Campaign Journal: Forces Clash

Who hears the drums of war?

• Jax: Barbarian
• Fred: Thief 1
• Slick: Thief 2
• Rondel: Elf

It has been a week since Acroria burned. The anchor lens is active, helping communication up and down the Western lands, as well as creating a deterrent to the Chaos forces pressing into the settled areas. Chirath's embattled forces are mopping up both Acroria's strike south and outbursts of Chaos that penetrated past the barrier.

Scattered forces gather at Gaerborin: local militias, Victor Matui with his knights and mercenaries, other adventuring parties and their forces, and the naga Adra with her hobgoblins and outlaws. Umm, let's keep her out of sight, ok? Maybe as a reserve... Oh yeah, and a bunch of dead dudes.

Knowing that the twisted dragon heralded from the west, Slick and Rondel flew invisible scouting missions west, looking for troops. Sure enough, two columns of mutant soldiery were spotted. Time to dig in. 

The party arrayed their forces west of the tower. Rondel found a massmorph scroll in his collection, and hid the undead troops as a copse of trees. Two hurriedly-constructed trebuchets were wheeled out. The mutants and their leaders formed up, charging across the plain. Slick was able to kill one leader, causing some to hesitate and pull back. Rondel took out the second, as the dead clattered into the mutant flank.

Archers fired, knights charged. All very cinematic. From the south, Chaos knights plunged across a river, intending to catch the allies' flank. A company of mercenary foot, supported by Adra and her forces, halted their charge.

get 'em, boys!

An errant trebuchet shot took out a bunch of the allied undead. Oops. Still getting them dialed in...

Mutant chimera flew and crawled in from the east, overwhelming archers and foot. Victor and his crew were hard-pressed. Allied troops were holding, but the multiple attacks were taking a toll.

More horses. Damnit. Or not. 

source

Khanate horse, led by Durkan Dildran, crashed into the mutant foot. Their flank turned.

Things were looking up. Or not.  

dammit

The twisted dragon and it rider returned, showering troops with shed scales. A corps of archers was felled. It circled, honing in on Victor and his knights, as well as Rondel and Frederick, marshalling their forces in the center of the field. Another scale dump, followed by bite attacks. More trebuchet shots, with limited effect...

Slick, ready to be a hero, flew invisibly towards the dragon's belly, trying to catch a vulnerable spot.

Well, at least he didn't drop his sword/fall off his broom. Spinning out of control, he was barely missed by a line of fire breathed by the dragon. Hopefully Serafina, fighting below, saw it as a deft bit of flying and heroism...

More wings. Oh no. Or not.

Kavderac, winging up from the desert south, crashed the party.

The twisted dragon then turned its attention back on the ground forces, nearly immolating Frederick and Rondel.

Henry Cee separated from the skeletal troops he was leading and cast desperate cures upon Frederick, who once again was showing a bad case of smoldering. 

via Glen Baxter

Rondel also made himself a single target, finally loosing lightning bolts against the dragon. This caused it enough damage to ground it and its rider, allowing a revived Fred to deal the killing blow.

With the dragon and its rider felled, the remaining mutants were overwhelmed and slain.

Everyone caught their breath.

DM Notes:

OK, so first time running mass combat, so of course I read about a dozen mass combat rules before finally homebrewing off a Shadowdark mass combat hack that I have (I'll describe in detail in another post.) First, a map.

Assisted by incantation bowl

Forces were represented by Meeples, with each "company" being a single figure. An undead dragon mini I had was the mutant dragon.

The battle was fast and dramatic, with new forces arriving based on timer rolls. Players either added abilities to a company, or acted individually against single foes. 

The forces clash

In the end, the good guys won, but not without loss.

Aftermath of the battle...

So, as always, in review, I see a lot of gaps that I had in my strategy and running of the battle, particularly with the dragon and its rider. As well as forgetting some monster abilities and spells I had written out right in front of me... Dammit.

Didn't matter, as it was fun and quite a bit different from our usual fare. I'll keep this little set of rules in my quiver in case I need to run a battle again, and refine my own play with some practice.

One-shot this weekend, then planning to root out the "root" of the mutants next week...