This is a guest post and fight-test by Kalzazz

“Only in stories did one man face six without injury. […] Only in stories did one man face six and survive.” –Robert Jordan, New Spring

One of my favorite scenes in fiction is in New Spring, when Lan faced six credible swordsmen and Lan did, in fact, survive.

This great battle took place near a stables and an inn, happily enough, the great GURPS Adventure You All Meet in an Inn (in Pyramid #3/98) has a map which features an inn and stables.

Earlier trials with the Alfar Warrior had shown that (in a swordfight) they were about on par with a 300pt Knight straight up, may the luckiest roller win! So that makes them solidly credible.

Note: This is an assumption of a swordfight. They could just casually stroll and fling arrows till the cows come home vs a Move 5 due to encumbrance 300pt knight. So, I thought it would be very interesting to see how they fared against a higher point value character as a group, in fact, what happens if we try to pull off Lan’s famous fight?

I don’t have a sheet for Lan, but Polly Daze, my elf archer from the long running DFWhiterock and now the ongoing DFWhiterock The Legend Continues happens to be a 548 point character best described as a straight up DFRPG swashbuckler with a scout lens, is a good example of an organically grown higher level swashbuckler. So why not: Congrats Polly, you are now Lan.

I had discussed with Doug earlier, and the plan was for the Alfar to try to use their numbers for an envelopment and also try to get off Daze spells, and in general to try to maximize tactics.

We start them off lined up in loose array facing Lan, near the stables. 4 hexes separating Lan and the closest. Lan is slightly faster.

Ready? Fight!

Trial 1 – All the Tactics

Lan waits – if something enters range of his step and attack, do that.

• Flankers move to run around the sides, out of step and attack range.
• One does an All-Out Dodge to move in and purposefully trigger Lan’s Wait. She pays the price as Lan steps and attacks, she defends, mostly, but one blow lands and she rolls an 18 against the major wound on her HT check.
• The last three move in with Moves, one right behind Lan, and two at corners to face her.

• Lan did a feint (skill 24 vs their 20), torso blow and then a skull hit to take out Alfar 2 and stepped to try and get all her foes in front, more or less.

• 5 stepped out of the front (remember, step can occur before or after the attack on Step and Attack, so if Lan wanted to attack then step, could only target the front arc. 5 then started to concentrate on Daze, 4 did All-Out Defense (Double) as the only viable target, and the other two moved to try and get in better position to flank.

Note: no matter if Lan steps into any of her adjoining hexes all 4 can reach that hex with a reach 2 step and attack.

• 4 rolled a 15 to resist Lan’s feint, and RIP. Lan stepped and turned to face his foes!

Now it looks really good for Lan, half of them down, untouched, no one flanking.

• The Daze went off. Lan bombed save (Lan has 14 HT, Fit, and a Cloak of Resistance, he usually feels good about these saves), so Lan used Luck (he has Ridiculous Luck, so 10 minute reset). Lan resists the daze.
• Blue 1 then rolls a crit, Lan does not have Luck, so he is hit, and the crit is an automatic major wound. Not enough for reeling (just barely a major wound), but Lan needs a HT save, 14+Fit, oh Lan rolled a 17. Thud. Knocked down, stunned, hands empty. RIP Lan as they helpfully whack him over the skull.

Trial 2 – Alfar use the Lord Nelson Will Be Proud Plan

“No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.” Admiral Horatio Nelson.

All those fancy tactics? No, just get in there and SLUG!

Same setup as before.

• The first one to move incurs Lan’s wrath, but everyone else moves into attack position.

• Lan step and attacks, feint, feint, skull, bye.

• Lan holds up against the barrage of sword blows like a champ, 12 strikes flashing his way, and with Fencing parry, buckler, and retreating dodge he weathers them except for 1 crit.

• 2 is in the front arc, and due to critical defense her sword is unready. Lan tries to Blintz, but with retreating dodge 2 handles like a boss no sword needed despite nasty deceptive. Lan steps back to try and keep enemies in front.

• 4 and 6 are both out of position to both get Lan (since Lan will retreat from the first), so 4 moves to occupy Lan’s favorite retreat place, then 6 attacks (6 can do a side on attack against her buckler side and hit her squishier dodge at -2 for side!).
• The only retreat place is between 4 and 5, which looks perilous but is already okay. 5 lost their balance due to critical parry and 2 stepped and readied sword.

• You can imagine how losing their balance turned out for 5.

• Then 4 stepped in and swung, Lan rolled a 17 (not a fumble, but a fail) but not wanting to take damage and thus penalize his important dodge Lan used Luck. Then 4 rolls a crit, and that crit is drop everything as well as leaving Lan reeling, bereft of rapier and buckler, with reduced dodge. 2 of course steps in deals Lan a couple blows to the skull with her sword and RIP.

Alternate Reality!

• BUT WAIT! Okay Polly may have no useful unarmed skills here, but what is Doug always saying? Get unarmed skills. Lan would have unarmed skills. We put a single point in Karate and you know what, we make our parry rolls (the skull shots are at 13 due to 20 skills, there isn’t much deceptive involved here, so even a so-so Parry might save the day!).
• Lan steps, readies rapier off lanyard with a DX roll and fast draws a long knife into off hand. (Lan’s facing the wrong way, should be facing NE, will be corrected next picture).

• 2 and 6 attack, but Lan with drawn steel fends off, and 2 loses balance, 4 is to far away to hit so moves in. 2 pays for losing balance.

• After that it is quickly over, Lan had to use Luck once more, but nothing happened to punish him for it.

Lan lived! But is at 2/25 HP and dropped his buckler.

Summary and Notes

So! Even against a 548-point hero with some pretty good gear these guys won twice…though their second win turned into a loss when we assumed a point in Karate. Yes, Doug is right: Unarmed skills are important for the versatile warrior, shame upon me.

I had a lot of fun trying to play out a favorite piece of fiction, and these guys seem well suited for being scary to lower-level guys and retaining scariness in numbers to not-lower-level guys.

One thing I do feel is they would have been more exciting is if they had extra Move, move 10 is nice and all, but move 11 means they get an extra Step, and that would really help then stand out more compared to mere mortals.

They feel most like an up-gunned Sword Spirit, which given a sword spirit is a type of fae seems pretty reasonable.

Gaming Ballistic Comment

Kal is right: I meant to give the Alfar Warriors a 2-step advantage, and forgot it requires Move 11 to do so, rather than Move 10. That’s fixed now.

By and large, what this shows me is that you have to work really hard to make credible foes against single-niche Dungeon Fantasy RPG characters. When you start getting into hundreds of points past starting, staying on-template means you get really, really, really good at your template.

Really good.

I didn’t expect the Alfar to require a 6-to-1 advantage to take on a powerful character, but with only a 1-hex step and skills not appreciably different than a a focused Swashbuckler or Knight right out of the gate, you’re going to need to up the challenge in order to really take on someone with nearly 300 points of advancement past an already-capable character.

In fact, this test, plus a few where my Logaskuggi/Flameshadow Demon (totally not a balrog/balor, I swear) got skunked either with only one action, or not even getting to act, I have very much underestimated what a single 500-600-point character is capable of, much less a party of them. I was already planning on tweaking a few of the monsters, but this cements it!

If you’re curious about the Alfar Warrior or the Logaskuggi, there is maybe another week to go in the Nordlond Bestiary and Enemies Book Backerkit Pre-Order phase before it all locks down and goes retail. There are 192 pages in the book, and probably just shy of 200 monsters (several creatures have multiple variants).