Esmeraya Seeks Help From Her Village Vassals & Future Funny Little Wars Game & Fantasy Campaigns

Finally Beerstein has carried the battle to Necrolian soil. They chase Esmeraya, the vampire, into her home ground. She is somewhat weakened by the loss of her Black Coaches. However, she awaits a new one to be conjured on her native soil. 

Meanwhile a Beersteiner force of two flintlock regular regiments, a militia matchlock regiment, mounted plate Crusaders, the wizard, Adolf, the archbishop and three heroes try to chase down the vampire. She is fast but the crusaders are faster and begin to close in on her.

At first, she saves her magic and then turns to attempt magic missiles at the crusaders. The ward save of the pious crusaders saves them. She has reached the village and attempts to gain the assistance of the peasants.

The villagers are downtrodden and sacred of their Undead masters (and mistresses) but they note that Esmeraya's magic failed. They also note that she is running from a solid line of Beersteiner invaders. Sergi, the blacksmith, even prepares his mallet and a stake, The dog, Igor, growls at the vampire. However other villagers are either so wretched or so converted to evil that they curse the other villagers who wish to aid the Beersteiners. Some of these are so degenerate, gaunt and sallow that they even resemble zombies.

                                                   Archbishop Valter, urges the men on.

   Adolf, the, the Beersteiner, wizard launches The Flock of Doom from The Lore of Beasts and Esmeraya is no more.

                                                                      The archbishop

                                                                 Heroes

                                                  The peasants, with Sergi in the foreground

                                                        Igor, the dog, dislikes vampires,

 

The magic which shielded Esmeraya from the sun, dissipates and she begins to vaporize. Will the peasants be safe now that Beerstein is in control? The archbishop promises to 'cleanse' the village. Some of the villagers nod and say it is time they cleaned up the pig dung which fills the streets. A pig is being cooked to celebrate the end of the undead tyranny. 

  Archbishop Valter asks General Metternich to order a company to gather kindling...but not for cooking pigs. Wizard Adolf says he has urgent matters to attend to elsewhere...

Game Dynamics:

We randomly placed 6 D6 dice with different numbers facing up. Then we rolled for Esmeraya's placement. She was slightly to the North/East of the Beersteiners. The Beersteiners started at board edge minus artillery (2 guns) and wagons that did not arrive to take part in the chase.

  We had a chart for villagers to see if they stayed neutral, which they did. If they did not they had an equal chance of supporting Esmeraya or the invaders. There was also a chance they could turn on each other. In addition, if they were not neutral there was a small chance that one of them would be a witch, with powers not as powerful as a sorceress but capable of delaying an enemy and even turning an individual into a toad. Her spells required certain numbers on a D12 with a 1 being a potentially fatal misfire. Their range was 65cm.

REST OF THE CAMPAIGN

I don't know what mat has left in his Undead armies except that he has another Vampire Lord.

meanwhile, our next battle will be a large one involving Aztecs versus Fezians. (I control the former and Mat the later). It should be a decisive battle. Then that will be the end of Campaign move 11. After that there is one more campaign move and we then roll the die to see if the campaign continues.

AFTER THE CAMPAIGN

Mat and I are preparing for a Funny Little Wars battle. We made random selection from 14 possible countries. The end result was Ameriga (Army red, White & Blue against Blusia (pseudo France) and, vaguely, circa 1900. Mat wants to be Blusia and I'll me Ameriga (named after, explorer, Amerigo Vespucci).

  

Characterisitcs of Blusia - Horizon Blue or dark blue coats, red trousers and various variations. Excellent rapid firing light artillery. it may include cuirassiers. The army must advance.

Ameriga -  Known for initiitative - no penalty of movement of men pushing machineguns, dynamite gun, unknown quality of units discovered when they begin shooting or are in melee - militia, regular or elite status.

  Here is the list. I left out Barsoom and some other more way out 'nations' this time. However, I added Grand Fenwick because I loved the movie, 'The Mouse that Roared'. I was kind of hoping it would be chosen by the dice gods. I played a game with them once before and the army included British grenadiers, Confederate sailors and medieval longbow men! I decided that in a future game I'd allow infiltration for the longbows, just like in the story.

  Cotesia is Mexico. Crussia is Russia. Translovonia is basicly the Balkans 'Army light Green'.

  I neglected to add the qualities for Ruritania and Gerolstein but one has dueling generals and another has tricky stuff like leaving booze on the battlefield for advancing enemy to find and to be befuddled by.

My aim is to play the FLW game on the lawn, something I like to do at least once a year.

FUTURE FANTASY GAME

My aim for next fantasy campaign is to extend my maps to include more of New Earth, with a lot of islands and 'Unknown Lands' for a colonial game. I think it will be fun to not know what lies waiting on an island. It could be people and creatures of a number of levels from prehistoric to medieval with colonizers (from our own countries) having the edge in weaponry and organization.

The new peoples might have or not have magic. They also might immediately seek friendship or even subjugation from the 'god-like' newcomers. or they might be very war-like and give them a run for their money. They might or might not have valuable resources.

Instead of rolling a percentage dice for how many years passed this time it will just be a D20 as I want to use the same troop types a bit more. Further down the track we will allow for greater passage of time and progress through later years. In any case, even a ten-year period may lead to deaths of some of our charactrs from old age, sickness or mishap. My next advance in period will be mid 19th century.