After the battle of Kirkdubh
Opponents Point Value 201 (-23 the SheepOrc who survived)= 178/25=7 Victory Points
Enough putting it off. Let’s get out the Death Dice.
The Princess has a quality of 3+ she rolls…1,3,6. Two successes. The model is wounded and will be at -1 on Quality rolls for the next game.
Princess Ellellellellellella of the Lochalfir is still sore from wounds suffered at the hands of the Orcs of Clan McUrch.
Each of the surviving members gets 1 XP. That’s enough that some of the original members might be starting to look at spending some to improve their capabilities.
Let’s add those XP to the band and see where they are up to.
The Princess and Gordon God-Botherer have 1XP each.
Rory the Ranger, the world’s unlikeliest hero has 2XP.
Duncan MacDuncan, Wee Mad Tim and Oor Maggie all had 3 XP and decided to spend them. Duncan spent his on raising his Combat score to 4. Oor Maggie raised her combat to 3. Wee Mad Tim being the thoughtful man of the group, improved his Quality from 3+ to 2+.
With the backing of the Laird the Warband of Glendubh decided to track the orcs to their lair and see if they could put an end to the threat Raiders posed to Kirkdubh.
They trailed the Orcs to a mysterious opening in the fells some miles from Kirkdubh.
"This looks to have been shaped by man", pronounced Gordon God-Botherer.
"Och, aye" said Wee Mad Tim. "It's the Fain of Oor Lady o' the Swords".
"I was named for her" said Maggie.
"St Margaret herself" breathed Gordon God-Botherer.
"There used to be a Hermit" continued Wee Mad Tim, "but there's been naewun living here for years, ye ken"
"Are we going in or whut?" growled Duncan.
Conversation ended and one by one they ducked and dissapeared into the darkness.
I bought the Dungeon supplement for Song of Blades and Heroes, Song of Gold and Darkness. It has Solo rules for running your Warband through a Dungeon environment. Basically it involves drawing Dungeon tiles from a pile and determining the number of doors and the contents of the rooms using tables.
I decided to use
kris Crooked Staffs simple Dungeon Floor Plans.
I bought both the Basic Set and the simplified printer friendly set, which uses only 3 types of tile (small room, big room, cross corridor) plus some dead end and door add ons, to emulate any type of room or number of openings.
This echoed the approach used in Song of Gold and Darkness perfectly and so I chose to use the simplified set. I printed a couple of copies of the cross corroidor and three each of both the types of rooms and glued them to corrugated cardboard using spray tile fixing adhesive. This gave me the eight (to ten) robust tiles the Song of Gold and Darkness recommended.
For this kind of game where you don't know how the rooms are going to be set up in advance the simplified tiles were ideal. I might have used the slightly flashier Basic Tiles if I had a pre-planned Dungeon to lay out.
I chose the required amount of figures for the opponents. As this was supposed to be a pursuit of the Orcs. I used the campaign rule for a defeated Warband that it can replace any figures that aren't Personality figures. This, along with the one Orc survivor of the previous scenario gave me 163 points of the Dungeon Dwellers.
However the rules said I needed a pool of twice the value of my Warband to draw the Dungeon DWellers from. Accordingly I wanted some other Dungeon types for the game. It shouldn't be anything the Orcs can’t avoid or get on with.
I’d like something Blobby, maybe a Basilisk, some animated statues, an Ogre and an Orc Chief of some sort. I totted up the points to see what I could afford.
And as it turned out that was pretty much it. Now I needed figures for them.
I printed a Printable Heroes Ogre. It was nice but too big, so I tried again at 87% and that turned out well enough.
My Orc Chief was an Orc Fighter from OneMonk, not green and just piggy enough to fit in with the Okumarts Orcs I'd been using previously. I already have a sheet of them printed out but they're smaller than Okumarts tribe. So I scaled him up to 110% so now he fit in.
My Blobs were Slimes from Printable Heroes. I already had one but I needed a couple more.
Song of Gold and Darkness told me that after scaling for the points for my two thirds size Warband, I needed roughly 60 points for a random monster encounter in a room. The procedure was to draw a card (I printed some stats from the army lists, stuck them on cardboard) and then use 60 points worth of that creature. Okay then. I wasn't quite sure how this tied in with the idea of providing a pool of creatures twice the points total of my Warband. What if I'd only bought two of a creature for the Dungeon Dwellers and I needed to use three in a room?
Never mind.
I needed Living Statues. There were some in a Fan set of
Antohammer. I didn't need any Tomb Raiding young ladies but the big multi-armed statues looked cool. Living Statue stats didn't include the Big Special Ability though. I printed them off at 60% or so. That worked okay. I already had in mind a deserted Hermits cave system but the figures provided the name of Our Lady of the Swords.
The Basilisk was Printable Heroes, a strange multi legged lizard beast. It wasn't what I thought of when I thought of the Basilisk myth. I searched around, Kev's Lounge has one as well but it was similar. That must be what a D&D Basilisk looks like. I shrugged and printed it out. Its got the Assassin Special Ability and could be quite tough.
I needed some dungeon clutter. I had a few pieces of Crooked Staff free standing terrain, a couple of pillars, some crates and boxes etc. I needed a couple of chests in case of treasure and I had those from Crooked Staff too. Making that stuff up seems easy when I'm following the directions on one of his YouTube videos. If I tried to do it myself though, I'd be rubbish!
I knocked up a hoard counter as well because one of the room tables has you roll to see if a treasure is a chest or a hoard, plus it beggars up movement if you try to stand on it.
I was ready. There'd been a lot of prep for this one. I suppose it was a new type of game and there would be a lot which was re-usable.
The Warband of Glendubh looked around at their surroundings.
There was no roll for contents for the first room. However I rolled for doors (D6-3 min 1)and got one door. The other entrances were blocked off with Crooked Staffs Dead End counters. I rolled on the table in Song of Gold and Darkness to see what type of door it was. The table says Open but I think it means Unlocked because there are rules for trying to hold shut an "Open" door when someones trying to force it open, so...
Anyway, Though I rolled religiously, I never rolled a locked door during the game. Just as well because I consistently rolled only one exit and I had no way of picking locks (though you can still barge doors down).
The next tile is a small room. The dice say only 1 exit again. The Room Type Dice is a 5. That’s a small treasure room.
The Chest Model is built using Crooked Staff Print and Play textures, see above.
On a roll of 4+ the room is trapped. I roll a 5. Less and it would have been guarded by monsters.
The door type is a 2, unlocked, and can't be trapped, so it’s not there. Chest rules says a chest is only trapped on 1 in six. 6 rolled so the trap's not there either. I decide it's on the floor in front of the Chest.
Five rolled so it’s not a mechanical trap, it’s Magical!
Difficulty is a 6/2 =3. Giving it a combat value of 5.
I’ve been assuming it’ll affect Duncan as he’s the pushing up to the frontiest of the Band and I’ve already moved him in front of the chest. Lets see what magical traps rules say.
Not much detail there and the actual attack rules for a trap are in the mechanical trap section but never mind we’ll use those. Duncan rolls 3+3=6. The trap rolls 2, with it’s 5 combat is a 7. Even on the dice so Duncan is knocked down.
Flames erupt from the floor around Duncan. Licking greedily against his plaid breeks and setting him on fire. He falls back and down and is rolled on the floor by Maggie and Wee Mad Tim to put out the flames.
"A wee bitty warm, eh Duncan", says Wee Mad Tim. "Let’s have a look at what’s in yon chest."
According to the Treasure Chest rules both the Weight and Treasure Value (in Victory points) is 1 dice. In our case it’s a 1. "It’s fullae silver!" gasps Duncan. "Can you shift it?" asks Maggie
"Aye, I can shift it", announces Duncan.
"We are not here for this and avarice is a sin", says Gordon Go-Botherer.
"Woud the Kirk no like some new candlesticks then Father?" asks Maggie innocently.
"Oh, aye, weyll…" says Gordon.
When any treasure is found, roll a 5 or 6 for a magic item to be present. 4 rolled. Nope, just the silver.
The party heads out. Duncan is now trailing behind as his movement is reduced to Short because of the weight of the chest.
"Look. It’s the swerd lady" says Maggie
"St Margaret of the Swords." says Gordon God-Botherer pedantically.
"She sought the aid of my people when the land was threatened", adds Princess Ellellellellellella.
"You met St Margaret of the swords?" gasps Gordon.
"No, no." avers the Princess. "It was several hundred years ago, I was in my crib then!"
"They’ve got nae bodices on!" says Maggie.
"That one’s got a chest." observes Wee Mad Tim.
"Aye, that’s what I was just saying" says Maggie.
"No, I mean.. Nae mind." says Wee Mad Tim.
Roll for Weight and Value of chest. 2. It would take two figures to carry and be worth 2 Victory points. We won't roll for any magic present until and unless the chest is opened.
"You don’t think they’re going to come tae life do you?"
Wee Mad Tim looks at Maggie. He nods agreeably. “Oh, aye.”
Duncan puts down the chest he's been carrying and comes forward.
They get into position according to Wee Mad Tim’s plan and Duncan opens the chest in front of the corner statue of Our Lady of the Swords.
"Silver and mebbe some golt." reports Duncan.
The statues grind inevitably, into life.
More Later after sorting out photos
GR