Sellswords and Spellslingers - Close Quarter Battles campaign - 18/10 New game

[6mmfan]

Yes we prefer this to RoSD. RoSD has a great background and campaigns, but SS&SS has a lot more tension and Event cards really build on that. There are some good reviews of both rules sets and I would recommend looking at those. A weakness of SS&SS was the lack of campaign books (so you had to create your own), but in the last year there has been 3 books released.



 

Looks like a great time !

I'm still playing RoSD for my skirmish, but this looks like a fine alternative

[6mmfan]

We played our fifth game of the Close Quarter Battles campaign the other night called: The Ambassador’s tainted pride.

The objective was to rescue the captured Ambassador as well as his possessions, which were being held in a camp outside the city. The table was setup with the camp in the middle of the table with the foes (Gnolls and Brutes) protecting the camp. The 2 PCs started on the south edge of the table.




Turn one started with some action immediately as a failed activation roll produced an ambusher from the nearest bush, who attacked the PC before they had had a chance to move. The fight went badly and the PC was wounded twice!



More poor activation dice followed, and a horde activates card turned over, and the groups of Gnolls were getting uncomfortably close.



Then a Wandering monster card was turned over, and two stray and hungry looking dogs arrived. Things were getting pretty tough and we'd not even got off the baseline.



The fighter helped heal the archer before charging the group of Gnolls and killing them, but also took a wound.



Now the party had a little bit of breathing space, and the archer traded shots with the Gnoll, while the fighter attacked the next horde of Gnolls.



Meanwhile the captured ambassador was spotted tied to a post in the campsite. The PCs were a little confused as intel mentioned it was an Elf ambassador, not a buxom woman.



The archer finally had some luck and killed the 2 dogs along with the Gnoll archer. The fighter was slowly making his way through the horde of Gnolls.



The PCs convened outside the campsite defences and the archer shot the brute. The archer also took the opportunity to knock back a healing potion, restoring his health back to normal.



The fighter entered the camp first and cut the bonds tying up the ambassador, who promptly fled.



The archer entered the camp next but was ambushed by a Gnoll who had been busy in the toilet.



With most of the foes dead and the parties health improved, they began searching the tents for the Ambassadors possessions before more Gnolls arrived.



The PCs fought the last brute who proved extra tough and both PCs suffered wounds before killing the brute. Suddenly it was getting tense again, and we'd misread the special rules about foes running away (they didn't)!



A monster frenzy card came up just to make things worse, and the Archer suffered another wound from the Gnoll archer. Now both PCs were on their last wound.



But the luck swung back in favour of the PCS, with the Archer rolling 4 successful activation. He was able to shot a Gnoll standing outside the last tent and then race to the tent and find the last clue. The Gnolls were broken and retreated leaving the PC victorious.

[ced1106]

Great job. Looked tough!

fwiw, I noticed the dead bodies (: and Tiny Furniture will have a "Harvest of War 2: Creatures" KS, for more dead bodies.

Glad you survived! I think the solo mechanic where enemies keep spawning so you have to act, rather than the one where the AI replaces another player (ie. AI-controlled warband) makes a tenser game. Keep posting!

[6mmfan]

Thanks, the dead bodies are loot markers but we were pretty busy fighting and didnt get much time for looting. The dead figures are a mix of Mordhiem and some 3D printed models.

The event cards which are turned over when you fail an activation roll, can spawn monsters, like Ambushes, Wandering monsters etc, so it can get tough with some bad luck. its a great solo/co-op system with lots of excitement, and this campaign is very well thought out.

[Burgundavia]

Gorgeous board. And agree that CQB is well written.

[6mmfan]

The next game in our campaign is titled "Lady Delamoon".
The background for the scenario is
"Lady Delamoon is a beautiful woman, an eminent actress, and a member of the Guild of Civic Entertainement. A few days
ago she had been approached by a strange man pretending to be her most fervent admirer. He turned to be a high priest of this
new cult we investigated lately."

The PCs job is to escort the lady across the table to the other side of the garden where she can enter a door to safety. In her way is some street thugs and Cultists.




Excuse the blurry photos, I'm not sure why they came out so bad!

The first turn started as usual with an ambush by a street thug, who was hiding in the nearest piece of cover. There was a special rule in play where activations were at -2  on a D20 due to poor light, so our chances of failing were higher than normal


After killing the ambusher the parties advanced but so did a couple of hordes of thugs who were closing in. The PCs kept close to the Lady to protect her from more ambushers. However movement was slowed as bunch of groupies appeared and surrounded the lady, blocking her path.


The the horde activated again and charged. Right before this moment the fighter got caught in a snare trap set by the thugs and so tried to free himself before he was injured


The fighter killed a couple while the archer took a wound beofre remembering for the first time this campaign, that he has free disengage!


Before the party had a chance to rest another horde of thugs charged, and everything else moved as part of a monster frenzy event card. The fighter also lost a wound during this fight


While the fight dragged on the archer shot a thug and a vampire halfbreed entered the table. A monster frenzy card brought the 2 cultists and the vampire closely to the PCs and the Lady. More groupies arrived and the Lady was lagging behind.


It was starting to look grim for the PCs with the fighter taking another wound. The archer managed to wound a cultist but there were more baddies lining up behind. Just as they tried to advance the Lady got caught in a trap too and was stuck while the PCs fought off the foes.


While the fighter killed the 2 thugs, the archer killed the cultist he was fighting and switched back to his bow. He then managed to help out the fighter by wounding the last cultist


In the next turn the Archer shot and killed the cultist and decided it was good time to drink a healing potion. The fighter did the same the then both moved into contact with the vampire halfbreed.


Some appalling activation dice rolls, a wandering horde of street thugs raced across the table to attack the Lady Delamoon. The PCs rushed to intervene and were able to kill them, but the archer was wounded again as well as the Lady.


Fortunately this was the last of the enemies inside the gardens, and so the PCs and the Lady Delamoon enjoyed a more relaxed stroll over to the door to exit the garden.


Although it seemed quite easy, we definitely had a few tight moments, and the Lady was only one wound away from being killed

[MysteryMachine]

Many thanks for continuing to share these reports, and the great pictures - it's very inspiring for those of us continuing to work on our paint queues!

That's an amazing miniature you've picked for Lady Delamoon!

The scenery has also been fantastic throughout the series.

[6mmfan]

Thanks, the Lady Delamoon figure is from Northumbrian tin soldier and has lots of character

[Sunjester]

An excellent table set up as always!

[ced1106]

Yes we prefer this to RoSD. RoSD has a great background and campaigns, but SS&SS has a lot more tension and Event cards really build on that. There are some good reviews of both rules sets and I would recommend looking at those. A weakness of SS&SS was the lack of campaign books (so you had to create your own), but in the last year there has been 3 books released.

Thanks for the session reports and pics!

Would you say that the scenarios involve specific terrain? I went with Five Leagues and Lasting Tales over Frostgrave and Rangers because the first two were pretty flexible with what terrain you used, so long as you could fill a 3x3 board with above-ground terrain, or below-ground.  I have the Sellswords basic book, and I do like how the terrain setups don't require anything more specific than a tower.

Which campaign book has the most flexible terrain setup and has the better campaign and narrative elements? Thanks!

[6mmfan]

I would say Close Quarter battles has the most scenery requirements but you can easily proxy pieces and I have. But I like making terrain so I'm happy to do that for a campaign like this

Last stand at Mistham and Night of the Assassins don't have anything too specific. For Last stand at Mistham check out my battle report here

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=134322.0

Night of the Assassins is set in the countryside for the first 3 scenarios with the last one underground. Certain pieces are a tavern, river, coach/wagon and underground chamber/walls.

[ced1106]

> Last stand at Mistham and Night of the Assassins don't have anything too specific. For Last stand at Mistham check out my battle report here

RIP Lemmy. You shall sorely be missed. Until we need your miniature for another scenario.

The Mistham session report only had five scenarios. Is that how long the Mistham campaign is? The core S&S book has ten.

> Night of the Assassins is set in the countryside for the first 3 scenarios with the last one underground. Certain pieces are a tavern, river, coach/wagon and underground chamber/walls.

About how many scenarios do the others have? Sounds like Night has four? Thanks!

[6mmfan]

Yes 5 scenarios for Mistham and 4 for Night of the Assassins. They also have an Expert level, so they can be played with experienced PCs who have finished other campaigns. There is also Count Caralis curse which is one scenario but can be replayed in

[6mmfan]

Its taken a while however we played Act 3 in the campaign recently, titled - Making new friends.

Whilst on the way to rendezvous with someone the party is confronted but a gang of local thugs, who are well armed and organised. The party has to survive this encounter and there is a timer, using a deck of 24 cards. Each time an activation is failed a card is turned over with one card bringing more foes. Once the 24 cards have been turned the game is over and reinforcements will arrive to help the party fight off the street gangs



The table was setup as a crossroads with scattered obstacles and the thugs deployed randomly. Some were armed with slings (I used bows instead) and they were standing on the obstacles to get a better shot. The 2 PCs deployed in the bottom of the map.



Straight away the party was ambushed with my character taking 2 wounds in combat, meanwhile one of the hordes of thugs moved closer.



After some help killing the ambusher, the Archer PC recovered while the other PC moved into contact with the horde and also took a wound. Not a great start!



Next the scenario event card was drawn. A not so friendly neighbour threw a wooden crate from their window which exploded on contact. One of the thugs armed with a bow was hit and killed.



The party continued very slowly with a lot of failed activations and this brought on another gang of thugs lead by a lieutenant.



More poor activation dice and the City Guard arrived to see what all the ruckus was.



Another ambusher appeared behind the party while in front the city guard moved closer to the PCs. Also a Saamu gladiator who had been recruited by the street gang was getting dangerously close.



Next a horde activation card was turned over, and the city guard moved into contact with the PCs. They were able to use their charisma and convinced the City guard that they were friendly. From this point we moved them in a random direction each turn



The enemy began to close in after another monster frenzy card was drawn. The only good side of our poor activation dice was that the timer was running out fast, but we were in danger of been swamped.



With some good teamwork the Saamu gladiator was killed and the fighter who used his whirlwind of steel ability to attack a horde of thugs. Another monster activation card was flipped and the foes can closer, while the Archer wounded a Lieutenant.



The PCs killed off the horde of thugs, but were soon pinned by another horde of thugs and 3 street lieutenants. Time was almost out on the cards and we were looking forward to failing our activations, as long as it didn’t turn over a monster frenzy card.




The fighter killed a street lieutenant and turned to confront the one behind him but was now close to being taken out, suffered 2 out of 3 possible wounds. His earlier attempts to heal had failed. The archer had switched his bow for a sword and attacked the horde of thugs.




But disaster struck with the fighter losing his final wound and was out of the game! There was only 1 card left in the timer deck but he didn’t quite make it. Next the archer rolled his activation dice and failed an activation, and luckily without further consequences the game ended.



Aftermath
The party had completed the scenario (just) and the fighter was merely knocked out and fully recovered. This was another great game which went down to the wire, and the scenario had some interesting twists.

The next game will be posted in a few days

[6mmfan]

The next game in the campaign we played was titled “Night of the Long Fangs” The PCs job was to patrol and rid the area of any Vampire halfbreeds. A complication is that there a few townsfolk foolishly wandering around, so they had to be protected from the vampires, otherwise they will become vampires themselves if bitten.


The game once again takes place in an urban area with fountains, benches and a plaza.



All the citizens and vampire are randomly deployed although the vampires cannot be deployed closer than 4” to a citizen.




In the first turn a monster frenzy card was flipped and the vampires immediately closed on the closest living thing.


Meanwhile the archer Corax, turned over a wandering monster card and 3 swarms of giant flies appeared very close by and attacked!



The fighter had advanced but was unable to prevent a Vampire attacking one of the citizens after a monster activation card came out. The citizen was killed after a monster frenzy card came out.



One of the other citizens was made of much sterner stuff and put up an amazing fight with her trusty broom. She killed one vampire and wounded two others! IIRC the vampire was killed when a 20 was rolled in combat causing a critical hit. We couldn’t remember how to play loners so each one attacked separately.



The third citizen was also attacked by two vampires and wounded one, but took a wound back.



This early in the game it looked like we could lose all the citizens (and victory points), but some better activation dice allowed the surviving citizens to break off avoiding any free hacks, and make for safety.




The fighter fought the citizen who had risen back up as a vampire while Corax the archer moved forward after abandoning his attempted to heal his wound. Also both citizens were activated again and continued to move away to a safer area.



Meanwhile the scenario event was triggered and a Nobleman arrived looking for his son, who had tuned into a vampire.

The fighter despatched both nearby vampires and moved onto the next one while the archer moved forwards to shoot the other one.



Corax then shot and killed the Vampire halfbreed (formerly the son of the Nobleman) and turned his aim on the last 2 vampires

The Fighter came forward to engage the Nobleman while the last 2 vampire rushed towards him. Corax managed to shot one vampire, inflicting a wound.

The nobleman attacked the fighter and hit him, causing 2 wounds and taking the fighter by surprise. Suddenly it was looking shaky for the fighter as one more wound would put him out of action.



However cool heads prevailed and in the last act of the game the fighter dispatched the last 2 Vampire halfbreeds and victory was achieved.



Although it sounded easy we had a few moments early on as the vampires threatened all the citizens. Their 6” move on a monster frenzy was a nasty surprise. But the citizens proved to be tough and almost half the vampires were wounded from attacking the citizens. And fortunately for the party we were able to pick the vampires off without being overwhelmed and it was another great game.