Protect and Serve

Tom and Simon came over last night and we got in the first game of the Song of Pavis campaign. I ran an asymmetric scenario in which neither side was aware of the other's victory conditions.

A Pavis street-gang had been hired to clear the Lunar street patrols away from a particular location from which a thief could enter a target building (for purposes unknown to the gang but they were paid well).

The Lunars had to protect the nobleman who just happened to be in the area and not kill anyone (on either side) in the process.  The Lunars could turn a draw into a victory if the noble (Jaxarte Whyded, Commissioner of the Census) managed not to draw any attention to himself by summoning either his Lune or his ancestor spirit.

Tom played the Lunars as it was an excuse to use one of his many silly hats:

Simon and I announced that we were OK thanks very much.

The game covered a single street and its surrounding alleys in New Pavis.

I gave Simon control of the many civilians dotted around the board.  They wouldn't fight and were hard to get moving (Quality 5+) but they did offer the possibility of slowing down the Lunars.  Any time two or more civilians were within Short distance of each other, they formed an area of Bad Going that slowed down the Lunar troops (but not the street-gang, all of whom had Streetwise - my home-brew Special Rule that allows models to ignore Bad Going in the city).

At the start of the game there were two Silver Shield peltasts in the small guard post. Jaxarte, accompanied by his bodyguard, was asking them for directions.  Several street-gang toughs were converging on the scene.

In the first action of the game, the red-and-white-clad tough threw a rock at Jaxarte.  Jaxarte objected to this and went over to speak firmly to the miscreant.

He was set upon by two of the street-gang and a scuffle ensued.  Because this was meant to represent a street-fight in which neither side was particularly trying to kill the others, I'd declared in advance that "kills" would become "knocked out" and that only "gruesome kills" would actually result in the death of a model (but they'd still have the morale effect of a gruesome kill).

Unfortunately it seems Jaxarte didn't get the memo.  Tom rolled a six and Simon a one and suddenly the local tough was on the ground gasping his last breath!  So much for the Lunars' "don't kill anyone" objective!

This resulted in morale tests for the remaining street-gang members, several of whom run away from the immediate scene thus allowing the Lunars to identify them.  The peltasts launched a pursuit...

 At this point another three peltasts entered the board from the lane adjacent to the guard post.
 

I should mention at this point that the thief had started at point A in the picture below and was trying to get to B.  Unfortunately, Tom had chosen to put the Lunar entry point at B too.  This meant that the area Simon needed to clear of Lunars was crawling with them. 

As time went on, the Lunars were beginning to get the upper hand.  With a bit of helpful die rolling the peltasts were beginning to acquire a decent collection of unconscious thugs.

Simon had sent the thief around the end of the table and was about to turn the corner and head for his objective when Tom suddenly rolled three activations for one of his peltasts.  This keen soldier rushed up to the thief and beat him to the ground.

Although the thief was able to stagger to his feet, he decided the jig was up and ran off, disappearing into a gathering crowd of onlookers.  (In reality he rolled three fails on the morale test that resulted from the street-gang losing half its members.)

In the end, then, both sides had failed to achieve their objectives so a draw would be called except that Jaxarte hadn't drawn too much attention to himself by summoning powerful magical entities in the street so a Lunar victory was declared.

The Lunars have one win and are on their way to achieving their strategic aims - whatever they may prove to be!