The other weekend, I attended an Old World campaign day organised by a member of our club, who was kind enough to loan me his Vampire Counts army to play. The theme of the campaign was Empire against Vampire Counts.
The theme of my force as a whole was an unstable vampire, Stefan Ayken van Warten, and his family and sworn retinue. The Necromancer, Cedric Thistledown, was my "point of view" character, a cowardly illusionist con artist who'd fled his university ahead of the witch hunters when his powers were discovered. Running afoul of the Vampires, he'd been able to trick them that he was a powerful wandering necromancer with his illusions. Put in charge of a host of zombies, he discovered that provided he was "deathly" hungover, they mistook him as one of their own and didn't eat him.
The first battle represented the forces of the vampires coming through a mountain pass into the lands of the Empire. We were bringing smaller forces, so for my side, Cedric had been sent to mind an idiot cousin vampire in the vanguard, while we faced some troops from Talabecland and a "mercenary" force. (Who in turn had some mercenary ogres who proceeded to fail to show up.)
The allies of my undead were . . . some Bretonnians? Their lord did look a little, umm, glassy eyed? It seemed that his wife had a bit more influence than one might expect. As the players, we agreed that the undead would keep the Bretonnians at an arms length so as not to risk the glamour they were under, so we gave the Bretonnians the left flank and the vampires the right.
The undead advanced, and in turn, the Empire advanced their landship and a unit of Knights of the Blazing Sun to threaten charges next turn. Meanwhile on the left flank, the Bretonnians and Talabecland troops were heavily engaged.
The Cairn Wraith charged the Landship, which failed it's Terror check and fled. The illusionist managed to create an illusionary pillar in front of the Knights of the Blazing Sun, blocking their charge.
Fully over-confident now, I charged the Cairn Wraith and some bat swarms into the Knights of the Blazing Sun. They held their ground, easily cut down the bats, and their victory there weakened the grasp the Cairn Wraith had on the world, banishing it.
The ghosts phased through the house to get out of the way of the knights, while the rest of the forces swung left to avoid them.
The vampire had gotten himself charged by some state troops, so the zombies and ghosts planned to charge the flank. He cut down a unit champion before offering a challenge to the Empire general.
Meanwhile the witch hunter associated with the mercenaries had gotten caught up with dealing with some brigands and was quite far back from the main fight, though his holy flames were really putting paid to my ghosts...
The zombies and ghosts charged in, and the fight tipped in favour of the undead. The vampire and the Empire general had a nail biting back and forth fight, with the vampire injured before cutting down the general. The left flank of the Empire had been thoroughly chewed through by the Bretonnians, leaving the field in the hands of the undead and their allies.
This was my first game of the Old World, and I had a lot of fun. There's plenty to learn and I need to get my own force put together. There's a couple of games still to come I'll write up in turn, but for now, it seems, the Empire is in danger...
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