11 – Green Shadows

A few days after our wizards investigated a strange magnetic area, an explosion shook the western portion of Felstad’s ruins. Soon, strange green gas was drifting up from exposed subterranean ruins. Both of our warbands headed underground to search for new treasure. For this game, we were starting the Catacombs of the Evrenbright mini-campaign from Spellcaster 1 with the Green Shadows scenario. In this scenario, green gas would cause random actions from one of our soldiers each round. This could include wandering in a random direction, dropping treasure, or even shooting the nearest figure even if it is an ally.

Before the game, our wizards struggled with their spellcasting. My apprentice managed to brew an Elixir of Speed, but my wizard failed Brew Potion and managed to accidentally summon an Ice Toad to help my wife’s warband with a critical failure on Animal Companion. Both my wife’s wizard and apprentice failed to cast Awareness.

I was initially planning to play for three treasures – the two closest to me and one of the two on my wife’s side of the board since I had a fairly clear path to it with my tracker who wears boots of speed. For the first round that plan was fine, but when treasures started getting picked up during round two, all of the monsters showed up on the side my tracker needed to move up. In order to keep the wandering skeletons and construct from threatening my wizard, I had to give up on the further treasure and reroute my tracker to hold off the monsters.

As my plan adjusted, I decided to use my relatively new Crumble spell to open a path for my barbarian to grab the other treasure that was closer to her side. Thanks to help from my snow leopard, he was able to get to it and start making his way towards the edge of the board, but my wife’s warband was in pursuit after taking down the animal companion.

My wife’s assassin grabbed the central treasure without much opposition from my warband, and her thief reached the treasure that my tracker was hoping to contest. Her thief struggled a bit more due to dropping the treasure as a result of the green gas. That slowed her down enough that my archer got a shot and wounded her, but she managed to get out of line of sight before my archer could take a second shot. My thief also made off with his treasure largely unopposed.

At this point, two treasures were left on the board. My apothecary was going after one with my demon hunter protecting her, but my wife’s mystic warrior and woman-at-arms were threatening them. My barbarian had the other treasure, but was isolated from the rest of my warband with a wizard, a knight, a ranger, and a man-at-arms trying to catch up.

For the first of those treasures, my demon hunter beat back the woman-at-arms, but then she and the mystic warrior both scored critical hits against each other and went down. My bear companion rushed in to finish off the woman-at-arms and then gave my apothecary a clear path to carry away the treasure by finishing off the medium construct that had worn down my tracker.

For the other remaining treasure, my apprentice came to my barbarians aid, but they both ended up falling in combat before more help could arrive. That let my wife’s ranger collect that last treasure and end the game.

We had a lot of injury rolls to make after the game. My snow leopard and my wife’s knight both died. My demon hunter also was badly wounded and will have to sit out for our next game. Luckily everyone else recovered.

For treasure, my wife found three grimoires: Mind Control, Mind Lock, and Elemental Shield. I claimed a grimoire of Wizard Eye and a scroll of Shield.

The Druid’s Warband

• Audric Silverbeard the Druid (+2 levels: +1 Health, improved Strength)
• Roslin the Apprentice
• Jormund the Barbarian
• Nils the Tracker
• Dimitri the Archer
• Red the Demon Hunter (badly wounded)
• Rhane the Thief
• Raven the Apothecary
• Jarl the Bear
• Jaeger the Snow Leopard (dead)

My wizard and apprentice will both be attempting to cast Animal Companion before the next game in hopes of adding a new snow leopard and a wolf to my warband. If those castings don’t work out, I’ll enlist whichever thugs or thieves are in the closest tavern.

The Trickster’s Warband

• Freya the Trickster (+3 levels: +1 Will, improved Awareness, learned Animate Skull)
• Ophelia the Apprentice
• Kate the Knight (dead)
• Emilia the Ranger (now recovered)
• Ronald the Ranger
• Keima the Mystic Warrior
• Draco the Man-at-Arms
• Dany the Woman-at-Arms
• Scarlet the Assassin
• Annabelle the Thief
• Jack the Demon Hunter (new hire, not yet painted)
• Thaddeus the War Hound (new hire with a kennel, not yet painted)