Watchers season 6

Heist



“Damn those rat devils” thought Eric the short, “only had the damn book 2 days and they had stolen it”, “no matter, the new man who had joined them, a hunter, had tracked the little thief to a deserted village of about half a dozen huts”. Grim faced Eric contemplated the punishment he would lay on the skaven assassin who had stolen the Liber Chaotica , around him his men stayed quite. Bondsman Jorundsonn had received a vicious tongue lashing for suggesting that they may be walking into a trap but secretly many of the warband agreed with him. It wasn’t the bondsman’s problem anymore, he had been left behind still suffering from an injury received at the last fight and would probably miss a few more. Recently Eric’s increasingly erratic nature concerned some members of the warband but he still had the loyalty of the fiercest warriors amongst them including the wulfen which allayed any serious doubts amongst them.

Erics plan was simple, once they reached the village where the thief was Eric and his best men would search the buildings and flush out the skaven scum, whilst the rest of the warband stayed alert for ambush. “Simple and straight forward” thought Eric “no need for fancy tactics and manouvers”, Eric was well aware that his warbands strength lay in staying together but on this occasion he had no choice but to split his forces.



The village which had been abandoned months before lay quite, wildlife had started to impress itself once more upon the vacant structures, birds, rodents and insects took shelter where once people had lived. One rodent hid there who was out of place, to his chest he clutched a book, the Liber Chaotica. “Stupid humans, did they really think that he could not see straight through their lies and half truths”. “He, an Assassin Adept of the skaven had read their simple minded leader easily, then it was just a matter of stealing the book from him”. Like most skaven he hated travelling above ground but soon his warband would join up with him and they could make good their escape together.



Eric ordered his warriors forward, Halftan the bondsman ran straight into an abandoned building whilst the two berserkers Aegir and Grim led 3 marauders, the shaman Bergfinn and the lone hunter to the right. Eric lead the remaining marauders left. The Wulfen and his pack leapt ahead of Eric’s group on an intercept course for a band of skaven that Eric had only just noticed. Eric leapt in through the shattered window of a building in front of him and began to search hurriedly through what remained inside, he hadn’t seen Halftan exit the building he had entered and presumed he was doing the same, on the left flank he knew that one of the berserkers would be doing the searching when they reached a building or its remains.

The Wulfen watched as 3 giant rats leapt upon his pack, confident that they could handle a few rats he kept on course to the next building before him. Suddenly a skaven appeared before him and charged, by its dress he figured it was a magic user, not that it mattered to him, magic users died like anything else under his claws. Then something hit him in the side, a giant rat had sunk its teeth in below his ribs and hung there grimly. Then the skaven magic user struck although the blows were easily shrugged of by the monstrous half man half wolf.

Grim entered the burnt out ruins of some ones home and quickly pushed charred roof trusses out of his way whilst searching the floor for cellar traps. To his left he heard the marauders war cry go up and he knew they had begun a run towards the band of skaven who had appeared from nowhere on the other side of the village. Aegir his brother in arms had gone ahead alone.

Bergfinn the shaman lead the marauders forward but the wily skaven got the jump on them and charged. Several norse warriors went down under the skaven assault and magic failing him Bergfinn drew his axe and sword and leapt into close quarters battle to support them.

The Wulfen pulled the giant rat from his side where it chewed to little effect and threw it to the ground, as it leapt again he crossed his claws in its path, caught it and pulled, it fell to the ground a final time in 2 halves, twitched and was dead. Before him but out of his reach he could see his brave wolves standing their ground but they were being overrun. The rat magic user took another swing, hit, but again failed to hurt him.

Aegir ran towards the next to last building to be searched, what he wanted to do was charge the skaven warband to his left but he knew the book was important to Eric his Jarl. Movement above him, a flash of brown fur followed by a pink tail and Aegir threw himself at the crumbling walls to get to the floor above him. As he hauled himself upwards and onto the 1st floor he saw the rat thief scurrying from one corner to the next and hauled himself upright “come here you stinking thief” he bellowed and the skaven stopped in its tracks and turned towards him. It showed no fear of him but placed the book down and leapt straight at him, in a blur of steel and teeth it landed several blows. Staggering under the rain of blows Aegir tried to defend himself to little avail, he went down on one knee and then fell to a penetrating chest wound.

Grim heard Aegir’s shout of triumph at discovering the thief and ran towards him across open ground. As he neared the half collapsed building he saw the body, a deep chest wound had gushed Aegir’s life blood to the ground, just in time he turned and saw the skaven leaping from above at him. His sword deflected the assassins blade a split moment before his trusted axe hit it in the side. He picked up the book his Jarl craved and after checking Aegir’s corpse for any signs of life he ran as fast as his legs would carry him for the remaining skaven.

The wulfen looked round, he’d dispatched the magic user easily but all his pack was down, all the marauders were down as was the shaman. That left Eric, Grim, Halftan and himself to face twice that number in skaven. He grinned and a wicked growl escaped his curled back lips, death, blood and vengeance for the fallen, what else was there ???









In this battle the Norse suffered badly and had loads of OOA by the end of the battle.

This was mainly due to good tactical play by Chris the skaven player and having to divide the heroes from the henchmen to search buildings. In the end game I lost 2 wolves 1 Marauder and Aegir the berserker. Although not a good result it could have been a lot worse, that said, Eric the short did retain the Liber Chaotica.



All the best folk



Cian Shieldbiteer

ANOTHER CINEMATIC MOMENT! Thanks for a FINE Battle Report.

Thanks again for a great report! Congratulations for getting the book back! Well done, Chieftain!

I must admit that i quite like writting battle reports in this way, ive always been a "spirit of the game" player at whatever game ive been playing be it RPG or table top wargaming and thats why the grammer and stuff isnt so hot (and im a little bit fick). And id love to pretend the ideas behind Eric are mine but he's really an amalgamation of several fantasy characters like pythons Eric The Viking, Moorcocks Gaynor the damned and many, many others.
The skaven really took me by surprise, i didnt realise how hard they had become.
I'm just writing the warband stats up and will post them as soon as i can.
Thanks for the support you folk it is appreciated.

Cian Shieldbiter

Jorrundsonn (Hero(LGT))

M	WS	BS	S	T		W	I	A	LD
4	5	3	4	3		1	4	3	8
SKILLS Sprint					EQUIPMENT L Armour Shield Helmet Axe + Sword

There is also a Norse Shaman with Angvars Fury and Howl of THe North,
3 Marauder Henchmen groups with thre members each, 5 Wolves and a new Berserker has joined.

Sorry about the seperate posts, it was the quickest way for me to do it, query's and suggestions welcome.

Cian Shieldbiter

That's some intersting equipment and skills. You are using so much Light Armour? That is pretty unusual, I think.

Also, it's nice to see a different skill choices than the Step Aside + Resilierent + Mighty Blow, which we always use (in that order).

To be Honest the L armour has not been much use but i had not played a lot before this campaign. Sprint has come in very handy against the maneaters who usualy get the drop on you charge wise. 2 of the marauder groups also have L. armour helmet and shields, so yes, a lot of L armour. I dont think i'd use so much if i were to start again.
Eric is not going the way i wanted Stat wise because i keep rolling skills for him and Martin the man eater player tells me that his leader will be able to challange Eric to a 1 on 1 combat, to be honest unless Erics luck changes drastically, he's dead.


Cian Shieldbiter

Nice work! I love to read battle reports no matter what style they are written in. I'm always curious about how the game is played. The characters in your narrative reports are very well done.

The excel looking tables are a nice touch.
Skill wise I'm amazed that you avoid resilient. Especially with Ogres around, but it seems to be working for you. (Or maybe not...)

Cheers!

Oh and I forgot to ask. what's your warband rating?

Cian Shieldbiter wrote:

Martin the man eater player tells me that his leader will be able to challange Eric to a 1 on 1 combat, to be honest unless Erics luck changes drastically, he's dead.

He must be talking about the Scourge of the Realm objective...

Indeed i am , 1v1 Eric the short, blessed of nurgle vs my ManEater Captain Gurul ThunderHead

tho i cant see kev letting me have my way and getting straight at eric without a fight