Darstardly Balkan Brigands with Sellswords

Another outing for my VSF variant of Sellswords and Spellslingers at the club. This time, for a change from the Dark Continent, the gallant chaps (and chapess) in service of her Imperial Majesty were off to the chaos of the Balkans, on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire.

Henry and Colin played the Player Characters and I acted as umpire and ran the villains. This is not strictly necessary in Sellswords as the foes are controlled by the events cards, but as I had written the adventure scenarios (one was based on The Healer scenario in the book and the other was my own creation) I thought it fairer if I didn't play. And as I know the rules best, it helps move the action along as well.

ADVENTURE ONE

You have been sent to retrieve Professor Simple-Smyth, a scientist whose research into lighter than air technology is of great interest to Her Imperial Majesty’s government. Unfortunately, the good professor has become something of a recluse and is hidden away somewhere in the Balkans. A government agent had made contact with the professor are persuaded him to travel to Britain, your group has been despatched to bring the professor home.

Your first task is to meet with the government agent, who will give you final details of the professors current location. To prevent foreign powers from getting their hands on the professor, the mission is of utmost secrecy and the meeting will take place in a remote mountain village.

But word has obviously got out as a number of local bandits have been seem searching the mountain villages for the “foreign spy”. It is not known if they are working for themselves or in the employ of some other power.

Set up, a village small houses with various out buildings, paddocks and gardens etc. There are a number of villagers present (2 per PC) and one of them is the disguised agent. To locate the agent a PC must more within 2” of a villager and spend one action to give the password. Roll 1d6:

1-4 – Bemused local who wanders off muttering.

5- Disguised Bandit who will charge the PC (treat as ambush)

6 – The Government Agent

If he hasn’t been found the last villager will automatically be the agent.

Deployment

Place the PCs within 2” of the Southern table edge

Foes

3 x Bandit Thugs, 1 on each table edge except the S.

3 x hordes of 3 Bandits 1 on each table edge except the S.

Wandering Monster: A Bandit Thug appears on a random table edge.

Complication

The Bandit Chieftain arrives on a random table edge.

Traps

There are no traps.

Animals

Animals are randomly deployed on the map. They activate, 3” respectively, every time a PC or foe moves within 1” of them, or every time the Monster Frenzy card is drawn. They move in a random direction.

The farm animals do not cause any damage, but any PCs or monsters contacted by them will be confused and lose their next action. In other words, move the group in contact with the figure. When that figure is activated, the first action received by that figure is used to push away the animals (move the group 2” away from the figure). In addition, any figure in contact with the animals loses the advantage of the Stealth trait, if any.

The table layout, the PCs will enter from the two top corners. 

The village blacksmith working away!

 A bad start for Colin's party, rolling 1's when shooting with two of his PC's, managing to jam their guns (obviously due to poor firearm maintenance). 

 Not a good time for another bunch of brigands to show!

 Fortunately his scientist managed to prime and lob a gas pot at their feet, knocking them out.

Henry's party got closer to the village but his scientist managed to attract the attention of some sheep (lose an activation shooing them away).

Colin's gentleman adventurer attempts contact with one of the villagers to see if it is the agent in disguise, unfortunately his pronunciation was so abysmal that the the resulting misunderstanding earned him a slap around the face!

As the brigand leader closes in on Henry's party, his hunter (huntress?) puts a bullet in his shoulder (the black marker represents a wound).

Colin's party get closer to the village.

Henry's scientist falls to a two-pronged assault.

That's a lot of brigands gathering at the edge of the village.

One of the stronger thugs takes a pot shot at Colin, dropping the soldier of fortune.

Success, Henry's soldier of fortune identifies the agent.

Scarcely an overwhelming success however, as they had lost 3 PCs in this adventure. By using his steam automaton Colin managed to drag both his fallen PCs off (they both survived), but Henry was forced to leave his casualty behind.

ADVENTURE TWO

Having learnt the location of Professor Simple-Smyth, the party has set off to the secret location, hidden in the nearby hills. But a gang of local Bandits are also on the trail of the good professor. It is not known if they are working for themselves or in the employ of some other power, but you must rescue the professor before the bandits can kidnap him.

Set Up: Place the professor’s house at the centre of the table. Scatter obstacles (large rocks, bushes) around the house.

Foes: There are 3 Bandits per player, plus a Bandit Thug per player+1. 3 Bandits must be deployed as a horde. If there is a single player, there will be only 1 Thug and a horde of 3 Bandits.

Deployment: The Bandits are deployed in random locations, but not closer than 8” to the hut. The professor is hiding in his house. PCs are deployed on any table edge, AFTER all Bandits have been deployed, but at least 4” from any Bandit.

Wandering Monster: A Bandit Thug appears on a random table edge.

Bandits: The Bandits will use their actions to move in contact with the house, and try to bash down one of its doors (roll a d20, on a 15+ the door is smashed) unless there is a PC within 4” of the Bandit (in that case, the Bandit charges the PC).

Once inside the hut, a random PC will control the professor. Bandits will try to capture the professor and drag him off the table to an unknown fate. The professor is armed only with a club, has 2 hp and 3 levels in the Scientist and Healer traits.

Complication

The Bandit Chieftain arrives on a random table edge.

Traps

There are no traps.

Scenario event: A fire starts in the professor’s house. Treat it as a stationary foe with DL 10, 3 hp, DMG 1 that will attack every person in the house until it is “killed”.

Figures inside the house at the end of their activation take 1 Damage unless they pass a DL 8 Constitution roll. 

The setting for the second adventure.

With a head start on the party, brigands rush towards the professor's house.

Colin's party moves slowly forward.

Only to be ambushed by a brigand lurking in the nearby field of crops.

As the brigands break down the professor's door a fire breaks out upstairs (one of his experiments going wrong?). The brigands rush in and overpower the professor, but two of them die in the flames before they can drag him out of the building.

More brigands rush forward as the professor is dragged away to an uncertain fate. In the next activation Henry's hunter (her legs are just visible at the top of the picture) takes a long range shot and blows the head off the brigand holding on to the professor. 

The soldier of fortune fights a very drawn out melee with a brigand thug (the PC was hit at least 6 times in this fight, but manged to make his parry roll everytime!).

Colin's soldier of fortune is felled by brigands' shooting. The party paused for the scientist to try and revive him, discovering it was only a flesh wound once he recovered consciousness.

Whilst the other PCs engage the brigands, Henry's gentleman adventurer fights his way past them and reaches to dazed professor, escorting him to safety.

Keeping the foe at bay!

A large group of brigands sneak up behind Henry's PCs.

But Colin's scientist lobs a gas bomb in the middle of them before beating a hasty retreat. With the professor now safely off the table, the heroes withdrew at this point without further loss.

A much happier ending for the loyal servants of Her Majesty. The difference between the two games was stark. In the first adventure they operated as two separate parties, in the second adventure they co-operated. The results speak for themselves!

VSF in Darkest Africa

I took my VSF variant of Sellswords and Spellslingers for it's first public try-out at the club on Friday. There were three players, myself, Mark and Colin, each with 3 Player Characters.

I've already posted full details of these scenarios online here for anyone interested in the full details.

Player Briefing Scenario 1

You are agents of Her Imperial Majesty, Queen of Great Britain, Empress of India etc., carrying out clandestine operations on behalf of HM Government.  Be aware that other government departments may have agents operating in your vicinity. This can be an inconvenience at times as these agents may get in the way of your operations. However, please note that it is not permitted to engage fellow Imperial agents in combat, no matter how annoying they may be. It is also frowned upon to allow fellow Englishmen (or even Colonials) to come to harm if you could reasonably prevent it.

 The renowned British archaeologist, Professor Mortimer-Whining, has successfully discovered the remains of a previously unknown, mysterious, stone-built settlement, deep in the jungle. Rumours say that the Professor had found an enormous stone structure, built on a scale previously unseen in this part of Africa. After 2 months of excavation he started his return journey to the coast with a train of porters carrying the artifacts that he had found during his dig.

The local tribes were much “put out” by the Professor’s unwanted interference with, what they considered to be, a holy site. Fearing for the safety of the Professor (and his mysterious artifacts), all agent of Her Imperial Majesty’s Government in the locality were been ordered to rush to intercept the Professor’s column. You all reached the Professor’s encampment at dusk, only to discover you were too late, the local tribes had attacked the column on the march and the porters had scattered in panic.

At first light you set off with the aim of rounding up as many of the porters as you can and salvage the artifacts.

The table at the start of the game. 

The red markers are points to be searched that might represent a missing porter. This game began exactly the same way as both test games for me, my first PC failed an activation and drew the Stepped on a Scorpion card! So 1 hit on my Hunter before the game had even started. With one of the tough elite warriors in front of me, my Hunter and Soldier of Fortune stayed on the table edge and shot at him, whilst the Missionary moved cautiously forward. In the meantime Mark and Colin moved forward straight away.

My Missionary moves forward.

Colin was slowed down by a lack of successful activations (including drawing the card to bring a hungry lion onto the table), but Mark rushed forward, gunning down anything in his path and finding the first porter. Over on my side a bunch of native warriors turned up and charged the Missionary! The first warrior in contact stabbed her with his spear, but she deftly parried the attack with her bible. She tried preaching to them to avoid their attack, but they would not listen so she whacked the first warrior around the head with the good book, felling the impudent scoundrel!

 

The Missionary in trouble.

My chaps with guns downed the two rearmost warriors and the lady knocked the last warrior into a coma, but not before taking a wound herself.

Whilst this was going on, Colin had snagged himself a porter and Mark had grabbed three! Mark's Mechanical Automaton was proving very successful. The machine acted as a bodyguard, giving a dodge roll against shooting and would attempt to ram attackers out of the way (which was useful when the Scientist was jumped by 4 warriors!). But that hungry lion was drawing nearer and two more groups of warriors had turned up just behind Colin's party.

Mark's successful party.

With most of the natives in front of us dead and the lion heading Colin's way, Mark decided to split his party. The Scientist and Gentleman Adventurer headed back to the starting edge with the porters and the Soldier of Fortune kept going to try and grab one more.
Colin's Scientist got badly hurt when he was mauled by the lion, but fought it off so that his Hunter could finish the beast off with a couple of well-aimed shots. Fortunately his Scientist had a supply of |Mrs Pinkam's Restorative Compound, so he could heal some of the damage. In the meantime his Gentleman Adventurer found another porter. But now he was being attacked on all sides by natives and taking more wounds, so decided to exit whilst he could.

Colin's party in trouble!

I had finally got my party away from the starting edge and found myself a porter. Seeing Mark retreat I decided to press on as there were several unsearched markers towards the far edge of the table. Unsportsman like, Mark rushed his Soldier of Fortune to one of the markers I was heading for! Which turned out to be a ported with a warrior guard. The dice were against Mark in this final combat and his PC was killed by a spear thrust. My Hunter promptly shot the guard and my Missionary rushed forward and scooped up the porter. After checking the last couple of markers, I too called it a day.

In the End Colin had 2 porters (4 Victory Points), mark had 3 porters, less one PC left on the table (5 VPs) and I had 4 porters (8 VPs).

Player Briefing 2

You are agents of Her Imperial Majesty, Queen of Great Britain, Empress of India etc., carrying out clandestine operations on behalf of HM Government.  Be aware that other government departments may have agents operating in your vicinity. This can be an inconvenience at times as these agents may get in the way of your operations. However, please note that it is not permitted to engage fellow Imperial agents in combat, no matter how annoying they may be. It is also frowned upon to allow fellow Englishmen (or even Colonials) to come to harm if you could reasonably prevent it.

On returning from a 2 month expedition, the renowned British archaeologist, Professor Mortimer-Whining, was attacked by the local tribes. Whilst you (helped/hindered by agents of other government departments) were attempting to retrieve his lost archaeological artifacts, a group of villainous Zanzabari slavers raided the Professor’s camp.  They kidnapped the Professor’s daughter and stole the few artifacts that the porters hadn’t already run off with.

You feel it is your duty to pursue the ruffians, you can’t leave the Professor’s daughter in the hands of slavers (plus you have a suspicion that the artifacts stolen may include the Professor’s map to his mysterious site). Unfortunately your rivals have had the same idea. You track the Zanzabaris to a small village some distance to the south by a dried up river bed. The inhabitants quite sensibly left at the news of the approaching brigands, you have apprehended one of them who confirmed that they saw a white woman and several boxes and chests being carried by the raiders. At dawn you intend to raid the village and liberate the unfortunate young lady, from the hands of the slavers. The Professor will undoubtedly pay for the return of his daughter, and if you can grab some artifacts, and hopefully the map, as well, so much the better.

The situation at the end of the first turn.

Colin and I both suffered from a lack of successful activations at first, which allowed Mark's two surviving PCs to get a head start across the table, but brought on a lot of reinforcements. Once again the Automaton proved it's worth, allowing the Scientist to survive a hail of bullets (the slavers are classed as poor shots, so once in range it was a 50/50 chance of whether they would shoot or charge into melee). Unfortunately for Mark, his Gentleman Adventurer found his revolver jammed, just as a lot of slavers started to close in!

The Gentleman struggles to clear his gun as the enemy draw nearer.

It was turning into a bloodbath, with more and more enemies turning up as we all had a run of bad dice. To add to our potential problems, a rogue elephant wandered onto the table as well! At least my shooting was good and I managed to fend off the attackers on my side, but Colin was taking the worst of it.

Attacked from all sides!

As multiple foes charged in, Mark's Scientist triggered his Prismatic Shield, a forcefield of energy which "bounced" his attackers aside, knocking them to the ground. Having cleared his jam, the Gentleman Adventurer rushed up and despatched the prone slavers before they could rise.

Mark uses his Prismatic Shield.

Things were looking pretty unhealthy for all of our parties, we were only a third of the way across the table and there were enemies swarming everywhere. It looked like a unsuccessful mission when I had a stroke of luck. After killing one of the slaver leaders, my Hunter discovered that the villain had not been carrying a carpet over his shoulder, but the Archaeologist's missing daughter!

Freed!

We all decided that discretion was the better part of valour and everyone headed for the nearest escape route. Sadly Colin's Soldier of Fortune was the last to escape and paused too long at the table edge (well failed all three activations to be honest!). A nearby horde of slavers riddled him with bullets and he dropped to the ground!

Gunned down!

Great fun and two very different games! The lack of successful activations had penalised us in the second scenario. If we had needed to more further across the table in order to find the missing woman, I think we would all have been wiped out.