Mystery Inc and the Spooky Forest!

 Introduction

It's the end of October and I haven't put on a Halloween game for 2 years (global pandemic, you know...).  Since my local club is now meeting again, it is time for a special event!

This year, I arranged a 4-player game using the Fear and Faith rules from Ganesha Games.  These are a version of the popular Song of Blades and heroes engine, adapted for horror (Gothic through to modern).  Without further ado, on to the report...

The Forces

Mystery Inc

These characters shouldn't need much introduction, I think.  Their stats are taken directly from the "not Mystery Inc" characters in the Kooky Teenage Monster Hunters supplement to Fear and Faith:

• Fred (bold leader)
• Daphne (fashionable monster bait)
• Velma (intelligent scientist)
• Shaggy (hairy dropout)
• Scooby Doo (cowardly, greedy hound)

Girl Guide Camp

For reasons best known to themselves, the girl guides have camped in the middle of a gloomy, swampy forest.  They have several extremely competent ex-guides along as camp helpers and a surprisingly large assortment of weaponry.  Maybe this is preparation for their "Monster Hunting" badge?

• Brown Owl ("spiritual" leader, assault rifle)
• April (hockey stick, confident)
• May (machine pistol, confident)
• Sarah (ex-guide with crossbow and smart mouth)
• Ann (useless adult helper, screamer)
• Barbara (another ex-guide, the chosen one, sword, hero)

The Ghosts

So, the gloomy forest is haunted.  Who saw that coming?

• Night Wraith (fearful, immaterial, warlock)
• 2 x Reaper Ghost (fearful, immaterial, teleport)
• 2 x Banshee (haunt, immaterial, morose)

Note that these characters cannot harm any humans in combat (because they are immaterial), although the warlock can cast damaging spells.  Instead, they use Fear to try to scare away the humans.

Equally, they are immune to physical attacks from the good side (though Fred & Velma both have the conviction ability and Brown Owl can lead a "spiritual prayer" - some form of girl guide chant, I imagine -  both of which could destroy such spectres).

The Children of the Fields

It seems that the curse of the forest has spread to nearby farmland as well.  A sinister individual has animated a number of terrors and brought them to aid in chasing off the humans.

• Mister Wurzel (hard to kill, warlock)  Note that I couldn't find the model I wished to use for this character and had to make do with a ratman instead.  It's still somewhat appropriate, I think.
• 6 x Scarecrow (mindless, zombie, short move)
• 4 x bases of Rat Swarm (mindless, zombie, swarm)

Being mostly zombies, this force is slow, but very hard to destroy.  You can knock them down all you like; they'll just get back up again.  Mostly.

The Scenario

Setup

Setup is simple:

• The humans set up at the camp in the middle of the table.
• The monsters set up around any edge(s) they choose.  Note that the 2 banshees have the haunt special rule which ties them to a particular locality.  They were set up at the centre of their chosen haunted area instead (this could be anywhere on the table, as long as the haunted area didn't cover any of the campsite).

Winning & Losing

There are 6 objectives scattered around the table, all in different directions from the centre.

It takes a (human) character one action to investigate an objective:

• 3 of these objectives are false leads and (once discovered) play no further part in the game.
• The other 3 objectives are clues.

The humans win by picking up all the clues and then having the clue-holders meet together (in the centre?) to work out how to stop the monsters permanently (i.e by revealing the hidden projectors, taking off the villain's rubber mask, performing an exorcism or whatever...).

The monsters win by knocking out or scaring off all the humans.

The Game

Mystery Inc were very active right from the start.  They split up and looked for clues:

• Shaggy and Scooby went straight for the picnic objective, had a look and decided it was important.  Thereafter they mostly bumbled around aimlessly, getting in other people's way.
• Velma approached the shallow grave objective.  Initially she was put off by the nearby banshee, but when Fred arrived to help they saw it off with ease.  Sadly for them, the "shallow grave" turned out to be only some disturbed ground and a fallen branch that looked a bit like a cross.
• Daphne wandered through the foggy forest, looking for the lost cat objective (but becoming a bit lost herself, it seemed)

The girl guides also scattered in every direction:

• There was sporadic gunfire as Brown Owl opened up on the shambling scarecrows, but without much effect.  She did eventually manage to destroy one with a well-placed burst.
• Barbara (the chosen one) ambushed Mister Wurzel.  The warlock was hard-pressed to defend himself, but just managed to stay alive for now.

• Ann rushed too and fro, encountering the second banshee several times.  She probably thought there were such creatures everywhere; I don't think Ann realised that she was running in circles and meeting the same monster each time.  The end result of this was several debilitating rolls on the Insanity table and a lot of screaming from the terrified human.

The fight between Barbara and Mister Wurzel grew as other models from both sides approached.  Most significantly, the Night Wraith joined Mister Wurzel and between them the two warlocks threw curse after curse at the chosen one.  However, neither transfix spells nor lightning bolts had any effect; Barbara just shrugged them all off.

Daphne finally managed to grab the lost cat, though only when April came to help.  It was a real clue, so Mystery Inc had now found two of the three necessary items to solve the puzzle!

On the whole, the monsters were finding it hard to move their followers.  The scarecrows were unmotivated and slow, but one of the ghosts suffered a teleport disaster; it ended up in the far corner of the table.

At least the rat swarms were finally on the move, read to invade the campsite.

Seeing the danger, Fred and Daphne rushed over and attacked the rodent horde.  It turns out that the rats weren't as tough as might have been thought; they were easily scattered (i.e. "knocked down").  Before they could regroup, the humans destroyed half of the swarm (and yes, Daphne's killer heels did exactly that).

Meanwhile, Velma had been left a bit shaky after encountering the second banshee (i.e. one roll on the Insanity table).  Despite this, she rallied, stepped forward and disproved the apparition through the force of science - whereupon it vanished for good.

In their milling around, Scooby and Shaggy had become separated.  The former now found himself beside Sarah, manfully (womanfully and dogfully?) fighting a pair of scarecrows.  To everyone's amazement, Scooby knocked down his opponent and then destroyed it.  Personally, I think he caught his leg in the scarecrow's clothing and then ripped it apart as he turned to flee...

In the long-running fight near the swamp, May had been transfixed by a stray spell.  The poor little girl was rooted to the spot, unable to move for fear of the Night Wraith.

Things seemed to be looking up for the humans though: the chosen one finally chopped the head off Mister Wurzel, sending the heap of ragged clothes tumbling to the ground, dead.

...or was he dead?  Mister Wurzel rose from the mist, as whole as before (that's the hard to kill ability; it was triggered almost immediately by a nearby ghost scaring Brown Owl just out of picture).

The sight was too much for May; she collapsed in a faint and was out of the game.  Even Barbara stumbled back in shock and tripped over a tree root.

However, this was too little, too late for the monster side.  Having destroyed the guardian banshee, Velma recovered the ancient sword clue.  In the last turn of the game (because we had to pack up), she ran for the campfire where Scooby and Daphne were waiting with the other two clues.  She needed three move actions to make it in a single turn, but only rolled two successes and came up a little bit short.

Conclusion

So, who won?  If we had time for another turn, it was almost certain that Velma would have made it into the centre, thus completing all the clues and winning the game.  There was really nothing the monsters could have done to stop her.

In the end, both monster forces (the ghosts and the scarecrows & rats) had lost about half their models.  Against this, the humans only lost May, though Ann was pretty much a gibbering wreck and even Velma was feeling a bit "wobbly".  Can the monsters claim a moral victory for delaying the humans so much that time ran out?  Perhaps, perhaps not.

This scenario was designed to make the humans split up; it worked admirably in that respect.

I'm also pleased with the force compositions.  In particular, the ghosts were intended to be an unconventional threat, using fear as their main effect.  This seemed more appropriate than physical violence in a "Scooby Doo" game.  I think it all worked very well in the end.

See you next Halloween!

Halloween: Horrors Stalk the Night!

Introduction

It's Halloween and once again I've arranged a seasonal battle to mark the occasion.  Like last year (see here), this will be a battle between the Witches and the Puritans (Witch Hunters).  This time, each of these forces will be supported by some rather uneasy allies, respectively the Rat Plague and the Five Musketeers.

[On a side note, I believe that this will be the 500th article on my blog.  I had no idea the number had grown so large until I was looking for the links to insert in the previous paragraph...]

The Scenario

Very simple: witches, ghouls and other beasties intend to raid the village of Middle Dorking and carry off at least some of the locals (for use as sacrifices, slaves, playthings, food...  Use your imagination!).  The local authorities would like to stop them.

3 villagers have been placed along the table's centreline.  Each of these can be moved, at a reduced rate, by anyone who has a model in base contact at the start of an action.  Whoever holds the most at the end of the game wins!  Note that in order to foster some unhealthy competition, each side (i.e. good or evil) wins or loses according to the number of objectives they have caught/saved.  Within each side, the force with the larger number of villagers will be declared the major victor and the other force will only be allowed a minor victory.

For example, if the Puritans rescue 2 villagers and the Musketeers none then the Puritans win a major victory and the Musketeers must be content with a minor win.  Even if the Witches have caught the third villager, the evil side still loses completely.  Clear?

The Game

The rat monster is an exceptionally dangerous foe; as well as its very high normal combat score it gains another +2 for its berserk attribute.  It loses this attribute as soon as it throws 3 failures in a single activation roll.  In this game, that happened in its very first turn - so the creature was no longer berserk.  Sighs of relief could be heard from the Puritans and Musketeers; this seemed like a very good omen for them!

Initially, the witches and rat swarms on the right surged forwards, though their bigger monsters on the left were sluggish and didn't make much progress.  For the good side, pretty much the same pattern occurred: the musketeers advanced rapidly on their right, whilst the Puritans on their left were slow to move.

Athos grabbed the nearest villager and tried to drag him to safety - but the shocked young man wasn't easy to pull along and the rat monster was overhauling the pair rapidly!

In the centre, near the unlit pyre, D'Artagnan and Leroux bravely tried to stop the rat priest from taking away the blacksmith.  They did look to be heavily outnumbered, but perhaps French élan would be enough to carry the day?

Nearer the wood, Aramis stomped on a seemingly endless swarm of rats and killed many of them, whilst Porthos faced off three huge, but distinctly reluctant, hell hounds.

At the other end of the village, Major Fairfax and his soldiers saw a ghoul trying to drag off a small boy.  Whilst one of the troopers led the rescued child away, the rest of them set upon the evil ghoul and butchered it!

So far, the few casualties had all been on the evil side, but that couldn't last forever.  Even as help approached, the beleaguered D'Artagnan was felled by the rat priest and his minions.

Another tragedy occurred when Black Agnes zoomed in and commanded her hell hounds to attack Porthos.  The musketeer could not resist the combined attack of such fierce opponents and he too fell in a bloody mess.

As he came into the open, John Sterne (the witch hunter) bellowed a challenge to Meg (the witch).  He fired both his pistols at her - but missed (despite having a reasonably good chance of killing the crone with a single shot).

Sword drawn, Sergeant Stone then charged forwards - but he was intercepted by a ghoul and thus couldn't prevent the rat priest from dragging away the kicking and screaming blacksmith.  He was promptly struck and transfixed by Meg's baleful glare.

When the ghoul tore apart the disabled Sergeant Stone, Leroux ran for his life.  Meg then cast another evil spell, this time at the witch hunter himself.  With an epic lack of situational awareness, John Sterne didn't see the attack coming and was bound and made helpless by witchcraft!

A long way from the action in the centre, a lone ghoul attempted to recapture the child from the village.  Major Fairfax and his lads fell upon the creature and butchered it; the child will probably have nightmares about the scene for the rest of his life!  [Normally in Song of Blades and Heroes, doubling an enemy's combat result kills it, whilst tripling it results in a gruesome kill.  Combined, these Puritans scored seven times the ghoul's defence.  Result: dead ghoul, though probably not recognisable as such any more...]

The rat monster chased down and finished off Athos, but rather than attempting to capture the nearby villager it turned and ran up the village street towards the Puritans.  Some of them shot at it as it came, but this merely seemed to annoy the creature...

In the open area, the rat priest continued to plod along with his prisoner, the blacksmith.  Aramis fought for his life against two huge hell hounds, but surely it could only be a matter of time before he made a fatal mistake?

The rat monster may not have been berserk any more, but it was still huge and fierce.  It charged down the main street of the village, tossing aside any soldiers who stood in its way.  One corporal attempted to shepherd the village boy away to safety, but he was really moving too slowly.

Eventually, most of the remaining troopers broke and fled, leaving the rat monster free to recapture the boy [and if you think he would have had nightmares about being taken by a ghoul then feel pity for him now!].

This tore the heart out of the good side and left them with very little in the way of forces.  Most of the Musketeers were dead; now the Puritans were also dead or dispersed.

For a brief moment, it looked as if Aramis might salvage the situation all on his own.  He slew one of the hell hounds, shook off the other and charged at Black Agnes.  The witch felt the Frenchman's steel as his rapier passed right through her body and with an unearthly shriek she fell, dead!

It was heroic, but it wasn't enough.  Meg used her black magic once more, paralysing the last Musketeer and making him easy prey for the nearby hell hound.

We did play on for a little while after this, but the outcome was already pretty much decided.  Major Fairfax rallied a couple of soldiers and chased after the slow-moving rat priest.  They nearly stopped it before it left the table - but couldn't quite do so.  After that, these last remnants of the human side chased after Meg - until the hell hound intervened and killed the major.  At that point, we called it...

Conclusion

That was a bitterly-fought game, for certain!  Initially it looked as if the Musketeers would triumph over everything in their path - but there just weren't enough of them and in the end they were outnumbered and overwhelmed.

The rats and the witches concentrated a lot of their force in the centre.  This gave them numbers against some of their enemies, but conceded some easy, early kills to the Puritans.  However, these Puritans seemed hard to motivate; their advance was very slow and a little bit fragmented.  In the end, the charge of the rat monster scattered the bulk of them past recall.

Man/Woman/Creature of the Match: A tough choice:

• On the one hand, Aramis cut his way through most of the rat swarm, one hell hound and the witches' leader (Black Agnes).
• On the other hand, Meg was instrumental in killing Sergeant Stone, the witch hunter (John Sterne) and Aramis.

I think I'd probably give it to the witch, because she survived and was on the winning team.  Her actions made a difference!

Biggest disappointment: I think it's a toss up between:

• The giant rat ceasing to be berserk on turn one
• The witch hunter failing to kill Meg with his pistols.

Take your pick!

Victory goes to the evil side, very obviously.  The rats held all three villagers at the end of the game, so they are declared the clear winners, with the witches taking the consolation prize.

Batrep: The Witches' Revenge

Introduction

Fore several years, I've played an annual Halloween game.  Usually, this has involved witches and has been gamed with the marvellous "Song of Blades and Heroes" rules.  Here are some of our previous efforts:

• 2016: A Plague of Evil
• 2015: The Witch of Nether Thicket
• 2014: The Flames of Justice
• 2013: Night of the Witches

So far, the record for the forces of darkness in these games has been poor.  I'd even go further and say that they have performed dismally!

This year I've made some changes to the attributes for both sides, but especially for the witches and their minions, hoping to make them a bit more cost-effective.  In particular, I've removed Flying from the witches and added a sorely-needed Leader instead.  Also I've toned the ghouls down a bit by removing the Savage attribute to make them a bit cheaper.  Can the evil-doers win a game?  Read on to find out...

The Scenario

We decided to repeat the scenario that I created for The Flames of Justice: one witch has been captured and is about to be burned at the stake.  It's up to the other two sisters of the coven to rescue her before the Puritans can light the bonfire!

One adjustment was made to the setup rules for this scenario: we decided that any attackers with Swarm or Stealth attributes. or which was designated as a Ghost, could set up without being limited by proximity to a defender - as long as they were placed in or touching a piece of terrain.  This would represent them having infiltrated the town ahead of the battle and then appearing suddenly from under a hedgerow, through a wall or similar.

Forces were slightly larger than the previous time we played this game: each side had 2 commands.  There were 3 players; Steve took all the evil-doers and my son A. and I each took half of the humans.  Roughly speaking, these were the forces:

• Witches: 2 witches, 2 hell hounds, several ghouls, 1 ghost.
• Ratmen: 1 leader, several dog-sized rats, 5 swarms and 1 gigantic, berserk rat monster.
• The Colonel's Men: Colonel Brandon, Sir Jasper (the magistrate), Sergeant Stone, several musket-men and several other soldiers.
• The Witch Hunter's Posse: John Sterne (the witch hunter), Brother Matthew (the mad monk), Major Fairfax, several musketeers and several swordsmen.

From the other perspective: The rat monster contemplates an apparently-deserted village street, with just the pyre in the distance.

The Game

Fairly predictably, the combined forces of evil (witches and rats) advanced.  They were very successful with activation rolls and even managed to assault the nearest defenders.

In return, most of the men just stood around, bewildered at the sudden onslaught.  A notable exception to this: Sir Jasper, the magistrate, lit the pyre.

On turn two, most of the men again held their positions; their leaders were all engaged in combat and the ordinary foot soldiers weren't going to move without specific instructions, or so it seemed.

One dog-sized rat was shot by a musketeer (so, first blood to the humans!), but otherwise Colonel Brandon was hard pressed by a hell hound and a pack of ghouls.

In a most unlikely turn of events, the captive witch on the pyre caught fire and blazed brightly; within a moment she was consumed by the flames and killed!  [What?  That happened in our last game too!  On the first possible turn where the fire might injure the captive, we rolled a 6:1 split on the dice.

• Witch: combat score of 2 + roll of 1 for a total of 3
• Fire: combat score of 1 + roll of 6 for a total of 7.

Fire doubles witch, so witch dies].

At this point, the men have technically won the game as the captive cannot be rescued alive.  We decided to play on anyway - and I made a mental note to revise the victory conditions for this scenario.

Before the soldiers could celebrate, a horrendous rat monster charged through the smoke, grabbed the nearest man and smashed him to the ground.  Major Fairfax and his immediate group were sandwiched between various rat swarms, giant rats and the black-robed rat priest.  One swordsman perished immediately; the rest of the band were forced to fight back-to-back against the seething horde of rodents.

Their desperate plight was saved when Major Fairfax fired his pistol into the sea of grey bodies.  He must have loaded the weapon with some special ammunition in anticipation of such a foe, for he caused a gruesome kill on a section of the rat swarm, causing the rest of the rat tide to part like the red sea and scatter in several directions.

On the other side of the bonfire, the rat monster flattened the next man to stand in front of it.  Only John Sterne (the witch hunter) now stood in its way.

Colonel Brandon was harried backwards by hell hounds; only his skillful direction of his horse enabled him to stay in one piece.

His retreat was covered, in part at least, by Sergeant Stone.  The portly NCO held his ground as if rooted to the spot; neither the hell hounds nor the ghouls could move him or penetrate his armour and cause him injury.

The rat monster tore through John Sterne as if he was of no more consequence than any of the other men.  In desperation, Colonel Brandon broke off from his fight with the hell hounds and faced the gigantic creature.  At least being mounted, he could strike at it without being disadvantaged by inferior height.

Taking advantage of the scattering of the rat swarms, Brother Matthew charged up to the plague priest, screaming some very unholy imprecations.  He swung his staff so hard that the rat-man's skull was shattered and its brains splashed over the cobbles [another gruesome kill, though not very many other rats were close enough to require a morale check].

Colonel Brandon survived his initial encounter with the rat monster, but then decided to withdraw and seek reinforcements [the rat ogre killed another musketeer; this took the Colonel's force below half strength and he partially failed a morale check, as did Sergeant Stone].

The monster, perhaps confused by the smoke, didn't follow the Colonel.  Instead it moved around the other side of the pyre to seek fresh prey [it was still berserk and therefore had to attack the nearest enemy.  Although it could see Sir Jasper on the other side of the bonfire, it couldn't quite reach him - yet].

Elsewhere on the field, Major Fairfax's men were hunting down the rat swarms.  Although this wasn't entirely one-sided, they did manage to kill enough to reduce the rats to half strength.

No-one really cared about the resulting morale checks for the swarms, but everything swung on what would happen to the rat monster.  Of course, it rolled a triple '6'; the huge creature's blood lust was so fierce that it didn't even notice that it was almost all that remained of the rodent force!

A collection of heroes surround the rat ogre.  From the left: Colonel Brandon, Sir Jasper, Major Fairfax, Brother Matthew.

In one desperate gamble, all the remaining men who could reach assaulted the monster at the same time.  They had basically one shot at this before the completely undamaged witches' force overran the centre of the village.

The dice were rolled, but it was only enough for a push-back - probably about the worst result possible for the men, since they hadn't (quite) managed to place figures to prevent the monster from retreating.  At least the defeat cost the rat ogre its berserk status...

After this, it was all too obvious that the humans were doomed.  The valiant Sergeant Stone, who had done so much to hold up the dark forces to the west, was surrounded by ghouls and torn limb from limb.

Once the witches and their hell hounds attacked Colonel Brandon from behind, the game was effectively over.  Rather than fight it out to the bitter end, the defenders conceded and we went off to get some lunch.

Conclusion

Yikes - that rat monster is an unholy terror!  It has a combat score of 5, plus 2 for being berserk (at least until the first time it is defeated), plus another 1 against opponents who are smaller than it (i.e. just about everyone).  That means the only way to defeat it is to gang up on it, ideally with 5 or 6 men at once.  In this game, we weren't able to concentrate our forces in such a manner until too late - and even then it was too little.  Contrast with the last time that we used the rat force, where the monster was killed almost immediately!

The witches handled their force competently and didn't lose even a single model, but were stymied by the often sluggish behaviour of the hell hounds (this has happened in other games too; these beasts just don't seem very biddable) and by the heroic resistance of Sergeant Stone.  He may not have landed any blows of his own, but he just couldn't be killed or pushed out of the way for much of the game.  Also note that the ghost underperformed: it drifted about the battlefield but didn't do much other than moan softly!

Finally, the captive at the stake was burnt to death.  I'm going to have to revisit the victory conditions for this scenario, as an against-the-odds, technical win for the defenders in turn two just doesn't feel right!

Battle Report: A Plague of Evil

Introduction

It's time for my annual Halloween battle report.  In other years, we've usually played Witches vs Witch Hunters, using the excellent Song of Blades and Heroes [SoBH] as the ruleset:

• 2015: The Witch of Nether Thicket
• 2014: The Flames of Justice
• 2013: Night of the Witches!
• 2012: [Hordes of the Things, rather than Song of Blades and Heroes] All Hallows Eve!

This year, we played our usual SoBH game, but added a twist.  Since there were 4 players, we'd have 4 warbands; as well as the regular witches and witch hunters, we introduced the Three Musketeers [except that there were 5 of them in our game] and a Plague of Rats.

Let the match commence!

The Scenario

An unholy alliance of rats and witches has descended on the small, sleepy village of Simply Bibbling in the dead of night.  Most of the villagers have fled, but a few unfortunate souls have been captured by the forces of evil.  These prisoners are being herded from the village towards the nearby dark forest; should they enter that then their fate is sealed and they'll never be seen again.

However, all is not yet lost!  2 bands of armed men are blocking the escape route.  If they can prevent the prisoners from being carried off then the witch's evil plans will be foiled, hurrah!

Special Rules

• Each side is made up from 2 factions.  These activate independently, but can interleave their activation attempts in any order, as they see fit.  For example, the "good" side may decide to attempt an activation from the Musketeers, then from the Puritans, then from the Puritans again, then from the Musketeers.  If one faction cannot continue [because it has rolled a double failure or because it has run out of models that it can activate] then the other faction in the alliance may continue to activate its models until it finishes.  Only then does the side's turn end.
• The evil side [Rats & Witches] starts with 3 townsfolk prisoners.  To move one of the prisoners against his will, a captor in base contact must spend 1 action "subduing" the prisoner.  Further actions from that captor in the same turn may then be used to move both captor and prisoner together.
• If during any turn, a prisoner isn't subdued in this fashion then the opposition [i.e. the Puritans or Musketeers] may attempt to activate the prisoner themselves using Q5+.  Presumably this would be with the intent of making the prisoner run away, since they have no combat score and cannot be involved in any melee.

Victory Conditions

Very simple; this is determined entirely by the number of prisoners that are carried off by the bad guys:

• If the evil side can move all 3 prisoners off the far side of the board then they win a major victory.
• If 2 prisoners are moved off the board then the evil side score a minor victory.
• If the forces of evil take only 1 prisoner into the deep, dark woods [i.e. off the other side of the board] then they suffer a minor defeat.
• If all the prisoners are rescued, or all the evil forces are killed/flee then the evil side have a major defeat.

The Forces

Each faction has about 250 points, according to the Song of Blades and Heroes rulebook:

• Musketeers: D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, Aramis (all very competent, with varying extra skills & abilities), Leroux (a points filler, not quite as competent as the other four).
• Puritans: John Sterne (professional witchhunter), Major Fairfax (leader), Sergeant Stone (unfit & reluctant), 3 musket-men & 3 soldiers (inexperienced country boys).
• Witches: Meg (magic-using leader), 3 hellhounds (savage critters), 4 ghouls (gangrel misfits).
• Rats: Plague Priest (middling leader), Rat Monster (terrifying, overpowered behemoth), 3 giant rats (vicious rodents), 5 rat swarms (chittering tide of vermin).

The Game

How did our game play out?  Read on...

The first turn was mostly predictable.  The evil forces advanced slowly from the outskirts of the town, herding their captives along with them.

There was an exception, though: the rat monster caught the scent of humans and bounded off into the distance, snarling as it went [its berserk attribute meant that it had to roll all 3 dice for activation and then use all its actions to move towards the nearest enemy.  Even though it was only Q4+, it scored 3 successes and moved 3 times in a beeline for the Musketeers].

At this point, the players on the evil side were quietly amused by this; either the monster would tear some men apart and terrify the rest, or else it would tie up large numbers of enemies as they tried to surround & outnumber the ogre to even the odds.  Either way, it would mean that the rest of our forces could just saunter past the melee and vanish into the dark forest with our prizes!

The rat ogre continued its canter towards the men with another 3 successful actions in its next turn.  Worryingly, it didn't quite reach them (it was about 0.5" short) and the Musketeers swarmed the monster before it could catch its breath.  Even with 4:1 numbers against it, the rat ogre wasn't to be taken lightly, or so I thought.  However, Leroux managed to trip the creature up; it ended flat on its back and therefore lost its berserk status.

The remainder of the evil forces tried to pick up the pace, but ended rather spread out as certain models just refused to move at a decent speed.  In particular, the witch ordered all 3 hellhounds to attack the Puritans, but only one of them sauntered forwards.  The other 2 beasts skulked at the back and wouldn't do as they were told.

The Puritans then spent the best part of 2 turns pouring shot after shot towards the one hellhound which had advanced towards them.  Although the creature was knocked over, most of the firing resulted in just a lot of noise and smoke.  Throughout this, the witch cursed and swore at her other minions, but none of them would move up to assist the endangered hound [the witches warband is becoming somewhat infamous for the number of failed activation rolls it makes, I fear].

The musketeers continued to fence with the huge rat creature.  Even outnumbered, its formidable combat rating of 6 [C5, +1 for being huge vs man-sided opponents] should still have given it quite an advantage.  However, the musketeers barely worked up a sweat; Porthos ran his sword through the monster's heart and it dropped to the ground, dead.  [What?!  How did that happen?  Porthos attacked it; he rolled a '6' and the rat ogre rolled a '1' - the only result that would kill the tough creature outright rather than wounding it]

This, of course, freed up the musketeers.  They now came pouring forwards to threaten the scattered and dismayed forces of evil.

Almost unnoticed, the seething swarm of normal-sized rats was carrying one of the prisoners away, with none of the men in any good position to stop them from escaping.

Whilst a few of the Puritans made a half-hearted attempt to catch the river of rats on the flank, the musketeers swept onwards, into the ghouls.  The men slaughtered 2 of them [Porthos strikes again!]; the other 2 ghouls fled for their lives, leaving one very relieved little boy prisoner to be rescued by the Frenchmen.

Then, the musketeers and the Puritans joined forces to attack the remnants of the witch's warband from both sides.  The giant rats made a noble (?!) effort to impede them - for one brief moment they threatened to take John Sterne down - but there were just too many Puritans and the rodents were outnumbered and overwhelmed.

Meg was forced to release her captive in order to defend herself, but to no avail.  She was cornered by a common soldier, thus allowing Porthos (him again!) to cut her down.  Seeing her fall, the 2 remaining hellhounds fled.

We called the game at this point.  Although the rat priest had been skulking about in the background all game, there was no realistic prospect that he could take on the rampant forces of men to recapture even 1 of the prisoners.  I suspect he blended into the shadows and slunk away quietly...

Conclusion

Well, that was another fairly disastrous outing for the witches!  We (Steve & I, representing the forces of evil) didn't even cause a single casualty to the combined forces of men.  I'm not sure that we won even one combat roll!

In my games, it's becoming quite common for the witches to be hammered; mainly due to recalcitrant underlings who just won't do what they are told.  I'm seriously considering switching allegiance to the forces of good.

Still, all was not lost.  One of the three prisoners was carried off the board on a tidal wave of rats; the men failed to stop us from this.  Consequently, we only suffered a minor defeat, despite the casualty figures.  Remember you victory conditions, kids!