Sunday, May 16, 2010

Assault into the Faithful Lands

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I love Battlefield Terrain Concept pieces and have been getting lots of it at various shows to use in my games.  Some of the lovely pieces I have are bocage pieces for 28mm gaming.  I think these work great for a "walled" defense surrounding the Druid's lands.  



One of the campaigns I have in mind is a series of battle involving the Rebels invading the Faithful lands to pillage and destroy.  One of the first of these scenarios would be an assault on a gate into the Faithful lands.  I am planning to make a wooden gate and have some of the bocage pieces with gun placements to put archers/slingers in for defense.  



Included in this are some pictures showing roughly what I have in mind and the basic look of the bocage with the Druid's Children figures.  The top picture shows the whole area with three main points of interest.  First, at the top is the gun placement with archers defending; second, is the front gate with a badger lord and two hares defending against a variety of rebels; and third, is a gap in the hedge with two hedgehog pike teams defending.  The second picture is a close-up of the front gate, and the final picture is of the gun placement.


6 comments:

doc mcb said...

Presumably with a linear defense the defenders will be thinly spread at first, while the attackers have chosen their point of attack. The archery positions ought to be camouflaged initially. The bocage serves to slow down entry. One possible scenario is that the rebels have captured some moles and are forcing them to dig a tunnel under it; and in any case the Rebels can tear a hole in the bocage given enough time. The Faithful's reaction force will arrive at some point, possibly in pieces and from several directions.

doc mcb said...

Years back when I was fiddling around with RUNEQUEST, I did an Aldrya (wood elvish) fortress with a lot of plant types -- tanglevines, thorns, psychic plants that give an alarm, etc. I think we may want to develop something along those lines. I know SBH has a few types of inimical vegetation.

And I think the Druid's WYLDEWOOD probably has, in addition to a boundary hedge, a ZONE of defenses, which would include some bluffing (apparent strength concealing weakness) and also some deception/confusion in terms of a maze. This would face an outside invader such as Moonglade.

The danger of the Rebels is that they are Druid's Children themselves, already inside the Wyldewood and familiar with its ways and defenses.

One possibility for a LARGE game would be Moonglade goblins or such trying to get in, with Rebels already inside trying to disrupt the Faithful's defense from the rear.

doc mcb said...

One last thought: if the Rebels are outside trying to get in, it would probably be a Faithful village with a defensive hedge. That gives a chance to use the lovely pumpkin and nut houses, and the man-eating plants, etc., from Acheson.

doc mcb said...

I just checked SONG OF WIND AND WATER and Andrea has several interesting plant types:

bladegrass
carnivorous plants
stickyweeds
sleepflowers
thick vegetation
and witch woods (counterattack magic with transfix spells).

Combine with bogs and quicksand.

doc mcb said...

It would be fun -- but more complex than just a simple game of SBH -- to give the Druid's Faithful some set amount of types of cultivated plants with various defensive functions, and let that player design the best defensive system he can, within the limits of how fast plants grow, how expensive they are (in labor costs, probably) and such. Then let the enemy make an attack.

Probably good to remember one of the greatest of Murphy's Laws of Combat: If it's hard for the enemy to get in, you can't get out!

Eli Arndt said...

Excellent sounding fun. I have some ideas for how I see the world these little critters live in. I like your scenarios ideas and will work them into my own world.