The Battle of Carn Vorn, Part 3

 The conclusion to the Battle of Carn Vorn!

Tragedy strikes! Adeline is slain by an Orc at the South West shield wall. She gives her magic torch to Prince Arioch. Now Arioch will have the power to stop Trollish Regeneration. Malekith uses his Siphon spell on another Orc yet again.

Malekith the Dark Paladin: If only I could Siphon enemy lifeforce and pass it to her...

Adeline: Its ok Malekith. You guys carry on without me. Im passing the torch... *faints*

The River Troll charges the heroes alone.

The River Troll is ganged up on by the heroes.

The Owlbear, frustrated by Mordecai's pushing joins the River Troll.  

Owlbear: That Jedi Butler is a bully! Let me help you out, friend River Troll. 

Prince Arioch hits the River Troll with the torch in the kitchen. Clue reference, folks! The River Troll can no longer use Regenerate.

The Orc who was Mind Controlled returns to wake the Beholder and succeeds without being Mind Controlled again.

Beholder: Now... prepare for Disintegrations and Mass Sleep!

Balthazar casts his 'once per game" big spell. The Void Rift hits 2 Orcs, the Slaad and the Beholder!  The big monsters are wounded. But the 2 Orcs are killed, dragged into the Negative Dimension Zone.

Side note about his long history: Balthazar was one of the "three wise men from the east", hunted Smurfs, but then repented and now wears blue robes, was one of the "Final Five" Cylon agents who looked human but were "Toasters".  But is he still a sleeper agent? And for Mordor?

Miles to go before I sleep...

Slaad wounded by Lenore the Valkyrie and the Void Rift is now below 4 wounds and promptly Decapitated by Karnov. Lenore kills another Orc. 

Karnov the Barbarian: *points at fallen Slaad's body at his feet*  The purging is at last at hand! The Day of Doom is here! You have been cleansed!

With the River Troll unable to regenerate, Prince Arioch leaves the others to fight the Troll and the Owlbear and charges the Beholder. Seeing this, Lenore the Valkyrie and Karnov the Barbarian also join in.

Prince Arioch: We cannot let up on this Beholder! Pummel him and dont let him cast his spells. We can mop up the others later.

The Beholder then realizes he cannot cast spells while in base contact! 

Beholder: But...we were doing so well! We concentrate our forces on one end of the enemy line and roll up their flank. Our beautiful game plan has been foiled! How?

An Orc kills McGirk the Sellsword.

Malekith vs the Owlbear. Mordecai the Butler and an archer pepper in shots to help.

Beholder is slain by a flurry of blows from all the heroes with help from 2 archers and a knight.

Beholder: I never even got to fire off any of my spells! They're killing us! And we don't have a chance, and that ain't fair!

Balthazar the Blue:  Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel.

Without his ability to Regenerate, the River Troll is slowly battered and falls. The heroes cut him to shreds!

 Owlbear: Oh dear!  Those savage heroes killed my buddies! All my friends are dead... Wait did Beholder blink his eye? No. All my friends are still dead...

Mordecai the Butler teleports into melee with Owlbear and is slain. Never underestimate a cornered Owlbear. Malekith Siphons a wound from the Owlbear further weakening it. The Owlbear hits the "hero archer" twice! Will his luck hold out? He succeeds one armor roll... but not another. He almost pitched a perfect game!  

In death, a member of Project Mayhem has a name... his name is Robert Paulson

Archers pepper the owlbear with arrows. Then Malekith delivers the final deathblow to the Owlbear.

Balthazar the Blue: Good job everyone!

Owlbear: You call yourselves heroes? You're all just a bunch of fratboy bullies.  *dies*

Malekith the Dark Paladin: *closes Owlbear's eyes*  Hertz Donut!

~~~

The Survival rolls are made for the fallen heroes. Mordecai the Butler survives. As does McGirk the Sellsword. But... Adeline fails! She is now permadeath'ed. First mission and the lady with the Magic Item is out of the campaign. Ouch.

Also, the hero players realized they forgot to use their 3rd trap! The Spike-Trap was in a bush near the Beholder's final resting place. They could've used that. Not really though, the heroes outmaneuvered him and slaughtered that poor Beholder. He should have kept his distance and blasted the heroes with spells from afar. Ah... hindsight.

So thanks to Joe P. and Steve B. for playing that game. I really thought my superior strategic plan from the start would lead my monsters to victory. But like Tyson said, "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". And now the defenders of the forest have been defeated and Rohan logging camps will continue their crimes of deforestation against mother nature unabated. But the mystery remains. Who has imbued the Slaad and Owlbear with Troll-Nature? Kinda like Buddha-Nature but less Zen-y. I guess we will find out when the heroes return to Tharbad. Oh, did I say that out loud? I did. Indeed, a Return to Tharbad (AKA Carcosa) is coming to a blog near you. (For those that want to catch up on that older part of my blog history, see here: http://mars-miniatures.blogspot.com/2016/09/tales-from-beer-cart-part-3-breaking.html).  Ahh... the Beer Cart Campaign, I remember those days - when the blog was young and the world seemed brighter and the beer.. hoppier!

Though first, we might get another battle with the Far Easterling heroes - House of Red Dragons. But I also have some painted minis that need posts of their own. Those painted mini posts have been ready for a photoshoot for a long time now. 

Cheers,

Mar