Balthazar's Warband

This is the second post regarding Balthazar and his minions. The first post detailed the gathering of the warband and the very beginning of their journey, this post details their stats and a few more insights into how I am going to play this warband.

For this campaign, I am going to run the warband as if they are completely raw recruits. I am not giving Balthazar the usual 400 Gold Crowns to purchase a warband of his choice, I will be assigning him just eight basic soldiers for free. In the story, Balthazar has cajoled his apprentice and eight local toughs (Thugs in game terms) to accompany him to Felstad to seek their fortunes.

Every time there has been a choice in character creation, I have randomly rolled it. Therefore, Balthazar is from the Elementalist school of magic as that is what was rolled. All of his spells have also been randomly rolled, so he will need to cope with all eventualities thrown at him without a balanced and selected list of offensive, defensive and "useful" spells.

Balthazar Blimp, Wizard...

Balthazar's spell book consists of ...

Dave, Apprentice...

Balthazar's followers - eight Thugs...

At the start of the campaign, the eight thugs in Balthazar's warband are all armed with farm implements - to all intents and purposes these are the equivalent of hand weapons. At the end of each scenario, I will randomly roll (10% cumulative per scenario completed that resets after each success) to see if each thug improves their clothing (warmer layers, better boots etc.) and weaponry (i.e. to a club, axe, sword etc.), even though this will not have any effect on how they play as soldiers. This will be used as a visual clue that shows the look and feel of the members of the warband changing as time moves on - it shows them developing as characters in a story. In real terms, it means I can paint up and use different figures to depict each character as they develop.

During a scenario it is going to be assumed that the soldiers get rich from what they find laying around that Balthazar does not claim - trinkets, silver and copper coins, cheap jewellery pieces and nicer weapons than those they already have (although, as already stated above, these have no effect on their stats etc.) - Balthazar will be getting the results of the rolls on the treasure token table at the end of each game.

Experience points will be used to improve Balthazar's stats, but the treasure he gains can be used to improve the soldiers themselves. I am going to assume that if Balthazar wants to improve a soldier he can pay the GC cost to "upgrade" him - in game terms this is just replacing one type of soldier with another, but in story terms this takes into account purchasing new arms and armour for the soldier needing an upgrade and paying for some training to get him up to scratch in whatever new role he will need to play. Specialist soldiers will still need to be bought, however, as those particular skills cannot be taught.

If a soldier is lost in action, then he can be replaced either by a new thug (another villager that arrives from Standof) or a new soldier in the form of one that can be purchased at full price. This is the tim ewhen specialist soldiers can be recruited to join the warband. Thieves can be "purchased" by swapping the stats of an existing soldier and saying in story terms that the soldier was more adept at that role than as a thug, or a thief can be recruited from Standof when a previous warband member dies.

Balthazar and his followers head out of Standof on their journey to Felstad...

 

 

Just after sun-up, the party stumbled out of the barn attached to the Star Inn to gather their belongings before heading north. Sore heads from the drinking of the night before were nursed as each member saw fit, and packs were shouldered. This was to be the adventure of a lifetime; riches untold of and stories undreamed of were to be experienced and hopefully returned to the snug of the alehouse.