Ah, the best-laid plans of Hoary Marmots and Dwarves...
...I forget the rest. Something about "hilarious cock-ups".
Allow me to illustrate the situation for you... The siege operators are all in position, ready with bolts of finest bronze to decimate the enemy. The horrified villagers cluster around in the courtyard as goblins up on the ridge cast down insults and dire threats. A cat wanders outside the gate, playfully batting at some imaginary dragonfly.
Roll forward a few minutes of me watching the civilians and trying to figure out what to do with them. I'm looking out for when they start moving back inside, because that will be an indication that the goblin war party has moved off the ridge and is heading for the gate.
It was my mistake to assume the goblins would move as a group. It was the cat's folly to bound off in the direction of the goblins. And, of course, it was the mistake of the dwarves to be too busy canceling their jobs to go feed the siege operators (who will stay at their post for as long as someone gets food and water for them).
I look over a few paces and see three goblins in a loose pattern chasing a cat across the drawbridge while the last siege operator glares at them menacingly without actually pulling the trigger. By the time the goblins move into the ballista's line of fire however, the operator decides he needs to get a drink
now, and leaves his post.
While the goblins dissect the rambunctious feline and plan their next move, I hastily mobilize our military in the hopes of fighting off this fiasco. The civilians, still frightened by the remaining goblins moving along the ridge, were cancel-trapped in a danger zone that the cathunters were moving into. I had to abandon all hope of an organized defense and just throw our military out there.
The last siege operator, stuck on the roof of the ballista hut with his beard soaking in a whip wine barrel, is slaughtered by one of the goblin swordsmen. An axedwarf, the first of our military to appear, rushed up on to the roof to engage the foe. He gets two broken arms and a splattered leg for his trouble, inflicting absolutely no damage on the greenskin.
While this is going on, a recruit runs up the same staircase and rams into the preoccupied goblin, knocking him off the roof and stunning him on the ground below. Around this time, the rest of the military arrives along with two of the thirty war dogs I assigned to them (where the hell did they put the other ones?).
The goblin manages to regain its sense and smack a couple dwarves into sick leave before getting eviscerated by the squad leader. After cleaning their blades a little, they hide behind the ballista house and wait for their next victim.
Another goblin rounds the corner and is pounced on by the full squad. His ear is sliced off and tossed onto the roof before he turns tail and starts running for his little green life.
I try to get the dwarves to cease and desist so that they can go back into ambush positions, but they aren't listening to me. The ones closest to the goblin keep going, while the other ones go back to the ballista house to swap stories about ale they've consumed.
Sighing heavily, I order the full military to run headlong into the goblin force coming up the entryway. I figure they stand a better chance if they're all in the same place rather than spread out like loons.
And, as it turns out, they did remarkably well yet again. The goblin forces had gotten a bit scattered due to the rough terrain on the mountain, so we didn't run into the swarm straight off. Managed to take down the enemy leader before the rest of the party arrived and the real brawl broke out.
It only took a few more kills before the goblins broke ranks and ran for the hills. We'd lost one Darwin Award winning dwarf, plus two war dogs who ended up registering as "lost a pet" thoughts in the minds of the dwarves they were assigned to (you didn't even
see the thing, and you think it's your pet? Idiot...).
So a few coffins, stitches, blood stains and gray beard hairs later, we've fought back the horde. *Phew*, finally, now I can take a break to focus on restoring our water supply now that we're sa-
Aw hell.
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Topic: Cavebrands (Read 68557 times)