Circle of Blood – Night Battle at Mercal, scenario 1

A few weeks ago, before everything was shut down here in Denmark, we had the chance to play the first scenario in the Circle of Blood campaign published by Games Workshop in 1997 for WFB 5^th ed. and written by Warhammer luminaires Tuomas Pirinen and Jake Thornton. I don’t play 5^th ed. but the campaign is easily transposed back to our retro universe of WFB 3^rd ed, which I thus did.

The campaign basically consists of four linked scenarios; three minor encounters and one grand finale. The backstory revolves around the so-called Red Duke – a vampire knight banished to his grave centuries ago in Bretonnia. The Red Duke has now risen again and seeks to overthrow Aquitaine and have his revenge on all mortals. It is up to the knights and men-at-arms of Aquitaine to prevent The Red Duke from gathering his forces and butchering the realm.

The outcome of the first three scenarios has a direct influence on the last, final battle, which gives a nice sense of continuity to the proceedings.

The first scenario is dealing with the necromancer Renar, who has travelled to the village of Mercal, where a number of The Red Duke’s knights are imprisoned by magic in a moldering mausoleum. The inhabitants of the village have been able to gather a small force to defend the village and graveyard from the undead and they thus stand ready when the dead arrive to reclaim their lost comrades. The undead force is, of course, spearheaded by the necromancer Renar, while the defense of Mercal is led by the so-called Holy Knight Albert Lainnon and his second in command Jean-Paul Fabez.

Renar the Necromancer

The Holy Knight (to the right) and Jean-Paul Fabez (to the left)

In this first encounter a few special rules apply, which I twisted slightly to fit our 3^rd ed. rendition of the campaign. First of all Renar instantly wins the battle if he is able to cast the spell Summon Undead Hero while in base contact with the mausoleum. Secondly The Holy Knight Albert is in possession of the blessed Shield of Virtue, which prevents any necromantic spells to be cast within 6” of him. Finally the scenario takes place at night. Each turn 4D6 is rolled to determine how far in inches the Bretonnians and Renar can see, which of course applies to charges, casting spells and shooting.

I was initially a bit concerned with this scenario as the forces begin very close together and it seemed like a fairly simple thing for Renar to scurry up to the mausoleum and cast his spell. Measured in distance only he would be able to win the scenario in two turns. However, it proved really difficult for him and I must say, that this really is a fine little scenario with a lot of tactical elements as well as a fun narrative. The magic of The Holy Knight’s shield prevented him from simply casting his spell and the undead had to kill or drive off the knight before they could succeed. This they also nearly did, but in the end the Bretonnians won the battle by killing Renar.

The setup suggested in the campaign

Our rendition of the setup

It was a close and really exiting battle played in little over two hours. The darkness definitely worked to the advantage of the undead, rendering the Bretonnian archers almost useless and making it very hard for the knights and their mounted retainers to make use of their long movement range. This could easily have been won by the undead, but the Bretonnians won, which means that The Red Duke now has to rely on the named characters from the scenarios, as he is not allowed to include any additional heroes in his army during the last scenario, whereas the Holy Knight will fight again during this last combat.

If interested, these were the rosters we used: The Holy Knight_roster and Renar_roster.

This is how it all looked when presented in a bit random fashion:

 

 

Foot Knights and a nun

 

I’ve been working on this little group lately and they’re almost done now. Some details need to be finished and the bases are also WIP. I really enjoyed painting the four foot knights. All of them are Foundry recasts of old Citadel models, which I bought last year at the BOYL in Nottingham. Perhaps I’ll get round to buying the rest of the range this year. I hope so.

The last one is a Sister of Sigmar from one of the Mordheim warbands. I need a female cleric for an upcoming scenario I have planned and thought she would fit the bill. In general I like the mini fairly well… except for her hideous, cartoony warhammer. Once I began painting the model I really regretted not snapping the thing off and replacing it with something smaller. Oh well. The rest of the miniature is actually very low-key and, when painted in drab, pseudo-Franciscan colours, she actually turned out fairly well. However, the rest of her sisters will probably remain unpainted for a looong time to come.

Altogether I’m quite pleased with the lot as a whole.

 

 

 

 

Feudal Knights in Shining Armour

This weekend I found the time to finish some of the Feudal Knights from Foundry I bought during the Oldhammer weekend in Nottingham. While I really like their overall look, I must admit, that I found the individual miniatures slightly messy when it comes to the details. A lot of lines and fuzzy places which I discovered a bit too late. I was in a hurry to get them undercoated and failed to examine them and get them cleaned up properly. A stupid mistake! It would be interesting to hear from anyone who had a chance to compare the Foundry ones with the original Citadel minis. How do they compare?

 

 

By the way, the shield designs were taken from a stained glass window from the parish church of Ubberud on the island of Funen in Denmark. I’m currently writing about this church and could not resist the temptation of using the coats-of-arms. The window is dating from c. 1495.