The siege of Waalford (see the army book 'Empire') has dragged on for months. The city itself is mostly held by imperial troops supporting the city's militia; the Eastern part of the town is under control of Isthaki forces. The whole city is enclosed by a ring of Thain armies, which are themselves surrounded by a loose cordon of imperial armies that try to stop Isthaki and Thain reinforcements from reaching the siege.
The Eastern sector of the imperial cordon around the Waalford siege has been wuiet for several weeks. In fact, it has been so quiet that the troops are getting restless.
Khaibar Ralf von Weppen is nervous as he walks toward a large, bright white tent in the middle of his troops' camp. The provincial units he brought with him from the Eastern Provinces of the Empire are openly talking of going home again. They feel lost and useless here at the nortwestern end of the Empire, far away from their homes and farms. It's not that they are longing to fight, but the boredom of not doing anything but sitting around in the camp and patrolling empty roads leading to the city gives them a lot of time to be homesick and dream of marching home.
Khaibar Ralf is beginning to feel useless and out of place, too. He is anxious to meet the commander of the Emperor's Guard that is supporting his army. The unit of elite knights is led by Kapitan Franz von Krumetur, an officer of dubious reputation. He had asked Ralf for a personal conversation...
An hour later Ralf walks away from the Guards' command tent with the promise that Franz will aid him in marching his troops back home. He isn't sure whether Franz is following orders or just hoping to increase his own power by removing the higher ranking Khaibar Ralf from the Eastern sector of the Waalford cordon. He is not happy to slip away in this way, but it is better to march home in good order than to wait for the first of his soldiers to defect and run away on their own.
He is not aware that he is about to fall victim to one of the typical, involved intrigues that are the daily occupation of officers like Franz at the Imperial court in Emessa...
Just as Ralfs army is preparing to march home, a messenger from Franz arrives in the Imperial headquarters alerting the high command of the treason of Ralf von Weppen. When the generals hear about his intention to defect and march away with his whole army, another army is quickly dispatched under commander Khaibar Gunther zu Schrötter to stop the defectors.
Ralf is commanding his imperial army with two units of pikemen, the Emperor's Guard cavalry and a unit of Knights of the Order of Purifying light supported by Selageth and Jorghan. Gunther's army also has pikemen and a unit of Guard cavalry, as well as a wizard of the Order on a chariot, a dragon rider and Selageth.
There are no official records of this battle (the Empire sees no reason to publish accounts about defections and other illegal activities in the Waalford siege - this might discourage others from doing their duty to the Emperor and the Empire...).
Suffice it to say that the traitors were caught and dispatched to the ugliest part of the Northern front, where fresh troops were always needed to slow down the Isthaki invaders. Khaibar Ralf's troops would soon be facing an unusually frightening undead force marching on Waalford while Khaibar Gunther took over the Eastern sector to face some Thain reinforcements.
[... I didn't play in this game and don't have a report yet... it was a close victory for Gunni].
Copyright Notice: This report (C) Klaus Herrmanns 2003. All rights reserved. Thanks for providing the photos goes to the Wiesbaden players group. Please only pass this on to others for private, noncommercial use. If you want to use this article elsewhere, let me know koljag@SPAMBLOCKyahoo.com (remove the SPAMBLOCK and the following dot before using the mail address. If you quote me as author and add a copyright notice like this, I'm perfectly happy to let you re-use this article.