New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Results 1 to 3 of 3
  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    United States
    Gender
    Male

    Default Battle of Dotternbach (WFRP)

    Our party in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is facing battle. We were initially hired by the acting mayor of the village of Dotternbach to investigate a string of disappearances. We discovered the presence of a nearby Skaven clan, who have received some military assets from the greater clans (see below for details), and have been scouting the village. Assuming that they were planning to attack, we successfully convinced the villagers of the threat and rallied them to fortify the village. Using the pressure from said mob of villagers, we renegotiated our contract with the acting mayor to help lead the fight. I thought I'd post the tactical particulars of our situation, both on the off-chance someone has valuable insights, but also because it's just fun to write and talk about.

    Spoiler: Party & Combat Capabilities
    Show

    Our party is four in number; our PCs are all at various stages of their third careers.

    The least combat-oriented of our number is Magnus, a Dwarf Sigmarite acolyte and smith, who has mostly been helping make halberds for the village militia. He has high Weapon Skill and Toughness, but no combat-relevant talents to speak of, save for those innate to being a Dwarf (slight bonus to Magic & fear tests, 5% attack bonus vs. Orcs, Goblins, and, pertinently, Skaven). His other big combat-related contribution is that he's well-trained in the Heal skill. His only weapon is an axe.

    John is a Bretonnian knight-errantry type (a woman in disguise, but we all regard him as a man), possessed of a decent handful of combat talents, Strength & Toughness, extra attack, and good riding skills. He also can pray to the Lady of the Lake each morning for special buffs, making him probably the heaviest hitter in a fight. His weapons are a lance, sword, shield, mail armor, plate helmet, and a Bretonnian warhorse.

    Harond's skills are mostly in engineering and construction. He's been overseeing the digging of ditches and a rampart around the village. He's a fairly capable marksman with a few shooting-related talents & extra attack. He also owns a warhorse, though his riding skill is not as good as John's. His weapons are a sword, a brace of pistols, a crossbow, gambeson, padded coif, and a light warhorse.

    My own PC, Valahuir, is an Elf, a thieving scoundrel sort, but fairly handy in a fight, and also probably the most well-rounded combat-wise. He has excellent mobility on foot, is very stealthy, has good Weapon Skill & Ballistic Skill, extra attack, very high Dodge & Parry skills, but only moderate Strength & Toughness. His weapons are sword, shield, longbow, and a gambeson.


    Spoiler: Place
    Show
    The village itself is located in a slight depression in the rolling hills of Wissenland. From the top of the bell tower at the Shrine of Sigmar, you can just see over the tops of the surrounding hills. Tree cover is minimal, but the contours of the land provide ample places to hide. The village water is supplied by a well in the center of the town; the nearest river is about two miles to the north.

    About two-thirds of the village is encircled by chest-height stone walls, intended more for penning in livestock than for defense. These we've augmented by a deep ditch backed by an earthen rampart, encircling the whole village. The few houses that wouldn't fit within these fortifications have been dismantled.

    Near as we can tell, the Skaven have not yet successfully undermined the village: the well seems pure.

    The skaven camp is about eight miles (as the crow flies) to the northeast, across the river and in an abandoned stone quarry.


    Spoiler: Time
    Show

    We began rallying the villagers to the defense in the middle of of what I'll call Day 0, and finished the ring of earthworks after nightfall on that same day. At that same time, we sent out a rider to the local lord in the hopes of securing his aid. The messenger has been given money enough to hire fresh horses at other villages, and will also be reaching out to people's kin in those villages. Galloping non-stop, he should reach the lord's keep sometime in either the night of Day 1 or the morning of Day 2. So the earliest we can hope for serious reinforcements (assuming the messenger gets through unharmed, and the Lord believes the messenger, immediately springs into action, and rides fairly hard with a retinue of horsemen, all pretty big ifs) is late Day 4/early Day 5.

    It is pretty soon after the harvest, so we've been able to take in ample provisions, both grain and livestock; unless the Skaven manage to damage/poison our stores, they shouldn't be able to starve us out. Ammunition and lamp oil are much more likely to run out. It took some doing, but we've convinced the families in the outlying farmsteads to abandon their homes, and quartered them in the village.


    Spoiler: People
    Show

    This is a fairly small village. Our assets at the outset of this conflict are thusly:

    4 experienced mercenary fighters (the PCs, detailed above).

    We have 20 soldiers. They are militia rather than professionals; a small handful of them have seen military action before. They own polearms and some mail armor, and do infantry drills a few days each month.

    Besides these, we have 30 civilians fit for hard labor, both men and women. They have been outfitted with whatever weapons & tools are to hand. About half of them are shepherds or hunters, accustomed to the use of the bow or sling.

    There are 45 other assorted & unarmed citizens: the very old, the very young, the crippled and the sick. We haven't been given exact numbers about which ones are useful for what, but they can tend wounds, keep watch from the bell tower, run messages, and carry water, food, and ammunition to the ramparts.

    In addition to the 2 trained warhorses owned by the PCs, we have 8 riding/work horses of varying quality. One of those went with the aforementioned messenger.

    Since our sightlines from the town are so limited, we've put seven soldiers on the horses, and have them patrolling the pastures around the village, with orders to fall back swiftly to the town if they sight the enemy.

    We've posted eight soldiers to watch the two 'gates' (gaps, really) in the rampart by the north and east roads, four on each gate.

    The remaining five soldiers are at the inn, which is serving as our HQ. They're there as a reserve force ready to go wherever an attack should come; they can also rest, and swap out watches with the guards on the gates.

    The 30 able-bodied conscripts are encamped along the ramparts in groups of 5.



    Spoiler: Rats
    Show

    Sadly, we're not very well informed about the numbers and capabilities of the Skaven. This being the Empire, most of us didn't believe they existed until yesterday. We know that their eye was turned towards the village recently, when some of their escaped slaves took shelter in a burrow by the village.

    Our PCs have only guessed at this, but Skaven are cowardly and distrustful; they are held in line mostly by terror of their superiors, and generally hesitate to attack with anything but overwhelming numerical superiority; they flee very quickly when hard-pressed. Physically, they are quicker on foot than humans, and about the same stature, albeit hunched. We know them to be very capable tunnelers, and to see well in the dark.

    An escaped human slave provided some rough testimony; there are at least a hundred ratmen, and a larger complement of slaves, both skaven and non-skaven.

    There are at least four specialist skirmishers; two of them possess deadly, long-ranged warplock rifles.

    There are at least two Wolf Rats, ratlike creatures with canine frame.

    There is at least one Rat Ogre, a hideous construct of stitched-together flesh, and at least two Packmasters who we've seen minding said Rat Ogre.

    Besides this, we lack a more precise idea of their numbers and objectives.


    Spoiler: Inciting Event
    Show

    After a very hard day constructing the rampart around the village and shepherding people and animals in from the countryside, we settled in to a watchful night's rest. We PCs are at the local inn which is serving as our main HQ.

    A few hours before dawn on Day 1, the silence is broken by the report of a gun. The bell begins to ring, before another gunshot sounds, and the bell ceases. It is in this moment, unsure where attack is coming from, gathering our 5 reserve soldiers and rushing out from the inn, that we ended our last session, and will pick up our next.


    EDIT: Whoops, wrong subforum. Mods, please move to general Roleplaying Games subforum.
    Last edited by Catullus64; 2022-08-09 at 11:34 AM.
    The desire to appear clever often impedes actually being so.

    What makes the vanity of others offensive is the fact that it wounds our own.

    Quarrels don't last long if the fault is only on one side.

    Nothing is given so generously as advice.

    We hardly ever find anyone of good sense, except those who agree with us.

    -Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GnomePirate

    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Location
    Orlando FL
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Battle of Dotternbach (WFRP)

    Im curious how you ended up with a Bretonnian. I am going to be running a campaign in Fall and would like to give my players that option. Did you let one player choose that career with the usual no bonus exp or did you add it on the random career chart, and she got lucky?? I assume you are using the Knights of the Grail book from 2nd? How well did it transfer over to 4th?

    I look forward to reading about the fight and how it is run.
    PCs are not exceptional. They are normal Joe Shmoes stuck in exceptional circumstances.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    ElfWarriorGuy

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    United States
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Battle of Dotternbach (WFRP)

    Quote Originally Posted by Corsair14 View Post
    Im curious how you ended up with a Bretonnian. I am going to be running a campaign in Fall and would like to give my players that option. Did you let one player choose that career with the usual no bonus exp or did you add it on the random career chart, and she got lucky?? I assume you are using the Knights of the Grail book from 2nd? How well did it transfer over to 4th?

    I look forward to reading about the fight and how it is run.
    Well, we're still playing 2nd Edition. The player in question used the expanded Starting Career table from the Career Compendium, and rolled Knight Errant as a starting option, which pre-supposes your character is Bretonnian. So I don't know how to help you with expanding that option to 4th Edition.
    The desire to appear clever often impedes actually being so.

    What makes the vanity of others offensive is the fact that it wounds our own.

    Quarrels don't last long if the fault is only on one side.

    Nothing is given so generously as advice.

    We hardly ever find anyone of good sense, except those who agree with us.

    -Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •