Lothar’s Expendables

Round 7
Lothar descends the tower and heads for the exit of the temple fort. He can see his troop are in trouble outside but cannot reach them yet.
Slink moves to rejoin the others but is attacked by a zombie that just shambled into the village, she pushes it back.
Two zombies attack Squint, he is mauled by one very badly but fights the other off pushing it back.
Quartermain casts another of his Burning Light spells killing the zombie attacking Squint.
Gibberish kills another zombie and heads towards the temple fort to join Lothar.
Event: Nothing happens (Trigger condition not met)

Round 8
Lothar exits the temple fort and orders Gibberish into combat against the nearest zombie. She follows Lothar’s command but misses wildly. Luckily Lothar brings it down.
Slink manages to beat off her attacker long enough to slip away, as she retreats she throws her dagger at the zombie that is now chasing her, but only it catches a glancing scratch.
Thinking to relieve the pressure on Slink, Squint shoots at her attacker but again misses.
Gregori the survivor moves deeper into the forest getting ready to flee from these madmen.
Quartermain moves to be equidistant to the two closest zombies and casts one last Burning Light spell. This time however, he misses one altogether and the other is only lightly injured by his magics.
Event: Something groans inside one of the nearest buildings and it collapses – luckily no one is injured.

Round 6
Lothar finds a body at the top of the temple tower – he has found the missing ranger Aventine, he recovers Aventine’s sword and instantly recognises it as magical.
Looking out of the window Slink can see that going back the way she came will take her straight into an oncoming wave of walking corpses. Instead she jumps out of the first floor window of the inn and lands acrobatically. She contemplates moving around to the left to rejoin the party but the shambling zombies now heading into the village from that direction have cut off that route, she would have to fight past them at a pinch point. Instead she heads in the other direction, where there is more space to outflank the growing numbers of undead.
Gibberish and Quartermain rush to the aid of Squint as two shamblers make their way towards him.
Squint starts retreating towards his friends but is cut off by more zombies flooding in from another flank. It now looks like Squint will end up overwhelmed, especially as yet more of the creatures wander into the village attracted by the commotion.
Event: Four zombies shamble in from all four roads

Round 5
Lothar enters the tower and climbs the ladder to the first floor.
Slink climbs the stairs of the inn and searches a chest – finding strange scrabbling tracks which she is sure she recognises as those of a giant spider.
Squint searches the bushes outside the inn and finds a Stash of Dremlocke weed.
Quartermain and Gibberish position themselves to defend against the incoming tide of undead.
Event: Four more zombies shamble into the village – two from each of two sides

Round 4
Lothar moves to the temple fort door, finding it locked he kicks it in.
Slink kills the giant rat and finally enters the silent inn, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
Squint moves back to the inn determined to search for more clues, Gregori the survivor tags along behind him for protection.
The zombie attacking Gibberish renews its attack but this time is slain by the savage, who, seeing the waves of zombie heading their way from the surrounding fields, moves back towards the town square looking to rejoin Quartermain.
Quartermain casts another Burning Light spell and kills the zombie he has disturbed. He moves to the town square to link up with Gibberish
Event: It becomes obvious that the rats and zombies all bear an infection which will be bad news for anyone becoming severely injured through this fight.

Round 3
Lothar finally kills the zombie outside the inn and moves to distract the shambler heading for Quartermain – it turns to engage him and wounds him badly, the zombie presses its attack but is slain by the Lothar’s counterattack.
Squint reaches the barrel and kicks it over to reveal a survivor – hiding inside it is Gregori, a young farmer who was trying to sneak out to safety.
Gibberish fights the zombie off temporarily and retreats to recover a potion of Strength dropped in the grass by the front door of a nearby house.
Miraculously Quartermain fights off the zombie he has disturbed -pushing it off the cart. He makes a run for it heading towards Lothar and the door to the temple fort.
Slink stares open mouthed with fear and cannot do anything this round.
Event: As Slink cowers in fear a giant rat jumps out of the bushes where it has been lurking and attacks her.

Round 1

Lothar and Slink move to the inn to follow up on clues and Squint shoots a giant rat killing it
Gibberish moves to the furthest house confident in her own ability to handle threats alone
Quartermain casts a Burning Light spell and stunningly kills three zombies and badly injures a fourth – suddenly confused, the old man ignores the safety of his nearby crew mates to make a dash for the abandoned cart.
Event: Two additional zombies shamble into the village

Round 2

Lothar engages one of the zombies outside the inn but fails to injure it, taking some wounds in return. Following Lothar’s orders, Slink reaches the door of the inn and picks the locked door.
Gibberish kills a giant rat outside the furthest house but is then attacked by one of the newly arrived zombies shambling into the village. She remains confident in her prowess.
Squint heads into the woods having spotted a suspicious barrel moving from tree to tree.
Quartermain reaches the cart but searching the rags discovers another zombie under the blankets which attacks him; worse, he is now the closest target for the shambler that survived his first spell, and it now turns to head towards him. Things are looking are looking grim for the old mage.
Event Overwhelmed by the sight of wave after wave of undead shambling from the field to the village, Slink is frozen with terror at the door of the inn.

I have a lovely double sided mat from Gamemat.eu (Forgotten Realm and Highlands), which will serve nicely for the first two scenarios. The houses I built using Dwarvenforge City sets that I kickstarted several a years ago. I’m glad I never sold them now. The trees are 4Ground. I love them.

I decided I just didn’t want to wait to paint up some minis and none of the minis I have already painted to a decent enough standard fitted the concept of what I wanted from my ranger troop. I had in mind a bunch of misfits thrown together because they didn’t fit anywhere else. This story was going to be about a group of losers that would find redemption In the Shadow Deep.

Sergeant Erasmus Lothar was to be my ranger. Lothar is an embarrassment to the rangers. Once a promising and gifted young man he has over time become an embittered Middle aged drunk. Lothar is the ranger to whom all the shit jobs are given, and he knows it. His time as a ranger are nearly done, he is soon to retire. His men love him though

Quartermain the mage was once a professor at the Circle of Magi. Erudite, travelled and deeply book learned. All of these things have gradually slipped away from Quartermain as age has withered him and senile dementia has taken hold. Sometimes still capable of brilliant feats of magic he is just as likely to forget where he is or why he is there.

Gibberish the savage was named because no one in the ranger service can understand a word of the tongue she speaks (apart from Slink). Hailing from the far north her background is a mystery. She has a fiery temper and spends a great deal of time in a permanent state of incoherent anger and near violence. The only person she really gets on with is Slink the rogue.

Blind Squint the archer was once hailed as the most handsome man in the ranger service.  He was a lady’s man and spent a great deal of his time frequenting the many brothels in the capital city. As a result of his dissolute sexual incontinence he has been visited by a variety of unpleasant diseases, none of which he has entirely shaken off. Now prematurely aged by his serial infections he has lost one eye, and is now losing the sight in the other. How he hits anything is anyone’s guess (in fact he doesn’t most of the time).

Slink the rogue is a cold fish. A calculating psychopath she spent many years on the streets doing what she had to do to survive. Rising above the street gangs she developed a fearsome reputation as a vicious loner, expert at getting others to do her dirty work. Her life of crime eventually brought her to the attention of the rangers and it was Lothar who finally captured her. Lothar saw something in her, and offered to spare her if she joined his crew. For her part Slink sees Lothar’s crew as an opportunity to leave the street behind whilst manipulating the rangers to her own ends.  She has formed a strong bond with Gibberish and it appears that she understand a few words of the warrior woman’s language.

Lothar refers to his crew as the undesirables. Other rangers refer to them as Lothar’s Expendables.

To fit these ideas of  the crew I raided my collection of old D&D prepainted minis from my RPG days. I found a couple of painted minis from the rather weird Cadwallon City of Thieves prepaints that work well for Slink the rogue and Lothar the rather shabby drunkard I envisaged for my ranger. Three figures from the pathfinder battles ranges nicely fitted Squint, Gibberish and Quartermain.

In order to tie them together more effectively I primed their bases the same colour (Vallejo Leather Brown primer) and then applied one of Luke’s APS Base Ready products (Patchy Plains). This proved an excellent match for the mat I was planning to use. After a wash or two on a couple of the figures just to add a little more depth I was ready. Total preparation time was a couple of hours.