10/01/2009

The path of the wolf. Einar's saga chapter two.

It is April 896 when Einar's party crosses Altengard border and enters a frontier town. There they have a meeting with the local authorities who demand an explanation of their situation. As there is no conflict I assume they are granted some kind of pass to travel through Altengard unmolested.

Einar rolled 4d6 for his Rep plus 1d6 for Hrafnkel being a skald; and the local authorities rolled 5d6 for their leader Rep, a knight, plus 1d6 for being Einar's party foreigners. They both rolled the same number of successes and therefore there was no conflict and they could keep travelling.

May 896. At the next month they reach the inside country of Altengard and visit a town where there is again an encounter with the local authorities asking them their reasons to be there. This time, although they have a salvo conduct (+1d6 in the talk the talk chart), the NPC scores one more success than them but grant them pass for a price or if they lend them a man to help to give some military instruction to some peasants. Einar gives them Thord on the condition to meet him next month at the capital.

I decided not to roll for Rep, Hardiness and Social Standing advancements as they didn't have any fight. Nonetheless, as Einar seemed to do it quite well when talking repeatedly to the authorities I thought about a new skill: diplomacy, which it would give +1d6 in the talk the talk chart. Einar rolled twice for the two past talk the talk encounters but as he didn't score any six he didn't get that new skill.

June 896. Summer starts with our heroes finally entering in Altengard, the capital of the empire. There they are quickly confronted with a hostile group with unknown intentions. As they weren't the local authorities, Einar's pass wasn't very useful. Nonetheless, in the talk the talk Einar manages to swept off their feet. The hostile group resulted to be one of the most powerful groups from the city underworld; and they promise to help Einar every time he finds himself in trouble.

July 896. Einar party waits for Thord. In the meantime Hrafnkel takes the opportunity to make two more potions of strengh four.

August 896, somewhere in the country of Altengard. The party is heading south with the intention to take a ship to cross the Sea of Strife to Treyine. On the way they see a small and peaceful village called Bogenhoff or something like that; so peaceful that awakes Einar's Viking instincts, and decides to raid and plunder it.
The villagers are alert enough, possibly due to the small garrison stationed there, and will roll for initiative normally.

For fifth time I rolled for a possible encounter. The ER inside the country is 2 and I score 1 & 2, encounter! Then I roll 3 which means they are locals. The terrain is Woody and the encounter is a raid in a village
as attacker, as I rolled an 8 in the Adventurers encounter table. Checking How Many Enemies I got the same CV than my party, and I generate one knight Rep 5 who becomes Big Bad with Hardiness 3, 2 skirmishers, 2 arquebusiers and 5 infantry for a total CV of 11 in the Altengard army list. After deploying all the terrain and rolling to see which enemies were inside the houses and which outside, I choose to deploy my forces at the bottom of the board, inside the woods.

Before the battle just reminding you that I'm playing in a 60x60 cm. board with 10mm miniatures and that I halve all distances in the game. And don't forget to click on the pics for a bigger view.

Deployment


Defenders activate first but do not do anything as they cannot see a thing. Actually they do not anything at all until Einar's party finishes to cross the forest. Once they reach the border of the forest they spotted a mounted knight. Snorry and Hrafnkel release both arrows but miss as they were running.

The knight randomly charges at Thord, who somehow manages to resist the charge.


The knight in melee rolls 5d6 for his Rep plus 1d6 for bigger base, plus 1d6 for pole arm in first contact (lance) and plus 1d6 for being protected vs. weapon, 8d6 in total! Thus here I decided to apply some house rules to balance such a powerful and cheap unit: Charging cavalry against enemy in difficult terrain such as wood, behave as infantry in the Charge Table. Also, infantry defending in difficult terrain from cavalry charge, has a +1d6 in melee.

The knight charges against the wood


Now Hrafnkel fires at the enemy infantry standing next to the temple and misses, making the enemy to advance towards him. Then Snorri fires at him and finally kills him (OD).
Einar and Fafnir charges the knight who is engaged in melee with Thord. Einars charges but Fafnir halts and the knight parry all Einar's strikes.
Now the knight attacks again Thord and finishes him (OOF).

In the next turn Einar's party doesn't activate and the knight, seeing the enemy holed up in cover (they didn't dare to go out in the open), fatally decides to dismount.


Hrafnkel fires with his long bow at the knight at point blank, piercing his plate armour and stunning him to the ground. Einar quickly takes advantage of the situation and caps the knight before he has time to rise from the ground.

The knight resulted OOF from Hrafnkel shot, but rolled 3 dice for his Hardiness (I'm using Hardiness like Star Power) and scored 1, 4 & 6, losing one Hardiness or Star Power point but softening down the wound from OOF to Stun as there are no Knocked down in WHAA. After that, Einar charged the knight who fought with just 1d6 and couldn't survive the melee.

After killing the knight and the infantry soldier and seeing no one else in the surroundings, Einar and Fafnir advances towards the temple with the intention to explore it. Snorri and Hrafnkel take positions behind them with their bows ready.

Rushing to the temple


Einar and Fafnir enter into the temple and find an arquebusier. They charge him but he fires at Einar who miraculously reaches him unscathed, and slaughters him with a mighty strike of his sword (OD).

"Who is it!?"


In the test of wills Einar charged the arquebusier who could fire first but missed the shot.

The two skirmishers deployed at the far top right of the village, spotted Einar and Fafnir entering into the temple and run towards them. After that, Snorri and Hrafnkel take position and fire at each of them and killing them on the spot (both OOF).

The skirmishers were caught in the open and with armour AC2, the poor bastards didn't stand any chance to survive.

Following the same strategy, Einar and Fafnir enter into the next building while Snorri and Hrafnkel flank them with their bows ready. In the next building Einar and Fafnir found two infantry and one arquebusier. Both sides stare at each other.



The defenders size the initiative and the arquebusier fires at Fafnir and misses, while one infantry stands, the other charges Einar who holds him.

Now it is Einar's turn who kill the infantry man (OOF) while Fafnir struggles with the arquebusier. Then Snorri and Hrafnkel come in help, finishing the arquebusier and the other infantry man.



The last two defenders are found together in the next house and quickly dispatched. Let pillage commence!



They star searching in the temple and then in the rest of the houses but don't find anything. Villagers must have hidden all precious items and regretfully there is nobody left to interrogate about them.
They haven't found anything of value but at least they are alive and kicking and have improved their skills and endurance after so many months of travelling and fighting.


I scored a 4 in the Loot & Boot Table. Then I rolled for Rep, Hardiness and Social Standing advancements for Einar, Fafnir and Hrafnkel. Einar is now Rep 5 Hardiness 3 and Social Standing 6. Fafnir is also Rep 5 and Hardiness 3.
After that I rolled for the recovery of Thord who was OOF by the knight at the beginning of the encounter and scored 5 & 6 which resulted OD. Then I decided to try it with a potion given by the healer, but the healer scored a 5 and the Thord scored 5 & 5, so the potion didn't work and so they let Thord go to Valhalla. The company had lost one member and now its CV is 13.
Finally I rolled to see if there were a pursuit after the raid but I scored a six so there weren't.

This is it for now. Here we leave our heroes travelling south to take a ship to Treyine and then head East towards the lands of the Dwarfs. I hope you have enjoyed this new chapter from the Einar's saga.




2 comments:

  1. Einar and his men are some tough hombres. Why did that knight dismount? He could've drawn them out into the open or something.

    That Conan looking figure looks really cool by the way.

    Otto
    noizehive.blogspot.com

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  2. Well, the knight is an NPC player and when he rolled on the NPC action tables for mounted melee with PC holed up in cover (woods), he passed 2d6 with the result of Dismount. Other possible results in that situation were Retire and Close or Charge.
    The Conan looking figure is from Copplestones and it couldn't be painted other way really ;-)

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