Khaibar Ralf was even more confused than after his first conversation with Kapitan von Krumetur. He had considered the agreement with the Kapitan, a leading officer of the Emperor's Guard, as enough official approval to start marching his weary troops home. But apparently the Kapitan's word had not been enough, and he was attacked by another imperial army and courtmartialled as a traitor. Maybe the Kapitan had doublecrossed him? One was never sure what these courtlings from Emessa were up to... On the other hand, the Guard cavalry had been sent north together with his provincial troops, so maybe the Kapitan had overestimated his influence and been punished, too?
At the end, it did not matter much - he had ended up on one of the dreaded assignments patrolling in the North of Waalford where Isthak armies were often trying to break into the city and increase the numbers of the army that was occupying the Eastern part of the city. Khaibar Ralf just hoped his assignment here would end soon so he and his men could finally march home East, far away from the seemingly endless siege of Waalford and the constant scheming and plotting of the Imperial court that even reached out into the headquarters of every army the Emperor sent anywhere.
Babeka'mel's undead army marched northwards to find an unoccupied river crossing after they were kept from crossing the river by a Thain detachment. On its march it ran right into the main force of Khaibar Ralf's imperial army that had just been dispatched there to patrol against Isthak forces. Of course, Ralf von Weppen was looking for Isthak intruders that would try to break into Waalford from the north, so he was taken by surprize by the Isthak horde that was suddenly appearing in his rear...
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.] 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.
Skeleton warriors and guard cavalry in melee. The Ice Witch snow cannon is in the background.
The battle was a very bloody affair (at least on the imperial side - there weren't many meings able to bleed on the Isthaki side...). The imperial troops held well and extracted a high toll from the undead army, but were not quite able to stop them from breaking through.
[... I didn't play in this game and don't have a report yet... it was a very close victory for Babek].
At the end of the day, Khaibar Ralf decided to let them move on and preserve the rest of his army - after all, the Undead were moving away from Waalford, and his task was to defend the city from intruders. However, there was so little left of his army that he finally got official orders to march back home to the Eastern provinces, with orders to raise a new army there. He only told his army about the first part of the order, hoping that the Waalford affair would be over before he would have a chance to return to this deadly place. And he was unaware that he would have to fight his way through even more patrolling enemies...
The Isthak undead had fought their way through the pesky humans who were trying to slow them down. They kept marching East until they saw their destination in the distance - the green hill that held the treasure which they were trying to find before the humans around them even became aware of it.
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.