The hall was filled with smoke, it curled up from the firepits that lined the walls and from the large square raised hearth in the centre of the hall, the thick tendrils of smoke seeking exit in the updraft from the hearth to the hole in the dimly seen roof above. From the smoke blackened roof beams hung the shrivelled heads of enemies, coated with soot and grime from decades of fires. Lining the shadowed walls on either side of the great wooden structure were shields and weapons of many different styles and designs. All this Wulfgar had seen before and now he sat on his high wooden chair, covered with furs & pelts of wolf & Troll and mused. His chin on his hand and his elbow on his mighty thigh, he leaned forwards and stared at the hall, normally so full of his Warriors but now only the slaves that kept his hall were here. His Tribe had suffered again on the field of battle, after his disastrous adventure into Rhordia and the Southlands the Tribe had chosen to make only a short Journey to a land fabled to be rich in plunder and easy to find. The Wulfen had left Hjartsfjord in ten of their mighty Dragon ships but less than half of those had returned.
The Varangur had fought well and fought hard but there just seemed to have been no respite for their warriors and they found themselves outmatched again and again.
Wulfgar knew the survival of his tribe was held in the balance and he perhaps one more chance to hold on to his Chiefdom, his Thegns were already getting restless and Wulfgar had been challenged but his mighty axe had protected his position so far. What he needed was a successful campaign to boost the Tribes standing and restore Wulfgars Honour and cement his position as Chief.
As Wulfgar mused this the Doors of the Hall were flung open and a mighty figure entered, “Where is He” the Figure Bellowed “Where is my Brother?”
Wulfgar stood up and roared, an answering roar came from the figure as it bounded into view revealing an almost carbon copy of Wulfgar, the two warriors hugged with a sound like two sides of beef slapping together. ” Sigurd you dog!” cried Wulfgar, ”when did you return ?”
“Just now “ beamed Sigurd, holding his brother at arm’s length and looking him up and down “and I brought my Warband with me, thought you might need some help?”
Wulfgar nodded and the two of them walked up to the head of the hall, as Sigurd’s warriors followed them the Slaves brought mead and food to the tables. Soon the Warriors were feasting as the two brothers sat and talked of War and Conquest.
The Wulfen travelled across country to take part in the TT Tournament 5: Grabbed by the Ghoulies. This was a one day, 3 game, 2300 point Tournament run with a special Character called the “Ghoulie Grabber” with the attributes as below
For this event the Wulfen had changed their army as in the previous Blogpost https://www.bleufish.uk/post/what-next-for-the-wulfen-of-hjartafjord and there was also the addition of a Baseboard for the army, although there were unpainted riders in one of the cavalry regiments so there were no expectations of winning anything.
The Trolls arrived at the Venue after one of their traditional Ronalds House breakfasts and a relatively easy crossing of the Pennines, without Trollette bursting into flames for being in Yorkshire. The tables were set up and numbered and Andy had already published the draw so I knew exactly where I was supposed to be.
Game one was against the Ogres of Daniel and the Scenario was invade. Daniels army was quite fast for an Ogre army and the Wulfen looked forwards to a hard fought battle.
That is exactly what they got and it was a very bloody affair on both sides, however, despite Thrudella killing both hordes of Siegebreakers and the Varangur getting the majority of the charging in , a combination of poor combat rolls and a couple of Double ones saw the Ogres win by dint of them having Scoring characters at the end and the Varangur didn’t . the Scoring for the TT Tournament is a shortened version of the Northern Kings that only takes W/D/L and attrition into account and so the Wulfen scored 5 for a loss and 4 (out of 5) for attrition for a first round total of 9.
Onwards and upwards we hoped so the Wulfen went on to fight Mark in a game of Loot for the second game. I have played Mark before , but usually it was a Free Dwarf Mirror match. This time Mark has gone full Imperial Dwarf as can be seen from the list below
Despite the amount of Stealthy that the Wulfen have, two organ guns and 10 lots of throwing mastiffs is scary. I resolved to shoot as much as possible before engaging in combat. This was working as the Organ guns had minimal effect on the battle before dying, the mastiffs did manage to cause a fair bit of damage but the main enemy of the Varangur was their own Nerve dice. Mark was constantly apologising to me for my ability to only waver units and again I had two critical Double ones in the game. In the end the Wulfen lost 2-1 on loot as we just couldn’t break through the Dwarf line fast enough to catch the tokens we needed. Also wavering things rather than killing them didn’t help for the attrition score and so we scored 8 points from this game.
The last game of the Day was against the Elves of Jamys, he had a lovely army made up of a fair amount of old skool miniatures and so we chatted about them before we started. Jamys was new to KoW but not to wargaming.
We had a lovely relaxed game, the Wulfen kicked off by shooting out the Silverbreeze Cavalry and the Sea Guard horde, however the Drakons relocated from Jamy’s right to his left and they overwhelmed the Varangur on my right , an unlucky combat in the centre (another two Double ones) lost me my Chimera lord and allowed Jamys to fly his Drakons, Dragon lord and Drakon Lord into my centre section in the last turn and overwhelm the Unit strength I had there which turned my Draw into a win for him. It was then that I found out that this was the first KoW game that Jamy’s had won !
The upshot of this event was that I ,again, had the joys of taking my own Spoon home, however this time it was accompanied by the Most Sporting player Trophy.
There is only one more event that the Varangur are looking to take part in this Year. With this in mind and Sigurds infusion of new warriors to the Wulfen, plus a bit more practise then Wulfgar may yet maintain his Chiefdom and actually manage to win a game or two.
Comments