought they would give me a second squad without any effort, but they turned out to be printed to 32mm "Heroic" size, rather than normal 28mm. But hey, perhaps this squad also play basketball!

Not the best start for the Blue Jackets. The first guards fails all 3 actions, a nearby civilian is revealed as an assassin, this guard had insulted a local gang boss, who put out a hit on him!

Whilst the first guard is fending off the assassin, the second guard also fails all his actions and a fire breaks out in a nearby house! What to do, help his mate or put the fire our? Fortunately the assassin got stabbed in the gut in the next turn.

Much quieter for my guys, just a horse and cart wandering onto the table. Then a brawl breaks out in the yard of a nearby tavern!

A classic example of law enforcement going wrong! Or, how the cards revealed the city watch as a bunch of bumbling nitwits! The woman and child with the yellow marker and in fact pick pockets who have just robber the lady behind them. Notice that there is a Blue Jacket to her left and another in front of her. Out of shot there is a Red Cloak to her right, se we have all avenues of escape covered!

My Red Cloak activates, fails once and the pick pockets runs to the right around the Butter Market, then I move closer. Now both Blue Jackets fail twice, drawing two cards that activate criminals, so the pair run into the gap between the two Blue Jackets.

The Red Cloak activates 3 times and catches the pair, but I roll rubbish combat dice and end up flat on my back (perhaps the urchin tripped me up?).

The pickpockets now run towards the table edge with the two Blue Jackets in lumbering pursuit, but the pair escape before the guards can reach them! 

In all very cinematic!

With not much else going on nearby one of my Red Cloaks stops a passing cart.

"That will be 5sp tax on this vehicle!

Oh, you paid 5sp at the city gates, yes but that was wheel tax. This is hoof tax, 1sp per hoof!

Yes, I know the horse only has four hooves, but there is also a administration fee to pay on the transaction!"

Having broken up the brawl in the pub yard, the thatch of the stables catches fire! 

Nothing to do with that guard waving a torch around, I'm sure!

Now all the guards are in the middle of the table, another house catches fire!

The Blue Jacket Captain found a suspicious box and promptly spent 3 turns searching it! 

Having put the fire out in the burning stable, the Red Cloaks notice a similar suspicious box in the corner of the yard. They search it and discover the contraband! GAME OVER!

Apart from putting that fire out before it spreads any further!

A fun game, with a lot of laughs. Discussing it, we concluded that the end result was probably similar to the games we'd played of Guards of Traitor's Toll, except that the action had moved along at a faster pace and the whole thing had been far less frustrating for us.

We will be starting full campaign soon!