13 – The Howling Cages

Following our investigation of the phantasmic spheres, our warbands continued to delve into the Catacombs of the Evrenbright. This battle used the third and final scenario for the mini-campaign from Spellcaster 1. For The Howling Cages, there would be cage markers placed rather than treasure tokens. When one of our figures reached a marker, we would roll a die and then replace the marker with either a treasure or a monster. The other item would be placed nearby.

Before the battle, we only had limited success with our casting. I failed both my attempts at Animal Companion and only succeeded once on Brew Potion. My wife managed to cast Awareness with her wizard, but failed with her apprentice.

Going into this battle, I had the advantage. Three of my wife’s specialists had been badly wounded last game and were sitting out for this one. That meant I had 10 figures to her 8. It would have been even more in my favor if I had managed to summon a wolf companion, but I’m just not having luck with Animal Companion recently. Given my advantage, I was hoping to be able to grab at least three treasures this game. I decided to aim for the two on the left side of the board and the closer one on the right and then put less effort into the central treasure and the second one on the right.

My wife’s thief was the first figure to reach a cage. She rolled low and ended up with an ice toad next to the thief and the treasure nearby. During that round’s creature phase, the toad bit down hard on the thief and took her out of the fight, but the thief managed to take out the toad before she passed out. Meanwhile, her ranger was close enough to grab the treasure and start moving off the board.

My thief on the left was next to open a cage. I rolled lucky and the treasure was next to him while an armoured skeleton emerged in a room nearby.

At this point, my wife moved her wizard off the board and I realized she was going to be happy with just one treasure. If I wanted more than one, I’d have to move quick to reveal more treasure tokens before her warband finished fleeing. My thief on the right managed to get to another cage marker through the doorway my apprentice had opened with Crumble. I didn’t roll well when revealing the marker and ended up with a medium construct to deal with, but that left the treasure open for my tracker to grab before the game ended.

My wife had pulled off the strategy she had tried in our 8th game when she had a lot of wounded soldiers. That time, I had been able to secure most of the treasures before she made it off the board, but this time she moved much quicker. It gave me a 2-1 victory, but really accomplished her goal of keeping my haul small while giving her wounded soldiers time to rest.

The Druid’s Warband

• Audric Silverbeard the Druid (+1 levels: learned Write Scroll)
• Roslin the Apprentice
• Nils the Tracker
• Dimitri the Archer
• Diego the Treasure Hunter
• Red the Demon Hunter
• Rhane the Thief
• Raven the Apothecary
• Lucia the Thief
• Jarl the Bear

I’m still planning to cast Animal Companion before the next game to add a Snow Leopard and a Wolf to my warband. My base has a kennel to accommodate the wolf, and Lucia will stay at my inn if I manage to add back a snow leopard.

The Trickster’s Warband

• Freya the Trickster (+2 levels: improved Animate Skull, learned Mind Lock)
• Ophelia the Apprentice
• Emilia the Ranger (now recovered)
• Ronald the Ranger
• Keima the Mystic Warrior (now recovered)
• Jack the Demon Hunter (now recovered)
• Draco the Man-at-Arms
• Dany the Woman-at-Arms
• Scarlet the Assassin
• Annabelle the Thief
• Thaddeus the War Hound