“But do we need them?” Arturius asked, spreading his hands wide to add emphasis to his question, “Surely we can make Rhordia great without stooping to allying ourselves with these, these Cutthroats?” He shook his head in dismay, his luxuriant golden locks of hair catching the light as he did, He turned to each of his companions in turn with questioning eyes.
“You know as well as I do the decision has been made, we are here simply to escort them to the right place” said the large man at the head of the Table “We are just servants of the League and must do our Duty, however distasteful it may seem”.
“But Pirates Decalus? Surely they will taint our Victory? “pleaded Arturius
Decalus slammed his hand on the table “There may be no Victory without these Allies!” He said Forcefully.
Arturius flushed but before he could retort they heard a shout from outside, “The sentries have spotted our guests” Decalus rose and picked up his plumed helmet from the table in front of him, he then strode towards the tent door” you will keep your opinions to yourself” he said to Arturius as he passed him, Arturius glared at Decalus as he exited the Tent door being held open by a Halberdier, before grabbing his own helmet and following his Commander. The Rest of the Officers filed out behind them.
As the Rhordian Troops formed up into ranks to greet the arrival of their allies the Officers watched the progress of the Sleek Longships up the river towards them, each one propelled by a bank of oars along their low,shield draped sides, the front of each ship carved in the likeness of a hideous fanged beast and their black sails decorated with tribal symbols daubed in what Decalus hoped was red paint.
The First of the ships coasted into the bank in front the Massed troops and a collection of motley clad warriors jumped ashore. They were dressed in a mixture of furs, clothes and Chainmail with no regularity between them apart from they all wore blue and white striped trousers, some had helmets but others just bareheaded with masses of lank hair and thick beards, one of them, a great brute of a man spotted the officers and strode towards them, while the rest of his men stood watching the Rhordians with obvious curiosity.
“So you are de Rhordians ?” the black haired giant bellowed as he got closer, his accent making the word sound like ROW- de – unz, “ Very Pretty” he grinned, pointing at the ranked up troopers on the riverbank, “this will be why you want fighters to help you then” he burst into a gusty laugh at his own wit. Decalus stepped forwards while the rest of the Rhordian officers glowered at the Barbarian. The laugh was taken up by the growing crowd of Barbarian warriors that were disembarking from their Longships.
“We welcome you in the name of the League of Rhordia and are here to escort you to the Armies Camp” Decalus said “I am Decalus of Liefenhild and these are my Officers”.
“Wulfgar Son of Ulf” the beaming giant said “and those are my men” he turned to the River and raising his axe he let out a mighty yell, taken up by his men. As they stood and shouted their battle cry, they clashed their weapons against their shields in a rising thunder of noise.
Decalus turned to his men, and as he did a pale Arturius said to him “If they scare the enemy as much as they scare me they will be a great help”
“Just try to stay upwind of them” Decalus whispered.
Wulfgar and his tribesmen have travelled South to take part in the War of the Roses, a Tournament held in Oxfordshire in the UK, The Trolls missed out on this event last year due to bad planning but this Year, Trollette made sure it was one of the few events on our Calendar to attend. The event has a large attendance which makes it one of the biggest in the Country outside Clash of Kings and there are a lot of the better players in the UK turning up. There are five games over the weekend and they are running a custom scenario this year, there are also the Rose Markers, red and white, to represent the English war of succession from the Fifteenth century fought between the Houses of Lancashire (represented by the Red Rose) and the House of York (represented by the White Rose) which ended in 1485 ( 7 Years before America was even discovered!) These Rose Tokens are a side game which allow players to score bonus points towards separate prizes.
Not content with having an additional side game there is also a Team challenge. Teams of four players can combine their scores in an attempt to prove they are the four best (or luckiest) players at the event. This is where the story blurb comes in. The Trolls were following the Team banter on a Messenger group with mirth, we had not put ourselves forwards as we are generally considered a handicap to anyone that has an ounce of competitiveness in their body, but on this occasion, we were co-opted by the “Make Rhordia Great Again” Team. Obviously the Trolls are using Non Rhordia Armies (we do have a Rhordia Army but we have never used it at a Tournament) and so the Make Rhordia Great Again Team, MRGAT for short, has two Armies consisting of Salamanders and Varangur.
Thus, I have rationalised it that the Rhordians have called for help and the seafaring races of Salamanders and Varangur have answered. The Rhordians are renowned for using Mercenaries in their armies and so this theme for the WoTR tournament is just an expansion on that idea. Having piloted the Northern Alliance to disaster recently but also having successfully used a Varangur Army in the Past I have decided to turn the Coats of Trollettes Northern Alliance Troops for a couple of events to allow me to use my Conan Cavalry on the Tabletop now I have painted up most of the castings. The Tournament is being run using the Mantic Companion and if you are around on the Weekend of 26/27 of October I will attempt to post a link to the live scores in the “My Little Corner of Pannithor “page on Facebook (WiFi and techno magic dependant) so you can see how my weekend is going.
I am also determined to actually take Pictures at this event and to do an After Action Report of my games to allow me to Blog about it (and to hopefully learn from any mistakes I may make over the weekend) as I haven’t had chance to do so this year with being involved in running most of the Tournaments I have been to. So that you, my faithful reader, can see how effective the Varangur were in “Making Rhordia Great Again”
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