Deadnight Warriors:
Malefactors:
This was in the nature of a trial game for both myself and Desade, since both my Undead and his Possessed were new warbands hitherto untried in battle. The roll for our choice of scenario turned up Surprise Attack, and I won the roll to choose my side and elected to be the attacker. We set up the terrain and started deploying - Desade started to show an unlucky streak almost immediately as his Magister and Possessed, the two best characters in his force, both rolled 1s and were therefore absent at the beginning of the battle. He scattered the remainder of his band through the buildings, cunningly distributing them either side of the central bulk of the tavern in order to encourage me to split my forces up as I came after him
Sadly, I admit I fell for the tactic. My warband came on from the eastern edge of the board, initially as a close-knit mob, then in their first movement phase I split them - Valdimir and his Wolf Children with Arak and Wilhelm going south and west around the tavern to chase after the majority of the visible Chaos-scum while Friedrich and the zombies went round to the north to clear out the one cultist who was lurking nearby.
I maintain that it would have worked if Desade's Possessed hadn't promptly rolled to come on from the north edge of the battlefield. The vast, corrupted bulk of Cerulus thundered into sight and crashed into the side of the zombie mob, hitting Otto and putting him out of action with a single horrific blow. As the others turned in alarm to deal with this new menace, the rest of the cultists started to move round to the north - a ploy which meant that Valdimir and the two wolves, though fast, were going to have to waste their move distances following the enemy round what amounted to three sides of a city block.
Thankfully the cultists weren't all fast enough. Valdimir, with Mage and Pagan loping at his heels, came charging around the corner of the tavern and slammed into a cult-brother who hadn't shown enough of a turn of speed. The two traded blows, but to no great effect. Meanwhile Arak paused to cast his one spell, Re-animation, which brought the fallen Otto back into battle at his master's side. In the other quarter of the field, Friedrich, Sigmund and Hermann managed to charge Cerulus but failed to wound him, while his return blow knocked Friedrich cold.
Enter, at this point, the Magister, having heard that his warband was in trouble. He appeared from the east side of the battlefield and stalked toward the melee of zombies and Possessed, and cast his Word of Pain spell for one Strength 3 hit on everyone within three inches. The spell fizzled rather unimpressively and only managed to knock Ulf off his feet, doing no serious damage whatsoever. The scuffle continued without decisive result. Meanwhile the Darksoul warrior "Mad" Barrakas, seeing Valdimir looking likely to destroy the cult-brother who was trying to hold him up, charged the vampire in the side while a second cultist attacked Pagan who was just rounding the corner of the tavern.
At this point, in a sudden spectacular display of the speed, power and training that makes the von Carstein line so renowned as warriors, Valdimir swung his great dragon-headed halberd and cut the Darksoul to the ground. The backswing of the stroke knocked the cultist down, but sadly failed to finish him. As the cultist scrambled to his feet Mage dodged past him in a blur of golden fur, charging around the side of the tavern in an attempt to reach the Possessed and Magister before they took Friedrich and the four zombies apart; disastrously, he stumbled as he went to jump a great piece of planking that had fallen in his path, and fell.
Things were looking very bad at this point for the group facing the Possessed. Though Arak and Wilhelm, with Otto shambling behind them, were running to their rescue, they were now facing two cultists, Cerulus and the sinister Magister Skaroc. Outclassed if not outnumbered the five fought on, but struggled to hold their ground. Arak, shouting imprecations, threw himself at Skaroc but found himself intercepted by a fanatical cult-brother who flung himself in front of his master.
It was sheer bad luck, really. My best fighter was tied up on the wrong side of the battlefield by one wretched cultist, and the wolves, the only ones who could have covered the distance in time to help, were both disabled - Mage by his unlucky fall, and Pagan distracted by the cult-brother who had challenged him. Valdimir put down his remaining opponent and turned to run and assist his companions, but the distance and obstructing buildings were against him. Given a free hand against the rest of the Undead, Magister Skaroc attacked Arak while his remaining unengaged follower charged Wilhelm. Skaroc triumphed almost at once - Arak fell, and the cultist who had also been engaging him promptly put the boot in and finished him. Cerulus managed to land a blow that removed Friedrich from the fight. Otto, faithful in his zombie fashion to his master, charged (or rather shuffled) into the cultist who had finished off Arak, but found himself outclassed and a turn later, went down for the second time that day. Sigmund too had fallen by this point, the multiple knock-down injuries he had been given by Cerulus finally telling on him.
The Undead were reinforced on this side of the field by Mage, who regained his feet and completed a vengeful charge against the slayers of his companions - he successfully brought down a cultist and was just turning round to look for more prey when Skaroc, clearly losing his nerve, shouted for a retreat. The Possessed broke and scattered, leaving the Undead bruised but triumphant holders of the field - including a small cemetary, which was doubtless something of a trophy from their point of view.
Post-combat rolls of various sorts revealed that both Otto and Sigmund were repairable, as was one of Desade's two fallen cultists. The other cultist was either dead or had decided to quit. The Darksoul, to Valdimir's delight, turned out to have been abandoned comatose in the street and was successfully collected and sold into slavery for the princely sum of 25 gold crowns. As for the fallen Undead heroes - Friedrich gained immunity to Fear, claiming that having a giant blue mutant jump on your head was a good way to harden the nerves, while Arak's wounds included several broken fingers and torn tendons in his sword hand and consequently he lost a point of Weapon Skill.
A good fight all round, and it was certainly very close. We're looking forward to the next one - not least because Arak now has a personal grudge against Magister Skaroc, who doubtless is also very unhappy with the Deadnight Warriors for stealing his Darksoul! We'll see who gets their revenge first...
This page © Kit Scorah, 2002.
Email me: kit_scorah@yahoo.com
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