Brisham Wood - Campaign Turn 9

After failing at their previous assignment, the Silver Hawks are determined to succeed this time at clearing out a local threat.

Preparation Stage

After informing the good people of Woodcross of the results of their attempted rescue, the Silver Hawks are approached a kindly old woman. She presents them with several baskets of cheese, hard bread, and dried meats that will make for good travel rations.

To keep the gold moving through the community rather than carry it off elsewhere, this time Maurice pays for the group’s upkeep, a total of 4 gold marks (leaving them with 12). He and Tiffany spend some time visiting with the locals to understand how everyone is feeling, and they learn with gratitude that no one is holding that failure against them. Whatever happened to their neighbor was the result of fate, not the choices of the Silver Hawks. Drog continues to train with the local town guard, gaining an extra experience point. A local cartographer offers a kit for mapping the safest route between two locations, but Maurice decides to pass up on the offer.

That evening, while smoking in the tavern, a hooded figure sits next to Maurice. A secretive group has a shipment in Irongate (the largest trading hub in Brisham Wood) that they would like transported to Brisham Hall, and they’ll pay good coin for it. Perhaps they might be able to do this when they leave this place? Maurice agrees, though with some reservations as he’ll want to look into who this group actually is before picking up the shipment.

For now, they’re going to chase off the local threat that Deegon told them about.

Adventuring Stage

The contract for Deegon doesn’t require significant travel, as the threat lies just outside of Woodcross. A dangerous group of roving fiends has taken up residence in some overgrown ruins:

Flocks of humanoid beasts with rudimentary intelligence, they live off carcasses and what they can kill with their clawed hands.

After some rolling, I determine that there are a total of 10 of them, including a leader. This is set up as a camp raid, although given their beast-like intelligence I don’t imagine they have set up their own shelter. Instead, I’ll use a map with ruined buildings and towers from Gabriel Pickard’s Overland Ruins map set. That’s about 2’x2’, which is a bit towards the small side for this game but definitely inside the range.

For deployment, I put half the fiends (including their leader) in a central ruin, with the other half on the northern edge as sentries. My warband deploys right on the southern edge. I set up Drog, Danticus, and Carves-The-Dark just west of the center point of the edge. The others are about midway to the southeastern corner.

Fiend camp at the start

Most of the group is able to sneak a little closer, but at some point Daisy steps on a twig and the fiend leader lets out a screech. To battle!

Turn 1

Tiffany, the forester follower, moves up quickly to provide backup in case the enemy rushes Daisy.

However, looking at the situation, the enemy will have a little difficulty getting to the Silver Hawks. There are a lot of ruined walls and brush on the battlefield. In theory they could use this to their advantage and mask their approach. However, the rulebook specifies on p. 34 that monsters “will ignore any tactical concerns and simply advance as quickly as possible towards the closest opponent to them.” Therefore, they all do that. None of them have any ranged weapons, although they have thick armor-like skin that could make it difficult to hurt them.

Drog takes that as a challenge! He fires his bow at the leader, dropping it where it stands. Danticus and Carves-The-Dark both miss, though. Maurice doesn’t have line of sight, and once he moves, he can’t fire his crossbow. Chert and Daisy each drop another.

Seeing several of its companions drop, one of the fiends farther to the north turns and flees.

Turn 2

The Silver Hawks hold their fire until more of the fiends move into the open. (I don’t know if this is exactly rules-as-written, but it makes sense to me that I can choose not to act during the Quick Phase.)

The fiends continue to pour out of the ruins, many into the central pathway. Drog and Maurice both miss, but CTD and Tiffany each take out an enemy. The others maneuver into better positions.

None of the fiends turn and run this time, though.

Turn 3

Only one warband member will activate this time, as no one else really has line of sight. Drog is indeed able to take down another fiend.

The remaining fiends continue to move towards the group, but they can’t quite get to melee range. One by one, they are shot down, until the final one turns tail and runs out of a sense of self-preservation.

Not a scratch on the Silver Hawks!

Resolution Stage

Between a successful camp raid, completion of a contract, and taking down an enemy leader, we get 4 Adventure Points (up to 15 now).

All the heroes get 2 XP; Drog gets an extra for taking down the leader. Zealous Chert advances and gets 1 Will point, while the fey-blooded Carves-The-Dark will be able to move faster (6” at regular speed).

While picking over the ruins and looking through the remains left behind by the roving fiends, they find light armor and a helmet - plus a warhammer in surprisingly excellent condition!

Once back in Woodcross, the contract pays them 1 gold mark (up to 13). They also hear of another letter, this one to be taken from the Priory to Irongate. Whether they’ll take that up is a question for another day, though.

Wrap-Up

The roving fiends felt like a bit of a duck shoot. No enemy ever got to attack a warband member. I think in the future I may not use the “monster movement” rule and let them at least try to use a bit of cover and keep things interesting.