Thursday, September 8, 2016

Scenario - "Jos Metsään Haluat Sä Mennä Nyt..."


DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN TO PLAY THROUGH THIS SCENARIO. IT’S KIND OF SPOILED IF YOU READ IT BEFORE HAND. IF YOU PLAN TO GM IT THEN PLEASE READ ON.

Blurb 

A scenario for whfb3rd edition featuring a noble’s sheriff setting up an ambush for a band of kidnappers. A band of kidnappers who were waiting for a ransom, but were ambushed by a group of beastmen, the notorious Bruce Dick n’ sons. A damsel held hostage for a ransom and at the beginning of the scenario being cooked on a slow fire by the beastman big brother. And finally the said beastman band being ambushed by a group thinking they are ambushing some common thugs. Umm… Read on please

The good guys Briefing

The daughter of Sir Ricky has been kidnapped and soon after a poorly written ransom note appeared at his doorsteps. The note said to deliver 50 Gold Crowns ( a sizable sum) to old Boyd’s cottage some miles from the village in the deep and brooding Darkwald forest.

Now Sir Ricky is not a sir for nothing and being a clever old geezer, he quickly put two and two together. See not many of his subjects can write and finding out the ones, that had not been around for a few days was quickly done.

The list was short – Old Mary Nonose, Buck the village Dentist and Guido Nogood who until recently, had a mercantile enterprise set at the village. Since Mary was a 70 year old lady and Buck was known to be on a provisions purchasing trip to Altdorf it was no hard for the clever noble to deduct Guido as the probable culprit who wrote the note.

So Sir Ricky asked his Sheriff to gather up a force of guards and some forresters and set up an ambush for the miscreants. You are Sheriff Gunther and you will not fail!

As you approach the site early in the morning you hear the sound of river and the wind in the branches. You also see the light of an open fire reflecting from the trees ahead. No sound of birds or other animals can be heard.

As planned, you send sergeant Pepper ahead with the money to lure the bastards into the open. You can divide the rest of your force to either trailing force or flanking forces as you wish (as per the advanced setup rules in the rulebook except that trailing forces arrive turn 1 onwards and flanking forces turn 2 onwards). These forces do not have to have character models associated with them, but use the highest leadership when checking if they can get to the board."

The bad guys briefing


"You lead the forces of Bruce Dick and his extended family of beastmen living in the darkvald forest. Bruce has a band of 12 beastmen and a minotaur named Vo Dka who he rules with an iron hoof. The notoriety of his Band does not stem from the fact that he is overtly powerful, violent, clever, mutated, skilled etc He is notorious, because the moniker of his warband, Bruce Dick n’ Sons is true.

So what Bruce does is that he prowls the outskirts of empire towns and burgs looking for opportunities to enlarge his retinue.

An opportunity has just come. Willy Nilly - Bruce's Lieutenant - was leading a scouting force of 5 beastmen and the minotaur brother Vo Dka, when he stumbled into two villagers and a lady tied up in a chair in a small cottage. Willy killed the men, but not the lady whom he thought old Bruce would like to chat with.

Being a quite stupid little mutant Willy left Vo Dka to guard the damsel and left with the others to get the message of his findings to daddy.

Beginning of the game Vo Dka is grilling the poor girl in the middle of the field while feeding on the kidnappers (yeah the guys had kidnapped the girl). Set the rest of your force into two trailing forces. One of those forces can arrvive as a trailing force from turn 1 onwards and the other as a flanking force appearing from turn 2 onwards. The flanking force must be the force lead by Bruce Dick."

Specific Scenario Rules

Terrain set up

Basically use what ever terrain you want, but this is how I'm goin to do it:
  • Use 4x4 feet table
  • In the middle of the table set up a single cabin
  • Next to the cabin set up the minotaur and the fire with the poor girl
  • Set up a river blocking one flank with a ford in the middle
  • Set up lots of small woods so that there's no clear line of sight (it should be woods in the middle of the night
  • Set up walls and other scatter terrain, which a cabin in the woods might have
I'll try to remember taking a picture and adding here for reference, when we get to play the scenario. Hope this helps.
Tabletop from above

The brown felt is a road. I'll try to acquire something better for that purpose, but for now felt will do.


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Here's the amazing cottage from Tabletop World. And Vo Dka having a barbecue

Vo Dka

The minotaur grilling the girl and feasting begin the game feasting. He can not try to quit feasting, but automatically frenzy if any unit attacks him or tries to capture the girl. Note that in this Scenario Vo Dka does not play for the beastman team even though they are related. He just wants to eat in peace and if he’s disturbed, he’ll frenzy and charge the closest unit he can see. Minotaur’s get pissed if their dining is disturbed.

The Girl

The Girl is alive, but dies at a random turn if left to roast. In the end of turn 6 she dies at 5+, In the end of turn 7 at 4+, turn 8 3+ and so on (She’s definitely dead if not saved by the end of turn 10).
The girl can be untied and rescued if a unit or individual model spends a whole turn next to the model.
If the girl is released, she is attached to the unit and is handled like a banner from then on (ie. She can be grabbed by another unit if the unit holding is pushed back or flees and the. One model from unit front rank is the “banner holder”)

Sergeant Pepper

Sergeant pepper is a single model, who takes a scouting turn moving towards the fire next to the cabin (place the fire and minotaurs after the scout turn).
If pepper is killed, leave a token (something representing a sack of money preferably) on the field. It can be captured and is handled just like the girl.

NOTE. WHEN THE FIRST BEASTMAN UNIT IS PUT ON THE BOARD, GM SHOULD SECRETLY TELL THE BAD GUYS PLAYER, THAT SGT PEPPER IS CARRYING A SACK WHICH LOOKS VALUABLE. OTHERWISE IT IS LIKELY HE IS IGNORED BY THE BAD GUYS, WHICH WOULD BE DULL

I’m sorry if this the concept of cooking girls on the fire and handling sacks of money just like women seem sauvinistic. It’s all for the sake of this scenario and the fact that I got this miniature of a girl being roasted.

Victory Conditions

  • The good guys win a major victory if they release the girl and escape the field with her
  • The good guys win a minor victory if the girl dies, but sergeant Pepper and his bag of 50 GC survives.
  • The bad guys win a major victory if the girl survives and they escape the field with her
  • The bad guys win a minor victory if the the girl dies but they kill sergeant Pepper and take his money 

The Armies

The Good Guys from Warhammer Armies Empire Army)

Sheriff Gunther lvl 10 Human
  • Heavy Armour, Halberd
Sergeant Pepper lvl 5 Human
  • Light armour, Halberd, A sack of 50 Gold Crowns
20 Hellblizen (Can be divided as the player wants in to 4-12 men units)
  • One Banner, One musician, Halberds, Light armour
8 Forresters (can be divided into two 4 men units or fielded as one 8 man strong unit. The forresters are skirmishers in this scenario
  • Long Bows

The Bad Guys from Warhammer Armies Chaos Army

Bruce Dick lvl 5 beastman shaman (can not be associated with a unit at game start)
  • Throw chaotic attributes if you like, but try not to give him any game breakers (like athropy for instance)
  • Throw spells, but the same with these - no game breakers. I wouldn't give him a fireball for instance
Wily Nilly lvl 5 beastman hero
  • Throw chaotic attributes if you like, but try not to give him any game breakers (like athropy for instance)
The Boys 12 Beastmen (Can be divided into 4-8 goat units)
  •  Halberds Light armour
  • No dominant attributes

The random element


Big Brother Vo Dka lvl 5 Minotaus Hero
  • 2 Handed weapon, Light armour

Note: I decided not to post the beast men with specific spells and chaos attributes, since this scenario hasn't been play tested and also because I'm really not very good at balancing stuff. At the time of writing I haven't yet even done this myself and if you feel you could help me, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments.

Last time I made a scenario it was unwinnable for the other side. The basic idea here is that this scenario is played with the GM playing the beast men in a RPG style (since I'm gonna play it duo with my friend) so the beast men should preferably be set to lose (even but a bit unbalanced is what I went for). I hope it works.

5 comments:

  1. This certainly looks as though you've put a lot of work into building the scenario, it looks playable as is to me.running the Minotaur as an unaligned monster is a great idea, I can see some problems for the beastmen overcoming their cool test in order to wrestle the damsel from the fear causing Minotaur.
    The idea of 20 halberds makes sense as guards would all be equipped the same ideally but for the sake of variety perhaps a unit of duellists to break up the monotony.
    The inclusion of forresters is good, their scout rule allows them to charge rank and file units with impunity even if they are skirmishing.
    Good luck with the spell generation, it can be a real balancing act especially in games this small.
    Looking forward to the battle report!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment! The halberdier unit as with other choices in the scenario are defined also with my limited miniatures collection so I'll have to go with these. I didn't know Forresters were Scouts (I thought only Bergjaegers were), but I guess that's ok. Maybe I should give Bruce the fireball (with which he can bait the minotaur away from his feast), but then his magic points should be limited to 5 or something. Another possibility that came to mind is to give the beast men something to throw at him (throwing spears perhaps) since "shooting" at the mino does not trigger Cl test. Thank you very much for the feedback!

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    2. You do have to take a Fear test if you're within target's charge range. Javelins have a range of only 8".

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    3. And I agree with the comment above, making the archers scouts would probably work well in this scenario.

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    4. Ok… hmm. Well as I'm gonna play the game as a GM with the beast men, I guess it does not matter if its stacked against me. I'm mostly concerned about accidentally stacking the odds against the good guys anyway.

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