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.

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!

Trying Out Guards of Traitor's Toll Part 2

 Kirstie came over with her copy of Guards of Traitor' Toll, to run through the training scenario with me. We had three guards each, Kirstie had Bill, Ben and Weed (blue and white), while I had Andy, Pandy and Looby-Loo (red and yellow).

As this was my first experience of the game, I was a bit distracted so I forgot to take any pictures during the middle part of the game.

Initially Bill, Ben and Weed entered from the east and south edges, Andy, Pandy and Looby-Loo came on from the north and west. Word came through that smugglers had hidden contraband in a barrel, somewhere in the market square. We needed to locate the contraband before the smugglers could retrieve it. Each group of guards identified suspicious barrels and split up, each heading towards the closest barrel to investigate it.

Andy and Pandy move up on a suspicious barrel. Weed can be seen in the top right-hand corner, as he moves forward to investigate a possible contraband cache.

Looby-Loo spots another likely barrel. He seems to be surrounded by suspicious looking characters, a rough looking bloke in a dusty clock, a wannabe ninja/assassin type , and why's the guy in the blue shirt holding a knife behind his back?

Looby-Loo wandered down the street to check out the barrel. Started to look through it, but was distracted by the ruffty-tuffty ranger-type asking for recommendations for the local taverns (he failed his search roll!).

In the meantime Andy, Bill and Weed all moved up to their respective barrels but found them to be empty. The contraband had to be in Looby-Loo's barrel, if he ever found it!

Mingling with the crowd was one of the smugglers, who spotted Weed, rooting through the barrel. Enraged that the guards might find their loot, he drew his knife and rushed towards the unaware guardsman, stabbing him in the chest. Weed staggered back, shocked, but fortunately the blade did not pierce his armour. (We had drawn another plot token, which revealed a Violent Suspect).

Weed clumsily flailed out at his assailant, but missed him. Ben could see the fracas, so rushed to the assistance of his colleague, but stumbled on the cobbles and failed to reach him this turn. 

The commotion drew the attention of another smuggler, who decided that discretion was the better option and ran off through the crowd. (Another plot token, this time a Fleeing Suspect. Unfortunately he was within 6" of an exit point and promptly ran off the table before any guard could catch him).

Hearing the noise, Andy and Pandy moved through the crowd, when a sudden gap allowed Andy a view of the ongoing fight. Looby-Loo continued his discussion regarding the merits of the local ales with his new friend.

I activated Andy first in the next turn, who rushed forward in his eagerness to assist a fellow guardsman, or in his eagerness for a good ruck! He slashed at the smuggler with his sword wounding the villain.

A third smuggler also decided to get out of town and tried to sidle past Pandy through the crowd (our final plot token, this time a Sneaking Suspect). But he did not escape Pandy's eagle eye and the guard spotted the rascal. Moving swiftly, Pandy stunned the suspect by striking him on the head with the pommel of his sword. 

"Hold it Sonny, you're nicked" Pandy cried, kicking the fallen suspect in the ribs for good measure.

This action drew approving comments from onlookers in the crowd, who were always happy to see their taxes being put to good use.

Hearing the shouts from the crowd, Looby-Loo paused momentarily, but then continued with his praise for the One-Eyed Badger's dark stout.

Back at the fight, the smuggler stabbed Weed again, once more the guard was saved by the quality of his mail shirt. He struck back at the villain, but missed and embedded his sword in the nearby barrel. As Weed struggled to pull his blade free, he had to duck as a wild swing from Ben's axe missed the offender by a good hand's width and almost brained him!

Loudly yelling his despair at the lack of street fighting skills possessed by the younger guardsmen today, Andy lunged at the suspect, catching him under the armpit, sliding the blade through his rib cage and his left lung, before the point of his sword emerged from his back. Pushing on the man's chest, Andy deftly pulled his blade free, allow the suspect to drop to the floor, coughing blood, drawing a brief round of applause from the nearby stall holder and his customers.

Finally finishing his discussion on ale and arranging to meet his new friend at the One-Eyed Badger after his shift, Looby-Loo finally turned his attention to the barrel and discover the cache of contraband.

Game over!

Andy, Pandy and Looby-Loo had acquired 6 Gold coins from their successful endeavours, whilst Bill, Ben and Weed had gained nothing. Unfortunately we had also accrued 7 points of Discontent in the  course of the day (mainly due to Looby-Loo failing 4 consecutive search rolls), so we ended up sharing 1 point of Discontent.

It was great fun and I really liked how the progression of the game lent itself to storytelling.

I shall certainly be continuing to play Guards of Traitor's Toll in the future.

Trying Out Guards of Traitor's toll Part 1

 My first game for a month tonight! Kirstie is coming over to introduce me to the Guards of Traitor's toll game

Here is my layout for the Training Scenario.

A busy Market Day in Gallow's Halt!

The tavern's open!

And doing good business already.

I'm not sure this merchant intends paying tax on what she's selling!

But who is that shadowy female figure in the background, he's in for it when he get's home.

Batrep to follow.