The Fellowship of the Braunstein

Fantasy Flight Game Center

I see posts from a few who were there on their blogs. And pictures and video. Figured I should probably also post a bit on my experience.

Chirene hosted a classic "Braunstein" like event at Fantasy Flight Games in Roseville MN. They were gracious hosts, and we had a fair amount of space and players up on the balcony.. enough to make me worry at time about capacities and structural engineering.. One does that if one has ever read "Why Buildings fall down" and considered the potential for contractors to make minor alterations that have major consequences.. but I digress..

Chirene, for those not acquainted, was painter and miniatures maven for M.A.R. Barkers tekumel campaigns, as well as functioning at various times and in various capacities in the business end of things. As a character, he was a Battle Magic Priest of Vimuhla in the original thursday night group run by the Professor. (Not to be confused with the myriad other Thursday night gaming groups in the country.. I understand some people are having trouble with this disctinction.. )

Setup

He has been collecting, archiving, and living Tekumel history since very nearly its inception. And he has amassed a museums worth of of terrain and figures to support his events. They are remarkable productions. (He has not one, but two separate sets of Sakbe Road props..  I am not worthy..)

This battle was played out in a low lying Archipelago occupied traditionally by the Hlutrgu, and most expectedly in recent times by the Sisters of Serqu, and their would be rescuers / Hlutrgu fodder.. I found myself a home on Team Hlutrgu, and could not have been happier about it. Gave me a whole new perspective on the Species.. Must find a way to get them into my campaign..

Sisters in distress

We located the girls fairly quickly, and they surprised us with some nasty firepower in the form of eyes.. This attracted the attention of every faction on the board, and everyone tried to converge on the fracas. We had no real shot of getting the girls after that, but I reasoned with our chieftain that there was no real reason to care. Tasty human was tasty human, and we agreed that fighting for two scrawny females was not in our best interest. Dead bodies were.

The Sisters bite back

The Ahoggya concerned us, traditionally swamp neighbors, and generally hostile, we also knew that we had some commonality. We both found humans tasty. We invited them to help us harvest. They agreed, but wanted the girls if they could get them. Seemed a reasonable trade.  So we piled on the humans we found in the North, and they struggled against the pirates in the south. A lot of bodies were wasted in the mouths of critters in the sea, I am afraid. In the end we reasoned we had a good harvest; even if many were our own, the humans that lived and the Ahoggya were leaving, and we were going to need to rethink our picket lines..

Tasty humans for the food pit

The rules were minimalist. Ranged combat that hit simply killed, no hit points. (save for some reason when one of the girls took a grapplying hook to the stomach from an Ahoggya who was trying to secure her safety from the pirates by pulling her off their ship..)  Close combat was resolved using the old charts in Qadardalakoi. Compare combat factors vs armour and lose a number of bodies in a melee.. keeping the flow moving is important when you have this many actors each with this many figures.. and a few wandering monsters..

Outnumbered? Tasty Hlutrgu.

The sisters had chosen, probably wisely, to start at the far end of the board from the Hlutrgu village, so our slippery rubbery body count at that end was kind of short.  But in the village, where we had piles of unaccounted bodies hiding inside the huts, we easily overwhelmed the tasty humans. Well on one island.


Other areas we were overwhelmed.. but we turn lemons into Lemoned Hlutrgu bake.. So, we don't mind so much. Chaos ensued until the Sisters chose to leave with the pirates.. (What? And that was somehow a more dignified end? Tasty humans not as smart as Hmelu... )

The Sisters are in the forward ship

The humans that were not marooned started to leave at that point, with the "Rescuers pursued by the remaining active boatload of Ahoggya.. The humans had control of some parts of the table, but, we were limitless, and simply assembled until we were overwhelming. That is our way. This would have happened post game, but be assured, it would have happened. The isles of the breeding pool would have been cleansed and feasting would have occurred..

The marooned Ahoggya would have been invited to the feast, as our chief allowed. And then hunted for desert. They probably didn't think of that.

Thank you Chirene, Fellow Hlutrgu, and Noble Food stufs, for the bounty we were to recieve..