Travels amongst the Border Princes (WFRP 2e) IC

[rax]

"Wait, you're not suggesting you go to the Hornwood place are you? Seems to me that's the surest way to end trapped outside the walls!" Severin answers.

[Haval]

'Why, do you want to do it? How are you at climbing?'

[rax]

"Terrible. Short arms and short legs, see?" Severin replies, waving his arms at Gabriele. "I don't think either of us should go to the Hornwood place now. If they've done anything to Berry, we'll be too late to do anything about it anyway."

"We need to get back to Stralwald and let them know that Colten's coming right now. I'm just worried that Sir Laurens and the body recovery crew haven't finished their work yet. That's why I wanted at least one of us to head back that way and check before going to the village."

[Haval]

'I'll go and round up anyone that's still at the battle site then. I don't want to see what Colten will do to anyone he catches outside. If I don't catch you up and you have to close the gates I'll swing round and try coming in from the other side of the village.'

[rax]

"Alright then. I'll head straight for the village, or at least as straight as I can go without running into Colten's men. Stay safe - don't make me regret letting you go off alone, eh?" Severin replies with a quick wave as he sets off for Stralwald.

[dojango]

Severin and Gabriele split up to cover more ground. Fortunately for them, two determined individuals can travel much faster than a large group, and they quickly outpace the lumbering band. They even catch up to Sir Laurens as he leads the men back to the village. He nods as they pass on the news, and he orders the villagers to pick up the pace. When you reach the village and spread the news, the warning bell starts ringing and the farmers start streaming in from the fields. In the center of the village you see that the prisoner has been placed in the stocks. They are at halfling height, so he is practically kneeling in them; hopefully it is very uncomfortable. Sir Laurens comes riding through the crowd and dismounts. He tosses the reins to a surprised halfling farmer and waves to Severin and Gabriele and shouts, "War Council, now!" to them, before heading into the home he's commandeered.

[rax]

"Right you are, young sir," Severin replies and follows Sir Laurens inside.

[Haval]

Gabriele glares at the prisoner in frustration but will follow Severin into the house.

[dojango]

Gabriele and Severin are the first into the house after Sir Laurens. He turns to them and says, "Honestly, that went better than I expected. Got the lads a chance to see what standing and fighting is like. I think I'll put the veterans from that little dust-up in charge of the platoons. Give them some backbone, you see?"

Over the next few minutes, the others file in. Alyssa, Belisarius Goodchild, Nafisse, Ernst the Smith, and Bert. Sir Florian comes in last, having seen the patrol in and gotten them squared away. Sir Laurens, Alyssa, and Belisarius sit down around the small table. He invites Gabriele and Severin to sit down at the other side on small bench. "Sounds like the enemy is finally ready to attack. Our scouts reported they're on the move. Probably getting close to the village now. Alyssa, go over the plans."

Alyssa places her book on the table and opens it to one of the pages, as if to give her words more authority. She says, "Even though this isn't a castle, or a stronghold, the principles are the same. The first line of defense is the walls and the towers. If those get overrun, we fall back to the second line. Which is, uh, the barricades of the carts and houses. If that gets overrun, the final keep is the inn. With the walled orchard. It shouldn't come to that, but if it does..." she trails off for a moment. "If it does, we'll make our final stand there."

Sir Laurens nods. "Very good. We'll put as many bowmen as we can fit in the towers. Bert will be in charge of the archers on the right, and Gabriele will be in charge of the archers on the left. The rest of the fighters will be in three groups. I'll be in command of the center. Sir Florian will be in command of the left flank. Severin, I want you in command of the right flank. That side will be the hardest for the enemy to attack, so be prepared to reinforce the other sides. Belisarius, you're in charge of the civilians. Make sure they know what to do; bring up food and water and arrows, fight fires, and carry away the wounded. And the dead."

After a moment of silence, the blacksmith speaks up. "Managed to get them arrowheads made. Was down to pryin' out nails to get at the iron, but we got it done. At least there'll be a good harvest o' iron when this is all done."

Belisarius adds, "Speaking of the harvest, we got about two-thirds of it in. It'll be a lean year if we survive this, but at least we'll be alive, yeah? And we won't have to feed those damned Riverhoppers either, so mebbe it won't be too bad?"

Sir Laurens scowls at the mention of the deserters, but moves on. "Anyone have any questions? Or suggestions?"

Spoiler

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So the village is walled on three sides. The fourth side is the lake, which should be impassable unless the enemy has boats. So the defense is concentrated on the three sides. The south side of the village (the right flank) is harder to attack because the rice fields come up very close to the walls, so even after harvest, it's a boggy mess. That has punji sticks planted in it. The east side of the village is where the gate is, the open space around the walls has the abatis to break up an attack, and also has some stakes planted in it. The north side of the village (the left flank) is protected by the wall and the ditch. Each tower is big enough to fit 5 archers in it, and they're protected by wooden boards, which will give the enemy a malus to hit. They've also placed hides over parts of the towers to give them some protection from fire.

[rax]

Before anyone else joins Severin, Gabriele and Laurens
"It may have gone better than you thought, young sir, but that won't console the families of those who were killed or crippled. We were surprised and overrun, plain and simple, and many of the short folk were murdered in their sleep. The rest are as like to consider themselves lucky to have escaped with their lives as they are to take heart from us at least culling Colten's herd," Severin admonishes Sir Laurens.

"You need to step up and give these people heart and hope. Convince everyone that it was worth it, and not just by telling them we gave as good as we got or babbling on about glory. You need to convince the villagers that thanks to that dust-up, we're in a better position to defeat Colten than before. And you need to remind them what they're fighting for - their homes, their families, their right not to be ground under the boots of the big folk!" he continues. "In fact, you should talk to Belisarius first. I bet he can give you a few pointers about what to say."

[Haval]

'Severin has a point.' Gabriele isn't sure how much they can do about it. It wasn't like they could afford to lose anyone who could still fight. 'It wasn't heroic to everyone who was there. Just look at Morillo. Did he make it?'

At the meeting she does have some opinions, 'Maybe going straight for the gate is the best that they can do, but I don't want to assume they're that stupid. Is there any chance they could get a few men in without us noticing? All they'd need to do is have a few men who could come through the rice fields and climb the walls when it's dark. Or there's always the chance that some of them can swim.'

If they won there would likely be less mouths to feed. To Bellisarius, 'If you're short of food at the end of all this maybe the Duke will be willing to help.'

Spoiler: ooc

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Editing because Rax got a post in first

[dojango]

Sir Laurens is a little taken aback at that, and says, "You musn't beat yourself up over this. We took a risk and it didn't go as planned. This is war, you know, and not everyone is as much of a hero as you are. But I'll try and talk to the men after this. Dad always said you gotta appear confident in front of the men."

To Gabriele he adds, "Good idea, we'll have some people patrol the lake and they can give the alarm if anyone tries to sneak around that way."

Belisarius says, "Morillo's alive, he's resting. He won't be in any shape for fighting soon, though." He adds, more quietly, "I suppose there's no way we're coming out of this without owing the Duke."

[rax]

"If the right flank is turns out to be the quiet end, I'll have a couple of the lads keep an eye on the lake," Severin offers.

"If they do come straight for the gate - has anything been done to reinforce or brace it? If nothing else, having a hay cart or two on hand to block the passage if they manage to break down the gate or cut through it might be a good idea."

"I reckon not," Severin whispers back to Belisarius when he thinks no one's looking. "But by my lights, the Duke 'll owe you too. Holding Stralwald and seeing off Colten means Otto's plan to nab this neck o' the woods and start raiding north will be stillborn."

[Haval]

Gabriele disliked being praised, 'I don't think anyone is...unless you're Sigmar himself maybe. It's just people trying to survive.'

To Belisarius, 'It's better then the alternative. This is what nobles are for. If it wasn't Colten it'd be something else '

[dojango]

Sir Laurens waves his hands to indicate the gates. The last of the farmers have come inside and the gate is shut. A heavy bar is placed behind the gates, and another bar is placed behind it as a brace. That goes smoothly, at least. The next hour or so is filled with a lot of confusion and people running around. Gabriele finds her squad of archers, mostly woodsmen and hunters at least, who have all shown promise. They climb up into the towers, four to a tower. It is well protected from enemy arrows, with spare quivers in a corner. A little cramped, fine for shooting, but anyone with a sling would find it difficult.

Severin's squads take longer to assemble; he has a group of humans with spears. Most have a lot of grey in their hair, save for a few men sporting injuries from today's skirmish. The squad of halflings also ranges from a few greybeards, like old Whitefoot, and a few eager young un's, who gather in an unruly clique around Flora Goodchild. By the time every one is assembled it is late afternoon. But the enemy doesn't appear, at first. A few plumes of smoke rise from the nearby woods where they are camping. Just as the afternoon sun begins casting long shadows across the town, a large group of bandits emerge from the edge of the woods, out of bowshot. Their leader towers over them. Colten. They stand there, studying the village's defenses. Sir Laurens and Severin climb up into the tower with Gabriele to look at their foes across the field.

[rax]

"Well, looks like Colten's not blood mad just yet, then. Settling in for the long haul, from the looks o' things. I'll wager he's still short on supplies, though, so he's going to have to risk an assault sooner or later," Severin guesses.

"Anyone here feel like having a parley? Maybe ask him if they've got sore feet or something?" he chuckles. "Else we might let him sit out there for now and go speak to our prisoner?"

[Haval]

'Isn't it worse if he can turn it on and off as needed? Is he up to something or is he just going to wait until it gets dark and we're all tired of waiting?' The mention of the bandit's hunger made Gabriele grin maliciously. 'Maybe we should get some food up here.'

'Do you think he'll want to talk? And with us there especially?'

[rax]

"It was just a figure of speech. From what I've seen so far, I don't think Colten's likely to actually go blood crazy until he's personally engaged in combat," Severin replies. "If he's watching us for the moment, I reckon we can just watch him back for now. If it seems like they're settling in, we can stand down the men and set up a proper watch schedule. We can't keep everyone on their feet the whole time, but we don't want to be caught napping again. And if we need to draw them out, cooking a proper halfling dinner isn't a half bad idea," he chuckles.

"I don't much care if the prisoner wants to talk or not. I wasn't planning on giving him a choice, really," Severin answers coldly when the talk turns to the captured bandit. "But I really want to know if we were just unlucky out there in the woods or if Colten knew we were setting an ambush. If so, how? I also want to know as much as possible about the state of Colten's forces - supplies, morale, numbers, and such. I'm not much of an interrogator, but maybe some of our travelling companions can get him to spill his guts...figuratively speaking of course."

[Haval]

'If Colten's anything like the real Northmen then I wouldn't be so sure of that, but I don't expect he'd be interested in explaining himself.'

'I meant if Colten even wants to talk to us. Considering we spied on him. On the prisoner I don't think he'd talk to me either, but maybe it depends on what kind of bandit he is. A local farm boy or a deserter from back home might be something we can work with. If we lose and he's still a prisoner what's the betting that Colten wouldn't be entirely happy with him?'

[dojango]

Colten and his group of bandits spends some time wandering around the outskirts of the village, carefully staying out of bowshot, examining the defenses. Except of course, the right flank of the village, where the rice paddies encroach too closely for them to safely approach. While this is being done, watches are arranged for the villagers, and dinner is cooked out in big pots. Sir Florian says to Sir Laurens, "If we do send someone out to parley, make sure it's someone we can afford to lose. I don't trust these honorless dogs to honor a flag of truce."

Alyssa says that she talked to the prisoner, and that he was a huge jerk, so she'd had him clapped into the stocks. Sir Laurens is about to order the prisoner to be flogged, but Nafisse interrupts and asks for a flask of brandy and some time alone with the prisoner. After about an hour he comes back and gives the following report.

"I asked him about where he came from... Averland, he says. He and his mates deserted rather than go off to fight in the wars. He's not telling the full truth, that's for sure. About this morning, he says they saw your bait and decided to attack. But they saw the halflings asleep at their posts and immediately attacked them. Figured they'd smoked you, but didn't realize you had reinforcements. Or a halfling berserker, for that matter. Tried asking about his mates out there, but he'd clammed up. I reckon the guys you fought today were his mates, but he didn't seem too broken up about them. Just another rootless soldier fighting for himself. Only thinks of us as a source of plunder. I seen his type a hundred times." Nafisse trails off at that. "As a knight, I reckon I should stand up against his type," he adds, unconvincingly.

[rax]

"Well, you're going to get your chance to stand up to them soon enough, Sir Nafisse," Severin replies, trying to sound encouraging. "And I'm not too surprised he doesn't care much about any fallen comrades. It's clear as day that Colten and his deserters are all well on their way to worshipping the Ruinous Powers. The worst of 'em no longer care if they live or die, as long as they can take as many of us with 'em as they can before they go."

"Alright, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with that for now. All we can do right now is watch and wait. Keep an eye on the prisoner too, so that he doesn't cause any trouble."

[Haval]

Sir Florian says to Sir Laurens, "If we do send someone out to parley, make sure it's someone we can afford to lose. I don't trust these honorless dogs to honor a flag of truce."

'He has a point.' Gabriele agrees, not expecting to agree with Florian of all people. 'Unless Colten would be so good as to have a parley within bow range.'

The prisoner apparently didn't care enough to lie to them, but Gabriele will grin at 'halfling berzerker'. 'You're getting a reputation Severin.' Perhaps the prisoner's attitude wasn't really surprising considering the bandit's treatment of the shrine to Taal. 'I would almost welcome a priest being here to shout at them. Even if they're hungry and desperate some of them must have doubts about what they're doing.'

To Nafisse, 'If you know how to fight and you're helping defend people who can't I think you're doing exactly what a knight should be doing.'

[dojango]

The night passes slowly, with watches coming and going. The fires burn out, to save on fuel and to preserve the night vision of the watchers. As dawn breaks, the village cooks bring out pots of warm rice porridge for everyone, and the village milita eats nervously and quickly in their positions. Eventually you can hear the sound of movement and shouting from the enemy's camp in the woods. It seems to be taking them a while to get organized, and after about an hour the bandits start emerging from the woods and start forming up.

Sir Laurens orders a couple of soldiers to raise him up on a shield. From there, he gives a decent enough speech. It touches on the importance of defending hearth and home, a reminder that the enemy has been beaten in two skirmishes already, and wraps it up with a brief paean to the Duke. He ends it with a cheer of "For Stralwald and the Duke!" The militia takes it in stride and cheers as well. The "For Stralwald" part is much louder than the "and the Duke" part, but spirits are already rising among the militia.

Severin heads up to one of the towers with Bert, who hands him a spare bow. "Case you want to take some shots, chief," he says. They've switched to bows for now, since there's not enough room in the tower to swing a sling. From Severin's vantage point, he can see the enemy emerge from the woods carrying ladders. Since he's on the right flank, it's hard to see what's going on in the center and on the left. It's a longer bowshot from here than it is in the center where Gabriele is, as well. The archers around him pull arrows from their quivers and nock them, waiting for an order to loose.

From her vantage point in one of the towers overlooking the gate, Gabriele has a good view of the enemy. They have placed their archers in front, and behind them are men carrying ladders. She counts ten ladders as they move them out of the woods, each carried by two men. She can also see a man with a musket amongst the group. In the center, she sees a number of men carrying large axes and ropes, and in the very front she can see two halflings pushing a wheelbarrow with a barrel in it. Behind them is a man with a torch and a rope. He swings the rope at the two halflings and they start pushing the wheelbarrow forward. Behind them, Colten raises up his club and starts screaming. The bandits raise their weapons and start screaming as well. "Blood! Blood! Blood!" they shout, and then they start jogging forward towards the walls.

[Haval]

Gabriele watches the speech from the back of the crowd. At least some people seemed to like it, 'Almost wish I could do that. He must have taken lessons.' She'll join in with the 'For Stralwald' cheer. Before she leaves for the wall she'll tell Severin to 'Be careful.'

On the wall, having watched some of these archers practicing, she'll try and assess who the best shot is up here after herself. It would be nice to have someone to back her up if there was a need, but it wasn't like they were short of targets. To everyone in earshot, 'Alright you lot, remember what we said in training. Don't try to be flashy. Aim for the body when you can to make sure you hit something. If you can hurt them it's good enough. If anyone manages to get one of them in the head the beer is on me. Shoot the ones who can shoot back first.' She doesn't command but hopefully the people with her can see the value of the advice. She grimaces at Colten when he starts the chant about blood, 'You first you crazy bastard.'

As the bandits come forward, 'The slaver is mine.' If there was anyone she trusted to hit what they shot at she'll ask for them to shoot at the same target. If they couldn't stop what was presumably a barrel full of gunpowder from getting close to the walls this would all be over quickly.

Spoiler: ooc

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I take it this is a new day for Fortune point purposes

Charm test if it helps
vs. Fel 32 /2 = 16
(1d100)[61]

Half Action - Aim at the guy that's whipping the Halflings with the gunpowder
Half Action - Shoot
Free Action - Dodge if needed

vs. BS 57 (+20 for aim with Sharpshooter) (-20 if over 30 yrds in case it matters)
(1d100)[83]
FP if needed
(1d100)[19]
-leg shot

Any damage (1d10+3 with armour piercing)
(1d10+3)[9]

Taal's Fury if needed
(1d100)[40]
(1d10)[7]

Any Dodge
vs. Ag 48
(1d100)[28]

FP: 2/3

[rax]

"Those are some noisy beggars, right there. Just remember, they die just as easily as any man when you fill 'em full of arrows and sling stones," Severin tries to encourage Bert and the other archers in the tower.

"I reckon the immediate threat is those ladders. It doesn't matter much if Colten has archers out there plinking away at us, but if the ladders reach the palisade, things are liable to get messy. So as soon as they're in range, we shoot any ruffian with a ladder we can, right?"

"Until then, you two keep a weather eye out on the water. We don't want any surprises coming at us that way, eh?" he adds to two of the archers.

[dojango]

Gabriele looses an arrow, and sees it hit the slave-driver's leg. He stumbles, briefly, before giving one of the halflings a shove. The archers around her take this as their signal to fire, and let loose a volley of their own towards the enemy archers in the lead. Gabrielle can see that more than a few of the arrows have struck home. The enemy's archers keep running forward until they're in front of the ditch and abatis dug by the villagers. They start to climb over it, giving Gabriele and the other archers a clear shot at them. The slaver and the halflings are moving much more slowly. They still have some ways to go before they can overcome the abatis.

On Severin's flank of the battle, he sees the enemy rushing towards him. Again, the enemy archers are in the lead, and they start climbing over the abatis. Behind them are the men carrying the ladders. Once they're in long range, Bert shouts out the order to fire at the ladder-men. One of the ones in the lead stumbles and falls and the ladder goes tumbling. The other ladder-carrier grabs someone who picks up the other end, and after a few moments, they begin moving forward.

Spoiler

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Archers are at normal range, ladder-men & slavers are still at long range.

[rax]

"Good shooting lads, but it looks like we've got some time to make those bowmen regret getting close to us. Put the next volley in them and I'll take pot shots at the ladder men. Clear? Then nock and loose!"

Spoiler: Actions

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I'm guessing that the men with the ladders are going to have a wee bit of difficulty manoeuvring over the ditch and abatis. Enough so that we might get two rounds of shooting in once they're in normal range. Hence the change of orders for the militia archers to target the bandit archers while they're busy in the abatis. Severin is a better shot though, so he'll try and take down another ladder carrier.

Full action: Swift attack vs. 42 (BS 62, Long range -20) (1d100)[92], (1d100)[73]
Damage (1d10+4)[12], (1d10+4)[5]

Ulric's Fury if applicable
(1d100)[53], (1d100)[29]
(1d10)[2], (1d10)[6]

Wounds (remaining/total): 12/12
Fortune Points (remaining/total): 3/3

[Haval]

Gabriele smiles in satisfaction and resolves to try and get one in the slaver's head as soon as possible. For the moment she'll switch to targeting one of the archers.

Spoiler

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Free Action to reload
Half Action - Aim at one of the archers
Half Action - Shoot
Free Action - Dodge if needed

vs. BS 57 (+20 for aim with Sharpshooter)
(1d100)[74]

Any damage (1d10+3 with armour piercing)
(1d10+3)[6]

Taal's Fury if needed
(1d100)[62]
(1d10)[8]

Any Dodge
vs. Ag 48
(1d100)[19]

FP: 2/3

[dojango]

Gabriele sees the archer flinch as her shot hits him; moments later her archers also fire a volley at the enemy archers. Severin sends a few arrows past one of the ladder-men on his flank, but both shots miss. Perhaps confused at his orders, the archers on his flank let a wild volley go. Nobody seems hit by it, although both Gabriele and Severin see a couple of the archers fall down as they climb through the ditch, clutching at their feet. Behind them, the men carrying the ladders start passing the ladders over the abatis and the ditch. The men following them push and shove as they reach the abatis as well.

On Gabriele's side, she keeps an eye on the slaver. The halflings are struggling the the heavy wheelbarrow, and the slaver bellows out in anger and cracks the knotted rope on their backs. He grabs one of the men running past him and points towards the abatis.

[rax]

"Ha, looks like someone's gotten sore feet!" Severin tries to encourage his militia as a couple of the archers fall over. "And look at how nicely all those thugs are jamming themselves together for us. Take a deep breath, aim for the biggest knot of men you can see in the ditch, and loose!"

Attempting to lead by example, Severin looses a quickly aimed arrow into the throng of men behind the closest ladder.

Spoiler: Actions

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Am I reading correctly that we've now got effectively three waves of bandits at the ditch and abatis? First the archers, then the ladder teams, then the rest of the bandits. Are they still in distinct groups or are they all packed together? My current understanding is that the men following the ladders are at least clumping together as they push up against the abatis. If I'm right, would there be a positive modifier for shooting into their ranks?

Half action: Aim for +10 BS
Half action: Standard attack vs. 72 (BS 62, Aim +10) (1d100)[58]
Damage (1d10+4)[6]

Ulric's Fury if applicable
(1d100)[24]
(1d10)[3]

Wounds (remaining/total): 12/12
Fortune Points (remaining/total): 3/3