Picking up where we left off a few years ago in the Campaign for the Darkened Wood, the human kingdom had just come out on top in a three-way battle versus the Elf-Dwarf coalition and the dastardly Orcs. While the Elf-Dwarf gang and the Orc mob duked it out to the death, the humans rushed in, grabbed several magical (radioactive?) rocks that had fallen from the sky and would be useful in enticing a wizard to work for the human king.
Now the humans have departed with the loot and are making their way back to human lands. But first they must pass through a stretch of swamp. The swampy green ground on either side of the path through the swamp imposed a movement penalty on the humans.
Any beastmen that may be in the swamp were immune to this penalty, owing to their swift movement and long legs. And the beastmen were hoping to get the meteorites from the men, in order to lure a necromancer to join their faction and add legions of the undead to their cause (any excuse to dust off old Warhammer skeletons).
We played this with the Savage Worlds Showdown! rules, using the excellent cards from Fistful of Lead for activations.
The column of human soldiers filing through the swamp.
Led by the brave and trusty Captain Trent, along with a scout hired to lead the convoy back to the kingdom of men.
Captain Trent close-up.
And a close-up of the local scout, a Norse woodsman who is handy with a bow and knows these woods well.
The convoy has advanced halfway across the board without incident. So far, so good...
...so what! Beastmen emerge from the nearby woods, charging toward the column of men.
Two beastmen charge the rear of the column...
...and one of the human soldiers goes down immediately, the victim of a nasty axe blow.
The humans rally and wrap around the beastmen, hoping to put their superior numbers to use, even though they are inferior to the beastmen in one-on-one combat.
Two more beastmen charge into battle further up the column.
The two beastmen at the trail of the column both have yellow Shaken counters.
One of the beastmen at the end of the column goes down, overwhelmend by the numbers of the human soldiers.
Things are looking better for the beastmen in the middle of the column, where they have temporary numerical superiority, and the human scout is wounded and has a yellow Shaken marker. But then a fortuitous initiative card removes the Shaken status.
Things go south for the beastmen at the back of the column, with both beastmen brought down by superior human numbers.
One of the beastmen in the middle of the column goes down from a lucky blow.
The beastman will breaks, and one of them runs off.
Human archers try to shoot the fleeing beastman, but miss.
The beastman runs off to live another day!
Things have gone very poorly for the beastman chieftain, who is one wound short of death.
The beastman chieftain flees sucessfully, expending all remaining Bennies (free saves) to get off of the field alive.
The beastman faction has been reduced to two beastmen. So much for getting a necromancer to build up their numbers. We decided to retire the beastmen as a going concern in the campaign. Any time they might appear from here on out would just be the two surviving members of their faction.
As a review note, the Savage Worlds Showdown system does account well for the weight of individually inferior combatants swarming superior ones. Had I appropriately accounted for this prior to moving in the beastmen, I might have changed how I deployed them.
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