AD&D Battlesystem with Battle Reports (Updated 12/23/13 pg 3)

[Doomsdave]

Awesome game boards you have there!  What make is the necromancer's tower?  Seems like I've seen that before as prepainted scenery?!?

[m4jumbo]

Thanks for the comments, more to come.

@ DOOMSDAVE, the tower is from Pegasus Hobbies.  It is pre painted and a nice piece.

@ Thantsants, the web is pillow stuffing that we use for smoke, webs, and whatever else we think of.   For the swamp pieces, I think I may have posted a “how to” on another board back when I made them.  I’ll see if I can find it.

@ phreedh, you are correct, for this scenario it was myself as GM and two other players.

[Thantsants]

Cheers - thought it looked vaguely familiar!

[Alxbates]

Man, that's a great setup!  Thanks so much for sharing the pictures with us!

[mousy brown]

Great post thanks for sharing and helping to stir those good memories .

heading back to Ad+d myself i think 

[fourcolorfigs]

The terrain, the figures, and the narrative are all awesome! Love it! 

[m4jumbo]

@ Thantsants, finally found the write up I did on another forum for the swamp terrain.  I copied and pasted below.

(Part two of the Necromancer adventure is coming soon.  Been too busy to finish getting it written up.)

Swamp terrain:
I finally got around to making some swamp/marsh pieces that I've wanted to add to my Epic terrain for a while.

One of the main roadblocks was coming up with the right product to use for the water. I had made some 40K water pieces with resin previously but the mixture must not have been quite right because it never completely set. It also shrunk and pulled back from the edges, plus the whole house smelled like toxic resin.

I talked to some people who had used the GW water effects and that didn't sound like the best option either. From what I heard and saw it stays a bit soft and can end up with a lot of dings and gouges.

One of the guys who made terrain for the local game store suggested using the pour on finish that is used for coating bar tops.  The product is Envirotex Lite, pour-on High Gloss Finish. I got it at Michaels, I believe they sell it at Home Depot as well. It does require mixing, as there is a resin and a hardener, but it's friendlier to work with than straight epoxy resin and there is virtually no smell. It also has a nice long work time, unlike the resin I used previously that started to harden up quickly.


For the swamp pieces I didn't want them to just look like a murky lake, with the water contained by the banks around the edges. I wanted them to look more like a boggy, water logged area with dry high ground and low water filled areas all mixed together.

All in all they weren't too hard to make. The base is 1/8" hardboard with beveled edges. For the high ground I used small clumps of DAS air-dry clay. I wanted there to be some larger boulders scattered around, and for these I smashed up some lava rock and pressed some into the clay before it dried. Other pieces of lava rock I liquid nailed onto the hardboard.

Once the clay was dry, I coated everything with wood glue and sprinkled sand and clumps of (clean) kitty litter over everything. After it initially dried, I firmed that up with some more watered down wood glue, let that dry, and then got to painting. I wanted a dark earth color so after spray priming it black, I based it with Scorched brown, highlighted with Dark Flesh, Bestial Brown, Boubonic Brown. The larger rocks were painted with a mixture of browns and grays. After painting I added patches of static grass.

Then it was time to add the Envirotex Lite. I mixed it carefully and added a drop of Camo Green and Bestial Brown to give it a slight tint, then proceeded to pour. One thing about not having banks around the entire piece is that I had to watch each piece closely and clean up any drips that started going over the edges of the pieces. I was a little nervous at first because it took a while for it to set up and not keep trying to drip off the edges. But it did set up nicely to a hard, glossy surface.

I'm happy with the way they turned out and they look nice on the table top. Here are some pictures of the completed pieces with figures for scale.







Additional pics:


And the swamps on a board for an upcoming battle report.

[Thantsants]

That's great - thanks for digging that out! It was mainly the water effects and lack of banks I was interested in and you've answered both brilliantly. 

I'm long overdue some terrain making and these have inspired me!

Looking forward to Part 2 of the Necromancer too... 

[m4jumbo]

The Necromancer Part 2

After fighting off the undead that stood in their way, the party starts across the bridge over the swamp with the fighter Leo leading the way. 


The progress of the party does not go unnoticed from the tower.


Pluzeeben and Clarice find themselves magically held.  Frozen in place and unable to move, they block the elves from advancing as more undead close in from behind.


Leaving the others behind, Leo urgently presses forward up the stairs leading to the tower.




Finding Pluzeeben and Clarice held by magic and blocking the way across the bridge, Al’ Muric leaps off the bridge into the swamp in an effort to get around them.  The swamp greatly slows him down as he slogs through the murky water.


No sooner does Al’ Muric start to make his way through the swamp, when all around him undead creatures rise up from out of the brackish water and move to attack.


Out ahead of the rest of the group, Leo continues racing up the steps toward the tower.


Looking back as he climbs, he sees the rest of the party being surrounded by the undead from the swamp.


From his elevated position, Leo lets fly with a volley of arrows and brings down an advancing skeleton just as the undead warrior threatens to cut down the still held magic user.  At the same time, Nigel and Al’ Muric both eliminate the skeletons they are battling.  But more undead continue to close in on the group on the bridge.


Unknown to Leo, the Necromancer in the tower summons a swarm of insects to slow down the fighter's advance.  Rounding the corner, he comes face to face with the biting, stinging swarm on the treacherous stairway.


Successfully barging his way through the swarm of insects and suffering only slight damage, Leo finally finds himself at the door to the tower.


With the insect swam pursuing up the stairs after him, Leo tries the door to gain access to the tower…


…and sets off the fire trap spell protecting the door.


With burned flesh and his cape still smouldering, Leo franticly hacks away at the locked portal.  The insect swarm catches up to him and begins biting and stinging, threatening to overwhelm him before he can break through the wooden door.


At the base of the tower, Al’ Muric finally destroys the last of the undead from the swamp, but Pluzeeben and Clarice still find themselves on the bridge, held by magic and unable to move.




At last, breaking through the door and moving away from the swarm, Leo enters the tower.  There he finds a grim scene with two corpses lying on tables surrounded by laboratory equipment.  He sees a narrow stairway leading up and moves to investigate.


As Leo moves to investigate the interior stairs, he hears movement behind him and turns to see the corpses rising from the tables and reaching out to attack him.


Free from combat, Al’ Muric dashes up the stairs to catch up with Leo.


Upon reaching the tower entrance, Al’ Muric spies Leo inside fighting the two undead, while down below on the bridge Nigel is locked in combat with another newly risen skeletal warrior.  With much relief, Pluzeeben and Clarice find themselves able to move again and start heading forward across the bridge.




Al’ Muric charges into the tower and attacks the skeleton in an effort to aid the hard pressed fighter.


The mage makes his way up the winding stairs as Nigel and Clarice move to form a strategic bottleneck at the far end of the bridge.




Inexplicably overcome by a wave of fear, (a failed saving throw vs cause fear spell), the cleric flees in terror out of the tower and down the stairway.


Recovering his nerve quickly, Al’ Muric rushes back up the stairs and into combat as Leo manages to give the zombie a hopefully permanent second death.


A view of the adventurers as seen from above by a passing swallow.


To be continued in the final part 3.

[m4jumbo]

The Necromancer Part 3

At the base of the tower, the heroes are having difficulty with the last skeleton.  It stubbornly refuses to die again.




Meanwhile, more undead rise up from shallow graves and slowly make their way towards the adventurers.


Up in the tower, the Necromancer finally reveals himself, attacking Leo from behind while the fighter and cleric are focused on combating the skeleton.  Dealing a series of powerful blows to Leo, the Necromancer declares to the heroes that they are doomed and will soon join his army of undead.


Nigel lets out a cheer as he finally destroys the skeleton that has been holding them up for so long.  While at the same time in the tower, Al’ Muric smashes the remaining skeletal warrior before him into bone splinters.




Hearing the frantic sounds of combat ringing out from above, the mage, fighter and thief make their way up the tower stairs at last.


In order to prevent any undead from coming up the stairway behind them, Pluzeeben casts his final web spell at the base of the tower, effectively blocking off any pursuit.


As Leo continues to battle the Necromancer, the others enter the tower and attempt to help out, but find that the stairway up to the second floor is too narrow for anyone other than Leo to engage the evil priest in combat.  Running low on effective offensive spells, Al’ Muric casts Silence at the Necromancer to prevent him from casting any more deadly spells.


The Necromancer makes a fighting withdrawal up the stairs to the second floor in order to remove himself from the area of the silence spell.  Leo presses the attack and follows up after him to prevent the Necromancer from shutting the trap door on the heroes.


Nigel, Al' Muric and Pluzeeben can only watch helplessly as the combat moves out of their sight.


Under a flurry of vicious blows, Leo finally succumbs to the Necromancer’s attacks and falls to the floor.


With a sense of dread, Nigel rushes up the stairs to continue the attack.


Nigel too falls to the powerful Necromancer as the rest of the party looks on in growing desperation from below.




With a quick prayer to his god, the cleric Al’ Muric charges up the blood soaked stairs to engage the deadly Necromancer.  The heroes are running very low on manpower and the mission seems in jeopardy.  But Al’ Muric’s prayers appear to be answered as he strikes the Necromancer with a series of powerful attacks.


Seriously wounded from the prolonged battle, the Necromancer retreats to his unholy altar and begins to cast a spell to transport him to safety.


As a swirling mist starts to envelope the Necromancer and his body starts to disappear, he taunts Al’ Muric, “You haven’t seen the last of me, I’ll be back to hunt you down and make you suffer as a mindless undead minion until your fleshless bones turn to dust!”


But with a final desperate swing, Al’ Muric smashes his mace into the fading Necromancer, dealing him a killing blow and disrupting his spell.  With and agonizing scream, the Necromancer topples over onto his foul altar, his corrupted flesh rapidly shriveling away and turning to dust.


From the tower window, Clarice and Pluzeeben watch the remaining undead in the graveyard collapse to the ground as the Necromancer dies, his power ended.  Now perhaps they can rest in peace.


With the Necromancer defeated, the heroes check on their fallen.  Nigel is found to be unconscious, but alive.  His wounds are bound and he will recover after resting and receiving magical healing. However Leo is dead, again.  The party will have to spend most of their loot from the adventure to have Leo resurrected to fight another day. 

After returning to town, the party spends some well earned time relaxing, healing and planning their next adventure.  Maybe Leo can survive the next one…

[Thantsants]

Another great report - love the photography, scenery and story-telling!

Poor old Leo... 

[Colonel Tubby]

Excellent report, great models! The old Battlesystem was so cool!

I leave Leo dead and find some better help - but that just an alignment thing on my part!

[m4jumbo]

(Game took place back on December 26 2010)  

Battlesystem (mass battle version)
As my brother and I recently purchased some painted fantasy units, we thought it would be fun to get them on the table and into a game right away, so we set up a game of Battlesystem to get them into action.  Having played several of our most recent games with humans, dwarves, orcs and goblins, we decided to try something a little different and use undead for one of the forces this time around.  

I hadn’t used my undead for Battlesystem in a long time and when putting the army together I was reminded of how in this system skeletons are expensive, points wise, compared to humans and such.  In a lot of other game systems, the undead are a cheap horde army that will typically outnumber their opponents, but in Battlesystem that is not really the case.

The forces for the battle were as follows:
Matt & Mark
Humans:  Roughly 2000 points
Great Wizard – Army commander
12 Halberdiers, White Templars
13 Heavy Infantry, Rieksguard foot
8 Heavy Crossbow
5 Ultra Heavy Cavalry, Paladins of the Golden Skull
15 Halberdiers, City Guard
12 Medium Cavalry, Northern Barbarians
16 Medium Infantry, spears and large shields
Light Catapult
14 Medium Infantry, spears
10 Arquebusiers
21 Halberdiers
12 Medium Infantry
14 Longbow skirmishers
14 Medium Infantry, two handed swords AD8 and 2 hits
16 Berserkers, clubs and flails
Light Cannon

Undead: Roughly 2000 points
Dan & Darrin
High Priest – Witch King, Army commander
12 Skeleton Cavalry
4 Mummies
10 Skeleton Archers
10 Skeleton Arquebusiers
16 Skeleton Infantry
16 Skeleton Infantry with spears
12 Skeleton Cavalry
16 Skeleton Infantry with two handed swords AD8
10 Skeleton Archers
10 Ghouls
16 Skeleton Infantry
16 Skeleton with spears
Light Catapult

To include a bit of fog of war in the set up, we hung a cloth divider across the center of the table so each army could be deployed in secret.  As each force was being run by multiple players, and we wanted everyone involved as much as possible right from the start, we decided ahead of set up that neither force would set up with a refused flank.


With set up complete, the cloth was removed and the armies revealed.  Looking out across the table, if the undead forces had been capable of emotions, they might actually have been worried seeing the more numerous humans arrayed before them.    




Undead forces:
Cavalry on the left flank


Light catapult perched on a hill.


A line of undead.


Skeletal arquebusiers deployed in the woods.


Cavalry on the right flank.


Human forces:
Skirmishing longbowmen who would prove themselves to be deadly shots.


Berserkers and medium infantry deployed in depth.


Cavalry holding the center.


The hill.


Ultra heavy cavalry and halberdiers anchor the right flank.


Due to the mainly skeleton based force having a fast normal move but lacking the ability to charge, the undead army’s plan was to advance as quickly as possible on the humans in order to minimize the amount of shooting they could do, and to try and deny as many human charges as possible.  So with the plan in mind, the undead surged forward as quickly as their boney legs would carry them.

Undead battle line shambles forward.


Darren's cavalry on the move.


The human army begins its march towards the undead.








Medium cavalry advance in the center.


The undead plan worked relatively well and the main battle was met on the human's half of the battlefield.  The human units were not yet able to move into a more open battle line and were still crowded together.  This, in conjunction with the undead's special ability to cause fear and prevent charging on a failed morale check, caused several human charges to be denied and the undead were able to attack mainly on their terms.



The battle is joined.






Human infantry surrounded by skeletons.


In the center of the battlefield, the Witch King and the Yellow Wizard square off in a battle of magic.


Skeletal cavalry gain the upper hand on the halberdiers.


Shooting from the humans did take it’s toll on the undead as they advanced however, particularly on the undead right flank.  An over achieving unit of longbow skirmishers and the light cannon coupled with a nearby arquebus unit smashed apart several undead units without mercy.

The skeletal cavalry is decimated by the cannon as it advances.




A potentially deadly unit of Paladin ultra heavy cavalry was neutralized on the undead left flank as they were forced to maneuver around terrain and misjudged their charge range on a unit of ghouls.  The ghouls and cavalry met in combat with neither side having a charge bonus, and with the timely assistance from the Witch King’s Chant spell (+1 attack dice size), the ghouls were able to drag down the cavalry and eliminate them after several rounds of combat.





The Paladins are slowly torn apart by the ghouls.


Both forces were taking heavy casualties in the center, but the tide was turning in the human army’s favor as the undead left flank began to crumble from the effective missile fire and a counter charge by a flail wielding berserker unit.  

Berserkers in combat.


The battle drew to a close, both sides battered, but the human army still had several fresh full units in reserve while the undead units were spent.  

This unit of hooded warriors just stood their ground the entire battle and looked menacing.


“Last stand” of the skeletal champion.


This closing attack by the remnants of a skeleton unit broke a fresh unit of halberdiers.  Too little, too late.


As the carrion birds circled above, the humans had defeated the undead army and controlled the battlefield, but the dead do not rest easy and they would be back.

The undead did well early on but the advantage the humans had in a greater number units began to show as the undead were slowly worn down with no replacements.  One of the undead's hardest units, a unit of mummies, never saw combat as they were the repeated target of devastating spells from the human wizard.

An enjoyable battle, we had lots of figs on the table but were still able to finish the game in an evening.   Some of the newly purchased units died horribly in their first battle for us, but that’s to be expected.

[phreedh]

That's a great battle report, mate! Really impressive and some great old models in there. Spotted some conversions too... like the knights of Origo, now with high elf spears! =D

[Thantsants]

Wow impressive stuff!

Love the grim feel of the scenery and minis!