Counter Manifest

For infantry we made the choice that a Human infantry unit has 100 men and a Dwarven infantry has 70 Dwarves. This corrects for the fact that Dwarves have better constitution and Dwarves are more apt for infantry operations. In the following, combat values are listed as #steps, melee value and ranged value.

The troops of the City (4000 Humans, 1000 Redbeards and 1000 Free Folk) and the Valleys (another 2000 Humans):

• 8 Militia of the Wall, 4,2,2.
  These troops are recruited from the city population and form the Defense Guild, commanded by the Captain Regent of the City. Each unit defends one section of the outer wall.
• 2 Human regular Infantry and 1 Redbeard regular Infantry, 4,4,0
  Regular infantry, commanded by the Captain Regent of the City.
• 3 Human regular Infantry, 4,4,0
  2 Human Archer units, 4,1,4
  Regular infantry and archer units, commanded by the Captain Regent of the Vales. These troops usually patrol the valleys and are allocated to 3 or more garrisons along the 3 caravan roads towards the city.
• 2 Engineer units, 4,3,3
  Regular “genie” troops of the City
• 1 Former party of professional human adventurers. The Fabulous Fabi and his Posse (led by Captain Regent Fabian (is he City or Vales?).
• 2 parties of Orc raiders, one under control of the Master of Public Works and one under control of the City Representative.
• 2 Redbeard Mason units, 50 Dwarfs each, 3,2,0
  These troops can repair sections (how fast?) of the outer and inner wall.

Note that each outer wall section has 7 steps in total. These give the following bonusses to defenders and contra attackers: 7 (+4), 5-6 (+3), 1-4 (+2), 0 (+1). Check this!

There are 5000 Redbeards living in (or under) the Hills (and an additional 1000 in the City). They have 10 regular infantry, 4,4,0 in the Hills. They also have 2 raider units: The Commissjun's Own and The Trap Unit.

3000 Longbeards are living under the Metal mountains. Their units are:

• 6 Dwarf regular infantry, 4,4,0.
• 4 units made up of stone statues, *,4,0.
  These units are activated by special spell only and continue while the spell lasts. As long as the spell is active, they are invulnerable.
• 1 Heavy Trebuchet unit.
  This unit can be rented. It is a 3 x (D + 3) unit So, when activated, throw 3D6. Any 3 to 6 is a hit.
• 2 Raider units: The Treasure Guard and The Trap Unit.

2000 Gnomes live under Mount Central Heating. They have some normal and some extraordinary units:

• 2 Gnomish regular infantry, 4,4,0. (The Breach Gnomes & The Mattress Jäger. The Jäger have superfast travel via the magic rules)
• 1 Gnomish archer unit, 4,1,4 (The Gnomish Steam Archers)
• 2 Gnomish Giant Hamster cavalry units.
  The units consists of 15 Giant Hamsters (mounted by one gnome and two (armed) gnomes using a special Giant Hamster Harness). These do not use the normal combat rules but a die is rolled on the Giant Hamster table for each attack. This is resolved after normal combat, either as a pursuit of retreating enemies, or as a screen for retreating allies. If attacked, Hamster cavalry will retreat instead of defending itself. If cornered, roll on the Hamster attack table with a +3 bonus and assume a breakthrough by the cavalry. Use the following table to resolve the attack:
  1. The Hamsters grab some of their crew and stuff them into their cheek pouches. They need to be freed, before action can resume. Unit immobilized this round.
  2. Hamsters distracted by something edible. The Hamster unit wanders 1 square away from the battle to have a snack. Unit does nothing else this round.
  3. Hamsters collectively decide that now is the ideal moment to lick their own junk. The unit is immobilized for this round, while riders look away embarrased.
  4. Charge!! An enemy unit loses 1 step.
  5. Double Charge!! An enemy unit loses 2 steps.
  6. Woolly Rupert the Giant Hamster of ill omen lives! Remove the enemy counter with the most steps remaining that was active in this fight.

• 1 Gnomish magic Steam Artillery unit.
  This unit is located in a special high cave in Mount Central Heating. On paper it has limited aiming capacity but several barrel exits. It can reach the Elven forests, the City, the Metal Mountains (some say that this barrel exit deliberately aims at the Breasts' nipples) and even the Hills of the Redbeards. The real problem of course is that the steam artillery unit is only tested in theory, not in practice. The barrel itself is 500 meters long and is fired by pouring 10000 liter on hot lava (By the way if you do the physics calculation, it is not enough, you need far more water and hot lava, but we can remediate that by magic incantation), thus providing the steam to drive a lead bullet of 1 meter diameter forth. When firing, declare a target, than use the special table below for resolution. For each shot after the first, add +1 for each shot fired earlier. If The Hot Air Balloon is spotting for the artillery, roll 2 dice: the result used is the one closest to 6 after adjusting for the repeated fire modifier.
  1. Blast seriously damages local landmark nearest to target.
  2. Gun hits nearest large empty spot to the target on the map and a Tungusta style blast flattens all plant life, hovels and tents for miles around.
  3. Hits something vaguely embarrassing in the general area of the target utterly destroying a latrine, souvenir shop, or mobile field brothel.
  4. Shot creates a huge smoking crater right next to the target, leaving target without a scratch.
  5. Misfire, nothing hit, magic backlash transforms the Gnome Goddess Empress into a potted plant for 1 turn.
  6. Intended target hit and completely destroyed. Impact zone is a smoking crater.
  7. and higher. Gun explodes, Mount Central Heating has a vulcanic eruption. Minor damage throughout the valleys, because of an earthquake.

Firing causes minor quakes throughout the valleys. Every shot is therefore announced by the umpires, because of the earthquake, the humongous bang and the massive flame shooting from the top of Mount Central Heating.

• Three raider units:
  • The Wrath of the Goddess (Her personal Guard)
  • The Trap Unit
  • 1 Gnomish Air Marines unit (Needs Ritual Magic Spell to activate)

We have decided that there would be 2 tribes outside of the City and one independent group (of mixed signature) inside the City. For the City group, we used 1000 as their number. Consequently, there will be 2000 outside the city. Each tribe outside the City would have 2 regular infantry and 1 archer unit of the usual strength. The City group would have 1 regular infantry unit. We estimated 4 players for the Free Folk, 1 for each tribe outside the city and 2 for the group in the city, one being the Chief of Public Works and one being the representative of the city tribe in the Free Folk Council of Chiefs. All three (tribes and independent group) can raise militia, 4,2,0, but the total is limited (I think we should limit this to one militia per tribe or group). Both tribes (outside) have 2 raider units each (name to be decided). The group inside the City has 2 raiders as well (See city).

The Elves (nobody knows how many are in the forest) have 2 archer units, 1, 0, 8. They flee the field using magic if they are ever actually engaged. The units are considered to have Thaumaturgic Hydrodynamic Drive.

The following forces are part of the Dark Prince's forces

• 1 Personal Guard (raider unit): The Dark Prince's Own.
• 2 regular infantry
• 1 archer unit
• One of the first units hired was the Fancy Mobile Brothel or F.M.B. It is technically part of the baggage train. The Fancy Mobile Brothel exists to ensure that the Prince of Darkness and his cadre of officers can get their freak on in appropriate opulence and decadence on their way to, during and after the siege. Access to it can be a valuable bribe when dealing with certain parties. Suggesting that it is a nasty drain on the resources is the best way to audition for a spot with the next human sacrifice. This unit is treated as free (all payments needed were made before play starts). Calculations by the Urr chamber of commerce suggest that a full 20% of the funds made available for the campaign were spent on the F.M.B.

All of the above remain with the Prince as occupation forces in the case that Urr surrenders. Below are the potential mercenary units for hire in turn 1. Payment works through a 50% up front, 50% at the end of the campaign principle. If a unit is destroyed before the end of the campaign, the dark prince saves half the expense and he can use the bodies of the mercenaries as food, or zombie troops.

• 6 mercenary infantry
• 2 mercenary archer units
• ? (TBD) additional mercenaries
• a lot of ogre berserkers 4,4,0
• 2 Cannibal Halfling units 4,1,4
• 2 Kobold Skirmisher units 4,4,0
• 200 Cannibal Halfling chefs organised in 2 units. These are normally part of the bagage train. They work for 1/2 pay. They function as a militia unit (4,1,2) if pressed into the front ranks, but their real purpose is their power to generate an extra food token each turn, 4 tokens if they are allowed to prepare a unit worth of bodies. Those bodies cannot be animated thereafter. Halflings, Elves, Ogres and the personal entourage of the Dark Prince have no qualms about using the food created by this unit, everybody else will rebel if they figure out what (or, rather who) they are eating.
• Rumblebotty's Flying Nightmare. The real orc warlord Rumblebotty controls a huge airship held aloft with 6 hot air balloons. He leads a traditional orc warband, 2 units of orc archers and 2 orc militia units who serve as crew for the Flying Nightmare. They can conceivably do a full airborn landing in the main square of Urr, with the warband touching down receiving air support from the archers on a platform in the sky, from the turn after they have been hired. They demand full payment (for 5 units) for the entire campaign upfront. (That is 10 tokens x number of game turns.) This can be negotiated down, 1 day of pillaging for each week they are going to work for free. They can also be held in reserve, attacking when Urr is weakest, or used on a pesky dwarven kingdom, either as a threat, or to straight out try to knock it out of the war.
• 50 Duergar Sappers 3,2,0. They demand full payment for the entire campaign upfront. This can't be negotiated down. From the turn Ur is surrounded they start to undermine a section of the outer wall. If not stopped they collapse the tunnel in turn 6 (or 4 turns after starting the actual siege), causing a breach in the wall. Afterwards they (try to) leave taking their payment with them, whether they succeed or not.
• Disassembled statue of the god Moloch + attending priests, acolytes and dancers. 2,0,0. Must be Reassembled before the walls of Urr and human/dwarf/ork/elf/etc. bodies (dead, or alive) must be thrown into its flaming mouth. Afterwards those bodies are no longer available for animation as zombies, because they have been cremated to a fine gray powder. For each unit worth of bodies burned draw 1 extra card from the spelldeck for a ritual spell this turn.

These will leave at the end of the game or when his(or rather his corrupt chief recruiter) money has run out.

• ? Resurrected Zombie infantery, 3,3,0
  It is up to his Necromancer's success with resurrection how many he will get (or how many will be available to resurrect from his own dead). Zombie troops always use the attack table and never the defense table. Zombie units can be vaulted across the wall with a trebuchet/catapult. This damages them leaving them with only 2 steps, but they can still cause quite a bit of panic this way. Zombie units can only be stacked with Halflings, Ogres and other zombie units. If the Grand Necromancer, dies all zombies go immediately berserk and spend the rest of the game attacking the nearest sentient lifeforms around.
• ? Resurrected Zombie Colossus, 6,6,0, against wall section 1D+3 (like a catapult), hit on 3 – 6
• ? Dragons, 6 hits, can only be hit by a natural 6, 3 heads, damage 3 x (1D + 4) with fire damage
  Summoned by magic, but must be negotiated with per turn for their services' price (Yes, there may be a problem if more than one gets summoned).
• The Bretwalda of Recruiting has his own 2 raider units (The Recruiters and The Treasure Guard).
• The Grand Necromancer also has a raider unit: The Blood Thirsty (Ghouls).