“Sleeping. He must be sleeping,” Baldrick muttered as he hefted his axe, its familiar weight settling on his shoulder as he peered into the darkness ahead, “bloody addled Buldahr spent the night talking to his mouse, and now he’s sleeping.”
“He’s not,
brother,” Beldar replied, “don’t you know? The Buldahr don’t sleep, or piss, or
even breathe. Fie! I’d wager all they do is wrestle and hu—”
“Quiet!”
Lobrek hissed, blowing on the match to keep it lit as he fit it into the neck
of his weapon’s lock. The others obeyed, and could now hear what he did:
dragging. No, walking, but with the unmistakable echo of something being
hauled behind whomever—whatever—was approaching.
“Ancestors!”
Gloni called out, his pistol shaking in his grip as he pointed it down the hall
at the shuffling figure shuffling forward stiffly, its twisted right lag
dragging behind it at an awkward angle. In response to the shortbeard’s cry,
the figure’s jaw snapped back into place, and it let out a howl of ancient,
deathless anger.
It was not
alone. Other figures, some dwarven, some human, emerged from behind it, their
bodies in vary states of decay. “Who is there?” Halreth asked, his falchion
clutched tightly in his gauntleted fist as his surfacer eyes failed to pick out
whatever was coming for them, “uncle, who is there?!” “The dead, lad,” Lobrek
answered, “and they’re none too pleased we’re here.”
--
Ah, here we are:
the beginning of our merry crew’s epic tale. I ended up playing the “Oh,
Chute!” scenario from Vaults of Zarn, which is one of the scenarios
crews can play right at the onset of the campaign. How did our dwarves (and
man) fare? Read on!
Setup and Turn 1:
So, technically
I’m not playing by the rules here, as I elected to use the undead as my
opponents for this scenario. I see this as a shrugworthy house ruling at worst: I think the
undead are cool, and wanted to break out some of the undead dwarves I painted a
while back, so that’s that!
 |
| C'mon, look at 'em! Can you blame me for wanting to break out these merry fellows? My headcannon? The dwarves "live here," and the human skeletons are some of their victims: silly manling treasure hunters, most likely. |
Oh, Chute! Involved
battling over rooms with levers in them. Pulling a level opens the old chutes
(presumably used to shift goods between levels of the hold), revealing anything
from long-trapped monsters (this is part of the reason why I thought the undead
worked: they’ve been stuck there for ages) to treasures. Furthermore, there are
trapdoors hidden in the north and south alcoves, which a successful search roll
can help uncover.
In terms of
setup, you get six dwarves, and the waves of enemy monsters (according to the
expanded solo rules in Vaults of Zarn) come in from the player entrance
(this is in addition to any spawned monsters, who appear in the usual places
outlined by the scenario. I.e. the chutes, in this case). I elected to have
Snorri off-table to begin with: he must have been up late chatting with Crumb,
and has dozed off while hanging a hallway or two back as rearguard! He’ll
arrive on turn 2, anyhow.
 |
| Right before we got to fighting on turn 1. Sir Kair's throwing down with a Revenant, and Baldrick (the boss) has two of his own to contend with! |
So, how did turn
1 go? It was, as one would expect, pretty uneventful. The highlight was Sir
Kair felling one of the undead with a mighty swing of his hammer: Baldrick also
scrapped with one, but he didn’t manage more besides driving it back. Still,
the battle was joined, and things were about to get interesting in a hurry!
--
“Dead dwarves
and the men they’ve slain!” Baldrick roared as he brought his axe around in a
wide arc, driving the dead thing before him back, “watch them, they’re nimble!”
Indeed, the wretched fury of undeath lent these creatures strength, and upon
sighting the party they charged with surprising speed. These were no shuffling
corpses, not anymore: they were frenzied by the sight of those who held
the treasure they craved most: life.
“Courage!
Courage!” Sir Kair cried with the clarity of a manling troubadour-knight, though without a hint of
that proud profession’s artfulness. The once-dwarven thing before him
buckled as his hammer found its knee, and then howled no more when the next
blow found its skull.
 |
| While not the most successful round of fighting, the dwarves emerge unscathed, and with one of the undead sent to their grave. . .again. |
 |
| But, there were plenty more where they came from! More baddies trundle on, including one human zombie (who's serving as a Revenant): a more recent victim of the wrathful, undead dwarves? |
Turn 2:
Things got
off to a roaring start when Gloni levelled his pistol at one of the dwarven
undead and brought it down: score one for the shortbeard! Lobrek advanced and,
not to be outdone by his apprentice, shot down one of the skeletal figures
rushing down the monster entrance. Other movement basically involved sending
Halreth and Beldar down towards one of the objective rooms, getting Snorri onto
the field, and sending Sir Kair into a combat he really ought not to be in with
the fresh wave of undead making their way down the monster entrance stairway.
 |
| Plenty of movement meant that the crew had basically managed to get one of the levers (I only had one model, so imagine the other corners have them too) within reach. Look at how many skellies Sir Kair is about to deal with in the top-right corner! |
Or so it ought
to have been. Sir Kair, fearless and bold, drove back all of his attackers
(wounding none, but I was just happy he survived), though in the center of the
map things were going less well. While Baldrick slew one of the dwarven undead,
Lobrek (who isn’t an especially talented fighter on a good day, and is a worse
one on turns where he’s shot his firelock) was absolutely savaged by the
Revenant attacking him. Only his breastplate kept him alive, and only barely!
 |
| Lobrek was absolutely savaged by the Revenant before him. Thank the ancestors he opted to wear his breastplate today, or he would have been felled in a single hit! |
--
They just kept
coming. Lobrek reached for the power flask at his hip as he saw Sir Kair knock
back a number of skeletal once-manlings with a wide sweep of his hammer.
“Master, Sir, watch out—” Lobrek hear his apprentice shout, but before he could
turn to grumble at the shortbeard to keep calm he saw the creature lunge
towards him.
He was too
slow, he knew it. Before he could draw his short blade, Lobrek felt the
revenant collide with him, sending both sprawling to the floor. Blow after blow
from the creature rained down, each with the force of a hammer. With a howl,
Lobrek managed to get a foot between himself and his assailant, pushing it off
him with what was left of his strength.
He was too
slow, he knew it. Without aid, Lobrek knew he would die in this place.
 |
| Good thing he's a knight, or Sir Kair might have been afraid as a Barrowthane and a fresh pack of skeletons hit the scene! |
Turn 3:
Beldar
pulled the lever in the southwest corner, and out clattered a single Hastus
Coin, which rolled around on the ground a few tiles away from him. Also
treasure-finding, Halreth managed to uncover an old barrel of some dwarven ale
in the corner of the alcove: burial ale, perhaps?
On the combat
front, things continued to be. . .uncertain. While Gloni reloaded his pistol,
Lobrek stumbled to his feet and failed to reload his firelock (this is
something than requires no test if the reloading dwarf doesn’t move, but Lobrek
clearly was having trouble going through the motions after being beaten half to
death).
 |
| Most of the movement done for turn 3. The d8 in the lower-left room marks the location of the Hastus Coin which would fall from the ceiling when the lever was pulled. You can also see Halreth has found a barrel of ale, and Sir Kair is surrounded. |
Most
disappointingly, Baldrick actually failed his Nerve test to charge one of the
undead: embarrassing! By contrast, Snorri and Sir Kair dived into battle with
gusto, though Snorri didn’t accomplish much despite landing four hits
due to his Exploding Hits rule. Apparently he was just hammering on the
creature before him for fun or something.
 |
| Snorri beat the hell out of this Revenant, the one who had nearly killed Lobrek, but to no avail. Apparently hammering these flesh bastards was not the way to go! Also, sneer at Baldrick, hiding there in the bottom-right of the photo: he was the only model who failed fear checks the whole game! |
Baldrick did
manage to redeem himself in combat, at least, when the undead he should
have engaged decided to close the gap regardless and was cut down for its
trouble. Sir Kair, still desperately fighting a ton of undead, somehow managed
to emerge from the combat unscathed, despite losing and being surrounded.
Impressive!
In short, the
turn uncovered some treasure and little else. And then the event phase
happened, and things went from uncertain to bad. Sir Kair and Gloni lost
their light sources, and in addition to a fresh wave of undead emerging from
the monster stairway a big baddy hit the scene in the alcove before
Halreth (and, comically, some undead tumbled down the chute to join Beldar).
Things were about to get nasty.
--
“Axe and
fire! Blood and death! Buldahr! Buldahr!” Snorri brayed as he drove his hammers
again and again into the thing before him, pleased the creature remained on his
feet: that just gave him another chance to beat on it, like the smith might
with a stubborn ingot that needed to be made to yield. “Stand your
ground!” Baldrick shouted to the others, though his order hid his own shame at
having hesitated for a brief moment in the face of the living dead. He was the
most senior dwarf here, after all: if he gave in to fear, what right did he
have to lead them?
“The statue!
The statue in the alcove: it’s moving!” Gloni shouted to his companions,
“Halreth, out of the way!”
“Sol,” Halreth
muttered, his blade held in shaking hands, “it’s made of stone. What chance
does steel have against it?”
 |
| I figured it would be goofy for this large model to come through the same hatch the barrel was in (how would it fit?), and I didn't have a large-sized undead model to spare, so my solution was to assume there was a statue in the alcove, inset into a little cubby or something. It roared to life (possessed by a dwarven spirit, perhaps?) and put Halreth in a very, very bad spot. |
Turn 4:
Seeing how Beldar
was the only light bearer in town, I took a gamble and had him rush out into
the main room, scooping the Hastus Coin up on the way. He successfully managed
to avoid engaging the undead in the room (lucky!), which meant that my crew was
once more in light. Whew!
 |
| Sometimes you've got to play it smart. While hightailing it out of the room (but not before snatching up the Hastus Coin on the floor) was risky and perhaps a little craven-ish, the crew needed to be in the light of Beldar's torch if they were going to stand a chance against the undead in their midst! |
Again,
Baldrick failed to engage on account of his fear. Again, Gloni managed
to hit something with his pistol, though the shot glanced off the statue’s
stony body. Again, I realized it was too early to tell whether I was
winning or losing, though things looked very worrying.
Combat ended up
being a back and forth. Halreth, who braced as his action, managed to survive
the statue’s onslaught, though was wounded in the process (meaning he was, for
all intents and purposes, pretty much about to die: humans only take one hit
before becoming wounded in Torch and Shield). Sir Kair was finally
wounded by the undead around him, but not seriously enough to impact his stats: this Knight of the Crown was
proving his worth, that’s for sure! Snorri, meanwhile, finally put down the foe
he had hammered like, six times, and Beldar turned around (after heroically
bringing light into the central chamber) and cut down the Revenant pursuing
him.
 |
| Things were getting interesting down near the bottom of the map. Halreth was nearly felled by the statue (surviving only because of his Brace special action), Gloni failed to damage the lumbering brute with his pistol, and Beldar sent the Revenant pursing him to its second death. |
On the boring
side of things? Lobrek reloaded, and Baldrick watched from the sidelines as the
skeletons (now led by a boss-tier Barrowthane, represented by a slightly
fancier skeleton) pummeled Sir Kair. What a leader. . .
 |
| Look at Sir Kair, totally not needing help from his terrified boss. Nope, not at all. . . |
To make things
even more interesting, another revenant tumbled through the chute, ready to
burst through the doorway Beldar was guarding. Lucky him.
--
Halreth
coughed, tasting iron on his tongue, as he stared up at the cobwebbed ceiling
above him. The statue had dealt with him with a single sweep of its stone
hammer, and it was a glancing blow. “Get. Up. Die on your bloody feet,”
Halreth thought to himself. “Boy, if you’re not dead, get those long shanks
up!” Beldar commanded, before turning to face the revenant sprinting towards
him. A spittle-flecked growl of his own answered the abomination’s hideous,
rasping shout, before the dwarf’s axe ensured it would not let out another. “I
said up, manling!” Beldar barked, eyeing the moving statue warily, “get
up and back: we’ll fight it together!”
Turn 5:
Despite
how desperate things were looking, several of the crew gave an impressive
performance. Gloni rushed to the aid of Halreth, who kipped up using a special
activation and prepared to once more fight the statue beside the shortbeard.
Beldar would have joined them also, but instead had to deal with a Revenant and
a Grumbler (the fleshy and the not-so-fleshy dudes, respectively). Indeed, he
did just that, cutting both down in an impressive display of dwarven martial
prowess!
 |
| He wasn't running earlier. . .he was preparing. What an absolute legend this Beldar's turning out to be! |
Continuing his
poor performance for the evening, Baldrick lost a fight with a single
skeleton and took a wound to boot. Snorri, at least, smashed one of the dumb
boners (heh) into dusty, and even Sir Kair (still on the floor) lashed out and
damaged the Barrowthane. Lobrek, wounded and at long range, accomplished little
with his shot earlier in the turn, but at least wasn’t in any serious danger.
 |
| So, Sir Kair and Snorri are getting work done, while the boss is laid out by a skeleton. Why's Baldrick in charge again? |
And then it was
time for the main event: battered manling and shortbeard vs. statue. While the
two younglings actually won, their weapons failed to damage the lumbering
threat. Honestly, I was just pleased they managed to hold it back for a round,
though I was less pleased when the turn ended and Beldar’s torch went out.
The last light
was gone: the crew would have to battle through the last turn in darkness.
“Sir Kair,
rise to your feet and—gah!” Baldrick sunk to his knees as the manling skeleton
managed to find a gap in his armor, near the armpit. The wet, warm feeling near
to where the blade has struck was all too familiar to the dwarf: his foe had
drawn blood. Shoving the creature back with the haft of his axe, Baldrick
looked over his shoulder to see his brother faring better than he against twice
as many opponents: at least one of them was proving their worth.
“You face a
knight, wretch, not a beardling! Come, again!” Sir Kair taunted, still fighting
from the ground as his hammer swept the leg out from under the armored skeleton
looming over him. Snorri, meanwhile, has been reduced to simply shouting at the
top of his lungs as he destroyed another foe, the battle-fury overtaking him.
Near the stair where they entered what was rapidly becoming a desperate
battleground, Lobrek winced as he fished another shot from the pouch at his hip
and began stuffing it down the barrel of his firelock, wondering why his
apprentice had elected to draw his shortsword and charge down a hallway.
“Ancestors,”
he muttered as he realized that Halreth had headed down that same hallway.
 |
| End of the turn. Note that another Revenant has emerged from the open chute in the bottom-left room. It won't be (un)alive for long. |
Turn 6:
The last
turn of the game brought with it the whole spectrum of wargaming emotions.
Triumph. Fear. Confusion. It was a fitting was to end a game, I’ll say that
much!
While Lobrek was pretty much out of the game (he needed to reload, and was too far and wounded to contribute to the fighting), everyone else had their hands full. Beldar slew another skeleton that had fallen down the chute to enter the fray, making him a contender for MVD (most valuable dwarf, naturally) Meanwhile, the other crew member vying for the title (mostly because he tanked so many rounds of combat against multiple foes) seemed to have run out of steam, winning against but failing to damage the skeleton and Barrowthane he was fighting. Snorri managed to destroy the skeleton he was fighting, but Baldrick the leader was lost once more to the one he was fighting, and took another wound, putting him into the wounded state. What a joke.
 |
| After movement, but before the monsters act. Halreth beat a hasty retreat, useless in the dark, while the crew prepared for a final round of combat. |
Of course, my
attention was more focused on the scene near the alcove. Halreth used a
special activation to limp away from the fight against the statue (now that it
was dark his stats were basically laughable, being unable to see in the dark),
leaving Gloni to fight it alone. While I thought this was a necessary move, it
turned out to be moot anyway, as in the monster phase the “in the dark” check
he made showed snake eyes. He had been taken out of action by something in the
gloom!
(Remarkably, none of the other shrouded crew members—all of them—suffered any
ill effects).
And so, it was
the last fight of the game, statue vs. shortbeard. Could Gloni withstand such a
powerful opponent on his lonesome?
 |
| No, no he could not. |
Well, the dice
had spoken, and they said “guess what, idiot? Your shortbeard is dead.
Permanently. Put him back on the shelf.”
I told you that
model tends to die ingloriously.
--
“Uncle? Uncle,
where are you?!” Halreth called out, cursing as he slammed into a wall. It was
strange, hearing all the sounds of battle and not being able to see a damn
thing. He heard the clash of steel to his right as half of his companions
fought against the skeletal remains of long-dead treasure hunters. He heard
Beldar telling him to run towards the stairs. He heard Gloni’s last words,
“c-come on, you rocky bastard!”, and then he heard Gloni die with a wet slam.
His world was
already shrouded in pitch black when a heavy blow rang out across his helm,
ending Halreth’s first foray into the world below. . .
 |
| End of the game. The boss is on the floor again, and both Gloni and Halreth are removed from the table, the former permanently. Would you believe that, on account of having recovered a single treasure, this was still a victory? Sure felt like it. . . |
Conclusion:
Ouch, that
was a rough final turn! Halreth getting taken out by something in the
dark was unexpected, but at least he might live: the same can’t be said for
Gloni, who is officially dead as can be. Definitely going to shake up my
post-game plans, I think!
Speaking of
post-game plans, I’m excited to see how Vaults of Zarn handles the
“between battles” bookkeeping and party-management aspects of the grand
campaign. I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff, and love that I won’t actually
know whether Halreth lives (having been taken out of action, but not instantly
killed) until I’ve technically begun the next campaign turn. Tune in next time
when we write a fitting eulogy for Gloni, figure out what to do next, and
answer one very important question: is Lobrek really going to lose his
apprentice AND his adopted nephew in one fell swoop?
I will say that I
had a blast playing through the first battle of this campaign, and suspect I’ll
enjoy the next campaign turn immensely. While I intend to review Vaults of
Zarn eventually, I’m planning on doing so after a few campaign turns, the
better to give anyone interested in finding out more an honest appraisal of the
expansion. My initial impressions are quite positive at this point,
however.
 |
| This roll? This roll says "hope you weren't too attached to Gloni, because there's three sixes in there." |
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