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Our Memorable Warbands
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At our peak we all had at least two or three
warbands each, and some of us had as many
as a dozen. However, the following are some
of the most memorable, successful, long
lasting, and in some cases all of the above. |
- Octavian von Rochestein: no story
of our campaign is complete without some
discussion of
Octavian. In our very first game
as a group four of us fielded warbands against
each other and one of them was an Undead
band lead by a Vampire named Octavian von
Rochestein who proceeded to completely dominate
the four way battle, taking one force out
altogether and owning the board, with the
other two bands tied up by zombies and such
while Octavian picked off Heroes. Only by
allying against him and by dint of the power
of the Sigmarite warhammers of one of the
forces (the Bomby Zeny, described later),
and concentrating force on henchmen to force
a Rout test, Octavian finally had to withdraw.
And it was a close run thing; the Zeny Routed
right before Octavian, leaving the Reikers
the victors by default. Octavian came back
strong, with a retooled roster that relied
more on Ghouls and Dregs. The campaign expanded
with more players and bands, and Octavian's
coterie was quickly established as a powerhouse,
largely due to Octavian himself who became
the single most feared single warrior for
a long time running (until the later coming
of Urblatz). Eventually, with the advent
of the
Undead Add-ons to the campaign,
Octavian delved deeply into the new Vampire
Skills -- most notably The Embrace which
allowed him to turn his Dreg followers into
weak little Vampires. The player was also
adept at making deals with other warbands
of an evil theme, becoming quite the power
broker -- an unbreathing Godfather of sorts.
Anyway, long
story short, Octavian and his well crafted
background story quickly became an important
part of an unfolding chronicle of sorts
as our campaign took on a life of its own.
Dealing with the von Rochesteins and their
increasing control over the flow of Wyrdstone
became a reoccuring theme for the non-evil
factions in the campaign; the Zeny particulary
spearheaded many efforts against them for
the campaigns best and biggest rivalary.
Lots of fun was had by all, and in the end
with the Reikers, the Zeny, and the von
Rochesteins all cresting 500 Rating (the
agreed upon semi-retirement threshold),
a big campaign event was made out of the
Reikers and Zeny allying once again along
with a Vampire Hunter band that was doing
well to find Octavian's lair and deal with
the Vampires once and for all.
Interestingly
the fight went just like the original first
battle so many months before, with the Vampires
blowing thru the one band, getting stuck
in with the Reikers and Zeny and dominating
at first, but eventually getting attrited.
The Zeny almost put Octavian out; it all
came down to a couple of key rolls and then
blam, they failed a Rout test with him on
the ropes. The Reikers moved in to finish
the job, but Octavian recovered and was
taking the fight to them too, but was slowed
down by Gundar the Swift and Seigfried the
Axe and was finally forced to bottle out
too leaving the Reikers once again on the
field.
After losing
a lot of henchmen and IIRC a Necromancer
in that fight, the von Rochesteins fell
back under 500 Rating again and the player fielded
them again against a brand new Norscan warband
soon thereafter and by a combination of
suprise, timing, and lucky die rolls a gang
of them were able to group up on Octavian
and put him out for the first and only time,
badly injuring him in the process. However
after that fight Octavian hit max XP, so
we retired him via promotion to Dramatis
Personae status. But to keep the story
going, the player decided to split his three
lesser Vampires made with the Embrace into
three seperate new warbands; the group agreed
to allow it and thus the von Rochesteins
(Lillith, Natazha, and
Fritz) branched out like a hydra
and continued to be an aspect of our games
though never again as dominant as Octavian
at his peak. Lillith proved to be the best
and saw the most play, becoming very competent
in her own right but also strongly bolstered
by excellent Heroes.
- Velmi Bomby Zeny: The
ultimate Sisters of Sigmar force from our
campaign; one of the longest standing and
most played bands (the player only adopted
another band late in the campaign after
everyone begged her to stop wiping the walls
with their bands with this one). The Sisters
fought many long hard battles, particularly
against the forces of Octavian von Rochestein
and his foul progeny, and the constant pressure
she put on the Undead was the greatest check
preventing them from completely dominating
the entire league. In fact, it was only
after suffering heavy losses to the Zeny's
that Octavian was finally defeated in the
next fight with the Stone Cold Crazies before
he could rebuild. The play style of the
player was interesting; she wasn't interested
in victory in the traditional sense, she
stayed true to the flavor of the band and
dedicated every battle to taking the fight
to the most evil foes opposing her, and
attacked them relentlessly until one side
or the other Routed. It was suprisingly
effective, though she had a high turnover
rate with henchmen and hirelings. Oh, also,
the Halfing hireling that was later promoted
to Dramatis Personae status,
Pipa, the Chickenhawk of Moot, was
a member of this band for a very long time
before being elevated.
- Charles The Stupendous'
Reikers: My own original warband, with
the almost unique distinction of having
never been defeated. Due to vagaries of
chance the roster went all over the place,
and it is really a collection of individuals
with very different abilities. It was a
difficult band to run, but on the other
hand it was consistently difficult to play
against as well which helped them stay undefeated,
along with ruthless utilization of Hired
Swords. Due to the bands success, I was
able to bankroll a very deep and formidable
selection of Hired Swords, which would fluctuate
from time to time as needed. In fact this
is the warband
Lysander the Red, who became an
early elevation to Dramatis Personae status,
started with. I favored opportunistic and
flying column tactics with this band, using
a mix of sniper and HtH attacks to good
effect (serve and volley as I liked to say).
The orignal
leader, whose name escapes me, was slain
and the Hero with the highest leadership,
Charles, assumed the position by default.
However Charles sucked and had injuries,
and I wanted Gundar the Swift, the true
powerhouse of the band, to be the leader.
So I stripped Charles completely of gear
and deliberately ran him into situations
that should have been certain death, but
for some reason the dice gods loved him
and he always avoided his fate. Became a
good running joke.
- Jlad Yagas Band, aka Da
North Side Cossaks: an Aspiring Champion
of Khorne from Kiev, J'lad Yaga himself
was a scary enough foe having a Daemonic
Weapon and acidic blood, but what really
made him frightening was his carefully sculpted
cossak. Also of note later on was Taras
Bulba who found favor with Khorne and swelled
up to monstrous size. Unfortunately I don't
have a later progression for this band;
the sheet I have is from relatively early
in their career. But, better than nothing.
- The Hounds of Orion:
this group of Wood Elves was well known
for their poor luck. The band never suffered
serious abuse, but got beat like a red headed
stepchild at every turn. Also there was
the infamous 5 failed Initiative checks
in a row incident (with I6 and I7 across
the board) that saw the entire force get
taken out of action trying to jump from
one building to another across a small gap
(the Initiative checks all came up as "1").
They were a cursed band if ever there was
one.
- Ironhand's Supertuffs:
This was my second warband, a very shooty
bunch of Dwarves. I used the Dwarf Pirate
models from Dogs of War, and used them in
tight blocks of staggered blackpowder lines.
Very slow and not very flexible, but utilizing
a moving picket approach I was able to dominate
most boards. They "lost" a couple times
to blown Rout checks (but were in far better
shape than the "winner"), and fought the
von Rochesteins to a draw a few times where
we bloodied each other's noses and just
both took the Wyrdstone we had and retired
the field -- neither of us was eager to
fight what would have been a pyrric victory
for whoever technically won.
- Smrtici Ruka: A dark
band of assassins, murders, and worshipers
of Khaine -- the bloody handed god of Murder.
Fearsome of aspect, with hooded faces, caked
on blood, and macabre appearance this band
of death dealers was relatively successful.
They never had a big score and only one
or two significant victories in multi-warband
fights, but they never suffered serious
loses either. The same could not be said
of their foes; in addition to foes put out
of action that were offed in after-game
rolls, they were also well known for their
practice of always sacrificing anyone they
captured to their foul god, no matter what.
A good deal of their succes stemmed from
their leader Poprava who seemed to be unusually
favored by the dice -- a real "6" magnet
- Urblatz the Horribly Horrid
(and Friends): Another Aspiring Champion
of Khorne, this warband took advantage of
the option to dump a lot of points into
a small number of Heroes afforded by the
warband writeup. Urblatz is a horribly mutated,
massive beast with the coloring of a mandrill
baboon and enormous horns and tusks, massive
cloven hooves, and a pitted and blood-stained
suit of Daemonic armor. Bar none Urblatz
was the single most expensive and individually
fearsome warrior in any warband we ever
had; even Octavian avoided him. The band
was originally Urblatz and his pet Chaos
Hound "Get Off The Rug", but eventually
included two Huge Marauder Lords and an
Ogre for a truly brutal though small line
up. Urblatz himself was never put out of
action, but as a whole the band failed many
many Rout tests due to its small roster
size; basically as soon as someone went
down the Rout tests began. Very fun warband,
very popular as a talking point.
- Bjorns Stone Cold Crazies:
The first Norscan warband; the force that
finally broke the chokehold of Octavian
von Rochestein. The Werewolf Ulfgang, and
Bjorn himself were notable figures, but
the Berzerker Sven became one of the most
fearsome warriors of any band in the league
/ play group; there was talk of making him
a Dramatis Personae for general availability
and as a part of the campaign's unfolding
story, but we stopped playing before it
came to pass.
- Kurr'Gar The Horned:
The campaigns only Beastman warband; fielded
a Minotaur (which was always an attention
getter), and with a lot of wounds proved
to be a very difficult to dislodge force.
A formidable force, with good overall stats.
However, lacking in options and a limited
skill access made it difficult for this
force to deal with anything other than attrition
oriented fighting. Good band, but never
major players, they were still popular due
to the overall look of the force, which
showed well in public.
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