Drunken dwarfs, feisty barbarians and one big chest!

My regular Saga opponent, Ian, has been following my SoBH adventures and was keen to give it a go. So he assembled a 350 point human/barbarian gang and made a visit to the Battltleshed. 

My Dwarfs, having been languishing in many alehouses whilst waiting for the campaigning season to resume, heard rumours of possible treasures hidden in a recently abandoned watchtower only a few hours march away. So, Boindel Beastrider gathered the Dwarfs that could still manage to stand and the small group staggered off roughly in the direction of the Watchtower. 

Meanwhile, a group of humans warriors and a wayward elf  had also overheard similar rumours whilst camped a few miles away. Since they were all short of coinage, and the elf refused to touch the local firewater, the sombre but sober group also set off towards the Watchtower...

A few hours later the two warbands spotted each other approaching from opposite sides of the tower, although it was hard not to hear the Dwarf's inharmonious 'singing'. Both warbands - quite surprisingly given the state of the Dwarfs - reached the conclusion that the tower must be searched top to bottom and if they did find anything of value their best route of escape would be to use the long, straight tower road.

As this was Ian's first SoBH battle, I was keen to demonstrate the mechanics of the game, so the Dwarfs obliged by recklessly charging into the heavily armed barbarians from the off, with Boindel to the fore, slurring battle cries as he clung onto his bear. 

Almost inevitably Boindel got himself into difficulty and Ian was quickly shown how to use 'Outnumbered' and 'Fallen' enemy in melee to bring down the dwarf leader. This then set off the 'Loss of leader' morale checks, but luckily for the Dwarfs the advantage of the newly appointed Standard Bearer, Gillic Firmfoot, became apparent, helping some of the Dwarfs not to retreat directly out of the combat area. 

From there on the battle mostly consisted of small groups of combatants slugging it out, with quite a bit of archery mixed in from the humans. Grom the barbarian archer claimed the first kill, taking out Boindel in hand-to-hand, whilst his brother Brok sent Scotti MacIrnbru back to the mud. Shahnar, the human female archer, also managed to take out Brewmaster Harti Soreheid in melee. 

After a disastrous start the remaining Dwarfs had quickly sobered up and claimed a couple of kills themselves with the stalwart Falster Vonlyr ruthlessly dispatching the brave human female Libby, whilst she was desperately fighting outnumbered. Ceri Crakshot, seeing his ale supply in jeopardy when Shahnar felled the Brewmaster Harti Soreheid, got his revenge by dropping his bow and launching a frenzied melee on Shahnar.

However, whilst the red-mist of battle was occupying the Dwarfs, one of the humans slipped unnoticed into the abandoned watchtower and eventually found a chest of coins partially hidden at the top. Balancing the chest on one shoulder, he made off as fast as he could down the road, taking the loot to safety - just in time, as the Dwarfs still engaged in melee on the road had started to rally!

The battle included activation turnovers on both sides, morale checks, fallen enemies, numerous knock-backs, transfix magic attempts by the human leader, ambushing from woods and climbing obstacles. So Ian certainly got a good run-through of the rules and hopefully another convert to the excellent -and most importantly, fun, Songs of Blades and Heroes!