While the imperial army was dealing with infighting and treason, trouble was brewing nearby. An Isthak army with undead soldiers never seen before was trying to break out of the part of Waalford held by Isthak. Before reaching their destination they had to cross a river near the city which was defended by the Thain besiegers.
The undead army was held together by the Necromancer Babeka'mel-Isadeh. It consisted of a large undead horde (two units of normal skeletons, skeletons with scythes, mounted skeletons and undead mounted knights, plus a hero and a mounted general) with support from an Icewitch Snow Cannon, Amharik and two beastmen heros. [Technically, it was a standard Isthak army, but most of the minis were special conversions giving the army a unique look.]
The Isthaki undead aligned for the battle.
The river was held by a force of the Eagle tribe under Dagor'Kolja'gor. It had a core of savage warriors and spearmen supported by two heros, a unit of Eagle Archers and one of the special 'Eagle Arrow' ballistae, one of the mighty Gar'na'rog and a veteran [level two] shaman.
Thain spearbearers with Ogayin'xagor...
... and the savage warriors with flank support from the GarÄnar'og.
The battle started well for the Thain Eagles. In the artillery duel the first two shots of the snow cannon missed their target completely while the Eagle veterans managed to hit the cannon twice in two attempts. The cannon wasn't totally destroyed, but nearly useless for the rest of the battle.
The undead hordes were advancing very slowly, and the river prevented most of them from crossing anywhere but near the fords. Amharik had a terrible day, failing to hit any of his targets for most of the time, and the elite archers of the Eagles found once again that skeletons are easy to hit, but very hard to damage with missiles... So the battle would have to be decided in close combat.
The Eagle Archers
The battle was joined first in the center of the field, where Attazar courageously galloped ahead to charge the Eagle Totem that was aiming to overrun the skeleton riders and then the snow cannon. The melee was soon joined by the skeleton riders and the Gar'na'rog. The Thain beast was slain without doing much damage in reverse, but then the victorious Atazzar ventured forward too far and was quickly dispatched by the savage warriors who had moved up but could not join the melee on the other side of the river.
The elite nudead knights start hitting the savage warriors on the other side of the river after the ordinary skeleton riders have suffered the first casualties. On the left, the Eagle archers stand by, vainly trying to hit the heavily armoured undead knights. Behind the Isthak lines, the undead hero on foot and the mounted undead general watch the fight.
The river limited the fighting to a few places so the battle was a very close fought affair with less casualties on both sides than usual [it ended in a 519-373 tie - only 5 more points (a single element of skeletons) would have given Thain the victory... River battles are always exciting as the fords tend to focus the action and a lot of thought is needed to bring the right roops to the right spot at the right time - highly recommended!].
When evening fell, the Thain units still controlled all the fords, and it had become apparent that the Isthak horde was not out to kill, but just to march on. So the Eagle warriors withdrew behind the river line to prepare for the next skirmish. The undead turned around to find a better opportunity to cross the river only to run straight into Khaibar Ralf's force who had just been dispatched to the area after its failed attempt to leave its regular station of duty.
In the night following the battle, the Eagle shaman had a strange dream. He saw a woman with light blue skin wearing a breathtaking bracelet of bright, sparkling blue gemstones. It was obviously one of the Ice Witches he had often see leading various Isthak armies, but he had never seen stones like the ones she was wearing. She was pointing to a big hill with a little forest on top. She did not speak, but somehow she felt there was a connection between the bracelet and the forest. When he woke up the next morning, some words came to his mind, he wasn't sure whether they were from the dream or from other sources: "When you find the forest on the seventh full moon of the year, you will discover power in these stones."
At first he tried to forget the whole thing, but when the dream kept repeating itself in the following nights, he decided to follow up on the matter. It took him only a few conversations with the scouts of his army to find that a hill like the one from his dream did indeed exist only a few miles east of his army's camp, and considering that the first full moon after the longest day of the year was only a few days away he managed to persuade Dagor'Kolja'gar to set out to look for the hill and its secret. He would have to risk meeting Empire patrols, but it was a risk hewas willing to take.
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.