My longest running campaign, the Iron Grudge, is nearing its inevitable finale. The duardin legions of Azamar Ankor are advancing on the orruk-controlled city of Bochenfels, determined to track down and destroy Waaagh! Urgokh that has caused their kingdom a lot of trouble in the past. Three of Warboss Urgokh's most trusted (by greenskin measures) bosses and shaman have been brought down along with their respective tribes, paving the way for a final confrontation.
However, as High King Ungrim Ironhelm receives word of Wolfboss Elgar's defeat in a ranger ambush on the plains, another scout returns with an urgent request. The heir of Bochenfels, Richard Lemming, son of the late Governor Warwick, has been spotted in the mountains with a group of freeguild survivors and chased by a mob of orruks. Thought lost in the evacuation of his father's city, young Richard is an important asset in the war now that he turns out to be alive: by delivering the Lemming heir back to the Puffington Empire alive, the duardin of Azamar Ankor can conciliate the uproar currently taking place in the empire's nobility after the loss of their city.
Should the duardin fail to save young Richard, the restlessness in the Puffington Cabinet would surely grow to even greater heights, denying Azamar Ankor the support it may well need in bringing this war to an end and rebuilding their mountain kingdom.
The scenario was Battleplan: Hold or Die, with 20 Freeguild Militia and Richard Lemming standing in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by orruks. A force of duardin led by Morek Furrowbrow, the Hero of Bochenfels, is on its way to relieve the beleaguered humans. To spice it up, there are 3 Snowstorm Clouds on the battlefield, which move randomly at the start pf each player turn. They obscure vision, and getting passed over by them makes units unable to Run. In addition, should a cloud stay in touch with a unit, it confers -1 to all Hit rolls made by that unit.
Will the mountainfolk make it in time to drive off the greenskins and save young Richard?
Read on to find out!
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It was cold.
So cold that a man's breath was clearly visible in the air, sweat froze the moment it soaked into clothing and skin touching naked steel would most likely not come off without blood. Richard Lemming urged his horse onwards. Visibility was terribly poor. Biting mountain wind threw up clouds of snow into the air, whipping it against the frostbitten faces of the freeguilders. Most had ditched their helmets somewhere along the way, the weight and ice-cold surface of the metal headwear turning out to be too much of a hindrance. Most went bare-headed, with nothing to protect them against the rising snowstorm. All they could do was soldier on.
They'd been doing it for weeks. Hiding in the forests at first, then climbing to the mountains and camping in caves and gorges after the orruks had set after them. Richard could barely recall their escape from the burning city. The duardin Thane had taken the people out throught the back gates, leading the rearguard action of which the young Lemming had been part of. His company had gotten separated from the others in the street-to-street carnage, eventually making it out to the countryside through a postern door. For a moment it had seemed they might make it to the duardin legions as they entered the region, but then the hunters had appeared. From that they on they had fled like the prey they were.
Another gust of wind hit Richard's face. He wanted nothing more than to put his full helm back on, but he knew it would be the end of him. It was safer to carry it under his arm. He looked around him and counted his men, the ragtag bunch that tottered along with their weapons dangling from senseless hands. Fewer than yesterday. Each time he counted them up there were a couple less, some getting lost in the darkness and others merely falling flat on their faces, never to rise again. How long could they run anymore?
Just then a crude arrow whistled from the snowstorm and struck the man beside Richard in the back.
"On me! Form a circle, they've catched up on us!"
"I can't see anything."
"There, ahead of us!"
Shouted warning came from all around the circle of men. Dark, bulky shapes could be seen moving in the white distance. They were closing in. Two men some couple of dozen paces behind the others got struck down by another hail of arrows, never making it to the safety of the circle.
"Alright men, this is it. We make our stand here, and sell our lives dearly. We are the men of Bochenfels, and we will never surrender!" Richard roared, standing on his stirrups and drawing his sword. The men roared with him. They were all weary, malnourished and poorly armed, but they would fight tooth-and-nail, to the death.
The orruks responded in kind. A volley of arrows flew out of the snowstorm, striking the tightly packed human formation. Two men toppled, shafts protruding from their unarmoured bodies. Then an eerie green glow emanated from the whiteness. A shaman's chant was faintly audible as a bolt of glowing energy whipped out of the storm, striking yet another man from his feet.
Then the charge hit home.
Militiaman Olther looked around him. He was lucky enough to stand in the inner circle when the charge came, pulping his mates right in front of him. An orruk came into his vision, smacking its choppa into the still-squirming forms of his brothers in arms on the ground and laughing like a child at play. As if waking up from a dream, Olther realised he carried a warhammer in his hand. A relatively ugly piece of metal, mediocre work of a poor smith back by the Bochenfels docks, featuring a smacky side and a spiky side. Olther raised his weapon and brought it down spike-first on the orruk's skull, puncturing it. The greenskin seemed abashed, dropping its own weapon and falling down on its side. The hammer was stuck, and fell with the beast.
Olther dropped down just as an axe swung at him, biting into the side of the man next to him. He picked up a pistol laying there in the bloodied snow, raised it at the closest orruk and squeezed the trigger. Empty. He stepped back, dodging an orruk going down with a deep cleave on its forehead, and bumped into his master's horse. There was nowhere to run. He was trapped. Drawing out a dirk from his boot, Olther looked around for a target. An arquebusier fell to his front, headless, revealing a leering orruk armed with two axes. He lunged at it, sunk his dirk into its chest and died screaming as the orruk carved him up, strike by strike.
He was bleeding. A deep cut in his side was pouring blood along his side all the way to his boots, the warmth of it a welcome feeling if only it wasn't his own. He'd dropped his helmet long ago, committing his hands to fighting and gripping the reins. All his men had already died.
A warhorn sounded in the whiteness of the snowstorm. Richard had no time to pay mind to it as the parried the strikes of his enemies, but the orruks on the edges of the fighting ring turned about. Short, broad shapes came visible in the distance.
The duardin of Azamar Ankor.
Thane Morek Furrowbrow squinted through the eye-slits of his helmet. A cheering mob of urk and a mounted umgi in the middle, fighting for his life. The scout had been right.
"That's the one, lads! The heir of House Lemming, the umgi we need to take back home. Let's show these greenskins how to treat nobility!" Morek cried out, and his clansmen cheered.
He'd only had time to assemble half-a-hundred warriors before setting out to find the heir, which was not as high a number as he would have liked. It seemed, however, that had their hasty departure from the man legions been any slower, the umgi would be dead already. At least they had made it in time now.
Morek cut out the legs from under a greenskin, then stepped on its throat to move on. His greataxe came around for another blow, this time sinking in between the eyes of another beast that turned about to see the sudden commotion.
"Richard Warwicksson, son of Lemming, heir to Bochenfels! Hear my words, spoken as a Thane of Azamar Ankor: I shall take you to your kin and help you reclaim what is yours!" Morek roared as he cut down another orruk.
"The dawi have come to save your umgi arse!"
"Morek?" Richard gasped, turning aside a blow from the orruk boss that had pushed through the press of bodies to get within striking distance.
"Morek, I'm here! Help me, for Sigmar's sake, help me!"
A spiked club swung in from the left, striking a dent in his breastplate. Air escaped his lungs.
"I.... ughhh... I ref.... ugh... I refuse to die here on the slopes of a mountain I've stared at my whole life. Help me, master Morek," he coughed. Another orruk ran in from the right, but Richard thrust his sword into the beast's gaping mouth. He was holding his own. For now.
His runic greataxe sunk in between the shoulderblades of a beast, then swung out to crush another's face. A gromgril gauntlet punched into an orruk's belly, followed by a swing that decapitated the doubled-over creature. The Thane carved through the press, clearing the entire right flank of the circle of orruks. On the left the Quarrellers joined in, charging in with their ranger's axes and taking down the beasts on the right.
Yet none could reach the orruk boss and its mean-looking boar in the middle.
"NOOOOOOOO!"
The orruk chief's choppa was buried deep in Richard's neck. Young Lemming's mouth was moving, as if struggling to form words, but his eyes were glazed and his blade fell from a pale, senseless hand. The horse twisted away from the attacker, causing its rider's corpse to slide off the saddle. Richard dropped to the ground in a clatter of armour and splash of wet snow.
The orruk boss turned its mount about and rode off, trampling a duardin ranger that sought to block its path. The other orruks followed suit and turned to run, but only the mounted ones made it out. The chariot was toppled and its crew cut apart, and the remaining footslogging greenskins also met a grisly end at the hands of the vengeful duardin.
Thane Morek ran after the retreating greenskins for some while, knowing full well he had no chance to catch them.
He fell to his knees in the snow, watching the greenskins disappear into the distance. A warrior walked up to him.
"My lord, the remaining orruks are dealt with. Shall we take our dead and return?"
Morek was staring into the white horizon, his greataxe lying in the snow beside him. His helmet rested a dozen paces behind him.
"I have failed our allies. I have failed our king. The Lemming heir is dead and the Puffington Empire will now withdraw its support from our war, to focus on its inner struggles. I have failed my ancestors."
"My lord..."
"Gather the slain, tend to the wounded. We return to Ungrim, but I am your lord no more. After delivering these grave tidings to the High King, I shall resign my position in his war council and take up the Slayer Oath. Only my death can settle the shame I've brought upon my clan."
The warrior gulped.
"As you wish, my lo... As you wish, Morek. I'll inform the others."
With that, the warrior turned and walked away, leaving the former Thane kneeling alone in the snow.
Entry in the Great Book of Grudges: Loss of the Lemming Heir
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