Younglings: prep and Play Tor Vaden

The description of the scenario details four possible rooms, each with it’s own particular scatter terrain. My (9 year old) son and I went through the Dungeons and Lasers fantasy stretch goals sprues and picked out some relevant looking bit. We had chests, crates. barrels, a table, bench, stools, etc.

He’s very keen to get his hands on the clippers at any opportunity, although I need to tidy up his cuts a little,  and he isn’t bad with the plastic cement either.

Half an hour of that is enough for him for one day.

My son isn’t so keen on painting, but I managed to convince him to slap on some brush on Vallejo primer one day and some brown contrast paint the next.

Thanks to our success in the last mission, there’s no need to stealthy sneak upto the tower of Tor Vaden, nor to pick the lock of the main gate as we’d found the keys. So we fling open the gates and take the occupants by surprise.

Our warband consists of 3 Rangers, one for me and my two children, and their companions.
My 7 year old daughter’s Ranger is called ‘Powerful’, who is indeed powerful yet nimble as he has the heroic abilities dash and evade. He is accompanied by his long term friend Mr Strong and the ogre mercenary Mr Spikey.

The 9 year old’s Ranger is called Jack the Wizard, who is a specialist spell caster, loaded up with attacking spells such as fireball and burning mark. Jack always bring Billy the Barbarian to provide some muscle and Archie the archer to give some covering fire.

The warband is completed by Ranger Ragnar with Yoric the healer and Lagertha the warrior.

Our warband quickly recognise the threat of the Shaman animating his flesh golem, so a ranger (Ragnor)  combined with a companion (Mr Strong) , loosing an  arrow each. The arrows fly true and take down the Shaman before he can do any damage.  Billy the barbarian closes in one on the guards and Jack moves out of the way of the door to allow for the rest of the warband to enter next turn.

The guards move towards our heroes, forcing Jack into combat. It’s no great challenge for Jack who wounds the guard with his staff.

Round 2. Mr Spikey emerges through the door (thumbs up from the 7 year old) and quickly closes towards the 2nd guard.

Billy comes to his mate Jack’s aid and comes into base to base contact with the guard in combat with Jack. The surprise flank attack proves fatal for the hapless orc who is meant to be an orc.

It’s the final guards turn, and he foolishly decides to go toe to toe with Mr Spikey. It’s a fatal error.

The room cleared of the enemy we head onto the second room…

After making such a impact in the last room, Mr Spikey makes the beachhead in the storage room. Taking in his surroundings he heads to a guard in one corner.  Billy is also filled with blood lust and charges in towards the other corner.

The guards move toward the closest targets, but there’s no base to base contact yet.

Round two.

In a surprise to no one, Mr Spikey dispatches a guard as we might swat away a bothersome fly. Billy follows in kind and rolls a natural 20, and in the blink of an eye the room is reduces to two guards.

The remaining guards take no heed however, and bravely rush towards the invaders.

Round 3. Mr Spikey vs a guards. As we know by now there’s only ever one outcome. Bye bye guard.

Billy rushes towards the final guard, rolls and… fails. Taking 7 damage he’s in danger of being reduced to 0 in the next round of combat. This doesn’t go down well with the 9 year old. Luckily other companions are now in the room and an hastily notched arrow from Mr Strong and some back up from Lagertha removes the threat.

With the storage room cleared, we can inspect the clue tokens. Billy finds some ‘Golden beer’ which is basically a healing potion (how fortunate) while Mr Spikey finds the towers dog, which has been beaten by the evil gnoll/orcs. The rule book says this gives you a bonus the next time you ‘recruit’ a hound. But the 7 year old knows that she found a dog and wants a dog now. Luckily part of my pile of potential is the Warhammer Underworlds kit ‘Hexbane’s Hunters’ which has two dogs. Her brother quickly gets to work with the clippers and cement to give Mr Spikey a dog.

“We need a name for the dog” I say.

She thinks for a moment …. “Spike”. So we have Mr Spikey with his dog Spike. Actually, that seems like a very ogre thing to do.

We finally enter a Torture room. A prisoner in the centre of the room, on seeing the door open, rushes away from his captor. Billy continues to be reckless and charges towards the gnoll sergeant, who is more than able to match him blow for blow. A healing spell from Yoric keeps Billy in the battle, burning mark from Jack is almost pointless but Mr Spikey comes to the rescue again.

Billy is first to search the clue on the sergeants body, and finds a Book of Astronomy.

Mr Spikey gives the escaped prisoner a sword for self defence, and then proceeds to take on one of the remaining guards. He reduces the guards health but it is Mr Spikey, again, who deals the fatal blow.

The final guard is quickly dispatched by the deadly bow skills of Ragnar.

The torture room is cleared and we can look forward to ascending the stairs to see what is at the top of Tor Valen tower, probably in the school Easter holidays.

This is the first time my youngest, 7 year old, has sat through a ROSD mission. Previously she’s got bored after a couple of turns and has wandered off. I think the ‘jump cut’ nature of the rooms changing kept her attention a little more than normal. That and the fact that her ogre was a tank. As I’ve said previously, I know Rangers aren’t supposed to have ogre companions but I think Joe McCullough wouldn’t mind as it’s getting the next generation involved in his games.

Now that Mr Spikey has Spike the dog to keep him company I expect she’ll be back to see how the end of the scenario plays out.