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46. Protect the Prince

Source: Town Cryer #19
Setting: Khemri
Author: Khemri Development Team

Many stories have been told of wealthy princes or other nobles travelling through the hot deserts of Araby and never reaching their destinations. Most of the merchants that travel the deserts are attacked by all sorts of raiders seeking to steal their riches. These stories persuade the merchants to protect themselves from whatever may happen, and hire mercenary warbands to do their HA fighting for them.

warbands​

Half of the warbands fighting this scenario are defending the merchant's wagon from attack whilst the other half are trying to raid the wagon of the merchant. Determine who are defenders and attackers in the usual way except there may be more than one of each. If there is an odd number of warbands then there will be one more defending player. The defenders’ job is to provide enough of a distraction to the opposing warband(s) for the prince to make it safely off of the opposite edge. The attacker's job is to prevent the prince from escaping to the other side of the table by attacking and putting him out of action.

terrain​

The battle takes place in the open. The scenery may consist of dunes, oases and ruined buildings. Place them as normal.

set-up​

The defenders are set up first on one long edge of the battlefield. Next the attackers set up on either of the two short sides.

special rules​

The prince will follow any friendly model up to the limits of his movement. If he is more than 1" from a friendly Hero at the start of the Movement phase, then he will run the maximum distance in a random direction (use a Scatter dice). If this takes him into base contact with an enemy then this counts as charging. He will not voluntarily charge an enemy.

If any unengaged enemy models are within 2" at the beginning of the movement phase he will flee directly away from the closest one. He will rally by passing a Leadership test in the usual way. If a friendly model is in base contact he may also make a Leadership test to restrain the cowardly prince.

Each defending player controls the prince in their turn. This may create some interesting conflicts in a multi-player game. His profile is as follows:

ProfileMWSBSSTWIALd
Prince422331317

Equipment: He is equipped with a Scimitar (sword) and a Jambiya (dagger).

ending the game​

A defender wins the game if he is in control of the prince when he makes it off the appropriate table edge. If he flees off another table edge then neither side wins. An attacker wins by killing the prince before he leaves. In a multi-player game warbands may choose to ally and share the victory and winnings.

experience​

  • +1 Survives. If a Hero or a Henchman group survives the battle they gain +1 Experience.
  • +1 Winning Leader. The leader of the winning warband gains +1 Experience.
  • +1 Per Enemy Out of Action. Any Hero earns +1 Experience for each enemy he puts out of action.
  • +1 Killing the prince. Any Character who puts the prince out of action gains +1 Experience.

rewards​

If the prince escapes he will reward his protectors with 4D6 gold crowns from his purse. If he is killed then the winning warband will find 2D6 gold crowns, plus jewellery equivalent to two pieces of treasure on his body.