Badlands Turn 1 part a

The legend of Fozzik's Flying Fastness is known throughout the world. Bandits and kings alike have dream about getting their hands on the treasure inside for the last millennium. Would-be thieves with the ability to reach the Fastness above the clouds learned the hard grisly way that their prize is not undefended. Nevertheless seers, diviners and others with the ability to foresee the future have learn of a secret, perhaps THE secret about the Flying Fastness. For one day only the Flying Fastness will land at its place of origin and its magical defense will be deactivated. At that point anyone could walk in and claim the Flying Fastness as their own. Of course there is a slight problem. While the exact date is known, the exact location is not. Not even the strongest future tellers could gleam at the location and history only says Fozzik created his masterpiece somewhere in the Badlands. That leaves a simple solution: conquer all of the Badlands ahead of time so when the Fastness land, it will be controlled territory. Arriving in the Badlands a year in advance revealed a flaw with this plan as well. Six others had the same idea.

Welcome. The Blood in the Badlands Campaign is now in full swing. This guide will give a general overview of the campaign and a summary of the first half of turn 1. Blood in the Badlands is split into 12 turns, with 3 turns representing a season. Each season has its own special rules and ends with a separate group mega battle with all the players (or as many that can attend) involved. Turns have the following phases: Fortress Movement, Random Events, Banner Movement, War Declaration, Mines, Fight Battles, Resolve Battle Results, Expeditions and End Turn. I will explain each phase when I discuss that part of the Turn 1 summary.

As with most campaigns, the first thing to do is to set up the map. Players take turns picking their capital and surrounding lands. Here is the map after all armies have moved.

1. Warriors of Chaos
2. Lizardmen
3. Dwarves - Tristan
4. Dwarves - Jeff
5. Orcs and Goblins
6. Empire
7. Dark Elves

Everybody starts with 7 lands, 3 banners lead by a general and two lieutenants, a capital city, a mine and a fort with the exception of the Dark Elves. They started next to a special territory that can not be claim until the Summer mega battle so Dark Elves only have 6 lands. With the Flying Fastness starting in a random location, the campaign could begin.

The first phase of the turn is the Fortress Movement. The Flying Fastness moves in a random location. Any battle fought either in the territory with the Flying Fastness or in a territory next to it uses Storm of Magic rules and earns both players extra relics. In our campaign the Fastness move deep into Dwarven territory at the bottom right of the map, completely away from any battle.

Next phase is Random Events. Each player rolls on a table to see what bane/boon affects them this turn. The important results were the following: Lizardmen destroyed a Dark Elf fort, Dwarves(Jeff) found a map which earn them a relic & a mine and Dwarves(Tristan) muster extra troops, allowing their force to be 25% larger than their opponents. The third phase is where the players move their three banners. This will affect who and where battles are fought and elements of the Expeditions phase. However for these summaries unless something unusual happens I will be leaving the Banner Movement phase out.

War Declaration. This is the phase where the players can challenge each other. Once everyone have been assign to at least one battle we decide where on the map each battle takes place and which two banners are involved. This may be obvious such as when two enemy banners are in the same location. For our campaign, Turn 1 war declaration were the following:

Dark Elves vs Empire
Dwarves(Tristan) vs Warriors of Chaos
Lizardmen vs Orcs and Goblins
Dwarves(Jeff) vs Orcs and Goblins

Phase 5 of the turn is where players learn how much their mine has earn them. Each mine can give their owner gold, relics, magic items or it can collapse in on itself. Gold allows players to field extra points in the up coming battle. Each players roll for each mine they have. The results are the following:

Orcs and Goblins - The mine collapsed
Warriors of Chaos - 100 gold
Dark Elves - 200 gold
Empire - 300 gold
Lizardmen - a relic and a 60 point magic item
Dwarves(Jeff) - 300 gold, a relic and a 20 point magic item
Dwarves(Tristan) - a relic and a 50 point magic item

The next phase is where the actual battle take place. It also marks the end of the first campaign meeting and this guide. Our group needs a two to three week period to arrange time for the games to take place. Next up will be Chaos back story and a narrative battle report of the Dwarves vs Warriors of Chaos battle.