TToBB II - Camp Kobold

Two days after the encounter with the rabid dogs in the small hamlet of Canisby, Ben and Bill 2 returned breathlessly from a scouting mission. "Balthazar," huffed Ben, "There is a small set of ruins in a glade up ahead that appears to be an encampment of some kind. It is well placed in that it blocks our way, and to go around would add maybe two days to our journey to Felstad."

"It looks like there are guards set, not human guards," interjected Bill 2, "But small imp-like beings, heavily armed and alert."

Balthazar glanced across at his apprentice, Dave, and raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?" the wizard asked.

"Well, we can't really afford the time to go around, especially with the condition that Dom is in. I say we attack the camp with the element of surprise."

"Aye," muttered a few of the others, looking to their leader.

"OK, let's prepare to push our way through." said Balthazar with an air of doom in his voice. "Let's quickly scout the area and work out the best form of taking them by surprise."

A quick recce, taken from the vantage point of a couple of large trees in the forest, the warband surveyed the small encampment, complete with several hide tents and a small campfire that gave out only a little smoke to give away its position. Three small, well-armed creatures patrolled between the tents and the ruins. They would have to time their advance carefully to gain maximum advantage.

Leaving Dom with the supplies and packs in a safe place, the rest of the band moved forward in three small groups, hoping to gain as much ground as they could without being seen.

Balthazar advanced towards the camp and was just on the point of giving the call for a general advance when he was spotted by one of the sentries. With a "Yip, yip", the small creatures hoisted their shields and weapons, and ran to meet their foes in battle.

Balthazar called upon his elemental powers and launched a ball of fire at the closest imp. Unfortunately, the power of the elements was not on hand for him to call upon at that particular moment and the fireball fizzled to the floor just in front of him. Dave noticed that his master's spell had failed and with great trepidation tried to call forth his own. Again, the stars were not properly aligned and his ball of fire was also about to fizzle out. But, like against the wild dogs, he summoned the courage and doubled-down on his concentration just enough to launch the spell successfully. It hurt him dearly but it was worth the pain to see one of the imps burn to a charred mess. Unfortunately, the commotion had led to another imp leaving its tent, fully armed, to see what was occurring.

The rest of Balthazar's warband advanced to try to protect their masters and to search out for any treasures that might be available. A minor melee erupted and, taken by surprise by the ferocity of the little critter facing him, Ben suffered a hefty cut.

The noise of the conflict was now building up as weapons clashed with other weapons and the screams of the injured and dying filled the air. With a loud "Yip," a much larger creature emerged from what looked like the leader's tent and made towards Dave and his small squad of soldiers.

Luckily, this was now the time that the elements began to flow again. Balthazar summoned another Elemental Ball and blasted another of the imps from the face of the world. Dave, spotting Balthazar on his own against an imp, and not wanting to tackle the leader-type critter, made his way towards his master and attempted to cast another of his spells. Unfortunately, the movements must have made him lose concentration, so the spell fizzled out.

The leader of the pack of creatures charged into Dick and Ted, but the two soldiers were ready for the fight, and dispatched it with more ease than they thought possible (critical hit).

Meanwhile, unseen and unmolested, the three soldiers on the right flank had found a treasure in an upper part of the ruins and were rapidly scooting around the edge of the camp in order to avoid any more of the small creatures from spotting them.

With almost all of the creatures disposed of, Balthazar sounded the call for a rapid exit. This caught Dave by surprise as he was being sorely pressed by an imp. With the support of two of the soldiers he was able to kill his adversary bare-handed and make good his move to escape.

One or two more stragglers were left, but they managed to evade the last few imps that left their tents.

With the defeat of their leader and the deaths of many of their pack, the remainder of the small creatures fled from their camp and got away from the vicinity. This gave Balthazar's warband the chance to double-back in order to collect Dom and their belongings.

After everyone had been collected together and wounds checked over, Balthazar examined the two treasures that had been found in the village. The ledge in the ruins proved to be the resting place of a very nice sword; why the imps had not found this was anybody's guess - perhaps they had not been there that long or maybe they were just no good at climbing? The small sack which one of the imps was looking in at the entrance of his tent when teh party arrived contained a Grimoire, 20 Gold Crowns and a few trinkets. The trinkets and small coins were rapidly dealt out to the soldiers and the two wizards set about finding out what else they had found.

It took a short while before Balthazar and Dave worked out that they were now the proud owners of 20 GC, a magical sword (+3 Will), and a Grimoire that contained details of the spell Elemental Shield.

Experience:-

Wizard participation = 40 XP 

2 spells successfully cast = 20 XP

2 spells unsuccessfully cast = 10 XP

2 Treasure Tokens secured = 80 XP

9 kobolds killed = 45 XP

Total = 195 XP 

 

With this game, I wanted to try out a few new things rules-wise. Mostly, the opportunity for what I wanted to try did not arise, but I was able to check out the climbing rules and spawning a new enemy every turn. I found that rolling for extra adversaries last game meant that they came in small bands or none at all. However, I thought that one-at-a-time every turn would prove to be quite a challenge. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this time round this posed little challenge to the warband, even though they were down a man.

I had also beefed up the monsters in this scenario; in the first game, the wild dogs didn't pose too much of a problem individually but in numbers they did. I also wanted more on the board at the start (3 instead of 1). However, how could I represent the kobold miniatures, which I wanted to use for this scenario, when there aren't really that many humanoid stat lines available? I harked back to my AD&D game from several years ago and found that the description of imps in the Frostgrave rulebook matched almost exactly with how kobolds (and other beings) are summoned in my Doggerland universe - summoned from one of the planes by a magic user. The only differences between Frostgrave imps and my kobolds was that the kobolds I wanted to represent are not magical creatures (not that that would make any difference in this sceanrio). I also boosted the stats for the leader (and a second in command that was not rolled for) but an unexpected critical hit took care of him in one round. Again, I used a simple random encounter table; 1 = Leader, 2 = Second, 3-4 = two-handed weapon, 5-6 = hand weapon and shield. They each had allotted spawn points and if the leader and second were both rolled for then the table would just go fifty-fifty with the other troop types.

I tried to limit the game to 6 turns and it almost worked. It did actually reach a point where I could have stopped but, like last time, I decided to play the game through (it wound up being 8 turns in the end).

Next time I will need to figure out more of a challenge for the party. I have several XP advances to add to Balthazar's stats and he needs to work out what to do with the magic items that have been found. I also want to try out more of the rules, so will think further about board set up to enable to me to use more.

I have enjoyed the two games so far, but really wish that I had more scenery and adversary miniatures for the warband to fight against. I think I will sort through my lead and plastic piles next week, and perhaps a few orders to miniatures companies will be in order too.