It's summer at the club, so we can afford to play much less serious games. This one was inspired by Michael's recent game featuring the Headless Horseman, which created a kind of chaos the players really enjoyed. I decided to build on that idea and take it to another level. I involved a large group of people in organising the game, but none of them had a complete picture of it or knew what it was really about. They could only guess, which made the unfolding game quite a surprise for everyone. I chose the Lion Rampant rules because they're much simpler than the original Hail Caesar system.
I set up a fairly large table for Thursday's game, measuring 12 by 6 feet. I thought it might be too big, but it turned out that everyone fit comfortably, it didn't feel crowded, and everyone had plenty of room to manoeuvre. We'll be using this table from time to time in our Thursday games, especially when we have larger numbers of miniatures.
UMPIRING: Bartek Żynda
1. Forces.
The game initially featured several factions: three Viking jarls on their longships: Jimmy, Mike, and Peter; two rival Norman dukes: Tim and Gordon; and a band of Norman mercenaries hired by the abbot: Alasdair and David. Each of these sides commanded forces worth 18 points, with the difference that Alasdair and David together formed a single unit.
There were three objectives: an abbey, a fishing village, and a castle. The Normans were tasked with defending them, while the Vikings aimed to capture and plunder them, or at least, that's how I presented the situation at the start. The players had no idea there was another faction waiting to throw the entire game into chaos.
In a remote village stood a solitary hut, surrounded by scantily clad women.
2. The Game.
Before the game began, I asked the Viking players to raise a toast to a Norse god. Mike chose Odin, Jimmy chose Thor, and Peter chose Loki. The Norse chieftains were asked to do the same, except they could choose from among saints or angels. I don't remember whom Gordon and Alasdair chose, but Tim chose the Archangel Michael. I announced that Tim and Peter had chosen well; the rest would be unlucky—but they would find out soon enough.
Meanwhile, the Viking ships headed for shore. The ships could only land on beaches, with the proviso that they couldn't do so on a small island. The abbot's mercenary ship sailed out to meet them, clashing with Mike's ship. I then asked all the players—except Peter and Tim—to roll the die. Mike rolled the lowest and had to face Loki. I took on that role. The duel worked like this: to defeat Loki, you had to roll more dice than he did. A draw meant he didn't do anything; a loss meant something bad happened. One note: Loki had a magic die that rolled a 6 nine times out of ten. I'd taken this die during the last Carronade, where one player had used it against me. Now it was being used properly; the players were aware of its properties. Mike, of course, lost, and his ship was attacked by a sea monster.
The monster's appearance didn't change the behaviour of the other factions, so from then on the turn proceeded as follows: the Vikings took their actions first, then the Normans, then Loki's children. Finally, everyone was forced to roll again to determine who would have to face Loki. The only difference was that if Tim or Peter had the lowest roll and someone else rolled the same result, Tim or Peter would be excluded from the roll-off unless they chose to participate anyway. Meanwhile, the Vikings slowly made their way toward shore. Mike kept fighting the monster and eventually lost all his oars. As soon as the monster appeared, I announced that there were two ways to kill it:
- Attack with the entire force. In this case, the monster had armour 6 and 12 life points.
- The leader of a given faction could face the monster alone by sacrificing their life. In that case, the leader would roll a die: on a 4–6, the monster would die along with the leader; on a 1–3, only the leader would die.
Mike decided against the sacrifice. He first lost all his oars, and then the monster sank his ship along with his entire crew. Mike was eliminated from the game.
Despite this, the two sides continued to fight, even though the Normans had already concluded a non‑aggression pact and begun to cooperate. Just then, another monster appeared in their territory: Cerberus, the hound guarding Hades. It quickly attacked the Normans. Tim managed to confront the beast, and his sacrifice removed the dog from the game. The humans achieved an initial success, but two more monsters soon emerged: a dragon and a giant octopus. Meanwhile, the first sea monster sank David's ship along with its crew, while Peter and Jimmy managed to reach the shore safely. As Alasdair and Tim greeted Jimmy with a hail of arrows followed by a charge, Peter reached an agreement with Gordon, and the two of them set off toward the abbey.
Gordon managed to win the test against Loki and was the first to be given the chance to exchange all his bonuses for a clue. In fact, if Loki had lost the die‑rolling duel, each player would have rolled again, and the result would have given them the number of bonuses they could use on any roll—whether in combat, for activation, or even during the roll against Loki himself. At first, the players didn't use this knowledge very wisely, and only Gordon, followed by Tim, decided to take proper advantage of it. Both of them secretly received word that the abbot knew how to defeat Loki. All they had to do was go to the abbey gate and ask him—which meant passing the courage test.
Gordon managed to obtain a clue. It turned out that the abbot possessed a book that not only held a hint about how to defeat Loki, but also protected everyone within an 18-inch radius of the bubble from Loki's actions. The book contained the following information: it told the story of how the gods captured Loki and explained that everyone had to act as one, following the principle: divided we lose, united we conquer. At last, the people began to act as one. Most of the troops moved toward the bubble, while several others decided to acquire a net to capture Loki. Tim headed to the fishing village, but as soon as he arrived, a group of fishermen leapt out and chose to fight for their nets. Tim managed to defeat them and now had to face Loki—but something else happened. Ever since the book had been revealed, a new rule had been added to the roll against Loki: on a roll of 1, something would happen. And it did. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the serpent Jormungandr appeared on the scene, heralding the end of the world. I rolled the die, and the players had six turns left to capture Loki.
With two nets, they had two chances to capture Loki. By then, the players had forgotten how Loki's capture had originally unfolded. Thor had played a significant role in that event—a name that had already come up during the game. Jimmy chose Thor as his patron, which should have given him an advantage in capturing Loki. Yet whether it was the chaos that erupted during the game, their unfamiliarity with Norse mythology, or simply the passage of time, it was Tim who attempted to capture Loki instead. He tried twice and failed twice. Loki managed to bring the matter to a close and emerged victorious—though at the cost of the entire known world, which came to an end as Armageddon met Ragnarok.