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| First wave charge |
Note: This battle was called early due to time, at a dramatic but ambiguous moment. The Durnovaric commander had been killed, necessitating a morale check for the D.E.F. forces, but the ogres had suffered the incapacitation of their own leader by a
stinking cloud. This would allow a
coup d'grace in the next round (from either adjacent infantry), based on my reading of the
ACKS core rules. Then the battle would quickly have become very unpredictable, with both sides routing multiple units off the map at once and struggling to hold command long enough to continue the fight. While Durnovar had an inferior position in the casualty count, the poor commanders of the beastmen would have made them more vulnerable to morale check failures.
In the end, I decided to call it a "mutual rout" result, and assume that the expeditionary force was able to mostly regroup and limp home after losing their tower fortress instead of being trapped and eliminated. I also randomly resolved the fates of the various commanders involved by rolling on the "Mortal Wounds" and "Tampering with Mortality" tables.
September 30, Caudex Annales 70 AUP
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| Mastadons push over a wall. |
The final confrontation at the fallen city of Umeskelion was little delayed by the temporary disorder of the Undying Legions. Heavier support elements moved in to replace the routed orcs, and took up an encirclement around the garrison. Before the last cavalry had returned from the pursuit of the fleeing orcs, the main body of the assault force begin a march in earnest to the watchtower overlook north of the city gates. After multiple charges and barrages, the walls were broken and several human formations were shattered. With a final desperate spell, the elven commander rendered Warchief Khazay unfit for command, providing enough of a delay for a full evacuation of the crumbling tower. While the survivors made their exit, the remains of the palisade were systematically smashed by a thorough application of hill giant clubs.
Councilor Laurila was impaled by collapsing palisade timbers, trampled multiple times by an enraged seven-ton mastadon, and subsequently gored by an iron-spiked tusk and several enthusiastic hobgoblin spears. A restore life and limb spell returned her to the mortal realm to enjoy 33 days of recuperative bed rest, but with weird, lingering side effects of a faintly magical nature. Various portions of her body were thereafter subject to erratic real-time growth spurts of a reliably embarrassing character, ones chiefly involving the rapid lengthening of hair - and not always, it might be uncomfortably noted, the hair originating from the top of her head.
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She survived the initial fall. Not so much the subsequent trampling.
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Duke Conylt was carried away by playful wyverns and dropped down a gulley, landing in a dense patch of gorse briars. His broken body was recovered and nursed back to consciousness with the best restorative arts available to the elite nobility, none the worse for its brief aerial misadventures.
Warchief Khazay suffered nothing more than a loss of face, recovering immediately after the dissipation of the fumes despite a reckless swipe by Knight-Captain Robart. He immediately set to work convincing the hill giants to conduct a sensible pursuit, a concept the giants found unnecessarily complicated after the more satisfying experience of hitting large stationary targets with clubs.
Order of Battle - D.E.F.
- 1st Cavalry Division (Duke Conylt-x), five units: Heavy Assault Company A - Cataphract; Light Reconnaissance Company B (Sir Robart) - Light Cavalry; Armored Strike Company - Veteran Heavy Cavalry-x; Tower Garrisons A-x (Squire Ranlyn-x) and B - Crossbow
- 1st Infantry Division (Lord Proprietor Dermot Bag Kellag), three units:
Bulwark Companies A-x, B, and C - Heavy Infantry
- Misvale Elven Regiment (Councilor Laurila-x), four units: Lancer Companies A-x, B, and C; Warden Companies A - Light Composite Bow
"x" denotes destroyed
Order of Battle - Legions of the Undying
- 1st Smasher Division (Warchief Khazay), six units: Ogre Skullmauler Companies A; Goblin Wolfbrawler Company A; Giant Mangler Companies A and B; Wyvern Flight Alpha
- 1st Shrieker Division (Chief Awitar), six units: Orc Eyegouger Companies A, B, and C, Orc Gutsticker Companies A and B
- 1st Stomper Division (Engineer Ursk), six units: War Mastadons Alf and Brom; Heavy Catapult; Light Catapults A and B
I always enjoy your narrative recaps. What about Chief Awitar and the Cleric Kellag? Kellag's unit was destroyed around him in the last turn by Awitar and company.
ReplyDeleteLord Proprietor Dermot BagKellag, being a cleric, probably just cast Sanctuary on himself and slipped out the back door. I checked the rules for heroes and apparently he can survive the death of his own unit. I think any spillover damage remaining after his infantry went down would still affect him, but I don't remember if we had additional hits from the orcs to apply. In any event, he's at least moderately durable as a 10th level cleric, so my verdict is that he survived (and cast the spells that returned Councilor Laurila back to some semblance of health).
ReplyDeleteChief Awitar was unable to pursue as he expended the next block of his time ineffectually yelling at the additional giants who were temporarily reassigned to his command for a couple of tense and stressful minutes. His subsequent court martial went better than the one last week, partly because he was able to conduct the arguments for his acquittal from the top of a war mastadon's howdah with a half-dozen hobgoblin bowmen serving as defensive counsel and expert witnesses. Also because Khazay barely survived the "Mortal Wounds" table with only a single remaining hit point and a throbbing headache, the same sort you'd get if an elephant had been tapdancing on an unstable logpile 30 feet from your head with a lot of screaming elves under it.
In other news, I really need to remember to phalanx my infantry when they fight close-quartered.