Broman Crusade: Open Sourced

Posted On August 6, 2023

Since life…uh, found a way…I’m on the gaming injured reserve list.

But we’re approaching the thrilling conclusion to the Broman Crusade into the lands of the Vampire Lord, and we all want to know what happens next.  Rather than wait for your ‘umble ‘ost to get his act together, why don’t we take a page from the Sneedville War and turn things over to the crowd.  You guys run the fight, post your results, and we’ll vote on which version of the fight becomes canon.

I’ve been playing this campaign using Warhammer Fantasy Battles (6th Edition), and so the following rosters are predicated on army lists and battles using that system, but there’s no requirement that you guys use that system.  The map and orders of battle are presented below, and those should be adhered to.  And give some thought to the follow-up actions.  This fight occurs at a barrow mound a day’s march south of Castle Gallagher, which maintains a smallish garrison.  The undead have an army, Force Banquo, approaching from the northwest.  The Bromans have two combined armies, the unblooded Seraph and badly battered Archangel, approaching from the southwest.  The survivors of the battle on the 28th will have a day to recover and brace for the arrival of undead reinforcements on the 30th, then the Broman reinforcements will arrive the next day.

Here’s the most recent video showing how these armies came to meet and how we generated the battlefield.  You can skip it if you want, because all the pertinent info is below the fold.

What a glorious mess, with the entire crusade hinging on this one little barrow-mound.  Here are the details as we know them going into the battle on the 28th.  The day dawns clear and cool, and the Bromans are attacking from the south.

Cherub, The Broman Army

• Led by Captain Legin Manstill
  • Heavy armor and a great weapon
  • Mounted on an armored horse
• The Wizard McGraham, a Second Order Wizard of Light
• The Great Cannon, nicknamed Moses by her stalwart crew
• 8 x Knights of the Lamb (in WFB terms these are Knights of the Grail)
• One unit of 17 spearmen in light armor and shield
  • Led by a banner and champion
• One unit of 20 spearmen in light armor and shield
  • Led by a banner and champion
• One unit of 12 archers in light armor
• One unit of 16 peasants (no armor or shield, armed only with swords)

Desdemona, The Undead Army

• Led by a Vampire Thrall, Dain Pualton
  • Heavy Armor, Sword and Shield
• One unit of 20 skeletons with light armor and spear
• One unit of 25 skeletons with light armor and spear
• One unit of 18 zombies
• Two banshees

The battleground, based loosely on the above map, with a few more features randomly added for fun, looks like this.  We’ll use this same table for the next couple of fights in this area – reserving the right to shift a little northeast when Banquo arrives of course – but for today the deployment looks something like this.  The undead deploy first, within one foot of the barrowmound, then the Bromans deploy their attacking forces as shown.

If you do run this fight, make sure you drop a link to the battle report in the comments, so that people can take a look at how you ran things and who won.  Don’t forget to post casualty figures because we might be plugging your results into the campaign.  I’ll post a poll on the YouToob after a few weeks, along with a link here to remind you to be a part of the fun.

And thank you all for your kind words and support.  You are beacons of light and hope in this world.