Scenario - The thing in the water!

Hey guys. I have had this idea for a scenario floating around in my head for a bit, and I finally got it put down on paper. I thought I would share it with you all and see what you guys think. I may have gotten a little long winded in writing it, but I feel it will play out pretty well.

If anyone happens to play test it let me know what you think!! I personally plan to test it out with my group in the next week or so.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions.




Premise

This scenario takes place in a semi flooded part of the city. Ideally most of the encounters between the war bands will take place on the upper levels. Think the city of Venice, Italy but with the bottom portions of the buildings sitting in water.

When dreaming up this scenario I had envisioned lots of walkways, gangplanks, catwalks etc. connecting the buildings, people getting knocked off walkways and into the murky water below, using rafts or small rowboats to get from building to building etc.

When writing this I had a multiplayer game in mind, but I think that it is well suited for normal 1 vs 1 as well.

Background

After a fierce rain a portion of the city has become flooded, either from the drains becoming clogged with debris from lack of maintenance, a section of channel or levy wall becoming broken, or the underground sewers being overburdened causing the water to gush out and up from sewer grates etc.

Rumors have been heard in the market place that treasures have been washing up on the edges of the flooded areas. Some have even whispered of shiny and glowing objects under the waters deeper in ready for any who would brave the conditions of the flooded district. But are the waters the only thing the war bands have to contend with?

**Note**

I was thinking that there are potentially tons of modeling possibilities for creating the table base for this scenario for those wanting to take the time. OR instead of regular obstacles you could model sections of floating debris to help give representation and the feel for the flooded area.

For the not so ambitious …

The ground level of the gaming board could be represented with a blue sheet, plastic table cloth or even just be imagined.



Special Rules

The ground level of the gaming board is knee high to waist deep full of debris, and murky water. As a result no run movement will be allowed on the ground level as the water and debris make it difficult to move that fast. However movement in and through the upper level of buildings is unhindered.

Buildings with raised foundations can be considered to have their ground floors above the waters.

(For the sake of simplicity you can say anything not 2” off the ground level could be considered flooded)

Falling into the water

Players falling into the water should deduct 2” from the fall distance as the water is considered to break their fall. HOWEVER anyone falling into the water should immediately make “The Thing” check to see if they have attracted attention to themselves. As with “The Thing” anyone getting a stun result from fall damage should be removed as out of action (Face down in water is never a good thing)

Players follow the standard rules for setting up war bands with the following exception. War bands are allowed to setup above ground level in any building in their starting deployment zone.

**Optional - For consideration

Row boats / Rafts could come in handy for this particular scenario, and could even be placed as terrain.

Perhaps the boat / raft was left by previous treasure hunters who came to the area and have since abandoned their craft. Each raft should holding 1-2 people max allowing normal run movements on ground level, and can be used without waking “The Thing”. To use a model only needs to come into contact with the boat / raft. Players must get out of the boat / raft to make searches.

(Consider something like determining a random number (D3+1 per player above 2 playing. Placed randomly alternating players like regular terrain.)

Weather:

**Notes** (I personally feel this adds a great additional layer to the scenario, and goes well with the theme behind it. Feel free to try with or without)

Even though the rains have stopped for now, dark clouds loom on the horizon. Starting at the beginning of the 2^nd turn each players should roll on the following weather table to see if conditions have changed. All effects are cumulative.

2D6 Weather

2-8 Normal (no change) – no game effect

9 Windy - The winds have started to pick up whipping around debris and hampering visibility. Missle weapons are -1 to hit. Additionally, models on elevated walkways / catwalks without railings must roll an initiative test in order to not lose their balance and fall as normal. Also, any models moving on or onto a walkway must also make this test.

10 Raining – The rains have started up again soaking the players to the bone. Same as Windy above but with the addition of Black Power weapons misfiring on a D6 roll of 4+

11 Mist / Fog – Thick mist has rolled into this section of the city causing some to become disoriented. Roll 1D6 for each model trying to move this turn. A roll of 6 indicates they lose their bearing and move half their regular movement in a random direction instead of their intended direction. If this moves a player off a ledge, roll for falling as normal.

Ranged weapons are limited to short range only.

12 Lightning Storm – The dark clouds begin to flicker and flash, the deep booming of thunder can be heard in the not so far off distance. Roll a D6 for each model caught out in the open (not in a building) . On a Roll of 1 that model has been struck by lightning! Immediately roll D3 Strength 3 hits against the model. Additionally any model within 2 inches of the struck model will take 1 Strength 3 hit as the lightning arcs (This can include enemy models in cover) Roll successful wound results as normal.

Something just touched my leg!

Disturbing the murky waters might not be the best idea! As players move through and search the ground levels of the buildings, they will quickly realize they are not the only ones in the water! For each turn spent searching the players should roll (D6) + 1 for each subsequent turn. This roll should be made after the player declares they wish to search, but before their actual search roll. On a roll of 6 the players have attracted the attention of something vile! Immediately place a “Thing” model in base contact with the model / models searching

Thing in the water (**Notes** This could be zombies, Giant Rat packs, Really mean fish, Squid, chaos spawn What ever suits your particular campaign / Models)

M WS BS S T W I A LD

5 4 - 4 3 1 4 1 7

Special

If a model is stunned while fighting “The Thing” and there are no other models in currently fighting “The Thing” he is considered to be taken out of action as he is dragged under the water.

After “The Thing” is dispatched the player can continue searching the building.



The Loot!

Any building not within a player’s deployment zone may be searched for loot. All loot searches must be made on the ground floor of the buildings! Each building can yield only ONE successful search.

If one or more members of a war band end the movement phase in an eligible building, and are at least 6” away from an enemy model, the player can roll to search the building at the end of the his / her turn. Roll D6 +1 for each additional war band member assisting in the search, and an additional +1 for each subsequent turn spent searching. On a roll of 6 the search has turned up something. Roll 2D6 and consult the table below.

Search Roll 2D6:

2 Map (Per Basic Rule Book page 39.)

3 Lucky Charm

4 Rope and Hook

5 Lantern

6 D3 Gems worth 10 gc each

7 Weapon Roll (D6) 1 -4 Melee, 5 – 6 Ranged

Melee Roll (D6):

1 – Sword, 2 – Morning Star, 3 – Axe, 4 – Halberd, 5 – Double Handed Weapon, 6 – Gromril Weapon

Ranged Roll (D6):

1 – Bow, 2 – Crossbow, 3 – Pistol, 4 – Hand Gun, 5 – Dueling Pistol, 6 – Elven Bow

8 Armor (Roll D6)

1 – Helmet, 2 – Shield, 3 – Buckler, 4 – Light Armor, 5 – Heavy Armor, 6 – Elven Cloak



9 A sac containing 3D6x5 gc

10 1 -2 Wyrdstone Shards

11 Halfling Cookbook

12 Rare Item! (Maximum of 1 roll on this table per war band, treat duplicate rolls as D3 Wyrdstone Shards) Roll D6

1 Locked Chest – Must be carried off table to unlock (Same as Hidden Treasure for contents and moving while carrying the chest – Basic Rulebook page 90 )

2 Tome of Magic

(If the warband includes a Warrior Priest or Sister of Sigmar this can be a Holy Tome instead

3 Gromril / Lthilmar weapon Roll D6 (1-4 Lthilmar, 5-6 Gromril)

4 Gromril / Lthilmar armor Roll D6 (1-4 Lthilmar, 5-6 Gromril)

5 Hochland Long Rifle

6 Magical artifact (Roll on artifact table)





Experience:

+1 for surviving the game

+1 per enemy taken out of action

+1 for the winning captain

+1 for a successful search

+1 for getting a chest off the table (if any)

I really like the premise of this scenario and will probably adopt it with some changes for my campaign!

I wanted to make some of my games in flooded parts of the city so this is perfect, great job!

[EDIT] This was pathfinder dubstyles accidently posting as me...heee...

I love this and will add it to my group's Scenario Listing pretty soon!

Thoughts:

1. Rafts - either let each of the warbands have a raft (which they quickly prepared beforehand to use during this scenario) or let the rafts found on the table be rickety: each turn, at the end of movement, roll D6 for each rickety raft used - on a result of 1, the raft breaks apart and sinks. All aboard are placed on a 2nd level floor if the raft is touching it, otherwise they end up in the water. Only allow a rowboat to a Pirate warband or to a Sisters of Sigmar warband (the latter purely because of a fluff description in an article/scenario which mentions them using rowboats on the river).

2. Falling into the water - don't have it soften falls. After all, you never know what junk you're falling onto...

3. Do give XP for chest off the table, but don't give XP just for searching. However, place all items from rolling 12 in chests to allow greater chance of getting the XP (and challenge of getting the chest off the table). Replace the 12 sub-roll with an after-scenario-end chest roll, using what you aready have for the 12 sub-roll.

4. The Thing has to be a Chaos Spawn! It can attack anywhere on the board, even simultaneously in different places... Allow XP for each wound caused to The Thing, and have it leave upon losing it's last wound (but not actually die). Of course, this does remind me of the trash compactor scene in Star Wars...

5. Placement of scenario and such: the old Bringing Life to the City of the Damned articles in the Town Cryer did say that the Poor Quarter was swampy, so this scenario could always be found there. If using campaign weather (a la It's Raining Fishe) then this scenario could be found anywhere during a turn of High Water.

Great scenario! My lot is always up for another nasty from the depths! I second the motion for the beasty to be a chaos spawn. The Flame On crowd use one for their version of The Pool and it makes a fine challenge.

Allowing the beast to strike in several areas at once is a great suggestion as well!

@ Wyldhunt

1. I like the idea of each warband being able to build their own raft. The rickety would be a nice touch, fits in nicely!

2. I thought about that, but then thought with all the ways to fall off it would be sorta nasty. I am glad to see someone else finds nasty fun!

3. My idea for getting exp for a successful search, was similar to that of taking a shard of Wyrdstone off the table, but I thought it would get to messy / confusing trying to have a player drop loot after it was found and having other people pick it up. I thought about having everything in chests / sacks but then changed my mind.

I did intend this to be a multi-player game. The idea of finding loot on a search meant that every warband involved would have a chance at getting something, if only minor. Chests can be stolen but then again I suppose thats half the fun.

4. I did "imagine" that it would be possible to have more than one at a time on the table if the rolls worked out that way. Yeah trash compactor for sure. Chaos spawn is nice. In my mind I was thinking tentacles ..lots and lots of them!


@ Figgy, what changes were you thinking? I would love to hear your thoughts.

@ Von Kurst. Thanks, glad you like it. If you play it please let me know how it goes.


I didn't post when the game should end, but ideally I was thinking when there is only 1 warband left on the table, or when all the buildings had been searched. Something along those lines.

Von Kurst wrote:

I second the motion for the beasty to be a chaos spawn. The Flame On crowd use one for their version of The Pool and it makes a fine challenge.

Slippery Jack's rules

Sorry Horned Rat, that wasn't me. It was Dubstyles accidently posting as me. (apparently I left myself logged in over at his place..hehe.)

I am sure he will let you know what he would do as soon as he gets back on!

...But for me, I would have a mutated Kroxigor.

So I had a chance this past weekend to try out my scenario with my gaming group, and I thought I would post how it went and what my thoughts were. We played a co-op game 3 vs 3 on a 6x4 table. We DID use the weather table.

I like how the searching of the buildings went. The addition of +1 for each additional War Band member searching seems to really pay off for those willing to stick 3-4 members in a building together. This lead me to think that perhaps a roll of 1 should always fail regardless of how many are searching.

I think that having the search roll produce some type of crate, sack, chest that has to be carried off the table might be a good idea. This will give the war bands a reason to go after each other, and save some of the rolling for the exploration sequence after the game. As it is already set in the scenario that you can not run on ground level because of the water, I think adding in the clause that warband members with a crate, sack, chest could not run on the upper levels as well.

ALSO, as written I have it so that searching happens ONLY in the flooded buildings. The question was brought up if searching was allowed in the non flooded buildings. We ended up playing as NO, but for the reason being that the "Thing" wouldn't be able to attack.

Of the searches that were made we had 3 "Things" appear. It is not stated in the write up, but it should be considered that the "Thing" counts as charging in the first round of combat.

2 war band members that were searching the waters alone lost their lives to the "Thing" as they were dragged into the water. The way I currently have it written is that if there are no other war band members in hand to hand with the "Thing" they are dragged under water. I am thinking that it might be better to have it that anyone stunned on ground level that does not have a unengaged friendly member within 2" should then be taken out of action.

I personally like the "Thing" being more of a tentacle that pops out of the water just long enough to cause the players to not be able to search. There was a suggestion made that instead of being a chaos spawn or a "creature" to have it just be something that is trying to drag the war band members under the water, and to set it so that any wound caused will knock it back into the water instead of having to actually remove it from action.

Also in the case of more than 1 member searching, perhaps a "thing" on each searching member.


The weather for us was a bit funny, we managed to roll a 12 on the 2nd turn. Lightning Storm. The way I have written the weather lighting would happen every turn. This seems to be a bit extreme and I was thinking that it should be modified in one of two ways. 1) Have lighting downgrade to rainy after the initial strikes. Or 2) only allow for a maximum of 1 warband member to be struck each turn.

Additionally with weather. I personally like the idea of the weather getting worse as the fight goes on some of our more shooty war band leaders were no so thrilled. Because of this I am thinking that modifiing the table to have it so that if a duplicate weather is rolled, to have it cancel out the first one. Making the table a sort of on / off roll. For example if on turn 2 you rolled a result of windy, and then on turn 3 rolled rainy. It would be windy AND rainy. But then on turn 4 if you rolled a rainy result, it would then only be windy.


**Things of Note**

When setting up this table, if you have limited buildings, I would recommend trying to set the marjority of them up in the center. With my gaming group we have a fairly decent amount of buildings, but we use some raised platforms, this effectively took them away from being searched.

I would also recommend using some type of searched counter so you dont double up on buildings (But that is sorta standard)

I will try to post my revisions into a cleaned up version of the I posted before.

I was thinking this scenario would also fit in the Sartosa setting and as I was reading your reactions to your play test I also thought that it would be a good fit for the sunken city of Chupayotl in Lustria.

Sounds like you have more ideas after playing it, which is always a good thing.

this is cool!
may i use it?

I would alter the loot section a bit...

- Map... don't think a flood would do a map much good...
- Weapons, 3 Dice rolls is a bit much... I would lose the pistols, as water would damage them anyway,

If you loose the paper items, and the pistols/rifle, then you can devide the weapons over the other roll results, and you'd cover it.

other than that, it's a very interesting scenario! gonna try this!

weather 2d6
2-8 nice - perfect blood bowl weather

Guess who tried this scenario today and loved it?

The Queen City Gamers.

BWAHAHA!

We did a few changes, as I am sure Pathfinder Dubstyles will tell you about. I am too lazy right now and need sleep.

It was epic tho.

Yes, as figgy says, we played this scenario. It was hella fun!

Some changes we made to the scenario:
Rafts: each player was allowed 2 rafts at T4 3W. They moved 4 inches and used the EiF hit tables. These sank quickly to the Thing...

The Dark Elf player could have moved faster on foot but the protection the rafts provided was valuable, if short lived!

Thing: We made each thing a tentacle of some larger eldrich and terrifying creature. They were M4 WS4 S6 T6 I6 2A. We also counted them as having the tentacle mutation, it seemed logical and deadly! Any wound caused them to retreat under the water. The would only attack their original target (be it raft of warrior) disappearing once it had finished the job.

Weather: We only rolled for weather changes at the start of the 1st player's turns. With 4 people it would have been too much to roll every turn.

Interesting Moments in the Game
One great moment was when my Beastman hero Bloatgoat of the Looming Shades Possessed Cult was stunned by a crossbow bolt from the Grinnin' Boyz leader while the raft was being attacks by a tentacle. He managed to hold on to the raft, and when it was sunk in the next turn by tentacles, we also managed to keep his head above water, and heroically drag himself out of the water!

Next we had the Orc Nutta hero Blue, who did a diving charge onto the Dwarf raft and started an epic fight as the Dwarfs paddled down the street, and a tentacle lashed at the raft and everyone on board! Spades the one-armed Orc joined the fight with another diving charge. Both sides kept falling of the raft, attracting more tentacles and hauling them selves back on for another fight!

Then there was the group of 6 dwarfs, led by two slayers, who spent the whole game searching a building and unable to move anywhere because every turn they attracted 2-3 more tentacles! They only lost a couple of their numbers though, back to back, hacking left and right as more rose from the murky water!

Finally we have the 4 diving charges of the Dark Elves against my Possessed warband, who took out my Chaos Spawn and former leader Alister Clovious in a single round.

Final Thoughts
With our tentacles being so scary, and the rafts sinking after the 2nd turn, we had lots of OOA. It seemed like every round 4-6 warriors were dragged under the water!!

Only 4 bags of loot were found before everyone routed. With the increased chance to draw the Thing each turn spent wadding in water, we felt there was simply too much tentacle! At any point in the game, after the 3rd round, there were always 8+ tentacles on the board with 3-4 more attacking in each player's turn!! Next time we play this scenario we will not worry about keeping track of how many turns each model has been in the water (annoying to do) but instead just make it a straight roll of a 6 to draw the Thing, or 4-6 for a raft.

Searching buildings we would still use the cumulative modifier for turn, and number of searchers on all searchers! I think with these changes there would be less attacks before getting to the buildings (i only got to search 2 buildings, but on the turn i did, 5 tentacles attacked me and i routed next turn) but much more when it comes time to slosh around looking for treasure.

All in all, with a few tweaks to for your gaming group, this scenario is a real winner! Great job HornedRat!!

Wow! I have tentacles with similar profiles attacking ships!

But depending on the power level of the warband I can see a use for them... Now I want to play this scenario even more. Perhaps there will be a flood this week!

Playtable has painted up a bunch of smaller tentacles from Wyrd (Sewer Base Accessories WYR0010). They don't look to be S6, but who's to say?

We got to play "The Thing in the Water" finally. Reports here--

https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/battle-reports-and-fluff-f11/the-vmc-tours-mordheim-t3442.htm

We fought many Things. In the first game they dominated. No search of a building was successful and one warband was forced to rout because of casualties.

In the second game we had 3 successful searches and several desperate battles with Things in the murky waters. That said the second game was more about decisive combats between warbands rather than the depredations of the Things. Good times.