One with the Spear had trained since a little boy with his tiny wooden spear. He had spent hours on the logs in the forest practising swinging his spear until his footwork had been perfected. He could strike a tree and take a hand span of bark off the branch with one thrust of his flint tipped weapon. He had perfected his lunge until he perceived he was as fast as a serpent when hitting a target. One with the Spear was ready for a real hunting expedition. His mother, Runs like a Deer, sent him off with his Uncle named Red Bear, to hunt deer down across the river in Algonquin territory. He was excited to be out with the real warriors of the tribe and prove his worth to the tribe.

Read Part One Here

Read Part Two Here

As the men hunted deer in a clearing to the north of the river One with the Spear moved quietly with the other warriors. He breathed in deeply hunched down in a shallow depression in the earth. The glory of the hunt was on him. Suddenly Black Squirrel growled as an arrow sunk into the ground at his feet. One with the Spear whirled with the other warriors, approaching from behind them was a War Band of Algonquin warriors restringing bows to fire once again at the Huron War Party. One with the Spear looked over at the enemy warriors, he spotted a slightly smaller warrior with red warpaint on his forehead. That was his foe! Now would be the chance for One with the Spear to prove himself and bring glory to his family as a skilful warrior. One with the Spear looked over at Red Bear, who signalled the charge. He bellowed out his challenge, “I am One with the Spear of the Huron and I will bring you glory!”

One with the Spear the Stripling broke into a run and roared as he charged Red Bird the enemy Companion. Now his story had begun…

His initial Lunge was met by a Parry from the Companion. Then he struck with a Swing of the spear which made it through the Companions defence. One with the Spear contacted the wood chest armour of the defender and it shattered into several pieces. The spear continued into the chest of the Companion cutting a swathe of red blood under the shattered piece of armour and forcing the Companion to fall back on the ground. One with the Spear gave in to his emotions and a ragged cheer erupted from his throat as he pointed the spear point at the fallen warrior. Red Bird the downed Algonquin Companion rolled away to his feet and as he got up his compatriots around him fled from the victorious Huron warriors.

Cloud Elk, the Algonquin Great Warrior and his War Band, have caught Red Bear and his War Band on their hunting grounds and the players have set up an Ambush, as per the scenario in the rulebook on page 109. In this scenario, Cloud Elk has chosen the clump of trees in the middle of the board as the Ambush Point. He also chooses his own board edge as the exit point. Red Bear and his Warband set up in the middle of the table and exit off the far edge.

Red Bear and One With The Spear engaged in close combat

The game opens with Cloud Elk as the Phasing Player and he activates his group of warriors. He starts by Spotting the enemy Warband clustered in the middle of the table and sends a volley of arrows at the interlopers. He rolls dice and does not hit any warriors. The dice roll was close though thus in our Narrative we note that an arrow lands at the feet of the Veteran Warrior named Black Squirrel.

Due to the fact that Red Bear and his Warband have been ambushed they have not spotted the enemy, nor can they as a Reaction, so Cloud Elk and his warriors restring their bows and fire their arrows at the enemy again. Once again they do not hit any of the enemy warriors. Finally, Red Bear becomes the Active player and charges the ambushing enemy figures.

The battle is joined as Red Bear and Cloud Elk face off in a Close Combat. It was at this point in the game that the spear-armed Stripling from the Huron Warband matched up in Close Combat against the Algonquin Companion, named Red Bird. The Stripling pulled a Swing Card at random from the Attack Close Combat Card deck. The defending Companion chooses a Parry Card, as is his right as a Key Character.

Dice and Combat Cards determine the winner of Close Combat. Furs Markers can also be seen on the table

In the game Key Characters which are the Great Warrior, Companion, Healer and Shaman get to pick the card they want from the deck they are using. Other Characters known as Basic Characters choose a card at random by shuffling and dealing an arbitrary card out at on the table. If we read these cards we see that they read 2/1. This means that the Attacker, the stripling, gets two dice and the Defender, the Companion, gets one die. We also see on these cards that the Swing card has a red “AA” in the top corner and the Defense Card has a green “1D” in the top corner (see below).

This means that the Stripling has to take all Attack Dice, we supply red d6’s in the Starter Set to use as Attack Dice. The defending Companion must use at least one defence dice and only has one dice at this point so it must be a Defense Dice. We supply green d6’s in our starter box to use as defence dice in your tabletop game. Now we add up and see if there are any other modifiers. The Stripling is armed with a spear but has randomly chosen a Swing attack, which is the preferred attack of warriors armed with an Axe. So the Stripling does not get this modifier, as he is armed with a spear, and picks up his two red Attack Dice to roll.

The Companion as a Defender would get an extra dice if he had a Shield, it says it on the card. However, he is not armed with a Shield and therefore only gets his one green Defense Dice. The last thing we should note is the difference between an Attack Dice and a Defense Dice. The Attack Dice causes wounds, you must roll “red” Attack Dice if you intend to hurt your opponent. The Defense Dice simply blocks Attack Dice. So a successful roll of less than the figures Combat Value(CV) on the Defense Dice will result in the negation of a successful Attack Dice score.

So let’s see what the players rolled. The Companion, Red Bird picks up his one Defense Dice and rolls a “5”. His CV is four so he has missed his Parry attempt. One with the Spear, the Stripling rolls his two red Attack Dice and scores a pair of ones. This is the best possible roll in Flint and Feather. The CV of the Stripling is two and he has scored two successful hits. Not only that but rolling a one in Close Combat in Flint and Feather is the best thing a figure can do.

It says on page 44 in the rulebook, “A roll of ‘1’ on an Attack Die roll inflicts a -2 CV wound and automatically causes the opponent to Fall Down. This can only be countered by a Defense roll of ‘1’.” As you can see One with the Spear has caused a -4CV wound to the Companion and furthermore the Companion has fallen down, which is another important aspect of the Flint and Feather game as you must force a “Fallen Down” result in order to capture an opponent, which is highly valued by the tribes in the game.

Normally a -4CV wound would kill a Companion outright. This is known as a “Gory Death” in the rules and has an effect on determining who has won the Close Combat. However, Red Bird has Wood Chest Armour and this negates a -1CV wound. Therefore Red Bird has only taken a -3 CV wound and falls to the ground with what is noted as a -3CV Deep Wound.

Later in the game, White Feather and his Group Charge some Algonquin warriors

The fight continues with Combat Cards being drawn for the other combatants in the Close Combat and wounds being caused. At the end of the Close Combat, we must determine who wins the fight. This is determined by the Nerve Points Chart found on Page 46 of the rulebook.

In this case, each wound that occurs in a Close Combat counts as a point towards determining who wins the fight. Also, the fact that a Key Character has Fallen Down and the fact that damage has occurred to a Key Character are all factors that contribute to determining which group has won the Close Combat.

This Close Combat was not the final event to occur in the tabletop battle but it was the defining moment for our young warrior in our story which is the reason we used it for our Narrative Campaign article. There were other noteworthy events in the game and ultimately the Huron player won the game in a pretty stunning fashion.

Usually, if a Stripling has caused such damage to a Companion, the game is not going to end well for the Warband of the player that controls that Companion. Here is the leaderboard for our campaign at the Hamilton Tabletop Gaming Society after Campaign Turn #1.

As can be seen Red Bear of the Huron is leading the game with 3 Orenda Points. Orenda Points are a measure of success and fame in the Campaign game are used to determine the winner of the Campaign. The game can either play to a certain number of Orenda Points or to a certain number of Orenda Points.

A short Campaign would go to about ten Orenda Points while a long campaign would either last a set number of Campaign Turns or to a higher Orenda Point total.

However, this brings our current article to an end and we will look at wrapping up the Campaign Turn in our next article.

By Lee VanSchaik