Trollbloods vs. Legion of Everblight – Smoke in the Skies

Smoke in the Skies, 500 pts.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007

About five years ago or so I was starting an Earthdawn RPG campaign for a group of friends. I decided to start the campaign off with the published adventure titled Terror in the Skies which would feature some airships and expose the PCs to that quickly. One character was a Sky Raider so I felt it was appropriate, plus I had run the adventure before and was comfortable with it. The group like using miniatures for combat so I got a crazy idea. The adventure had deck plans for the two large galleons that were in the adventure and would inevitably wind up in a battle in the skies. So one day I scanned the two upper decks into photoshop, resized them to scale for 25mm miniatures, and printed them out. I then took the pages, glued them down to cardboard, and cut them out for use on the table top. The group loved them and they made the boarding actions really fun, but then the ships got tossed into the closet and remained unused until recently. After debating what scenario to play for a little while, Prorpger, Superduck, and I came up with the idea to use the cardboard ships to do a variation of the Smoke on the Water scenario from the campaign in the back of Escalation.

The rules of Smoke on the Water were pretty simple – two barges pass each other on the table. Each barge was its owner’s deployment zone and moving d6″ during its owner’s maintenance phase. Each barge can be damaged like a structure and is ARM 16. When either barge touches the opposite table edge, both barges immediately stop and whichever had sustained the most damage immediately sinks. Whoever holds the last barge wins. If a model was knocked off the barges, it was removed from play.

For Smoke in the Skies, we added a few rules based on the ships we were using.

• The blue edging was deck railing, which provided cover and was effectively an obstacle. It also meant you could get slammed into the wall but not over the edge. However the main deck had weaker railing – no obstacle, and you could be slammed right through it. Basically it was all open ground.
• The red areas were the raised decks and counted as higher ground.
• You could cross between decks of equal height or from higher to lower, but not from lower to higher. So no going from main deck on one ship to the forecastle on the other.
• The green locations were the ships masts that were impassable terrain, provided cover, etc.
• Since the ships weren’t flat and weren’t going to line up perfectly, a model could cross the distance between the two ships as long as the distance between was less than 2″. They were either leaping across or swinging on rope or whatever swashbuckler imagery you wanted to apply there. Yes, jacks too. 🙂

With that we put together a couple forces to do battle.

Trollbloods (Prorpger)

• Grim Angus
• Dire Troll Mauler
• Winte Troll
• Impaler
• Champions
• Thumper Crew (proxied: Blitzer and Stone Scribes)
• Fell Caller
• Stone Scribe Chronicler (proxied: primered Fell Caller)

Prorpger’s proxied the Chronicler and the Thumper a few times and has liked them so far.

Protectorate (Myself)

• Harbinger of Menoth
• Castigator
• Crusader
• Devout
• Dervish
• Seneschal
• Choir

Finally, a chance to field the Harbinger now that she’s been painted. It’s about time!

Turn 1
Trollblood
Prorpger’s airship started off moving 3″

Prorpger started off by having his Thumper shoot at the Crusader. The cannon hit and did a trio of damage to column four but he only rolled 1 for the bounce and it didn’t catch anything else. Then the Impaler threw its spear at the Crusader, boosting to hit and scoring a critical hit. It took another three points of damage to column five but tumbled over a couple choir boys who were flattened by the impact. The Stone Scribe read the first passage for the Champions and they gathered near the side of the deck. The Winter Troll put Freezer on the near champion and Grim gave them Return Fire as well. I’m pretty sure Grim shot the Dervish for a few points of damage, but I can’t recall how many.

Protectorate
The slower Protectorate vessel only moved 1″ first turn.

I gave the Dervish 3 focus and started off moving up and casting Purification, getting rid of Return Fire and Freezer. Then the Seneschal charged the Impaler, reaching across the small space between boats. The first attack missed and the second hit for about 6 points of damage. The choir moved forward and sang Infuse then the Dervish charged the Champions. His first attack on the one in front missed, but he boosted to hit and damage on the leader with his second attack scoring 3 points of damage. The Devout and Castigator moved up to block the edge of the boat, hoping that no matter how far the Troll ship moved the Impaler would still be in melee and unable to slam a jack off the ship. Finally the Crusader stood up and advanced back to its starting position.

Turn 2
Trollblood
The troll vessel zips 6″ towards me. Prorpger’s ship’s mast makes moving his champions a bit difficult. The Impaler boosts a stab in the Dervish’s back doing some good damage. The Chronicler moves back, as does the Fell Caller before giving the Champions War Cry. The Champs then spread out circle the Dervish. Only two can reach it, but they both succeed in hitting and stripping the jack of it’s right arm and cortex. The Winter Troll tries to breathe on the Seneschal but misses due to being in combat and hits his own troll in the back for a few points of damage. Unfortunately he critted and froze the poor troll in place for a turn. Grim moves up to the rail and caps the Devout for about five points of damage and sheds some fury down to 2

Protectorate
The slower Protectorate ship again fails to match the pace of the troll vessel, only moving 4″. I gave the Devout three fury and started a small push. The Dervish took an ineffectual swing at Champion in front of it before the Devout moved up and tried to get the Kithkar… but it was out of reach. So he spent his attacks on the Impaler, taking out its Mind and most of its Body. The Castigator got as far to the rails as possible and the Harbinger followed behind and threw a Cataclysm on the Kithkar. The POW 18 killed him and the blast damage did 3 points to the Chronicler and Fell Caller and killed the swamp gobber bellows (the crewman was sacced instead). Then she feated. The Crusader turned slightly on the fore deck to enable a charge if anyone crossed to my boat and the choir ran up to the deck to block access and use their reach to just be annoying. The seneschal stayed in place with nothing to do.

Turn 3
Trollblood
Another 4″ move for the trolls. The Harbinger’s feat really messed with the trolls. The solos and gobber moved down the boat away from her and turned around to make room for the Champions to go. The Champions moved down near the Dervish and finished it off. The one that was frozen was stuck looking at the Harbinger and was killed by her feat. The Impaler tossed at the Castigator and took out a column with a lucky damage roll. The Winter Troll stepped back and breathed at the Harbinger. When he scored a crit I decided to let the Devout take it (he was barely screening her already). He boosted damage and took out column 2 but no systems. Grim moved back from the rail and took the POW 12, then shot the Harbinger for I think three points of damage then tried a Mantrap but missed. Then the Mauler stood up and moved in front of him, taking two damage from the feat. The Thumper crew all took damage, but only one crewman died while the other two made their tough rolls.

And this is the required one turn per game I forgot pictures.   🙁

Protectorate
I finally have a 6″ move on my boat and it rockets forward. The Castigator got a couple of focus and the choir runs to the back of the boat to get out of my way and clear a path so the Seneschal can get to the Mauler. He chain attack slams it back into the mast and over Grim, doing a few points to the bounty hunter but not removing any aspects on the beast. At this point I decided to try the ole’ holy hand grenade. The castigator repositioned slightly, spend one focus to two-handed throw the Harbinger, and one to boost… and failed miserably. Well, there went the possibility of slicing up Grim. Instead I cast a couple Tremor of Faith’s, boosting the damage on one but only doing about six damage total between both spells. Then the Harbinger fell back, staying within 2″ of the Devout but getting behind the cover of the mast.

Turn 4
Trollblood
The Troll ship advance to within a few inches of the table, signaling that the game was approaching the end. After Grim leeched his fury, the Mauler stood up and moved to engage the Seneschal. The Imapler turned and threw his spear at the Devout, taking out another column but not slamming and not removing a system. The Thumper crew stood up and moved to the edge of the boat. The Champions ran over to get on the Protectorate boat, only two making it over. The Chronicler and the Fell Caller advance, the Chronicler reading the second passage for the Champions. The Winter Troll walks over to in front of the Champions on the Protectorate ship and sprays on the Devout and the Castigator, only doing a couple points of damage to each. Finally Grim stands up and realizes he doesn’t have a path to cross to the Protectorate ship. He steps back and heals the Dire Troll with four of his fury.

Protectorate
The Protectorate ship advances another single inch. The two heavies each get a single focus and the Devout gets three. The Seneschal rotates around the Dire Troll slightly and attacks but misses, ruining a chance for a slam. The Castigator ran over onto the Troll Ship and the Crusader ran down to the main deck. The Devout advanced toward the winter troll, swinging his shield at it and missing, then attacking the Troll ship with his halberd and buying three more attacks on it. Finally the Harbinger skirted up towards the rail but away from the trolls and threw a Cataclysm at the troll ship (which was just under 2 inches away). The two models were able to tally up 28 damage on the Trollblood ship.

Turn 5
Trollblood
The troll ship moves to within .5″ of the table edge, guaranteeing it will reach the end next turn. Most of his trolls are blocked on his own ship so Prorpger tries to do what he can to damage the Protectorate one, including two Mantraps from Grim and the Champions beating on the deck at their feet but he isn’t able to quite match damage the Protectorate did to his vessel and we call the game, realizing the game would end with a Protectorate win at the start of turn 6.

Summary
The first time we tried this scenario we thought it was going to be pretty boring, but it turned out to just be a lot of fun knocking models around. Obviously with the cardboard ships we play a little fast and loose with rules. There’s a gentleman’s agreement to just go out and have fun and not abuse the scenario to go for the win.

I think there are two things about the scenario that needs addressing, particularly related to our use of the airships. Making it impossible to go from the main deck of one ship to the upper decks of another really limits how much crossing can happen. I think we need to allow it, but count it as going over an obstacle (so walking and running is fine, just no charging). We should probably try that out and see how it goes.

The second thing is the gap between the ships. Because they don’t touch (the ship’s sides aren’t strait) and since a model has to completely cross the gap to get to the other side, models without reach are winding up SOL if there’s no space to cross. I can see two potential ways to fix this for now:

• Allow models to be standing in the space between ships since the barges in the original scenario were flush with each other.
• Allow warrior models/units (maybe non-Warcasters only?) starting their activation within an inch of the edge of the ship to move over models within 1″ of the rail on the opposing deck. Basically call it swinging on the rigging, don’t let people charge but they could run or advance and do it and no free strikes.

One way or the other people need to be able to get from boat to boat and get in each other’s faces.

Problems aside the scenario has proven a nice diversion from regular assassination games and has been fun to just play around with.