The Thrappled Lemmings and the Decanter of St Emilia: The Courtyard (Rangers of Shadow Deep)

 Battered and bruised after their entrance to the Convent, the Thrappled Lemmings pushed on into the courtyard. They figured that they could then branch off from here to most areas of the Convent as they wished. Within the courtyard were a couple of old shacks and a fountain in the center. There was a wagon on the far side, and a horde of skeletons between the Lemmings and the areas they felt they needed to investigate.

"Take it easy this time and stick together," Aethelwyrd ordered her patrol, "Remember to support each other and don't go rushing off. We need you all alive and mostly whole to finish this mission."

They all nodded grimly. Their entrance to the Convent had been hotly contested and they had taken it too lightly to start with. Not this time though. This time they would focus and make sure they did not get hurt.

"Looks like it's a ghoul's night out," announced Aethelwyrd, "Well, let's see if these ghouls just wanna have fun."

The others groaned and looked pained at the forced puns. The courtyard was full of skeletons, but they were not going to take time to correct her.They advanced in quickly. The good thing about skeletons, as they all knew, was that one good strike would crush them. The Thrappled Lemmings set to work doing just that. Aelfwyn's arrows struck repeatedly and to good effect. The others waded in, while Ash, who was trying to stay out of trouble went to investigate the shacks on either side of the courtyard.

As Ash investigated, more skeletons emerged from all around the courtyard. The Thrappled Lemmings continued to cut and slash their way through them but more kept emerging. As the fight raged, Aethelwyrd caught a nasty blow to the ribs from a Skeletal Knight, but then crushed its skull in retaliation.

Suddenly an eerie groan and howl rang out and the Lemmings' blood froze. They found it harder to fight and push themselves on as a Tortured Soul appeared atop a wagon in the corner of the courtyard.

Despite the ghost's presence, the Lemmings pushed on harder. Onund ran to investigate the wagon where the Tortured Soul had appeared. Crushed under it was a nun.

"Don't worry," he reassured her ghost, "We shall ensure that the Decanter is safe. You have done your job and there is nothing more for you here."

The ghostly howling died away as the Tortured Soul finally found rest. Rejuvenated, the Lemmings continued to cut their way through hordes of undead.

Investigating the second shack, Ash found a hound chained up inside.

"Who's a good boy then? Who's a good boy?"

The hound seemed pleased to see Ash and bonded with the bard immediately as Ash released it and it raced off to find a bone or three to chew on, destroying a couple of skeletons in the process.

"Aethelwyrd, I found a dog. I'm going to call him Doggo. Can I keep him, please? I promise to look after him properly."

The fight continued to rage on as the Lemmings made their way to the far side of the courtyard. They had found that a statue in the fountain in the middle of the courtyard had been broken up and one of its hands was now pointing towards the opposite side of the courtyard.

On reaching the far side, they found runes scratched on the wall.

"Aha, a veritable clue," Aethelwyrd informed the others, who could not read these runes, "Quickly! Follow me! We need to move out of here and get on with our mission. No time to waste."

She led the way towards an exit from the courtyard.

That was easier than the previous scenario. Ash found a pet hound, who got badly hurt by a zombie and will have to sit out the next scenario. Aethelwyrd took a nasty wound, but the rest of the Lemmings came through relatively unscathed, apart from the wounds they were carrying from the last scenario.

I now have a fairly solid idea of where to find the Decanter of St Emilia too, so The Thrappled Lemmings might be able to finish the mission quickly and return home for a well-earned beer. We shall see.

The Thrappled Lemmings and the Decanter of St Emilia: The Gatehouse (Rangers of Shadow Deep)

Time to start the Burning Light campaign from the main rulebook now. It's a trek into the Shadow Deep with a bunch of linked scenarios and limited opportunities to heal between them. There are also no reinforcements coming so any characters that die will not be replaced. It's all a bit nervewracking really.

I have no plans to make new terrain for this campaign, unless absolutely necessary, so a lot will be improvised. The same applies to the hostile figures. I'm going to use what I have as much as possible, which means that some figures will be recycled into different roles along the way. Also, apologies for the not-too-great pictures. I still need to work out the best settings on my phone for this, or not be lazy and go and fetch my actual camera.

 The Thrappled Lemmings had healed their wounds and were once more itching for action. Admittedly, by action they actually meant beer, but the Captain wilfully ignored that when she called Aethelwyrd to her office.

"Time for your lot to ship out again. Our rangers rescued a Lorenthian survivor, who told an interesting tale. The survivor has directions to the Convent of Saint Emilia in the Shadow Deep. More importantly, the Decanter of Saint Emilia is said to still be there. We want it. You and your patrol are going to go and get it. Speak to Sergeant Gunvold and the survivor and then grab your kit and get down there. It's will take you a couple of weeks to get there and back again so pack accordingly. Any questions?"

The Captain's face informed Aethelwyrd that she would not have any questions, so she left to do as told.

Eight days of sneaking and skulking through the Shadow Deep later, she outlined her plan to the rest of her patrol.

"Ok, Lemmings, we're going through the front door because we are not sneaking weasels," announced Aethelwyrd.

"Speak for yourself!" muttered Ash.

"I heard that! Just for that, Ash, it's your job to sneak us in through the front door. Lead the way!"

Ash grumbled but set out at once just the same. He charted a route to the entrance to the Convent of St Emilia that enabled the Lemmings to reach it unseen and unheard.

The heroes enter from the bottom of the picture. The exit is to the top. There is an ogre top right and a ghoul bottom right. The monk figures are clue markers and there is a locked door in the middle of the wall on the left.

"Ok, I've had a look," he informed the others, "There is a ghoul to the right of the main gate and an ogre on the far right. Looks like it might be guarding something valuable. There's a door on the left that I shall need to check out and what looks like the remains of several of the locals hanging from chains on the far side."

"Good job, Ash. You and Incunabulum go left. I'll follow with you to start with. You two will be scouting everything and looking for clues. The rest of you go right. Take out the ghoul and I'll meet you at the ogre and we can scrag it together. Then we break for the courtyard. We need to get this done before the Shadow Deep realises what we are up to."

The others grunted their assent and they glided silently through the main gate, taking up position before the hostiles knew what was coming. Like a smoothly oiled machine, the Lemmings worked together. Aelfwyn wounded the ghoul, which then charged Onund, who caved its head in. The ogre charged towards them, as the warriors regrouped further into the room. They heard a deep booming laugh and a second ogre came through the door they planned to exit through.

"Oh, shit!" cursed Incunabulum.

Aelfwyn put another couple of arrows through the first ogre but it just seemed to make it angry and it promptly smashed Onund and Kalfr as they attacked, badly wounding them. Incunabulum fired a magic bolt at the second ogre but merely grazed it. Meanwhile Ash had picked the lock on the door and was suddenly confronted by a room full of ghouls.

"What the flip!" Ash was seriously unhappy now.

Just at this moment, a giant vulture chose to fly into the gatehouse, following the second ogre. The fight was on in earnest.

Red dice mark the Health that the monsters have left. I keep track of the heroes' Health on their character sheets to the side of the table

One of the ghouls attacked Ash, who slew it and ran towards some bodies that were hanging from chains to check them out. Incunabulum let loose a fireball at the remaining ghouls but merely singed them. The others laid into the other monsters. It was a hard fight that saw Kalfr, Incunabulum and Ash all laid out cold, while Onund grabbed treasure. Between swarms of insects, an earthquake and some apparently living chains that wrapped Aethelwyrd up for too long, only Aelfwyn was carrying no wounds. With zombies arising everywhere, the Lemmings made tracks for the courtyard. They barely had time to bandage their wounds before the next fight began.

As they marched forward, Ash asked Aethelwyrd if she could read the scroll he had found. She looked at it and nodded.

"Yes, I think it's a clue to the location of the Decanter. It looks like the nuns and the Lorenthian guard just had time to hide it before the Shadow Deep took over."

Onund sidled up, "Hey, Ash, I found this and think it might be your style."

He handed a grey cloak to the scop. The pattern and weave of the cloak made it hard to focus on. Ash nodded. He recognised this as a Greyleaf Cloak that would help him hide. He suspected that he would be doing a lot of that as he tried to heal his wounds.

That started really well and then it all went to hell as the undead started to score heavily against the poor heroes. Worse yet, the Lemmings failed loads of tests due to random events and lost valuable actions that gave the monsters freer reign than they would otherwise have had. This also prevented Ash from moving out of trouble and stopped them grabbing the other treasure token in the scenario. Ah well, lesson learned: do not open locked doors! Let us hope that the next scenario is kinder to the poor Lemmings.

The Thrappled Lemmings and the WhoWolf (Rangers of Shadow Deep)

And back to Rangers of Shadow Deep. Let's see how this goes.

"So, you need us to go and investigate the creepy manor house?" queried Aethelwyrd.

"That's about the size of it," was the auxiliary commander's response, "We'll come with you, of course. Our company was mauled by a couple of werewolves and we set off after them. They appeared to be heading for Portals Manor."

"Ah, so it's not so much of a WhereWolf as it is of a WhoWolf," quipped Aethelwyrd, finding herself incredibly funny. Those around her just looked pained.

Aethelwyrd had set out with Onund, Ash and Incunabulum to deliver a message for her captain, leaving the rest of her patrol behind to tend to their wounds after the last mission into the Shadow Deep itself. She had encountered the exhausted auxiliaries along the way and had no choice but to help them.

"Meh, ok, I guess. We'd better get moving before they move on again."

The auxiliaries staggered to their feet and got ready to lead the way to the manor. It was night, but the full moon ensured they could see well enough as they slid through the rain and mud towards their objective.

The game set-up. The heroes are in the lower left of the picture, monster cards with spare monsters to the left of the playing area and the heroes' character sheets to the right

As they reached the edge of the home fields around the manor, they had a better view of the place. It had seen better days, but was not in bad condition. A ramshackle barn lay to one side. The manor itself was a low building and in better condition. It looked like someone might still live there. An eel pond lay nearby with a rowing boat drifting in its middle. To one side was a copse of woods.

Suddenly, a wolf's howl sundered the night's silence. The hairs on the back of Aethelwyrd's neck rose and a chill ran down her spine. This was definitely boding, and she really did not like boding.

"Everyone ready?"

They all checked their weapons and harness one last time.

"Let's move out. Incunabulum, you're with me. Also, you Seb with the axe and you with the bow. What's your name? Orla? Ok.  We'll circle round via the woods. Onund and Ash, you and those other two, Covin and Nicolan, wasn't it? You circle round via the barn and then towards the front door to the manor. We need to check there is nothing behind us before we move into the manor itself. Stick with your team and watch each other's backs."

The two groups slid silently through the night towards their objectives. As they did so, Orla spotted giant flies in front of the dilapidated barn and began firing ineffectively at them.

"Pah," muttered Incunabulum, "You literally cannot even hit the blooming barn door!"

Orla gave him a tired look and nocked another arrow to her bow.

"Werewolf!" yelled Seb.

"Where wolf?" responded Aethelwyrd.

"There wolf!" yelled Seb again, pointing towards the barn door. A werewolf had indeed just emerged from the barn.

"There wolf!"

As this went on, the giant flies buzzed toward's Athelwyrd's group, while a swarm of giant rats and a wolf were charging towards Onund's group, intent on devouring them.

Between them they slew the wolf and moved to engage the rats. The night was lit up suddenly as Incanabulum fried a fly and singed another with a fireball.

Rats! Why did it have to be rats?

A scream rang out and a young man emerged from under the wagon that the rats had been harassing. He looked panicked and unsure what to do.

"To arms!" shouted Aethelwyrd and her whole group rallied to her. Seb engaged a giant fly, as she did the same. Incunabulum blasted the werewolf with a magic bolt. It howled in agony. Orla missed the broad side of the barn again and nocked another arrow to have another go. She did not have time to shoot again before the werewolf was upon her and tearing huge chunks out of her.

"I've got you outnumbered 1 to 3!" cried the werewolf.

Meanwhile, Covin was beset by giant rats and being cut to ribbons too. Fortunately, Nicolan and Onund raced to help him and cut the rats down before they could kill the poor auxiliary.

As this was going on, Ash raced into the forest where the wolf had come from. He found the corpse of an auxiliary soldier with a long fang buried in its throat. This was a clear sign that the werewolf had been here and tracks suggested it had headed off towards the manor.

Aethelwyrd and Seb both slew their giant flies and moved to aid Orla. It was just as well. With their aid, she only just fended off the werewolf and then managed to slide her dagger in under its guard, opening a large would in its side. Just as well because the wound from the magic bolt was healing at a rapid rate of knots. Seeing the vile beast thus engaged and suffering, Incunabulum joined the fray too only for the werewolf's claws to cut a huge gash across his body. Blood sprayed everywhere as he was seriously wounded.

Ash raced off to the wagon where the young man was. Lying beside it was another horribly mutilated corpse.

"Are you ok?"

The young man nodded weakly. He looked exhausted.

"Stay behind us and we'll protect you."

From the other side of the home fields, Onund and his group heard a loud warcry. Aethelwyrd raised her sword and swung hard. With the aid of the others, she was able to bring it crashing down on the werewolf's head, crushing its skull and spattering brains all over her companions.

"Incunabulum, you and the other two go and check out the barn. I've seen something on that boat that I want to investigate. Onund's group moved purposely towards the manor as Aethelwyrd swam out to the rowing boat, where she found a dead dog with red hairs in its jaws. Incunabulum, Seb and Orla moved towards the barn as a wolf came charging in from just beyond it.

Cowering in the corner of the barn behind a hay bale was an old man.

"Too easy!" gloated Ash.

"You're safe now," Incunabulum told the man confidently, despite the bright blood all over his clothes and the weeping gashes in his side.

The old man looked sceptically at him but followed the conjuror anyway.

Ash moved up to the door to the manor house. He could hear whining and scratching from within. Testing the door, he found it locked, but not for long. Seconds later, as the rest of his group joined him, he was putting his lockpicks away.

"Too easy!" he announced to an unappreciative world.

As they gathered by the door, ready to enter, a giant fly exploded from a nearby corpse. Aethelwyrd rowed hurriedly to the shore and quickly dispatched it while Seb slew the wolf that had attacked him. As moved back and made space for Onund to enter the manor. Onund opened the door and was confronted by a hungry wolf. A quick exchange of blows saw this wolf slain, but another raced from the back of the manor house towards the hero.

Elsewhere, Incunabulum, Orla and Seb were returning with the old man to join their compatriots, when a giant fly erupted out of a dead cow and launched itself at the grievously wounded conjuror. Seb raced back to help. He and Incunabulum between the two of them slew the fly.

The wolf trapped in the farmhouse assaulted Onund and hurt him badly. Covin and Nicolan raced around the side of the manor house in search of another entrance.

A chilling howl rent the night air once more, causing Incunabulum to freeze.

Unaffected by the savage howling, a mighty blow from Onund's axe cleaved the wolf's skull, and he was able to enter the manor. The room he stood in was a mess with blood and clothes everywhere. Aethelwyrd following behind spotted a pair of Boots of Soft Tread among the mess and grabbed them. She then spotted a silver sword and seized that too. It would be useful when they found the last of the werewolves.

"We'll check the side door," announced Nicolan.

Ash raced past the pair and found a scared young woman in the next room. She stared at him fearfully but then with realisation that she might now be rescued. The relief was plain on her face.

"Yes, we're here to save you," announced Ash and struck a heroic pose that caused the young woman to laugh and relax. He was only a little miffed that she did not think him heroic enough.

He told her to wait where she was for the others and raced into the next room, almost tripping over a headless corpse there. In the meantime, Aethelwyrd had rushed into the last room of the manor. She found a bloody handprint missing a couple of fingers smeared on the wall and a silver dagger that she thrust into her belt. As she did this, there was a scream from outside.

"NO, COVIN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET AWAY FROM ME!" Nicolan screamed.

Covin reveals his true colours

Covin's reply was a snarl, his eyes mad beyond all reason as his body swelled and changed into a man-wolf form. He leapt upon Nicolan, who defended himself like a man possessed. The werewolf's claws never once neared him as he drove his sword into the beast's body repeatedly, and followed up with an upwards stab that entered the werewolf's reddened maw, driving up into its brain. Covin slumped to the ground dead, his body returning to its human form as he did so.

The silence after the fraught investigation and fight was deafening. In that silence, the patrol gathered in the manor house, barring the doors and waited out the night, before continuing to deliver their message for the captain.

Wow, that was quite the dramatic ending. Nicolan won the initial melee with the werewolf and then scored a critical hit on his own activation. Very surprising, especially after the first few turns where no one rolled above a 6 and the only reason the heroes were not taking wounds was because the baddies were not rolling over the heroes' armour values. How humiliating would it have been to be defeated by giant flies and giant rats like a first level party?

That was yet another great mission. I loved the investigation mechanic that did not let me know who was the werewolf until the threshold was reached. It made it quite tense and had me thinking about  how I should position the auxiliaries as the threshold was neared so that my heroes would stand a chance. But then Nicolan took out the werewolf in one round and it all became moot. Great and heroic stuff. Perhaps Aethelwyrd should invite Nicolan to join her patrol.

Up Close and Personal in Africa (Warfighter)

 It's been a while, so I dug out Warfighter instead of working on the terrain I need for the next Rangers of Shadow Deep mission. I regret nothing! I picked the French as the friendlies and the African warlord hostiles. This is still my favourite pack because it has the "save the elephants" mission. I also quite enjoy the extra challenge of the hot environment, which can slow you down.

The commander had ordered Sergeant Capron to take his fire team and clear out the poachers from the area. Grabbing Corporal Durand, and Privates Swift and Bertrand, he proceeded to brief them. The enemy was massing in the area, so they would have a tought fight of it. Worse yet, they had a ways to go, so they would have to pack light. Loading up for close combat, the fire team headed out.

The mission is close combat, which means that all the hostiles will duck up in the same location as the foremost soldier. Many hostiles have other rules for placement, such as being placed in the objective location or behind the troops or some variant thereof, but this mission means getting up close and personal with the hostiles from the second you start the mission. The objective for this scenario is to clear the objective location of all hostiles. That means it is going to get messy.

The fire team was barely out of the gates of the base before hostiles showed up. Half a dozen gunmen leapt out of concealment but the team's superior training and firepower told. Despite being outnumbered, the hostile gunmen and RPG crews were soon suppressed and then killed by a combination of rifle fire and thrown grenades.

Although they would normally have been placed in the grassy fields location that was the first area to move through, because of the mission conditions, all the hostiles were placed in the mission card with the fire team the second I placed the first location. That was scary.

As the team advanced across the grassy fields and pastures of a nearby village, they were assaulted once more by hordes of gunmen. Once more they laid down as much fire as they could before moving into the village, where yet more gunmen and machine-gun teams waited to ambush them. The team were running short on grenades now, and the heat was taking its toll and slowing them down, but their objective was in sight. They only had to cross the village's farmland, ford a river and they would be there. The water of the river looked enticing at this distance as the drained their canteens and prepared to advance.

Once more, the hostiles threw themselves out of cover and tried to slaughter the team. Capron took a bullet in the shoulder, but shook it off.

"It's just a flesh wound," he announced. The others could see that it was slowing him down though.

The team pushed on to the river. It looks quiet but appearances can be desceptive. More hostiles emerged and rained firepower down on the team. Suddenly, an unseen ambusher leapt out and fired a burst at Bertrand. The plucky private died in the middle of the river. The others cut the ambusher down in a hail of lead and emerged on the objective.

An IED went off startling them all. Fortunately no one was hurt and Capron was able to lead the team round some very hungry-looking hippos into the objective where a group of villagers were gathered, drinking sweet tea, singing and arranging flowers. Apart from the singing and the disgruntled murmuring of the locals, there was no other sound, and there were no hostiles either.

Capron reported the objective clear and led his team back to base.

Well, that was a first. It was a hard fight all the way to the objective and then the objective points requirement was met by drawing three event cards and no hostiles. The IED suppressed my troops, I spent experience points to avoid the hungry hippos, and the local meeting did not require me to do anything because I was in the final location I needed to move into and had plenty of time. That meant I just advanced the timer and the mission was over. I have no idea why the local meeting was so heavily guarded or even if the two things were connected, but it made an interesting finish to the game.

In subsequent missions, Capron and his team took out a poacher stronghold, used a dust storm to sneak up on some poachers and drive them off from the elephants they were hunting, and defended a local village against hostiles. As the team was retreating from the village they had defended, the poachers massed in strength and pursued them. It was a hard fought battle even with the armoured support that had turned up. Unfortunately, Capron died within sight of the base gates, the bodies of his team strung out along the route back from the huts.

I played half a dozen more missions with the same two player soldiers and mostly the same squad soldiers after the mission written up here. All went well until the escape mission where the team had the misfortune of suddenly discovering that the hostiles had set up two heavy machine-gun nests outside their objective. Between that and the huge number of reinforcements that appeared, they were overwhelmed and Capron was cut down one card away from his objective. It was a TPK. A sad end to a good series of games and my worst result yet in this game. On the other hand, if I won every time the game would get boring. I guess I can always run a rescue mission to free Capron, who, it unexpectedly turns out, was only wounded and was captured by the poachers.

I really do like how Warfighter generates interesting narratives through the play of the cards. Of course, I try to help it along by playing thematically appropriate locations too, rather than just looking at which locations offer the best advantage for me, but the random draws add an extra dimension to the stories that my soldiers will tell afterwards. Cracking good stuff that makes me feel like I am a movie action hero for a wee while!