Castle Fier: The Graveyard

 A couple weeks ago, some members of our club started the Iron Keep campaign from The Silver Bayonet: The Carpathians: Castle Fier. I'm going to try to document the campaign here on the blog.

We currently have five players in the campaign. I am playing my French list, led by Brigadier Gerard. A relatively experienced list, led by the Brigadier. Of him, according to his creator, Arthur C. Doyle, "Napoléon on Gerard, “if he has the thickest head he also has the stoutest heart in my army.” The list has a junior officer, a sapper, an occultist, and the balance of the members are Dragoons (infantrymen). This list is the most experienced of the groups, having played through seven or eight of the missions in the main book already. 

Ren is playing Prussians, using the Northstar set (TSB006 - The Prussian Unit). Ken is playing an Austrian list, including a Dhampier and some Guards. Ken's list is comprised of spare figures, some kit-bashed, that I painted up to entice him to try the game. 😁 Rob is playing a British list, with some hussars. Eric is running a "deserter" list, utilizing figures from multiple nationalities and led, of course, by Sharpe's Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.

We played the first scenario, The Graveyard. With five players, we ended up playing the scenario three times. In the future, I would prefer that we play once, with all five players at once, I like the idea of that chaos... but if it fails maybe not. 

In all three games, the Tomb Wraith really intimidated the players, who generally found they had few weapons that could impact it. Also, an Undead Werewolf showed up in each game and did quite a bit of damage. The ghouls and revenants were mostly just obstacles, but the players were somewhat deadly to each other. 

Brigadier Gerard's group had the worst of it, the only leader to suffer a permanent wound - a leg wound. He has always been most effective on horseback, but since that isn't possible in future scenarios in this campaign it will be interesting to see how he does. 

Obadiah's deserters advance through the graveyard. For the first few games, we used a grass game mat which doesn't quite capture what the graveyard should look like. I wish I had put some castle walls around it.

The Tomb Wraith lurks near the central tomb, behind it you can see a clue marker, a discarded medieval helm.

A ghoul and an Undead Werewolf fight Rob's British force. 

The Tomb Wraith goes after the Prussian officer as he tries to escape the graveyard.

An Undead Werewolf circles Obadiah's beleaguered deserters.

Brigadier Gerard leads his dragoons in a dash from tombstone to tombstone as an 
undead werewolf attacks his occultist.

The French turn on the undead werewolf, saving the occultists even as the tomb wraith
and zombies come at them from all sides. 

The Prussians advance to sieze the spear, while Gerard an his men fight for their lives against
the undead werewolf, ghouls, and the Tomb Wraith. In this fight Gerard receives a permanent leg injury.

The scenario looks better on a stone courtyard, but still wish we had used some castle walls. Mounted this time (due to his leg), Brigadier Gerard and his dragoons face Ken's Austrians. 

Gerard and his men again face many undead foes as they try to fight their way to safety with the spear.
An undead werewolf to the left, a ghoul to the right, and the Tomb Wraith from their front, distracted from the nearer Austrian by a monster dice. 

I will to get some closeups of each warband and introduce them better in future posts.