Knavecon Scenario

Just John

Moderator
Ok lads heres my thoughts on a scenario - suggestions welcome. This is based on a Viking Participation game that was played around the cons in the UK. I'll describe the game as it was played and we can work out a WFB version from that.

The Basics
In the game 4 players (designated Red, Yellow, Green or Blue) land on the coast to raid a village. Each player has a longship and 12 troops – 1 leader (hero), 3 Karls (champions) 6 Bondi (troopers) 1 archer & 1 beserker.

The Table
It was plyed on a 6' x 8' but I'm sure we could manage it on a 6' x 4'. Coastline is on one edge with a river along the short side. The building on the table include a church, fort, domestic buildings, animal pens etc.

Unarmed villagers are dotted around the village, with armed troops in reasonably plausible locations. Armed men should be mainly unarmoured, with some bows/slings. This is easy enough to represent with the halflings.

In the church (larder?) place a bishop and monks (chef & food preparers)

In the fort place a Chief, princess, 6 armoured warriors & 6 unarmoured warriors.

Place food/gold tokens in most of but not all of the buildings.

Rules
In the viking game the vikings need their longships to escape and must be wary of the villagers burning them, therefore they may need to leave men behind to protect them but this is left to the player to decide. They also needed to have 4 men to relaunch the ships. If they had less than 4 men they could trade booty with another player for safe passage.

To acquire booty/prisoners, attack or burn targets just move into base contact. Defenders must be killed before booty is taken.

Each player is given 3 Bonus Cards, which give them additional tasks such as

Burn at least 5 buildings
Seize at least 15 animals
Seize at least 5 cattle
Ensure a specific opponent does not score higher than you
Burn the church
Reach the fort first
Kill another specific players leader
Burn another specific players ship
Loose no more than 3 warriors
Loose no more than 5 warriors

Each task achieved earns bonus points.

Umpires Role
Takes on the halflings. Move the armed figures to defend property/villagers. Neither the villagers nor animals get to move, once captured they accompany the armed figure.

Each figure can carry 1 item of gold or food. Obviously getting the prisoners to carry goods would allow them to get more booty. Just don't tell the players that.

Try to be even handed about fighting the players, although by all means if one player is running away with it halp redress the balance.



Ending the Game
When the raiders have acquired as many points as possible or when you've had enough march a sizable relief force onto the long table edge. If they don't get the message do it again the following turn.

Award points for tasks achieved.

Adapting it to our needs
Ok, unless we have 3 or 4 viking ships lying about we need to come up with an alternative - maybe portals/wyrd stones with a mage keeping them open. Kill the mage the portal/wyrd stone is destroyed.

One long game or try to fit a few games in the day - is this possible even with a scaled down WFB? It would be noce to run it at least twice if there were enough participants. We could also reduce the number of players to 3 if we end up with a smaller playing area

Forces – I would suggest small units of 5 or so instead of individuals.

Thoughts please gentlemen.
 

Mr Saturday

Member
I like it. I think it might be cool to have a player run the halflings too, and then have a general GM, but of course if there aren't enough players the GM could then take control of the villagers.

I could probably make up two full warbands, 3 at a stretch with what I have at the moment. leader (noble/dirach/meargh) karls (fianna fimm) bondi (fimm), the archer (?) and berserker (?) can be fimm as well maybe. I have standing stones that could be waystones/portals etc. Perhaps include a beast of some type so I can use the marlwyrms?

If we can get some slann in there too, it might be a nice way to promote conflict between the fimir and the slann. More cards for killing enemy characters etc. The slann might have discovered the halflings are using a priceless ancient relic as a salt shaker and are taking as much loot and prisoners as they can in order to find out where it is.
 
Scenario sounds really exciting. :)

I am inclined towards using a verison of the Mordheim rules for this type of smaller scale stuff where the raiders would not be concerned with tightly packed formations suitable for battles. If we have small units of 5 models it gets a little silly having to try to maneuver them to get within 22.5 degrees to get their charge bonuses, forming a shieldwall or testudo etc. We could either use Mordheim or we could mash up a Warhammer 3rd edition based version of Mordheim - I would be comfortable doing either. Note that for the sake of bookkeeping we need only really be concerned with injuries on leaders - rank and file could just be taken off when they reach 0 wounds.

A bit of a scrap at the end with the relief forces would be fun - you want some players to take a high risk strategy at the end if they are behind on booty to get a chance to catch up, similarly the leading player should have an additional hurdle or two so that the victory is not a foregone conclusion at any point for any player.

Using a skirmish type system, it might be a good idea to make players keep their troops within a certain distance from their warband leader or funny GM led things might happen to them (go off plundering on their own, get kicked by a mule and so on).

As Saturday mentioned getting some Slann in there in a combat capacity with their own agenda is a cool touch.
 

Just John

Moderator
Glad you both like it :)

Mr Saturday":3bc2k593 said:
I could probably make up two full warbands, 3 at a stretch with what I have at the moment. leader (noble/dirach/meargh) karls (fianna fimm) bondi (fimm), the archer (?) and berserker (?) can be fimm as well maybe. I have standing stones that could be waystones/portals etc. Perhaps include a beast of some type so I can use the marlwyrms?

We could replace the beserker type with the Malwyrm rider one for each player.

Mr Saturday":3bc2k593 said:
If we can get some slann in there too, it might be a nice way to promote conflict between the fimir and the slann. More cards for killing enemy characters etc. The slann might have discovered the halflings are using a priceless ancient relic as a salt shaker and are taking as much loot and prisoners as they can in order to find out where it is.

Or indeed discovered that the halflings consider frogs legs as a delicacy? We could have corresponding forces of Slann for other players and we can adjust the cards accordingly.

theottovonbismark":3bc2k593 said:
I am inclined towards using a verison of the Mordheim rules for this type of smaller scale stuff where the raiders would not be concerned with tightly packed formations suitable for battles. If we have small units of 5 models it gets a little silly having to try to maneuver them to get within 22.5 degrees to get their charge bonuses, forming a shieldwall or testudo etc. We could either use Mordheim or we could mash up a Warhammer 3rd edition based version of Mordheim - I would be comfortable doing either

Probably best if we can come up with something - even Rogue Trader style , 2" distance from other troops, proximity to the Leader or Champs, ignore formations and the like. As you say loose and simple would be best.

I'm sure we can come up with some nasty surprises for wayward troops, perhaps treemen or eagles - they always come to the rescue of hobbits don't they?
 
Indeed. I think if we can get a rough outline of the basic scenario with the forces fleshed out we could try to individually run solo games (or better still with a friend :) ) and see if we come across any issues.

Having stuff done out on decks of cards for random events, objectives, loot etc. is the way to go I think. Basic idea is when a raider enters an area a card pickup event is triggered - usually they get loot, but sometimes they get a rolling pin in the tenders. When raiders go out of command they might have to pick from a nasty random encounter deck. So a deck with mostly nice things and a few horrors and a deck with mostly horrors and a couple of really nice things!

Keep it random and keep it interesting!
 

Just John

Moderator
Well might I suggest then that we divide the work up a bit.

Otto - work on a quick play set of rules, whether its mordheim, wfb or rt.
Mr Sat - board layout, as you have the scenery. If we need more I'm sure we can gather some more together.
Me - I'll work on two decks of randomness, the deck of missions and victory points.
Cheetor - make the coffee :grin:
 

cheetor

Member
Cheetor - make the coffee :grin:

Picked last! Its PE class in 1985 all over again! ;)

I booked a room at Knavecon for Sean and myself yesterday, so I will be available to spit into coffee for the whole day as required.

The scenario looks good. Frankly I am relieved that you are going for modestly sized forces. Quick turnaround is crucial for multiplayer. A skirmish-y approach is definitely the way to go. Sounds like a laugh as well as being genuinely achievable.

John, do you have a contact for Knavecon? I want to talk to them about running something else myself for which I may or may not have an Oldhammer hat on for.
 

Just John

Moderator
cheetor":3hvteied said:
Cheetor - make the coffee :grin:

Picked last! Its PE class in 1985 all over again! ;)

I booked a room at Knavecon for Sean and myself yesterday, so I will be available to spit into coffee for the whole day as required.

I'd say it was the same for most of us :grin: I sent you a PM re contacting the chief Knave.

theottovonbismark":3hvteied said:
I'm on the mtherfukr!

Tnx! On the rules - it would be great if they fit on both sides of an A4, perhaps with room for the victory points.
 

Mr Saturday

Member
Righto, I'm on the board layout. The only thing I'm short on is buildings. I only have one very decent farmhouse, though I do suspect there are some card stock buildings hiding away here somewhere. Once cards/tokens are decided I can lay them out and get them printed/laminated for extra grooviness.
 

Just John

Moderator
If we are happy to use card stock buildings I have townscapes and a bunch of more modern ones, I just need to print them. Victor gave me some walls and bits and pieces.
 
Halfling buildings....I just thinking that smaller scale ones could work also for the little 'uns.

I guess it would be easy to make a polystyrene hill and mount a circular door on it for genuine Tolkienesque runts ;) .
 

Just John

Moderator
Excuse me but my 'runts' as you call them are highly civilised and have much more important things than excavating holes in the Lustrian ground - like cooking &eating. Village huts would do them.
 
...and village huts are much better for burning to the ground of course. Now for some reason I wonder if the Fimir have any sex change magic? That would be really handy for them.
 

Asslessman

Member
theottovonbismark":252gdi21 said:
...and village huts are much better for burning to the ground of course. Now for some reason I wonder if the Fimir have any sex change magic? That would be really handy for them.
They do have sex change daggers/maces/axes/clubs from what I know...
 
Asslessman":1z6oa2l1 said:
theottovonbismark":1z6oa2l1 said:
...and village huts are much better for burning to the ground of course. Now for some reason I wonder if the Fimir have any sex change magic? That would be really handy for them.
They do have sex change daggers/maces/axes/clubs from what I know...

Must be something lost in translation, you mean to say that any edged weapon can cause a sex change :o ?
 
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