On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elves

Golgfag1

Moderator
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

All I'll say on the matter is - your scenario was fine, background material A1 - However, our execution of the game got off to a devastatingly terrible start, beginning with my dice rolling and Gaj's wasn't much better; if, I recall correctly. My first couple of turns were spent trying to get away from my demons who I didn't get control over and then I decided to destroy them with another units of demons. Luckily the GM's dice rolling showed a flank which my demons then charged, three turns later - the first unit of demons gone! But by that time Gaj's army had pummeled the rest of my forces and I was on the back-foot. I might have got it back with the arrival of the Dark Elves, but I wasn't sure.

I'll post more later, as I've an early start tomorrow

Paul Golgfag1
 

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Grumdril

Member
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

Work is interfering with my write-up as well :( Only up to the end of turn 1 so far...

Your first die roll did rather swing the course of the game! I'm not too sure I was thinking straight for the first half hour or so either, must remember to be more prescient when setting the date for the next one - my turning up late really didn't help matters :(

I was idly wondering what would happen if you just sat there summoning demons, after your first couple of times. Not a strategy to guarantee you a peaceful old age though :)


Paul / Grumdril
 

Golgfag1

Moderator
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

AW god, did I cock-up or what! I've just read your account of the fluff, set up & first turn and don't recall half of it; so I'm stopping there and will write up my side of the story and we can compare & contrast our different tales of woe after we've finished telling our tales of daring do. :grin: :grin: :grin:

Paul / Golgfag1
 

Grumdril

Member
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

I'm not sure I remember it as well as I'd like either, but there's just enough photos and memories to get me through so far, I think... Definitely need more notes and photos next time.

Up to turn 5 now, much carnage has ensued. Take a look, see if you recognise any of it :)


Paul / Grumdril
 

Golgfag1

Moderator
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

Well, here's my initial take on this tale of misadventure up to the current set of pictures, more to follow:

For anybody interested - my army list (not sure if I got it right, as this was the first time I'd complied one for third edition, so please forgive any mistakes).
Warband list M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld Int Cl WP Special Rules
Level 3 wizard 4 7 3 5 5 3 5 4 9+2 9+2 9+2 9+2 H.weapon 1 155 155
Warriors 4 6 6 4 3 2 6 2 9+2 9+2 9+2 9+2 H.weapon, Chainmail & shield 5 76 380
Marauders 4 5 5 3 3 2 5 2 8+1 8+1 8+1 8+1 H.weapon, Chainmail & shield 4 38 152
Chaos Champion 4 7 7 5 3 2 7 2 10+3 10+3 10+3 10+3 H.armour, shield & H.weapon 1 137 137

Cultists
Hero 4 6 6 4 3 2 6 2 9+2 9+2 9+2 9+2 2 Hand weapons, chainmail 1 76 76
Troops 4 4 4 3 3 1 4 1 7 7 7 7 Flail, shield & C.m. 22 8 176
Standard/Banner Banner 1 16 16
Musician Musician 1 16 16
Champion 4 5 5 3 3 2 5 2 8+1 8+1 8+1 8+1 Double handed flail, Chainmail 1 37 37

Lesser Demons 13 35 455

Jabberwocky 1 200 200
1800
Reserve
D.elf Hero 5 6 5 4 4 3 8 3 10+2 9 10+1 9+1 H.weapon, RXb, Chainmail & shield 1 146 146
Champion 5 5 5 4 3 1 7 1 8 9 9 8 H.weapon, RXb, Chainmail & shield 1 54 54
Troopers 5 4 4 3 3 1 6 1 8 9 9 8 H.weapon, RXb, Chainmail & shield 24 14 336
Banner 1 28 28
Musician 1 28 28

My background
The leader (?) is a level three sorcerer, Wezma Blan-kit with 5 bodyguards/retinue, he's looking to find a magic item he's heard rumors about in the vicinity and to help him he's enlisted the help of a Chaos champion - Issbig who's also got a few marauders with him Their retinues will join together under Issbig's command as no one wants to upset the big guy at the moment!
Issbig has his own ideas of how this is going to play out, but is waiting to see what they find before making any moves of his own!
They've been joined by a party of cultists who are traveling to a shrine in the local hills, their leader suspects the others of wanting to plunder the shrine of its artifacts, so is playing along to see where their heading.
The only troops Wazma can truly rely upon are the demons he summons, hence he keeps them close.

The Dark Elves are a raiding party who've they've met along their travels who's leader is basically out for blood & cause mischief for the locals and if both party's can help one another, without too much loss in either resources or pride, they will.

So, not a truly tight-knit force, of buddies who are going to help one another in a tight spot!

From the map I received from Grumdil I intended deployed most of my stuff in the bottom left corner, behind the wood, on the small hill and the table edge on the basis that I wanted to keep them close and that this would be where I'd have camped ( secure flanks, close to water, in the shelter of the wood and hill, close to the bridge to block the passage of any hostile forces or retreat over) if, I didn't like the odds against anything, I'd be facing.
 

Grumdril

Member
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

I've finally finished this write up - it's only taken a month... :(

Paul and Gaj - it would be good to get your feedback on the conclusions, I'm curious to know whether the things that bothered me about the scenario bothered you as well. And also in general anything I've got wrong in the write up, definitely need more pictures and notes in future!

It also occurs to me that the Missions and Scenarios board could do with a lessons learned / how to set of posts. While Oldhammer scenario design is decidedly niche, there must be people out there with some useful rules of thumb on things such as unbalanced but fair scenario development, good and bad objectives, etc.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Paul / Grumdril
 

weazil

Moderator
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

Hi Grumdril

I saw the final write up on your blog, but I thought it would be better to respond here.

Frankly, I don't think anything was wrong. I see there is a lot of concern about the daemons, but I don't think you needed to change anything. Okay, we were lucky that Golgfag1 failed his control test, but if he hadn't, as the GM, you could have monitored the situation and made adjustments as necessary, if you were concerned that the style of the game wasn't happening quite as you wanted...and if the style you wanted was a desperate race to get the maguffin whilst all around were being slaughtered helplessly, then you could have let it play that way.

If anything, the jabberwock was much more problematic for me than the daemons.

I've had the same doubts when I was GM'ing recently, and I think the actual problem is not so much around GM'ing, but around players still getting used to the idea that the boundaries can be stretched - that one can ask the GM if a certain roleplaying solution might actually change the game.

In my case, I still approached it with the slightly limited approach of the modern warhammer movement - don't move characters out of units because they can't hold objectives and that sort of thing is cheesy. Had I instead taken the view that a hero should go toe to toe with the sorcerer whilst being defended by his loyal troops against certain death, perhaps I would have achieved the objective.

When I had the same situation as a GM, I realised that I should have been more forthcoming with hints, to help the players release their modern warhammer thinking and realise they really were free to creatively solve the problem they were faced with - using WFB as the framework and using roleplaying to get creative with that framework. In your case, if the daemons had really got out of control, you might be able to say something like 'remember - all you're here to do is get the amulet...'

I think the doubt created in my mind by not knowing what Golgfag1 was supposed to be doing was excellent - the scenario really played on my paranoia - you saw that when I had Wanda go and investigate (see, a character doing something sort of heroic?) what the warriors were doing when skirting around the hill.

I think it was a great game and a great scenario - its just a pity that I still wasn't thinking out of the box enough.
 

Golgfag1

Moderator
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

Apologies guys,
But Christmas has been a hard task this year - the preparation, two Christmas dinners (don't ask), two parties for twenty to thirty people & house guests & two trips to visit aged aunts - I need a holiday!
Paul / Grumdil I wouldn't worry about your GMing - I'am more than happy the way you ran the game. my conduct however was less exemplary - being a first time chaos commander - I didn't know my troops or what they were capable of, so I attempted to give myself a force which if it had been well lead would have ripped Gaj's force to pieces I - playing the part of a wizard had not concepts of flanking ambushes or attacking in echelon, I simply parked my desperate forces forces at the best camping spot and wait.
I received my objectives and looked at Gaj's dispositions and thought $%^* and decided to wait for him to move to me, rolling dice to see whether anything else could go wrong - as it duly did - with the demons going awol! :shock: :shock: :shock: I have to say - at this point - I did consider your dice rolling considerably kinder than mine :lol: :lol: :lol: But as I conjured up the second band of demons and you presented their rear flank - they had to go which left me with the Jaberwocky, desciples, bodyguard (who by this time were keener to follow my hero & his thugs, than me! Hence, I sent off the Jaberwocky & desciples more as a holding action rather than having any real idea of knowing what I was doing and in hope that the Dark Elves would show up and the demon combat would be settled quickly (needless to say - it went on rather longer than I hoped) the wide sweeping movement around the hill to my right was more a case of keeping those troops away from the rogue demons & hoping the Gaj would detach something to see what they were up to (he duly obliged) to lessen the pressure upon my centre. So, there I was, fighting combats I really didn't want to fight, with supports somewhere other than where I wanted them (I seem to recall that I actually said to both of you at this point Gaj could have stood still and see me beat myself!)
Anyway, my centre began to give away just as my earnest while allies turned up on the other side of the river & my demons defeated the rogue ones! I thank god that time was called because I was seriously giving thought the whezma doing a runner.
Lessons learned - When the GM says you don't have to do something - don't do it.

Here's some more pictures to be going on with

Paul / Golgfag1
 

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Grumdril

Member
Re: On His Excellency's Service - WFB3 chaos versus high elv

That's good to get positive feedback from you both - as long as no long term psychological damage was done :)

I think the main thing is to chalk the game down as a learning experience. Especially on the GMing side of things it's brought home a few lessons that I knew in theory or from real life but hadn't really used in this context before, such as the danger of unspoken assumptions and the importance of negociated agreement.

For example I was overly concerned about moving the goalposts once the game was in progress, but as you say Gaj if the demon invulnerability had proved excessively game changing then I'm sure we could have reached some sort of agreement such as the elven heroes' weapons being sufficiently enchanted to hurt them while having no specific magic effect. The good thing about playing with grown ups is that I'm sure Paul fielded the demons because he liked the models and had come up with a cool paint scheme rather than that they allowed him to win the battle before it started. The only counter argument to that would be that possibly we'd have reached this conclusion too late, and the game would already be irreversibly altered before that discussion could be had.

Another issue we have is we don't yet know what our game "style" is (or even if we have just one, or if it changes from game to game or GM to GM or whatever). If the demons were slaughtering all before them would the paradigm be for the elves to press on valiently and try and achieve their objectives whatever the cost, or to withdraw in good order and return to fight another day?

Hopefully as we get more games under our belts these sorts of questions will start to be answered.
 
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