Shadows over Anvilspring

chrisgoodone

chrisgoodone

Baron
So… we finally got together again in Heusden NL last weekend. We planned two battles…

  1. The Brettonians vs an undead army (of Brettonians) led by a Lich – Rotten Rodney
  2. The Woodelves of Scarloc vs the retreating army of Mengil and the Dark Elves (Spoiler: we didn’t get to this)
The story
Quite a long time ago, but not so long it’s been forgotten, an Expeditionary army of Brettonians were sent to reclaim a relic, a holy cup. The battle was fierce and some of their main forces were cut off from the army. The relic was recovered, but the cut-off force were left to hang out and dry. And ultimately, die. They are the ‘lost’. Amongst their number is a powerful caster. Rodney. Rodney heir to Spring D'anvil. He still stirs. It appears that the local children have been playing in the cemetery and listening to his whispers. Bringing him food. Dead rats, cats and dogs. Yum.

For a few weeks, a steady trickle of skeletons and zombies have been traipsing towards Anvilspring. The poor quarter where many of old houses who have lost their standing now live. The battle is remembered there and there is some sympathy for the calls of ‘vengeance’ from the unalive wearing old house colours.

The Baron of Anvilspring has set a patrol of knights, some archers and a new cannon for target practice. Our heroes from the last battle – the crossbow unit Las Basterdz are hanging out in the closest watchtowers with the feisty sorceress Beaujolais. What could go wrong?

The board looks like this… (Coupla tiles smaller than last time to keep it 'tight')

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It's 3,000pt each side - I'll explain them more next time.
 
And so on to introduce your armies for this two-day tusslefest.

In the red and black corner with an unhealthy infatuation of the heady days of Man Utd sportsball we have Jonny - @BootsAlmighty
An Oldskool Brettonian army made up of a mix of minis from Citadel/GW, Foundry and Claymore

We have…

The General:
Lady Chardonnay, Lvl 20 Sorceress

Cavalrie:
7 Chevaliers D'Honneur led by Lvl15 Champion Ser Phillippe Neville
6 Chevaliers D'Honneur led by Lvl15 Champion Ser Roy Keane

Infanterie:
“Les Toothpicks”: 20 spearmen with a Lvl 15 Champion, <name> standard bearer and musician
11 Foot Knights with shield / hand weapon Led by L15 Enchantier Ser Georges Best
9 Foot Knights + standard - double handed weapons Led by L15 Champion Ser Stéph Bruce

L’Ordinance:
“Les Basterdz”: 20 Crossbows currently hanging out with Lady Beaujoulais a Lvl 15 Enchantier
18 local levy villager archers with longbows
“Bertrand the Brigand and the Bowmen of Bergerac”: Bertrand and crew with 16 archers (been drinking a bit today so -1 hit, no fear)
“Le Bombe”: 3 x man cannon recently deployed to the poor quarter for fire testing on the straggler dedduns wandering towards the town

Mercenaires:
6 Ogres, led by a Lvl 20 Ogre Commander and including a young Lvl 5 Ogre Hero 'Skragg'

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C’est formidable, non?!
 
And in the slightly musty ‘once were alive corner’ we have Dan - @Dredded Led
An army of Dedduns made up from all over (but still Brettonian) from early Citadel, thru Grenadier to some more modern plastique

In summary…

The General:
'Rotten Rodney', Lvl 20 Lich (and heir to Anvilspring – albeit several generations ago). Rodders wields an enchanted wound blade (yuk)

Cavalry:
15 Death riders including 2x lvl10 Champions with hellhoned blades

Ballistics:
20 Skeletal Archers

Infantry:
2 units of 16 Zomboze (NL zombies) including 2 x lvl10 'Wraith like' champions carrying a Frostblade and a Cursed blade(jobs any champion)
15 ‘Graveguards’ with Heavy armour & shields (we improvised some +4 shock elites – they’re tuff)
10 Skellie Spears
12 Skellie Infantry

Undead host n specials:
4 x Barrow Wights
8 x Mummies

Rodney is no slouch when it comes to pulling together and raising an undead force.

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Deployment:

The Brett's started with some units deployed in town... Les Basterdz are sunbathing in the two towers on the outskirts and entertaining Beaujolais the Enchantress

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The cannon is set and they are trying to learn how it works. The villagerites are about their usual business whilst the local archers have built barricades and are milling around them. Everyone has been briefed to send for help if they need it (it'll take a turn or two to get there).

It's a beautiful Brettonian evening and the kids are playing with the village idiot in the cemetary whilst Peter the pig man wanders home...

And then the Dedduns deploy...

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Da Battle!
Hoorah!..
<But I’m just gonna give a quick explainer… this fight took two whole 8-9hr days and turned out to be an utter staminathon – loadsa reasons for that and I’ll try and explain these as I go along and maybe more at the end. But still, frankly, amazing. Needless to say we learnt A LOT!>

Objectives:
Dedduns want to recover a relic from a church at the edge of the town (there were smaller ‘side quests’ we dropped due to general overwhelm)
Bretts: Need to keep the relic and keep the Dedduns from even entering Anvilspring (villagers get funny about that)

The Brettonians are lounging and generally ‘at ease’ – they need to ‘notice’ the encroaching army. Once the alarm is raised it will take a couple of turns before more units deploy. The mercenary Ogres drinking the Green Dragon dry will also require persuasion.


Pre-battle casting:
Deddunns:
Rotten Rodders decided to power-up pre-battle with a little Demonology he learnt: “Summon Great Power” for 6MP. He controls it and now has +1 to all of his stats (gulp!). He also casts Aura of Protection and armour saves on a 4+ (sick)

Bretts:
Chardonnay, Beaujolais and Georges are all wearing smart casual Auras of Resistance 5+


Turns 1-4ish

Dedduns:
The cavalry race forwards as Rodders casts missile invulnerability on them
The trailing forces head towards the bridge and the ford
Some of the slower shamblers are getting in the way of the more sprightly dead

Bretts:
Are unaware of the Dedduns until the skeletal cavalry cross the bridge and they spy the kids, pig Pete, and the idiot racing away from the cemetary screaming wildly.
The alarm is raised!
Les Basterdz take aim, Bueajolais calms herself to cast, and La Bombe is fired up!

Spells, crossbow bolts and a cannonball fill the air and either pass through the undead cavalry or is instantly reflected.

“Merde!”

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The mayhem and grist of the midgame melee! (Part one)

Unsurprisingly, once the amassed forces of Rodder’s Dedduns were noticed, things started happening quite quickly in Anvilspring…

Brettonia
Called upon the two units of cavalry in the town and they charged through the cobbled streets towards the bridge and ford
Chardonnay made her way to the barricades flanked by Ser Bruce and men at arms
Les Toothpicks readied themselves
Bertrand and his slightly sozzled bunch started appearing from the woods
The Ogres considered lending a hand but were still in the Green Dragon
And La Bombe missed…

Dedduns
Roger positions himself behind some trees, casts, and lands some mystic mist on the tower with Beaujolais and half Les Basterdz… ruining the party a little. Bof!
The Death Riderz snake across the bridge ancient weapons held aloft
Followed by the Zomboze and Grave Guard, who get in each other’s way a bit more
Over at Anvil Ford skeletal forces and the mummies skitter and shamble towards the kids and idiot struggling on the difficult ground

It’s all about to bloomin’ kick off!

Midgame1.jpg

Midgame3.jpg

Midgame2.jpg

(Edit: Missed a good shot!)

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Next time... a lotta dice get rolled. Books get looked at. Heads get scratched...
 
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The mayhem and grist of the midgame melee! (Part Two)

So… the gnarly midgame. First, some thoughts

We learnt A LOT (and it took a lot of time). WFB 3rd Ed is a learning curve. This time around we introduced champions, magic, and more powerful characters. Loads more complex.
All of this took a lot of time, head scratching and searching through a hooky PDF or two as well as an original hard cover book (cheers Dan)… A few things what we learnt…
  • Having a ref/GM is pretty useful – often we came to an ‘agreement’ because the rules aren’t always clear
  • Generally the ‘rule of cool’ should be used (if something looks cool, try and let it happen)
  • Objectives are really important – we remembered this over a fag break
  • ‘Fear’ is powerful – fearsome things following up make brave Bretts run away
  • It’s hard to hit things – 5’s on a D6 in this battle – remember your bonuses!
  • Armour matters – Bretts in heavy armour on mounts are basically tanks (2+ save)
  • Heroes do the business – When things get really grindy, a Lvl 20 Ogre helps
  • Instability isn’t always awful
  • Chat GPT isn't helpful
Anywaysup, onto...

THE BATTLE!

The battle near La Bombe

La Crème of Brettonian Knights led by ser Phillipe Neville charge through the streets towards some barricade (barrels n stuff) – to charge would have left the unit with their ass hanging over difficult ground (not best) – we pondered, searched rules and decided they smashed through it
- The Undead Cavalry charged them with weird unholy weapons held aloft
- The Bretts made fear saves and this formed the first ‘battle knot’ that became quite an equal fight for several turns
- All the while Les Basterdz were shooting bolts whilst Beaujolais ‘called the lightning’
- Undead spilled either side and it became a torrid battle
- After shooting a few arrers Bertrand was charged by the heavy skele graveguard
- Ser Georges Beste led his double handers to cover the other flank

Batle at Gate 1.jpg

Battle at the gate 2.jpg

The Ogres deciding to get involved was helpful

Battle at the gate 3.jpg

Ser Georges and co pushes some Dedduns into the river

In short, it was a big grindfest and many lives (and unlives) were lost.
The Ogre mercenary force carried and accounted for themselves impeccably.
Finally, Ser Phillipe and his remaining coupla friends routed and ran to the edge of the board. Bof!

Next Time: What happened at Anvil ford
 
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why would you use some crap which just steals some data and makes up the rest while claiming its real? if you have a questions, ask a search engine or online, not some insulting crap detailed for tossers and thieves..
 
It's a gigo system. pure and simple. any company that is using such a thing (i'm not saying all neural network systems, they have been around since the 70s in publically accessable computering) but that one of note is a very nasty piece of work known for highly illigeal behaviour and there are still quite a number of lawsuits happening (but courts move slowly, though they are starting to get done.. and win cause there is no way that can lose with the cases they have) aren't a company that will last too long. look at Duolingo.. Look at WotC ^_^

There are plenty of places for 3ed rules and clearing it up and even a bit in the rule book on what to do if unsure (basically, page 35 under 'The Basgic Game - The Gamesmaster) but there are bits in other places too, like the follow up section 'Competitive and friendly games'.

Not being nasty to you and it seams good you didn't take it as I was ^_^ but some things are going badly cause people don't know how to use the right tool for the right job. While i'm not against using a coin as a screwdriver, using a hammer as a paintbrush is a completely different matter. Like I said, Gigo systems.. people who don't understand computers and what people call 'AI' but isn't (I got a great article on a basic system I got in the 90s when I was really obessived with how the systems work and creation of them, It was fun and it's good for certain things.. but trying to use it as a search engine? that's how come them two laywers got disbarred.. they said, under oath, they thought it was a search engine and not something that would mix stolen data with 'random made up stuff'. sigh.. people don't even know how to create inforcers when they made advanced game enemy paths these days... which is why SOO many game bugs where the enemy suddernly acts in a stupid random way.. You need to use inforcers and code it right, not just cut and paste random code together and hope it works..

Anyway.. Sorry for derailing a bit ^_^ I guess.. yeah.. one of them moods.. sorry
 
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