A convert has been found! I managed to convert a PC gamer to playing Sellswords. Other than a brief disastrous attempt to get my wife to play, this is the first game of Sellswords I have had with another player.
To suitably impress my would-be convert I decided I needed plenty of terrain and a good mix of evil monsters. To show off what the game could do we built parties of 80 points rather than 60 points.
Brad has something of a stunty fetish and so made use of my only painted dwarf.
His team was all about combat – Belerond the dwarf, Artax a spearman, Alanor the elven archer (very reluctantly part of the team as Belerond is racist towards elves).
My team was Sigurd and Hagan, human warriors, and Brünnhilde the mage.
Sigurd and Belerond were sent on a mission to save the maiden Flosshilde from the clutches of the evil wizard, Gunter and his minions, a motley collection of orcs in a wilderness inhabited by giant wolves and the odd lumbering troll.
The wilderness.
Sigurd and his team.
Belerond quietly fuming that the bloody elf has put him self at the front of the picture.
“Help me, help me”. Flosshilde and a rather large orc brute (for added eye candy I used my trolls as stand-ins).
Sigurd and his band get off to a great start – successful in most activations and Brünnhilde happily massacres a couple of orc hordes with fireballs. Despite charging orcs and slavering wolves the brave party continues on their bloodthirsty way.
Meanwhile, the dwarf and his band get off to a slow start. Failed activations see them stuck in place and the best they do is kill a couple of orcs leaping out from poorly planned ambushes. A wandering green troll appears, and the band cravenly decide to creep away from it, knowing that the troll has poor eyesight and is likely to just wander in circles if left alone.
The slaughter continues on the other side of the field with the wolf turned into a wolfkebab….
and then the unfortunate orcs are skewered then roasted.
It should be noted here that Belerond the Accursed, for so he will now be named, kept failing activations and drawing wandering monsters but cunningly made sure that they all appeared in the vicinity of Sigurd. Luckily Brünnhilde keeps frying the hapless orcs.
Belerond’s party have now killed a grand total of three orcs and are slowly crabbing away from the troll.
This is how real men kill orcs!
Note, in the middle ground Brünnhilde goes off on her own. She is the only one to remember that they have to save Flossy and not just mess around with the local wild life. The only good to come out of Belerond’s failed activations is Brünnhilde receives two Mana flux bonuses for a total of +4 to her spell rolls. She is incandescent with power.
Belerond manages to kill some more orcs and a brute. They seem to now get the idea.
The glowing figure of Brünnhilde takes cover behind a tree and casts a fire ball at Gunther – she is so powerful with the Mana flux that her spells can hardly fail and the evil wizard has his beard singed.
A second fire ball and he is slain.
Finally Belerond decides he has to move to the bridge and actually try to save Flosshilde. His much scorned elf shoots away at the troll while Belerond and Artax charge forward.
The troll is defeated!
Sigurd is an absolute machine.
Belerond crosses the bridge casting the opposition into the river.
Alone an surrounded the last brute is slain before he can club Flosshilde.
Success!!!!!!
The carnage has been terrible, 32 orcs, one wolf, two brutes, a troll and the wizard have been slain. All characters have been wounded but survive.
Brad enjoyed the game and is keen to play again. As he likes the Tolkien books we will, in future, use my modified rules for the First Age. Unfortunately, he likes the stunties and wants to have a band purely of the Naugrim. I haven’t really worked out how to portray dwarves in the rules and will also have to work out an appropriate campaign for dwarves. Starting with beginner characters I clearly can’t have a Noldo, but might include a Sinda with some humans.
