Massacre on Candle Wharf

Heated battle at my annual birthday bash raged on into the twilight hours.
This year eight of us played a smuggling scenario called 'Candle Wharf' set
on a dilapidated waterfront from the South Dock district in Marienburg.

Left to right above: Steve 'Canada' Hume (Battle Monks of Cathay), Ross 'Aggro' Evans (Dwarf Treasure Hunters)
and Stu 'Werekin' Cresswell (Sea Elf Rangers)

Ratmen collided with Strigany River Gypsies in explosive fashion during the opening turn. Sea Elf Rangers blew their scrimshaw whistles and began denting a skaven advance. The elves stabilised the situation by applying some semblance of order to the dockside in turn two. As an unnatural mist creeping off the riverside dispersed, Lords of the Marsh burst from the canal. Amphibious warriors drove the Indic Smugglers hard but the lascars fought back giving little ground as their boat's cargo came under attack.

Monstrous marsh daemons surround the smuggler's riverboat. Fimir Warriors and Daemon-Fimm, led by a Draich supported by Young Nobles carrying wyrstone shards close in to contaminate a cargo of grain and take hostages.

Two teams of privateers stormed down the quay from a fortified warehouse. Dwarf Treasure Hunters and Ogre Maneaters moved to defend riverboat crew on both sides. Meanwhile the mastermind orchestrating the sabotage attempt who had remained hidden until our third turn fired a volley of flaming arrows onto one of the boats belonging to the Indic cartel. The guns runners return fire knocked a Cathayan sniper off from his perch in a run-down merchant tradehouse.

Resulting from the contentious theft of the Battle Monks magic carpet, the Strigany Petru mounted this coveted rug from distant Araby and sped towards the drop-off point with a full load of cargo. Her mystical smuggling run was short-lived as a crack shot from the mobsters sent the witch plummeting to the wharf! A ricochet caught the prone caravan-master adding insult to injury for the river pirates.

Left to right above: Chris 'Frogprince' Kneller (Skaven Warp Engineers), Stu 'Werekin' Cresswell (Sea Elf Rangers)
and Steve 'Canada' Hume(Battle Monks of Cathay)

Skaven warp engineers were the first to flee after a promising start. The damage they had done meant river gypsy crew routed shortly after. The aquatic daemon-possessed raiders who had targeted the Indic cartel were sent back to their boggy habitat in the marsh, with spike-clubbed tails between their legs. Following the withdrawal of one of their ancestral foes the dwarfs sought to settle another old grudge with elf-kind. Treasure hunters spent three turns trading blows with elven watch officers. The Moon Guardians from Elf Town may have had jurisdiction but failed to make a single arrest! After witnessing the Dwarf Noble fell their frenzied 'consultant' Feast-Master Redrin Foxglove, Sea Ranger captain Mal (aka the 'Albatross') was next to call a retreat. Their failed police operation was a blow softened only by impounding a blood-stained carpet back to take back to the station for forensic examination.

This left the dwarf privateer in charge of one shipment of illicit goods in a race he could not win against ogre dockworkers teamed with the Indic mob survivors. The straggling Monks from the Cathayan house guard held yet failed to dispatch the lascar captaincy. Drug-baron Salaman Singh and his turban-wearing henchmen refused to yield to the Cathayan onslaught. With a shipment delivered to the fortified supply centre the hard-earned winners of the battle were finally declared.

Candle Wharf on the morning before the Massacre

Victory went to the Indic Mobsmen and their Ogre Maneater business partners! Post battle sequence clean up in going to be messy. No less than ten casualties were sustained by Salaman Singh's crime syndicate while countless warband rout checks were passed, scenario objectives were fulfilled, warriors enslaved, and numerous magazines of ammunition were unloaded into the whiskered faces, pointed ears and scaly hides of all who had opposed the 'Salamander' crime-boss.

Thanks to 'Robert Whetton - Photographer' for the phone camera pictures.