Wow.
Just
wow.
I
played my 12th campaign turn of Five Leagues From The Borderlands,
which was also my first step of a series of Quest encounters. It
started simply enough. We were at The Crossing doing the usual stuff;
helping the Town Guard to avoid paying any Upkeep, and Weppi had to
visit the Blacksmith to repair her weapon. There was a bit of a
gambling craze sweeping the town, but we really aren't much in the
way of gamblers. Morgan was still healing, which was fine as we still
had five Heroes to go adventuring. No Trade was done, and nothing
arose from our Connections. It seemed a perfect time to start the
Quest!
So,
the Quest began. A new location was placed in the Wilderness (note: I
immediately forgot we had to travel to the new location, so no Travel
rolls were made.) We were to fight a Meeting Engagement to vanquish a
foe carrying an important Quest item. The enemy would be rolled on
the Whispers From Beyond table, and led by a Captain who would be
carrying the desired Quest item (Whispers From Beyond limits
visibility to 9", which I forgot once I started playing and led
to some bad consequences.) As this was our first Quest turn, I
misunderstood the table on page 107 and rolled on the Quest Task
Table, rolling a "5" and therefore adding a ranged trooper,
two melee troopers, a Sergeant, and a Lieutenant. Further, they would
be Outflanking, adding yet another melee trooper. All told, there
would be 13 bad guys against our five. This went from a great idea to
a distinct feeling of dread.
So
first off, there were eight of the Whispering Cultists including the
Sergeant and Lieutenant. I decided to deploy them intelligently, with
the two archers on the upper floor of a building for a clear field of
fire and protection from guys (and turtles!) on the ground, and the
remaining six in two groups of three. On our side, I decided to put
Drustan and Tundaline on the upper story of a building same as the
Cultists, for the same reason. Weppi, Kipor, and Galdan all deploying
together for mutual protection.
The
first turn started off strongly enough: Tundaline killed the Cultist
Sergeant with her first shot, and Weppi was able to ignore the shots
from the Cultist archers. A lot of movement forward was made by both
sides, Weppi and co. Anchoring themselves between a building and a
fire.
The
second turn continued the winning streak, with four dead Cultists and
the Lieutenant having sustained a wound. Tundaline and Drustan were
not hitting with their shots, and the enemy archers were trying to
take them down (one of the archers even dropped down from the
building into the open to get a better shot!)
Turn
Three saw a turn in our fortunes: both Tundaline and Drustan fell to
the hail of arrows from the enemy archers. Kipor killed the
Lieutenant. Weppi and Galdan then moved forward, with Galdan killing
the archer on the ground. The Captain and his four cronies also
arrived this turn and made a good advance into the skirmish grounds.
On
Turn Four, the Quest became apparent: the Captain had to be defeated
in melee combat and he was bringing the fight to Our Heroes. In the
ensuing melee, both the Captain and Kipor went down. The remaining
archer broke and ran from his top-floor vantage, deciding that he was
done with this fight.
By
the end of Turn Five, Weppi and Galdan were facing a lone Cultist who
was already suffering from a wound.
That
Cultist was not to be trifled with, however, as he got the jump on
Galdan at the beginning of Turn Six and took him down. Weppi in turn
killed the Cultist, and was the lone standing warrior at the end of
the fight. But at what cost?
The
Dice Gods were not kind to the fallen members of the Warband. Kipor,
Drustan, and Galdan all died. Tundaline too would have been dead if
not for that point of Luck. I had burned four Story Points re-rolling
Weppi's armor, keeping her on her feet and thankfully they were
boosted again by the untimely demise of our other companions. And
what did we get? An Adventure Point. A Quest Task completed. A
damaged warhammer and an unstrung self bow. Was it worth it? Only
time will tell...
