The King's Own: Three Scenarios
Three scenarios for Hunters, Denizens, and other folk caught in the middle
ONE: THE NEST IN THE HOLLOW
The King's Champion is elsewhere. The nest is not. Ten Hunters, one nest, ten turns. The question is not whether the Crown spends the hunting party. It is whether the Crown gets the nest for the price.
THE TABLE
A band 20" wide and at least 24" deep. Everything is measured center to center.
- Deployment. Hunters along one edge, the Nest's tenants along the other, 18" apart.
- Rough ground. A 1" band across the full width, dead center. Rubble, a dry streambed, whatever you have. Skill roll to enter and Skill roll to leave.
- The Nest. 7" from the center, on the tenants' side. It sits 2" in front of their deployment line, not behind it. They are guarding it, not hiding behind it.
- Open ground otherwise. No woods. Nothing blocks sight. Everyone can see everyone, which is the tenants' advantage, because there are more of them.
HUNTERS rough NEST TENANTS
| ▓ ✳ |
---+------------------▓-----------------+-------+---
-9" -0.5..+0.5 +7" +9"
THE COMBATANTS
The Hunters — 4 Swordsmen, 2 Halberdiers, 1 Sergeant, 3 Archers.The Nest's tenants — 6 Orc grunts, 2 Orc archers, 1 Orc reaver, 1 Orc chief.
THE NEST
Res 1 · Hits 3 · Durable 1. Static target; attacks against it hit automatically — no Skill roll, for anyone, ever. The damage roll still happens.
At the start of every turn the Nest is intact, roll 1d6. On a 5 or 6, an Orc grunt spawns adjacent to the Nest. On 1–4, nothing.
This is the tuned rate, and it is the whole scenario. The rulebook's default of odd numbers puts a fresh grunt on the table every other turn, which outruns anything ten Hunters can do in ten turns. Dropping it to a third takes this from a losing proposition to a coin flip. If you change one number in this scenario, change this one, and know that you are changing the answer.
VICTORY
Destroy the Nest before the end of turn 10.
Casualties are not scored. Do not add a survival clause — it only rewards Hunters for standing off, and standing off loses. Count figures removed afterwards if you want a record of what it cost. Withdrawn and demoralised both count as removed, as always.
Turn limit: 10.
TWO: WHO GETS TO GO HOME?
There is one way out and it is occupied.
Ten Hunters, one cave giant, a hallway. The Crown wants the head. The Hunters want the far door. You cannot have both, most nights. That is the scenario. Everything below is bookkeeping.
THE TABLE
A hallway 18" long and 6" wide. Walls both sides — impassable, per the rulebook. No other terrain. There is nothing to hide behind and nowhere to go around.
- The Hunters deploy within 1" of one short end.
- The Cave giant starts dead center, 9" away.
- The far short end is the door. A Hunter who reaches it on its own move leaves and counts as gone home.
HUNTERS GIANT DOOR
| ✳ |
---+----------------------+----------------------+---
-9" 0" +9"
Turn limit: 10. Anyone still on the table at the end did not go home.
THE COMBATANTS
The Hunters — 4 Swordsmen, 2 Halberdiers, 1 Sergeant, 3 Archers.The Tenant — one Cave giant.
VICTORY
- Each Hunter who goes home: 1 mark.
- The giant's head: 7 marks.
Count marks. The Hunters win by scoring at least 7.
THREE: SAVE THE HARVEST!
The levy has one building and no help. The vermin have numbers and a second wave. Ten turns. The question is not whether the peasants can win a fight — they can. It is whether they can afford to be somewhere else while they do it.
THE TABLE
A pasture 20" long and 8" wide. Hedges both long sides — impassable. All four edges are closed; there is nowhere to run to and no credit for trying.
- The Granary. A round base 3" across, sitting on the long axis 2" onto the levy's half. It is a building. It blocks sight. Reach to the Granary is measured to the edge of its base, not its centre — this is the one place the rulebook's centre-to-centre rule is set aside, and it is set aside because a barn is not a man.
- Standing grain. Two patches, each 3" across, centred 5" onto the vermin's half and 2.3" either side of the centre line — they clear the hedges by a hair, which on an 8" pasture is the most you get. They block sight and cost nothing to cross — treat them as woods. There is no water and no rubble on this table, and that is deliberate. See the note at the end.
- Deployment. The Levy within 2" of one short end. The Vermin within 2" of the other.
- Open ground otherwise.
LEVY GRANARY VERMIN
| ((grain)) ▓▓▓ |
--+------------+------------+----------+---------+---
-10" -5" -2" 0" +10"
THE COMBATANTS
The Levy — 6 Peasants with pitchforks, 4 Peasants with cudgels.The Vermin, first wave — 4 Rat folk, 4 Goblins.The Vermin, second wave — 5 Rat folk. They enter along the vermin's own short edge at the start of turn 4, and move and attack that turn as normal.
The Mob keyword is in effect on both sides: pair figures anew each turn.
THE GRANARY
Res 1 · Hits 8. Static: no Skill, cannot be suppressed, attacks against it hit automatically. The damage roll still happens. It is not Durable — a cudgel, a shiv and a set of claws all hurt it exactly as much as a pitchfork does, which is to say nearly.
It spawns nothing. It is not a nest. It is the harvest.
Eight Hits looks generous next to the three a nest carries. It is not. The Granary has a 3" base, so sixteen figures could stand in contact with it at once. Eight Hits is the number that survives a swarm, not the number that survives a duel.
The 3" base does not stop the levy sealing the approach — on an 8" pasture nothing does, because eight bases reach hedge to hedge. What it stops is the levy sealing it cheaply. A ring around a 1" object costs six figures and holds; a wall across this pasture costs eight and starts dying on contact.
VICTORY
- The Granary is standing at the end of turn 10: the Levy wins.
- The Granary is broken: the Vermin win.
Nothing else is scored. Not casualties, not ground, not survivors. There is no draw. Turn limit: 10.
The King's Own. CC BY-SA 4.0 — use it, hack it, share it, sell your scenarios. Credit The Grey Ledger Society and the CGCG Helix Coterie of Digital Daemons — greyledger.org