Sellswords and Spellslingers: The Summoning of an Ancient Evil

Had Ian around for another evening of beer and games, so we decided to get back to our Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign. Our characters have survived a few games now and have all improved their stats (most have +2 on their primary fighting skill, the wizard has now got 2 spells etc). This made us get a bit cocky, so decided it was time to try an expert level scenario and played "The Summoning of an Ancient Evil".

Here is the table layout.  The Warlock of Mount Larunn is in the centre of the stone circle, surrounded by goblin guards (the scenario says ratmen, but I don't have any of those so the goblins were a stand in), and the chaos barbarians are patrolling on the left hand edge of the picture. The characters are out of shot, entering from the bottom of the picture.

And some close ups of the Warlock and the summoning circle. the hooded cultists have no effect in the game, I just put them there because they looked good and I don't often have a chance to use them.

And so the action commenced! Bravely Bold Sir Robin, Christos the Cleric and Sintamo the Ranger rushed (or rather stumbled) towards the stone circle. Eddie Wizzard gathered his awesome power to launch a fireball at the barbarians, only to generate a dull spark...twice! Eldayondo the elf muttered "I think your magic's got wet" as he shot one of the barbarian's between the eyes. "We'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way say" said Gunnar Lanlarolilison the dwarf  as he charged into the barbarians, slicing one in half with his axe. The last barbarian did get a sneaking stab through the armour before being cut down. But with a lot of failed activations on our part the Warlock summoning spell was progressing along rapidly and the goblin guards were rushing forward.

Sir Robin managed to retie his shoe laces and moved up to engage the first goblin, starting to slice'n dice his way down the line. on the other side of the stone circle Gunnar got ready to do the same. Sintamo tried a long range shot at the Warlock.

We had to pause for discussion here, the scenario says the stone circle generates a forcefield that anyone trying to enter must pass a strength roll of 12+ or be pushed back. But it says nothing about shooting into the circle. Being able to pepper the Warlock at a distance seemed to make the scenario too easy, so we allowed missiles and spells to pierce the forcefield, but requiring the 12+ roll to do so.

Sintamo's arrow just bounced off! Eddie now finally succeeded in remembering the correct pronunciation for his spell and launched a fireball into the circle, which exploded harmlessly against the forcefield.  But his second attempt blasted the Warlock backwards. In the meantime Sir Robin and Gunnar were stacking up the goblin bodies. Eldayondo noticed an intriguing casket just inside a nearby burial mound but decided to go back for it later, but Brother Christos could not resist a silver necklace around the neck of the goblin he had just killed, so stopped to loot.

Despite the fireball, the Warlock continued his incantation and a vague shape started to form inside the circle. Sintamo moved closer and took a another shot (3 activations, failed 1) just as the demon took physical form. The Warlock let out a cry of triumph, then collapsed choking as the arrow took him in the throat!

"I killed the Warlock" Sintamo yelled. "What about the ****ing Demon" Sir Robin replied. Roaring the Demon rushed out of the stone circle, Sir Robin and Christos charged into it. In afrantic melee they inflicted a wound on the Demon, but Christos was wounded in return and Sir Robin knocked to the ground twice, only saved by the quality of his armour. As Christos took a second wound Sintamo joined the fray, only to take a wound himself. (It was only now I remembered he has "Shoot into Melee" as a skill, so he could have sat back and stuck the Demon with arrows). "Fireball" yelled Eddie, "Don't you dare!" yelled the rest of the party.

Sir Robin managed to pierce the Demon's scaled hide again and his armour defected the Demon's counter stroke. Eldayondo joined the melee and between the 4 of them they finally managed to kill the Demon. In the meantime, sulking, Eddie wandered over to pick up the casket originally spotted by Eldayondo and discovered a secret message. "What does it say?" he was asked, "I can't tell you, it's a secret!" earned him a headslap from Sir Robin.

A successful mission and the party were surprisingly unhurt, Brother Christos had two wounds and Sir Robin and Gunnar had one each, but they had made a lot of lucky armour and shield saves in the fight with the Demon. If the characters had been unarmoured they would have all been dead!

Unfortunately, once the action started it had been such a good game I'd forgotten to take any more pictures! With plenty of time on our hands, and a couple of bottles of Reverend James still unopened, we decided to play another game. We thought it might be good to try "Through the Badlands" a basic scenario. This is the first scenario in the book, so it's the one most people play first and it's a killer. It's very easy to get caught up in looting bodies (how else can you get money in this scenario?) and end up being overrun by orcs. We lost the entire party the first time we played it and just got one survivor off the second time. When we finally did succeed, half the party were acting as pack mules, carrying off the bodies of the other three!

Here's the starting situation, the party are entering along the left hand edge.

 We had scarely got going when Eddie Wizzard was ambushed, but he cut the orc down.

 Sir Robin when haring across the table towards the nearest orc brute , followed by Eldayondo. Dwaerf got stuck into a small orc horde, when more orcs appeared behind us. Sintamo and Brother Christos turned back and made short work of them. The red counters mark unlooted bodies.

 Sir Robin charged the brute, only to discover that it didn't look bigger because it was closer, it actually was bigger! (I drew a "That's a Big 'Un" card). Still he did his thing and started chopping bits off of the orc. He was very glad of his armour when the orc got a couple of good blows in!

 Having despatched a bunch or orcs, Gunnar now found himself with 2 large brutes approaching to attack from both sides (the second brute is just out of shot).  Not wanting to become the filling in an orc brute sandwich, he charged the brute nearest the party. Although he hurt the beast, he was cut down in return. Eldayondo finished the brute off with a well aimed arrow.

 We were having a lot of orcs turning up (kept rolling 6's for the number appearing) and a lot of wandering monsters. Unfortunately we kept rolling high for these as well and at one time we had 4 trolls on the table! Lucky for us, the trolls were all ahead of us and most of the orcs were coming on behind us (we assumed that the party must have been running away from a large orc warband who were in close pursuit). Ignoring the trolls, who were still some distance away, the party converged on Gunnar's body. Eddie was on form this game, lobbing fireballs around with glee and blasting orcs all over the place. He still needs to get his eye in, he wiped out a horde of 5 and a horde of 7, but three times blasted hordes of 6 and left 1 standing! Perhaps he has a problem with even numbers?

We were very lucky with the trolls as they kept wandering off of the table edge, only for another one to appear nearby. We reasoned that they were all here for a family reunion, but being a bit dim, they had all forgotten exact where they were meant to meet up, so were wandering around looking for each other. In the end, by the time we were getting close to the far side of the table there was only one troll left. He kept spotting characters and charging them, but fortunately each time they managed to out distance him!

As Brother Christos hauled the dwarf's body into safety we realised that the table was almost empty, there was only the wandering troll and a single orc left standing! It should be easy to get the rest of the party away now!

 Except that Eddie got himself ambushed again! This time the sneaky orc cut him down, but Sir Robin was racing to the rescue. Scarcely pausing, he removed the orc's head from his shoulders and scooped up  Eddie's body. More orcs were starting to arrive, so he rushed back towards safety, where Simtamo was waiting to give covering fire if any orc got too close.

The troll spotted them and moved forward, but too late as our heroes slipped away! We had done it, but it was still a close thing, despite our improved abilities and we hadn't bothered looting any bodies. For a basic scenario, this is a difficult nut to crack.