Kaiser and I finally managed to kick off our medieval fantasy project with a proper game (formerly pseudo-100 years war/totally not GoT, but its taken a shift to be based on scandinavian history now. Casting me as evil swedes, apparently
)
Our biggest hold up has been, I have to admit, my own inability to get my miniatures painted. But with a little restructuring and some good ideas I finally managed to field a painted warband to oppose Kaiser's.
The rules was of course our system of choice: Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes. We're both at this point very familiar with it, which makes it easy for us to come up with scenarios and warbands. And its always seems to give us tense and exciting games.
Bloody Work
A small retinue of a newly crowned king found themselves travelling a foggy road. The king was young and newly crowned, heir to a mighty warlord. He had much to prove, and already his retainers informed him that there were whispers of discontent amongst the nobles of the land.
All of this was on his mind when a muffled sound broke the silence. The sound of swords being drawn.
Overview of the battlefield and Kaisers first moves The Men-at-Arms in the retinue quickly formed a protective circle around the king, and ordered their retainers to step forward into the mists.
Retainers move forward, revealing multiple ambush-counters. Sending the peasants first is a time tested and honored strategy amongst the nobles, afterall. The retainers disappear into the fog. After a few tense moments, violent screams are heard, and a single man comes running back - his face gaunt and terrified. It was an ambush.
At this point Kaiser's retainers had triggered multiple ambush markers, revealing a huge group of ambushers at once. These then proceeded to gruesomely murder the exposed archers, sending the shieldman fleeing back towards the main retinue.
At this the retinue decided against following the road further down, and instead the men-at-arms grabbed the king by the shoulder and ran into the rough terrain to the side. They left behind one fighter though. Hilde, the Kings Blade, stepped forward with her sword drawn, hoping to buy the king time to escape.
Further movements. The king and his guards decide to try and move around the main ambush while Hilde steps forward to tie down the main group of ambushers in combat. Seeing the solitary woman stepping forward, one of the ambushers moved in to attack. A burly and bloody looking man hefting a massive axe, and wearing heavy armour. Alas -
- A quick stab to the face catches him by surprise and ends his life much to the dismay of his companions.
The would-be king slayer is swiftly dispatched. The ambushers were cowed by this display of swordsmanship, making them unwilling to challenge Hilde. Seeing the morale of his men wavering, the leader of the ambushers cursed their resolve and went to challenge the Kings Blade himself.
Clad in shining plate and swinging a fearsome warhammer he rushed forward and -
- was immediately slain by a precise murder stroke.
I'd been rolling quite bad for my combat rolls, and Hilde just seemed to keep pumping out 6'es. The loss of my leader was quite a serious blow, as I not only lost ground when the ambushers retreated, but it also made it significantly harder to activate anyone. This allowed for Kaisers warband to outmanouvre me handily, even though I still at this point had an advantage in numbers.
I guess the lesson is to never expose your general. Something I seem to keep getting wrong.
Hilde and the rest of the retinue reunite in a small copse of trees.
At this point all of my strongest fighters have been killed off by the meatgrinder that is Hilde and my strategy devolves into a series of increasingly desperate forlorn hopes, while I try to wrangle the remains of my now very unmotivated warband into somewhat useful positions.
There's a bit of back and forth, as the ambushers form up something resembling a battleline, sending a hail of poisoned arrows towards the retinue. They all miss though, either getting caught in the foilage of the trees or harmlessly pinging off of plate armour.
A lethal assassin who had been keeping in reserve rushes forward, seeing a chance to quickly dispatch Hilde and thus leave the king open to further attack but -
- Hilde spins around and in a sweeping motion beheads the man, causing the rest of the ambushers to further retreat and break up their formation.
With the morale of the ambushers failing the kings men-at-arms see an opportunity to break through and make good their escape. Only, a well-armed man blocks the way.
The illusive tripple 1. A crucial blunder at a critical moment. I had hoped to get the ogre into the retinue and buy myself some time to try for the kings life, but it was not to be. When a thuggish ogre blunders, stumbling and failing as it tries to charge, the Men-at-arms grab the chance. Again Hilde rushes forward.
With this final death what little resolve the ambushers had left evaporates and they scurry off.
The king is safe.
Hilde with her kills. A great game with some very tense moments. My main failure was that I kept sending people in to get chopped to bits by Hilde. Loosing the leader that early to some unfortunate rolls coupled with a rash decision to bring him in to fight, was especially bad. It meant I had to play on the back-foot for the rest of the game as my warband became very hard to activate.
Any engagement after that happened piecemeal, which meant all of my specialised assassins got chopped up by men-at-arms they were not at all suited to dealing with. Coupled with some careful use of terrain on Kaisers part which meant I never really got to use my missile troops, and it ended up with a sound beating. Thus, to the surprise of both of us, the king actually managed to survive.
The next step will be for the king try and find out who exactly is plotting to off him, and to track down the rest of the assassins.
I hope you enjoyed the read!
Cheers
~affun