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.

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!

All for One...

Introduction

I'm still working on figures and terrain for Congo, but I won't be writing about any of that tonight.  Instead, here's a little diversion; a report on some models that I have just prepared for my Song of Blades and Heroes "Witch Hunter" setting.  They're not quite the right time period, being maybe 25 years too early, but I couldn't resist the thought of some flamboyant Frenchmen providing another faction to go up against my dour, Puritanical witch hunters.  Any guesses yet?

All for One and One for All!

Athos, Porthos and Aramis

In case you hadn't worked it out already (or if you're not familiar with the works of that literary giant, Alexandre Dumas), these are the Three Musketeers: Athos, Porthos and Aramis.  They were swashbucklers and rakes of the highest order and loyal members of the King of France's regiment of Musketeers.

The models are from the U.S. company Brigade Games; in the UK they can be obtained from North Star Miniatures.  They produce quite a range of assorted Musketeers and their arch-enemies, the Cardinal's Guard.  Also available are various civilians who can readily be used to represent other characters from the books (Milady, Cardinal Richlieu, servants, townsfolk...)

I made my bases rather hurriedly from some textured plasticard glued to the top of a steel washer.  I should have used some filler around the rim, though: the joints between steel and plastics show a bit.

The Other Two

D'Artagnan and Leroux

Most of Brigade's range of swashbuckler figures come with 5 models in a pack.  I already needed a 4th miniature to represent D'Artagnan (the young hopeful who wishes to join the musketeers), so that was good.  As for the 5th man, there didn't seem any point in leaving him out so I painted the figure and named him Leroux.  He doesn't appear in the books, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's doomed to die early and pointlessly in any game, does it?

Conclusion

When I stat these models up for Song of Blades and Heroes, I imagine that they'll be fairly powerful.  After all, I only have 5 figures for the entire warband, so they'll need to be very competent to stand much of a chance against the larger numbers of Puritans (or Witches, for that matter).  The trick will be to make them all unique, I think.  There would be nothing more disappointing than for them all to be just clones of each other, with identical abilities!

Of course, I might end up with 3 or 4 real heroes, whilst Leroux just uses whatever points are needed to make the warband up to the right cost...