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Thursday 24 May 2018

CinC - The Hunt for Mary Scroggins

"Hell’s Teeth – Jesus, Mary and the Holy Ghost – By the Love of God – where is that damn woman". It all went quiet. When Sir Marmaduke Langdale lost his temper everyone knew about it, but that is not why it had gone quiet.

"Oh no" he muttered underneath his breath. "Sorry Sisters it’s been a long day". This was addressed to the 3 nuns who had joined the column that should have set out early this morning to search for Mary Scroggins.

Things had gone badly from the start, the cart horse threw a shoe and had to be taken to the Blacksmith, who could not be found, they searched all over the small village before finding him drunk in Ruth Appleton’s bed.

Then there was the delay sobering him up, getting the forge going, bandaging his hand when he smashed it with the hammer. It went on, the Nuns went missing in the late afternoon ministering to the poor – for heaven sake, everyone was poor.

The final straw was when Maude Porter heaved her pack on her back and the strap broke. Maude was the most essential person in the column, she was carrying the brandy, so they had to wait until she could repair the strap.

By now it was early evening. Everyone else was looking forward to a few beers and then to bed, setting off early the next morning, however Sir Marmaduke was not a man to be deflected from a course of action once he had decided on it. There were a few Parliamentarians from the war that would have agreed with that. Only a few, because the rest were dead.

“We can set off now and make up for the lost day, it’s only 8 miles to Greater Piddling in the Marsh and we can search the road side as we go and see if she is still with her friend when we arrive”. “Not to worry” said Sir M “it’s a full moon tonight we will be able to see fine - it wont be a problem”.

This follows on from my previous post when Mary Scroggins had gone missing, the local landowner Sir Marmaduke Langdale had been informed of strange goings on in Little Piddling in the Marsh, there ensued a desperate night of very strange goings on and now he had decided that there was nothing else to do but try and find Mary Scroggins, hence the expedition. This was also posted on LAF - sorry Brian, the next installment will be original.

The sooner it was over the sooner he could go back to Langdale Hall and enjoy the latest shipment of fine wine from France rather than this foul smelling ale the villagers drank.

The outskirts of Little Piddling in the Marsh showing the road through the forest to Greater Piddling.

Yes the trees are bits of sponge, stuck on dowels, with a bit of hardboard for a base. Cost nothing and I have 100 off them. I took these to a local club and some young sprog said “I’ve never seen their like before”, he was brought up on a diet of G.W, where if each tree don’t cost £10 it can’t be a real tree. His mate said “Yes they are very old school” I don’t think he was being too complimentary. The tiles are 1’ squares of hardboard off an old door.

This is intended to be a road movie, so as the group move left to right, once they have moved from the 3 tiles on the left of the board, they will be cleared and moved to the right of the board and re-decorated with terrain and so on. Overcoming the limitations of only having a 3x4 table, this is the 2nd time I have tried this device and both games didn’t get to the 1st change over, ho hum.

The river on the edge of the forest and the only way over is the bridge.

This is a plaster of paris casting from a Bellona vacuum formed bridge and has served for many years, it could do with repainting, but as I threw away my river sections years ago it doesn't get much use.

The head of the column leaving Little Piddling with Sir Marmaduke leading with his faithful dog Baxter by his side.

The rear of the column, Mary Porter carrying the brandy and the three nuns, Sister ? from the Order of the Virgin Mary, carrying the staff. Sister Matilda of the Blessed Sacrament with a saddle Pistol and Sister ? from the Order of Perpetual Pain armed with a steely glare. The Sisters have only just been painted but not christened yet.

1st Turn and the column moves out, the encounter markers were then placed randomly, 14 of them, they move in a random direction and distance each time they activate. They can move off the table, when one moves into line of sight it is resolved by turning over a playing card and each card represents 1 of the 14 encounters which can be just the wind blowing in the trees (nothing) to any manor of things even the missing Mary Scroggins.

It’s starting to get dark and even with the moonlight, line of sight is only 12”.

How does it go – In all the bridges in all the world and you walk over my bridge. The Werewolf Lord (Big W), the most powerful of the likely encounters is the 1st one drawn. This may explain why Mary Scroggins is missing thinks Sir M.

Just a gratuitous picture because I really liked it.

The huge Werewolf sees the hated humans and failed to activate, stood there glaring malevolently and looking scary. Baxter the Dog, Jeramiah Pile and Samuel Smith, without hesitation charged forward and attacked the beast, no brains and too much testosterone. – Do dogs have testosterone? The wolf wins the fight against all three of them but fails to inflict any damage.

As the three musketeers move forward to attack the Werewolf they come within range of the encounter marker on the bridge – the Red Ghost with a terrifying aura of 10”, they are 11” away and so not affected.

The fight goes on, Baxter bites the wolf but his teeth are not sharp enough and he does no damage. J.P. and Smith are both hit again but take no damage.

This fight goes on and on. I may be misunderstanding the rules but it seems hitting is not too difficult but causing damage is harder and fights last quite a long time, this may be the intention, as vitality is lost bit by bit, but I'm not sure it works for me.

Moving randomly Brunn the Bear appears, sees the hated humans (does everything hate us) and charges. Simon Darkwood doesn’t like bears and runs away, but the others stand their ground and fire at Brunn, a musket ball reduces his vitality by 1 but a lucky shot from a pistol -4 vitality kills the bear. The fight with the Werewolf continues with some damage inflicted.

The fight had been going on for 6 turns before the 1st man went down, next turn Baxter goes down, Sir M steps up and immediately goes down, Jeramiah Pile goes down, it’s turned into a blood bath.

This is the situation on turn 10, Jasper is fighting Big W on his own, no one else passed their resolve tests to step in to the fight, although Daniel the Carter has moved forward when most of the fighting men have moved back.

The next turn is a little surreal. Daniel the Carter with a stick and a sick look on his face together with Sister ? from the Order of the Virgin Mary, with a staff (big stick) both enter the fray, just as the last fighting man Jasper goes to meet his maker.

Sister ? is laying about her - admonishing Big W as the spawn of the Devil to go back to the foul pit he crept from. Obviously embarrassed by the fact that a Nun and a Farm Labourer were doing all the fighting, and doing it better than the fighting men, Johnathan Hawke led 2 others into the fray.

Odds of 5 to 1 tell in the end and the Werewolf finally succumbs to numbers and goes back to meet his maker. Westwind I believe.

The relief is short lived as immediately the Red Ghost swoops into the fray.

Which is a big mistake because although everyone except the guy in the Monmouth hat were terrified by her terrifying aura, no one runs and she faces 5 determined enemies and is killed, or what ever happens to ghosts when they die. Laid to rest probably.

Well with 5 of the party down, 2 running for the hills and 4 terrified, the general consensus is to leave Mary Scroggins to her fate and go back and drink some more of the foul smelling local ale and have a good nights rest.


Conclusion of the Story


Sir Marmaduke Langdale made a full recovery, apart from the limp, but Baxter his dog lost both his canine teeth when he took hold of the Werewolf and wouldn’t let go, he now has his meat chopped finely.

However he has been test fitted with some iron canines that might just do the job and if so will give him a +1 bite. This was a suggestion put forward by Eduardo when he read the original tale and a damn good one I think.

The Nuns helped minister to the wounded and poor in spirit, and may continue the journey to Greater Piddling at a latter date.

Daniel the Carter decided he had enough of adventure and retired to his farm in Soggy Bottom.

If you are still here – thanks for reading.

32 comments:

  1. I recall reading this one a while back. Still had a chuckle re-reading it again here. Good stories\games are like that.

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    1. Cheers, there are still some repeats to be posted, I haven't done any of the Pops and Granny stories yet, but I'm trying to mix the old and new where possible.

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  2. I really do enjoy these tales and will no doubt be borrowing heavily when I come to trying to set something up myself this summer.

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    1. I look forward to your Witchfinder General project continuing.

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  3. What is it with bridges in these Gothic Horror settings? At least my lot managed to make it (just over) to the other side before being set upon ;-)
    I think the stories we were fed as children concerning bridges + hungry trolls = bad news are buried deep in our psyche!

    Was this played with CiC rules again? I ask mainly because of your reference to the combat, and would agree that 6 rounds of melee before any casualties were inflicted seems excessive.
    I like the "rolling road" idea, and hope you don't give up on it in light of the last two experiences.
    Another terrific AAR in your inimitable style John, and as a fan of this era and genre I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing some more of this tale :-)

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    1. Sorry - just read the title again. Clearly this IS another game using the CiC rules ;-)

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    2. Yep, the rules have lots of good points and I think they are designed more for competitive, bands or gangs than my normal narrative style game. I'm working on amending my rules to accommodate Gothic style monsters, currently have a game in play but it's a bit slow going.
      Eg can a ghost kill you? Can you kill a ghost? I don't think so, so how do I reflect ghosts on the table. I'll let you know ;)

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  4. Hi John. Another terrific batrep told in your very inimitable style. Please don't apologise for reprinting batreps you first posted on the Lead Adventurers Forum. Not everyone visits there and this gives you the opportunity to share your batreps to a wider audience.

    As soon as I saw the werewolf enter the board I feared for the party. He was one tough hombre and seeing as I usually root for the bad guys in this genre, I gave him the man of the match award. Indeed, my two favourite figures on the board were the werewolf and the Red Ghost. Seeing as they halted the party's advance before it had barely begun I believe that is victory for the bad guys! Big smiles from me! :-)

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    1. Cheers Bryan, all the good guy figures apart from the nuns are maybe 30 years old, certainly I bought them as individual figures from well before blister packs. So all the new figures are bad guys and I really like the westerns sculpting style, it's maybe quirky but they have a lot of character.
      It was a bad turn of the card getting the most powerful opponent as the first one. I don't think I got the balance right and hehe shou have appeared later, but we live and learn.

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  5. Cracking movie John & the gratuitous shot of big W made me glad I didn't watch it at night with the lights off :) the tree's look fine mate & you should have give those GW'ers a good kick in their space marines.

    Pity you binned the river as I though it looked the part, as did all the models I really loved the red ghost & was sad to see her fall but ghost don't die they just come back in another movie, keep up the good work John :)

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    1. Thanks Frank, it's all your fault encouraging me to spend money and now the studio is having to churn out movies on such a low budget that sponge for trees is extravagant.
      Ghosts - yep, see my reply to Greg above.

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    2. Hehehe, well as I already have Nickel & Dimes maybe you could be penny farthing productions :) yep I seen your reply to Greg & see the problem.

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    3. :D Penny and Farthing doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

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  6. Excellent report again. Really enjoying the setup. Perhaps he needs silver tipped teeth?

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    1. Silver tipped teeth is an excellent suggestion, cheers.

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  7. I really like the trees tbf, especially when there are quite a lot on the table. Great stuff again John, shame the humans couldn’t muster more spirit between them!

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    1. Thanks for the thumbs up on the trees, they are a bit on the small side because when I made them I was playing a lot of 15mm army games on a 6x8 table, the table is long gone but the trees remain.

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  8. Great AAR John, thanks for posting it here as well, means were allup to date when you post your new one.
    Scenery is always subjective, what works for one, won't work for another, but should never mean telling someone there way is wrong. I think the trees look good, and if you wanted to give them a more detailed look glue some flock to the outside in the colour of your choice

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    1. Cheers Dave, I did flock one of the trees because I thought it would be an improvement but I didn't like it, preferring the simpler painted version!
      You don't know until you try, now I have 1 tree that never makes it on to the table. He must feel so rejected.

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    2. Those poor experiments that are destined to live in a box, perhaps we should have a Frankenstien's monster day where we share our failed experiments ! LOL

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    3. I think that's a good idea, I guess we only show the things we think have worked, rather than the failed projects:)

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    4. It could be either John, as is often the way in this hobby you may be shown a way to correct the problem, or maybe even requests to put it to good use !

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    5. It's a thought. I have a couple of things I would like to progress but can't work out how. I sort of always intended my blog to just be a record of games I've played, rather than the more common, magazine or diary approach to blogs.
      Maybe I could do a two step post!

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    6. Sounds like a great idea John especially if it keeps the integrity of your blog

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  9. I enjoyed this scenario a lot more than I shoul dhave (probably) and although you didn't getbto use your 'rolling roads', I understand the concept only too well, havin gused the concept on many occasions - it's a good way to show how little terrain (or how much) terrain you have too - kind of like a cartoon where the characters pass the same house a dozen times!
    I've had a few fights too which have gone on far too long and it sounds like you're missing something (or maybe the rules are truly at fault), I'd have figures that villagers and humans generally would need to re-think their attack if they can't seem to inflict damage on a creature.
    Overall great game though, one I'd play gladly despite the rule vagaries and not a counter, chit or character card in sight!

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    1. I'm not sure if I'm very specific about what I like in rules or too lazy to learn new ones. As a balanced game it was a bit off kilter but I don't need to play balanced games because I'm always going to win, or lose, it doesn't matter.

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  10. Another thrilling, and bloody, tale. The heroes (or at least humans (and canine)) really got a beating. I understand if they prefer stale ale instead high adventure.
    I like the old-school trees, a forest of those are a damn sight more useful than one expensive one.

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    1. Hi Joakim, yes they didn't do too well but you've got to admit, it was a whopping big werewolf, even my heroines Miss Mayhem and Sister Soura would have had trouble with him.

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    2. It certainly was a big bad wolf, and they did win in the end, so it was a victory of sorts :-)
      There is a chance to see one of your heroines on Monday. Another thrilling tale coming up on the blog then

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    3. That's excellent news I'm looking forward to it, I always enjoy your AAR's

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  11. Absolutely brilliant John! You've got me currently looking for the CiC rules to purchase because of all your incredible AAR's :)

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    1. It does tend to be an expensive business - reading other people's blogs and the ideas it sets in train. ;)

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