Here are the orders from each players, and the public/private turn updates for the 6 turns/hours of "A Night in the Forest". Enjoy!
BONUS: Here is a post from the Imperial forces player's perspective for your enjoyment: https://coppersandboars.com/2022/09/06/my-first-experience-with-matrix-games/
(I've high lighted the empire player submitted orders green, and the beastmen player submitted orders yellowish)
Turn 1:
Empire:
It is midnight! Your units are in or around the lakeside hut! In the forest! You hear the approach of a beastmen host! They are perhaps 2 hours away! You need to survive 6 hours! Till re-enforcements arrive at sunrise
The Forces of The Empire make the are immediately near the hut fire-resistant, whilst making the area further outwards more prone to fire/the spreading of fire
- The Halberdiers deposit dry leaves and twigs in the flammable area to act as good fire starters
- The Riflemen deposit some powder in the flammable area for the same reason
- The Wizard surges the lake water onto the fire-resistant area to dampen it
Beastmen:
You can smell the scent of delicious man flesh! They are by the lake! They are two hours march away! You must feast on them before more men come (you can smell a great horde of the imperium that will arrive at sunrise [6 hours time])
We march towards the lake! Collecting dead animals by killing them and mud for a sinister magic!
- We use our weapons and speed to rampage through the forest!
- Our devotion to the plague god nurgle to carry and use the corpses!
- And the hunting prowess of our beastlord and raiders to guide us!
Umpire update: For both players: "consider that first turn a success!", and for the beastmen specifically: "you are an hours march away from the hut!"
Turn 2:
Empire:
The Forces of The Empire make defensive preparations
-The Riflemen make holes in the roof so they can shoot out from it
-The Halberdiers use wood from the trees to create sharp spikes at the edge of the lake, facing towards the water
-The Captain gives rousing speeches to each group of soldiers to steel their courage
Umpire update for The Empire:
And so, your troops spend the hour doing so! They are invigorated by your captains speech - the tension and unease abated. This is doubly so as it seems the beastmen have not gotten any closer to your position over the hour - the gibbering screeches wafting from the trees not getting louder.
BUT, a very faint itchiness wafts briefly over your units skin. Your wizard senses some foul magics have occurred in the surrounding forests.
Beastmen:
We stop for this full hour to conduct a ritual using the bodies and mud we collected to summon demons to aid us!
We will continue advancing next turn...
- The corpses and mud we collected!
- A full hour of praying and rituais in the name of grandfather nurgle! (Which gives my enemy some time to prepare more, also we probably make a lot of noise)
- Our shamans and their sickening magic!
Umpire update for Beastmen:
You hear sawing, snapping of branches, and heavy thuds wafting from the direction of the lack over the hour! And the rousing shouts of the men in their babbling tongue!
Your invocative rituals warp the dead animals you collected into a scrabbling horde of disease spreading demonlings! A miasma wafts from them! Maggots drop from their dead skin! They look like this:
Turn 3:
Empire:
The Forces of the Empire create an air elemental to act as a scout, and sends it to the edge of where they can see, within the flammable area
-The Wizard summons the air elemental using his magic
-The soldiers ensure its sanctity by singing hymns and prayers of the Empire
-The Captain takes the plumes from the Halberdiers and gives them to the air elemental, so it can drop them as a signal if it sees any beast men
Umpire update for The Empire:
The air elemental is summoned, vivified by the chanting, and whooshes through the nearby vegetation. It scouts out the surrounding area and reports that a large host of beastmen is to the North East, and a smaller host of the beasts is to the West! Both groups are north of the lake shore that the hut is on! It seems the beasts have begun burning the forests between their two forces - not yet in the area of the forest you have primed for flame as yet - but the fire is creeping closer to that area most ready for flame nearby the hut!
Both hordes will be able to charge your location within the coming hour!
Beastmen:
We shall divide our forces and March towards our victims in the following way:
- Half the raiders will lead the shaman and all the nurglings towards near the lake, stealthily
- The other half of the raiders will lead the other shaman to the other side of the forest, the shaman will set parts of the forest on fire!
- The Beastlord will lead all beastmen through the forest straightforward towards the smell, but will stay in the forest
- The raiders sneaking and hiding ability should help guide the shamans and remain them unnoticed
- The first Shaman will lead and control the nurglings with his sickening magic and chaos knowledge
- The march of the beastmen and forest fire should confuse the empire and perhaps scare them!
Umpire update for Beastmen:
You divide your forces and proceed through the forest! Your forces are divided in the following way:
The raiders and shaman groups have crept stealthily through the forest - while the beastmen and beastlord have stamped and marched and bleated, braying for blood! The beastmen and beastlord are closest to the men of the empire - their delicious stench causing some of the beastmen to salivate with bloodthirst!
Turn 4:
Empire:
The Forces of the Empire attempt to catch attacking the beast men forces in the flames. If they can split them by trapping some beastly forces with them on the inside of the fires (that is, in the flame-resistant area around the hut) whilst keeping most out then that is a bonus.
-The Wizard keeps the flames at back until the right moment, then surges them forward
-The ground is prepared for fire with powder and dry material, so it should spread quickly to the attacking beast forces
-The air elemental will also keep back the flames before surging them on by adding air as fuel
Umpire update for The Empire: In the hour you have fended off an attack by the beastmen! (See the public update).
Beastmen:
The Beastmen will attack! We have flanked them from all sides and we are blocking their escapes! We will slaughter them all in the name of the plague god and gather their corpses!
- The Nurglings will come from the lake! Poisoning the water as they swim
- The Raiders will aid the Beastlord in scouting for traps, before they charge towards the Hut!
- The Shamans will use their magic to burn more of the forest and aid the Nurglings!
Umpire update for Beastmen:
As the main attack took place to the north, a group of 6 beastmen raiders, undetected by the scouting wind elemental, creep up from the shore of the lake. The raiders notice the wooden spikes installed by the forces of the empire , and take some time to pull them apart quietly as the fighting takes place. The beastmen to their north are slain by the time they surge through the dissembled fortifications, a shaman, and a small horde of tiny plague demons accompanying them.
A visual of the imperial units you have sighted!
Your have a force to the north east of the burning ring around the hut, and a currently undetected force within the ring of flame!
Umpire public update:
At 3 am, with the moon beginning to dip behind the trees, the beastmen attack the empire’s position!
• The main host of beastmen, led by a beastlord charge directly at the lakeside hut.
• To their west a smaller force of beastmen move forward towards the lakeside hut in a more measured and careful manner – igniting and spreading more flames as they go!
• As the main host of beastmen near the edge of the trees they barely notice the abundance of kindling and heaped dry leaves.
• With a surge of elemental magic, supported by the wind elemental summoned early in the night and the already blazing forest inferno, the imperial wizard causes the trees surrounding the hut to erupt totally into flame!
• The main host of beastmen are caught in the inferno! Half of their number burnt alive, the survivors stumble out into the clearing around the hut (drenched with some summoned elemental water keeping the flames at bay).
• The forces of the empire are ready for the beastmen, riflemen open fire from holes in the roof of the hut and halbardiers and zweinhander men receive the shambling charge!
• By the end of the hour all of the main host of beastmen warriors and their beast lord leader are slain but they have taken two halberdiers and a zweinhander man with them!
• The beastmen to the west are cut off from the attack by the mass of spreading flames – currently unable to reach the hut on the edge of the lake
It is now 4 am! The forces of the empire have fended off one attack, but surely the dark forest has more horrors instore for them before sunrise!
Turn 5:
Empire:
The Forces of the Empire will attempt to prevent injury from smoke inhalation, whilst making the smoke a problem for the remaining beastmen
-The Zweihanders will soak any available robes and tunics with lake-water to act as a mask/filter against smoke
-The wizard will use fire magic to push the fires towards the remaining beastmen
-The air elemental will push the smoke towards the beastmen. It will extinguish/kill itself with the effort if doing so will help
Beastmen:
The humans are surrounded on the hut! We shall burn them all alive in the name of Nurgle!!
- Both Shamans get away safely from the fire and begin to cast MORE fire!
- The raiders help the shamans get away safely from the fire they've caused, using their hunting knowledge
- Everything is a sacrifice for the gods! Even their deceased beastmen allies, they will conduct the fire to consume the humans!
Umpire public update:
• From 4 to 5 am the magical forest fire continued to spread in a great blazing inferno – magical agents on both the side of the beastmen and the empire encouraging the blaze and coaxing it to move in certain directions!
• The wizard of the empire senses the wind of magic pushing from both the east and west, the fire roaring towards the hut and leaping over the hastily conjured firebreak! The hut swiftly catches ablaze burning to death the riflemen within!
• The imperial forces outside of the burning hut (a wizard, capatain, 3 zweinhanders and 6 halberdiers) flee the blaze moving south towards the lake – discovering that the beastmen have, at some point in the night, tampered with and penetrated the earlier erected shoreside spikes. They do not encounter whatever beastmen conducted such tamperings!
• The remaining imperial forces wade into the cool lake to seek refuge from the flames – it writhes with some daemonic foulness and causes their skin to itch and crawl but they are not slain by such mere discomforts in this hour.
• The foulness of the lake causes some misgivings for the units of the empire as they soak cut and torn lengths of fabric into damp masks to ward against the heavy – choking smoke all around them, but whatever illness this may have transmitted from the lake into their mouths and noses can be dealt with later!
• Safe from the fire for the time being, the wizard of the empire, sends flame and smoke towards the direction of the earlier scouted beastmen. The wind elemental surges along side the flames and smoke - pushing them towards the beasts – but the bleating beastmen are already on the move, retreating from the blaze. The wind elemental dissipates.
It is now 5 am! The final hour before sunrise and the arrival of Imperial re-enforcements!
Turn 6:
Empire:
The Forces of the Empire leave the lake on the eastern bank and attempt to engage the beastman forces that the wizard sensed there
-The Captain will lead the way to inspire his troops
-The wizard will cleanse their soaked and probably cursed bodies and clothes by summoning fresh new water once they get on land
-The halberdiers will attempt to form a spear wall, with the zweihanders on the flanks
Beastmen:
We will flank the humans from both sides and attack! Killing them with our nurglings and plague clouds!
- The Raiders will guide the shamans safely through all malices! Hoping to evade the human's possible movements towards them.
- The nurglings are sent towards the humans to defile and kill them in the name of Nurgle!
- The Shamans clouds of sickness from both sides towards the humans! Each death is a sacrifice!!
Umpire public update:
As the sun slowly brings light to the dark forest, from 4 to 5 am the following events transpire:
• The imperial forces (a wizard, captain, 3 zweinhanders and 6 halberdiers) march east along the shore of the lake, abandoning their (presumably) diseased face coverings. When they arrive on the sandy shore, illuminated by the nearby blaze, the imperial wizard douses all in fresh, magically summoned water.
• The western force of beastmen ( a shaman and 6 raiders) are unable to reach the forces of the empire in this final hour – blocked off by smoke and flame!
• The eastern force of beastmen (a shaman, 6 raiders and 20 small plague demons) launch an attack on the remaining units of the empire as they trudge east along the sodden lake shore!
• A miasmic cloud wafts over the humans, as the green rotting demons the size of dogs charge them! Arrows rain from the trees as the humans fend off the attack!
• Though large in number, the horde of small demons is no match for the martial strength of imperial troops (buoyed on by their brave and inspiring captain) – the demons are slain! The demons and the arrows of the beastmen raiders take with them 4 halberdiers and 2 of the zwienhanders.
• The raiders and shaman harrying the imperial forces from the trees are driven back by the wizard of the empire igniting the trees around them! (edited)
And so, the sun rises at 6 am, A wizard, captain, a zweinhander and 2 halberdiers of the empire trudge east along a lake in a forest. They shortly meet with a greater host of imperial troops who they regale of their ordeal during the night. The beastmen retreat back to their forest dwellings, a conflict soon to break out as to who will be the new beastlord leader of the tribe after a night of much fire and death. Though they may never know, it may have brought them great joy to learn that those surviving men of the empire died of some rotting, delirious fever several days later after setting foot into that diseased lake….
The End!
Thoughts:
The "one thing" may be hard when you have a small/intimate force to command. I tried to phase out the micromanaging of specific troops with the one hour length turns to make things more sweeping and cinematic.
Other than that the game was quick, fun, interesting and easy to run!
Wow! Impressive work here! Would love to get a closer look at how you managed it.
ReplyDeleteThanks! There's really not a lot more to how I ran it - this is pretty much everything! I did roll a couple of dice here and there (2d6 with appropriate modifiers), but that was it really. It was just messaging the players directly/messaging the public update channel.
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