A Foray into Five Leagues
Begining the Campaign
This is where I’ll start detailing my Five Leagues play-through. I won’t go into the rules too much, partly because, like all rules, they can make dry reading, but mostly to try and maintain a sense of immersion. I will need to clarify/explain some things like choices and results, but on the whole, I’ll try to keep things narrative.
If anyone wants to ask anything, please feel free to chime in at any time. If anyone wants to play along, you can pick up your own copy of Five Leagues from the Borderlands here. You can easily play using just dice, pencil and paper. Minis and scenery are optional – just use either graph paper or a battlemat and meeples, pogs, pawns, standees, 2D paper tokens pasted onto bits of card, whatever you have to hand.
My Warband: The Felhunters
The Heroes:
Vulfila – male (Avatar)
Agility 1 Speed 5 Combat Skill 0 Toughness 4 Will 2 Luck 1
Skills: Scrounging – When Looting, roll a 6 for a bonus Loot roll.
Quality warhammer (+1 vs Armour)
Full Armour, Shield
Evoric – male (Retainer) If within 6” of the Avatar, they will be unaffected by any game rule that forces them to flee or would paralyze or penalize them due to terror or fear.
Agility 1 Speed 4 Combat Skill 1 Toughness 3 Will 0 Luck 1
Skills: Tactics – Gain a +1 bonus when rolling to Seize Initiative.
Quality bastard sword (+1 vs Toughness)
Partial Armour, Helmet
Hathus – male
Agility 2 Speed 4 Combat Skill 0 Toughness 3 Will 0 Luck 2
Skills: Endurance – Reduce combat injury recovery time by 1 turn.
Self-bow (Range 18”. Ammo limit after first shot), dagger (If enemy is Armoured, add +1. If no other weapon, +1 Agility)
Light Armour
Avina – female
Agility 2 Speed 4 Combat Skill 1 Toughness 3 Will 0 Luck 2
Skills: Foraging – Roll 2 additional dice when Foraging.
Dagger (If an enemy is Armoured, add +1. If no other weapon, +1 Agility), quality Longbow (Range 24” Ammo limit after first shot)
Light Armour
Their followers:
Follower Base stats: Agility 1 Speed 4 Combat Skill 0 Toughness 3
Edvard is a Hopeful Youth (male).
Skill: Gambling – Increase winnings by +1 when Gambling.
Cudgel (If an enemy is Armoured, add +1. If no other weapon, +1 Agility)
Light armour
Lars is a Hired Guide (male).
Self-bow (Range 18”. Ammo limit after first shot), dagger (If an enemy is Armoured, add +1. If no other weapon, +1 Agility)
Militia armour
Ulrik is a Stout Yeoman with an unusual background (male). Witch slayer – Unaffected by any form of sorcery or magic, whether benign or malign.
Hunting spear
Militia armour
Katrine is a Roving Wanderer (female). [Her Agility is 2 due to dagger]
Dagger (If the enemy is Armoured, add +1. If no other weapon, +1 Agility)
Militia armour
Warband Loot: 15 gold coins.
Stash: Two doses of Medical Herbs.
Story Points: 6
The warband was generated using the standard rules from the game. I’ll be playing the campaign on what’s called ‘warband level’ which is effectively vanilla standard. There is an easier version and a few more difficult/challenging levels, but for now, I thought I’d keep things relatively simple.
These are the additional/expansion packs I will be playing with:
- Going to Go Fishing: Because adventuring isn’t all swords and bloodshed
- Battle Events: Adds in-battle random events to your games
- Tools of War (2e): Some new trade and loot items
- Every Journey Begins on a Road: Expanded roadside encounters
- Roads Well Travelled: Even more roadside encounters
- Character Compendium: Adds new Hero-types to the campaign along with animal companions
- Skills Compendium: Lists the names, origin and rules for every skill from a Five Leagues 2nd edition source along with expanded and clarified skill descriptions
However, they are by no means necessary to play. Everything you need to play a full campaign is in the core rulebook, but I have found they offer a lot of benefits when it comes to playing a narrative campaign.
There aren’t any name tables in the game (since you can play in so many different themes/styles) so I just used one of the many online name generators to help with some suggestions. I’ve elected to play this fantasy game in a sort of faux-Saxon/Norse vibe.
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