The First Week
Also, an Army Tracking Spreadsheet
The patron wargame’s first week of reports are in. Ironically, the two Lawful major factions (the High Priestess and the Oracle) dropped out, so things as they remain have a fairly Chaotic bent; I do intend to run those Lawful factions as NPCs for now, but they’ll be less active than otherwise and it will be interesting to see the downstream consequences of that on the scenario.
From an observer’s standpoint, it’s also worth mentioning that the information provided more generally was unreliable on two major points — first, the Sultan of Najran is not himself a major faction, but rather the newly-ascendant Pirate King who has discreetly taken the Sultan under his protection. Second, the Temahn nomads who haunt the central hills have likewise been unified under a great kagan, and are now a roaming threat, one that has just revealed themselves.
The Annals of War
The Caliph of Thar personally voyaged downriver to Najerin with a host of his mightiest companions, there to join the Emir of that town in pursuit of a treasure map into the nearby jungle that reputedly contains a ring whose genie will grant it’s bearer’s truest wish. In response to requests from the ever-undermanned Emir Kurkuk, a legion of orcs was brought with him and dispatched further downriver to reinforce that garrison.
A false scouting report in his initial intelligence misled the Caliph to think Agrahvar was constructing siege equipment near Murvon, and the division of boar riders under “The Executioner” who went there to investigate were not met well by the Caliph’s ostensible vassal. The locals there are happy to see the fierce uruks and the cruel hobgoblins in opposition, so long as they move on, and have offered to guide this army and feed it intel to avoid having their supplies requisitioned.
Meanwhile, the Sultan of Agrahvar makes his own bid for conflict, playing it cautious with a “small” but very potent army (“Agra 1”) of cavalry moved to the border of his holdings, within striking distance of multiple targets. Last I checked, he was considering the possibility of bribing the mercenary colonel in whose hands the defense of Jechtel was entrusted into staging a coup that could invite honorable intervention by Agrahvar.
The Pirate King has unified his many captains in secret, but his fleets stay dispersed amongst the isles while their leadership hunts the region in pursuit of many treasure maps — the Pirate King himself and the Sultan of Najran together pursuing a lead to the same point the Caliph of Thar so fiercely pursues. His sister hires out her ships as merchant escorts to provide a guise to get upriver in the north, reaching Ali-Aram only for the captain of the guard to make discreet overtures about an as-yet unclear partnership. Others among the Pirate King’s inner circle journey north to a sorcerer’s barrow, which they clear out handily to recover a grand sum and a mysterious crystal ball, though one of their members almost dies to snakebite.
The Tyrant of Thrassia has gathered his lizardmen and now his army swims south to the jungle’s edge, to watch the Caliph’s forces and seek opportunities for plunder and havoc. Their junglecraft keeps them hidden while securing excellent observational intelligence, and captured foresters seem to report that the garrison of Liyon remains as-yet unaware of them.
Additionally, a merchant prince who threw his lot in with the lizards manages to purchase extensive materials for the Tyrant to assemble a research workshop, from which he hopes to construct the vastly delicate ritual magics still locked within his primeval mind.
The tribes of the Temahn too have united behind a leader, a mighty kagan who seeks to prove his worthiness by conducting a grand raid — not on the western provinces of Thar, or the east of Najran, both having been traditional targets, but through the jungle-swamps to the south to the lands around Kirkuk. Their kagan has contracted the Spears of Heaven to support him, and together they loot the countryside to attempt to bait out Thari defenders for a field battle. At present, however, prisoners captured report that the garrison of Kirkuk remains wholly unaware of them as yet, their outriders having run down those peasants whose flight might have spread warning, and fortune favored the Spears in seizing a cache of medium catapults. Though he has no artillerists, he can use them for bombardment, and besieging Kirkuk just got much more attractive . . .
Mechanical Considerations
Running this at the 24-mile tile scale and with weekly turns has proven interesting; reconnaissance rolls I think definitely work best at this scale, though more granular items like moving into a domain to then loot supplies, or sailing to a destination and then continuing on foot, had to be handled a little more carefully.
I did change one aspect of reconnaissance rolls — I am treating results of 0- as failures rather than catastrophes, to avoid having an endless string of catastrophically erroneous reconnaissance reports on armies four tiles away.
I also ruled that siege artillery could be used for bombardment without artillerists, but not in a battle, which seems fair given that the shp damage per day from artillery doesn’t seem to take attack throw into account.
Using the Vagaries of War has added some pleasing irregularities (and the Vagaries of Recruitment will likewise, as soon as someone rolls a nontrivial result), though this month’s results were overwhelmingly (outstandingly) favorable. The Caliph of Thar is soon to be proclaimed a legendary leader, for his foresight in pursing the Ring of Wish and in reinforcing Kirkuk moments before it was met by an overwhelming army. The Pirate King’s agents in Ali-Aram have been contacted about a Defection by the High Priestess’ Captain of the City Guard — if they play their cards right, that entire city could suddenly fall into piratical hands and dramatically change the feel of the region (and tie up a loose thread since that faction is now an NPC; I won’t push things that way, but I certainly won’t complain). Meanwhile, the one really bad roll was the Thrassian field army scoring a Commander Casualty that should have killed a much-needed officer, and then both commanders in that army passed their saving throws and neither ended up dead.
In the course of running the above, I built an Army Tracking Spreadsheet that others may find useful. The Unit Lookup tab lists the form for units to be listed in, and if added to a division with their number of members, it will auto-populate with their BR combat statistics. If you fill in the Officers Lookup tab, it will let you make a dropdown selection from them for officers on the main tab, which will then apply their SA modifier to their division, their ML and to hit bonus to the unit they’re attached to, and qualify them as a general for the army. If you change circumstance from “Field Battle” to “Siege Assault” or “Siege Defense”, it will automatically modify the BRs and attack throws of affected units. If you change the listed scale, it will similarly recalculate the BRs. And it tracks wages and supply costs for all divisions and the army, so it’s easy to use for building out garrisons as well. Additional divisions are hidden in vertically collapsed sections that can be expanded as needed. If anyone has ideas for further features, let me know and I’ll see what I can do! It’s certainly made my life easier.
Addendum: wargame reports from the Intro, Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, and Week 7 are all available.
I was asked about adding a set of dropdown menus to the unit selection so that you can pick a unit type directly from a list rather than having to type it in. My initial attempt at it I found that an excellent suggestion, so if anyone reopens the above file, it now has dropdown menus.
Experimentation with a .xslx file download reveals that a number of the formulae break. I'm going to keep looking at this to see if there's a workaround, but note for now that it doesn't work in download.